The Beast, Pt. 96 (Chapter 24)

Hey. How’s it going? Are you doing well? It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? It feels like it has. I was just thinking about you. Curious about how you were doing. Thought I’d call. Thought it might be nice to talk instead of just wondering, you know?

Uh huh. Uh huh. Yeah. Wow, really? That’s great!

Me? Oh, I don’t know. I’ve been alright. Nothing special. Went on a little vacation with the boys recently. Just got back.

Ha ha, yeah, again. Went the same as it always does. Won some money, lost some money. Ate and drank too much. Kind of got a tan.

Anyway, I’m sure you don’t want to hear about that. Same old boring story. Tell me, how’s the family? How’s the job?

Tell me everything.

Well, great. It sounds like things are going great. I’m happy for you. Really.

Listen, I don’t want to keep you. I’m sure you’re busy with all kinds of things. I was just thinking about you, and I thought, you know, I’d give you a call. I’m glad you’re doing well, though. Take care of yourself, okay?

Yeah. Yeah. I… You too. You too. Take care of yourself.

Good bye.

The end. Thank you for reading! Post-mortem on Monday.

The Beast, Pt. 95 (Chapter 23d)

We pack our bags, perform one last sweep of the villa and slink away as quietly as possible. Doubtless there will be some kind of bill from the Libretto, an obscene sum so full of commas and zeroes that it’s an affront to both God and man. But that’s a problem for the future. That’s a concern for another day. All we have to do now is get back to the spaceport, get off the Meadows, and get back to our regularly scheduled little lives down on Earth. This has become a stealth mission, and between our luggage, our hangovers, and our general inability to keep from blurting out commentary on the world around us, we have all the subtlety of a troupe of masturbating circus clowns.

Fortunately, there’s an actual troupe of masturbating circus clowns in the lobby, and they seem to be especially needy, taxing the Libretto’s concierge and staff to the utmost. I stop dead in my tracks as soon as the elevator doors open and just stand staring, concerned about how rude I’m being but unable to do anything to stop myself.

“Do you guys see that, too?”

“What, the hundred year old man with the barely legal child bride?” Papa Chub asks, a note of irritation in his voice. “Don’t stare. In fact, don’t do anything. Just keep walking. We don’t need you picking a fight the last day of the trip because you think it’ll have a nice symmetry with the fight you picked on the first.”

“What? No, man, the clowns.”

“Oh. Yeah. They’re with Trompe L’oeil. We saw them with Cassie and her friends last night. They’re great. Really thought provoking stuff, you know?”

“You’ve got to wear one of the complimentary ponchos if you sit in the front, though,” Monk adds. “It’s a splash zone.”

Despite the relief I feel that I’m not going insane, I frown. I always miss all the interesting sights on trips. “Wait, who’s Cassie?”

“A Goddamn bitch,” Googe mutters under his breath. I decide not to press the issue any further.

Out of the fear of getting a vengeful Johnny Cab and general stinginess now that we were no longer collectively obscenely wealthy, we take a human-driven shuttle back to the starport. The risk is, of course, obscene, but if the Meadows haven’t killed us after three days, a crappy driver surely won’t. The universe wouldn’t allow it. It’d be too unsatisfying an ending to our trip.

We shuffle through security like cattle, await the launch of our shuttle in uncomfortable plastic chairs as is expected of us. The talking is minimal. We’ve each entered into a sort of fugue state, a post-Bacchanal catatonia where our bodies realize all at once that it’s been days since we’ve slept or ate or not done tons of drugs properly, and they are not fucking happy about it.

I briefly consider vomiting into a trash can, but decide against it. If I can wait an hour, I can do it back on Earth.

A disembodied voice announces that boarding will begin shortly. No one moves to line up to get on the shuttle, a population of hungover and broke and broken tourists perfectly content to wait until the last possible moment before standing in another line. “So that was a pretty good trip, huh?” Googe says after the loudspeaker goes silent. “Right? I had a good time. I wish we’d gone to a strip club, but I guess there’s always next time.”

Erb shakes his head. “No. No ‘next time.’ Next time we’re going to a tropical beach or something. Something with fewer people and more nature.”

Papa Chub smiles. “Oh, you say that now, but after you spend a few weeks back on Earth, you’ll start to fantasize about it. That said, we are never coming back here again.”

“Until we do,” Monk says.

