- F -

Locked in Epic Struggle With the Beast Known as Cuddles

         Bastards.
         Bastards!
         They hadn't given him any. Not anything. Just because he was a little short this week. Or maybe they had raised the price again. He never could remember, facts like that were just clouds floating in his head, passing right through. If they ever became solid, the mass would split his brain right open. That's why he did it. To keep the facts away. Because facts were life. Life was all about facts, pinning things down, defining them. And when you defined something you lost it forever, stuck it in a box and after a while all you have are rows upon rows of endless boxes, all square, all brown all the goddamn same. It had been happening to him, he had sensed it. One foot in and one foot out and he had barely seen it coming. But it was. And so he escaped. Found it and never looked back.
         But now they wanted to put him in again. They didn't understand. He stood there and tried to explain, but they didn't listen. Just laughed and told him come back next time with the right amount and maybe just maybe they'd have some left over for him. Going fast, they told him. Barely keeping the shelves stocked. New customers every day. And they hadn't listened. Even when he had tossed away his dignity and begged, begged them, it hadn't made a damn difference. Told him to have a nice day and showed him the door.
         And now it was cold out. He couldn't feel it. Some time ago it had become dark. He didn't notice. Going home wasn't an option now, Jess would scream at him all night and he wouldn't get any sleep. He used to pretend to sleep in the hopes that she'd stop but nights like this, it wouldn't stop her. Scream until the neighbors would come and yell at her to stop and then she'd scream at them too. He didn't need that. Needed all the sleep he could get. Last night, after he had taken the last of what he had, he had gone and stepped into the most vivid dream. It had been so beautiful, nothing but colors with sounds as deep as the Universe itself and he had just been floating there, curled up in warm voices that made him feel perfectly safe. Little children with button heads gave him flowers and taught him a peaceful dance and it had been so wonderful.
         And then he had woken up this morning with a bad taste in his mouth and an aching in his stomach and no matter how much he stood near the radiator he couldn't stop shivering. He had stepped from his nice dream of colors and gotten up and looked out the windows into a heavy grey sky. A lone bird had flown past and he had wanted to cry because it was the worst thing he could think of, the saddest thing he had ever seen, to be so free and fly and have the entire sky spread out before you but have nobody to share it with. Still, he didn't cry. She would have screamed at him if he cried. Once, he would have shouted right back. But he didn't care anymore. He didn't care enough when he was up because nothing bothered him when he was up and he didn't care when he was feeling down because he just didn't have the energy to fight.
         So he walked these drugged streets, waiting to wake up, wandering in hopes of finding a direction, trying to stall until the morning. He didn't know what the hell he was going to do. Already his legs were shaking and he just couldn't find anything to do with his hands, they just twitching. He wished he had a cigarette. He hated cigarettes. But he needed something.
         Along the strip, even the lights were out. Streetlights lit the sidewalk at odd intervals, a madman's hopscotch. A slight wind tickled the hairs on his face and probed his ears with numbing fingers. Days past the circular winds might have blown an eager newspaper into his ankles and that would have given him something to read while he walked. But no, the streets were clean now. That's what he kept hearing. All the television ever spoke about. Cleaning the streets. Keeping them free from dirt and grime. For some reason the man on the screen always kept speaking directly to him. It didn't bother him, though. Not at all. Most days, he was hardly paranoid. No reason to be.
         "Why are you doing this to yourself?"
         His shoes scuffed noisily as he came to a halt. The side of his mouth twitched as he slowly glanced around in a semi-circle.
         Who said that?
         In his pockets his hands kept clenching and unclenching. He knew what they wanted to wrap around. But he didn't have it. He wished he could apologize to his hands except he couldn't because that was crazy. They'd just have to live with it.
         But, no. No. Someone had spoken to him. He had heard it. Barely a whisper, but he had heard it just the same.
         Who said that?
