Do you

do you believe in the light
that falls from heaven like stars
that feeds the growing blight
while good people starve

do you believe in the dark
that rises up like a spring
that swims through like a shark
while you watch on the brink

do you believe in the space
that falls inbetween us
that whispers like love displaced
while we all learn to mistrust

do you believe in the truth
that you have only seen
that flashes above your lonely roof
while you huddle and keen

do you believe in the fall
that comes from disbelief
that ends in standing tall
while believers shake like leaves

do you believe in the ink
that scribbles your life in the margins
that teaches you how to think
while bliss is at a bargain

Cinema Villain

I see you behind my eyelids
A longing in my fantasies
Everything you ever did
Complicates my disease

No more pretty little liar
You've burned it all away
I'm just a blazing pyre
Dying to hear you say

You're my Black Hat
The good guy to turn me bad
The bad guy to fan the fire
Everything I ever had
Lost in burning desire
For you, Black Hat

The devil in you calling the angel I try to be
Waking the spice of dark desires in me

Bring me down to the other side
And make me change my tune
Bring me up to your secret hide
And make me howl at the moon

Cuz you're my Black Hat
The good guy to turn me bad
The bad guy to fan the fire
Everything I ever had
Lost in my burning desire
For you, Black Hat

I Saw Your Ship

I saw your ship today
Should have felt happy
Not too far away

I saw your ship again
Can’t be real this time
Shattered into ten

Outside this thin shell
A wasteland of stars
Heaven and hell

Pitch black as we fell
Our fever taking us
Out of this well

Freedom called to us
A song of light and life
In another world’s dust

I saw your ship today
And longed to see your face
Longed for you to stay

I saw your ship again
Like a nightmare I had
Can’t remember when

Beyond the cloudy wall
We met trembling
Needing to stop the fall

Burning in the planetlight
Warmth in this cold
Man’s eternal fight

I see your ship, my dear
Pieces drifting down
And I’m left here

Haiku

Apathy

cool rain falls outside
inside sitting staring blank
motivation none

mother and children
soccer ball flies like lightning
unnoticeable


Melancholy

force a smile again
talking about the weather
hope it doesn't show

counterweight the tears
with quiet grudged acceptance
just bottle it up


Desire

see it and know it
taste it over and over
but you can't have it

close enough to touch
far enough to weep a sea
and still you strain on


Despair

falling forever
past the sea of doubt, into
the cold and lost wind

tight across your chest
back flat to a tabletop
no escape from this


Lust

silk on skin shines white
flash of gold on her left hand
still he burns brightly

sexuality
suppressed but never bridled
sometimes violent


Misery

breeze carries away
your strangled sobbing again
no one can hear you

trying not to fall
treading carefully this time
but you fall again

warm darkness surrounds
your familiar suffering
you can't take much more


Ecstasy

nothing can compare
everything is how it should
nothing else matters

luminosity
in your innermost spirit
everyone can see

spin out of control
but it will be okay soon
you're only happy


Rage

heat flows freely now
all will be consumed by you
and your living hate

a look is enough
to bring loudly forth his voice
and terrify you


Regret

picture frame face down
you don't want to remember
but you always will

something you did once
long ago and far away
or something undone


Surprise

wrapped in brown paper
opening expectantly
but how could they know?

etched over a face
cold lines of terror unknown
only lasts a tick


Chupacabra

unknown violence
flocks and herds eaten nightly
you do not know why

tall and sinister
fur like a monkey and eyes
like your own neighbor

rescue me

brush away my tears
my melancholy grey
scare away my fears
don't let me fade away

from below, the water calls
voicing just like you
softly now, the darkness falls
steady midnight blue

hold me close tonight
take me from this pier
i would be alright
if only you were here

clinging tightly to the rail
staring down at the deep
one plea echoing
rescue me

Inhuman

When a nuclear power plant melts down, most people won't go in to investigate. I'm not most people.

I'm actually not a person at all, at least, that's what people tell me. I look like them, talk like them, you know, all the things I ought to do. I don't know why they call me inhuman.

I just know that they always send me into places like this, where they think no one will survive. The back of my mind wonders if they're trying to kill me, but that's just the part of my mind that still cares about that sort of thing. The truth is, I love these places. The smell of ozone, the burn of the sun, the knowledge that I could step on something oozing radioactivity and never walk again, it's all I live for anymore. The grass under my feet is green, but it will die in a few hours. I am the last one to see it green for a thousand thousand years.

The helicopter that brought me here is long gone, taking it's furious rotors with it. I've tried to tell them not to use helicopters in these places, and they never listen. I wait patiently for the dust to fall, keeping my feet planted securely on the living ground, shifting my pack around on my body, but never letting any of it touch the ground. I scan around me with and without my binoculars. The ancient Soviet relics have survived ten meltdowns now, not a single scratch on their pristine glass. The body is still painted its original foresty green in places. without them, I judge about half a mile to the plant, and over the smoothest track i can see, I guess about a seven minute walk on a pleasant, sunny day. The back of my mind, the part that still cares, laughs as it glances up to the dismal sky. The binoculars show me that my guess was only off by a matter of fifty meters or so, but they also tell me that my smooth track is already covered in ash. Now that the helicopter is gone, I can see the little flakes of radiation falling around me. Time to move.

