Segment 16

         -guidence we need some sort of direction we’re floundering out here we don’t know where he’s going
         No. You don’t have to. But I know exactly where I have to be.
         dammit he’s slipped he’s gone, he’s gone he’s gone he’s gone
         A push, and the air breathes summer. Loosely, I go in and fall into another day.

         I’ll remember the taste of this day, the sour residue of something being severed combined with the sweet pretext of promise, that a grand plan was about to be enacted. It lingers still, even in those moments when I think it’s gone. There’s flavors to your life, to everything and when the senses are attuned you don’t need a calendar. You don’t even need a watch. There’s no stages to my life, but I know each phase. I know what loss can taste like, in a thousand different permutations. But that doesn’t make me special. I just know how to put a name to it, even if I can’t find the letters to make it real. I want you to know, that I grasped for something that just wasn’t there. That doesn’t make it wrong, or the failure any less right.
         I’ve got shame sewn into my mouth. One day I’ll tell you about it perhaps, when you can’t remember and I need to get rid of the memory and pass it on.
         I descend and see the sidewalk first. There’s no direction anymore but I know everything about this, from the slant of the stunted shadows to the way the air sizzles in a search for some kind of release. I could be trapped in my own memory, so vivid is the day. But I’m not. I’m here in time and the angles are all wrong. I’ve fallen and I’ve landed on the ceiling. On my back. Oh, there’s my stairs. My house. The windows are all dark now, the curtains wide open but there’s no light inside. It’s all gone. All personality is stripped from it, if anyone ever lived here the only way you could know would be from rumor and anecdote, the faulty recollections who would be hard pressed to tell you what my hair color was, two hours after they last saw me. But I don’t blame them. They don’t realize how sharp it is, to let the memories go. We’ve become numb and all the cuts will bleed us dry and we just won’t care. Holding on is worse, if you don’t handle them gently then all you’ve got is pain. But what choice is there, in the end? I don’t know. I’m on my knees, in this ghostplace. My body, I’m just so tired. It’s not even here and I’m just so sick of it.
         I’m in front of my house. I’m watching myself in front of my house. I’m pacing there, I think I was standing on the front steps and watching the door. I was, I remember. I came out then and stood in front of the place for a while, trying to memorize every detail, knowing that it wouldn’t be the same the next time I saw it. They painted it, the bastards, in some goddamn awful ugly color. I never would have done that, had I stayed. But I didn’t and it was theirs to mess up as they wished. When do the houses change, you go a hundred years back and it’s all different, more trees and empty spaces and a road made of dirt and who changes it, when nobody’s looking. Not just in one night but that’s how it seems. It’s not.
         I’m walking, I haven’t stopped walking. When sharks stop moving they die and I’m afraid that the beating of my heart is defined by motion, that my parents just sat down one day and said this is it, I’m tired, I’m going to sit right here and rest for a minute. And they stopped and they never got up again. And I wanted to wait with them but they said, go on boy, we’ll catch up. It never happens. And I couldn’t go back. And I’m walking around the remains of my life and there’s just me. I’ve surgically removed everything, I’ve spent the week excising it all, slicing it away until I’m only left with the meat and the bone. Everything else is fat, it all has to be left behind, to rot in the sun.
         Down the road, somewhere far from me, maybe across the street I hear a voice call out, “Wait.” I don’t hear it. I didn’t hear it then, honestly. I hear it now and it makes sense. But I don’t notice and I’m walking away, I’m going around to the side of my house now. My room was in the front, I’m staring at the window and it’s just all dark now. I turned off the lights, I disconnected everything. All the tubes removed, I’ve withdrawn the life support. I didn’t tell anyone, because I thought it was best for all of you to think it was natural. That it was meant to be this way. Let the body wither and fade and if you do it slowly enough nobody will miss it. Death is the sudden cessation, even if it takes eighty years, it’s the abrupt stop that slays us, that punches us in the gut every time. I wanted to drift out to sea, the absurd balloon that you see floating away, standing on the shore, with mist stinging my eyes, watching the damn thing float out and I was just waving at it, waving and waving as it went further out. It was red and I watched it until the air or the mists or the horizon swallowed it up, until my eyes were too weak to see it anymore. Until one moment it was there, impossibly small and the next minute it was gone. I want to be like that, when I go. You’ll just think I went somewhere else and that I’m still travelling, wherever I am, in places that your eyes won’t be able to fathom, you’ll think of me in zones that are just around the corner and too far away to touch and be content with that.
         I’m going around to the back of my house. “Wait,” they’re telling me but I don’t stop. I can’t stop. I’m following myself, tracing out the last steps. Going around. The garage, squat and secure. The railings on top of the flat roof, the door from my parents’ room that I was never allowed to use. I never did go through, I was afraid. But they were gone and couldn’t stop me but I didn’t think it was right. They said it wasn’t safe. I didn’t go up. The view was too broad, all the houses at the wrong angle. Too high up. And I might have thrown myself off, just to see how it felt to hit something unyielding.
         “Wait,” it says.
         Along the side paths, I’m going into my backyard. It opens like a vista before me, and I know how they felt, the old pioneers topping the rise, seeing the land before them for the first time and realizing they were entering virgin landscape, never touched by eyes. I walk into it and sunlight envelopes me, escaping from the shadow of the house, I’m drenched in it. There used to be so many trees back here, it was like entering a forest, all dappled shadows and if you turned around and ignored the house and forgot about the fences I could imagine I was taken somewhere before man. Before man and after man. Walking for miles and miles in endless wilderness, never seeing a single person. Everything pristine. It scared me, in a way, to think that things were so empty and spaced out. My father cut the trees down, one by one and the backyard opened up and it was never the same. It became a different place. We took down three at once and made a wood pile in a corner of the yard, near the house. I used to walk on it, just to feel the logs shift. They told me not to and I did anyway. I don’t know what was wrong with me. I’m putting it all to rest, turning out the lights on every memory I ever had. I’m walking out deep into the yard, over grass I haven’t cut yet, that I’ll never get to. “Wait,” it says, it tells me. Somewhere behind. I remember a flood, when it rained, and how the place turned into a lake. Light shimmering off dank waters, watching it recede every day, a different kind of dying, going back in layers. Antediluvian, nuggets lodged in the mind, touching centers you can’t explain.