         For a long time he stood absolutely still, trying to blend in with the night. But he kept shivering and ruining the disguise. His stomach lurched again and he winced, squeezing a handful of dry flesh through his jacket in an attempt to calm it. Somewhere far away leaves rustled like flaking scales.
         It wasn't in his imagination. He didn't imagine stuff like that. Even at his worst the only voice he ever heard was her screaming. At him. Always at him. And that hadn't been her voice. She had never spoken to him that softly. That carefully.
         So he couldn't have imagined it.
         "If you can . . . I'd like you to tell me that."
         Ah. There! He spun on his heel, almost falling over, feeling the grittiness of the city dirt grinding under his shoe. That was him. The dirt. Being smashed to nothing on these streets, when all he wanted to do was lay there and exist. But they were going to take their hoses and their water and their smiling hired slaves and wash him right out of life. Did he deserve that? He didn't think so.
         And the voice, the voice, it had come from over there. That was certain. He had been attentive and he was fairly sure it had come from that alley. Between old Neruvi's deli and the barber shop run by that smelly old man who used to stare at him when he walked past. Maybe he was dead now. He didn't know. The sliver of spacious darkness where the two buildings refused to touch.
         Something scraped from inside the alley. He caught a glimpse of a man, standing very close to the wall. It was impossible to make out his face and his voice didn't give away his features at all. Voices never did. He knew what her face would be if it matched the way she screamed. It would make her scream even more when she looked in the mirror, the way she always did in the morning racing into the bathroom before he could get in there and making him wait while she preened before the mirror, uselessly trying to make herself pretty for a world that could care less. He had hated that, when he had cared enough to hate.
         "I'm over here," the voice said, even though he was staring right at the man. Still couldn't make out his face though, so he took a step closer. The alley shadows were draped over his face like a blanket, one of those kids at Halloween who dressed up in a sheet and called themselves ghosts.
         "I just want to talk to you for a second. That's all." The voice was maddeningly cool. The shape definitely resolved itself into a recognizable man, drawn with broad strokes. He was wearing a sort of heavy jacket and his hands were in his pockets. In silhouette, he looked like a vase with handles. "A few questions for you, that's all I want."
         He trusted this man. He didn't trust him at all. His stance was too casual, his tone too collected. These streets, they weren't safe, terrible things happened on these streets. He remembered one summer night it had been too hot and he had left the window open and was lying in bed and this girl was getting raped down the street, he could hear her screaming. Not like Jess, raped girls always screamed the same way, a quavering, petulant tone, protesting something they always wanted but never wanted forced. And she had screamed for what like felt like hours and he just laid there, sticking to his sheets, feeling the night pressing on him like a damp towel, watching the muted patterns his eyes made on the ceiling and trying to convert it into background noise. Just another city sound. It never happened. Eventually she stopped and it became quiet again. Or maybe he had fallen asleep. Some nights he wondered what happened to her. He hoped she hadn't been hurt. He hated to see people hurt.
         "Maybe I don't want to answer any questions," he replied. Cagey. That's right. That was the way. Make him come to you, my friend.
         "No?" said the shadow in the alley. Something rustled again. Dried leaves. It brought an acrid memory to his nostrils. "Then I guess you don't want any of this?"
         Something flashed into his hand. His reflexes told him to flinch but it was too late to even react really. Immediately his eyes were fixed to what the alley shadow was holding, watching it sway gently in the cooing breeze.
         Money.
         "Is that . . . is that . . ." he could barely make them out in the darkness but he felt his palms go damp just considering it.
         "Sure is," came the cheerfully neutrally response.
         "Why me?" he asked, glancing around furtively. Where were the cameras? The lights? This had to be some kind of game. He had been standing still for too long, this was making him too nervous.
         "Because you looked like a man with . . . expenses. A moment of your time and maybe I can help with some of those."
