- Q -

Does Your Face Hurt?

         Remember the table?
         Remember all the stuff on it?
         The wallet, some keys (four useful, one not), a plastic card with his name and picture on it, loose change (still two quarters, two dimes, a nickel and eight pennies), a thick book that was once popular several years ago, a slim book that was never popular with anyone (he's not sure why he bought it himself), and two clippings from two newspapers on the same subject?
         That's all still there.
         But there was one more thing.
         And right now, it's not here.
         The house is empty.
         The paper is missing.
         The man is gone.
         The man is gone.

One Day This Love Will Just Break Me All Into Pieces and I Know All You'll Do is Stand There and Watch Me Burn
         
         ". . . the worst thing about knowing everything is getting the delightful experience of feeling everything. One time I found this vampire and he was biting through someone's eye and I swear I could feel the fang go right through the pupil. Did you know it makes a popping sound? I bet you didn't. All I can say is ick. Ick ick ick."
         "So what did you do about it?"
         "Running water, of course. Works like a charm."
         "I was always under the impression that it didn't do any good."
         "Well if you make it rain, no, then it stinks. They just get wet. However, if you increase the percentage of their body water from seventy to ninety five percent, then it works just dandy. Quite spectacularly, too, as you'd probably say."
         "Mm. So I would. Are you done being irrelevant, now?"
         "I'll blame you, you know. For whatever happens. I know it could have been avoided. I just want you to know that. If you even care."
         "I do. Sometimes. But it's not my fault that he does what he wants. I can't be held responsible for his actions."
         "Even if you play the enabler?"
         "It's his hand that makes the final move, not mine."
         "That's a poor excuse."
         "It's not. It's an explanation."
         "So we just stand back and let it happen?"
         "If necessary, yes."
         "And when it all goes wrong? Then what? We fold our hands, look the other way and go oops?"
         "Then we'll see where we failed. But either way, it falls on his head. And that's how it should be. Whatever the result."
         "Sure. Anyone ever tell you that sometimes, you're just plain messed up? I just thought I'd state that for the record. Just so you know."
         "Are you quite done?"
         "Yeah. I've got nothing more to say. How's that for a first?"


Wouldn't It Be Funny If It Turned Out I Was Making This All Up?

         Just what do you hope to accomplish?
         I want to help. That's all I want. Just to help.
         It's too late. He's dead. There's no one left to help.
         No. That's not true. There's always someone.
         The stairs were an executioner's delight, solid and rickety at the same time, sturdy enough to support you all the way up but unable to keep from creaking with every step, the sound of your departed future ripping a hole back into a past to count out your last seconds. Each motion brought you a ticktock closer, the groaning filtered through a fourth dimensional funnel, time heard sideways, a crackling no human ears could sustain.
         Climbing the stairs was like descending into a mine shaft. The walls and ceiling felt inches from his head. Up takes you down. In takes you deep. There's nowhere to go but down. Claustrophobia pecked at his brain, telling him to run, to get out. He never stopped moving. To reach Hell, first you have to find how far up it extended. He wasn't surprised to find that it went further than he thought. And not even just snaky tendrils, or delicate wafts of damned smoke, but full blocks of acreage, protruding into previously protected territory, spreading whatever malaise they could. Nobody noticed. Whether it was because of camouflage or simply apathy, it all just blended right in.
         His guide never spoke. All he did was lead the way. But that was the perfect guide at work. When you knew where you were going, there was no need to speak. Words clutter directions, phrases mislead, when you put letters on the signs, they all start to point to different places. So the man opened the path, which was the best and the least that he could do. It didn't matter, really. The guide didn't believe him anyway. That was probably the funniest part. He had come here and lied to gain entrance and even when the guardians saw right through him, he was allowed in regardless. Perhaps it was curiosity. Perhaps they didn't think anything could happen.
         This place was so quiet. Even in these early evening hours, already made pitch black by the day's absence, no other footsteps clattered on the stairs, no other voices resounded in the tightly woven and slowly disintegrating corridors, no other faces were seen. It was just him and the guide. The guide and him. Perhaps everyone was sleeping, curled up fetally in their beds, waiting for early night to become midnight. It was a whole different world then, the keys given to a population that persisted in trying to rewrite the laws of physics. To make men fly. To pull colors out of darkness. To hear those colors speak and to taste the pulsating night sounds. To spin terrors from the everyday and pervert them into something monstrous. And to take powders and scents and smoke and try to convert them into a pure form of paradise, to be taken there for the length of a heartbeat and then vainly try to hang onto the memory throughout the day's long journey. But the sun never blinked and its heat and brightness never relented, draining all their stamina. We'll be safe over the wall. Bloody fingernails from hanging on. There's concrete in the skin. These desolations are riven nightly upon our souls.
         So they all slept and fell quiet and thus he heard nothing.
         You know I don't ask anything of you, since all we seem to do is take. But I'm asking you now and I will only ask once. Please don't do this.
         Why are you so concerned? Why now?
         Because I think I know what's going to happen and all I can do is stand back and let it occur.
         But how will I know what would have happened? Whether it will do any good?
         You'll know if you go forward with it. And I pray, Tristian, that you don't.
         The top of the stairs opened into a T shaped corridor, flowing both left and right. Without hesitation, the guide went left. At the top, Tristian paused, hearing a small scuffling sound to his right. Turning toward the noise, he saw a small child standing at the end of the hallway, right where it turned a corner into another part of the building. The child was only wearing a diaper and a t-shirt that said "I'm this big!" It swayed and tottered unsteadily on its feet, staring at Tristian with its fingers in its mouth.