Moving is easy, actually. The trick is moving in the right direction. I have to get upwind of the plant, but I also have to avoid losing my legs to the dying ground. I really didn't even have a chance to put away the binoculars this time, and as I ran, the strap flopped against my legs. I practice this stuff all the time, this precise and insane dash. I can't put my feet down aywhere that looks even remotely different than where I just was, but that means half the time, and as I get closer to the plant, most of the time, I'm making two-meter leaps. The back of my mind makes a note to wring the neck of the helicopter pilot as soon as I return. My groundspeed is far above a walk now, and I close the distance between me and the plant in about as much time as I had predicted for a liesurely walk. I have hooked far to the outside of my original intended path, coming up on the complex of buildings from the north.

Finally out of the ashfall, I can pause for a moment to catch my breath. I'm a lot closer to it now, and I can actually feel the heat wafting from the buildings. It's only a degree or two at the moment, but it's enough to make me glad I'm wearing what I am. Moving around the north side, back and forth, I can see which building is my target.

It's funny, they always hand me maps before sending me places. I always tell them I won't be needing them. They never believe me. Last time, they found the maps in my hotel room just after I left for France to recon the accident there, and they were furious. This time the pilot was charged with handing me the map as I got off the helicopter. I told him that if he didn't forget, he'd find bits of map in his stool for weeks. Maps are useless in places like this, useless and redundant. You can see exactly where things are the moment you get to the complex, no matter where it is. They're all the same, really. A front office here, a coolant pipe there, a reactor building here, here, and here, it's actually kind of boring once you've done this a few times.

Now I can put the binoculars away, I realize. Into their green kevlar case they go, and into the lumpy ruck on my back. I click on the Geiger counter strapped to the back of my glove, punch the record feature built into my mono-goggle, and tighten the holster safety on the CZ-75B they gave me.

Yes, they gave me a gun. They tell me it's so I can put the poor plant workers out of their misery when I find them. I've never used it.

That's not to say I've never found living plant workers in these things. I just didn't care.

Now that I'm recording, I figure I better just let them get their money's worth of footage. That's the whole reason i'm here anyway. I'm the first wave of reconnaisance, making the maps for the little robots that will come in after me and clean up. I walk slowly around the sides of the complex that are less dangerous, observing the buildings on the southwest side burning brightly. The reactor building was in the southeast side, and it wasn't visibly burning. It was just sitting there, belching transparent heat and grey ash like a volcano. I could hear nothing from the reactor building, only the crackle of the others. I walked inbetween the outlying buildings, seeing no life at all, not even skeletons. My analytical mind filed that under "Strange Things" and ignored it. They told me that most of the workers had been safely evacuated. The office building on my left was largely intact, and I fought the urge to explore it.

It's actually comforting to know that in a place like this, nothing is going to jump out and try to kill you. Everything here is either dead or dying, and nothing has the strength to force you to join them. You don't even have to worry about diseases in here. Your only enemy is the Invisible One, the particles of destruction slamming into your DNA and RNA patterns at nearly the speed of light. The only real thing you have to fear here is knowing that your next mitosis cycle will not be anything like the last one.

The still-camera pod hanging off to the side on my mono-goggle took a few automatic snapshots in the microwave band, the infrared band, then the ultraviolet band, sending data into the bulky solid state memory on my back. The warm brick of the power supply was alongside it, cooking away.

I have never wished for another job. I only work about every three to five years, I go adventuring with Danger on a leash, I don't have to deal with the idiots that are allowed to breed, and I name my own salary. Ducking around these buildings, I see only ash and emptiness. My body tells me I need to work quicker, adrenaline pulsing into my veins. I welcome the sensation, but control it viciously, spending some memory on a few random snapshots of the ground and laughing to myself. I come to a low warehouse and discover that it has been sunk into the earth. It's probably to store waste or spare fuel or something, and I move on.

Most of the ground is safe so far. The ash has piled up and drifted like blizzard snow, leaving about half the ground area of the complex perfectly safe. A few of the doorknobs show signs of contamination, making me wish i could explore the buildings behind them.

It's time to go into the reactor building. I stare at it for a little bit, wondering if this will be my last time. A creaking beam gives way and more of the west wall caves in. I can hear something inside flowing like water, with the occasional pop of a bubble. The back of my mind is silent now, as though switched off. I no longer have any part of me that even cares if this is my last time, except for the statistic. Nothing pushes me in, not even the people footing my bill.

Nothing holds me out, either. I walk to the main doors of the reactor building, which are still mostly intact, but hanging open. Someone had ripped off one of the crash bars when the building was evacuated. I switched on my heavy-duty air filters and battened down all the various tiny hatches on my suit and walked through the gaping entrance. The lobby was painted in cool greens and pale orange, a potted fake elm lying on it's side, pot in pieces. The front desk had been moved in the commotion. I wondered how it had happened, sizing up the desk to weigh about 250 kilograms. Looking up, the tall glass windows were sagging over me, and that was my cue to keep moving. I hopped over the desk and took more manual snapshots of the security desk, wondering if the information in the photos would help find the cause of the accident.