         “Wait,” someone says. And I can’t. I remember too much, you know. I can be accused of that. I remember this, I can tell you this. Are you listening? Because I’m not. They say it and they’ll say it again. I’m looking at myself and I know I haven’t slept since the night before. I went for a walk around my town, that last night. I wanted to erase everything, fold it up and box it away. I traced all the paths I could name, following a rigid line, going all the ways that I was taught and remembering mornings strung like dewdrops. Going by houses and trying to recall who lived there. It stops you, walking on shrouded ways, on the sidewalks that had seen winter and spring and autumn and summer with me. Walking through snow covered desolation and hearing nothing, not a car or a person or a siren or anything that might suggest anyone was alive but me. I walked past the house of the first girl I ever had a crush on. It wasn’t you. Are you surprised? No, I didn’t think so. You know who she was, I told you, in those quiet moments when we pretended we didn’t tell each other anything. I don’t know what happened to her, I never said anything, the one time I ever disobeyed my own rule. Never hide your own feelings. It’s a broken road. All through the years I carried it and I never said, because it was the first, because holding inside meant it was in a vacuum, it was sealed and sterile and unchanged. Speaking it outloud would release it and make it real and when anything touches the air it degrades, it fades and rusts and eventually falls apart. I couldn’t let that happen. So I never said. So I stood in front of her house and wondered if she ever picked up on it, in those subtle cues that girls always notice. But sometimes when you think you’ve obvious you really aren’t. I’m standing in my backyard and I’ve knelt down, staring at the ground. There’s marks in the soil, holes. We put them there, we scarred the land ourselves. I used to have a swingset, my father jammed it into the dirt and I used to swing on it like a madman, trying to push it higher and higher. The supports used to come out of the ground, the whole thing used to rock crazily until I thought it might just tip over. My mother did the intelligent thing and stopped me, she ran out of the house and made me come inside. I told you that, I’m sure. We laughed about it, how goddamn stupid I was. I loved your laugh, I want you to know. “Wait,” you would have said, because you couldn’t hear me, because you were trying to catch your breath. “Hold on, wait.” It was a girl’s laugh but it was high and soft and never sounded less than sincere. But I was saying. The girl, the girl, I was saying. I wonder what happened to her, sometimes. I stood in front of her house, across the street and wondered if she still lived there. If her parents had moved away and taken all reason for her to stay with them. It certainly wasn’t me. I was never an anchor, I never meant to be. The balloon in the morning, while the waves flattened the sand, gritty oatmeal. Don’t go away. There’s holes now, and that’s all that’s left of us, the only sign that we were ever here. I have to know how the story ends, that’s my problem, I can’t let the tale dangle. People say, who cares, it isn’t your life but that’s the point. Don’t you see? That’s the only reason. I know the story of my life, there’s no mystery in it, I’ve got the direction. “Wait.” But no, stop, listen, please, listen. If I had stayed, would I have said? How does it end? I know how you end and I’m the lesser and the greater for it. Because it’s been tied up. You’re gone and I don’t have to wonder anymore. I’m sorry. Dammit. I’m sorry. I want to know, what would I have done. I bet I would have only seen her twice in the days I had, the first time we would have talked and I never would have said anything because I figured it was history and it was old news and and I’d never see her again. And the second time I would have seen her from a distance and never said anything and wish I had because you never know when the last time would be. The wind shivers in the too warm air. There were never any kids on my block, there was a playground down the street and I never went there because it was too close. It was no escape. I would see her from the back, I think, the second time and I would wonder how she had changed. I can’t stand a mystery. I think if I had stayed I would have imagined us running into each other and finding that there was some kind of spark there, something that I never saw before, that the years had only deepened. And her curiousity would draw her to me and I would find the nerve, finally. I’ll find out she’s getting married, down the line, in some year, after a dream that everything is failing, and it’ll be gone then. All false hope discarded. You always think, until you have no other choice. I never told you any of this. You would have hit me and told me to stop being stupid and either tell her or forget about it and get on with it. It was a branch never taken and you wonder what if only because we have no other choice. You didn’t see time like I did, all the linear ways, wound around each other like flower stems, one crossing into another, what we do affects people we never see. Maybe she’ll marry him because he reminds her of me, in ways that she can’t explain. Oh, ego. Dear God. It’ll ruin me yet, to not say anything. The grass is too high here, in this year. It’s soft and too high. And I don’t care. And it’s not my problem anymore. I’ll raise a glass on their wedding day, I’ll toast the man for having the balls to do what I could never do. If I was around. If these things are true. But who can say? It’s not my problem. It never was.
         “Jesus, will you wait?” a voice gasps behind me. I’m still crouching, there’s shadows all around, spearing each other. Trees trying to reclaim what was lost, to take what they brethren had to give up. I’m sorry. I never wanted any of you to go away. “I think you’ve, ah, you’ve gone deaf or something.”
         I turn, without hurry, and it’s you. Of course. I’m so glad it’s you.
         “Where have you been?” you ask, giving me a harsh look. “Nobody’s seen you in days and I’ve been calling your house and calling and nobody’s answering . . .” you must have been running because you look winded, you’re bent over, hands on your legs, your chest inflating and deflating. “Where did you go?” you say, after a minute, finally looking up at me again.
         “Sorry,” I say, thinking that I mean it. “I’ve been busy in the last week or so and, ah, I haven’t been answering my phone. I really didn’t want to talk to anyone. I’m sorry.” I could tell you where I had been, but you wouldn’t believe me. I think I was tempted to, just to see what your reaction would have been.
         “You turned off your answering machine,” you accuse. “What are you doing? What is all of this?
         “It broke,” I say, too easily. I’ve been told, by making the choice I did, that I have to become something, an ethical liar, an honest man who has to spend his entire life obscuring the truth. “On top of everything else, it really didn’t seem like something that critical.” I’m still trying to wrap my head around what’s happening to me, part of me thinks I’ve gone crazy, that everything in my life is just part of some mad dream and I’m going to wake up at any point. I didn’t know what direction was, until it was forced on me.
         “Yeah, I know, I’m . . .” you don’t know what else to say. You’re standing up straight now, brushing some hair of your face. This is how I always remember you, tall and small at the same time. Your eyes were never as clear, somehow matching the sky. It’s stupid, I know. We’ve been separate for a long time now and I can’t say things like that. Plus, you’re not here. “How are you doing?” you finally ask, glancing away from me and going back toward the house.
         I slip my hands into my pockets. “I’m all right,” I reply, doing my best not to look at the house. We had a deck on the back part of it and there was a door that led right into the kitchen. There was a window in the kitchen, over the sink, that faced the backyard. Looking at it, I keep expecting to see my mother, washing dishes or something, or maybe just keep an eye on me. Her only child. I think they regretted sometimes only having one kid, because if anything happened to me, they would be alone, parents without being parents anymore, without any kind of proof to back up the claim. All of it, gone. But then they went and left me instead, without any one to turn to. Which was fine. Which is how it was. “Most of the time, I’m just fine.” It’s only a partial lie. I took a walk, after the last funeral. I never told you that. Not in so many words. I did a lot of walking, in the last days. I didn’t know when I’d ever see any of it again. “But you know, it’s a lot to deal with. Somedays I really don’t know what I’m going to do.” My first lie. I knew exactly what was going to happen. It was always explained. After the first encounter they would appear in my house, like ghosts, and tell me what was going to happen. They would talk like they had already told me things and then later repeat them like I had never heard them the first time. I wanted to think I was going crazy but I knew I wasn’t. I couldn’t believe it. Sanity is the key to all of this, your strongest weapon. If you ever think that none of this is real, then you’ve failed before you even started. You can’t doubt for a second, or you’re no use to anyone. He told me that, on the first walk.
         You reach out and rub my arm, trying to be comforting. But the problem was, nobody really understood. To have it all torn away, and to leave yourself standing there with nothing. You haven’t been there, by the time things got that dire, you were dying and you didn’t have to linger in it for very long. It was brief for you but for me it was a wound ripped into my chest, festering and elusive and unable to heal. “What do you want?” you ask. You look ready to hug me. But I’ve spent the past month receiving hugs and my body is worn raw, I can’t bear the contact anymore. I want results, not comfort. I want to live in a world where I can affect the things that happen. “Let us help you, don’t pull away and just . . .”
