"Meditations."
Condensing them into one entry.
Not particularly in chronological order. Technically "In Vino Veritas" should be last, but uhm... whatever.
So, here you go: three one-shots based around characters from The Invisible. And then I'm done :P These characters are too easy to write with.
Meditation One: Pretty Boy
The passion of revenge.
Annie Newton.
"And as I look down on them
I repeat these words in my head:
'They never heard one sound out of my mouth
They never heard one sound.'"
--Armor for Sleep
There is The Moment and there is The Action:
The Moment is planned, meticulously planned, the product of many hours with her back against the crumbling apartment wall, her little brother playing at her feet; one thinking of bright toys, imagined worlds, the other thinking of dark plans, cruel reality. The Moment is the product of sitting in her boyfriend's arms, talking of this street, this car, this time. The Moment is executed in flawless detail, without anger, without pleasure, with only the calm resolution of unfettered professionalism.
The Action is a gut instinct, a random act, the weight of a crowbar in her hand and the siren cry of a shattering window. It is pleasure and it is spontaniaety, it is the rush of physical contact, of diamonds cold and heavy within her hand. The Action is without equal. The Action is without sanity.
Here is The Moment: she sits in a car with their informant sniffing behind her. She knows his face is wet, what a man he is. "Make them stop," he moans. She says nothing, for this is the moment, this is the plan. It was formulated in the hard embrace of a police station chair, as the hate grew - not for herself for breaking that window, stealing those beautiful diamonds that begged for liberation, but for whatever coward had watched her as cowards do, squealed to the police as cowards do. A court date: that was her punishment. A cold night and a sound beating: that was the coward's punishment.
The Moment: just one punch across the face and the sniveling boy was already crying names, and of course it was the pretty boy that turned her in. Who else? Such ferocious words for such a pretty boy, but when it came to actions he was just one more weak bastard.
The Moment: a dark road and them behind the veil of night, soft tires on hard road. Him ignorant, half-drunk, waving them on as if they were confused elderly drivers and not the executors of The Moment, The Plan... And then the glare of headlights pierces him, panic pierces him. He sprints forward, a frightened rabbit, and then the car door meets his back; a fall and the cold bite of a forest creek. The jackals descend with harsh yips of laughter and ruthless fists.
This is The Moment. She thinks with a smirk that perhaps Pretty Boy will be able to walk normally by the time she gets out of jail. Perhaps not.
At once the wet sobs of the coward are too much. With a grunt of disgust she escapes. The door slams behind her and the cool of that Washington air greets her, the scent of pine and sea and sweat and blood. Fog crafted by her own breath; gravel's crunch crafted by her own feet; this scene crafted by her own damned luck.
The car door slams and the coward is at her back, sniffling.
The headlights glower behind her as she stands with the thrill of cold air and cold breath and a victim at her feet. In a few days her life will be stolen; jail, that's all that awaits her. In a few days this pretty boy's stupid actions will ruin her for weeks, months, years and what of Victor? One moment of glee and one broken window, the furtive touch of frivolous diamonds against her skin, the weight of it, then it was gone. She will go to jail and her little brother will suffer even more than she--
All because of Pretty Boy.
"I thought you were gone," the coward is sobbing at her side. "You weren't supposed to be here, Nick--"
"He can't hear you," her lackey snaps with a jackal's laugh.
The pretty boy groans on the ground, another idiot startled to receive retribution, startled to find that there's a world beyond designer clothing and expensive liquor. But it's alright, she thinks. We are not so cruel. You'll live. You'll live and you'll never step up to me again, you'll never whisper your stupid little words in my ear. "You are broken"? What sort of haughty shit is that? You tried to help your stupid, cowardly, traitorous friend and look where it got you.
Her boys fall upon him like dogs upon garbage, drooling for the next blow, the next scream. It is their drug, it is their fix, until she raises her voice to stop.
We are waking you up, Nick Powell, she thinks, willing her words upon the boy before her. We are teaching you a valuable lesson: Why Heroes Don't Exist.
The Moment is fading into the air with each breath, each gasp. The lesson is nearly complete. Only the final thought, the final moral remains.
She steps forward and at once the loyal dogs fall aside.
She wraps a hand in a collar slick with creek water, sweat, blood. Pretty Boy eyes unfocused, Pretty Boy face in a pool of pain and incomprehension.
"Who's broken now?" she whispers, the faintest smirk upon her lips, the faintest satisfied laugh in the depths of her chest.