From this moment on, I would be performing feats of courage and brash stupidity that most humans will never even have the opportunity to chicken out from. Into the building, deep into the intestines of the disaster, I only hoped to come out alive again.

I think the difference between me and most people is that I do not perceive things to sound like other things. The building creaking under me sounds like a building. The fires outside sound like fires consuming office buildings. The heat in here was only radioactive decay, not some monster breathing upon me. I have no fear of things for what they are not. Things that cannot exist in a certain time or place have never frightened me. Even the robot operators spook sometimes and pull their bots from the disaster long before they should, claiming to see ghosts or nonsense like that.

My feet click softly down the tile hallway that heaves slowly under me. The soles of my boots are made of depleted Uranium, lined with lead, shielding my feet and legs from the brunt of the particulate radiation. My dim red headlamp switched on as soon as I walked into the building's natural shadows, casting shadows the color of blood. The heat in here has already crumbled parts of the walls, dust and minute rubble at my feet. It's hotter in here than it has been in any disaster in twenty years. The telemetry from the helicopters that I saw just an hour ago told me that this meltdown was comparable to the meltdown in Ukraine in 1985.

Whip

listen to the sound
shoulder
fire in a perfectly straight line
again and again and again
ribs
curling around and leaving red
back
across the white expanse
cool evening breeze made cold
shoulder
again
cracking softly
like a lover's whisper

Hey

Hey it's me again just like always
When the sun has shed his final rays
And I'm left with just myself
And all my doubts rise up without much stealth
I stare into the darkness
I ponder my new loneliness
But am I really alone
Or is this a clever illusion of home

Hey just wanted to tell you I'm still here
In spite of or maybe because of my fears

Dark like a rose in the night
Cold like the light from a street lamp
Where hope takes sudden flight
And the flood becomes only damp

Hey it's me again did you forget
Or am I just another one in debt
To the screen of anonymity
And you come to me through serendipity
So you wouldn't know why
Or you wouldn't even try
To make any sense of me
Or had the thought not even tried to be

Hey just wanted to tell you I'm still here
In spite of or maybe because of my fears

Dark like a rose in the night
Cold like the street lamp light
Rain falls like shards of glass
Every song just like the last

Hey I'm still here
Hey did you forget
Hey

Reflections on the street
I stop to stare back at myself at my feet
Breeze like a dagger cutting
Hear the gates of heaven shutting
Flicker there now slowly
Chase away my melancholy
Remind me that I am still
More than mist with a troubled will

[Untitled XVII]

Who defines here?
Or is it just a myth?
Or am I just another one
Who's lost inside the labyrinth
Of all that you could fear?
Am I just another catalyst
For all from which you run?
Do you really want to know?

Who defines there?
Or is it just a tale?
Or are you just another man
Whose love for me will pale?
It's nothing but a flare
Nothing but a laggin fail
But love me while you can
'Cause someday I'll be dead

I never meant for this to be
Like walking over broken glass
I've tried to patch me back together
But the sky just keeps on falling down
I'll try to be so you can see
Through the scars and pain at last
I know we're both birds of a feather
But I'm still afraid that someday you will frown

Shadow of Cold Rain

I have nothing left to give
Hollowness like a red abyss
I'll just die the way I live
In the shadow of a cold rain

The curtain of this stage
Is the rain falling like shards of glass
The script is written--just a blank page
I am lost inside this shadow's mass

I am cold

I've been down this road before
You're not the first to want this
Another of a few or more
Here in the shadow of a cold rain

The curtain of this stage
Is the rain falling like shards of glass
The script has been read--just a blank page
I am writhing in this shadow's mass

I am cold

But you can try, I guess
To clean up the mess
Everyone left inside of me
No one else has cared enough
But i wonder if you dare to be
The one to teach me love

The curtain of this stage
Has risen to a new dialogue
A song has filled this empty whit page
I am dancing now out of the fog

I am here

Introspection

So many people trapped in one body
So many faces singing and weeping
Like an awful schizophrenic parody
They're all saying my sanity's not worth keeping

Ten thousand people dancing
In a room too small for me
Ten thousand people laughing
They say this is all there is to be

No longer just me myself and I
Now there's ten thousand people inside of me
All they do is laugh at me
She's such a fool
And in my head without the rules they all run free

Ten thousand people dancing
In a room too small for me
Ten thousand people laughing
They say this is all there is to be
Ten thousand people's eyes
All watching what i do
Ten thousand people's voices
Which one gets through to you?

Is this everything there is?
Of course it is
Can there be any more?
Oh, no! Never!
Was there ever anything for me?
Oh, dear child, you know there never was
Does everyone always laugh at me?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha..............