         No trick. It couldn't be. This man was too honest. Even his teeth shown in the dark. A couple of questions? Why not? What harm could there be? His life was an open book, always had been. Talking never hurt anyone. And he could use the money. He really could. Maybe if he got it now, answered these questions and got the money he could run back and they might still have some stuff and he could get it and wouldn't have to hear the screaming tonight. Or if he did, he could at least drown it out. That would be nice. Yeah. That was a good plan.
         He had been shuffling closer to the man the entire time and now was just over an arm's length away. Taking a larger step closer, sealing the gap up, he said, "Okay, man, what do you want to-"
         And then just as suddenly he was whipping through the air, twisting and facing the sky, the buildings in all their forced perspective and with a jolt that rattled his entire body he landed on his back. Pain arched it and he flopped down, a lung without surfactant, trying to equalize the shock, but managed to only groan and uselessly pedal his feet against the ground. His arm was nearly behind his head and his shoulder felt dislocated. A dull throbbing was starting there, with a pounding in his head already beginning to harmonize with it.
         He hadn't even seen the man move. He was still standing in the entrance to the alley, centered between the two buildings, the lights cowering from his face. The man was just staring at him. The world seemed to have gone all wobbly. A face full of gelatin.
         "Ah, hey, what was that . . ."
         "Why do you do it?" the man asked again. Like they were restarting the conversation over again. That was just time for you. That was his pet theory. Nothing ever changed, it just went around and around and around in circles, we went through the same motions as the people before us and never realized because we always think we learn from the past, but there is no past, it's all the same. Just the faces change.
         "What are you talking about?"
         "Don't be stupid . . . what the hell else do you do?" and his voice was a startling growl, a wounded animal dodging the inevitable corner. That didn't make any sense. He wasn't the one laid out on the dirt. He had total control.
         "Hey, what's this about, you said you just had to ask a few questions-" he was trying to get angry but his stomach kept clenching and he was getting that tightness in his chest again.
         "I do," and then the man was kneeling down next to him. Laying on hands. There's nothing sacred these days. "But you aren't keeping your end of the bargain." The man's hand darted out, grabbed his twisted arm, wrenched it back around his head until it was positioned between them. He bit off a grunt of pain and tried to shift his position on the ground. But nothing was comfortable.
         "Why do you do this?" the man snarled again. Fingers flushed with warmth encircled his arm like a spider about to lay it eggs in his skin. A thumb probed his inner forearm. He didn't remember rolling up his sleeve. It brushed against something tender and recently raw and he nearly bit his tongue to keep the air from hissing out between your teeth.
         "Ah, ah . . . I don't know . . . man, you're hurting-" he couldn't breath, the man's grip was an iron vice squeezing off his circulation. The throbbing in his arm was now in unison with his head. God, he'd trade this for screaming anytime. That's all he wanted right now.
         "I'm not blind," the man nearly rasped. His breath fogged the air between them, boiling and angry. "I know what these are, I know how you do it . . . all I want to know is why . . ."
         What was he talking about? Dear God this was some kind of lunatic. Had to be. Like the guy that raped that girl. Getting off on people's suffering. That's all it was. Goddamn delusional monster and he was going to kill him or worse and everybody would just hear him scream and scream and nobody would help. They knew better. A place like this, you don't look away, the view'll turn you to stone.
         "Are you so far gone you don't know how to answer a simple question?" the man said, his words distorted and nearly unintelligible. "Or do you just not know anymore . . ."
         "I . . . I don't . . . know, I don't know what you want . . ." beg, that's it, maybe it'll work here, you don't have any dignity, man, it's just a mask you put on for everyone else. You'd throw it all away in a moment. To live. That's all you want to do. Live.
         The man was crouched next to him. For some reason he noticed that his heavy jacket was unzippered completely. His clothing was dark enough to make his head seem disembodied. Nobody here. No bodies around. Just this head. This head and this hand, constricting the life out of his arm. Oh no. He was going to get killed. He knew it. His head wouldn't stop throbbing and darkness was thrusting claws into the edges of his eyes and this man, this man here was going to kill him.
