- I -

When I Say I Don't Want to Be Happy You Make It Sound Like I Just Don't Care And It's Not Like That

         Last night I had a dream. You were there.
         It was messed up. I was trying to slit my wrists again just like that night back in ninth grade but the only thing that kept coming out was foam. It was running down my arms and getting all over my hands and my clothes and I couldn't get it off. I was sitting in the bathtub with the water running so my mom wouldn't hear anything and so that the blood wouldn't stain anything and all the foam kept mixing with the water and making more of it. And I was crying because it was getting all over my nicest shirt and because I wasn't dying. All that slicing and there was no blood. It wasn't fair. I had wanted blood and it just wouldn't come.
         And you were there. I don't know why. You were in the bathroom standing over the bathtub looking at me sitting in the water covered in foam oozing from my slit wrists and I kept crying to you, I can't bleed I can't bleed over and over again. And finally you laughed, which made me cry even more. Because I thought if anyone would have understood it would have been you.
         But you said to me, in a voice that sounded just like yours, you said, You're going about it all wrong. Death is something that happens to other people. To someone else. You have to wait until you're one of the other people, and then it'll work. You'll see. One day you'll understand.
         I didn't want to hear that. I was sitting in a bubble bath now, in my good Sunday dress all ready for church. My mom was hammering at the door, telling me it was time to go meet God. You looked at the door and said it wasn't time yet. Then you reached down and took me by the hand and together we went through the door. We walked past the skeleton that was my mom, dressed in her pink apron and hammering at the door with her bony fingers. She was pregnant again. There was a fetus skeleton all curled up in her ribcage. I wish I knew who the father was. It smiled at me when I walked past. At least I think it was smiling. I always thought babies were cute, no matter how old they were.
         My wrists weren't leaking foam anymore and so I felt a little better. But not much. You were holding my hand and that felt good too. We went downstairs together, past my father, who was sitting on the couch reading the paper. I don't remember what he looked like. I only remember words and sounds. Daddy was a conglomeration. That was the biggest word, sketched across his teeth.
         We were going outside when he put the newspaper down and asked me where I was going. I don't think he ever saw you. He never did. I told him I was trying to find a way to die. I told him I tried to slit my wrists and nothing came out but foam. I tried to show him, but he didn't see it. All he saw was my white skin. I don't have white skin. But that's what he saw. I don't blame him, in a way. He said I should try harder and I told him that I was. He said, Good, good that's the spirit. You said, Maybe you should show us how to do it.
         Daddy didn't answer. I think he wanted us to find our own answer. Everyone has to. That's true even not in dreams. So we went outside into the sun to find answers.
         Outside my mom was playing with the new baby. They were playing the Ugly Game. Mom was telling the baby how it would never be pretty and never amount to anything and eventually get fat and old and stupid and nobody would ever want to have sex with it because it was so ugly. I looked at the baby and saw that my mom was probably right. In the light it looked just a little bit more hideous than before, all pink and wrinkled and drooling. It had happened to me and it was going to happen to the baby. I felt a little glad. At least I wasn't the only one.
         And you said to me that I shouldn't believe my mom. And I said who am I going to believe, my dad? You said don't believe either of them. And I said then I have nobody left to believe in. And you said you could believe me. I thought that was nice. You didn't have to say that. You never said that to me.
         We were walking to the school across the street. There was a sign over the door that said We'll make you the way you are today. Two kids were playing Four Squares in the front of the school. They kept passing the ball to each other but nobody wanted to keep score. They were dressed all in black. But when we asked to join they threatened to smash our heads in. You said but you need two more people to play four squares. They said they'd burn out our eyes with cigarettes. There were scars around their eyes and in their arms and on their calves. You wanted to go. I said maybe we should stay, maybe they could help me die. But you said that wasn't death. I asked you what you meant by that but you wouldn't explain further. I started to cry again. You told me to stop. I didn't want to. I said maybe if I kept crying all the tears would dry away and I would just cry blood until there was nothing left.
         But you said no, that's silly and stop that. And then you grabbed my hand and pulled me along around the school, away from the school, past the basketball courts where the children turned into old men and begged us to let them out, that they didn't want to be there anymore. Someone told them that if they stayed they could be young forever. That's what I wanted. But they didn't want it to hurt. I didn't mind the hurt. It reminded me that I was alive right before I died. I don't think I understood how much I wanted it. You did. You always understood. That's why everyone always liked you.
         While we were standing there I started to bleed again. It was a trickle running down my legs and into my shoes and it made me feel uncomfortable. I didn't want to say anything to you because I didn't want you staring at me. So we kept walking and I didn't say anything and it wouldn't stop. I didn't think it would ever stop. Everyone else was staring at me. There was no one around but I could tell. It's just something you feel.
         And then I took your hand and said, stop. And you stopped and asked what the problem was. And I said, Look, look at me. There's something wrong. My legs were warm and slick and I smelled like copper. I could almost taste it. I was waiting for you to yell at me or laugh at me or just say nothing and walk away which is what happened the first time I made myself bleed.          But you just looked at me, looking me up and down and didn't seem to care. And you said, So? So? you said. Isn't this terrible, I said. It's such an awful thing. And you said, It's nothing so terrible. It happens to everyone. That's just what you said. It's just your time now. That's all.
         I got mad and crossed my arms and started to walk away. I nearly slipped on my own pool of blood. It stank like talc. I didn't mean to get mad. But I was tired of crying. I couldn't handle what you were telling me. You were saying that I wasn't unique. That really bothered me. I don't know why, but it did. I hated you for it. At least I tried to hate you. Because if I wasn't different then I was just like everyone else.
         I heard you move behind me and you said, Please don't leave. Please come back. It was the saddest thing I ever heard. But I didn't turn around. The blood was drying on my legs and it hurt to move. It felt like you were only real when I wasn't facing you, that if I turned around you would be gone.