         “I want them back,” I say, simply, looking toward the empty expanse of the yard. We had parties here, a long time ago, we’d get a picnic table and people would sit around and play games and talk and the pictures were always so nice afterwards. It’s all gone, now. I don’t live where I think I do. “But that’s not going to happen, and so I have to figure out something else.” But I already have.
         You don’t know what to say to me. We’ve been friends for a long time but this is something you can’t relate to. I’ve gone into a territory you can’t reach, a zone where everyone walks by themselves. I went for a walk, you know. After the funeral. I don’t know where I went, because nothing looked right. I went to the backend of the town, behind everything, where you can see the struts that hold up the movie set, the strings that keep it all together. That’s where they found me, you see. Found me and made me an offer that would change everything.
         “So what . . . what are you going to do now? Do you even know?” You hesitate when you ask, because it’s a tender subject. “I mean, it’s okay if you don’t know-“ you add quickly, and then stop. It’s all fumbling for words, these things. We don’t know what to say to each other anymore.
         “I don’t know,” I say. “I really don’t.” I move past you, back toward the house. It looms large in everything, in my memory, in my life. “I can’t live here anymore, it’s . . .” I stop myself, grope for words. I’m not all right. But I’m as well as I’m going to be, this day. “I can’t afford it, I . . .” I don’t go down in the cellar, either. I can’t bring myself to face it. I never told you that, how I found him. How he let me know what he was going to do. But they all know I found him. They just don’t ask me how. I walk a few steps up to the deck. It creaks reassuringly, the pet welcoming the master back home. But I’m not the master, not here. “I’ll probably get a job and move into an apartment somewhere, just to get myself started. Sell the house, that’ll be something to work with, until I’m all straightened out.” Of course I’m lying again. My life is splitting in two. None of the furniture is out here, it’s probably in the garage. The weather was getting nicer but we never had a chance to take it out. It’s like walking across the deck of a ship where all the crew has disappeared. Where are you, captain? Oh, I’m right here. I haven’t moved, just the rest of you have shifted. Can’t you see me? I haven’t gone anywhere at all. I look toward you, smile shyly. “It’s not a great plan, but it’s a plan. And hey, that’s better than some people.”
         You’re standing at the bottom of the steps. You won’t come in, maybe you think it’s an intrusion. This place is no shrine, I’ll have you know. I scrubbed it clean, erased all trace that I was ever here. “Yeah, it is,” you admit, returning the smile. You seem so far away, when you’re down there like that. I’m ascending, but I can’t tell anybody. I was given a secret and I can’t speak of it. They told me that, they sequestered me in a grey zone and the leader of them all, he extended his hand. “Are you sure that’s what you want to do? I mean, didn’t you want to go to college?”
         I slip my hands into my pockets, try to stand up straight. But this place, it already has me bent. I can’t take its gravity anymore. “I thought about it, I mean, it was always an option but in the end . . .” I flash a grin at you, the typical one, the one that always won them over, “I don’t think I’m cut out for it. I don’t think we’d see eye to eye.”
         You don’t say anything to this. With a quick motion, you bite your lip and turn away, staring at the tableau of the neighbor’s yard. We were all connected in those days, even with fences. You could always feel like you were cushioned with presence. I may not have known who was down the street, but I knew who lived right next door. I never said goodbye to those people, and I regret that. I just left, without saying anything and maybe they understood, because of what I went through. But I grew up with them, they watched me play my little games in the yard, I put on a story for them, stretching out over eighteen years, and I ended it abruptly, cutting it off before the real final curtain. I left the stage, with the house lights down and the audience still waiting for intermission to be over.
         “What’s wrong?” I ask, going down a step. I’ve got your language memorized, I may not have ever been family but we were close enough that all the nuances were open to me. I know, by the slant of your mouth, the places where your eyes go, what you’re saying and what you’re trying to say and what you’re trying to pretend you aren’t saying.
         “Nothing, it’s just . . .” you look up at me but don’t come any closer. Maybe I’m already gone to you, receding like a broken astronaut, captured by another sphere. You fold your arms across your chest, almost hug yourself. The summer air prickles your skin. “I thought if you were going to college, we’d still see each other and, ah . . . this is stupid,” you say, sharply, the knife pointed directly at yourself. “On top of everything else, you don’t need me-“
         ”It’s all right,” I say, descending another two steps. I got a splinter caught in my hand, once, from this railing. I scratched at it until it bled and somewhere the slice of wood came out. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s still lodged in my body, making its inevitable way toward my heart. They took me to that day, to show me, to let me know the kinds of things that wouldn’t bother me anymore.
         You look at me, then, square on. All the light’s been captured in your eyes. There’s nothing else here, nothing bright. It’s all negative space and shadows, vying for dominance. “Fine, then,” you say, sighing, I can hear the air whistling through your chest. “It feels like . . . like I’m never going to see you again.”
         Oh, it’s here. It clutches at my chest again, so many years removed. I can wait for it and it feels the same every time. I’ve thought about it, more than once, in the intervening time, but this is the first time I’m actively visiting it. It puts me in focus, for a second I nearly feel solid. I’m standing between the two of us. Are the others in the house, playing their games with me, letting me know what I was entering, what new world? Sometimes they would leave out glasses of water for me, or notes, just to remind me that it was real, that they could move like ghosts and arrive whenever they pleased. But now I’ve found a zone even they can’t enter, and I can see them sometimes trying to find a crack to slip into, to reach out with spectral hands and bring me back. Where are you? I’ve already turned, there’s no more need to convince me. Everything you ever said was true. But I never doubted for a second.
         Instead, I lie. To you. Ah, God. I walk down the remaining steps, put my arm around your shoulder. It felt too natural, I remember, and I had to stop it right away, for fear of time travelling myself, without ever going anywhere. “Oh, I’ll still be around, I’m not really going anyhwere. I’m just not going to be so social for a little while.”
         You smile, take a half step away from me. “Well, I think, I’m pretty sure people can understand that.”
         I frown, and shrug. “Maybe, maybe not. But who cares, really? I just have to do what I have to do, right?” You nod at this and I walk along, taking you with me. “I mean, as long as you don’t mind hanging out with an uneducated simpleton like myself, it doesn’t really bother me.”
         You laugh at this. We’re along the side of the house again, you’re following behind. I slow down a bit so that you can catch up and we’re walking side by side. Maybe you think we’re going back to your house. But no, I had other plans, before the day was out. I couldn’t let go just yet. I didn’t want to. I figured the men in time, they could wait.
         “How else am I going to feel superior?” you say. “Come on, though, you’re smarter than me . . .”
         I hold up a hand. “Whoa, sister, let’s not go that far.”
         “All right,” you amend, rolling your eyes. We’d have this argument before, and I refuse to give ground. There’s intelligence and there’s instinct. I only had one. It’s served me well but sometimes it’s all I had. “You’re as smart as me, how does that sound?”
         “Good enough,” I reply. We’ve reached the driveway, heading for the sideway. I start leaning toward the left, across my lawn. I get the sense that you were about to bear to the other direction, back toward familiar grounds. But you follow anyway. Did you know, how much was a lie? No, it was too easy, I mastered it too fast. That’s how I knew then, that nothing could attach me to this world anymore. If lying to you was okay, then I had no shackles at all.
         “And it’s just a shame if you don’t go, you know? I don’t want to see you become like, a construction worker or something . . .”
         “Why, because you’ve already seen me with my shirt off?” I say mischeviously. “My chest holds no more surprises for you?”
