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At Some Point This Stopped Being Fun

         There's nothing more to say.
         I'll say more anyway.
         I want to close this book.
         These pages won't stay shut.
         This isn't finished.
         But this is as close as I'm going to come.
         This morning it was cold for the first time.
         I turned the heat on in my car, got in and drove away.
         When I started this the heat outside kept me in.
         Soon the chill will drive me back indoors.
         The beginning and the end never seem so far away as when you're right up against them.
         Even if I could scream this, I wouldn't.
         I did what I set out to do.
         I'm just not sure what that was.
         So you can go now.
         I don't expect we'll have any reason to ever speak of this again.

Why Don't I Get to Go Back and Try It Again?

         At dusk, there is no time.
         The sky was colored with bright soot, the sun beginning to boil, starting to burn all the night's debris away. Overhead powerlines cut the air into slim sections. The moon winked, still standing guard for the last of its shift. All the stars had gone, extinguished one by one, leaving the heavens empty.
         Distantly, a keening wail could be heard, soft as a whisper, harsh as a warning.
         Three sets of footsteps crunched on gravel.
         "Well, we're here," a voice said in hushed tones, his voice grating on the fading darkness.
         "This is it, Tristian," another, more cultured voice intoned quietly. Lamps curved overhead, stabbing down gauzy light, illuminating only one faint shadow. "Where it ended."
         "It is," Tristian agreed. Above them, on either side, the platforms loomed, seemingly just out of reach. Even the benches were empty and abandoned. Dimly veiled signs indicated destinations in either direction. All you had to do was follow the tracks.
         A howl peeled itself from the distance again.
         "This is the only place I hadn't been to," Tristian said, stepping over to the tracks. His eyes scanned the ground, not sure what he was even looking for. He had a feeling there was nothing more to see here. "Where they spent their last night alive." His words swirled in clouds around his face, the lights emphasizing every ephemeral motion, capturing the moment just before dispersal.
         Agent Two followed behind Tristian idly, kicking at some loose stones. His breath seemed to mist into the shape of a grinning face. "Wouldn't exactly be my first choice." He looked around, craning his head to get a better picture of the view, deciphering the signals in the wires above, reading the inherent message in passing flock of birds. Frowning, he said to no one is particular, "This is sure a lonely place."
         "Everyone wanted to know why he did it," Tristian murmured, tracing the direction of the tracks with his path for a few steps. "They asked me, they wanted me to ask you guys."
         "They could have," Agent One replied. Out of range of the splash from the pools of light falling from above, he stood nearly in shadow. His eyes glimmered like tiny flames before the effect vanished and he was merely disembodied. Or so it seemed. "But they would have received the same answer you did."
         "Which was what?" Tristian asked with weary sarcasm. "I don't recall getting one." He crouched down, running his hands along the struts running perpendicular to the rails, rubbing the dust between his fingers. "That's why I had to go look myself."
         "So you did," Agent Two noted, hopping off the rails and kicking at some rocks. The clatterings were heard but there was nothing to see. "And I'm sure you uncovered earthshattering revelations, right?"
         Without looking at either Agent, Tristian replied, "I started with questions . . . and after a while I found some answers. That led to more questions and more answers." He scooped up some stones and let them trickle one by one through his fingers, the sound a metronome keeping a rhythm with nothing. "But all the answers I found never answered the right question. Or maybe it had never been asked in the first place."
         "Does that mean they should never have been asked?" Agent One said, his form a slash in the air. "Or is there only room in this world for the right questions?"
         "I don't know," Tristian said quietly. He looked out down the tracks, his eyes narrowed. Far down the twisting rails, a light might have flickered. He could sense the vibrations under his feet. It must have felt like this. Except he hadn't been alone. But wasn't everyone, in moments like these. Shifting, he moved to a sitting position. The wooden boards underneath were unyielding under him. Being here felt so exposed. His heart was already racing faster, even though he was in no danger. Had the morning been like this? How close had they cut it? How much waiting had been necessary? Was there time for second thoughts? Did they even realize when the point of no return was? Tristian tried to imagine this great weight bearing down on him, restless, inexorable, growing larger and larger in his vision by the second, the ground itself trembling, the wind shuddering, voices cut up and tossed away, the air screaming, everything defined by an impact becoming closer and closer and
         no-
         He swore softly under his breath and looked away sharply, leaping back into a crouch. Opening eyes he didn't realize he had closed, he glanced to his left to see Agent One poking at something under the platform. His heart was still fluttering. The air itself was saturated. In the semi-darkness, a single light blinked again, further down the line. This morning existed in no time at all. They were ghosts between the seconds, falling out of step with the day.