         Up ahead all the girls in my honors class were counting the cracks on the sidewalk. Their knees and elbows were scraped and their noses were worn down to the bone because their faces were so close. It was for their mothers, one girl said to me, her breath whistling through the triangle shaped hole in her face. Because their mothers stayed at home and cooked and cleaned and raised them right and that's why they turned out so smart. So they wanted to make sure they knew where all the cracks were so no mother's back would ever break again and every mother could stay home and teach them how to be ladies and cook and clean and be smart in finding a man and grow up right.
         It sounded like a good idea. All good ideas did. And then you ran past me and past them and stepped on the largest crack in sight. There was a noise like the world ending. All the honors girls screamed and fell over while still on their knees. They bent backwards at the waist and it sounded like dry firewood. I felt sick and I asked you, I screamed Why did you do that?
         You said, Because it wasn't right. That's all you said. Because my father was a good man. You said that too. I wanted to tell you I didn't understand. But I didn't have the words.
         You took my hand again and said, Come with me. I want to show you something. So we walked past the broken girls and I realized I wasn't bleeding anymore, which made me feel a little depressed. I wanted to think I was bleeding for a reason. That it would never stop.
         Your car was right by the curb, waiting for us. The mailman finished covering the rearview mirrors and then we got in and drove away. The radio was playing a song I'd never heard before. I asked you what it was and you said it wasn't been written yet. You said you were going to write it and it was going to be about me and people would always remember me because the song was about me. You said that nobody would remember that you wrote it because that wasn't important. Once something was written, it didn't matter who brought it into existence, since the meaning was the only thing that mattered. I didn't know if I agreed with that. I wanted to be remembered, not my ideas. I told you that and you said, You'll see. You were always saying that to me. You'll see.
         Still, I thought it was nice you were writing a song about me. You never did that either.
         We drove into the park and I noticed all the trees were gone. People were wandering all around looking for the missing trees but nobody seemed to even know where to start. They kept moving in slow unison, and even though there were a lot of people there they all looked sad and alone, like they didn't know everyone else was there. I wanted to help but you didn't stop so I didn't say anything. We drove down by the lake and then the car stalled and we had to get out. The landscape was beautiful, all deep grasses and flowers and the sun was shining like a warm rain and I felt great. I took a couple steps through the deep grass and it rubbed all the blood from my legs. I had even forgotten it was there. It tickled and that felt good too. I laughed and turned around and saw that flowers were growing out of the car, pushing up the hood and warping the metal, poking out from the windows, all different colors. It was beautiful. I thought the car was so much more useful that way and I could tell you agreed. I felt so happy.
         You took my hand and we walked a ways, down a hill then up another hill and then down into a low valley and then back up to a higher hill. Then we stopped. I looked out and the sky was clear, I couldn't even see the car or my house or the school or my parents or the blood or anything anymore. Just the blue sky and the green world and all my problems had gone somewhere else. It was wonderful. You were there and I felt wonderful.
         And then you turned to me and you said, Do you like this. And I said I love it. I meant it, too. I know I did. And you said, This is what the world's really like. I told you, I know that, I just keep forgetting. I didn't want to forget ever again. I don't remember if I said that to you.
         I didn't remember because right after that you kissed me and it took forever and it went so fast I could barely remember how it felt right after you stopped and I wanted to do it again. You were holding me close and I felt so warm and so safe and I knew I could be here forever and I knew that's why you were here with me, so we could be together.
         How do you feel now? you whispered in my ear. Do you feel like someone?
         Yes, I said. Yes, I feel like someone special. Finally I feel like I'm someone else.
         And you said, Good. That's good. Your voice was really quiet.
         And then you slit my throat.
         I woke up and it was dark and I didn't know where you were. I barely recognized the room. There was a bad taste in my mouth. It hurt to swallow. I thought you were gone. Maybe you were. But right then I knew, I realized that you would always be there.
         No matter where you were.

After the Rain Stops the Air Smells Like Mist

         Why am I doing this? What is this supposed to accomplish? I don't even know anymore. I started it for one reason and I'm continuing it for another and now I don't even know if either are any good.
         The other day I heard the first joke about it. We win, was the punchline. You wouldn't have laughed but I did. I don't know why. Shock, maybe. A sense of not wanting to feel out of place. Pretending that my meager guilt isn't protracted at all.
         Or maybe because it really was funny. That's what scares me most of all. It feels too soon. But the dour expressions came off a week later and now I'm here, pretending to remember what everyone seemed to have forgotten. But it's a manufactured memory of a life that nobody will ever know. Everyone forgets. I don't. I won't. But who cares?
         You people are waiting for a climax, a catharsis of sorts and for all your waiting and waiting it's never going to come. I can tell you that now. It's not how life works. Nothing ever climaxes or builds or anything. Nothing comes to a head, there's no pressure and no release. The only exposition you get is from the mistakes you make and from there it's all flat. We leave our resolutions for the next crew who comes in and they're cursing us for it long after we've been tossed into the ground.
         But that's not what this is about. I don't know what this is all about. But I already told you that.
         In fact, I've told you how it ends. Or how it won't end. Do you understand that? Do you see? What I've done? What I can't do? I'm just trying to do the right thing. That's my pitiful excuse. You know how this is going to end. There's no reason anymore.
         So why are you still here?
         I don't want to be.
         I really wish I wasn't.

Thirty Days Before This Wall Goes Down

         The doorbell rang. From outside he heard it cascading throughout the house, a fairy alerting the household. He listened, but he didn't hear anyone moving around inside. Sighing, Brown crossed his arms and leaned against the mailbox, trying to whistle a tune his lips didn't have the coordination for. After a minute he realized he hadn't heard any sound at all. Granted that didn't mean much, he didn't even want to count the times Tristian had crept up on him without even really trying. It wasn't like it was some kind of power he could just turn on or off.
         Still, the least thing you could say about the man was that he was punctual almost to a fault. And he definitely would have answered the door by now.
