My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

He climbs onto her back, all slow-like and deliberate. Sabrina feels his shell against hers, pinning her against the cold earth. She feels heat inside her, washing away all the befores until all she can feel is the blinding heat of right now. She arches her shell against his, taking him in deeper, closes her eyes, shutting out the world while keeping him in, a feeling almost too decadent to stand. She wants it to last, but it won’t. She wants it to last, but she knows it can’t. He invited her to follow, to go to this place of white-hot ecstasy, he invited her, and with a sigh, Sabrina came.

They wake to the sounds of alarms, sirens, tires screeching on pavement. The world outside is burning. Trees, houses, it’s all on fire. People screaming, their sorrow floating in through open windows. She’s holding him in bed, lying on ruffled purple sheets under a dark-blue blanket. It was cold out, freezing, until everything turned to flames. They fell asleep happy, all safe and together.

She’s crying now, hot tears running down her face, onto his. He says her name, this name he loves so much, a name attached to soft brown eyes, long curly brown hair against soft pale skin, but she doesn’t answer. Again and again he says it, but she’s no words, just tears. He’d give anything to hear her voice, something beautiful amidst the screaming, and the sirens, and the dying, but her voice isn’t there. There’s a flash bright as day, the room gets very hot, the air very thin, she turns to flame and ash, right fuckin’ there, right in his arms. Their bed, covered in tears, and sweat, and ash, and she’s gone. She’s so totally fucking gone. His skin, burned where he held her.

He tells himself it’s all a bad dream, that he just has to wake up and she’ll be lying next to him. He’ll kiss her softly, run the tips of his long fingers down her cheek. It’ll be cold outside, exactly like it was when he fell asleep with her in his arms. She’ll feel so good, so warm, she’ll feel like a shot of heroin. He’ll hold her close, tell her how much he loves her. He’ll take off her clothes, sink into her until all the fear that covers him falls away.

He hears a song in his head, soft and melancholy. One day she’ll go, I told you so…

He can’t wake up, and the world outside just keeps burning.

So, last night I went to open mic at a cafe in Tampa, Sacred Grounds. I met someone there on Saturday, Danielle, and we’ve been talking since. She really likes my writing for some reason, and asked if she could be my reader at open mic. So, we went and she read three of my flash pieces, Waking up someone who isn’t me, Driving in the dark, and Asleep soon.

Sometimes all he sees is her, all warm brown eyes, curly brown hair.

She’s behind his eyes when he closes them to fall asleep at night, she’s in his head when he wakes in the morning. موقع روليت

He sees her in little things, beautiful things. لعبة قمار اون لاين She’s sun shining through bright green tree leaves, she’s a pretty teal butterfly fluttering nowhere in particular.

He sees her when the sky shifts from pure blue to black infinity. She’s so right there, in the silvery full moon, in the brightest stars. bet 365

This woman, so dear to him, he sees her in raindrops bouncing off a city sidewalk. Drops splitting into drops, splitting into drops, tiny spheres of water with rainbows inside. She’s with him, even when she’s not.

Sometimes all he sees is her.

So, here’s my friend, my voice, and fellow writer, Jimmy, reading Christmas in a Park at Cafe Bohemia’s open mic night.

I like this story, and I don’t. I wrote it sitting at Starbucks, thinking about being a spectacular fuck up. I just sat there writing this short sequence that popped into my head, fictional non-fiction about a fellow and the thoughts swirling around in his head. Jimmy gave it a good read on a particularly cold evening.

It’s a cold day, winter. He’s walking through a park, walking and thinking. He’s thinking about a girl, and a fight, and a Christmas tree. It’s a small tree, covered in pretty colored lights, gleaming ornaments, candy canes, a star on top. It’s all bright, and cheer, and warm. Thinking about the tree makes him melancholy, it’s everything he’s not. He’s all dark, and insecure, and uneasy. He’s disconnected, lonely, and in love, all at once.

He’s walking, hands in his coat pockets, trying to keep the cold out. It’s not working. Walking past people, people all bundled up, a fellow with his arm around his lady. People are walking dogs. Some old lady’s walking a cat, black leather harness attached to a leash. A leash lined with little silver bells. It’s an odd scene, a strange little holiday tableau. He’s in this crowd of people, and dogs, and a Goddamn fuckin’ tabby cat on a fuckin’ jingle-bell leash, and he’s the one who feels out of place. He’s so close to a fight, and so far from a girl, and anything he wants. He’s so far from that Christmas tree, and the lights, and ornaments, and candy canes, and the star on top. He’s walking through this park, worn-out and worn-down.

