- R -

Is It My Fault She Can't Blame Her Problems on Cancer?

         It rained this weekend. I got caught in the downpour and staggered home soaked, my clothes sticking to me like tissue paper, water dripping into my eyes, covering my glasses. Even after I wiped them off the world was blurred, all the shapes melting together. I remember seeing a picture once of two galaxies colliding. That's what it reminded me of. Everything just deciding to smash together, suddenly, gracelessly. Until it's all mixed together so intricately that you can't ever hope to get it apart again.
         I don't expect anyone to ever see this. I don't think they'd really understand. They'd call it exploitive. Then from there it would get nasty. No doubt they would try to piece apart the mesh and find themselves in the strands, show me where I got it wrong, show me what happened, what didn't happen. Like an Easter egg hunt, trying to find the bright garish bits hidden amongst all the natural blandness of nature, pick them up and pick them up and analyze them to try and see what all the colors came from.
         None of that matters.
         The only true thing that happened is the only important thing. And it's not for me to decide which event that is.
         Writing about real life doesn't necessarily make it true. It doesn't automatically make it a reflection. The challenge is taking the old and the real and making the new and the different out of it. That doesn't mean it's better. But nothing makes real life automatically better either. We're just stuck with it because it's the only choice we get.
         That's why they'll never see this. Because they'll try to make a mirror out of simple glass, not realizing that you need to see through it in order to make it clear.
         So that's why.
         Still, I'm not sure how I feel about that.
         Because, inevitably then, it leads to the question:
         Who am I talking to?

This Lunar Landscape Just Takes My Breath Away

         Brown told himself he was needlessly worrying.
         He was telling himself that right up to the moment when he smelled smoke.
         At that point, he knew exactly where to run.
         After the wake he had called Tristian's house in an attempt to quiet some ceaselessly nagging voices. The lack of an answer had raised them to an angry murmur. Now they were shrieking louder than ever. Aw, Tristian why couldn't you help me quiet my own conscience, he thought grimly, leaning forward and breaking into a sprint. Brown had told himself he was here merely on a whim. He lied poorly even to himself. The late night sidewalks were nearly empty, the occasional strollers, the idle searchers, the people who stalked with veiled purpose. Barely anyone looked at Brown as he ran, even when he caused a couple walking and holding hands to briefly break apart to allow him passage. He tried not to think of the symbolism. Life had no symbols. We were the only ones to impose any kind of order on it.
         The stench of smoke was crude, acrid. It drifted on him from above, snowflakes of soiled air falling from the lowest place. It made it hard to pinpoint the exact location but fortunately he had recently become very familiar with this area.
         Eventually the tendrils of ashen smoke began to cling to the sidewalk. Breathing became harder and he slowed to a fast walk so he didn't tire himself out. Bodies were condensing from the thick heated mist. People were scurrying from the area with their heads down and hands covering their mouths. The sound of phantom coughing was omnipresent. Brown was the only one running in the opposite direction. The building was a sprawling monolith, its presence felt more through its looming bulk than any immediate image. Images of the recent past came to him in flurries. He could find the way blindfolded. As tears came to his eyes as smoke scratched at his corneas, he reckoned that he just might have to.
         An open door afforded him entrance. He nearly ran down a group of people hustling an escape. Their efforts were slow motion to him. He was the man who sliced sideways through Time. He was very scared. One person tried to grab his arm to stop him. Their hand slipped away as if he were the one made of smoke. In the far distance sirens were wailing, trying to signal that help was on the way, that we're coming, but they sounded as close as the nearest planet. This stairwell felt clogged with ghosts. Brown saw his own face in the dust streaked features of someone who elbowed their way past him on the way down. But the hollow eyes weren't his. It would have been him, Brown realized, if he hadn't left. These days he was strong enough to come back and the city couldn't break him. Back then, he was glass already twice shattered. One more strike would have simply pulverized the pieces for all time.