         Come on, where else would he be? Brown mused, moving to try the doorbell again. Maybe he didn't hear the first one. Can't hurt to try again. That was a good philosophy. If you keep trying maybe you'll get so numb that you won't feel anything anymore. Maybe that was the only way to make it through.
         His finger was in the process of stabbing at the button again when he heard a voice to his right rasp:
         "I'm sorry but Tristian isn't home right now . . ."
         Whirling in the direction of the voice and feeling a twinge in his back as he did so, Brown found himself face to face with a grinning Tristian, one who definitely hadn't been there a second before. Motes like dust quivered at his eye. The air suddenly stank of a summer long departed, all sodden grass and weeping air.
         ". . . but if you leave your name, number and a brief message I'm sure he'll do his best to get back to you after he's finished whatever depressing quest he's currently engaged in . . ."
         Great. Inwardly groaning Brown said, "That's cute, but how about you just tell me where-"
         Without another word the other Tristian suddenly fell apart into a brilliant shower of sparks, a gold dust statue disassembling itself.
         Brown instinctively shielded his eyes against the brightness as he finished, "-he is." Letting his arm drop to his side, he sighed again. There was a taste in his mouth like dry air and his skin felt tingly, like it had been ionized. Weird stuff, this life. "Fine. Be that way. So much for being reasonable." Though it wasn't like picking him up and shaking him would have led to better results. At best it would have given him a free ticket to an extended visit to the hospital. He peered closer at where the man had been standing, but as he expected there was no trace of his presence at all. Wonderful, just wonderful. So now both of them were hanging around. Brown didn't see himself as much of a pessimist, although he had a lot of reasons to be that way, but it was getting harder to quelch a rising sense of oncoming doom. Why were they here? Why? There was no telling what was going to happen now. Even the winter air seemed hesitant, afraid to take another step into the next season. If Tristian was a wild card, then the Agents were from another deck entirely. Whether Tristian was actively realizing it or not, and all evidence ventured closer to the not, the Agents were starting to act more like his own personal id, aiding his deepest subconscious impulses. Brown had no idea why that was happening, and it was disturbing him, because he hadn't noticed that behavior in them until recently, mostly within the last few months. Maybe he was simply paying more attention. It didn't matter much anyway, because who was going to try and stop them? By the time you began to mount a defense, they had already gone and done whatever they were planning, leaving your hastily erected fort a useless curiosity, something for tourists to photograph and shake their heads at. What could anyone do? Fortunately for everyone, Tristian had about the purest subconscious he had ever seen.
         But pure was all in the interpretation. And although he'd never admit it, Tristian wasn't interested in the common good twenty four hours a day, no matter how much he tried. He couldn't be. Nobody would be begrudge him his own interests, even if Tristian felt he didn't deserve any. Still, try as he might, as optimistic as he was, Brown couldn't shake this one fear, that there might be one orchestration going on that none of them would see until it was too late, no matter how benevolent its intent.
         Lena.
         Commander, we don't play with emotions, a blend of their two disparate voices echoed hollowly in his head.
         Just for once don't be lying to me, he thought firmly, hoping maybe they could hear him from whatever godly lounge they relaxed in when they weren't busy screwing everyone up, just for once, let him do this himself. And yet, he couldn't help but feel a small pang of jealousy, even as he tried desperately to suppress it. Nobody was touching a magic wand to his head and making all his hidden desires come true. Except that wasn't right. Brown didn't want that. He knew he didn't. Neither did Tristian, he knew that too. Two of a kind, they were. The hard way for both of them. Just how it had to be.
         Except he couldn't help but want for things he would never have. Figures. Goddamn selfish human. Get goddamned immortality and you still want more. How much arrogance do you have for breakfast every morning? Enough to feed a country, eh? Fat with your own hubris. Taking a deep breath of the numbed air into his lungs Brown knew he wasn't feeling himself, just as a man with rampaging cancer knows his body is rebelling. The mind is strong, but the spirit, the spirit wasn't ready. If only they could-no. No. No. These thoughts were wrong, it was useless to torment himself this way. Yet he persisted. What had he done this morning? Oh, he knew. Up until an hour ago his hands had been so swollen they looked like misshapen boulders. And worse. There had been much worse. There was the problem with regeneration, right there, no physical memory, all the consequences were just smoothed away. For here he was, weary and worn, running on two hours sleep and still actively wishing to be anywhere but here. And not just anywhere but a certain place, a place etched in his head, walled off in his mind, but he was more than willing to hammer at the wall until his hands were pulp, until the only result possible was the wall coming down. He could do it. He would do it. For him it was all too easy a step. And that scared him like nothing else.
         And despite all his posturing, Don was still dead. All this plotting only distracted him from his own grief. The soldiers' manual talked about burying your friends, but not the one who never lifted up a gun, who found a weapon far more insidious and personal and in the end looked straight down the barrel and pulled his own trigger. Brown wasn't sure what stage he was at. Denial, still. Maybe. In his misbegotten fantasy of a life, reality was so subjectively easy to deny, to stall and hold off, even. Except it would wait, Brown could return to it at any time and it would be there, patient, eager, begging for him to turn around and stare into its sadly gaping maw once again. Sticking your head in the dragon's mouth and hoping to God that you go quicker than the last guy did. All that flailing and screaming and, oh, blood everywhere. Just everywhere. His dreams tonight were doing to be interesting. This might be the year to swear off sleep. God, he didn't need this. He didn't need any of this. They talk about resolution, about closure but nothing even ended. Our deaths only end our part in our own lives. A funeral was just a way to let you know that the formalities were over and it was time to suffer your grief in private and spare everyone else. He knew the drill, having gone through it twice already. Twice too many. Twice too early. Keep the bloody grief to yourself, 'kay mate? Don't you have any decency? Carrying on in public like this? Like that? There's blood on your hands, Joseph. No, not any more, I washed it off this morning at a public fountain. It bled off my hands in rivers that curled like ribbon fish dispersing into their components. I watched it dissolve and wondered where all the shed blood goes. Maybe to a place where it'll be cradled and never spilled in vain again. Wouldn't we all like to go there? The chilled dawning sun had glistened off the pristine water like the clouds parting on the first day. It's been in our system since before we had a name for it. We're all moving backwards into the soup that we melted from. One to many many back to one. Some just get there before the rest. But even their massless spirits exert an inevitable gravity, pulling us closer, faster, day by day. Even his own distant actions, a short step and a million miles away too far away, were affected.