         Suddenly it broke out into a wide smile and waved, in the style of babies, opening and closing its fingers like the hand was munching on air. Then, it clapped its hands together wetly and with a giggling gurgle stumbled back around the corner. Tristian had barely lifted his hand to wave back. At his side he heard his guide cough abruptly, his eyes impatiently boring into Tristian. He wondered if the guide had seen the child at all. If he even could. All of a sudden it reminded him that this was no place to dally, that he was very much not in charge here.
         The rest of the trek was uneventful. Windows ghosted with dust reluctantly let in the streetlamp stained night. Some windows only looked out on the featureless facades of the building next door. Tristian wondered what the designers had been thinking. The point of a window was to give you a vision of the outside world, not to remind you of how penned in you were. It just seemed wrong.
         Eventually they came to a door. The guide knocked on it and after a moment's pause, someone shouted unintelligible inside and with a click it opened. Glancing back at Tristian, as if to make sure he was still there, the guide motioned with his head and indicated for Tristian to come inside. That was his mistake, Tristian thought. Even Orpheus knew, at the end, the one thing you do is never look back. You never know what might not be there. Just pretend nothing is wrong. Delusion makes everything okay. When you come down to it, we're all merely okay. And that should be good enough.
         Tristian didn't know what he had expected upon entering the room. It was disarmingly plain, no different from the setup of any typical apartment. A couch and table were in the near center of the room, right across from the doorway. A television set against the opposite wall was on, though the sound was turned down to a subliminal whisper. A bookshelf lined the back wall and beyond it Tristian could see that at least one bedroom lay in that direction. It was all strikingly normal. For a second Tristian wondered if he had the wrong place.
         Until he remembered the expression on his guide's face when he had asked the question. And how blatant ignorance had suddenly morphed into feigned disinterest with a steady undercurrent of implied brutality. And now they were here.
         It all felt dreamlike. He barely remembered waking up this morning and yet this entire journey was etched into his mind with chiselike clarity. He had the impression that he was observing his own actions from a different, detached perspective. Everything was being weighed and calculated by the phantom of his own mind, this fiction of his other life. And still Tristian had no idea what to do.
         A man on the couch was reading the newspaper with apparent interest, one foot resting on the coffee table. Perhaps he thought to find himself in the paper. Maybe he was looking in the obituaries to see if his name was there. You never know how you might find. It reminded Tristian he had never looked to see if Donald's had made it into the paper. He wondered what it might have said. Died of fatal impact to the body? Leaves behind mother, sister, father, grandparents and everyone else in his family? He didn't want to think about it. He had to. Else everything became just unreal. It already was.
         Behind Tristian the door closed with a quiet click. Honestly, he had hoped for something more ominous. It would have taken his mind off of his sweating palms. His stomach wouldn't stop clenching and unclenching, like a hand with a strained muscle. There was real danger here. As you made the world smaller and smaller, the threat increased exponentially, inversely and inevitably. Now here he was, locked in these four walls and everywhere he stepped, knives were pressing in from all sides. From somewhere he thought he smelled smoke but it must have been his imagination.
         With a motion that suggested he had all the time in the world, the man on the couch lifted his head from his paper to stare at Tristian. One eyebrow raised itself in a question, directed partially to Tristian, but mostly to his guide. The other man shifted behind Tristian
         "I see we have a visitor," the man on the couch said. His voice was amused, maybe even a little bored. He looked like a man who would put in a hard day's work for all the wrong reasons. But Tristian wasn't even sure if he was seeing what was really there or what his filtered senses wanted to see.
         "Yeah, he wanted to come in. Was real insistent about it, wouldn't take no for an answer," his guide stated matter of factly. Embellishments didn't seem to be this man's forte. "Said he wanted to talk to the man in charge." That had been a mistake on Tristian's part. He had played his hand too early, nervousness causing him to sneeze his cards all over the table.
         "Why not send him to a church, then?" the man asked with disinterested sarcasm, already turning back to his paper. "That's where most people look for that sort of thing." Although he wasn't looking at Tristian, a smile creased his face. "That what you're looking for? Guidance from above?" He noisily flipped a page. "Let me tell you, it's not here. That's for sure. You want that stuff, you've got to go even higher."
         "That's why I'm here," Tristian said plainly. Was this how they talked? In these circuitous pathways, always dodging the meaning while implying it through outline. If your hands make a circle the mind has no choice but to see it as one. It's wired into the nerves. There are only four basic shapes. "To go higher." He was stumbling clumsily through hedgerows of etiquette, tearing at his clothes, pulling at his face, scratching at his skin. But the blood he left behind only served to attract them further.
         Behind him, his former guide barely suppressed a sharp mocking laugh. Even the man on the couch couldn't resist a look of amused disappointment, like he had taken Tristian's measure in these few seconds and already deemed him inadequate. These people were seeing right through him. They knew his reasons weren't the real reasons. The only thing that kept him here was the fact that they didn't know what those reasons were. And their sustained curiosity was his only chance. But for what? What was he trying to do?
         All I want to do is give it a shot. There's nothing wrong with simply trying, right?
         Except you don't want to try, you want to act.
         Sometimes there's no choice. Sometimes there's no difference.
         Oh no, there is very much a difference. And if you go, you'll figure it out.
         "Higher, huh?" the man on the couch said, settling back, placing both his feet on the coffee table, crossing them at the ankles. "You must think I'm something special to be able to let you do something like that."
         "He doesn't know you're just an ordinary guy," his guide said. This felt rehearsed. The room was a Hollywood set, all cardboard walls and hidden cameras. It felt too bright in here. Washed out. False. Did they know he had been coming? How he had been able to get in so easily, for that matter. Silently he felt his heart beginning to speed up.
         "That's right, just a plain ol' guy," the man said, lacing his hands behind his head and leaning back, stretching as he did so. "So I don't know what you're looking for, pal, but I don't think I got it, you know what I mean?" His eyes narrowed, like he was finding Tristian's suddenly image blurry. One by one, we're all phasing out. This life will make shades of us all. "But good luck in your search, buddy. I hope you find it."