His lips part but there is no noise; his eyes focus upon her, pain fading into that same Pretty Boy self-assurance. His voice is rough and faint and stupid and arrogant. "...Still you."
It is no longer The Moment.
As the diamonds beckoned her so do his Pretty Boy words beckon her now, but this time she will not shatter glass, she will shatter that damned Pretty Boy face.
The Action: the swift inhalation of breath and the sting of her knuckles, but it felt good, clammy skin against her hand and the crack of jaw against bone. With the blow her rage triples, and her grip tightens until the sweater begins to rip beneath her grip, another punch and another, and then she is heaving him upward and the heavy thunk of his body against the rocks and then he is silent, very silent.
In the silence she breathes. In the silence she exults. This is The Action, this is The Catharsis: all the rich fools, all the stupid heroes, all the sniveling cowards, all embodied in this ignorant pretty boy.
"What'd you do that for?"
"He's not breathing--"
And that is The Action: always so quick, always that swift breath of pleasure for the act and just the act, and then the aftermath descends. Then The Action fades. Then she is left standing with blood on her hands and excitement fading with a stupid, stupid Pretty Boy's stupid, stupid dying breath.
Finis
Meditation Two: In Vino Veritas
The costs of a broken friendship.
Pete.
"I'm better now
Get up, get up now
Not behind the eyes
Get up, get up now..."
--A Wilhelm Scream
If only I was more.
The bed is beneath me and the bottle is losing its heat into cold sweat, its heat of venomous daze, blissful poison. I feel it wash down my throat, past lungs short of breath, past a heart short of compassion.
The suit is stiff, pressed against my shoulders, my neck. My fingers itch to rip at the wilted red tie, but will it accomplish anything? I’m drowning anyway.
(Pete, stop it--)
Haunting me even now... How long is this supposed to take?
The bottle clinks on the bedside table and I am staring at the ceiling, seeing and watching and feeling the world dissolve around me. Thinking little-to-nothing: when did I get here? How did I ever get here?
Hands folded demurely over my chest, growing more enervated by the minute.
Feet miles away.
The world miles away.
I stare at the ceiling and think of where it all went wrong.
Sitting in the back of that car, the musty smell of sickly sweat and other, darker things, things I don’t want to know, don’t want to understand; the dark street is illuminated by a single burst of streetlamp vigor and there he is, walking with his arms spread wide, thinking what? What are you thinking, Nick? Why are you here?
I stumbled into the party and found that asinine bitch, his airheaded girlfriend, and she smiled irritably and said, “I dunno, Pete, he left a few minutes ago-“ Her eyes lingering on my bruised, pale face.
My heart plummeted. Where? When? Why?
You weren’t supposed to be here.
I wanted to run, I wanted so desperately to run, but out the gate those bastards’ hands were on me, gripping my wrist, and what was I supposed to do?
We turn the corner and there you are: you idiot, you absolute idiot.
You wave us on as if we are just some drunken drivers. We, the beasts within the beast, lurch forward. You glance back, and I can only think of our last conversation: “Don’t look back.” I was happy for you then, even if you were leaving me. I was happy and then I killed you.
Why’d you look back?
Sitting in the back of that car and a helpless tear on my face. The bitch observes me with disgust but how can she understand? Only another day for her, but when would they stop? Not until-
He rolls on the ground and he tries to get up but he can’t. This was my friend, this was my best friend, why oh why oh why did I- why the fuck couldn’t I…!?
But I only stand back and of course you had to be strong, Nick, of course you had to piss her off, of course, and then she threw you and then you were dead.
You were dead.
We carried you through the forest and you were dead.
Lying at the bottom of that hole, ever the martyr, ever the perfect one, you were never afraid, were you? Not even then. I screamed for you but you did not even scream for yourself.
How could you be there? How could you let that happen? How could you make me watch you fall, how could you let me hear it all, the snap of bone and that horrific sound of body striking rock, and how could you let me see that nothingness upon your face? How could you let me kill you?
(Pete, what’re you doing?)
You would’ve said that, wouldn’t you? I can almost hear your voice, it’s what you would’ve said, if you had seen me standing there. If you had known the things I’ve done, Nick, if you had known…
It was me, me who made that deal with her, me who couldn’t pay because I never could pay, not for my words or my acts or my possessions. I couldn’t pay for that piece of shit cell phone (I broke it, I snapped it to pieces with my bare hands, but didn’t resolve a damn thing) and you tried; I couldn’t pay for the blame that bitch threw on me and you paid; I couldn’t pay for standing aside while you died you fucking died and you went abandoned, rotting, dead and dying, I couldn’t even give you a proper damn burial because I was too much of a coward to lead them to you. Even when you were dead I couldn’t pay.