         So now what? Frowning slightly, he hopped off the step and back onto the walkway. He turned to face the impassive door once again, fighting a sudden temptation to try and break in. That caused the edges of his lips to twitch a little. No reason not to keep the old skills in practice, right? Almost instantly he decided against it, intelligently realizing it might not be a bright idea to break into the house of a man who was fully capable of, and had once succeeded in, killing him. Sure. Go right ahead and startle him. Then you'd be wondering why you're staring at your own severed legs. That was a novelty that wore out its welcome even before his first experience. Yet here he was, less than a year later, laughing at it. Laughing so hard his chest started to itch.
         The somatic reminder sobered him instantly. Dammit Tristian, where are you? Trying to vent some frustration, he kicked at the step with one boot. Tristian is not home right now. Sure, sure. Whatever. Out of the mouths of the gods themselves. A messaging service you could sacrifice your cattle to instead of paying the bills. With luck, Tristian would probably be home soon, Brown had actually expected him to teleport back but that obviously didn't happen.
         Brown decided he would take a walk for a few minutes, clear his head, before coming back. By then, Tristian would have to be home. The man was persistent, not slow. And if he still wasn't home, then he could try and break in. Screw courtesy, it was starting to get cold out here.
         As he was walking away from Tristian's house, a gentle melancholy fell over him before he even reached the driveway. Slid right between his ribs, you don't even feel the teeth bite into your heart until the blood wells up in your mouth. He stood there at the edge, his hands tucked into his jacket pockets and his heels together, looking left and right and trying to decide which way to go. Both directions looked the same. It occurred to him that most people only had time to follow one path to see where it went. He had ample time to see the ends of both. And then some. There was a heaviness to his thoughts he couldn't shake. Brown thought about where he had been last night, and why. We're not supposed to go this early, he thought bitterly. There should be some kind of moratorium on dying before the age of twenty five, just something guaranteed so you know you'll have a chance to enjoy life for a little bit, before fate decides to take over and then whatever happens, happens. Otherwise, it's just luck from the day you're born. He thought about the ward full of dead babies he had come across once, some militants had taken over the hospital and had irradiated the entire place to avoid falling to the mercy of the dreaded Time Patrol. What had been the point of that? To be born only to live what? a month? two months? not even a year? You don't even have any memories to take with you. No comfort to cushion your descent into that long night. Standing in that cold and gruesome place, surrounded by empty and unmoving husks of promise, Brown wished fervently that the Universe had some kind of reincarnation system in place, so that everyone got a fair shot, one way or another. But he didn't know. Not for sure. Not for certain. He hadn't seen any evidence to prove it or disprove it and the people who might know weren't telling him anything. He was sure they had a good reason for the secrecy. It was just that he didn't buy it.
         All his thoughts felt grim, interlocking into a faceless wall of blackness. Lumbering dark skeletons, fleshless faces knocking on the doors of his head, scaring all the other thoughts back into the soft sanctity of their beds. In the dark all you could hear was the clacking of bone on bone and the chiseling grinding of approaching teeth. Somewhere there's a scythe with your name engraved on it. Stop that. Stop it. He hated this. Brown wasn't normally a solemn person, but now he felt like he was whiteing out inside, someone poured out his internal organs and replaced them with static. White noise for a pulse. Scrambled signals in the nerves. Did it even hurt? He didn't want to think about death, but he was constantly drawn back. First his parents, now Don, this was the sort of thing he wasn't supposed to have to deal with until he was old enough to want to learn to accept it. Confront your own mortality, or more appropriately, confront everyone else's, since yours really isn't a pressing issue. Not anymore. He tried to remember the last time he had seen Don and he couldn't. Not concretely. He could easily remember times but couldn't earmark any as the last time. Probably around his high school graduation, which was nothing more than a haze of relief and crushing anxiety, a swirling blur with the end result the sobering revelation that for better or for worse, he really was on his own now.
         And what great things he had done. Amazing what one person could accomplish when they set out to do something. Especially earlier today. He could be proud of that, for certain. One man and his petty little war. Brown marveled how he couldn't even keep the sarcasm out of his own thoughts. An address flashed neon in his head, an address he had tried to transfer to a piece of paper and promptly forget, as if the physical act might negate a second's mental scarring, scrawled in place with the hot iron of a frightened stutter. No use, it was here to stay. Squatters on the brain. You raise the price but they aren't paying anything to begin with. And once you start, when does it become too high? Even the steps there seemed traced out in dayglo footprints on a map in his head, dancesteps to the damned. Screw good intentions, Hell's pavement has its own version of the salsa. But he didn't want to go. He wouldn't. Absently he found himself noting which way he'd have to turn at the next corner to make it there as swiftly as possible, a realization that halted his stride. Don't do it. For a second he considered walking in the complete opposite direction simply to spite his own base desires. Dammit, giving it to Tristian should have helped. Except it wasn't the same. Tristian wouldn't do what Brown very much wanted to do and even if Tristian did, the vicariousness of the act wouldn't satisfy him. But, dammit, what did it matter? Especially now. Don was dead, anything else were just superfluous reactions, vain attempts to assuage his own tender emotions.
         Yet for all his rationalizations, he couldn't talk himself out of it.
         Just a left at the next-
         No! No no no!