         Tristian had a sense the audience, if you could call it that, was ending shortly. Already he heard his guide shifting, getting ready to open the door and show him out. Prickly desperation seized him. This trip couldn't go to waste. He had come all this way, he had to do something. He had to at least try.
         "I've heard it's you who can help," Tristian interjected quickly, slightly altering his stance to make it clear he wasn't going anywhere. "Through certain . . . services. That's what I've heard." If he was wrong about this, Tristian was going to feel fairly stupid for a long time afterwards. Already he was starting to doubt, but that was probably the pragmatic part of his mind trying to regain control, the part that supposed to keep him from doing this like this. He couldn't remember the last time within recent memory when he had actually listened to that part. Tristian was fairly sure that wasn't a good sign of the way things were going.
         "Services," the man repeated dryly, running his tongue over the word. He raised the eyebrow again. "And who did you hear this from?"
         "People," Tristian lied. "You know, around. You keep your ears open, you hear things, if you know what I mean." It was like speaking a whole different language, filling in the gaps around the words, rendering speech into an near painful exercise, one where his uphill struggles were no doubt plainly evident.
         "Yeah," the man admitted. "People talk. That always happens." His eyes flickered over to the guide. Tristian had to stop himself from turning to make sure they weren't having some kind of strange silent conversation behind his back. He couldn't act paranoid, even if it wasn't really acting. "So, you been talking out there? Spreading rumors about me."
         "Sure," his guide said, barking out a quick laugh. "You got me. I've been telling everyone who'll listen."
         "Well you keep up the fine work, my friend," the man replied, giving a low chuckle, leaving Tristian out of some private joke. Turning to Tristian again, he continued, "So you came here based on rumors? That's the sign of a man with a lot of faith." Folding his hands across his stomach, eyes half closed, he smiled thinly and said, "I wish I could say that faith would be rewarded-"
         "I'm willing to pay," Tristian nearly spit out, the rational portion of his head screaming what the hell are you doing? But faith had to be rewarded. That was what the man said. And he had been running in useless circles for far too long to let this endeavor become another day wasted, another stagnant moment put up on the shelf with all the others. Except he was running out of space. It was time to clear the books. Time to start somewhere. Time to start here.
         The man's eyes opened fully. He stared at Tristian with a guarded expression, though something else was buzzing behind his eyes. Bingo, Tristian thought. But this meant nothing. Money perked everyone's attention. "Pay," the man said calmly. "I see. And what exactly would you be willing to pay for?"
         "How about you let me see what you're selling?" Tristian countered, trying not to see too eager but wanting to be forceful enough so they thought he was serious. The way he found himself easily falling into the rhythms of these jungle conversations frightened him. This wasn't a world he wanted to linger in. Let him wander at his life at home. Let him wallow in his life at the stars. He wasn't about to add a third, darker world.
         "I have a wide ranging variety of merchandise," the man admitted. "I'm sure not all of it would suit you." His eyes raced up and down Tristian, sizing him up. "You strike me as a man with particular tastes."
         "I've got my preferences," Tristian admitted, trying to make the confession casual and offhand. He was getting too into this, it was going into directions he hadn't foreseen. One way or another he had to get it back on track. "But I like to think I'm always open to new experiences. That's what life's about, right?"
         "Right, right," the man agreed, flipping his feet off the table and using the counterweight to jerk himself to an upright position. "You are absolutely correct, my friend," the man said cheerfully. Slapping his hands on his knees twice, he looked up at Tristian and added, "And come to think of it, I think I can help you with those new experiences."
         Face still friendly, he made a quick nod to the guide.
         Slowly and quite loud in the spacious silence, something metallic clicked right next to Tristian's ear. There was the barest sensation of something very heavy and very cold touching his skin.
         All of a sudden he was doing his best to stand perfectly still. Even his breathing halted. His eyes never left the man on the couch. His face never changed.
         "I'm sure you'll find this is something new to you," he said matter of factly. If only he knew, Tristian thought. Spots were splattering the air in front of his eyes and his stomach seemed to be trying to tie itself into a Gordian knot. This was very much what he didn't want to happen. Unlike Brown, if something went wrong now, chances are he wasn't getting up and walking away from it.
         "Did you search him before?" the man asked the guide. He stood up from the couch, as if trying to get a better look at Tristian. At this fool, Tristian imagined him thinking. Around him, time warbled to a halt, a record left out too long in the rain. We're all offkey to someone. His mind was racing, trying to come up with a painless plan to extricate himself from this. Nothing was immediately coming to mind, although he had to admit that he wasn't being totally focused at the moment.
         "Yeah, quickly when he came in," the guide answered. "Nothing special on him . . . oh yeah there's this flashlight thing he's got . . ." Spidery fingers snaked inside his open jacket to lightly tap the object hanging from his belt. "Damned if I know why he's got one though."
         The man shrugged. "Maybe he's a coal miner. Who cares?" His eyes were ice water. "But if he makes a move toward it, you know what to do."
         "Sure thing," the guide agreed. The metal felt like it was trying to bond with his skin. The side of his face was numb. The room was growing hazy, all the sharp edges trying into more elastic components, the world stuffing itself into his already clogged head. It was too tempting to pretend he was just dreaming this. He couldn't forget how real it was. "But I think he's going to behave."
         "I'm sure he is," the man noted affably. He smiled at Tristian. "Aren't you?"
         Tristian didn't answer, not trusting himself. His muscles were tingling, but his body felt sick. It hurt to swallow through his tight and dry throat. In his head abstract blocks were shaping into forms he could almost recognize, branching and condensing in a thousand different ways, the growth of a plant seen through high speed film. His options were expanding by the second, regardless of his needs or desires. One way or another this was going to end, whether he wanted it to or not. He kept hearing the sound of rain hitting a hollow roof and the thud of someone throwing a deflated basketball against the wall over and over again.