Ten thousand people dancing
In a room too small for me
Ten thousand people laughing
They know this is all there is to be

muse

i don't really know why i keep writing this same story over and over. i suppose it seems narcissistic, writing the same woman's death over and over from different points of view.

it's not. honestly, it's just an exercise in character creation. each iteration, you see another person, get to know him, understand little bits of his personality and life, until for a moment, you know him.

what i suppose is ironic is that this woman will never know these men. she's just not that kind of girl. sure, she cares about people, suicidal people distance themselves from others. they don't want you to know them or miss them. they just want to disappear and let the world breathe easier without them.

returning to the void.

do you think that would really be so bad?

why is it that every time evil shows up in art, it is represented and foreshadowed and wrapped up in darkness?

who decided that the light was benevolent?

i'm not saying i'm out to change that meme, don't misunderstand. all i am doing is painting realistic pictures in monochrome. shades of gray, representing the universe.

shade.

shade --n. 1. the comparative darkness caused by the interception or screening of rays of light from an object, place, or area. --n. 2. a place or an area of comparative darkness, as one sheltered from the sun. --n. 3. a shadow. shades -- n. 1. a reminder of something: shades of the Inquisition. --n. 2. a secluded or obscure place: He was living in the shades.

kinda funny, i totally screwed up this idea once. i wrote a cycle of poems i called Shade, but each poem was another color, and a commentary on life.

shade, tint, saturation, gamma, f-stop.

ways to represent reality with subtle lies.

isn't that what art is? in all its forms?

"for now we see, but in a crappy, fragmented mirror, obscurely."

Angel II

You know, I never really thought about her until that night. She was just ordinary. Yeah, she was a little dark, maybe a little moody, but nothing really that weird.

I don’t even really remember her walking up the stairs that night. She was always careful to be quiet above my head, I mean, to this day, I don’t even know if she and her boyfriend did it, you know? I guess that’s why the noise caught my attention that night.

I had watched her come home late pretty often, though, so I can guess what it looked like. But I guess it doesn’t matter, you know?

You see, I’ve never had a girlfriend. I’m not gay or anything, but I’m 24 and never had a girlfriend. I just figured I’ll meet her when I meet her.

Now, that doesn’t mean I haven’t had my hopes. She had this quietness around her, just quiet, like she was always listening for something, but she knew somehow she’d never really hear it.

Alright, I admit it, sometimes I would listen to her soft footsteps above me and try to piece together what she was doing.

Even then, she always seemed a little surreal. She seemed untouchable. Maybe that was why she was so attractive. It didn’t even seem like her boyfriend was worthy to look at her. She seemed like she was above everything, looking down, but not proud, just lonely. Like an angel, but neither holy nor fallen, but standing in between, where no one really notices her.

But I guess that doesn’t matter anymore.

You know, she did it very elegantly, like she had planned it all along. I don’t know. Maybe she had. I’d rather not think about it now.

That’s the trouble with ADD, it’s just as easy to forget something or someone as it is difficult to get them out of your head.

This is going to sound crazy, but I actually remember the day I realized I loved her. It was about six months after the night I found her laying there in her apartment. A new girl was moving into the apartment above me, a dark haired beauty who wasn’t nearly as quiet, but wasn’t exactly loud either. I just realized when I saw her that the memory I had of the little quiet redhead who had turned that apartment into her grave, that memory was fading rapidly.

At that moment, I cracked open a very large bottle of whiskey and drowned my brain in it. By four in the afternoon, I had finished the bottle and lay there on the couch with the window fan, the radio, the TV, and my own head running ninety miles a second. God, I missed her.

I know that drinking that much that early is terrible, but really, wouldn’t you? I woke up that night horribly sober and vividly remembering the first time I met her. The complex manager had thrown a Christmas party, and she showed up late and apologetic, but with a bottle of wine I had never heard of. I was a little buzzed, and she seemed a little shy, so I gulped a little and tried to make her feel at home. We joked a little, talked a little, mingled a little. I remember watching her drink, very carefully, like she was afraid of something, but no matter how much she had, no matter what she had, she never ever got drunk, didn’t even seem to buzz. Yeah, she loosened up by the end of the night, but that’s really just her getting used to us.

Funny thing is, to this day, I can’t remember actually paying that much attention to her that night. That party was three years ago now, and from then to the day she died, I don’t think we spoke more than fifteen words to each other.

Maybe this is why I’ve never had a girlfriend. I don’t think there is a woman on this planet patient enough to put up with me.

Well, not anymore.

two nights ago

driving like you're running away
but what did you leave behind?
or could you even say?
is it too much to bear?

streetlights blazing and you don't even see
static from the tires screaming
yes, everything you wanted it to be
but what have you lost?

the flood is over your head now
drowning in your own silence
consuming need pulling you down
now you can't even see the surface


what were you looking for?
did you find it?
would you even know?
do you even care?

this is not mine

Transatlanticism

The Atlantic was born today and I'll tell you how...
The clouds above opened up and let it out.

I was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere
When the water filled every hole.
And thousands upon thousands made an ocean,
Making islands where no island should go.
Oh no.

Those people were overjoyed; they took to their boats.
I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat.
The rhythm of my footsteps crossing flatlands to your door have been silenced forever more.
The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row
It seems farther than ever before
Oh no.