         God, this wasn't working. It wasn't working at all. Time to brush up on the lockpicking skills, after all, it seemed, Brown thought wryly, trying not to notice the way his nails were digging into his palms. Maybe Tristian was back by now. Maybe-
         "Joe! Hey! Joe!"
         A girl's voice. Coming from behind. I swear if the Agents are- he thought as he spun around, not trusting himself to finish out the sentence completely. Lord knew they could probably read his mind across the goddamned galaxy. One of these days he was going to finish a thought like that and they'd find his charred ashes on the sidewalk and wonder why. Zeus didn't die, folks, he just found a new set of Greeks to annoy.
         But it was really a girl. She was down the street a little ways but close enough that he could tell that much. Waving one arm and calling his name, she sped up her pace to reach him faster. Brown stood still, squinting a little to focus on her face. His eyes widened when he saw who it was. Oh my. Now this was unexpected.
         "Hey, Joe, how're you doing?" Jackie asked him, puffing a little as she came to a halt, her mouth vomiting little clouds of air. She looked better than he had expected, though Brown wasn't sure what he meant by that. Her smile was unforced and she tapped his arm as she greeted him. His internal reaction surprised him. Did he want her to become the walking wounded? Was it so wrong to start to recover as soon as you could, to get on with your life. Leave mourning to the dead. They had plenty of time for it.
         "Fine, just fine," Brown replied, grinning at her. His wasn't so unforced, though running into someone who couldn't rearrange his entire molecular structure into that of a lamppost certainly went a ways toward brightening his day. Especially if that someone was more than moderately attractive. That last thought sneaked out before he could stop it, though he had a feeling she'd appreciate it all the same. Fortunately she couldn't read his thoughts either. Time to start taking the small things for granted. "How about yourself?"
         "I'm okay," was all she said with barely a sigh and Brown left it at that. She fidgeted a little as they stood there, shifting her stance as if cold. A simple hair piece succeeded in pulling her hair back from her face, highlighting the contours. Her teeth seemed to chattering a little bit. He remembered that Don hadn't lived too close to here and he wondered if she had walked all this way. If so, that would explain the chill. In this weather, it was a bit of a hike.
         "So what brings you around here?" Brown asked, figuring idle curiosity wasn't off limits as a conversation topic. Though if she said something like, My brother loved this stretch of sidewalk the best, he was going to feel pretty damn bad. At this rate he'd have to stay alive a long time so that all the people who he offended while living had enough time to forget about the insult while in the afterlife. He found his sense of the absurd only a little unsettling. "Not quite your usual haunts." And boy did he kick himself for that word. Why not just say Gee you never walked around here while your brother was alive. You haven't made someone cry in front of you in over a month now, Brown, might as well go for the record before you get stale.
         "No, you've got me there," she answered, smiling and shrugging almost shyly. Gesturing with her shoulder and head toward Tristian's house, she continued, "I actually, um, came to see if Tristian was home. Were you just coming from there?"
         "Involuntarily, yeah," Brown told her. At her puzzled frown, he explained, "He's not home. He skipped off somewhere, though I think he's supposed to be back soon." Shrugging, he continued, "But when that might is anybody's guess."
         Jackie chewed her lip thoughtfully. "Damn, okay. And here Brian's telling him that Tristian never leaves his house." Brown was silently grateful she wasn't trying to get in five minutes ago. Though the Agents may not have done that to her. They probably only pulled that crap on special friends like him.
         "Brian's caught in a bit of a time warp, I'm afraid," Brown said, wincing at the irony inherent in his own sentence. "He thinks Tristian hasn't changed much since high school."
         "Really? I don't remember him that much, my brother . . . never really talked about him that much. Once in a while, he'd mention him, but that was it." Her face didn't flicker over her brother's name one bit. An iron will, right there. Brown could barely cause him to think his friend's name, for fear of evoking those memories he was trying to avoid, the ones he should immersing himself in. For a year after his parents died, the only time he thought their names was by accident. It was the only way he could have dealt. Remember the happy times, they say, always the goddamn elusive they, laying down all the mysterious rules. Remember the happy times you shared and be content with that. But, no. No he didn't want to, because all they did was remind him that the happy times weren't now. And that was a slap in the face he didn't need. "But I thought Brian knew him pretty well. Guess not."
         "Tristian . . ." Brown paused, trying to figure out who to put it, trying not to let hindsight color his words too much, "Tristian tended to act one way around people and everyone just assumed that it was the way he always acted. And . . . after he graduated, after a while he just started acting the way he did when nobody was around all the time, so we all assumed that he'd just changed."
         "Oh, I see," Jackie replied, but the lingering trace of a question bracketing her statement made him wonder just how much she saw. Oh well it didn't matter. Nobody ever said he had great insights into human nature anyway. So much for that best selling book. She bit her lip again, glancing toward his house like he might be hiding there, reading their lips. "I had always thought, you know, that . . . something changed him." He waited for her eyes to turn up toward the sky, but somehow she resisted the temptation. Another dramatic opportunity lost. Pity.
         "Oh, that, no." You sound so definitive, Commander Brown. Can you be less certain? "He hasn't been himself for the last few months, I'll admit because he's been trying to sort it all out but underneath that oh so dour exterior he's the same old Tristian." Maybe too much so, but Brown didn't add that part. That was for Tristian to deal with and Tristian only. Brown didn't even know why he was telling her all of this. Grief loosening his tongue, he guessed. Had to talk about something. Discuss the living. Be glad you're still one of them. Chill air rustled bare branches. Brown found that he had missed the sounds of bird calls. This was the wrong time to come back. The Earth sleeps during the winter. But it wakes up again later, right? Yes, but some of us don't, children. Some of us don't.
         "That's good to know," Jackie said quickly. Suddenly she wasn't looking directly at him. The man blur befuddles the senses. "I mean, I didn't know all of that, I thought, you know that . . ." Breathing sharply she glanced down at the ground, seeming to tense up completely, until he could almost hear her vibrating, a string plucked too early.