         "You're not a cop," the man stated flatly. He threw the newspaper limply down onto the coffee table, where it flapped helplessly before settling. Still standing up, he eyed Tristian with veiled detachment and maybe a little curiosity. Maybe that's why he was still alive. His cheek twitched and brushed against unyielding metal, causing a muscle in his arm to jump. Pulling it back was like stopping a truck with his bare hands. There would be a moment and he had to wait for it. But then what? He didn't come here to fight. And yet all his actions were stalking inexorably toward it, marching in lockstep toward the only possible destination. If only he could warn these people. But something told him it was too late. "You were far too obvious. Eager, even, at least in trying to convince me you were someone you weren't."
         He pursed his lips, tapping his chin in a mockery of academic deliberation. "Still, if you're not a cop and you're not a . . . customer, we'll say for lack of a better word, then I have to admit that I'm at a loss to really explain who you are. Or, more importantly, what you're doing here." Smiling cherubically, he put his hands together and said, "Fortunately, we have you here ready and willing to tell us all about your reasons for coming here." His eyes flickered to the object hovering near Tristian's head. "With the help of course of our lovely memory enhancer." Gracefully sitting back down, the man offered, "So please, whenever you want to start. I promise you, you have my full attention."
         Scenarios were blossoming in his head like cacti tasting their first monsoon, grim dancesteps plotted out in ghostly footprints, in blurred maneuvers as seen through a sputtering lamp, in short, sharp motions that would over before he even had a chance to fully sort it all out. There were five completely different lines of action he could perform immediately. All ended up with one or both of the men in the room dead. Only one assumed that the weapon was unloaded. It could be over in seconds. Tristian did nothing. He didn't trust himself.
         The man stared at him for a while, his face betraying nothing, his eyes glittering darkly. The paper was open to a page with a photograph of police clustered around a chalk outline. The grainy black and white picture felt more real to him than this apartment did.
         "Nothing to say, then?" the man asked. "Honestly, I'm very interesting in hearing what you have to say." The menace in his voice was the gaping pit hidden behind the stage, a deadly trap masquerading as theatre. Telling him would solve nothing. Keeping quiet would get him hurt. Why had he come here again? Was violence now encoded right down to his genes? Even his unconscious actions were gravitating toward that senseless end. There had to be a better way.
         None were presenting themselves. Two more plans of attack erupted fully formed into his head, a parade of merchants displaying their wares, all competing with silent gazes and relentless zeal for his attention. These two didn't even involve the sword. He swallowed and tasted blood. It might have been a memory. That didn't make it any more comforting.
         "You might as well tell him," the guide hissed in his ear. The thing next to his face seemed to be speaking, sibilantly dispensing advice through its always open mouth. "It's not like there's anything else for you to do."
         "That's true enough," the man added, presumably for Tristian's benefit. Perhaps they thought him too scared, too awed by their subtle hints at an ample brutality to even speak. Bad Man One and Bad Man Two. That was a problem but certainly wasn't the problem. It was his own masked capacity for violence that frightened him.
         So talk, then, stupid, his own internal voice mocked him. It sounded like a girl's voice. You never know what might work. The world was hazy and detached, breaking down into disassociated components. Him. The men. The weapon. The room. All islands. There was no way off this boat. Doing a statue impression so far hadn't done him much good. It was time he admitted not only to these people, but himself, why he was here. If there's no purpose, then you have nothing but empty action.
         Swallowing, feeling like the only movable portion of his body remaining was his lips, he said, "I . . . came here to ask you to stop." Hearing it outloud made it sound ridiculously naive but when he came down to it, he couldn't fashion it any other way. This couldn't be about revenge, because they hadn't hurt anyone except through their own blunted morality. But every river somewhere had a source and streams that fed into it and it all wound up in the same place. They all were carried to the same end. All of you did it. But you can't blame the world. So you just grab the closest target and pray it's enough.
         "To . . . stop," the man said, his voice disbelieving. For a second sheer surprise nearly caused him to drop his facade. He didn't seem any different. "I see," he continued simply. His words were careless and unhurried, casually winding their way to Tristian's ears. Tristian could see the man stretching out on his couch and flipping the television on while his guest stood there debating how to get out of here without killing everyone inside. For the most part, whether he realized it fully or not, the man was in control here, though it wasn't for the reasons the man no doubt believed. "Very well," he shrugged, nodding as if to himself.
         "So now, and forgive me if we went over this already," the man said, scratching his head bumpkin style, feigned confusion barely masking a near juvenile glee, "what is it exactly that you want me to stop?"
         The dance began again. Tristian didn't want any part of it this time. His muscles were so tense that he felt like he was balancing on a six inch square pole, desperately trying to keep his body ramrod straight, the drop yawning below him on all sides. If he relaxed even for a second, instinct would finish the job. But there was no need. Talking would solve everything. It worked all the time. Tristian just had to find the right words. In the air, in his brain, all around, those words were there, waiting for him to connect them and finish this.
         "Those . . . services I mentioned before," Tristian explained, his heart jumping for reasons he didn't completely understand. Don was already dead, this was saving no one. And yet he felt lives were in the balance. He couldn't bear the thought of another groups of friends somewhere gathering for another funeral, standing around and silently asking each other why. He couldn't be there for those people. So he was here now, trying to stop something before it started again. These lives, they move in cycles. It could be any of you the next time. These windmills, they don't discriminate. "You don't realize what they're doing to people. They're dying, for no good reason. It has to stop. You can't let this continue."