I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer

I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer
I need you so much closer

So come on, come on
So come on, come on
So come on, come on
So come on, come on

Whitby Psychiatric Hospital

“Chair By Window”

Have you ever opened a door and seen someone in the room, alone, gazing off into oblivion, unresponsive and unaware of the universe? Have you ever seen a person so tired or so depressed or so diseased or so deeply lost in thought or even so deeply lost in the absence of thought that they didn’t even twitch when you walked by? We see this all the time in this age, where cell phones gather up all the bits of attention a young teenager has to offer, and they mumble into the phone and no one can pry it off their ear. In this age, when we see someone staring off into space, we are miffed that they are not paying attention to us.

But have you ever opened a door and seen no one in the room, and the room is empty and cold and lifeless, and you can’t bring yourself to walk into the room, lest you desecrate the silence that has nested there? Have you ever seen a chair, empty, a void, waiting for the person who never comes to sit? Have you ever considered the patience that chair would have, watching the paint peeling off the walls, listening to the wind whisper through the broken window, stirring the debris on the floor around it? What would it feel like, to watch the table before you being overturned and smashed and twisted and violated by young, bored brutes? And even so, the chair never moves. It is never touched. It remembers when it was useful, calmly supporting the weight of a young man fighting his own demons, fearing sleep. It remembers when the door was closed that last time, before the window broke. It recalls when its members flexed and relaxed as the furnace rumbled to life now and again.

Now all it knows is cold.
Now all it knows is emptiness.
Now all it knows is loneliness.

And yet, if you look at it, you can still see the young man, sitting there, his eyes glancing furtively here and there. You can still hear the voice of the good doctor, asking gentle questions, soothing him, preparing him for sleep as the sun falls behind the horizon.

When you look at the chair, you understand loneliness. You understand the fingernails dug into your skin were harsh, painful. You understand the fear that you could be thrown across the room by a frightened schizophrenic. You understand what it is to be without those things. You miss the clutching hands. You miss the yelling and the cursing. You miss feeling the tension in the room as a young man recounts his nightmares. What would you give to have it back?

And then the paint peels off the walls and scatters in pieces on the floor. Little flecks of color, a pale blue, flung sprawling across the cold brown tile, children watching the sky. The shattered window lies asunder, it made such a beautiful sound as it fell, shedding splinters and rainbows and singing like wind chimes. The door opened, admitting with a sighing squeak three teenagers with bottles of cheap wine. Now you can read the little knife scratches in the table’s belly.

The room has been destroyed. The walls are a tangled map of Norway’s fjords. The floor desperately calls out for a broom. The table lies surrendered, broken legs in the air, accepting its humiliating posture.

Would you feel guilty, being the only member of your friends left alive after a mass murder? Would you feel guilty, getting by without a scratch, watching all your friends torn and broken as you didn’t even have the will to move, to help? Would you go mad, doomed to stand forever beside those rotting carcasses with no one to confess to but the wind? Even the window curtains reach their vindictive fronds towards the chair, incited by the wind’s mocking voice.

Maybe the chair has asked the door to close, to hide its shame from the rest of the world.

And you take your photograph and you walk away and you are not even aware that the man sitting in the chair was not aware of you. A chair is a chair. A door is a door. A wall will always remain a wall, until it falls and becomes the ground. You leave the door clinging to its hinges and walk away.

now for poetry

BLIND

white wall my room his room whose room is this anyways
does it even matter no no
they say home is where the heart is
and beauty is in the eye of the beholder

i see a white wall no its two
a corner i'm facing by choice
how did i come to this truth
i'm blind

follow back along your scar what do you see
i'm at the end of the road
nothing standing anymore no
or is this just a memory

finding nothing finding something its all the same
love is blind hatred sees
what do you see what do you see
do you see anything at all
are you insane

do i see you
do i see to know
i believe i believe in you
blinded by the light i saw in your eyes
blinded by the corner
white wall
white wall

white wall
white wall

white wall

white...

Chapter 3

He was nervous tonight. He fussed a little with his hair, brushed his teeth again, checked the time. Only another minute had gone by. Now he only had eight minutes left before he could go pick her up.

He thought back over when they first met. His dumb persistance at being close to her had earned him her recognition next time he saw her. He came and watched her T'ai Chi class every time they were out at the park, and it still took him two weeks to work up the nerve to talk to her again. He managed to ask her to dinner then, and they shared a cheap burger and fries at her insistance of not being expensive.

Four months had passed away from them since then. One date became a second, a fouth, a fifteenth, and he grew comfortable with her presence.

Every time he thought of her face, though, Her face would be in the shadow. Sometimes he even felt guilty, like he was betraying Her. Every time he embraced her, he smelled a little of the rain and cigarette and vodka he had smelled on Her that night, remembered her quivering frame in his arms.

Hoss had told him to "move on, for chrissakes," and didn't realize how deeply it stung to remind him that not only did he not know Her, but he couldn't have done anything anyway. He listened to Hoss's tirade about women for the hundredth time and bit his tongue to keep Hoss's girlfriend's name from popping out of his mouth.

He found he couldn't stop thinking about Her, no matter how hard he tried. He just stopped talking about her. He knew it was stupid to hold on so tightly to such a morbit memory, but he couldn't let go and it sat and rotted in his mind. He tried not to show his melancholy, he couldn't afford to be weakened, but as time went on, something in his chest grew colder and colder.

