Bright Lights & Glass Houses
Page 20
"We should get going."
"I agree."
The boy nods and smiles at the girl.
They part ways at the intersection, and head off in opposite directions.
The wind whips leaves left and right and sends a chill through the air.
London, in May.
Trees bend, and boughs break. A faint spatter of rain falls and the boy hugs his coat tighter around himself. Some things aren't meant to be uncovered.
What thoughts dwell we cannot know. Perhaps this is for ever. An existence infiltrated by the bitterness of Springtime.
An anesthetic, drowning out the cold and allowing the warmth inside, everything changes everything.
He walks along, one foot following the next, a rhythm set in dustings of snow.
There is nothing here, London in May.
A black cab swerves by, almost sliding on the wet road. The boy does not look up. There's nothing to see that he hasn't seen a thousand times before. A nearly-accident.
His head is starting to feel fuzzy, and he needs another fix.
There are clouds, and the world feels apocalyptic. Leading up to the endgame. They did this. Loose leaves on the pavement as the boy walks along.
It? Where is? His house?
Up to the front door, key in the lock. Click and bang like a gun only this time it fires and maybe if you were there too you'd have heard it. It's warm, despite the biting wind which isn't in the house of course and why would it be?
Inside the house. No-one is home. Mother is out at a party, Father is long gone.
Up to his room and into the drawer. Not him but his hand. Another moment lost, another day wasted. This is just killing time, siphoning away the moments until the next big event where something significant might possibly happen if we're lucky.
Nothing is true.
Fate is a cruel bitch and a lazy bedfellow. Lie back, think of nothing, fuck me harder, God is on the ceiling.
Swallow, gulp, swallow. He's a son of a bitch. She wouldn't be happy if she heard this, but can you blame her?
Something is wrong, and it's not up to him to find out. He just did this.
The boy looks at the wall, trying to see out, but there's just yellow wallpaper and rising damp these days.
He removes his shirt. He is a puzzle of flesh, invisible edges tracing the path of life, or perhaps he's imagining it. Across the heart, the chest, the arms, the arteries. Tracing with a finger, glowing fault lines where once and always there was nothing.
The warmth is in his chest now is clarifying things. The world switches from color to black and white. White. Black. Invert. Reload. He is his own ghost.
Border divides, end of days. How many hours left? It's all a bit white now.
He pulls his shirt back on, warm and shivering. The house is silent, empty. The way it always is. Is and was
Past and present merge into one another like he's drunk but nothing like that at all. Never know where we're going, or where we'll end up. Him, her? One. Perfection. Freedom.
It reminds her of Winter, and a time when she belonged to herself.
The girl. We focus on the girl like so many hungry eyes.
The girl walks along the road, her mind on one thing. Him. He is her addiction, her soul and he will not quit.
Why do you feel this way when you know I love you? Is love the correct word? I am addicted to you. You are me, or so it feels. One who loved, yes. Loved not wisely, but too well.
She thinks nothing but him, is nothing but him. She wishes that he would follow her again, pursue her again, love and touch her again, consensual and sensual. When did the end come, was it here all along?
It wasn't any time soon. The end of these days, the end of those days. Nothing quite like a subway bigot to awaken the inner demons, or at least unpleasant memories.
The things they say. Such ugly words for such a beautiful boy. The girl frets. Happiness is more than a pill. It's a touch, a kiss, a warm gun.
She reaches her front door. No-one is home. Father is out on business, Mother is long gone. Old wounds that never show, bear witness to something long forgotten.
Sometimes it's a wonder that the world, their world now, hasn't already ended. End, beginning. Show a little difference of opinion and everything's new.
It's easy to interrupt this train of thought. There's nothing really to consider.
She goes upstairs, and reaches into her drawer. Her whole self withdraws a photo album.
He is in there, all of him. Everything everything and oh so desperate. Illogical.
Love is.
An addiction.
They want, she wants, he wants. A counterproductive cycle of mayhem and chaos all rolled into a neat little ball that we call the heart. Something like happiness only painful and sad, a bleeding organ wrapped in a white silk handkerchief and kept on ice until everyone is ready for it.
Light bends. Time shifts. Darkness falls.
They sit hand in hand on the hill. Behind them, the satellite dish that looks over the world seems to glow a phosphorous green. Pulsating, transmitting, receiving alien signals and live broadcasts through dead air and empty space.
Neither of them speak. Both gaze up into the sky, dazzled by the beauty of a thousand stars. They have been here before, together. It began here. Fitting that it should end here as well.
It is a perfect moment, frozen time as the seconds tick away until the sky might fall. It is too short.
"I want you," he whispers into her ear.
"You have me," she whispers back.
They kiss, for eternity and a day. Their lips. Touch. Their lips touch, bodies entwined in beautiful paradise.
Garden of Eden, destroyed by time and hopeless romantics. Body and temple crumbling like earth in the hands of a child.
"Will we find peace?" he asks and hands her a single red rose.
"I hate the word," she replies with a sad smile, knowing they've got it all wrong and perhaps they always had. They know what they have done, now, at the end of all things. Childhood folly and make-believe shattered by that one magic bullet.
The drugs are quick. Poison spreads through his body, taking hold. The boy clutches his stomach, looking at her. A single tear rolls down her cheek and she lies down beside him. The best kiss will be their last.
No. It is not time.
"This is thy sheath," she whispers, leaning against him. Their lips touch again.
An ill wind begins to blow. The end is fast, and bitter.
London, in May.
The city moves on, the city moves up and begins to grow, across the world from the moon-drenched spotlight trained upon our final act, our final stage. Everything is as it should be for now. Addiction, perfection, comedy, tragedy, who knows?
A glooming peace this morning with it brings, the sun, for sorrow, will not show his head. Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things, or doth love linger though all hope seems dead?
Bodies twitch. Breath catches in his throat. Eyes open. Somewhere in the distance, a Lamb cries.
The curtain rises for one final scene.
XX - Lonely And Sympathetic