         "Hey, are you all right?" Brown asked, taking a step forward but not touching her at all. Little things like that were important to him. Touch me not, space man.
         "Where were you going?" came the fast question, running on the heels of his own statement. "Were you just taking a walk, or going somewhere, or . . ."
         "I was just . . . just taking a walk for a few minutes, figured I'd walk a bit and then come back and see if he had come home. That's all." She still wasn't looking at him. Brown wanted her to, just to reassure him that she was okay. But why should she be. Her brother was dead.
         "Oh, mind if I walk with you, then? Is that all right?" Even before he could answer she had already started walking, swiftly even with him as he tried to formulate a response and then nearly past him, leaving his trailing in her wake as the only affirmative she would immediately get.
         "Listen, are you okay? Honestly, are you?" he asked, more forcibly this time.
         "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," she told him, pushing some hair back behind her ear with one hand, swallowing with some difficulty as she stared almost fixedly at the path before her. "Sorry about that, I, ah, what you said about Tristian, I . . ." glancing at him sideways, she continued, "about him, you know, trying to sort everything out and I mean, I already feel bad after what I said to him at the wake . . ."
         "He knows there were extenuating circumstances," Brown replied, remembering how the two of them spent their separate mornings. You never see the shockwaves that hit you the hardest. "I mean, I won't claim he wasn't startled but once the shock wore off . . . he understood." Brown flashed her a warm grin. "He's a nice guy like that."
         "Yeah," Jackie said, briefly showing a slim, pretty smile, her eyes still focused on the ground, or the horizon ahead. Their voices were the only real sounds puncturing the environment. It felt like a snowed in landscape where all the snow had been removed somehow, so greyly somber were the surroundings, the grass flattened and dull, the branches weighed heavy with expectant weather. He half expected to see people peeking at them from behind slits in the blinds, darting back fearfully inside to avoid meeting his gaze.
         "I just, wanted to apologize to him, for . . . for doing that to him." A slight, self mocking laugh. "I mean, I know it was a crappy thing to do before I heard more about . . . about what he was going through." Her clear eyes stared at him, locking gazes with him for just a second. "Because it really wasn't fair, what I did to him. I didn't have any right to say that. Especially to him." She shook her head, "God what the hell was I even thinking."
         "You only said what a lot of people were probably thinking already," Brown replied. Now he was the one not looking at her. He was toeing the line now, trying to explain with revealing. "The rest of us, we know what it's like for him, or we know a little bit is probably closer to the truth, but you know, considering . . . him and his . . . situation, you can't help but . . . but wonder." He shrugged. "It's only human. Yeah, your timing wasn't the best, but I think you can be forgiven that."
         "I feel bad, though," she said, her mouth frowning in a tight line, making her seem older than she was. It was only for a second but it was enough to make Brown wonder if his comment had hurt her feelings, or if she was still pensive from the effects that her words had apparently had on Tristian. "I keep seeing his face, right after I said it to him, and it . . . he looked so scared, like he knew that he couldn't do something like that and he didn't want to tell me that and instead of doing that he was going to find some way to do it anyway." Quieter, she said, "He didn't even really know who I was."
         "That's Tristian for you," Brown noted lightly. They were at the corner now, a T-section. Before them was a small church, squat and red bricked. It looked empty. A few cars streaked past, pushing their luck against the speed limit, only to disappear around the curve, heading to God only knew where. The two of them went left, beginning a slow curl around the corner. Falling back into orbit. Even when you're not there, Tristian, we circle around like you're still in the center. Who's fault is that?
         "He's not going to do anything stupid, right?" Jackie asked him suddenly. He had the brief impression of her grabbing his arm, trying to squeeze the truth out of him. But oh no, Mrs Brown's only son won't squeeze that easily. The mold made us hard as rocks. No woman can crack us. Ha!
         "What would he do?" Brown responded, trying to turn the question around. The phrase that remained stillborn in his head rang Depends on how you define stupid. Chained up nearby was the equally apt statement He hasn't . . . yet. "It's not like he can call down fire or something."
         "No, I guess you're right," Jackie replied, smiling a little. They were walking over a small carpet of dead and dry twigs, leaving snappings and crackings to mark their passage. It sounded like bones. A mindfield of broken calcium. Glancing up at the sky, as if communicating with her brother, she smiled again and said, "I don't know why I'm so worried . . . it's really silly."
         "It's been a stressful week. For you and your family." Keep reminding her, Brown. You'll make that crying quota yet. "But trust me, if there's one person you don't need to worry about, it's Tristian. If anyone can take care of themselves, it's him."
         "So I've heard," Jackie admitted. "I think . . . I think that's why I got so nervous, because he can . . . do more than most people, from what I hear . . ."
         "And you're afraid he's going to try and get in over his head," Brown pointed out.
         Jackie nodded. A chilled wind blew in their faces and made them both wince in cold surprise.
         Brown couldn't help but grin. "Before you start worrying, keep in mind that if the phrase guardian angel ever applied to anyone, it's definitely Tristian."
         "You think so?" she asked. Brown realized that for her, and maybe everyone else, the Agents really were abstract things, spoken about more than seen, spotted in obtuse corners from sideways glances and in the lingering gaps in conversation. The only people to have really seen them were him and Jina, even at the restaurant by the time they had realized it wasn't Tristian, it had been too late to even try to quantify what was really there with them. "I don't know anything about what . . . whatever it is that you guys try not to mention. All I get are evasions and jokes." She sounded slightly miffed at this, an investigative reporter with a city full of witnesses who wouldn't talk.
         Brown couldn't resist. Hell, it might cheer her up. "If you had run into me a couple of minutes before, you might have had the chance to see one."
         Her eyes widened slightly. "What are you talking about? Are you saying . . ."
         "How do you think I knew Tristian wasn't home?" he asked, grinning devilishly.