         As he burst through an upstairs door and nearly fell into a hallway, the smoke seemed to clear. Footsteps clattered all around, voices swarmed, scattered, seemed to vanish right into the walls. He looked down at his clothes and saw they were striped with dirt. Blinking watery eyes, he took shallow breaths and prayed his lungs could keep up with the damage they were no doubt undergoing. Strangely, it didn't feel any warmer. Maybe this was just someone's dinner burning. Maybe he was here for no reason at all. Without any people everything felt so still. He was trapped in an apartment's nightmare, of burning down and no one around to stop it.
         Carefully he crept down the corridor, keeping his head low to avoid some of the stringy smoke. From nowhere he wondered if Don had traced this exact steps at some point. If he had ever come here. There was so much the dead took with them upon their passing. Smoke coiled into musical notes around him. He remembered Don had written a song once. He had known some basic guitar chords and the like and based on that he had come up with a song. Brown didn't even remember what it was about, though it hadn't been half bad. He did recall Donald mentioning to him that he had a thousand more in his head, waiting until he was good enough to write them down. Brown wondered if he ever had. It didn't matter now. It was a sombering thought. How many people had the world's greatest songs, books, inventions or just plain ideas tucked away in their minds, forced to leave those sentiments forever unspoken when those people were taken away forever. But nothing was ever lost forever. That had always been Brown's hope. Somehow these ideas had to have enough mass to escape death's bone wrenching pull and reach fruition through any means possible. Somehow.
         He turned a corner and the smoke became thicker again. Brown was moving through invisible sludge now, time moving out of synch with his actions. He kept his mouth closed in a tight line and prayed he didn't pass out. Already blackness was rimming the edges of his vision, dueling with spider-like lines of red that crackled over his sight. Far away there was a series of rapid thuds. He got the impression someone was trying to shout at him. No. Not at him. Toward him. He had to keep moving. Now he could see the source of the smoke. Like breaking through the clouds to see the mouth of an angry volcano. A door, slightly ajar, vomited a sort of heavy, dirty fog. Oh God, he knew that door. Had marked it himself. The air was starting to feel heated, almost grim. A coughing spasm seized him and he leaned against the wall, only to find it surprisingly cool to the touch. Close by he heard something cracking, like someone crushing a bundle of sticks with one hand, reducing it to so much natural powder. Sight and sound were becoming disconnected, and slowly he was losing the strands. He had to get out of here. But not until he knew. Not a second sooner.
         He wished that Tristian were around, if only so he knew where the man was. Brown hoped he didn't open the door and find his friend sprawled in the doorway, felled by a quest that he didn't start, that he had no hope of ever finishing. His head was spinning violently from the smoke. He was sure he was blacking out in spurts, one second, two seconds, not long enough to notice any difference. Gravity kept pulling him down, closer to the floor, through the floor, right into the earth itself. The core was reaching out to them all. There was a hand squeezing his head. He closed his eyes to keep them from bulging out. Had to get out. Of here. But he didn't. Know. Brown felt a flash of anger at Don again, even though the man was far beyond. You caused this, he seethed silently to his absent friend. If you hadn't died, none of this would have happened. The sudden thought startled him with its intensity. I hope you're happy. He couldn't halt its blundering passage, nor could he bring himself to regret it. He hadn't wanted to come back here and try to mourn his friend, hadn't wanted to throw himself into needless danger in the name of grief, didn't want to see everyone he knew leaving pieces of themselves wherever they went and he certainly hadn't wanted to run into a burning building in the hopes that a friend wasn't lying somewhere inside of it, in the hopes that his inherited rage hadn't resulted in more people hurt, in more damage wrought. It had been too much already. At some point this had to end. But these lives never end. They just get passed on to the next person and the succeeding generation opens their eyes to a world of smoke, with no clear direction in sight, forced to stumble blindly as far as they can for as long as they can hold out. Maybe one day we'll emerge from the fog. But God only knew what we would find.
         Heat assaulted his face as he staggered in front of the door. His skin was slick with sweat, a salty taste lingering on his tongue, over his lips, stinging as it fell into his eyes. He was sweating. It was the middle of the winter and he couldn't stop sweating. This life will never stop surprising. Through the open slit of the door he could see that the inside was populated by random clusters of flame, all crackling hungrily, dazzling his eyes with the wrong kind of light, filling the air with a dense stench. Brown swore he saw shadows moving inside. But it may have been a trick of the fire.