         "Was it just for a thrill?" the man asked insistently. "You were just bored? What was it?" His fingers tightened on the tender areas again, opening rivers of pain throughout his arm, down to fingers, up already aching shoulder. It was driving him mad. He was going to die. Like an animal. He had to get out of here. This wasn't fun at all.
         "Well-" the man started to ask and that's when he knew he had to escape. In a second he had kicked out with his leg, gritting his teeth as it skidded and flailed at empty air, while at the same time trying to tear his arm free. The man's fingers just seemed to separate and just like that he was free. He scrambled backwards, seeing the man take a half step back, still crouched. His eyes were steel in the dark. His hand was touching his waist for some reason.
         "Don't move," he heard someone whisper.
         Far away there was a small click.
         And then scarlet slit the air.
         The entire alley flared like a spotlight had been thrown on it. A crimson spotlight. He shrieked, covering his head and letting his momentum send him sliding clumsily into the ground, his feet still kicking, trying to get him away. Away away away his buzzing head screamed. What the hell was that? God he wanted to throw up. Why did he do it? Why did he let this happen?
         "Listen," the man said with excruciating calm, "if you don't help me out here, I'll take off both your arms." Oh God, he meant it. He was saying this while still crouched where he had been. From between trembling fingers he could see the man through an oblique lens, a burning red glow suffusing the air around him, burning away his features. He didn't feel cold at all anymore. And with his face pressed against his body, he could smell the foul moistness of his own sweat. It made him want to gag. "And then where will you be? You'll have to have someone help you, if someone like you has any friends. Or maybe you'll just have to use your teeth and your toes, you know?"
         "Oh God, oh God," he whispered, his voice coming too fast to hear his own words. What was that? What was he holding? He felt like he was moving, the whole world was racing around him, colors and shapes all melting together, like when he was a kid and he had stuck his sister's doll in the oven and sat there and watched all the features smear and her breasts sag into her nonexistent privates and her hair curl and burn. That as him, the plaything of a naughty little world. Please make it stop.
         "I honestly don't know what you're finding so hard about this," the man murmured. He shifted his position to stand up again. "Maybe if I reexplained-"
         Nonono-
         It was then he noticed the quiet ringing in his ears.
         dingdingdingding
         Someone kicked over a lamp.
         He closed his eyes and felt brightness pressing in.
         Behind him the air became sodden with age. Suddenly something very large was standing over him. Something large and apparently heavy. That's how it felt. Yet it wasn't casting any shadow. His heart was beating so fast that he felt he could watch it start to break through his chest. Oh God he was so scared. What was going on? What was going to happen to him?
         He heard the man step back in surprise and for a second he thought he was going to run. The red glow still emanated from him, casting oblong bloody shadows on the wall, cracked fingers reaching constantly for his face. He still couldn't see what was causing it.
         "What are you doing here?" the man demanded. The man didn't know how to answer that. He wanted to shout, you made me come here! You and your damn questions! But he had no nerve to answer with anymore.
         Except he wasn't being spoken to.
         "No, I think the more important question is . . . just what are you doing?" a voice behind him purred. Oh. It was the sound of lavender. Of colors and the darkest night and sun pouring through a window and volcanoes and dead cats and foam at the edge of the ocean and the feeling you get when you realize that your relationship has peaked and it's never going to get any better and you see the long long road before you finally get the nerve to break up with them. It was all there. Mashed into pungent soundwaves. Oh God he didn't even know how to describe it.
         "This is my business. Stay out of it," the man snapped back, almost failing to break the ambiance.
         "Oh?" He could hear the raised eyebrow in the voice. But he couldn't picture the figure. And he was too scared to turn around. What if there was nothing there? Just some lips, or even worse, a pair of vocal cords, passing judgement on all of them. There was talk of those things. Bobby down by the docks, had told him once how he had seen an entire set of muscles chase a man into the water. It had tried to make him into a real man. People talked. People saw. Nothing was secret for long.