Papa Chub nods. “Until we do.”

“What about you?” Googe asks me. “Did you have a good time?”

I don’t answer him. I just sit back in my chair, my eyes shut, my hands folded in my lip, my feet resting against my luggage. I’m not asleep, but I wish that I was, and if I pretend that’s good enough.

I don’t know that I had a good time. I don’t feel good, exactly. What I do feel is empty, but not in a bad way. Unburdened. Clean. Like something malignant has been removed from me, and I am ready to have something good take it’s place. What that thing might be, and if it actually will take the malignancy’s place, I cannot say. But it might. And that’s certainly better than where I was when we first got here.

I got what I came for, I suppose. Perhaps on some level I should be grateful for this circus sideshow of an artificial satellite for providing me with an environment where that could happen. But as the disembodied voice announce that we may begin the boarding process, every fiber of my being tells me that it’s time to leave.

I mean, the money’s gone. We might as well go, too.

The Beast, Pt. 94 (Chapter 23c)

Packing is easy when one is too tired and hungover to give a shit about the process beyond cramming the things you own into a suitcase and forcing it shut. When you have an entire group of people all too tired and hungover to do things right, well, then it turns into a party. A sullen, unhappy party where the majority of communication is done through pointing and grunting.

I hide my genitals away behind a protective layer of pants and set to work squirreling everything away. There are clothes I never wore, books I never read, snacks uneaten. So much luggage existing solely to weigh me down. So many burdens, so little reason. “Why the fuck have I been carrying all of this?” I mutter as I shake my head.

“Hm?” comes a voice from the hallway. I turn around and Papa Chub is standing there, a curious look on his face.

I shrug. “Just talking to myself. Hey, where’d you guys go all yesterday?”

“Out and about. Saw some sights. Googe and Monk rode a roller coaster, me and Erb gambled some. Didn’t win anything though. We got back right when you were waking up, actually.”

“Damn, you guys were out that whole time? Long night at the club getting lucky with the ladies?”

Papa Chub smiles. “Something like that. You should ask Googe about it.”

I shout out into the other room, “Hey, Googe! Chub says you made a friend last night!”

There’s a snarl of irritation and the shouted response, “She was a Goddamn bitch!”

Papa Chub and I burst into laughter, he at the inside joke, me at the absurdity of a situation I’ll never completely understand. Once the laughter subsides, he glances around the room. “Man, this place is wrecked. Do you think the Libretto’s going to withhold some of your money from you to pay for things?”

I snort. “Good luck to them. It’s all gone. Wait, what do you mean ‘my money?’”

“We pulled our shares out yesterday morning after you gave a speech about the perils of capitalism. What happened to your share?”

“I spent it all.”

“On what?”

“Closure.”

Papa Chub sniffs. “That’s either really deep or really stupid.”

I open my mouth to respond, but I don’t have anything to say on the subject. Instead, I just shrug. “It can be both.”

The Beast, Pt. 93 (Chapter 23b)

I sigh. The Chad Studlu of the past is a problem, always making a fool of himself and leaving me to pick up the pieces. “That’s it, then? I didn’t pick any fights with any of you, or anything like that?”

“No,” Erb says, his face suddenly serious. “But where were you? We were trying to get a hold of you all day yesterday, and there was just nothing.”

“I busted my Conncomm.”

“What the Hell happened to your face?”

“I got into a fight with those little bastards from the lobby the other day. The Conncomm got busted in said fight. I think a lost a tooth, too.”

Googe winces. “Oh, that’s rough. Growing those back sucks.”

“What happened to the villa? Did you throw another party last night?”

I look around at the destruction: surprising amounts of vomitus, clothes strewn about, holes punched in walls, overturned chairs and tables. But no bottles. No powders. No ashes. Nothing to suggest a party, everything to suggest a maniac having some kind of a psychotic break.

“Yep. Threw one Hell of a party. Shit, I don’t even remember most of it, so don’t ask me for any details. Yep.”

Eyebrows arch. Shoulders shrug. Erb speaks, “You know, we were pretty worried about you. I mean, we all kind of figured you’d be fine. Because you always are. But usually you give some kind of sign that you’re alive, and you didn’t this time.”

