Second Thoughts and Last Chances
By
Latikia
Edited by
The Old Fart
Copyright © 2007,
2008
Chapter 35
Good health is nothing more than the slowest possible rate at which you can die.
That’s only one of the peculiar thoughts that crossed my mind while I lay flat on my back on the cellar floor, surrounded by a couple dozen silently sarcastic and pitifully empty bottles.
I’d been down there for close on to three hours after leaving Peggy in the care of Izzy and Lilly; and in the course of those three hours I’d done a lot of drinking and one hell of a lot more completely cockeyed thinking. The two eventually congealed, leaving me with several relatively sublime and pointlessly philosophic platitudes:
I realized, laying there on the cellar floor, that I’d put myself in a fairly deep hole. I hadn’t intended to, but…well, the best laid plans and all that sort of shit.
It was time to stop digging, stick my head up out of the hole, take a look around and see what was what.
What was I trying to accomplish by taking over the government, apart from proving to myself that I could? More importantly, what the hell was I going to do with the damn thing once I had it?
Admittedly, it’d seemed like a pretty good idea at the time; but like so many ambitious dreams, the wanting and getting turned out to be infinitely more satisfying than the actual having.
I was a hair’s breadth from having it all. It was there, waiting, begging to be plucked…I could taste it.
It was either that, or the slightly sour aftertaste of the ninth bottle of dry red wine I’d just polished off.
There are people who like running things, being in charge. I’m not one of them. I’m one of those folks who prefer to do what they want, when they want, because they want to, not because they have to. Deep down, I think the vast majority of people feel pretty much the same way I do. They simply want to be left alone and allowed to get on with the business of living.
Personally, I really dislike it when supposedly grown people come to me for instructions, direction or approval. I’m not the stuff that leaders are made of. I was aware of this long before I went into the army, and everything I’d experienced in the years that followed only served to confirm and reinforce that belief.
What do I want? What do you want? What do you want from me?
You want laws to cover every possible human action…great! Pass ‘em…see if I care. Just don’t expect me to follow them.
You want to build a bridge that goes nowhere and serves no purpose…do it. Just don’t expect me to praise or pay for it.
You want to start a war in a part of the world that the average person can’t even locate on a map…fine and dandy. But if you think I’m gonna go and fight it for you—think again! Get someone else, ‘cause I just don’t give a fuck!
I’d spent eight years of my life, eight goddamned years, fighting a losing battle that only a handful of people even knew was being fought. For what? What had I achieved?
Apathy.
That’s what I’d ended up with…apathy. Of all the fucking emotions available to me, that’s the one I’d ended up with. That, and the thinnest, most frazzled thread of hope I could envision.
I used to care about justice. But years of pointless struggling had convinced me at last that there was no such thing, and that there never would be.
Not if I was the only one interested.
I used to care about truth. After eight years in D.C. I couldn’t even be sure what that meant. I wasn’t sure I’d ever known.
Pontius Pilate is famously reported to have asked, ‘What is Truth? Is Truth unchanging law?’
Brilliant question. Brilliant! ‘Is Truth unchanging law?’
Probably.
Facts are what they are, but the way we interpret their relevance and significance…that’s always changing. Truth, in my opinion, couldn’t be like that; it had to be constant and eternal. Otherwise what would be the point? Truth could not be subjective or relative, fragile or fleeting, abstract and intangible. It had to be more inflexible and unbending than diamond, and less malleable than humanity’s vision of God.
“ ‘In every age there have been Sages who had mastered the absolute and yet could teach but relative truths. For none yet, born of mortal woman in our race, has, or could have given out, the whole and the final truth to another man, for every one of us has to find that (to him) final knowledge in himself. As no two minds can be absolutely alike, each has to receive the supreme illumination through itself, according to its capacity, and from no human light. The greatest adept living can reveal of the Universal Truth only so much as the mind he is impressing it upon can assimilate, and no more.’ ” I declaimed resonantly to the ceiling.
The ceiling ignored me.
I didn’t blame it one little bit.
“Is that one of yours, or a quote?” a small voice asked from the vicinity of the stairs.