         The door was smoldering, warm enough that Brown thought it might burst into flames any second. He kicked it open with his foot. A wave of heated air slapped him in the face, tried to force its way into his lungs, steal all his breath. Black dots swarmed his vision. A tunnel was being drilled through his ears. He staggered back, shielding his face. All he could hear were flames now, the constant chatter of their ravished devourings. In his ears there was a thudding sound that might have been his heartbeat. Tears filled his eyes again, and angrily he wiped them away, causing tracks in the salt membrane covering his skin. Stop that. Grown men didn't cry. Even when their friends were dead. It was just silly.
         The clearing of his vision revealed that there was someone inside the room. The person was standing up. His form looked hazy, almost mirage-like, as if they might evaporate at any moment. Brown blinked again, not knowing if he was seeing reality. For a moment he thought he saw double. He had expected people sprawled on the floor, people staggering about half conscious. This man appeared to be waiting for a bus, if his stance told anything.
         As if sensing Brown, the man turned halfway toward the door. Even framed by the smoke and the haze, his profile looked familiar.
         "Tristian . . ." he croaked out, his throat protesting even that small effort. Someone had gouged his tongue with sandpaper. It hurt even to swallow, like his throat was closing rapidly. He went to take a step forward but a sudden flare up of the fire forced him back. He thought he heard someone yelling at him. It was probably his sense of self preservation, screaming for him to get the hell out of there. For once, Brown wasn't inclined to argue. Something wasn't right here.
         Either by chance or because he heard his name, Tristian slowly finished turning toward Brown in that moment. Through the quickening flames their eyes met. A sunspot erupted on Brown's spine and with a chill he looked in Tristian's eyes and saw absolutely nothing.
         "Tristian, what are you doing?" he tried to shout, wincing as his throat tried to turn itself out. He could hardly hear himself. He swore when he breathed out smoke emerged from his mouth. His words hovered in the air, riding the currents, taking their time. Hurry up, he wanted to scream. I don't have all day. Pressure was building underneath his forehead, causing stars to flicker like lightning in his vision.
         Tristian stared at him for another second. Then, slowly and deliberately, as if demonstrating, he moved toward a somehow unmarred television. His movements were water running down glass. Standing over the apparatus, he bent down slightly and touched it with one finger. Almost instantly the spot where he had tapped it burst into flames, small at first but quickly gathering in size, until seconds later the entire television was engulfed in fire, the tube bulging and warping, the finish curling and blackening. Before Brown's eyes it was drying and shriveling, a campfire in the middle of civilization. That hadn't happened. This wasn't happening. He had to get out of here. Oh God. He had to.
         At that point the man had already turned away and was idly wandering around the room, as if searching for a new target. Brown felt himself unable to move, riveted by the man's eerie grace. No, no. That wasn't it. It's not Tristian, he thought, not for the first time and probably not the last time but rarely with the hollow fear he was experiencing now. All he wanted to do was run. He did nothing. This had to be a dream. It wasn't. It had to be. It wasn't. The man had already seemed to forget about him. Flames were licking at the man's legs, but none of it was catching. In his wake it left footsteps of fire. It brushed against the couch and seconds later that erupted as well. Beyond it Brown could see other rooms, defined only by the shadowy fires that were tearing them down, one by one. Everything reeked of ash.
         And then suddenly hands were gripping him from all sides.
         "I didn't know there was someone here!" a voice shouted very close to his ear. Men condensed from smoke, wrapped too solid arms around him. The chains of man. Of men. He was pinned, enclosed, nearly smothered. There was a spiraling wail in his ears, looping on and on and on.
         His first instinct was to protest and break free. It was only then that he saw the bulky clothing and distinctive hats and protective gear. Firefighters. Of course. They were trying to force an oxygen mask over his face. All he saw were arms. Their faces were ruddy and shadowed. He couldn't breath. This unsullied air was foreign to his lungs.
         "Come on, buddy, we're getting you out of here!" another voice called to him. They began forcing him along. Other firefighters were setting up around the doorway, getting ready to go in.
         "Look at this mess! Any idea what started it?"