         "What's there?" he asked, moving closer to where the Agent was kneeling. In the space under the platform, in a dank hollow, was a battered and moldy mattress. Catching a scent of the limp air, he coughed and backed away a step, feeling like he had just inhaled a nostril-full of spores. "Ah, geez . . ."
         "They were here," Agent One said flatly.
         "Oh," Tristian said, cautiously leaning in a little closer. There barely seemed to be enough room under here for one person. "Is this . . . this must be where they slept before . . ." Unable to complete the thought outloud, he twisted his body for a better look. "There's no trace anymore," he noted quietly. "Nothing to say they were ever here. Everything was probably taken, if there was ever anything here."
         "They saw it as the only way," Agent One murmured, running his hands along the decaying mattress, leaving finger tracks in the moldy dust. "Not the best way or the right way, but the only way left." Tristian was silent, waiting to see if the Agent would say more. "Emotions, impressions, humans are like stagnant puddles of them . . . and sometimes when they're disturbed the droplets splatter and . . . linger for a long time before they finally evaporate." His hand reached out, the tips of his hand gently pressing against the grey and scratched concrete. "The only way," he said again. "I'm so sorry," he breathed suddenly, closing his eyes and bowing his head. His voice was strangely tender. "I'm sorry. You didn't think it would hurt so much."
         His head rotating almost unnaturally, Agent One turned to face Tristian. His eyes were like glass, reflecting the lights peering unblinkingly down. "You went looking for a cause when it's possible they didn't even know why." He stood up smoothly, his motions liquid. Tristian followed suit. "No wonder you feel you failed."
         A whistle split the air in a wordless scream, pitched and distant.
         Beginning to walk back over to the tracks, Tristian said, "I know I failed. From the start I failed. They were already dead. After that, there's no such word as success."
         Agent Two met them on the rails. A bright light from somewhere stretched his shadow to painful proportions. "I have to hand it to you, Tristian," he said, "saving kittens from trees apparently isn't good enough." Kicking at a rail, he added, "Don't try to divide it into success and failure, Tristian. It's not like that. It doesn't apply everywhere." His voice was becoming hard to hear, hammers kept falling, trying to drown him out.
         A single bright eye stared at them from the darkness, flying steadily closer, a comet returning to the stars.
         "He's right," Agent One said, raising his voice over the sudden din. Papers were whipping past them, madly fleeing the oncoming grim hurricane. Metal was screaming, pumping, rattling, inevitably the cacophony bore down on them. "A while ago I said to you that if you pursued this course long enough, a point might present itself." His smile was a slit in the dazzling light streaming onto his face, falling over all three of them. Tristian glanced back and shielded his eyes, but maintained his ground. There was no time to be afraid. "That's what you need to look for. Sometimes, it's all you have."
         "But . . . what was it?" Tristian asked, his voice ragged over the expanding roar. It was taking all the spaces in the air, filling them in and crowding everything else out. Both Agents were staring into it unflinchingly.
         With deliberate grace, Agent One reached inside his coat pocket and pulled an object out. He held it up before his eyes. The edge of a needle glittered.
         Tristian didn't even seem to notice. He was trying to look but he had to keep turning away. "I think, in the end, I saw a point," he shouted, his voice barely holding together as the bellow threatened to chop it into pieces. "But how am I supposed to tell?"
         It was as big as the world now. Without speaking, Agent One reached back, his face intent, unconcerned. Light danced at his fingers. The air stank of burning oil and simmering metal.
         In one smooth motion, he flung the syringe into the air.
         A drop of a liquid leaked from the point and hung, suspended and crystallized, as the object fell end over end.
         "Even if there was one I don't think I'd even-"
         A monster swallowed the voice.
         Glass shattered. Fragments were strewn like old rain.
         Snarling, the train swept through empty space, charging only after old newspapers and broken cardboard boxes, chasing them down the tracks, down the rails, for as long and as far as they could go.

Please God, No

         "Hey . . . hey, babe, you up?"
         "Yeah. I couldn't sleep."
         "Me neither. Feel it? It's almost time."
         "I know."
         "You scared? 'Cause I am."
         "Yeah, me too. I . . . I think I had a dream where everything turned out okay. So . . . so maybe it . . . oh, but I'm afraid nobody will understand."
         "Ah . . . they will. You'll see. They have to. It's so simple. How can they not?"

THE END

         "Everything dies baby, and that's a fact, but maybe everything that dies someday comes back, put your makeup on, put your hair up pretty and meet me tonight . . ."
                              - Bruce Springsteen, "Atlantic City"

MB
May-October 2002
RP