I dug this grave for myself and then you stole it from me.
I sit here and even as the world goes blank I feel your dead weight in my hands. You were my friend, worthless projects and worthless parties and worthless summers, you were my fucking friend, and you died for me without even knowing it. You were lying on the ground and I cried out for you and they only laughed and said, “He can’t hear you,” and of course you couldn’t, why would you want to hear a coward like me? I was happy, happy that you couldn’t hear me. Because you died for me, and you shouldn’t’ve, you shouldn’t’ve been there, you shouldn’t’ve been dead, Nick, you shouldn’t’ve been killed over something so stupid.
If only-if only I could reverse it all, if only I could remove those sounds from my head, if only I could un-see you on that street and rescue you from my own damned luck, from that heartless bitch, from my endless mistakes.
If only I could take it back from you. I’m terrified now, I’m losing it, and I think you’d be disappointed in me even now, lying here dying for no better reason than guilt, you dying for no better reason than my petty lies.
I’m scared, Nick.
I’m always scared.
If only…
If only I was more.
Finis
Meditation Three: Fallen
Disorientation of the invisible.
Nick Powell.
“Fallen.
Broken.
Simply dissolved into an incomplete thought:
An empty shell, cracked and disfigured.
With no remorse I have been blinded by the darkness.
With no disdain I have received my punishment:
And with no haste I await them.”
--Ra
The boy stands in a creek.
The water flows over the tops of his sneakers, sinking through to nip deep into his skin, frigid winter cold. He observes the world around him - an embankment, a sign crushed into the dirt, tire tracks fresh in the soil. Morning light filters past to reflect off a car door mirror, abandoned like a lost limb.
His breath mists before his eyes.
He reasons with himself: I must’ve passed out. But there is no dirt on his clothes. He has no headache, no evidence of hangover, only a dry mouth and a faint tremble in his hands, paired with disturbing calm.
The boy walks: past houses cloaked in morning fog, past early morning and into the day, and then he is through the familiar doors of his school and his poetry class prattles around him.
The boy thinks there is something he has forgotten, beyond his books, which he had left at home, having no inclination to stare at another plate of runny eggs while his mother berated him over his failed escape attempt. All while he would think the same things: I am here, Mother, aren’t you happy? You won. You won.
No, he just walked to school, in a daze, and the teacher is talking and he is only half-listening.
They ignore him and he grows enraged, hopelessly enraged, because he has forgotten something and what was it? Something important? This is no time for jokes-
And then the world reverses on him.
He waved his hands before their faces and they didn’t so much as move. His girlfriend insulted him without remorse. The book left his hand, he felt it, it felt good, one great ‘Look at me, you bastards-‘ Its collision with the shelf was like rifle fire, leaving deathly silence in its wake.
…And the class chatted on.
And the shelf hadn’t moved.
He had seen it move.
The boy looks to the desk and the book is still there, demure, unchanged. The boy looks to the shelf and it is still there, untouched. The class talks on as if nothing has happened, for nothing has happened; how has nothing happened? How…
I woke up this morning where? Why?
The boy is standing on the street. People brush past him but walk on as though nothing has happened. Cars roll past as though nothing has happened. Time flies past as though nothing has happened.
And the boy is thinking only one thing: I… am… not… here.
Each reaction reversed, he felt the car strike him and he felt it not strike him, he saw its windshield shatter and he saw it drive on unaffected, and he stood with and without injury, and he is so lost and he is so alone even as the world brushes past.
What has he forgotten?
What has he undone?
A man, a kid really, his age, brushes past with girlfriend in tow, bending his shoulder to accommodate the boy as if another pedestrian and not empty air, not nonexistence.
The man turns and smiles and the girlfriend smiles back; a smile in the dark is what the boy sees, a smile in the dark and a few calm words: “Who’s broken now?”
“Still you.”
And he is there; the car mirror is breaking, the sign is slamming to the ground, but there is a car, its headlights that of a beast, and he was running but he didn’t make it and then he was in the creek and they were all around and there should’ve been pain but he was too stunned to feel-
He is staring at the night sky but it is so very far away. And then the metal manhole grinds into place and it is so very dark. So very, very dark.
Still you…
Nick remembers, Nick screams, on the sidewalk, in the city; Nick remembers and Nick screams and not a soul hears.