         "Get out of here," she laughed, stepping back a little as they walked and giving him a skeptical look. "You're kidding, right? You didn't really see . . ." something in his eyes must have informed her otherwise, because she suddenly said, in a softer voice, "You're not kidding. Oh, wow."
         "It wasn't that impressive," Brown deadpanned. "They must save the fire and brimstone for the simple minded. It was over in a second. One appeared, told me that Tristian wasn't home and then vanished. And that was it."
         Her eyes narrowed. "You've got to be kidding me. How would it know you were there, or why would it even bother, or . . ."
         "Except I'm pretty sure they can be in two places at once," Brown argued, thinking that this was one of the more surreal conversations he had ever had the pleasure of having. Too bad he was speaking from reams of experience, while poor Jackie only had shadowy anecdotes and tissue paper rumors to infuse her already lost argument. "Why not?"
         "Oh, hm," she mused, her brow furrowing prettily. "I never thought of that."
         "Also, keep in mind that you're not talking about something even remotely human. It might have been doing it just for the sheer hell of it. Nobody knows. I don't know and Tristian probably doesn't even know." It was weird talking about this stuff so openly, when just less than a year ago he never would have really seen himself back home, never envisioned Tristian as keeping his split life anything less than a secret. And yet here he was. Funny how life worked out. Funny how the strangest mistakes, the most harrowing errors, could lead to a sort of bizarre equilibrium, not quite pleasure but not turning out just as bad as you imagined it to be. "If you try to think about it, it'll just drive you nuts."
         Jackie gave a small laugh. "When you put it that way . . . God this stuff is strange, I feel like some urban legend has come true, just listening to you people." Her foot kicked idly at a small stone, only tipping it and causing it to turn over. Now it could tan on the other side. Of course it could. In this greyscale sunlight, coating itself in heavy clouds to keep itself warm, light's inward reflection defining the sky like a form of atmospheric inbreeding. "You know, part of me . . . really wants to, to meet them. Am I the only person who's ever had that thought?" she asked Brown, her eyes twinkling. "Because it seems a bit counter-intuitive."
         "Well, you're definitely in the minority, let me put it that way," Brown said, only barely keeping a straight face.
         "I got that impression, the couple of times Brian even sort of mentioned them, he looked like he swallowed something very unpleasant." She tapped him lightly on the elbow. "Though you seem fairly comfortable about them."
         Ooh, almost caught. Those women and their subtle traps. When do the snares ever end, eh? His own fault for speaking too confidently about secrets no man should share. "That's because they haven't had the chance to scare the hell out of me," Brown replied easily, lying through every orifice in his body at the same time. The Agents had been given plenty of opportunities to scare the absolute hell out of him, and had just about succeeded on every occasion. Two weeks ago he had watched one of them make a man believe he was repeatedly shooting himself in the head while they were in the process of interrogating him. His screaming had sounded like metal shredding and blood had run from his eyes. Just an hour before, he had bragged that no man would pry the information out of him, so the General had brought in something far, far worse. After it was over the man had openly sobbed when he had realized that he was still alive. Ten minutes later he had broke out of their grasp and threw himself off the city platform, half laughing, half sobbing all the way down. The Agent had just stood there and watched. Then it had grinned at Brown and joked, For a thousand dollars I won't tell anyone you pushed him. It laughed like crystals being ground in a vice. It was the same one that had startled him this morning. That night Brown had sat on the edge of the platform, thinking he could still hear the man's wordlessly babbled epitaph over the musical crashing of the waves far below. He hadn't been surprised to find that his heart was still racing. He had sworn off sleep for three nights just to make sure he avoided nightmares. It didn't work. They did it to him every goddamn time. It was a track record that was hard to beat. "Brian and the crew had a bit more of a close up encounter than I did. That kind of thing tends to stick with you." He wondered how much Jackie knew about what had happened at the restaurant. Not that he was about to retell the story, especially since he wasn't even there for it. Let that tale rest in peace, finally. I'll hear no more of your filthy legends.
         "I suppose," Jackie said, shrugging slightly. Her hand reached up to brush some dangling branches. He wondered if the twigs felt as dead as they looked. This landscape needed snow, it needed something to remind him that it had once been gloriously alive. Nobody should have to die during the winter, the world is depressing enough. At least if you died in the fall or the summer you went knowing that terrible weather was ahead, that world was going to spend the next few months curled up in bed, keeping the shades drawn tight and pretending nobody was out there. Dying in the winter was like saying the promise of spring meant nothing. What good is a promise if you aren't around to see it fulfilled? Maybe he should talk to the Agents about that, get them to discuss this with whoever the hell ran the world, pull them into shape, get them into line. Things had been falling apart too much lately. It couldn't all be humanity's fault. We had to be innocent of something.
         "I don't even know what I would talk to them about," Jackie said after a moment, her lip twitching with false humor. "Probably just stand there and, you know, want to pretend they didn't exist. Like everyone else. That's what would really happen. But, I don't know, if I . . . could do it, if I had that kind of courage, there's a lot of stuff I would ask them." Turning to him again, she asked, "What are they, Joe? Gods, or what?"
         At the next corner they could have turned back toward Tristian's house. But they just kept walking straight. Brown realized it, maybe Jackie didn't. Maybe she just didn't care. He didn't say anything. He wasn't sure why, but he had his suspicions. Walking, he considered his answer for what felt like a long time, finally saying, "It, ah, depends . . . if you define gods as extraordinary beings, well then, yeah, they fulfill the requirements and then some, from what I can tell. But what that all means, I couldn't tell you. I wish I had an answer for you, but I don't." A wicked smile creased his face. "Still, I'm not about to start worshipping them, if it's all the same to you."
         "No, that's not what I meant . . . I just . . ." she sighed, "what I said to Tristian, you know, about knowing everything, I think I really meant them and I just wonder . . . is that true?"