         The man returned Tristian's level stare with wide eyed surprise. "I suppose I can't," he said slowly, insincerely. "I mean, I had no idea, I had always thought . . . it was all so benign, you know." He looked to Tristian as if for instant absolution. "People were never meant to be hurt." In a swift motion he sat back on the couch, hand cupping his chin, framing a highly satisfied smirk. "Come on now, I'm sure you can do better than that."
         "He did ask nicely," the guide pointed out. In Tristian's stomach, someone dropped a heavy rock. He had almost gotten used to the object resting near his head, a sleeping dragon. A simple sneeze and all his memories would be little more than wallpaper worthy of Rorschach. "His folks brought him up real good and polite."
         "True, true," the man agreed. His posture reflected only passing amusement and his face registered nothing but a recognition that this was only a passing diversion, a splinter of wood to whittle at in the idle moments. "I have to give him some consideration then, don't I? Very well, then," he said after a moment, his forehead kneaded as if he had spent a great while pondering this. "I'll give you another chance to explain then." What would happen if Tristian did not state his case clearly enough was left tantalizingly unstated. "So you want me to stop this . . . thing that you believe I'm doing. There has to be a reason for it, I mean, I'm certainly not unique in this city. Something must have brought you here." His smile was a slit throat moved six inches farther up from his neck. "Please, by all means, enlighten me."
         Tristian was being toyed with by a man appeared to believe that motivation was nothing more than a sick joke. The frustration was becoming more grating by the moment. He shifted his stance slightly and found something very solid clunking into his head, automatically reminding him of what was at stake here, what exactly he was dealing with. "A . . . someone I knew," he didn't feel he had the right to say friend, "someone who was, who you knew through what you . . . sold, he, recently he killed himself." He tried to dispense his most piercing gaze. "You didn't cause it, but what you gave him may have contributed to it." The man reacted as if he was cloaked in armor. "It has to stop. It's gone too far already." Anger frayed the edges of his voice. What did it take to get these people to listen, to realize that they were allowing people to cripple themselves. What did it take to make them see, to turn the world around so that the mirror they were constantly gazing into was removed, finally revealing the desolation they had so long isolated themselves from. Tristian needed to crack this man's uncaring exterior but more and more he was getting the impression that in order to do that, he would be forced to break the man himself. His leg jumped imperceptibly, ready to leap forward. Steady. Steady. He had to keep himself in check. This wasn't the place. Or the need. Talk. That's all he needed. Just talk. Then they'd see. They had to. Or else there were no other options left. At least none that he wanted to engage in.
         The man tapped his fingers together and hummed a tuneless drone. It was a mockery of deep thought. He wasn't looking at Tristian anymore. "Well," he said eventually, his words drawn out, "I'm certainly glad you aren't blaming me. It's definitely a relief. And of course I'm terribly sorry for your loss," except his grin destroyed any such sentiment right out of the starting gate. His look was the schoolchild who had set off the cherry bomb under your desk and knew you could never prove it. The expression of the mischievous boy who suddenly realized he could make a career out of such madness. Except his games killed you favorite dog and set your wastepaper basket on fire and suddenly they weren't so amusing anymore. But the boy never cared. Because it wasn't about the damage, it was all about the process. That's all that mattered. "But I'm still not sure what you'd like me to do about it."
         "You helped him stay hooked," Tristian seethed, stopping himself from taking a step forward. The colors of the room were starting to bleed into each other, darkening, becoming monochromatic. This wasn't going to end well. He couldn't stop it. "You could have done something to stop him and instead you just kept letting it happen. And now he's dead. Doesn't that mean anything to you? Does it?" Keeping his voice level was as a chore, it kept trying to leap into higher volumes at odd moments, a radio who's dials spun like flat tires. His words struck him as smushed and processed. This wasn't working. He had to get out of here. But he couldn't. There was something blocking his way. It wasn't a barrier at all.
         "Hey," the man shrugged, "if some people don't know how to control themselves, I don't see that as my problem." His gaze spoke of ruthless experience. Tristian still had the sense he was being toyed with. Where did the joke end? When did his friends pop out and scream surprise. It's an intervention, Tristian. We want you to stop putting yourself into danger. "If some fool doesn't know his own limits, that's not really-"
         "He threw himself in front of a goddamn train!" Tristian shouted, his voice a blunt instrument. The time for forceps was over. These delicate touches only tickled men like this. And it wasn't a sensation they found totally unpleasant. "He didn't overdose or fall out of a window . . . no, he took his girlfriend and walked out in front of a train." He was losing control, it was getting harder and harder to rein himself in. The thing pointed at his head was turning into a fragmentary nuisance, barely even worth noticing anymore. Yet it would perforate him given the chance and all him desires to help would be nothing more than another sordid mess to clean up before it made a permanent stain. "People don't do those things under normal circumstances. They don't." It was getting harder to breathe. Oh God, he kept smelling smoke. It wasn't real. He had to treat none of this as real or else he wouldn't be able to go on. "How many people does it take before you realize that all you're doing is helping people take themselves apart bit by bit. And in the end they have nothing left and you've made a pile of money. or is that what it's all about?" He spit the words out, trying to stab straight into the heart of their innate decency. But his barbs found no purchase and somehow the targets kept moving.
         Outside a bus rattled past. The man on the couch looked down and then back up at Tristian again. Slowly a smile spread over his face. Tristian could almost imagine birds helplessly flapping and dying in that murk. "I see how it is now," the man said, like Tristian had disagreed with him on his choice of what color to repaint the walls with. "What we've got here is one of those Good Samaritans, trying to appeal to our better natures."
         "Hey," the guide remarked, and the gun tapped unintentionally against Tristian's head, causing him to nearly bit through his lip to remain still, "I bet he's talking about that guy we read about in the paper a few days ago. The one who sat down in front of the train." Tristian had the impression that he wasn't even here. The catalyst, dissolving once his work is done and reforming somewhere else. He just set the balls in motion, who they ran over he had no control over. But he very much wished he did. The room couldn't decide on a temperature. Hot and cold kept playing tag. These games just never end. Not well, at least. Someone always gets hurt. Just like life.