His voice is calm, even. Googe and Monk have already left, gone to straighten things up. Papa Chub lingered, but his attention was waning as well. Doubtless there were things that needed attending to. I was vaguely aware that it was time to leave, that there was a shuttle waiting to take us to a shuttle waiting to take us to a shuttle waiting to take us to our respective homes. But even so, my words fail me. Everything fails me. I am a dog with drooping ears and downcast eyes. Something I’d said the other day comes back to me. “I do right by my boys.” What the fuck happened to that?

Erb’s already shrugged, walked away, but I’m not done. I stand up, clear my throat. “Hey, guys.”

Faces turn towards me, twist up in confusion in surprise, eyes roll, eyes shut, mouths open to speak but hold their peace.

“Guys. I’m grateful for you. Really. This trip has been something else, man. Highs and lows, but I wouldn’t trade the memories for anything else in the world. And I know I’ve been… Let’s call it a loose cannon the past couple days, but I think I’m better now. Just had some things I had to work through.

“I think I’ve got this. I think I’m ready to go home.”

Eyes drift towards each other. Nervous uncertain looks are shared. Finally, Googe breaks the silence. “Hey, man. That’s great. That’s beautiful. But put on some Goddamn pants.”

The Beast, Pt. 92 (Chapter 23a)

My friends stand over me, silent sentinels. I push myself up into a sitting position, taking care to keep the sheet carefully arranged so as to cover the lower half of my body. Finally, I can take the silence no longer. I put a fake smile on my face, trying to hide behind bravado as I have so many times in the past. But of course it doesn’t work. My friends have known me too long and too well. Still, once the machine’s been set into motion, there is no turning back.

I smile and look each of my friends in the eyes in turn. Their faces are wary, distant. They’re not angry, but it’s possible that that’s just because they haven’t made up their mind about how they feel. “So,” I say, dragging out the syllable, letting it hang in the air. “Do we have to talk about what happened last night?”

“Two nights ago,” Papa Chub says noncommittally.

I frown. “Whatever.”

“It was two nights ago, though,” Erb adds. “We weren’t here last night.”

“Okay, fine. Two nights ago, then. Do we have to talk about it or not?”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I do if we need to.”

“What does it mean to ‘need to?’”

I roll my eyes, ready to jump to my feet so I can argue and debate the nuances of ‘needing too’ better. But then I remember that it’s difficult to argue effectively when your genitals are on display to the world, so I just grumble and remain where I am. “Look, I’m just asking, did I make an ass out of myself the other night?”

“Oh, most definitely,” Monk says, breaking into a grin. I glance back at Papa Chub and Erb, who do not share his enthusiasm, at Googe, who is somewhere in between the others.

“What’d I do?”

“You picked a fight with a Cat Berry impersonator, for starters.”

“Dude, I’m telling you, she was the real thing.”

“Why would Cat Berry be at our crappy party?”

“Uh, because our party was awesome and not crappy?”

“There’s no way it was really her.”

“Well, why would an impersonator have a real body guard, huh?”

“Wait, seriously, who’s Cat Berry?”

“She wrote that song. About blood. Horrible Hemoglobin or something.”

“That doesn’t sound right…”

I clear my throat. “Guys. What else?”

Monk’s grin returns. “At one point, you tried to kick everyone out of the villa saying that you had to duel a magical space ghost, but no one would listen to you.”

I wince, simultaneously disappointed in myself both for trying such a thing and for not commanding the fear and respect necessary to actually accomplish it. “Anything else?”

“Ooh!” Googe says, suddenly excited. “You gave a big long speech about the nature of humanity to a bunch of people that were high on mescaline. That was pretty funny. You walked by, and they said something like, ‘Hey, man, come learn the truth,’ and you spun around and shouted, ‘Truth? I already know the truth!’ and then… Oh, wait! I have it on my Conncomm!”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the device, pushes a few buttons on its face, and my voice, preachy and slurred and struggling to be heard over the din of the party. “We are never as great as we think that we are, nor as horrible as we fear. We are all simply the same, trying the hardest to make sense of a world without any discernible meaning or purpose behind it, making things up as we go along, inventing perceptions of reality that we can understand and find comfort in.” A pause. “Oh, shit, is that pizza?”

The Beast, Pt. 91 (Chapter 22c)

“Do you?” I ask. My voice is petulant. Whiny. Childish. But her hand stays on my shoulder. There is weight to it, but not too much. No icy touch, no burning heat. Just a hand, an ordinary hand.