I lifted my head off the floor just enough to peer over my chest. Peggy sat on the third stair from the bottom, her knees tucked up beneath her chin, wearing what looked like one of my ragged old work-around-the-house shirts.
She looked tired. There were dark bags under her eyes, lines across her forehead and at the corners of her mouth. Her hair was a wild mess, more like a bramble patch than anything else.
She was still beautiful, but she looked tired and felt exactly the same.
“Something I read a long time ago, called ‘What is Truth’ by H.P. Blavatsky.”
“Who’s he?”
“She. He’s a she. Apart from that little bit of trivia…” I shrugged and put my head back on the floor. “I didn’t care enough at the time to dig deeper.”
“Did she know the Truth?”
“I seriously doubt it.”
“Do you?”
I sighed softly. “I wish. I don’t think there is such a thing; at least not the capital ‘T’ kind.”
“That bothers you a lot, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know why it should, but yeah, it does.”
“You prefer absolutes; good and evil, right and wrong, justice and injustice. They make life simpler, choices less confusing, decisions less troubling…clearer. Gray areas suck.”
“But nothing is absolute, is it? Everything changes.”
“ ‘Fraid so lover.”
“Everything’s relative. Even the truth.”
“It is if you can’t define it so that everyone says ‘Yup, that’s the Truth alright’.”
“Well, so much for truth.”
There was a long empty silence.
“Absolute Truth doesn’t have to be the end-all be-all of your life. What about the more tangible things that make life worth living? Aren’t they worth fighting for?”
“I think so, but what’s the point? We’re fighting the same battles today, and for the same reasons, that our great-great-great grandparents did. It never stops. There’s no end to it.”
“And why is that?”
“Because we’re, all of us, fighting for exactly the same reasons, trying to achieve the exact same goals. Everyone’s right and at the same time we’re all wrong. It’s insane.”
“If that’s true, and I’m not suggesting it isn’t, but if it’s true then how would you stop it?”
“Well, if Blavatsky’s right, you can’t.”
“Who says she’s right? You’re not just going to take her word for what’s possible and what’s not, are you?”
I lifted my head again and then sat up, elbows on my knees.
“She’s not the only one, you know.”
“So what? You’re not actually suggesting that just because a lot of supposedly smart people say something can’t be done that they’re right?”
I frowned. “There are things that can’t be done.”
Peggy smiled crookedly. “So says the man who can turn himself into a walking, talking tiki-torch; the man who can cure insanity and kill with a single emotion. Tell me again about things that can’t be done.”
I shook my head and frowned. How could I respond to something like that?
“Your problem has nothing to do with a fruitless search for Ultimate Truth, or being unable to make up your mind about taking over the world.”
“Oh?” I cocked my head to one side and stared at her.
“Nope. There’s really two problems, but let’s ignore the first one for now.”
“Okaaaay.” I drawled suspiciously. “So what’s the second one?”
“You’re spoiled.”
My right eyebrow rose up sharply.
“Say what?”
“You heard me. You. Are. Spoiled.”
“Spoiled?”
“When was the last time anyone told you no and you had to accept it? When was the last time anyone refused you something you really wanted? Face it, lover, you’ve gotten to the point where being denied anything, even something as abstract and unreachable as Truth, sets you to pouting and moping like a little boy who’s been told he can’t have a cookie.”
…!
Sonofabitch!
I sat there for what seemed like a very long time, thinking, remembering, putting fragments of memories together in various configurations and analyzing the results.
No!
But…
Yes?
Maybe…
Maybe?
“Maybe.” I rasped softly.
Peggy’s crooked smile straightened.
“Maybe…what?” she coaxed gently.
“Maybe you’re right.” I admitted between clenched teeth.
She stood up, the tails of my old shirt slid down her thighs to hang just above her knees. She looked so damn cute and sexy; it was a real effort to remain annoyed and irritated.
Peggy stepped down off the stairs and walked slowly towards me. I’ve always enjoyed watching her walk, hips swaying, shoulders rising and shifting…how someone who appears to be so sweet and innocent manages to exude sexual promise the way she does still boggles my mind.
I put my mind on pause and just enjoyed the show.