         "You know what . . . he probably is," the man noted. "He probably thinks his poor friend's death was terribly unfair, so he's come here to try to make it less tragic." He stretched out on the couch, letting out a deep breath as he did so. "You know, like when famous people die in some stupid car accident, or some poor idiot gets AIDS and all of a sudden everyone's trying to prevent it from happening again." His voice jumped into a creepy falsetto on those last words and his hands patted the air, laying out an invisible sign. "No one ever wants to admit that life's unfair all over. You have to make do with what you get and some of us are just more efficient than others." He shrugged dismissively. "It's nobody's fault, mind you. Just the way things are." He glanced at Tristian, his face blandly pleasant. "You can agree with that, right? Everyone just has to make do, right?"
         "So it is about money," Tristian said evenly. If he could walk out right now he would. But he couldn't. A barrier was pointing at his head and in another second he might just try and forget that it was there.
         The man blinked, acting as if this wasn't the reaction he had expected. Shifting on the couch, he rested an elbow on the arm and said to Tristian, "Let me tell you a story, pal." He focused intently on Tristian, as if his manufactured convictions might be convincing simply because of pure effort alone. "Once upon a time, or maybe, say, three or four days ago, a guy came here. Or perhaps guy is the wrong word, I think I should have said pathetic stumbling wrecked shell of a man . . ." behind Tristian the guide snickered, not even trying to stifle the gesture. Tristian kept his face expressionless, but his legs were aching from keeping still for so long and more and more it seemed like talking was swiftly passing the point of futility. These people, they only knew one form of persuasion. But he didn't do that sort of thing here. Not now. Donald deserved better than this sordid squabbling. But his end had been violent. Should his postmortem rescue be any different? Tristian didn't know. He didn't know what to do.
         You think you're going to get through to them.
         "So this shell of a man comes here and, well you may not know this but I'm a pretty accommodating guy. Though actually I've been patient with you all this time so maybe you're starting to see. So I let this guy in and he's like wasted, a wreck like I said. I keep thinking he's going to vomit all over my floor and you know none of those people ever offer to clean up when they pull stuff like that. I don't even punish them for it, that's how nice of a fellow I am."
         Whatever you say, they've heard it before.
         "But this guy, our guy here, he's a waste, a mess I'm telling you. Shaking and stuttering, all pale and skinny, he looks like a famine victim, really. And he wants some stuff, wants it bad. He's been going without it for a few days now and he can't go any longer, he tells me. He's dying by degrees right in front of me, he says."
         Whatever you do, to them it's all empty posturing.
         "Now, I told you, I'm pretty damn accommodating most of the time. The most important thing is to keep a healthy relationship with the customer, especially with all the competition these days, and I have no problem with fronting a guy some stuff just on a word and a handshake. Most people are pretty decent really, they're not out to screw you."
         Everyone is like them, out to take advantage of the world.
         "Except this guy in our story here, he still owes me from some other times and he hasn't shown me that he's good for the money. I'm not a gumball dispenser, or a charity, you know, and in this city rent keeps creeping up every time I turn around, it seems. Hey, there's nothing wrong with a guy wanting to maintain his standard of living. Word gets out I'm a soft touch, and I might as well just leave everything in a box out front that says take me."
         They'll laugh at your jokes, nod at your opinions, but in the end it's like you were complimenting their haircut.
         "I try to be as reasonable as possible, but this guy, he's not hearing any of it. He wants his stuff, and he wants it now. He starts getting loud, but I know he's nothing but hot air. These people, they know where it all comes from and if they hurt me they're not getting anything ever again. So he behaves but he's making an awful stink about it. You'd think he was someone special. But, no he was just an ordinary guy trying to get more than his share. It's understandable, we all get a little greedy sometimes."
         You'll be goaded into throwing the first punch and after they beat you bloody they'll stand over and shrug and say it was nothing personal.
         "When it's clear I'm not budging on this . . . and I was tempted to get him a little slack, but frankly, principles are principles . . . he changes completely, starts begging me, on his knees and everything, almost crawling on my heels. I swear he was crying at some point, saying how much he needed this stuff, how it was burning him up inside, how he couldn't go on. I say if you want it that bad, you'll find the money for it. Everybody wants everything for free, nobody wants to work for anything."
         They have no desire to change and see no need to change and the best you can do by talking is give them a few minutes of diverting amusement to break up their day.
         "So eventually when he realizes he's not getting anywhere again, he changes tactics. Now he's got this girlfriend, see, and she's twice as bad as he is and so it's her he wants the stuff for her, not him. He promised her he'd try, you see. And normally I'm a pretty compassionate soul but honestly I sort of doubt this guy's sincerity and really, I'm all for equality of the sexes. With me, guys and gals get the same treatment. I think it's the only fair way to go."
         And so in the end you don't so much make them see things your way as make it too unbearably painful to see things other than your way.
         "Of course when our friend sees that this new gambit isn't getting him anywhere, he switches gears again and tells me, if I want to, for payment, I can have her instead and do whatever I want. He promises me she'll go along with whatever I want, all I have to do is name how long and what I fancy. God, his eyes were so desperate that I swear if I refused he was going to offer himself instead."
         So, you see, there's only one real way to make them understand.
         "But honestly I wasn't even tempted, it's not really my thing, you know. And besides what was I going to do with an addled girl like that, no matter how pliant she might have been it really would have been more trouble than it was worth. After a certain point it's just not fun. I mean, Lord only knows what kind of history I'd be exposing myself to. I doubt I was the first time that particular offer got put forward and some folks just don't have my qualms, if you know what I mean."