He wasn't afraid, just tired. Every morning, he woke and felt as though he had just run two miles, not breathless, just sore and tense.

Shit, he would be a little late. Damn it, She's creeping in when he's not lonely. He scowled at himself as he breezed out to his car.

He was, in fact, a little bit early. She was ready, strikingly beautiful as always. Dinner went well, a little laughter, a little serious talk, nothing to give a hint that he was thinking of anything but now. There were no hints because there was nothing else in his mind. Being with this lovely dark-haired young woman was like being in the eye of a storm.

After dinner, htey walked out into the cool spring evening. They watched the stars slowly waken, and for the first time since Her death, he was totally content with everything.

She invited him in when he walked her to her door. His first impression was of the cleanliness of the flat. Everything was orderly, neat, like the desk of an accountant. The walls were bare of decorations, but he knew it was only because she wasn't out to impress high society.

"No pictures," he commented lightly.

"You know I think pictures all over the walls is traditional and tacky," she retorted gently. She never said anything harshly, even though she was the most stubborn woman he had ever met. Even his ex-wife was no match.

They sat on the couch, listening to each other talk just barely over some smooth jazz she had playing, watching each other sip a shot of bourbon. She didn't smoke often, just one a day or so, enought to be used to the nicotine, but not enought to be addicted, her willpower was inhuman.

He spent the night. Somewhere inbetween wrestle and rest, she told him a drunken secret.

"I watched you walk her here, that one night. The night she died? Yeah, and I didn't recognize you when we met 'cause of your coat."

He was caught completely off guard.

"Who?" he asked dumbly.

"You don't remember? The chick who used to live here?"

He mumbled something noncommittal.

He took her to breakfast. She was a beautiful sight first thing in the morning, no make-up, uncombed hair falling around her shoulders. She seemed quite satisfied, even a little playful. A corner of his mind laughed as he remembered the hour it had taken her to wake up. He knew now to stay out of her way before her first cup of coffee, and she knew now that he snored a little. Still groggy, she had also mumbled something about him talking in his sleep.

He poked at his eggs and gazed at her face. She wasn't particularly lady-like, , not freakishly uncouth, but blunt and to the point. She ate almost everything with a spoon. He had never even seen Her eat, only slam vodka like it was water.

"You said I talk in my sleep? What do I say?"

"Just babble, really. You have this expression on your face like you're looking for something, and you talk about a book, a hand, and something about a--a shot, gunshot or something like that." She tore off half of her bacon in her teeth and talked around it, "It's not very loud, don't worry about it." She seemed to suddenly realize he hadn't taken his eyes off her since they sat down.

"What?"

He really didn't hear her. Book? Gunshot? He wasn't into reading. He hoped he wasn't dreaming of Her and not remembering. The corner of his mind shrugged, but he was a little worried. His ex had never complained of him talking in his sleep, why now?

A fuzzy image, a memory of his dreams last night, threatened to flicker before his eyes. All he saw was red-blonde hair framing a face too blurry to recognize.

She called his name across the table, and he snapped back to that world around him.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly.

"Are you alright?" she asked with a note of concern. He looked sidelong at her.

"After last night, I don't think I'll ever be alright," he said, hoping to take the heat off.

She laughed playfully and breakfast avoided catastrophe. He paid the tab in cash, an old habit, and walked her to her door.

As he walked back to his car and drove home, it finally hit him that he had been inside Her apartment. The past few months he tried to weed Her oud of his mind, but now She was back.

He pounded the steering wheel, goddammit, what is Her name?! He paused at the red light.

His turn signal clicked mockingly and he turned down toward the police station. He was led around the red tape parade for an hour before he finally stood stubbornly at the desk of a deputy and demanded attention. He showed the poor officer the newspaper clipping, a little tattered, and his driver's license. He gave the deputy the dates of Her death and the night he met her, and the date of the clipping.

"I have to know who she was." It was really all he could say. He felt deeply guilty, like he was betraying his girlfriend somehow, but even after a night of intimacy with a woman he wondered if he loved, She was still there, tearing down his sanity a tiny piece at a time.

"Sir, I can only give you her name. Unless you have evidence against her death being a suicide, then her file is closed to you."

He just about leaped on the poor man. Beating down his desperation, he dragged his wits together and asked ofr Her name.

"I'm not entirely sure why you want it, but alright." He entered a search into his workstation computer and two minotes of forever passed slowly.

"Her name," the deputy announced at last, "was Emily Reylan Stahl. She's the only woman who has ever died at that address."

"Please, can I have her picture?" The words fell out of his mouth before he could stop them. The deputy looked at him suspiciously, hten sighed and turned his monitor for him to see.

There, just like his dreams. It was a driver's license picture, but it still showed Her mismatched, beautiful eyes, Her pale skin and long, lush hair. This picture showed red hair, a trick of the light, but no matter. It was Her, Emily, The Chick Who Used To Live Here.