He could go to some bar, some dim shit-hole of a place. He could go and play some Christmas carols on the jukebox, Lithium, Dumb, Between the Bars, Talking to Mary. Angry songs and sad songs, songs of isolation and loss, love turned to pain. The songs dancing around in his head, Christmas carols to him. One day she’ll go, I told you so… Lyrics he often hears when it’s quiet, the soundtrack to his dreary Christmas. He could down a bunch of vodka, but it’s a little early, and a lot pointless. A temporary fix for a broken life.

There’s a bench, wood slats painted blue, he takes a seat. Cold air’s stinging his eyes, but the sun is big and on fire, shining through green tree leaves. Nature’s all around, beautiful and so right there. The world looks peaceful from that bench, unlike the noise and the worry in him. He’s tired, he wants to sleep. He thinks about the blade in his pocket, a switch-blade all sharp and shiny. He thinks about running the blade down his wrists, two vertical slits in front of God, and nature, and everyone, making a whisper of himself. He thinks about falling asleep in a red pool of life, wonders if he’d wake up some place better. He doubts it.

He knows where better is, and he wonders if he can go back. He hopes he can go back, but for right now, he’ll just sit here awhile.

You are not perfect, you are not pure.

You are full of cracks, cracks too deep to fill with all the liquor, all the morphine in the world.

You are damaged, and fucked up, and worn down.

You’re just pretending to be alive, pretending until you can stop.

So, just after the saying of Grace, with people sitting around a table of lit candles, poured wine glasses, a turkey bigger than any infant child, and all the foods that would accompany such a turkey, he left the table. It seemed a little odd, perhaps, to leave just after the prayer, and just before the meal, to leave without a word, but stranger things have happened. He’s a writer, he’s eccentric. Besides, he’d be back, right? Where could he possibly go? Then, they heard the front door, the open and the close. The starting of a car, headlights dancing around the living-room, tires screeching down the driveway, he was gone. He was so absolutely fucking gone.

Right now, in the car, stereo blasting angry songs, and sad songs, sung by sad, dead people, he’s driving. He’s driving nowhere in particular, he’s just driving. He’s driving to think, and not think, the cold night air hitting his face through open windows. The cold air feels so good, it burns his skin, wakes him up. He’s really not sure where he’s going, but he’s not going back there, back to his lifeless life. He’s not going to change his mind, slam on the brakes, turn the car around. He’d rather pull a gun and put a bullet in his mouth, it’d be better than what’s behind him. Back there’s another sort of death. People can die of boredom, and tedium, and frustration, and loneliness. They’re just as sure to kill as a bullet, but they’re slower, more quiet-like. They kill by inches and years, not with a click and a bang, and pieces of your face scattered around the room. Who needs that sort mess anyhow? He’d feel bad for the poor fuck who’d have to clean him off the ceiling. No, he’s not going back. He just doesn’t fit, never has. Back there, he’s alone in a crowd. He always feels like he ought to be somewhere else. He’s thinking about wheres just now, driving through the cold dark.

He thinks about God as he’s sitting at a red light across from some church. He could stop by, see if anyone’s home, see if God’s home. God probably wouldn’t answer the door though, God never answers anything. We’re all just solicitors trying to sell Him something, trying to get Him to buy our prayers. Keep me safe. Make me happy. I’ll be good, really, I promise. He’s heard it all before, He’s not interested. The light turns green, gas pedal hits the floor, the car doesn’t stop, not here.

He could go to some bar, get shit-faced with all the cash in his wallet, sleep it off back at the car, but he’s done that before. Liquor’s a Goddamn fucking blast, until it isn’t. Until you wake up enough mornings feeling like you got dragged under a truck, genuinely wishing that truck had finished you off. Bars are just somewheres that usually lead to nowheres. At least, that’s been his experience. He needs something different, something he’s never found in a shot glass, or a church, or behind the door he left before he got in his car and sped away.

He could leave it all, the whole fuckin’ city, the entire fuckin’ state. He could get on a bus, drive cross-country. He’s always thought about chucking it all, going somewhere quiet, somewhere where no one would think to find him. Maybe he’d write postcards a year or two later, “Hi, I’m not dead. I’m just in Casper, Wyoming.” He’d find a little house to rent, maybe a small apartment. He’d do odd jobs around town, shoveling snow, serving coffee in some diner, anything that pays anything. He’d read at night, listen to music as he falls asleep in a place that’s his own. He’d be alone, but not entirely lonely. He’d have a blank canvas, he could create a different reality. He’d have blank pages on which to write the story of him. He thinks about ditching his car at the bus station, a gesture that says, “Well, I’m out, it’s been real.” He looks up at the stars, wonders what those stars look like in Casper.