Finis
Not particularly in chronological order. Technically "In Vino Veritas" should be last, but uhm... whatever.
So, here you go: three one-shots based around characters from The Invisible. And then I'm done :P These characters are too easy to write with.
Meditation One: Pretty Boy
The passion of revenge.
Annie Newton.
"And as I look down on them
I repeat these words in my head:
'They never heard one sound out of my mouth
They never heard one sound.'"
--Armor for Sleep
There is The Moment and there is The Action:
The Moment is planned, meticulously planned, the product of many hours with her back against the crumbling apartment wall, her little brother playing at her feet; one thinking of bright toys, imagined worlds, the other thinking of dark plans, cruel reality. The Moment is the product of sitting in her boyfriend's arms, talking of this street, this car, this time. The Moment is executed in flawless detail, without anger, without pleasure, with only the calm resolution of unfettered professionalism.
The Action is a gut instinct, a random act, the weight of a crowbar in her hand and the siren cry of a shattering window. It is pleasure and it is spontaniaety, it is the rush of physical contact, of diamonds cold and heavy within her hand. The Action is without equal. The Action is without sanity.
Here is The Moment: she sits in a car with their informant sniffing behind her. She knows his face is wet, what a man he is. "Make them stop," he moans. She says nothing, for this is the moment, this is the plan. It was formulated in the hard embrace of a police station chair, as the hate grew - not for herself for breaking that window, stealing those beautiful diamonds that begged for liberation, but for whatever coward had watched her as cowards do, squealed to the police as cowards do. A court date: that was her punishment. A cold night and a sound beating: that was the coward's punishment.
The Moment: just one punch across the face and the sniveling boy was already crying names, and of course it was the pretty boy that turned her in. Who else? Such ferocious words for such a pretty boy, but when it came to actions he was just one more weak bastard.
The Moment: a dark road and them behind the veil of night, soft tires on hard road. Him ignorant, half-drunk, waving them on as if they were confused elderly drivers and not the executors of The Moment, The Plan... And then the glare of headlights pierces him, panic pierces him. He sprints forward, a frightened rabbit, and then the car door meets his back; a fall and the cold bite of a forest creek. The jackals descend with harsh yips of laughter and ruthless fists.
This is The Moment. She thinks with a smirk that perhaps Pretty Boy will be able to walk normally by the time she gets out of jail. Perhaps not.
At once the wet sobs of the coward are too much. With a grunt of disgust she escapes. The door slams behind her and the cool of that Washington air greets her, the scent of pine and sea and sweat and blood. Fog crafted by her own breath; gravel's crunch crafted by her own feet; this scene crafted by her own damned luck.
The car door slams and the coward is at her back, sniffling.
The headlights glower behind her as she stands with the thrill of cold air and cold breath and a victim at her feet. In a few days her life will be stolen; jail, that's all that awaits her. In a few days this pretty boy's stupid actions will ruin her for weeks, months, years and what of Victor? One moment of glee and one broken window, the furtive touch of frivolous diamonds against her skin, the weight of it, then it was gone. She will go to jail and her little brother will suffer even more than she--
All because of Pretty Boy.
"I thought you were gone," the coward is sobbing at her side. "You weren't supposed to be here, Nick--"
"He can't hear you," her lackey snaps with a jackal's laugh.
The pretty boy groans on the ground, another idiot startled to receive retribution, startled to find that there's a world beyond designer clothing and expensive liquor. But it's alright, she thinks. We are not so cruel. You'll live. You'll live and you'll never step up to me again, you'll never whisper your stupid little words in my ear. "You are broken"? What sort of haughty shit is that? You tried to help your stupid, cowardly, traitorous friend and look where it got you.
Her boys fall upon him like dogs upon garbage, drooling for the next blow, the next scream. It is their drug, it is their fix, until she raises her voice to stop.
We are waking you up, Nick Powell, she thinks, willing her words upon the boy before her. We are teaching you a valuable lesson: Why Heroes Don't Exist.
The Moment is fading into the air with each breath, each gasp. The lesson is nearly complete. Only the final thought, the final moral remains.
She steps forward and at once the loyal dogs fall aside.
She wraps a hand in a collar slick with creek water, sweat, blood. Pretty Boy eyes unfocused, Pretty Boy face in a pool of pain and incomprehension.
"Who's broken now?" she whispers, the faintest smirk upon her lips, the faintest satisfied laugh in the depths of her chest.