He stumbled out of the station, barely clutching coherence. Emily, Emily, Emily. Over and over in his mind he said it, saw Her, held Her in his arms again. She sobbed again, such a beautiful, heartaching sound. No, damn it, no, never before has a woman done this to him, not now shall one. He was stronger than this, why the fucking hell is Emily different?!

The corner of his mind screamed over and over again that She was dead, but he could not let Her go.

He barely made it into his apartment before he vomited into the sink. He thought about his dark-haired girlfriend, how she'd slept in his arms, trusting him. He gagged himself with a shaking hand, making sure his stomach had nothing left to reject. He knew he head to forget about Emily. It was a feeling he really didn't recognize, this guilt, but he knew it would eat him alive if he let it.

When he stopped shaking, he ran the disposal and forced himself to do something normal. he settled on reading the newspaper. There was the usual stuff, screwed up politics, local happenings, a murder in the ghetto.

How long had itbeen since he'd read a newspaper?

Chapter 2

He didn't think about her much anymore. The memory of her mismatched eyes was dim and corrupted. He had clipped out the police record and stuck it to his apartment refrigerator, a reminder that he couldn't win every time.

The bar had been dull these last few months, the same night over an over. A night before She came, a quiet night, when the only things that stuck out in his memory were the times he ran out of one or another liquer and had to improvise.

Tonight there was a slut sitting where She had sat, defiling the stool he had come to consider a haven. Even when he wasn't thinking of Her, he was still aware of Her, or rather, of Her absence. He still nursed the wound Her death left on his soul.

As any bartender will do, he studied this whore with a critical eye. At one time, she may have been appealing to him, and maybe if she'd sat in a different place he'd have still thought so. Not tonight, she'd destroyed herself by sitting at Her place. He compared her to his memory of the girl with mismatched eyes--what was Her name?--and lost track of time. This sorry excuse for a woman was augmented, trashy, fake-n-bake, a typical bar rat who likely worked street corners to pay for her needles and chain-smoking. A perfect contrast, he mused, to Her.

He even knew this bitch's name--she wore "Kaylee" in stamped gold on a chain around her neck, tacky and superficial and nestled seductively between disproportionate mounds on her bony chest.

The bouncers cleared the place for closing, and he cleaned up without realizing it. His coat was on, his key was in the lock on the outside when he looked back at Her barstool. For the first time in many months, he watched in his mind's eye as She slid off the cusion, standing smoothly, with grace, but not pride. She stood tall, but in defiance, not strength; he could still see that She was broken. Shrugging Her coat on, more black, more shadows swallowing Her beauty. He whispered to the empty room, repeating the conversation in his mind as he at last locked the door. The way Her lips held the cigarette, the timbre of Her voice, the short, precise statements She gave him, he remembered it all.

He found himself staring up at the apartment building She'd lived in. The early morning was far colder than that morning months ago, but he didn't feel it. He thought he saw her shadowy form walking up the stairs again, but he knew it was only a trick of the absence of light. On a whim, he knocked on the office door, and wasn't surprised at silence. He sighed, his breath crystallizing before his face as he strode back into the cold. Two-thirty? Three? He didn't bother to look at his watch, he just walked back to his Honda and drove to his own apartment in the opposite direction.

He openned his front door and looked into the darkness. He flipped on the lamp on his end table, splashing a sick yellow light over his worn couch. The door behind him latched, his coat fell off its peg, his keys clattered on the counter, the fridge openned, bottles jingled.

The memory of Her eyes flashed before him and his mind grabbed at it, clutched nothing. His fingers took the newspaper clipping off the fridge, folded it lovingly, and slipped it into his wallet. Theres not really much to say, she whispered, and he slammed his hand onto the counter, drowning her out. This was too much, he'd been in a gang when he was a teenager for god's sake. He harbored secrets of drugs, murder, loose women, everything, why the hell was he concerned with a girl he'd never seen before or since one night in his distant memory? She didn't even resemble anyone he'd ever known, and She was dead.

Was She dead?

He realized he couldn't call up any memories of Her appearance, other than Her eyes. Another piece of him was gone, maybe the victim of the crystal he'd tried when he was sixteen. He'd never really been the same after that line, he knew that, he tried to shrug it off.

She persisted. He openned a dark beer and draughted long, all but pouring fire down his numb throat. Again and again until the room spun, but he didn't pay attention. He'd had nothing to do with Her death, but Her eyes with no name skated over his anundance of painful memories, the death he'd witnessed, the wasting away of flesh from drug use, he tried to shut out Her ghost, but everything else, even the spinning room, paled as he fell asleep drunk, all but weeping for lack of Her name.

He woke to a sunbeam slicing an axe though his skull. His hangover could have slaughtered enough cattle to feed Zimbabwe for a month, but he dragged himself to his feet. Foggy memories of the stupor he'd drunk his way into clogged his head. He had dreamed a little towards waking, for the first time in months. He should have been annoyed that She had been his dream. A few memories of her face came back, blue and grey set into ivory, fine cheekbones, a mane of gold tamed into a bun low on the back of her head. He prefferred brown hair and matching eyes, , but he'd always been aware She was pretty. No, he shook his head, wincing at the daggers racing over his skull, She was--no, had been beautiful. Like an angel, maybe an angel of death, or a ghost, or a tiger, purring, she was as alluring as she seemed dangerous.