         Panic seized Brown. Unlikely panic. He had no idea what these men were in for. They had no idea what they were in for. Weakly, he tried to struggle again, but there were too many with good intentions to heed his warnings, the mask over his face muffled all his words.
         Voices were flung at him.
         ". . . anyone else in there?"
         ". . . looks empty . . . do you . . ."
         As he was shoved from the doorway, Brown could see the man. He was standing at attention, his hands clasped behind his back. His eyes were staring directly into Brown's. They were the only solid part of his body. As he watched everything began dissolving, melting paint making bloody tracks down a broken wall. There was nothing in those eyes he could even hope to relate to. He held Brown's gaze for a moment before inclining his head politely and running his hand lazily along the wall, streaks of fire running like ink from his fingertips.
         That was the last Brown saw of him.
         Then they pulled him away.
         As he was being hustled down the stairs and back outside, Brown tried to shrug off their aid, tried to let his wouldbe rescuers know that he soon wouldn't need their help. Nobody paid any attention. Their presences seemed to dissolve as he grew closer to the outdoors. Everything was already fading. There was no trauma brutal enough to leave a mark on him. Except the ones that never left a mark. He could sense his lungs healing, burst alveoli reinflating, sunburned skin being replaced by new flesh, sweat being reabsorbed back into his body. His whole body felt as if he was rubbed it with a dry cloth and infused him with a immense static charge.
         And like electricity that last image of the man kept arcing back to him, refusing to be discharged, the circuit never opening to let the energy escape. It burned like a new star in his head. Every detail seemed fresh, he felt he could examine it from all angles, a film halted at the critical moment, allowing the audience to walk on the stage and see the magic for themselves. You see, we do it all with wires. Wires and mirrors. Nothing that you see here is real.
         Two things struck him each time he revisited that last vision. One because it wouldn't let go of his mind, another because it was a needle scratching under his skin, nagging too much to be ignored.
         The first was the man's face, how starkly cold it had been, more inhuman than anything a human face could possibly conjure. Yet at the same time there was a pleading quality to it, almost helpless. It had been trying to tell Brown something, he was sure of it. But he didn't know what. All these years and he hadn't learned how to speak deity.
         The second was subtle and didn't occur to him until he was almost outside, where the fresh air was a near painful invasion into his now sensitive lungs, like trying to use an arm right after the cast came off. In his head he saw the room again, all awash in fire and smoke, could hear the violence as the flames ate at everything edible in sight. It seemed so distant now, the memories melting into a miasma of voices and images, a record warped by heat, the sound wobbling, tilting, speeding up and slowing down. Every time he moved his head he seemed to dislodge boulders. In his head the fire was still attacking the room, lunging with dispassionate rage at everything inside.
         But the fire, for all its ferocity, had never moved beyond the doorframe. Once in a calmer environment, that struck him almost immediately. The fire had never left the room.
         My God.
         Outside, Brown managed to slip away from the rescue squads in the confusion. The world was returning to a normal speed, blurring painfully as all the elements locked into each other again. It was almost wrenching, but his senses were too numbed to register the nonexistent transition. Perhaps there was nothing to notice. Voices broke like bubbles around him, insistent and bodiless. Creeping past two firefighters, he swore he heard one say, "And it went out as soon as we got in there" but he couldn't be sure. There was nothing for him to trust. Certainly not his senses. As he walked, another voice complained that there was far more damage than there should have been. Yet one more marveled at how the entire building didn't go up, so vicious was its fury. More than one person thanked God. Brown wished he could set the record straight.
         Once he was some distance away from the events, he stopped and leaned against a wall. The cool winter air was a balm to his feverish skin. Sighing, he wiped his face, looked with disinterest at the dirt smeared all over his hand, no doubt a mirror image of his features. He was healing but he was tired. Brown wished what he had seen was a mirage, the flames dancing their tricks right before his eyes. But he couldn't say. He had forgotten again that his mind wasn't big enough to contain the word anything. As in They can do anything. Why did he keep doing that? It made him more than a little scared. Weariness kept him from giving in. It wasn't a thing he was proud of. His friend was dead and he didn't want to think anymore.
         "Tristian," he whispered, staring up at the impassive sky, at the moon that lurked somewhere behind grey clouds, "what have you done?"