         “Stop that,” you say, hitting me on the arm playfully. We’ve crossed the lawn now, strolling down the sidewalk. The air is thick, it might rain later, or it could just be summer piling up, forced back by the onset of autumn. “You know what I mean, it just seems like a waste . . .”
         “Ah, I need something more freeform, you know that,” I tell you. I’m a little serious here. I want to test the waters. Past and present are mingling, I don’t know which thoughts are current, which ones are already shelved, written on moldy paper and read by obscure students in mocking voices. “I don’t do well with structure, I have to be the maverick. It’s in my nature. College is designed to beat that out of you.”
         “Oh, thanks,” you say dryly. “Why don’t you just call me a conformist tool while you’re at it?
         “Well now, I wouldn’t go so far as to put it that way,” I say easily, seeing the dangerous flare to your eyes. It won’t lead anywhere, you never one to stay ticked off, but it’s certainly not the impression I wanted to leave you with. “I’m sure you’ll find your ways around the system.”
         You give me a sidelong look. “You’ve certainly got the ass kissing part down.”
         “Hey, I’m surviving by my wits now,” I say airily, trying to dodge the weight that those words conjure. We’re at the corner now. The park is across the street and to the left is the exit from the backroads, the shortcut amongst the strangeways that took me into a different territory altogether. I could go down there now, but the magic would be gone. It was just another road, in the end. But they took me and showed me what’s really behind the curtain. My skin still vibrates, to this day. “I need to utilize all my most vital skills.”
         “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” you say, shaking your head. We cross the street, head toward the looming fence. When I was a kid it seemed to go up forever, like they were trying to cage the sky. Now, I could scale it, easily. Getting back down might be a problem but I never thought things through like that. Me and the boys, we were conprised solely of impulse. Consequence came later, after the damage was all sorted out. I let my fingers trail along the links, rattling the barriers, announcing my arrival, signalling my departure. “You want to do that, you might want to start working on your sincerity, first.”
         “Oh, you doubt me?” I ask, staggering against the fence, backing into it, throwing out one hand to brace myself. You stand there, arms crossed, watching with veiled amusement. “Christ, you wound me, talking like that. Haven’t I already suffered enough?”
         I shouldn’t have said that, I know. It just reminds you, I can see it in your eyes. You can’t hide, from me. And yet I spent all my last days like that, hiding from you, convincing you of my good intent when I had nothing of the sort. You don’t comment on it but something in your face falls and you fail to make eye contact. I was trying to be above it, show you that it wasn’t bothering me, that I wasn’t going to let it take me down. But it wasn’t true. It was in my marrow, a poison in my bones. And the longer I stayed the deeper it seeped. I had to go, do you see? It would have killed me, to stay.
         I hold my position for a few seconds, staring at you. Then, without another word, I spring off from the fence, letting it shudder and rattle. Together, we proceed through the rectangular hole cut in the fence, the door that served as the entrance. I follow the two of us, the links passing right through me. It’s the pavement we hit first, the basketball courts with the hoops at impossible heights above us, the remains of the nets swaying back and forth in the light breeze. I used to come here sometimes, by myself, with friends, just to shoot baskets, just to find the perfect easy arc, the rhythm that allowed you to sink every shot, no matter where you tried it from. I wanted to know all the angles, I wanted to be able to cover myself, regardless of where I approached from. There’s no one in the park today, odd for a summer’s afternoon but maybe there’s entertainment to be found elsewhere. Or maybe it’s all been orchestrated for my benefit. They are clever folk, the ones who own me now. Their leader could change it all and make you think it always supposed to happen that way. I met him just once, before I left, on the first day. When they made me the offer and told me that I could be useful, in ways I could never even imagine. Others told me later that he rarely appeared to make personal requests but that he wasn’t sure I would accept the offer, that I could have gone either way. I don’t know what he saw, that made him want me, that made him think I might turn away.
         “Why are we here?” you ask finally. I used to come here at night sometimes, to shoot baskets, when all the lights were out, to make shots out of blind faith and listen for the telltale swish, or the childish bonk of failure, running for the ball amidst the weeds and tall grasses that bordered the pavement, trying to gauge where it was simply by the bounce. I was training myself, for the day, I think. “Are you revisiting your childhood or . . .”
         “Just a change of venue,” I reply, walking with my head down, following the fence until I reach the edge of the pavement. There’s a little sandy area beyond it, with some metal bugs set on thick springs that you could ride, although they didn’t go very far. There’s a ride that you could spin as well, get a running start and then jump on and watch the world go crazy. Sometimes a bunch of us would do it and nearly knock the damn thing off its foundation. One time a kid fell and couldn’t let go and was just dragged along, shouting for the friction to take hold, for everything to stop. The sand scarred his knees something fierce, although it went away after a few weeks. Nothing was permanent, when we were children. “I couldn’t stay at my house any longer, it’s just . . .” It catches me then, full in the face. I stop at almost the exact halfway point, so I’m lined up with my street, staring down the tree lined passageway, trying to see how far down it goes, knowing this is some of the sights of it I’ll ever see, for a long time. As a resident. As someone who deserves to belong here.
         I stand close to the fence, staring out wordlessly. These emotions, I can’t read myself, with the years removed. I know what I felt but I can’t convey it. It’s all mingling together, like sewage in your water. I look for people, but there aren’t any. You’re there, near me, but I can’t see you, my vision doesn’t extend that far. But your heat flares, the churning engine that’s your body, trying to hold itself together, even as you leave pieces behind, even as it’s coming apart at the seams. Like they foretold, when they stamped out your DNA. They gave you an expiration date from the moment you were born and you spent your entire life trying to extend that date by just one second, by one goddamn second because that would make liars out of all of them, out of the whole damn world and if you could do it, make it last a second longer than it should, then maybe the next guy could make it for two seconds or five or maybe even a whole minute. The limits, gone. Someone has to start it, someone has to stop what they’re doing and say, this is where the fight starts. This is how it has to be. I don’t know if you succeeded, in the end. I can’t say, it’s not for me to say. I’ll never know, maybe, how well you did. But you fought and that was enough. You lived and we have to be content with that. You’re not the first person to die too soon. Not even the first one I ever knew to go.
         “Listen, we don’t have to stay here,” you say and your shadow is splattered on the grass before me, with lines cut in it by the fence. I see it reach out for me and I can’t bear it. I don’t know why but I want to run away. There’s a shudder in my body, suppressed, turned inward. “We can go . . .”
         I curl my fingers into the chainlink, tighten my grip on it. “They’re gone, you know,” I say, and I like to think that my voice didn’t shake. But I’m sure it did. You would have heard it, even from far away. I don’t see anything, I’m sure, I’m staring at a place that’s far away, that I can’t go to. Not yet. In time, distance will mean nothing. But not right now. Right now I’m trapped in this too solid moment, caught in rigid time.
         You make a small sound I can’t decipher and I feel a pressure on my arm. “I know,” you say, and I don’t even look. “I’m sorry.” It’s so quiet. You’re so quiet. This is how it started, I don’t need to see. Your head resting on my arm, my shoulder. That first night, you said it helped you think and I don’t remember if it was my idea or yours to be there, to find the mode of opportunity. And where it went, we knew and how it ended we’re still not sure and what it’ll be, nobody can say. It was too risky, we said, we’d been friends for too long and it would ruin everything. It did and it didn’t. But I didn’t linger around long enough to see the results of the catastrophe, if there was any debris to be found. We cleaned it up good and proper and there was nothing more to it.