Peggy brushed those bottles lying in her path to one side with a dainty foot, knelt down beside me, bent over and kissed me on the forehead.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“It wasn’t ten seconds ago.” She grinned and patted my chest with one hand.
“You are such a pig.”
“A spoiled pig.” I reminded her. “Besides, I said maybe. Maybe is not a confession or an admission…it’s a maybe.” Peggy just kept on grinning, quietly wallowing in her silent and unacknowledged (at least by me) victory. “So…what, and I just know I’m gonna regret asking, was the first problem?”
Her grin faded a little.
“You aren’t going to like it.” she warned me.
“Can’t imagine why…seeing how I got such a kick outta being called spoiled. Come on, let’s have it.”
Peggy’s eyes, usually so bright and filled with joy lost their sheen.
“What?” Fear began to bubble up from deep within her. I could hardly believe it. Peggy was afraid…of me, of how I’d react. I wasn’t angry, or raising my voice, or on fire or anything, but she was afraid. “Come on half-pint. Just be honest with me.”
Peggy took a deep breath. “For as long as I’ve known you, the one topic you harp on the most, after justice, is freedom. Yours, mine, Izzy’s, Lilly’s…but it’s just not true, and you don’t even seem to realize it.”
I frowned. Then I shook my head. “How do you figure?”
“Ike, you don’t believe in freedom. Honey, you’re a fascist at heart.”
I frowned even harder.
“I’m a fascist?”
Peggy nodded her head fractionally. “The things you believe in are justice, responsibility and accountability; none of which are even remotely compatible with the idea of freedom. Real freedom means that anyone can do anything they want to. Anything. Real freedom means no law, no accountability, no responsibility, and no justice. Real freedom would be pretty much the same as what used to be called the State of Nature.”
I felt my face relax, the frown melted away gradually as barely remembered words flashed thru my mind and escaped across my lips.
“‘Nature has no principles; she furnishes us with no reason to believe that human life is to be respected. Nature, in her indifference, makes no distinction between good or evil.’”
Peggy nodded her agreement. “Part of you would really enjoy that kind of freedom. But only a part. The rest of you despises even the idea; it couldn’t begin to tolerate the reality. That part wants rules, guidelines, boundaries…laws that clearly distinguish between good and evil. People invented the concepts of good and evil to protect them from the random chaos of nature. And whether you’re willing to admit it or not, you represent both sides of the equation. One way or another, you’re gonna have to make up your mind; which side are you on? Freedom or Order?”
“It’s not that clear cut a choice and you know it.” I slowly replied. “Neither option is intrinsically good or evil.”
She took a deep breath. “You’re a smart man Ike, so tell me; what is good? Define it for me.”
“Good is what gives me pleasure.” I said automatically, not even bothering to think about it.
“So then evil would be everything that doesn’t give you pleasure?”
I rolled my head to side and thought.
“No. Evil has a different feel to it than that.”
“So then evil isn’t the opposite of good, is it?”
“Not if we define it like that.”
“You defined it, I just asked the question. Now, does everything that gives you pleasure give me pleasure?”
My frown returned. “No.”
“So good is not an absolute?”
“I’ll concede the point to my learned opponent.”
Peggy smirked…just a little…before continuing on.
“Justice gives pleasure to only one side of an argument, so how can it be good for everyone? Accountability, responsibility…I suppose there might be some sort of satisfaction in there someplace, but pleasure?”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Peggy’s fingers drummed lightly over my heart.
“Do you see where I’m going with this baby?”
Yeah, I saw it. Like the light at the end of an endlessly dark tunnel. Like an oncoming truck, headlights locked on a spot right between my eyes.
“The things I believe in are unnatural and evil.” I replied slowly.
“Hardly evil. Remember, nature makes no distinction. Only people do. Maybe they’re just bad. But they are most definitely unnatural.” she suggested. “You pride yourself on being a good man; a fair, just and kind man. But that isn’t true either, is it?”
I swallowed hard. When I opened my eyes I saw Peggy’s sad, tear filled eyes watching me.
“I’ve felt the real you, and he’s about as unnatural as they come. He doesn’t want freedom, he wants order. His order. The three of us, we’ve watched you struggle with him for a long time now. I know you, Ike Blacktower, and you’re losing.”