His lips part but there is no noise; his eyes focus upon her, pain fading into that same Pretty Boy self-assurance. His voice is rough and faint and stupid and arrogant. "...Still you."
It is no longer The Moment.
As the diamonds beckoned her so do his Pretty Boy words beckon her now, but this time she will not shatter glass, she will shatter that damned Pretty Boy face.
The Action: the swift inhalation of breath and the sting of her knuckles, but it felt good, clammy skin against her hand and the crack of jaw against bone. With the blow her rage triples, and her grip tightens until the sweater begins to rip beneath her grip, another punch and another, and then she is heaving him upward and the heavy thunk of his body against the rocks and then he is silent, very silent.
In the silence she breathes. In the silence she exults. This is The Action, this is The Catharsis: all the rich fools, all the stupid heroes, all the sniveling cowards, all embodied in this ignorant pretty boy.
"What'd you do that for?"
"He's not breathing--"
And that is The Action: always so quick, always that swift breath of pleasure for the act and just the act, and then the aftermath descends. Then The Action fades. Then she is left standing with blood on her hands and excitement fading with a stupid, stupid Pretty Boy's stupid, stupid dying breath.
Finis
Meditation Two: In Vino Veritas
The costs of a broken friendship.
Pete.
"I'm better now
Get up, get up now
Not behind the eyes
Get up, get up now..."
--A Wilhelm Scream
If only I was more.
The bed is beneath me and the bottle is losing its heat into cold sweat, its heat of venomous daze, blissful poison. I feel it wash down my throat, past lungs short of breath, past a heart short of compassion.
The suit is stiff, pressed against my shoulders, my neck. My fingers itch to rip at the wilted red tie, but will it accomplish anything? I’m drowning anyway.
(Pete, stop it--)
Haunting me even now... How long is this supposed to take?
The bottle clinks on the bedside table and I am staring at the ceiling, seeing and watching and feeling the world dissolve around me. Thinking little-to-nothing: when did I get here? How did I ever get here?
Hands folded demurely over my chest, growing more enervated by the minute.
Feet miles away.
The world miles away.
I stare at the ceiling and think of where it all went wrong.
Sitting in the back of that car, the musty smell of sickly sweat and other, darker things, things I don’t want to know, don’t want to understand; the dark street is illuminated by a single burst of streetlamp vigor and there he is, walking with his arms spread wide, thinking what? What are you thinking, Nick? Why are you here?
I stumbled into the party and found that asinine bitch, his airheaded girlfriend, and she smiled irritably and said, “I dunno, Pete, he left a few minutes ago-“ Her eyes lingering on my bruised, pale face.
My heart plummeted. Where? When? Why?
You weren’t supposed to be here.
I wanted to run, I wanted so desperately to run, but out the gate those bastards’ hands were on me, gripping my wrist, and what was I supposed to do?
We turn the corner and there you are: you idiot, you absolute idiot.
You wave us on as if we are just some drunken drivers. We, the beasts within the beast, lurch forward. You glance back, and I can only think of our last conversation: “Don’t look back.” I was happy for you then, even if you were leaving me. I was happy and then I killed you.
Why’d you look back?
Sitting in the back of that car and a helpless tear on my face. The bitch observes me with disgust but how can she understand? Only another day for her, but when would they stop? Not until-
He rolls on the ground and he tries to get up but he can’t. This was my friend, this was my best friend, why oh why oh why did I- why the fuck couldn’t I…!?
But I only stand back and of course you had to be strong, Nick, of course you had to piss her off, of course, and then she threw you and then you were dead.
You were dead.
We carried you through the forest and you were dead.
Lying at the bottom of that hole, ever the martyr, ever the perfect one, you were never afraid, were you? Not even then. I screamed for you but you did not even scream for yourself.
How could you be there? How could you let that happen? How could you make me watch you fall, how could you let me hear it all, the snap of bone and that horrific sound of body striking rock, and how could you let me see that nothingness upon your face? How could you let me kill you?
(Pete, what’re you doing?)
You would’ve said that, wouldn’t you? I can almost hear your voice, it’s what you would’ve said, if you had seen me standing there. If you had known the things I’ve done, Nick, if you had known…
It was me, me who made that deal with her, me who couldn’t pay because I never could pay, not for my words or my acts or my possessions. I couldn’t pay for that piece of shit cell phone (I broke it, I snapped it to pieces with my bare hands, but didn’t resolve a damn thing) and you tried; I couldn’t pay for the blame that bitch threw on me and you paid; I couldn’t pay for standing aside while you died you fucking died and you went abandoned, rotting, dead and dying, I couldn’t even give you a proper damn burial because I was too much of a coward to lead them to you. Even when you were dead I couldn’t pay.