         "And when," the voice asked, "does terrorizing random people fall under your business? Not that it's any of my business, but I was just curious."
         "I was asking him some questions. That's all."
         "That's all indeed. And did you find the answers to this vaunted questions?"
         "Not yet. I'm working on it."
         "I see. And we've moved onto the beating it out of him stage, I take it? I'm sorry I interrupted it."
         "All he had to do was answer, okay? That would have been it."
         "It would have," and then suddenly the voice was a lot closer to his ear, "if you had been asking the right questions."
         It was suddenly very warm. For a second he thought he had pissed himself. But that wasn't it. He felt light, almost nonexistent, like the first time. The time he could never come close to again. Some night he dreamed of its ghost, stepping so near he could look it right in the face and see the eagerness there, goading him on, but when he went to touch it, his cursed fingers just passed right through.
         The memory pulled an old string inside of him, and his leg twitched.
         Just then he realized he wasn't touching anything.
         "Ah, ah . . ." he gasped, opening his eyes and realizing that he was floating off the ground. It was only a foot or two but it was unreal enough that he wanted to doubt his own senses. This had to be a dream.
         "Don't be afraid," someone said and it was the ageless grinding waltz of continental plates.
         Slowly, a ballerina relearning forgotten steps, he was turned until his back brushed against the old brick wall. His heart was fluttering like a hummingbird in flight. To his left he could see the bleeding red hue still emanating from the man, an irritated unblinking eye. He didn't dare look at it. He didn't want to know what it was.
         Slightly in front of him and to his right a golden mist kept seeming to rain from the air. He thought there was a man shaped figure in there somewhere, flickering like an afterimage from the bomb. For some reason he couldn't focus on it. God? Finally? This certainly wasn't how he imagined it would be.
         "There is a sickness inside of you," the voice said and for a moment he thought it was absolutely true. "It wasn't always there. You put it there yourself and you keep feeding it and now you don't have the strength to starve it.
         "I can remove it, burn it out of you and you'll never have the craving again. You know I can do it. I can do it and you can live your life freely, not burdened by this sickness in you."
         His tongue ran lightly over dry lips. He thought he tasted blood. It was so hard to just keep staring straight ahead and not see anything. The voice felt like it was rummaging around his head, slamming open doors and breaking windows. "What . . . what are you talking about? I don't know what you're saying."
         "What I'm saying," the voice continued with infinite calm, "is that I can cure you. All you have to do is want it." There was a long pause and it felt like a million eyes from a million directions were staring at him. All from the same face. "So . . . would you like me to do it?"
         His nerve was fraying. This attention, he didn't need it. He didn't want it. His feet weren't touching the ground. He was stuck to this wall like the whole world was made of velcro and now he was being asked impossible things.
         This was madness. It had to be. And he didn't want any part of it.
         "Ah, man, just get . . . just get me the hell out of here. Okay? I don't want any of this. Whatever you people are trying to do, I don't want any of it." Another person was speaking his words. But he meant them all the same.
         "But you could be cleansed," the voice caressed. It felt almost sickening, like a tongue dragged across his body.
         "Stop that, man, there's nothing wrong with me, okay? Nothing. Whatever head game you're trying to play with me, stop it, okay?" He was yelling now. His voice sounded utterly normal. His throat hurt from screaming. Eyes that didn't care were staring at him from all angles. Even from the inside. "Just stop it and leave me alone! All right? Enough of this!"
         "So that's a no, I take it?" the voice asked mildly.
         "Screw you! Get the hell out of here and leave me alone!" He felt frantic, like it was just going to leave him here and he would rot and die and for years people would come to see this floating skeleton decorating this goddamn nameless alley. He wanted out. He wanted out of this night and this nightmare. "Just put me down and go!"
         "As you wish."