         And even then, it's not so much true understanding as a crude form of aversion therapy.
         "I told him no again and made it clear this was the final time. It was more for his own good than mine, really. Who knows what he would have offered next? There's only so much degradation I can stomach. He, unfortunately didn't take this too well, and I had to rather forcibly show him the door. After a while you just get tired of being polite, especially when all they're doing is wasting your time."
         Honestly, it frightens me very much, not because it's a path you're overly inclined to taking.
         "He did manage to get a good shot in before he left, which I let him have. I figure he was entitled to something and it wasn't like hitting me was going to make his problem go away. But he's cursing me out, screaming at the top of his lungs, telling me how he doesn't deserve this and he's been good in the past and what a damned big mistake I'm making."
         But because it's the only path possible.
         "And I tell him to go screw and that frankly, he can go jump in front of a train for all I care. And that was the last I saw of him." The man smiled sadistically, holding out both hands in a sick gesture of oops. "How was I supposed to know he'd listen?"
         And you'll take it because you can't think of anything else to do.
         Tristian felt like he was struggling against invisible bonds. There was a dog lashed tightly in the center of his head and its growls were drowning out the world. He felt more cold than angry, more detached than raging. Yet underneath his jacket he was sweating and the air seemed to be bleeding around him. This had to end. It was going to end.
         "You . . . you . . ." he hissed, and suddenly there were no more words to be evicted. He had spent everything and all he had accomplished was to seed his own path with barbed landmines. The landscape was strewn with buried death and any step might just cause an explosion of the worst kind.
         "If it's any consolation," the man smirked, "I really only did what any man in my position would have done." He leaned both forearms on the couch, emulating the finest in front row seating. "Just so you know, that goes for what's about to happen now."
         andyoulltakeitbecauseitstheonlypathpossible
         Something very cold pressed hard against the side of his head.
         itstheonlypathpossible
         "I'm sure this isn't at all what you expected," the man continued. His voice had left the planet. The world no longer had proper angles.
         theonlypathpossible
         "I'm really very sorry."
         the only
         "But that's just how it goes, I'm afraid."
         path
         Air was rushing into his ears like fluid seeking a vacuum. All of a sudden the world was composed entirely of hammers.
         possible
         Someone without a face was laughing. There was a click like a bolt being thrown.
         NO
         A voice in his head that sounded just like him screamed move! and before he even had a chance to truly recognize what was happening his right arm had shot up, clutching the guide's arm by the wrist, wrenching it upward and back. He gave a strangled sort of cough but didn't drop the weapon. Tristian's other arm came flying around, catching him directly in the face, causing it to crumble with a sound not unlike a bad radio reception. Tristian's bones were liquid, his muscles rippled like rubber under pressure. Each motion led directly to the next, everything was branching and he just knew which one to take. Time falling into segments like autumn leaves. People reduced to geometric points, strategic outlines. If we only understood how many vulnerable places we had.
         The guide had barely reacted to being struck, the blood only just beginning to flow from his face, when Tristian reversed his blow and backhanded the man in the neck, then stepped behind past him and threw him to the ground. The guide skidded several feet, legs kicking empty air, arms flailing for a purchase that would never come. The room had gone widescreen, every motion seemed to stir the air like ripples. The man on the couch was just beginning to stand up. The guide was still clutching the gun and starting to twist to bring it to bear on Tristian.
         Two steps took him there. Friction was irrelevant, all the heat was gone, replaced with an absence that more void than ice, distant rather than immersive. In this medium all actions were fluid. Blood was painting the guide's upper lip, a river jumping the dam. The barrel of the gun was a screaming hole preparing to roar.
         "Stay down!" Tristian ordered, his own voice a fuzzed echo, ambient music for the ruthless. His leg extended like a natural part of his stride, catching the guide right in the face, causing the shock to vibrate right into the base of his spine. His head snapped back, his body arching and heading to the ground, the weapon hand shooting stiffly up into the air, the gun pointing to the ceiling.
         Tristian's hand went to his belt, and he had it before he could even conceive of what he was doing. Self preservation superseded caution. There are no secrets in war. The puzzle became a jigsaw, jackknifed and suddenly it all made sense. He moved his arm in a half circle, a finger sliding along a recessed switch. The air quivered like a string being plucked mercilessly, a vibration he felt right through his bones. Something crimson punched a hole in nothing. It intersected with the gun and passed through, a diver arcing into the water. A metallic rattle and half of the gun was lying on the floor, a second before the guide's arm flopped lifelessly to the ground. A tooth dropped like an rejected coin, spinning to a halt. The guide didn't move.
         The man on the couch was nearly standing now. Desperately he was trying to reach for something.
         "And as for you," Tristian snarled, spinning to his right, the distance crossed before he started, the sword sweeping ahead of him, painting the room with crimson shadows, all of them looking like men clutching their ruined heads. The end of the blade nicked the air just in front of the man, causing his eyes to go wide like someone undergoing decompression, his arms to windmill as he gasped and fell back onto the couch, bouncing in an almost child-like fashion as he did so.
         "Hey, no," the man said incoherently, but his words were already lost things. The sword slashed down, and the table fell apart in two pieces with a dull clunk. There was a shallow groove cut into the floor. The man went pale, his eyes screaming silently. His furniture became a prison, boxing him in. There was nowhere to go. "Please, don't."
         Tristian loomed over him, kicking the pieces of the table out of the way. The sword was held stiffly at his side, the blade seeming to pulsate in the sterile light. Somewhere distant a door slammed. Outside two voices blended incomprehensibly into an argument. The man never took his eyes off Tristian, off the sword.