         “It’s easier,” I hear myself say, my voice numb, my lips barely moving, “because they both didn’t go at once, you know? That’s what I tell myself. But at the same time, I . . . I can’t get used to it because, ah, my mother went and I, it eventually got better, just me and my dad, I started to think this was the way it was going to be and then . . .” I close my eyes, press my head against the fence, feeling it buckle under my weight, bending outward without breaking, the metal pressing into my skin, pressing without cutting. It’ll leave a mark, they say, but all marks fade. “My dad went, too and I just . . . I feel tense all the time, I’m bracing myself for something else to happen, to shift the ground from under me.” And the ground did shift under me again but this time I have a place to land. The only problem is that it’s not on this planet, it’s nowhere that you can see. “I want them back and I want to wake up and neither of those things are going to happen.” I sound too calm when I say these things. It’s all practiced. I meant it but every lie has to have something to do with the truth, or else you’ll never get them to believe it. “So I’m just . . . I say I know what I’m going to do but I’m just fumbling.” The pressure hasn’t relented, you’re afraid I’ll go completely numb, you’re trying to remind me that I can still feel, that even when all the nerves are damaged some sensation still remains. “But I have to do something or I’ll just be adrift and I’ll never get momentum again. And I just hope it’s the right thing but . . .” I shrug, barely able to move in your presence. “Who knows? I don’t know. But what else can I do? When you’re trapped in the snowstorm the only thing to do is just keep moving.”
         I feel your arms go around me then, you’re short but they still reach around. I don’t respond, I can’t respond, I’m trapped in my own world, the place I’m receding into, where nothing makes sense except for the sense you bring to it. Where all the hurt vanishes, but the memory remains. I watched him slash his wrist in front of me and I watched what happened to it, I watched the minutes run in reverse. That will be me, they said. Once I’m in, that’s how I’ll be.
         “It’s all right,” I say, or maybe you say. I reach over and cover your hand with mine. I want to move away from the fence but everything, the warmth of the sun, the furnace of your body, it’s holding me here. I don’t want to leave, this place where I grew and suffered and exalted. But I have to leave and I have to lie to everything that’s keeping me here. “I know it’ll be all right, eventually.” And that is me, speaking. I want to prepare you, to let you know that it was never you, it was me. In this case. That I’m going to go and you’ll never know why and when you see me again you might not remember what you ever liked about me. I didn’t know these things, at the time. I didn’t know you had so little time left. Would I have told you, if I knew? I doubt it. Maybe. What would it matter, in the end? To know or not know.
         I snort and push myself away from the fence. Everything smells of new grass, out here. New and cut. There’s train tracks overhead, up a hill and sometimes at night they would come rumbling past like some kind of beast, something angry charging through, looking for whoever had stoked its ire. When people left forever, I always assumed they went by that train, that they were invited to be taken out, that they jumped on the rails and followed it to wherever it might take them. Heaven, maybe. Or elsewhere. Snagging souls as it went, tearing along as a means to escape.
         “On the plus side, it can’t get any worse,” I say, staring up at the empty and silent tracks, waiting to feel the rumble under my feet. I could approach it and let it take me, but where? Do we even go the same route, when we leave? “I think I’ve run out of family. So that’s a relief.” My voice rings false but I have to find humor somewhere.
         You make the same noise again. I hear your footsteps shuffle in the grass, trying to catch up to me. I’m walking to the back of the playground, to where the fences keep us from whatever lies beyond. This world, it’s a beautiful cage but it’s still a cage. And even with all the toys in the world crammed in here with us, you still get bored, you still want to go and see what else you can find. I’m explaining this now, where you can’t hear, because I didn’t know how to explain it then.
         “Stop it,” you say, harshly, your voice blurred and slurred. “Stop talking like that.”
         “What?” I ask, turning around. You’re only a few steps behind, glaring at me, looking incredibly disappointed. I remember being afraid that they might take me now, that the train could come through and I’d leave you with that last impression and you’d stay angry and never get over it. “It’s true, isn’t it? Morbid, but true.”
         “I don’t want to hear you talk like that,” you say, kicking at the dirt. We’re near the swings now, the old things, all thin metal and old plastic seats. The chains are tinted with old rust, I walk up to one and run my hands along it, feeling the iron intertwine. “That’s not the person I know, who feels that way.”
         “That person is gone, I think,” I tell you, taking the swing and spinning it so that the chains become tangled. I let it go until it’s tight, until it can’t get any closer, the seat all askew. “Or at least on a vacation, for a little while.” I let the swing go, watch it whirl out of control, faster and faster. There’s a certain point where you can’t stop it, where all the forces of the Universe just take over and all you can do is watch and wait for your moment of control again. That was my life, that’s what I was waiting for. But I couldn’t tell you that and so I lied. I’m not sorry, in my own way. I am sorry. But it was the only way.
         “I think I’d rather talk to that person,” you say, plopping down on one of the other swings, letting it sway a bit. You don’t look out of place there at all, you look too young and small to be anything but a child. But it’s not right, to think that way. You take hold of the chains and let your feet drag in the sand. “I wish I knew how to get him back.”
         “Time,” I tell you, pushing the swing away and going over to one of the struts. I lean against it, resting one arm on it, staring back out at the courts, at the houses beyond the fence, at the place the tracks go to finally, so far away. “The long way, the slow way. I guess. I don’t know any other way.”
         You don’t say anything and I turn partway to look back at you. You’re staring at the dirt, kicking at the sand and creating little piles near you. Like graves. You look so forlorn, if I left you’d be the only person in this place and it might be the saddest thing ever. But no, I felt that way once, because grief had me twisted. There are sad things in this world and there are sadder things and you were never one of either. I wanted to tell you, though, I really did. They even told me I could, because who would believe me. You’d think I went crazy, telling you about men who move against time, about robots and cities removed beyond sight. Tell anyone you like, they said, sharing a knowing laugh with each other. If it makes you feel better, go right ahead. But don’t expect a good reaction.
         There was a way I could tell you, but I didn’t know how it would work. I went at it in the worst way possible, of course. Because I didn’t know otherwise.
         “I’ve been thinking,” I said, after a while, after the grooves you’d carved in the dirt had become something uncomfortable to look at. You don’t look at me, lost in something else. “I was thinking about joining the military.”
         This grabs your attention and the force of your stare could have knocked me over, if such things were physical. An explosion of dirt erupts at your feet as you stop your gentle swinging. “What?” you say, even as your brain no doubt searches for harsher words. “What are you talking about? Are you nuts?”
         “I wonder,” I say, with a distant chuckle. I turn and lean with my back against the swings, feeling the whole structure groan under the added presence of my weight. I don’t mind it, for a second it makes me feel just a tiny bit more real. That I can affect something. I’m mingling again, lost in my own thoughts, navigating debris from a life I thought gone. I’m not here. I’m trapped in concrete and there’s nowhere to move. “I didn’t mean right this second, but down the line. Maybe. When I have myself all sorted out. It’s just a thought.”
         “It’s a terrible thought,” you say, nearly standing up. Something catches in your chest then and you stop moving, letting the cradle of the swing carry you back. “Unless you like getting shot at or . . .”