         "They can't tell you why your brother died," Brown stated, perhaps more bluntly than he had wished to, almost hearing the crunch as his words pierced her. He couldn't help but mask his own frustration in this ineffective way, not caring about what kind of damage he did, as long as his own mental health was secure. But that wasn't right. He wasn't like that. Was he? "Anymore than I can or Tristian can. I'm sorry." Neither of them were looking at each other now. He had ventured right to the heart of the conversation and struck the dartboard too closely. Soft blood splashed his face, but it may have just been the wind. Out of the corner of his eye he could see her, head bowed, face tensed. She slipped her hands out of her pockets, rubbing her arms for feeble warmth, eventually stopping the motion and just hugging herself.
         "Because they don't know . . . or because they wouldn't say?" she asked, almost too softly, her face caught in the shadow of her own hair, strafed by darkness.
         "Jackie," Brown said gently, touching her arm. The jacket was soft, like velvet under his fingers. "I told you, when it comes to them, you don't try to figure it out. You'll drive yourself crazy. I told you. Don't do it."
         She didn't respond, didn't say anything for a long time. They were passing a school now, all square corners and light exteriors, blue lettering cheerfully proclaiming the name. He tried to imagine a five year old Tristian running around here, in the hardtopped fencedin playground, riding his bicycle, playing with the other kids, laughing and falling down and skinning his knees, floundering about carefree, just like the other children. All the while in the corners, something else was waiting for him. Was he ever a normal child? At what point did their influence end and Tristian's begin? Brown had never seen a picture of Tristian as a kid, like those years didn't exist for him. But that was nonsense. Childhood wasn't something you could take away from someone. It just didn't happen. In Tristian's case, Brown prayed he was right. But it was too late now. For all of them.
         When Jackie spoke again, her voice had a fluttering quality to it, a bird struggling against the downdraft. She sounded sad. He couldn't blame her. He was sad too. "It's so funny, Joe, when you know something is going to happen, something bad, and you try to prepare yourself for it, because you want to be ready, because you don't want it to hurt, even though you know it's going to anyway." She took a deep rattling breath. Neither of them stopped walking. "And . . . you know it's coming, but a part of you, no matter how ready you are, this small small part of you just prays that it won't happen, and when it does happen, just like you thought, like you knew it was going to, all your preparation doesn't matter at all . . . because it's that small part of you that you feel the most." She made a tiny sound and glanced over at Brown, who was watching her sympathetically, not saying a word. "You know what I'm talking about, don't you?"
         "Yeah," Brown said, surprised at how somber his own voice sounded. "I do." After a second he added, hesitantly, "That's why I'm here now. Because . . . because he was my friend and because I know what it's like . . . and because I want to help." He swung his arms experimentally. "And maybe I can't help the way you want, the way you'd need, but I'm here anyway."
         She stopped suddenly, forcing Brown to a halt as well. "No, no," Jackie told him quickly, her voice nearly rushed, "you're helping a lot. You don't know how much." Her voice was still muffled and he couldn't read what was going on in her eyes. He didn't want to know. This was the wrong time. It's been a long time. For a moment he was afraid she was going to hug him. He didn't know how to read her stance, her posture, the expression so vaguely hidden on her face. Grief clouded everything for both of them. When the mist finally clears you don't know what the hell you were staring at the whole time. Brown didn't know what to think, so he tried to think about nothing.
         "It's not enough," he said simply, dismissively, sweeping his foot along the ground, coming close to her shoe, but not daring to touch. It sounded very much like an answer Tristian would have given. Who was rubbing off on who, now? Except that Tristian would have not only believed every syllable, but gone and done something about it. That was the most frustrating thing about him, in a nutshell. He tried even when there was no point, like the only goal was to prove the world wrong. Except it never was. Not that he had noticed, at least. It was getting too cold out here. Even his marrow felt chilled. "Think we should start heading back, now? I bet Tristian's home by now. Probably wondering what happened to me, knowing him."
         "I suppose we should," Jackie replied, and Brown wasn't quite sure what he heard in her voice. "You don't want him to come looking for you. You don't know who he might send for a search party." She laughed as she said that, and touched him on the arm. "Seriously though, thanks for taking the walk with me, and you know, talking and stuff. It's been a long last few days."
         "Hey, you were the one keeping me company-" Brown started to say, but then abruptly stopped when he saw the look on her face. For a second he wondered what the hell he had said this time.
         Then he heard it.
         In the distance, so far off that it might have been another time, there was a low mournful whistle, drawn out, shrill, gradually growing louder, and then fading off, lacking even a crescendo, as if eager to get it over with, like it was riding somewhere impossibly distant. He could almost smell the coal and smoke, even though he knew it was all in his head.
         Jackie's face grew ashen and her eyes tried not to stare at anything. Brown could have almost watched the net of anxiety tighten around her slowly, inexorably.
         After a moment, Brown ventured cautiously, worriedly, "Jackie, are you-"
         Her eyes snapped back to focus on him. He wished he could erase what he saw there. You lied, dammit. You said you were okay. You're not. But he could say the same thing about himself. When finally she spoke, her words seemed to blur together, an anxious hurry, like she had stopped trusting speech itself. "Do you want to go for coffee, or something? Because, I could use some right now. I really could." Her eyes were asking him a different question.
         This was tearing at him. Two friends who needed help, and that wasn't including him, and he had to choose who to first remedy aid to. Blood soaking the soil. Emotional triage. Go with the walking wounded. The one bleeding in front of you. Try to block out the screams you can't see. Is that a choice? Is there a choice? It didn't feel like there was one. Tristian, by God, don't you dare do anything stupid. Dear Lord, this was a mess. All of them, just a mess. Forcing a smile, he said, "Sure. Why not? Tristian can wait just a little longer, right?" Taking her gently by the arm, they started walking again.
         Silently he prayed, to whoever was listening, that he wasn't making a terrible mistake.
         While far away, the train howled longingly again.