“Yeah,” she says. “I do.”

I turn and look at her. Who knows why. It’s not like that veil she wears will suddenly betray a hint of emotion. “How could you?”

“___,” she says, her voice carrying a firmness born of pain. “I’m not a monster. I’m not heartless. Do you think I don’t miss you, too?”

I blink in surprise at that. The words echo in my ears long after she’s gone silent. Finally, I shake my head. “How could you? Christ, you’re not even real. An undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a shot of Beast.”

The Lady in White leans in and her voice drops to a whisper. There’s an edge to it, but it’s not mean or cruel. It is simply blunt and direct, saying what needs to be said in a manner ensuring it’s actually heard. “And whose fault is that?”

I frown. “Oh, this is my fault? It’s always my fault, huh?”

“If I’m not real, then yes. Whose else could it be?” She tilts her head to the side, punctuating her irritation with playfulness. “Maybe you ought to ask why you’re doing this to yourself.”

“No sense asking questions you already know the answer to,” I say, muttering, spitting the words.

“Why don’t you ever try talking or doing, instead of just thinking?”

A grunt.

“Is this making you happy?”

Another.

“Does this make things easier?”

Another still.

“Is this really how you want to remember me?”

The answer comes instantly. “No. No, never.”

“Then fix it.”

I’m just about to ask how, but again, there’s no sense in asking questions you already know the answers to. Stop hearing her. Listen. Stop seeing her. Look. Stop thinking and talk, act, do anything.

I reach towards her veil, but my hand stops in mid-air. Baby steps. I reach for a her hand instead, feel the smoothness of the gloves, and pull. With a little effort, it gives way, first one and then the other. The straps of the dress next, the patent leather of the heels, lace and silk and leather and jewelery. A cage is a cage no matter what it’s constructed from. A wall remains a wall. A monster can be made from anything.

Blue jeans. A pink and purple shirt under a grey jacket. Hair tied back in a ponytail. She looks at me. She smiles. Lines of happiness at the corners of her mouth, her eyes. It’s funny how there’s so much warmth in the cool blue and green of her heterochromatic eyes.

This is what I want to remember.

This is what I will.

This is what I do.

* * *

My eyes open. It’s morning. A number of things occur to me all at once.

I’m on the floor. Again. The room stinks of vomit. I’m holding a pillow lifted from some bed tightly in my arms. I can feel cold marble underneath me and a high thread count bedsheet on my legs, which means I’m naked.

I took the Beast, hallucinated my balls off, puked everywhere, and fell asleep trying to fuck a pillow. Glorious.

I roll over away from the stench, the pillow left behind and I find my friends standing over me, staring down at me in silence. They are motionless, expressionless, and I can’t decide if I believe that they’re actually there or not. Finally, I say, “Hey” to no one in particular. They murmur in response, and I let out my breath, unaware I’d been holding it.

“So you’re not dead?” Googe asks.

I sit up straight and look around, surveying the destruction that’d been visited upon the villa since I’d taken the Beast the night before, registering every note in the chorus of pain my body is singing me. Broken bones and missing teeth and contused flesh, and none of that even counts the brain cells I’ve surely fried like eggs.

But my heart’s still beating. That’s undeniable. I’m pretty sure it is, anyway.

I shrug my shoulders at Googe. “I guess not.”

Erb sighs, reaches into his pocket, hands Googe a credit chip.

The Beast, Pt. 90 (Chapter 22b)

“Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?” she asks me. I look up from the floor just for a moment before my eyes dart back down of their own accord, nervous little animals.

I shake my head. “I can’t. I don’t know.”

A few seconds pass, she bends down and sits down next to me. I cringe away, but she doesn’t react. She just sits there, her head turned slightly towards me, watching me.

A minute or more passes. I’m afraid to break the silence, half-convinced that if I move or speak she’ll grow fangs and claws and tears me to pieces, but I can’t take the quiet, the inactivity. I turn to look at her and ask, softly, “What are you doing here?”

The veil shifts slightly, as if she’d just looked away. “That’s kind of a complicated question,” she says after a few seconds.

Ghostly, haunting, inconsistent, horrifying, and now evasive? If I’m going to be dragged to my doom, I want to know why, damn it. “Come on. Is that really all you’re going to say on the subject?”

She shrugs. “I’m here because you need me?”

“I need you?”