         “By who? It’s not like we’re at war,” I say easily. I’m tracing maps of creation in the dirt with my sneaker. They showed me the basics, they gave me a glimpse of what I was in for, just to see if I could take it. We’re always at war, he told me and something in his voice suggested he’d seen enough to drown every man alive. From the start of everything, when one atom slammed into another, it began there and it’s been conflict ever since. And the one with him, he assured me, he said, You’ll never be bored, if you come with us. You’ll never have to worry about that. Layers of voices and layers. All these memories, they come down, they run down the walls of time like old rain. I could touch them but they just smear. If I reached out to you, I’m afraid you might only be two dimensional, I’d strike the membrane, you’d only be a reflection of something that I can’t find the source of and you’d dissolve into ripples, fracture and fragment, becoming something totally unrecognizable.
         “Right now,” you retort, emotion overruling cleverness. But I’m sure it sounded good in your head.
         “Sure,” I reply, trying to defuse this before it becomes too big for either of us. If we got into a fight now, you’d only feel bad later for adding more stress to my life. But you don’t understand, I’m hurting but I’m free. “But there’s risk in anything. And besides, I thought you found men in uniforms sexy?”
         You roll your eyes. “When you say you, you must mean womenkind in general. I don’t, to be honest.” You stamp some of the sand flat with your shoes, then look back at me. “I think they look boring, with everyone looking the same . . .”
         “See, that’s why people have to shoot at me. Then I’ll get medals and stuff and I won’t look the same . . .” I say this in an overexcited voice, like I’ve stumbled on the most brilliant idea in the world. You give me a look and just shake your head.
         “Whatever,” you say, crossing your arms, one hand rubbing your shoulder. The wind rustles your hair and you glance out toward the street. A thin smile cracks your face and you say, “And weren’t you the one telling me you didn’t want to go to college because you couldn’t stand conformity?” You give me a disbelieving stare. “And now you want to walk right into the definition of it? Come on now, who are you kidding?”
         They were right, of course. You’d never believe me. Even this simple lie was too much for you. It didn’t fit my personality but I was altered now, events had warped me and now I fit in places that I never used to. I couldn’t justify it, because it didn’t make sense. I could only try to explain, without the people who knew how to make sense of me. I remember getting a sense of forever, standing out there with you, in the pale sunshine, with the thoughts of other people so far distant. I thought of my parents and how I’d never see them again and what that meant. What never really stood for.
         I had to explain. I failed, again. I knew I would, from the start. That’s how it was intended. He went crazy, they would say, when it was all over. Grief drove him mad and he moved in the only direction he could find. Away. Far. “It’s not like that,” I tell you, brushing a foot across my primitive drawings, obscuring them all. Somewhere they were still real. That’s what I was taught. Each segment is unique. Once done, nothing is lost. I don’t visit my parents, now that I have freedom of movement. I can’t see them yet, I don’t think I could stand it. I don’t think I have the nerve. “I mean, yeah, when you first go in, it’s all regulations and everything has to be done just so, I know what you’re saying about that.”
         “You don’t want someone telling you were you can piss all day,” you say, with a sarcastic laugh. “Come on, I know you. You’d go on their boot, just to prove a point. You’d spend the entire time on latrine duty, because you can’t help yourself.”
         “See, but once you’re done,” I say, overriding you, trying to fight what I’ve already been told, “you’re out there on your own.” If I ever see you again, you’re going to be very angry with me, I’m sure. For doing this to you, for this little bit of misdirection. But dammit, my cards were out the whole time. Yo just didn’t see them for what they were.
         “They’re still going to be telling you what to do,” you insist, picking up your feet and letting the swing carry you aimlessly in tiny circles, in oblique shapes. “You can’t escape that, once they have you . . .”
         Oh, but they already have me. And I went willingly, because they offered me everything this world couldn’t. The chance to see it all. The only price was losing it all, and watching it all slip away, in time, in realtime.
         “That’s what they say but you know . . .” I gesture, I’m pointing and I know you hate when I do that because you don’t like to be lectured to. It shows up in your face, the distaste, but you don’t say anything. “When you’re out there, when you’re getting shot at, all you have is yourself. The only thing that matters is what you do and you have control then, whatever you do, you have an affect, you can finally make a difference, one way or the other.” Something in my voice makes me pull back a bit, my zeal could mark me for a liar, if life hadn’t done that already. “I need to do that, I need to know I can affect something, that it’s not all out of my control.” It’s not totally false, what I’m saying. Every lie is true, in its own way. I said that already and it’s still true.
         You don’t say anything right away. You don’t look at me, either. For a second I think you might say something but even though your lips move, nothing comes out. You fold your hands in your lap and don’t make any motion for some time. Just your breathing, the steady rhythm. When you were a baby your parents crept into your room and watched you as you slept, to make sure you were still breathing, in silent celebration of the fact that you were still alive, when everyone said you shouldn’t be. Your father told me that, because he trusted me, because he wanted me to know how precious you were, to him, to your mother, to everyone who knew you. He also said if I ever hurt you there wouldn’t be a safe place in the world for me. He laughed and I laughed but I couldn’t stop looking at his hands. And I never got within his reach. I don’t know if you ever noticed but that was why. Everything was so fragile. I couldn’t take the risk. The first time I hugged you, really embraced you, you got mad at me because I was touching you like were you made of brittle stone. Don’t do that, you said. You swore at me. I’m not made of glass, you said, and don’t ever treat me like that. It made me afraid, in a certain way. I kissed you then. I don’t remember if it was the first time. We were leading up to it then, the same way a ball has to follow a groove carved into the ground. Because it has no other choice. Because all the forces that are acting on it are giving it no choice. We fell into it, even as it fell apart. As it had to.
         “Just tell me this, then,” you say finally, your eyes seeing nothing, staring into the place that has no answers. “Did you already do it? Tell me, honestly.” Your eyes face me, almost pinning me to the strut. They could have, in another day. But I’m past such things now. And there’s grey men, waiting down the aisle, who can tell me all the things I want to hear and all the things I never wanted to hear. There’s something I never told you. A question I never said. “Did you already sign up and join?”
         I stare at you, quite seriously, because I know it’s a serious question. They told me that nothing will ever hurt me again, not in a permanent way. That I have to be immune to change if I’m going to fall into places that are utterly mutable. I have an appointment to keep and I’m dragging this out because I want to see if I can tell the truth. But I can’t. You’re asking me and the least you deserve is an honest answer.
         I don’t have one. “Oh, Jesus no,” I say, laughing a little. “I told you, I was just thinking about it, you know, someday down the road, when I’ve put myself back together.” I rub my arm, as if cold. “This really isn’t the time for me to making decisions like that, don’t you think?” And yet I did. I went and did it anyway. You bastard. You insufferable bastard.
         You look relieved but you’re trying not to show it. “That’s good,” you say quickly, “I was afraid you’d . . .” but you stop yourself before any other words come out.
         “That I’d what?” I ask, because I need to push the conversation away.
         “Can you promise me something?” you ask suddenly, jumping off the swing, sending up a small puff of sand when you land on it. The swing twists oddly, bereft of your slight mass. Without waiting for me to answer, you say, “If you do go and do something crazy like that . . . you’ll tell me, right?” Your hands are pushing your hair back, trying to gather it into a tiny ponytail. It makes you look vulnerable, somehow. “I’m not going to get some kind of postcard from God knows where or you have my mom tell me after you’re safely away . . . you’ll tell me, right?”