         "Listen, we were just playing, don't you see . . ." his words were slippery, the bonds unstable, already deteriorating. He was trying to push himself deeper into the couch, his hands pressing into the cushions to try and gain traction. "All that stuff, we were just having some fun with you, just some-"
         The sword flicked up to his chest, the end of the blade hovering just the barest inch from his skin. The man stared at it with wide eyes, licking his lips nervously. "Oh God, what is that . . . what are you going to do . . ."
         "Is this what it takes to get through to you?" Tristian wondered outloud, his voice sledgehammer light, intensely calm. "How many people have to die on your doorstep before you take a look in the mirror and think about who put them there?"
         "You . . . you have the wrong idea, I'm not . . ."
         "Shut up," Tristian ordered casually. None of this was happening. Not to him. The blade closed the gap, causing the man to hiss like water seeking to escape from the smallest hole. "It's time for you to start listening."
         "I'm trying to tell you," the man said quickly, the words falling over each other. The area around the blade was beginning to go dark with blood. "Oh God, you have to-"
         His voice jerked into a strangled yell as Tristian began to move the blade across his chest, the edge still only barely touching, almost a caress. The fibers of his shirt split apart, revealing a jagged red line in its wake. Sharks in the blood. Somedays the only way to cut is from the inside. "I said shut up," Tristian reminded him conversationally. "I want you to keep quiet because I'd like you to think about what I'm doing to you right now. How easily I'm doing it."
         "Ah . . ." the man gasped, his head falling back, his mouth open and only air seeping out. His eyes were closed but bulging. "It wasn't . . . we weren't . . ."
         Tristian's face was a mask, his eyes opaque portals to a tightly bottled anger. "I want you to realize that what I'm doing now is the least of what I'm capable of." The blade traced itself back, cutting a parallel line while blood spread out from the first cut like magma from a fresh fault line. Red to red. Plasma calls to blood. Everything fights against inertia. It came to rest right above the man's heart.
         "I swear, I didn't even know the guy!" the man blurted out, tears of pain welling in his eyes, his voice a ragged, shredded thing. "I swear I never met him, I was just kidding, it was just a joke, I didn't know you . . . oh God . . . oh God . . ."
         Tristian acted like he hadn't heard. "All I have to do," he said quietly, evenly, "is lean forward. Or press down. Just a little. That's all. And you're dead. Just like that."
         "No, buddy, please you've got to believe me, oh God, don't . . . really, everything I was just kidding, I didn't know you thought . . ."
         "No resistance at all," Tristian breathed softly. "If I sneezed right now you'd be gone. I want you to understand that. You're not invincible. You never will be."
         ". . . I'm sorry, man, I'm sorry, it was just some laughs, if I thought you were going to take it . . . ah . . ."
         The blade whipped up, hovered right between his eyes, leaving afterimages in the air. He swallowed thickly and said nothing more.
         "You're going to stop selling. If people are going to screw up their lives, they're going to do it on their own, without having you to help them along." Tristian's voice was oddly quiet. Did his words even matter? Or would they write this off as some kind of bizarre, bloody fever dream, a contagion caught from their foaming clients?
         "But . . . it's, it's not me," the man stammered, the blade casting garish highlights on his face. "There's others, worse than me . . ."
         "I'm sure there is," Tristian responded coolly. Then, showing his teeth in a mirthless grin, he added, "But, unfortunately for you, I came here."
         With a quick flick of his wrist, he swiped the sword from left to right, causing the man to suddenly scream and fall sideways onto the couch, clutching at his face. It was a flattened, almost pathetic sound. From between his fingers, blood welled, seeping from his forehead, running into his eyes, forcing him to writhe in stinging pain.
         Switching off the sword, Tristian stood over the man and said, "I'd rather not come back and finish what I started. Please don't make me." Replacing the sword back onto his belt, he then strode from the room, closing the door quietly behind him with a somber click. The barrier mercifully sealed off the man's feeble moans. Tristian wondered if he had even heard his parting comment. He wondered if it would make a difference either way.
         The way out was a blur, all tangled staircases and skewed faces. He didn't think he was leaving by the way he had come in. It seemed very fitting. Tristian raced along with a breakneck stride, feeling suddenly very afraid that he might get lost here and never make it out. A wrong turn is all you need. Some people can never recover.
         Reaching outdoors was like breaking through a membrane. The air was crisp and dirty and cold, frozen sand thrown at his lungs. He gasped for breath for a few seconds, stood there just trying to get his bearings.
         Someone was behind him. He was almost instantly aware of its presence. There was a buzzing in the air. In his ears. That's how Tristian knew. But he didn't turn around. He didn't want to see. Better to keep his life hidden, even from himself. That's how it was supposed to be. He could feel it staring at him. He could only guess at its expression. Or its thoughts.
         "Are you okay-" the voice began to say.
         "When they leave . . ." Tristian suddenly said, very deliberately and very carefully, like instructing a five year old, "go in there and burn everything, whatever it is. Don't leave anything. I want it all gone." He didn't believe his own words. It occurred to Tristian almost as an afterthought that he probably meant them. He felt tilted, caught in a vice that squeezed with irregular pressure. It was an effort to take deep breaths. Suddenly, he had a headache.
         "Are you sure that's what-"
         "Listen, you said you wanted to help," he snapped, growling out the last words. "I'm telling you how you can, okay? So just do it, all right?"
         There was no answer.
         "Did you hear what I said?" he said impatiently. "Will you just . . ." Spinning around, he trailed off, finding himself alone. The air felt taut, a bruised bubble still quivering from a too hard punch. His long shadow looked frayed and faded under the sickly streetlamps.
         Frowning to himself, he looked down, glanced around. Finally he pivoted on his heel and stalked away, his footsteps resounding hollowly on the broken sidewalk.
         He walked a short while before coming to a empty bench. Sitting down, he leaned forward and ran his hands through his hair. He took a few deep breaths and stared at the view in front of him without really seeing it.
         Some time later he noticed that his hands were shaking.