I dug this grave for myself and then you stole it from me.
I sit here and even as the world goes blank I feel your dead weight in my hands. You were my friend, worthless projects and worthless parties and worthless summers, you were my fucking friend, and you died for me without even knowing it. You were lying on the ground and I cried out for you and they only laughed and said, “He can’t hear you,” and of course you couldn’t, why would you want to hear a coward like me? I was happy, happy that you couldn’t hear me. Because you died for me, and you shouldn’t’ve, you shouldn’t’ve been there, you shouldn’t’ve been dead, Nick, you shouldn’t’ve been killed over something so stupid.
If only-if only I could reverse it all, if only I could remove those sounds from my head, if only I could un-see you on that street and rescue you from my own damned luck, from that heartless bitch, from my endless mistakes.
If only I could take it back from you. I’m terrified now, I’m losing it, and I think you’d be disappointed in me even now, lying here dying for no better reason than guilt, you dying for no better reason than my petty lies.
I’m scared, Nick.
I’m always scared.
If only…
If only I was more.
Finis
Meditation Three: Fallen
Disorientation of the invisible.
Nick Powell.
“Fallen.
Broken.
Simply dissolved into an incomplete thought:
An empty shell, cracked and disfigured.
With no remorse I have been blinded by the darkness.
With no disdain I have received my punishment:
And with no haste I await them.”
--Ra
The boy stands in a creek.
The water flows over the tops of his sneakers, sinking through to nip deep into his skin, frigid winter cold. He observes the world around him - an embankment, a sign crushed into the dirt, tire tracks fresh in the soil. Morning light filters past to reflect off a car door mirror, abandoned like a lost limb.
His breath mists before his eyes.
He reasons with himself: I must’ve passed out. But there is no dirt on his clothes. He has no headache, no evidence of hangover, only a dry mouth and a faint tremble in his hands, paired with disturbing calm.
The boy walks: past houses cloaked in morning fog, past early morning and into the day, and then he is through the familiar doors of his school and his poetry class prattles around him.
The boy thinks there is something he has forgotten, beyond his books, which he had left at home, having no inclination to stare at another plate of runny eggs while his mother berated him over his failed escape attempt. All while he would think the same things: I am here, Mother, aren’t you happy? You won. You won.
No, he just walked to school, in a daze, and the teacher is talking and he is only half-listening.
They ignore him and he grows enraged, hopelessly enraged, because he has forgotten something and what was it? Something important? This is no time for jokes-
And then the world reverses on him.
He waved his hands before their faces and they didn’t so much as move. His girlfriend insulted him without remorse. The book left his hand, he felt it, it felt good, one great ‘Look at me, you bastards-‘ Its collision with the shelf was like rifle fire, leaving deathly silence in its wake.
…And the class chatted on.
And the shelf hadn’t moved.
He had seen it move.
The boy looks to the desk and the book is still there, demure, unchanged. The boy looks to the shelf and it is still there, untouched. The class talks on as if nothing has happened, for nothing has happened; how has nothing happened? How…
I woke up this morning where? Why?
The boy is standing on the street. People brush past him but walk on as though nothing has happened. Cars roll past as though nothing has happened. Time flies past as though nothing has happened.
And the boy is thinking only one thing: I… am… not… here.
Each reaction reversed, he felt the car strike him and he felt it not strike him, he saw its windshield shatter and he saw it drive on unaffected, and he stood with and without injury, and he is so lost and he is so alone even as the world brushes past.
What has he forgotten?
What has he undone?
A man, a kid really, his age, brushes past with girlfriend in tow, bending his shoulder to accommodate the boy as if another pedestrian and not empty air, not nonexistence.
The man turns and smiles and the girlfriend smiles back; a smile in the dark is what the boy sees, a smile in the dark and a few calm words: “Who’s broken now?”
“Still you.”
And he is there; the car mirror is breaking, the sign is slamming to the ground, but there is a car, its headlights that of a beast, and he was running but he didn’t make it and then he was in the creek and they were all around and there should’ve been pain but he was too stunned to feel-
He is staring at the night sky but it is so very far away. And then the metal manhole grinds into place and it is so very dark. So very, very dark.
Still you…
Nick remembers, Nick screams, on the sidewalk, in the city; Nick remembers and Nick screams and not a soul hears.
Finis