         “Only if you promise not to punch me,” I reply.
         “That’s fine,” you agree, too quickly.
         “Or slap me in the face. Or kick me in the nuts,” I add, and you grin then. For a second, we share the same thoughts. “Or do anything resembling physical harm to me.”
         “Yeah, yeah, yeah, you got me,” you say, waving a dismissive hand. “I’ll leave you alone, if you tell me something I don’t want to hear.” You hold up a finger. “But . . . just once. I don’t want you to think that you can make a habit of it.”
         “It’s a deal then, I guess,” and we shake on it, like old friends. But we’ve never been so separate. I remember my stomach turning inside out, trying to escape the confines of my body. There was a watch on my wrist and a clock in my head and they were both giving me different times and they were both saying I had to go, I had to leave. I’m sorry, I told you. I thought it was the easiest way. It was but I’m still sorry. You deserved to know but I couldn’t do it.
         As if by some secret signal we begin to walk out of the playground. You should have left me there, to climb up the hill, to find the train and catch it and leave without a trace. But I left bloodstains behind, I left confusion and I left questions that I couldn’t answer. Maybe you’d tell them about this day and how I gave no sign. You’d speculate with the rest of them, all their useless theories. Nothing is the truth. I’ve gone beyond it, into places where everything is motion, where I’m the only constant.
         We walk in silence. On our left is a broad field, past the swings, past the toys. The sun catches it in a haze, making it transient, a specter that only appears when you think hard enough to summon it, when the memory is so real it’s like a tumor set inside you, struggling to break free. I remember playing football in the grass, once, twice, a long time ago. If I concentrate hard enough I can see through layers of time, see myself as I might appear now, half visible, translucent. It’s all vanity. I’m not here. I can hear my voice, laughing and shouting but in a hundred years there won’t be a man alive in this town who knows what it sounded like. You speak my name and only get a blank look in return. Maybe one day I’ll come back, when all the digits have changed in the year and I’ll ask around, I’ll see if anyone knows. Maybe they’ll still have stories, about the boy who walked off one day and never came back. Maybe he killed his parents. Maybe they killed him. Maybe they’re all together, on some tropical island, laughing at everyone else who wasn’t fortunate enough to get out, when the opportunity presented. I look at my face and I know what I’m thinking but I’m so detached from it. I’m not me anymore. I’m not anyone, I’m a collection of stray thoughts, of absent longing and the sense that something has gone wrong and I don’t know how to make it right. Not your death. That was wrong but it was as right as it could be. It happens.
         You’re watching me, as we walk. I can see you doing that but I’m not aware of it. All these perspectives, I’m staring into a Cubist painting, I can see too many angles, all at the same time. On your face, it might be a smile, there’s something slippery there that I can’t distinguish. Even though I know what’s coming next. Or thought I did. I’m all out of order. How will they put me back together again, when the time comes for reassembly? I see nothing of their smell now, perhaps I’ve beee abandoned. But I don’t have despair anymore, I don’t have anything. I simply don’t care.
         “So,” you say, and you bump into me a little bit, causing me to go off my stride, “what’s this I hear that you’ve been out and about with the girls lately?” We’re passing the slide now, that tall monument to falling continuously down. It rises high above both of us, we’re in its serpentine shadow. From the right angle, the ladder might just go up to heaven, to the clouds. It’s not true of course, you spent all that time climbing and in the end all it gets you is safe passage back to the ground. Sometimes I would go up from the slide end, trying to scale the smooth pathways, trying to see if the view was any different, going down the ladder backwards. My parents warned me not to do it. A kid fell and injured himself, tumbling in funny bumps, going down step by step. If you slip that’s the problem, you don’t get a second chance. You’re not allowed to catch yourself.
         Your question is oddly timed, since at this point in my life all my time had been spent burying my father. But there was a period in between my mother’s death and my father’s death where things were almost normal. That’s what you mean, I know. You’re trying to make me feel better, maybe, to talk about happier things. I know you didn’t like the idea of death, you didn’t want to see it in any of its forms. At my father’s funeral you came to me and you hugged me, quickly, loosely and you went and sat in the back. I can’t blame you. I didn’t want to look at him either. The parlour, they almost managed to cover up the rope marks. But if you knew where to look, they were still there. God damn.
         “Out and about?” and I slide along with the jibe, trying to play along. You don’t know, of course, that these were our last moments. I didn’t know then, either, I knew it would be a while before we saw each other again, but I figured down the line I might come back. I knew I couldn’t go away completely. You’re going to become a question mark, the man told me. He appeared in my room in the middle of the night, just to prove that he could. “I think you must be talking about someone else.”
         “Oh no, I’m pretty sure it’s you,” you remark impishly, refusing to give any ground. We’re following the fence again, striding from the separated world. “They described you perfectly, your square jaw, your thin physique . . .”
         “And the hair,” I comment, throwing my head back magnamiously, “I hope they didn’t forget my wonderful hair.”
         You laugh, then, unable to continue the charade. We have to stop for a second, so you can recover. I don’t know what you ever found so funny about me, our humor was alike but there was something else. Maybe it was my delivery, a sense of timing. Maybe I had a funny voice and you never told me. Everything is possible, in this world. The two of us. The deaths of my parents. Men who move without regard to linear progression.
         “Who are these girls you speak of, in the plural,” I say when it looks like you’re recovered enough to be paying attention. “I can vouch for girl but certainly not more than one.”
         “Ah, so you do admit it,” you say with a little squeal, jumping a half step back and pointing at me. There’s an odd glee in your voice, maybe you were happy because you didn’t break me. That I could learn to love again. “The rumors are true.”
         “What rumors?” I say, with a snort, kicking at the grass. “I only deal in facts, lady. I’ve got nothing to hide.” So much I didn’t say. “It’s not like I was trying to hide anything.”
         “I was waiting to see if you would tell me . . .”
         “I meant to bring it up but . . . stuff happened,” I say, my lips turning down in a frown.
         You fall silent again, perhaps a bit embarrassed. It’s all right, they’re dead. You can say it. There’s no shame in that.
         I try to bring the conversation back. “Besides, you probably know more about the damn thing than I do. Our grapevine bears fertile fruit, as it were.”
         You brighten a little bit. Swinging your arms loosely as we walk, you say, “So it’s true, it was you and-“
         ”Ah, ah,” I say, holding up a hand. “No names, please,” I add haughtily, throwing my head back again, looking at you sideways. “You never know who might be listening.”
         You smirk at this but it doesn’t turn into a laugh. Maybe that’s all your lungs had. They have to recharge. There’s molecules in me, milling about, waiting for something to happen. Each step is ingrained, it’s happened and we can’t change it. I know which direction I’m going to walk in, when this conversation is over. It’s almost over.
         “But it’s true,” you say. “That’s great. She’s really nice and . . .”
         “Whoa, let’s not get too carried away there,” I warn, giving you a stern look. It doesn’t have any effect on you at all. “We went on one date. We went to the movies.”
         “Which movie?” you ask with a devil’s gleam.
         I give you another look to match the one before. “Listen, I said I went to the movies, I didn’t say I watched it.”