Peggy put her hands on my shoulders, pushed me back until I laid back down on the floor, with her kneeling beside and over me.
“You’re the kindest, sweetest, most compassionate and forgiving person I’ve ever known. Disgustingly so at times, but you’re also the coldest, meanest, most vicious, cruel and indifferent creature that ever lived. You’re many things, my love, but good ain’t one of ‘em.”
She lowered her mouth over my own and pressed her lips lightly against mine. Two teardrops fell from her cheek, landed in front of my ear and trickled down my neck into my hair.
Peggy lifted her head briefly then kissed me once again before sitting back on her heels.
“A great man cannot afford to be a good man.” she said, and then wiped the remaining tears from her eyes with the sleeves of my shirt.
I lay on my back quietly for some time, just looking at her and considering her words.
For a few moments I actually missed not being able to talk things over with the voices in my head.
Funny…I’d told the girls so many times that I wasn’t as good as they made me out to be. I guess that, in a way, I’d been doing it the same way a fat person makes jokes about their weight, as a way of lessening the hurt and taking the weapon out of the hands of potential assailants.
Was I a good man?
Apparently not.
Peggy was right, I didn’t believe in freedom. Hell, I’d gone out of my way to take it from an awful lot of people. Justice and accountability, while desirable in the abstract, was in reality a twin bladed dagger in the heart of freedom.
“Fascist?” I asked quizzically.
Peggy sniffed and then smiled as she rubbed beneath her nose.
“Maybe fascist is a little harsh. How ‘bout autocrat?”
I
winced.
Domineering, dictatorial,
tyrannical, authoritarian, imperious, self-willed, officious, strict, severe,
dogmatic, despotic, inquisitorial, authoritative, overbearing, peremptory,
arrogant, repressive, harsh, inflexible, arbitrary, oppressive, cruel,
grinding, exacting, unrelenting, heavy-handed, iron-handed, megalomaniacal,
monomaniacal, power-crazed, power-mad, petulant, willful, headstrong,
highhanded, bossy…
Not much of an improvement really,
and not what I’d call a litany of positive personality traits.
Still…
I was nowhere near as bad as all
that…was I? I’d always had a pretty
clear picture of who I was, what I wanted and how I planned to get it.
Power-mad?
I looked up at Peggy, who was still
wiping her face with the sleeves of my shirt.
“Girls always fall for the
bad-boy, don’t they?” I asked rhetorically.
“But am I evil?”
She sniffled and wiped her nose.
“Nature makes no…” she began to
quote once again. I cut her off.
“The hell with nature; am I
evil?”
“I don’t know if I can answer
that.” She paused and looked away. “I just don’t know.” she said after a
moment’s thought. “You made Izzy quit
her job at the academy. She loved it
there. And you made me give up my
practice, just when I was getting things sorted out the way I wanted. Damnit Ike, I worked hard to make something
of myself and you just snatched it out of my hands and tossed it away, like it
didn’t even matter. Those are not the
actions of a good man.”
“Great men need love too you
know.”
“I do love you.”
I shook my head. “All I feel right now are fear, anger,
mistrust and sadness. No love, Peggy,
none at all.”
I closed my eyes, thinking furiously. My thoughts raced faster and faster; images, memories, sensations and feelings flying thru my mind so quickly it was difficult to keep track of each one.
“Chose a side…” I whispered to the ceiling. Freedom or Order. Chaos or Law.
All my life I’ve had problems dealing with established authority. I don’t trust, have never trusted, authority figures. And I didn’t need a PhD in psychology to understand where all that animosity originated; first my father then my brother and sister. I’d gotten to the point where their ability to act as authoritarians was non-existent, and I won’t pretend that I missed those good old days, because I don’t. What I did miss was feeling justified in my rebelliousness. I’d lost that along the way, probably around the time I’d become an authority figure in my own right.
I’d become what I hated. I’d struggled so long against order and law, struggled for freedom, chaos and indeterminacy, and look what happened.
Power longs for order, for structure, because they increase, support and reinforce power.
“What is there to choose between?” I mumbled.