There’s a girl though, there’s a girl. At another red light, another stop, he thinks about her. He loves her, she’s always in his head somewhere. She’s really where he’s wanted to be all night, not driving around. He’s just afraid, afraid that it’s too much to hope for, being with her. Still, he could drive across town, he could go to her. He could tell her about the dinner, and the door closing behind him. He could tell her he loves her completely, how much she feels like home to him. He could hold her close, tell her she’s beautiful. She is beautiful, he can’t look up at the night sky and find a single star as beautiful as her. He could tell her he wants to fall asleep with her in his arms, that he wants to wake up in the morning and see her soft brown eyes smiling at him. He could kiss her in the moonlight, tell her he just wants to stay with her awhile, how ever long awhile might be. He could go to her and see what happens.

The light goes green, tires spin against pavement. He thinks to himself, “Well, fuck it, Casper isn’t going anywhere.”

You remember before her, before her warm brown eyes, her curly brown hair.

You remember before her touch, and before her kiss, before you ever held her close, told her you love her.

You remember the grey, and the empty, and the weight of lonely.

But when you’re with her, her hand in yours, her lips against yours, you forget the befores. The grey has color, the empty’s all filled up. The lonely isn’t heavy on your chest, doesn’t drag you down.

All those befores, they scare you though, they absolutely fucking scare you. They’re places you don’t miss, don’t care to go again. These places are like ghosts, they haunt you when it’s quiet. They stop by and say hi when you’re alone in the dark.

She keeps it all away, the places you don’t miss, the ghosts that haunt, so you want her to stay. She might not, and you know it. The might nots make you uneasy sometimes, they keep sleep away when you let them in, but they’re worth the risk of happening. Without that risk, all those befores would be so right now.

She could be gone tomorrow, or the next tomorrow, or the next, but maybe she won’t. You want to tell her things with a voice you can’t find. You want to kiss her slow, and be with her as long as tiny gears turning tiny hands allow.

She might go one day, but you don’t want it to be today, not today.

You’re sitting in this bar, this sad, smokey place where fuck ups go to forget that they’re fuck ups, at least for a few hours. You’re sitting at the bar proper, front and center. The lights above you are blue, making all the the liquor bottles shelved in front of you look soft and peaceful. You wonder if you look soft and peaceful, you doubt it.

You order another vodka shot, slam it back. It burns going down, it warms your face. You feel a little numb, you like the numb. Numb, the off-brand version of contentment. Numb, of course, leads to drunk, the off-brand version of happy. This shot makes seven dead shots, lined across the bar. Seven not so deadly sins.

There are maybe ten people in the whole place. It’s 1 AM on a Monday, odds are nobody has a job to go to in the morning. People are mostly sitting in the booths behind you, forest green leather, brown wood. There’s a candle on every table, neon signs on the walls, picking up the slack for the candles, telling people what poison to drink. A couple in the corner next to the door is making out like there’s no tomorrow. They’re all heat, and close, and immediacy. She’s got the guy up against the wall, holding his arms back, shoving him hard against the wall, her shoulder-length brown hair thrashing this way and that. She’s fucking the guy without actually fucking him. It’s kind of surreal, maybe they know something you don’t know. Maybe tomorrow isn’t coming, you just didn’t get the memo, or the e-mail, or the flyer. Or maybe you’re just lonely and somber-like. You wonder if you’ll ever feel anything like that again, that sort of intensity with another person.

You had this idea of what your life would be like by right now, and this sure as shit wasn’t it. Sitting here, alone in a crowd, getting shit-faced, this was not the plan. Getting shit-facd as often as you do was not part of the plan. Drunk is just so much easier anymore. Alcohol kills feelings, which is the idea, because everything you feel is dark, empty, lonely. You’ll sleep alone tonight, and you know it. Tonight, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, for you don’t know how long. No one will hold you close, no one will kiss you slow.

Drunk as you are, so drunk you can hardly feel your face, in that place between drunk and oblivion, you still feel time flying through you. You always feel it. Time is like this surprise amount of cash in your wallet. You can’t know how much you have to spend, you just know when it runs out. The wallet goes empty, and that’s it. This terrifies you.

You’re afraid you’re going to end so far away from everything you ever wanted. You’re afraid that the time you spend getting where you want to go is wasted time. You’re afraid that everywhere you go will keep feeling empty, empty even when you get to the last place. You drown yourself in liquor hoping to make time leave you be awhile, to make you forget your wants that feel so far away, but it never works. Not really.

You should get up, go for the door. You should breathe in the cool night air, get so far away from fixes that don’t fix. You order another shot, maybe this one is the one that will make it better, but it’s not. Of course it’s not.