         Your face registers surprise. “You son of a . . .” you say with a laugh, hitting me on the shoulder. It’s almost like you’re congratulating me for getting over you. That feels odd, but not wrong. “You’re a dog, you know that, you really are.” You take a few more steps. The exit never seemed this far away, in my memories. The conversation was never like this. Perhaps they helped, knowing this was the last time. Who knows what he saw, when he looked ahead for me? They’ve stretched time out, as far as they can, to give us these moments. I can feel it vibrating, trying to hold us here. The treadmill of days, pushing us along. Even if you stop moving it carries you and if you fall it carries you right off, to the end, to where all the relics lie. I could grab you but you’d slip right out of my hands. “She talked about it, you know. She told us.”
         “I guess this is where you puncture my ego,” I say with a grin. “Was the best part of the night when I paid for the movie? Because I hope that was good for her as it was for me.”
         “No, she really enjoyed herself. She said you were a lot of fun.” There’s a certain sense of disbelief in your eyes, but you won’t admit to it. I certainly won’t make you do so now. They’re waiting. At both ends of time, they’ll catch me. This net can extend forever. Like a fence. Like a cage, without bars, bordered by years and trapped with the minutes you couldn’t avoid. Maybe they knew, what I’d see. Maybe it’s part of a test. I think I failed. I can’t imagine any other outcome. “She was hoping that you’d call her but . . .”
         “I know,” I say somberly. “I will, eventually. She was at the funeral, I saw her but there wasn’t time . . .” I purse my lips, tilt my head to the side while I think. We’re at the exit now, I’m stepping aside to let you past. “I’ll call her, the first chance I get. Just to chat, you know. I don’t want her to think I forgot about her . . .”
         “She understands,” is all you say, standing there on the grass. We’ve escaped but we still have so far to go. Look, out on the watchtowers. They might have spotted us. Run, save yourself, I’ll provide cover. Go without me, I’ll catch up. You bastard. You lying bastard. You told her and she believed you and nothing ever happened to you because of it. You never saw her again so she’d yell at you. That’s not justice. You can’t deceive and get away with it. But I did, oh I did and I’m sorry. Was there another way? I don’t think so.
         “I can’t believe she told you,” I say. I’m leaning on the gate at the entrance, one arm thrown up to cushion my head. I’m looking down at you, for the last time.
         “Why? Because we used to . . .” you make a face, dismissing it all. “That’s ancient history, now. Nobody even remembers anymore.” Like Atlantis. Whole generations up and gone and we’re nothing more than a footnote, a passing storm. Memories are like waves, washed over too quickly, drawn out and forgotten, you think you remember how it looks, how it was, but the lights refracts through the depths and it’s never quite the same. The colors that day, they weren’t the same shade, the darkness not that deep. And when you get up close it just ripples and dissolves and fades away. “She probably wasn’t even thinking about it, when she said. It never even entered her mind.”
         “I guess that’s good,” I say, with a neutral face. I wanted to ask you, if you regretted any of it but it doesn’t seem right and I’d run out of time anyway. I couldn’t really say what needed to be said. This was enough, I’ll tell myself, someday. It was what we had and it was enough.
         A small silence falls. Not anything to worry about but a buffer, a boundary.
         “What are you going to do, now?” you ask eventually, not looking at me.
         “I don’t know,” I reply, also looking at you. I know where I have to go. I remember, where you went. To your fate. To what went beyond. But I’m staring down the street, at my childhood, at both our childhoods. Houses and streets and playdates and backyards and birthdays. It’s all down there. I’m about to walk away from it all. I’m leaving nothing behind. I lied and said that. I’m dead and my heart is still beating. “I’m going to take a little walk, first. Clear my head. Then I’ll probably go home, make some dinner. Maybe I’ll watch a little TV before I go to bed.” I shrug. “I’ll wake up tomorrow and we’ll tackle that, when it comes. I can’t promise myself anymore than that, these days.”
         You smile a little, without humor. You’re still not looking at me. “Listen,” you say and I’ve never heard you more serious, “if you want, you can move in with us.”
         “That’s not-“
         You cut me off. “Just listen to me. Don’t answer, just think about it. You can decide some other time. I already talked it over with my parents.” You take a deep breath, it swells you and threatens to make you burst. “Now that my sister’s moved out, we have plenty of room and they said . . . you could live with us, until you knew what you wanted to do. You could take your time, until you decide.” You finally risk a glance at me. “Our door’s open, I want you to know that.”
         I don’t answer right away. “Thank you,” I say quietly. You fool. And you walked away, still. You glorious fool. You did the right thing.
         “We’d love to have you. They love you, you know. They really do.” Your voice is earnest, you’re not actively trying to convince me but I know what you want. But you didn’t know I was already lost. I was snagged and captured. They’re waiting, they’ve come. To take me away, they have.
         “I know that,” I say, looking down. “I think I won’t have to do that, but thank you. I really appreciate that, I do.”
         “I just wanted you to know,” you say again. You know what I’ve already decided, in spirit. But we have to play it through. We have to follow the game, right up to the last steps.
         I nod, but don’t speak. We stand there in the half-shadows, feeling summer wash over us. The road carries the smell of dust and pavement and a scent that could be time, luring me on. Kids are somewhere, playing, maybe coming this way, reenacting the cycle.
         “I’m going to be all right,” I tell you, simply.
         “I know,” is all you say, barely audible.
         “I’m, ah, going to take a walk now, I think,” I say, finally stumbling, now that I’ve arrived at the moment I don’t know how to proceed.
         “Oh,” you say, surprised, even though I already said it. “Oh, if you want company I . . .”
         “I just want to be alone with my thoughts for a bit, that’s all,” I say, as gently as I can. You don’t take offense, I know, but it still stings. I asked them, you know, in my less lucid moments, after they explained it all, if you could come, if they would allow you. I tried to save you and I failed. They told me no, they said you had too many connections, it would mean too much if you left. I could depart with only minimal tearing. I don’t know what that meant, in the end. I don’t know how hurt I should have been, that I mattered so little.
         “All right then,” you say. “Call me tomorrow, at least?”
         “I’ll do my best,” I lie, for the last time.
         You hug me then and I return the embrace, as tightly as I can, until everything about you might crack. We cross the street together, until we’re at the crossroads. You’re going to go straight and I’m going right, down the backway, into nowhere zones.
         “Take care of yourself,” I say, trying to keep my voice level. My hands were shaking, I think. I have them in my pockets but I think they were shaking. It seems right. I shouldn’t get out unscathed. It wouldn’t be right.
         “Talk to you later,” you reply and before any of us can say anything more I turn and walk away. The only sounds I hear are my footsteps echoing on smooth asphalt. There are no sidewalks here, nothing but empty road. Even the houses are silent, refusing to give anything up.
         After a time, maybe half a block, I turn around quickly, just to take a look. You’re still there, watching me go, standing ramrod straight, growing smaller with every passing second. I’m tempted to wave, to give you a thumbs-up and a grin. I do nothing. I shove my trembling hands further into my pockets and keep going.
         Another block goes by before I finally think to look again. That time, there’s nobody at the corner. You’re not there. Or maybe I’m not. Maybe I never was.
         And so, turning back to my stride, I push myself, going further down the road, until it stopped being a road, until the scenery became grey and everything stopped, except for me, except for my walking, and in that fashion I passed out of it all, out of my town and into mythology, into a place where I couldn’t be touched and where we couldn’t find each other anymore.