         The wings holding him suddenly dropped away and he plunged the two feet onto the ground, landing on his face and getting the wind knocked out of him. Motes of detached light were hovering close to the ground, like fairies come to feed on his corpse. Jolted from the fall, his entire body seemed to ache. But maybe it was all in his head.
         Voices far away were talking.
         "Satisfied now?"
         "That didn't prove anything."
         "I think it answered your question, didn't it? It told me everything I needed to know."
         "I don't need your help, all right? This is something I need to do on my own. So stay out of it."
         "Didn't you already learn there is no `on your own' anymore? And besides, I didn't come purely by chance."
         "Nothing you do is by chance, it seems."
         "Nor did I come simply to irritate you. In fact, I came at your request."
         "What? I never-"
         "Think about it."
         A long pause.
         Then: "We'll discuss this later."
         "Very well. Later, then."
         And then a flashbulb went off again, in slow motion, like a firework being dissolved instead of exploding. The sideways image dazzled him, but he couldn't bring himself to look at it. It was simply too pure.
         Nearby he could hear the angry pacing of the man's footsteps. He was muttering to himself. The red light kept bending the shadows, distorting mundane shapes into hellish caricatures. The face of the man was in there somewhere, he knew. It had to be.
         The words he was spitting out weren't intelligible, although they kept fading in and out of volume depending on how near he was standing. The man seemed to have forgotten all about him. Good. Good. He didn't dare move. Not an inch. He'd just lay here and stay and maybe the man would eventually walk away and everything would be-
         "Dammit!" the man suddenly yelled and a red spike lashed through the air. He felt it, dammit. Oh God, he felt that cut the air. What was it?
         Dirt showered on him like a gentle mist.
         The shout reverberated for the slightest second, the buildings throwing his voice back at him. Playback for the attention deprived. The red glow abruptly vanished, like a physical anger going to sleep and there was the clattering bustle of footsteps moving away very quickly. Another second later they faded into the timbre of the night and were gone.
         After waiting for what felt like an abnormally long time, especially in this new pristine silence, he delicately picked up his head and looked around. Nothing. The alley was empty. Just trash and discarded refuse and pieces of lives that he had no names for. Shifting his posture to his hands and knees, he felt a twinge in his back and legs. His arm still tingled where it had been touched.
         What a night. God. What the hell had just happened? A dream, maybe? Perhaps he had had another argument and had walked out until he couldn't walk anymore and had fallen asleep here. That made a weird sort of sense. He felt tired, bone weary, like there were claws trying to pry him apart from the inside.
         Standing up, he reflected that for all his trouble, he still hadn't gotten any money. Even dream money would be more real than anything he had at the moment. And it was said that the people he dealt with took dreams as their currency. Sometimes. Sometimes he wasn't so sure who was getting what.
         A sudden shuddering overtook his body, blurring his vision into doubles of doubles. The sight was familiar as was the sensation. He'd have to find money somewhere. Soon. Briefly he started to lose his balance and he put a hand onto the wall nearest him to brace himself.
         His fingers curled into a very deep notch.
         Blinking rapidly to clear his vision, he saw a three foot long slash had been gouged into the brick. Touching it gingerly, curiously, he realized the edges were utterly smooth.
         What-
         Someone coughed to his right.
         Spinning, he saw a man silhouetted in the alley. His arms were crossed over his chest and his one ankle was crossed over the other as he leaned on the building corner. His body was a beanstalk against the splash of streetlight, almost whip-like.
         And his grin seemed to glitter, signify something almost wild.
         "Now that the peanut gallery has had their say," the man said with a too friendly chuckle, "I'd like to ask you some relevant questions."
         Mouth agape, his body quivered, and he found he had to lean against the wall for support. Slowly his forehead touched the cool brick. The night was closing in. Closing in on them all. He heard more than felt something wet snap somewhere deep inside of him.
         Without warning, he began to laugh hysterically.