She laughs softly at that, the noise lingering in her throat, a sound I can almost feel. Hm hm hm hm hm. She shrugs. “You must. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

I want to get angry at that. I want to snarl and spit my words and say, “Oh, I need you to haunt my every waking moment? I need to be thinking about you and wondering where you are and what you’re doing and if I’ll see you again? I need you in front of me so I can freak out and turn from something resembling a responsible and mature individual into a kicked dog?” But anger’s not right. Just another kneejerk reaction. Another attempt to mask the problem, to ignore it, silence it, replace it with some new and simpler and stupider problem. Pills and powders and liquids and booze and anger and laughter and fucking and staying in bed and staying out all night and smashed Conncomms and messages sent that should have never been sent, and Jesus, you can only lie to yourself so much. There’s only so much running you can do.

My head dips down, eyes locked on some distant spot on the floor. A dog afraid to look a human in the eye. My voice comes out like a sigh. “I miss you.”

A gloved hand settles on my shoulder like a dove alighting upon a branch. “I know.”

The Beast, Pt. 89 (Chapter 22a)

“No, really. What are you doing down there?”

The voice is feminine, but not soft, not high. Mezzo-soprano, slightly concerned, slightly amused. There’s something alien in it, something familiar. A voice I haven’t heard in ages but that I used to hear all the time. A voice that sends neurons in my brain grown dusty from disuse twitching and groping, zombies searching for something to grab a hold of.

I look up and she’s standing over me, head tilted to the side, and I swear I can feel her eyes on me, can see the closed mouth smile on her face, can see the dimples in her cheeks, the curve of her nose, the errant hairs that dangled in front of her eyes no matter what coiffure she chose to adopt.

I can’t really, though. There’s a white veil in the way. White gloves covering hands that could never sit still unless they were being held. A white gown smoothing out her body, turning it from warm flesh into cold sculpture.

“Oh, fuck me.”

Her head tilts to the other side and the veil moves with it, showing more of her than I’ve ever seen before. Fair skin, pink lips, and that smile. “Uh,” she says, dragging the sound out like a singer holding a note.

I let my head hit the floor again. My muscles go slack I don’t even care what happens to me at this point. “Whatever you’re going to do, just do it.”

She sniffs, shifts her weight to her rear foot, crosses her arms. I’ve never seen the Lady in White move like this before. I’ve never seen her move at all. I’ve never seen her skin. Just stillness. Just nothing.

“Wow. I’m definitely insulted, but I can’t decide if it’s because you lost interest in me that quickly or if it’s because you think I’m that easy.”

I don’t think I’ve ever heard her talk before, either. I pick my head up, push myself up onto my elbows, push myself to at least sit. Confusion has cut through the apathy and the indifference. “Wait, what?”

“You said, ‘Oh, fuck me,’ and then I didn’t say anything, and then you… You know what? Forget it. It was a joke.”

“But you don’t joke.”

“What?”

“You don’t even talk.”

The Lady in White is silent. We stare at each other. My eyes narrow to slit. Apathy given way to confusion given way to suspicion. “Who are you?”

“Okay, seriously.” she says. “What’s wrong?” She leans down, and she’s not so tall as she used to be, not so thin, not so skeletal, like maybe there’s a person, a real person, underneath that veil.

And then she reaches out her hand, fingers gently spread apart from each other, and it’s coming right for me, and I scream “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!” and I try to jump back, but I slam against a wall, and there’s nowhere for me to go, and it’s back to trembling.

Her hand stops in mid-air. It lingers there for a moment before the fingers curl in on itself, like a flower blooming in reverse. “___. You’re scaring me,” she says. And there really is fear in her voice. There really is concern. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting that.

My eyes drift down and pick out a spot on the carpet, lock on it, refuse to move. I mumble something that sound like “I’m sorry,” and the Lady in White says softly, “It’s okay.”