The clock told him it was already mid-afternoon. He had only a few hours before he had to be back at work, but he had no desire to face the bar and the people again. He picked up the phone, biting back coarse words to describe his hangover.

Two hours, three Advil tablets, and one last beer later, he walked out into the frigid evening. He walked merely to keep from freezing, wandering out to a park near Nineteenth Street. A small T'ai Chi class was in session facing the frozen pond, led by a younger woman with European features and Asian hair and grace. He brushed the powdery snow off a bench and sat to watch.

The class was obviously advanced, flowing through the movements like music. Each of them had their own distinctive style, their personalities showing through. The taller of the two men flexed every muscle in his body as he moved, like a couple of the women, trying to tone themselves smooth. The shorter man was built like a block; he didn't have to prove his power, he tried to find his grace. Most of them just tried to keep up with the young leader.

The leader was something else, he mused. At first glance, he'd have thought her lazy, slow, and disinterested, but watching the rest of the class told him of her inhuman grace and strength. Her boredom made her movements all the more impressive.

Nothing in her demeanor was sensual, not even proud. Step, turn, bend, twist, step, back, spin, step, wave, lunge, step, all as though she were asleep. It reminded him of a whore he'd fucked, many years ago, bored routine, disconnected, as empty as beautiful.

Before he realized he'd been paying attention, the class dissolved, bowing respectfully to the young woman, thanking her for her time. She acknowledged engagingly, but with finality. When they left, he watched her just sit, facing the sunlight, soaking its feeble warmth into her body. He considered talking to her, asking what she'd be doing that night, asking her to teach him T'ai Chi, asking her anything so that he could drag himself out of his melancholy shell.

He sat there and watched her.

She shiverred, a tiny tremor down her spine and around her ribs.

At last he stood and approached her. Every step added to his nerves, but he continued. Her eyes were closed, her breathing slow and deep, he feared reproach if he disturbed her, but she shiverred again and looked so very cold. Well, she didn't look warm, at least. He shrugged off his coat and very gently draped it over her shoulders. It looked like he'd buried her in a pile of leaves.

"Thank you." Her voice surprised him, soft and strong and familiar but so beautifully alien. He collected his wits.

"You're welcome. I hope I'm not disturbing..."

"No. I was only listening." Listening? To what?

"To the silence," she said. "And then to you." He didn't really know how to continue from there. He hadn't meant to ask that out loud. She drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped his coat around herself.

He sat next to her and watched her eyes open, her dark lashes parting to reveal blue eyes. A common blue, not ice or navy, but out of place under dark, dark bangs. She gazed at the dying sun as it bled over the horizon's clouds.

"You really shouldn't be out here after dark. You're not dressed for it," he said, desperately trying to break the ice.

She glanced at him a moment, a fraction of a second and her eyes stabbed him, gnawed on him, tore meat from bone and found his quiverring, naked soul under all his cool. She looked at the ground in front of his knees, quietly assimilating her instant of knowledge. He stared dumbly, knowing with a boulder in his belly that in that fraction of a second, everything he tried to seem was dead, she knew him.

"No, I'm not," she agreed. Nothing had happened. She stood up smoothly, with the grace of a dancer and none of the care or pride. He scrambled to his feet and walked with her as she strode out to the small parking lot. She took the sidewalk down the avenue and he asked where she lived.

"Not far."

Not particularly talkative, was she? Maybe she knew he was trying to hit. The cold struck him as he wondered if she had a boyfriend.

She turned onto Fifteenth Street and his breath caught. Then she turned into the apartments he'd visited so many times since Her death. Is that why this girl's voice was to familiar? Is this Her?

"You live here?" he asked, worrying that his heart would break, being here int he vestiges of daylight. He reflezively looked up the stairs that She'd walked up months ago. He struggled to stay cool when the dark-haired girl walked toward them and stood before their door.

She paused, a moment of awkward uncertinty. He totally missed it, still astonished that anyone else as beautiful as She had been could live anywhere close to here. In a corner of his mind, he laughed at himself for romanticizing.

"Thank you," she said, giving his coat back. She seemed to soften a little as she saw he wasn't just following her to assault her. He knew she saw his wonder at something, but he was sure she didn't know his thoughts.

He took his coat and looked at the dark haired girl before him, searching for some sign of Her, something that would put his stupid obsession to rest. She turned to go up the stairs.

"Wait," he started. She looked at him over her shoulder. Great, now he had to say something else. The words tumbled out of his mouth. He asked for her name. She laughed a little. She told him her name, rolling the "r" and whispering the "h."

She asked for his name.

He told her. He listened to her voice say the proper things about the pleasure of meeting you and she'd see him around. He mumbled what he hoped was something not rude and she went up the stairs and he walked the long sidewalk back to his apartment in the late twilight.

Now he had a name, over and over in his mind he had a name. Maybe not the right name, but a name at least. Someday, he promised himself through his cynical scorn of himself, someday he would know who She had been. Someday he would know why he couldn't get Her out of his head.

Someday he would know why She had to die.