The Beast, Pt. 88 (Chapter 21b)

my mother wants me to go if she would just tell me just tell me instead of shouting and screaming maybe I would do it I’m just a kid I’m scared I don’t understand what she’s upset about she has to explain it to me but of course she doesn’t of course she can’t the things that she’s seen and done and been subjected to it’s amazing she’s as well-adjusted as she is and i’m just a kid I don’t know that yet so how do I know that how do I even know what well-adjusted means how am I five when I’m twenty-seven how am I ten when I’m eighteen how am I fifty-nine and holding her hand in the hospital what is this she’s crying not shouting or screaming just looking at me with wet eyes and holding me tight trying to hold me with arms that won’t encircle me anymore because I’m not a little boy I’m a grown man but she still holds me like I’m seventy-something and Jesus Christ humans were not meant to live this long we weren’t meant to see everything around us crumble and decay we were meant for something shorter and simpler eaten by a horse dead by sniffles not a hundred years of existential angst and that son of a bitch BURNED me look at this shit fucking split between a thousand timelines a thousand potentialities no wonder that son of a bitch’s teeth were falling out and his entire body oozing this shit you can’t control it not in a single dose you can only eighteen and graduating and my mother is crying but happy tears this time a smile she’s proud of me I want to tell her that these are the good times and it’ll all be okay in the end as okay as these things can ever be it’s a catch-22 or something nothing’s ever really okay in the end but then most things don’t matter so most things are but then nothing ever really ends and nothing’s really permanent either the universe will tear itself apart and isn’t that a pretty metaphor in the end we wind up isolated and cold and so distant that no two things can interact on another I am going to KILL that son of a bitch I am going to find him and I am going to beat him like a frat boy angry that he can’t drink his overpriced champagne this is a nightmare this is agony this is every mistake come back to haunt you all at once shitting your pants as a baby and failed tests as a kid and fumbling sexual mistakes as an adult and an old man wondering why he didn’t take better care of himself his liver and his kidneys and his lungs dissolving into soup within him this is the future Goddamnit somebody grow me some new organs okay okay calm down deep breath focus you’ve got a mission you’ve got a purpose and you

need

to

focus

the ride stops kind of and I’m back in the room which I guess is an improvement. okay. I can work with this. I’m grounded. mostly. deep breath. just got to find the

HERITTHETHINGTHEBITCHTHEMONSTER

lady in white. just got to think back when was the first time I saw her. it must have been

a may afternoon finals week I’m a kid seventeen lying on a bench in front of my school half-napping half-awake all trying to look cool just waiting doing nothing and here comes girl whose name I can’t remember and she’s got her friend with her. tall and thin willowy with a WHITE VEIL over her face and WHITE GLOVES on her hands and a WHITE DRESS covering her non-existent

that’s not right that’s not right at all that’s the wrong time that’s impossible in the present I’m choking across every present I’m choking focus focus focus

kissing behind a movie theater a child now not even in high school yet had to get our parents to drive us here and then leave so I could kiss WHITE LACE and run my clumsy grabby little fingers over WHITE SILK all nervous and excited and imagining my first

nonono that’s not right either that’s not right at all I remember it I remember it I was

having my first kiss in a classroom with the lady in white

having sex, awkward and fumbling and overly eager, soft moans and quick breaths coming come from beneath a delicate veil

confessing my love to pitiless white nothing

an old man holding hands with cold flesh in a soft glove

standing in the road watching her pull away slowly so slowly and there she is tall as a house and thin as Death and so white it’s like a great nothingness in my world and oh my god this is it

this time it will be different

this time I will run after her and say no stop I’m coming with you and I will come with her and we’ll be happy together

this time I’ll figure out how to make the stupid fiddly little details of my life and my job and my finances work when we’re settled and

this time we break up after a month and I am in an alien city with no job and no money and the lady in white is laughing laughing laughing

FUCK

I can fix this I can fix this I can fix this go back further save more money have a savings meet her move try again and we break up after two months time

NO

change the decisions skip everything that put me in debt clean slate tabula rasa but now I’m not at the party now I’m not the same person NOW WE NEVER MEET ARE YOU KIDDING ME WHAT IS THIS SHIT

no. no goddamnit. time is not an arrow, time is not immutable, time has no will of its own. I decide how my life unfolds I decide what end I will meet I decide where and how and with whom I will spend my life ME I DECIDE GODDAM

Hey, how’s it going. My name’s Chad Studlu (noitisntnotreallyyearsfromnowyoullbetoldyourenotachadandyouneverwillbenomatterhowhardyoutryshutupshutupshutup) Let me guess; you forgot it was a costume party, too, huh?

I’ve got to go, but I’ve had a really great time talking with you. Why don’t we trade info? We should grab coffee or a drink or something sometime.

We should do this again sometime.

Listen. I like you a lot. I want to see you again. Only you. What do you say?

I’m so lucky to have met you. So lucky.

It sounds like an amazing opportunity. You should at least try. Come on.

You got the job? That’s… that’s… Hey, that’s wonderful!

Her? No. Yeah, she’s getting married, but so what? She’s not going to be the one who got away. I promise. Not her.

I’ll come visit. We’ll find a way to make this work. It’s only another citystatecontinentworldohmygoditsgettingworseandworseeachtimetheuniverseisliterallymockingmeandim

sitting on my back porch drinking with my dog and I’m there and I’m not there and fuck me infinite possibilities worlds timelines and they all suck. realizations at this late hour, staring at my dog’s dark eyes, staring blankly at a vid screen gone dark, staring down the neck of a bottle, the barrel of a gun, infinite mes and all I can do is fucking stare and think that there is no objective meaning in the universe. none. nothing. don’t even kid yourself.

but that means you get to choose your own meaning. you get to fill the void inside you with whatever you think is most appropriate most beautiful.

thirteen seventeen twenty-five thirty thirty-eight forty-four all the way to my fucking death I wish so dearly that some day I’ll be able to fill it with a partner with children with a life that’s plain and ordinary and that I find some kind of impossibly simple fulfillment in.

I am sitting and petting my dog. I stop for just a second and he wedges his head between my arm and my leg. I pet him some more stop he does it again. I laugh and tell him I don’t know what you want from me.

asinine. idiotic. miserable fucking failure. he is showing me what he wants from me he is showing me in the most direct way imaginable that need inside of him and how best to help him satisfy it and in my stupidity I announce to the world that I don’t understand.

“I don’t know what you want from me.” Asinine. Idiotic.

He wanted what we all want: somebody who understands. Somebody who, when they don’t understand everything, still understands enough to put their arms around you and hold you while you tremble like a lost puppy crying out for its pack. Someone who will say, “I’ve got you,” and mean it. What else could he possibly have wanted from me but that?

What else could she possibly have wanted from me but that?

So much I tried to fix. So much I tried to do differently.

The sound of stifled sobbing sounds so much like stifled laughter I can’t even tell them apart.

Time stands still. There is only the one moment, and it goes on forever. This is my Heaven, my Hell, my life. Curled up against a wall, my knees clutched to my chest, crying like a child, oozing black slime from my eyes, my nose, my mouth. There is so much darkness inside me, how could I ever end up anything but alone? How could my companion ever be anything the faceless, nameless, voice of what might have been but never was? Before long, I’m not even crying. Just existing. The silence is complete and eternal.

“Why are you crying?”

The Beast, Pt. 87 (Chapter 21a)

Stepping back into the villa is like stepping into someone else’s home. The place is spotless and silent. The Libretto’s cleaning crew must have come in at some point and repaired the damage done the night before: the bottles are gone, the air smells cleaner, the stains have been removed, the broken art and light fixtures replaced. For a moment I stand in the kitchen helpless and uncertain. Did last night happen? Did the trip? Did we really stay here and live recklessly and dangerously and utterly free for a handful of days?

Looking around the room, there’s no trace of it. No smell of alcohol, of tobacco, of sweat and sex and vomit and shit. The room is sterile. Maybe people have stayed here, but no one has ever lived here. And if anyone has, then their existence was wiped from memory at some point. No trace of them. No messy reminders. Not even errant spots on the carpet to catch the eye and make you think, “Hm. I wonder what happened there.”

We’d had good times here, my friends and I, the random strangers who’d floated in and out of our lives like ghosts. We’d had some damn good times. Some of them I even remembered. But they were all gone now, buried in the past like so many others. I want those moments back. I want to live in them, forever and ever. I want to stay there and dwell in them and just cease to be.

My hand crosses my chest, comes to rest on the vial of Beast. “Fuck it,” I mutter, and I pull the thing out, pop the stopper off, and swallow it all at once. It tastes foul, chemical, medicinal. It’s viscous, the greater mass of it sliding down my throat and traces lingering behind to coat my tongue. It is cold, impossibly cold for something that had been pressed against my body. The vial isn’t cold. Why is the Beast cold?

My face crinkles in disgust. I am a dog, sniffing and flicking my tongue against my teeth, trying to scrape the taste off. A glass of water will help, maybe. A glass of water and then I’ll lie down on a bed and I’ll see where