Order holds the universe together, chaos or entropy tears it apart. According to science, eventually entropy wins. We’re born, we live and we die. Eventually. Some sooner than others, some later, but eventually everything comes apart.
I felt the air around me grow chill as my mind fought to bring order to the rampant chaos lurking within. My breathing slowed significantly, as did my heartbeat and the blood in my veins thickened and became sluggish sludge.
But did it have to be that way? Did chaos have to win?
I sure as hell wasn’t coming apart at the same rate as most of the people around me. Time. I had time on my side. I could try different things, wait and see how they worked out, and if they didn’t come out the way I wanted…
I exhaled slowly thru my nose.
“Who says I have to choose?
Nature is what it is, humanity is what it is…and so am I. Apart, separate,
distinct; I’ll decide what I want. But
only if I want, and only when I want.”
The memories, thoughts and feelings flashed by even faster, but as the cold worked its way thru me my mind sharpened and everything moved into clear focus…the individual pieces fell into place so quickly and with such precision that I couldn’t believe I’d missed it before.
“Good, bad,
evil…they’re all meaningless distinctions dependant on an arbitrary, and
equally meaningless, middle ground. An unoccupied norm. I
couldn’t exist there…no irrationally sane person could.”
A voice broke my concentration, a distant, barely recognized sound that vied for my attention and was nearly lost in the hurricane of information whizzing thru my mind.
I opened my eyes, which seemed to take forever. It was as though the eyelids each weighed a pound apiece. The overhead lighting, which I knew to be barely sufficient to illuminate the cellar, blazed like noon-day sunlight and stabbed painfully all the way to back to my retinal nerves.
Peggy was leaning over and hammering on my chest with her fists, her face contorted into a mask of pure rage.
“Don’t you fuckin’ do this you sonofabitch!” she screamed again and again in time with the impact of each fist on my sternum.
I could just barely feel the blows as they landed. The shirt I had on gave me more in the way of physical sensation than her hands did.
“Knock it off, will you?” I said slowly. The words fell from my lips like two chunks of concrete dropped on a bag of sand.
I sat upright, which felt and sounded very much like folding a plank in two as my clothing crackled and complained. Peggy fell back, her rage replaced by fear, and scrambled away towards the stairs.
“You think you know me, huh?” I enquired, rolling to one side.
“Ike, please…”
I put my hands down on the floor and pushed myself up, getting to my feet. My hands and forearms were an icy blue shade that reminded me of pictures I’d seen of arctic fissures.
“A great man cannot afford to be a good man…isn’t that what you said?”
Peggy shivered and began backing up the stairs using her hands and the heels of her feet.
“By extension, you imply that I am a great man, and as such, in no way obliged to be good. In fact, one might even suggest that these so-called great men of yours were duty bound to be anything other than good.”
I felt a shifting of emotions within the upper reaches of the house. I tilted my head, as though listening to a distant sound, and smiled thinly.
“Your sisters are coming.” I whispered, and the words formed a dull thin white vapor cloud when they hit the air. I turned my attention back to the small woman who was awkwardly crawling up the stairs on her back. “Running away, half-pint? That’s not like you. You’re not afraid of me, are you?”
Peggy stopped moving and sat down slowly. She stared at me. “You wouldn’t hurt me, would you Ike?”
“No more than you would hurt me.”
Peggy’s face lost all its color and her mouth dropped open
The cellar door swung in and two sets of footsteps came thumping down.
“Why’s it so damn cold down here?” Lilly asked loudly.
Izzy stopped abruptly, crouching down next to Peggy. “Honey, what’s the…” Then she looked up, seeing where Peggy was staring, and saw me.
Lilly bent down behind Izzy and ducked her head to see what had caught her attention.
“Oh shit.” she exclaimed.
I spread my arms wide. “What? No hug, no kiss, not even a simple ‘hello’?”
“Ike?” Izzy inquired hesitantly.
“Last time I checked.”
“He’s bluer than that night with Svetlana.” Lilly said, looking at Izzy.
“That’s how he looked the time me and Dad pulled him out of the snow.” Izzy told her. She crouched lower and put both hands on Peggy’s shoulders. “What did you do to him?”
Peggy looked up, a stricken expression on her cute face.
“Me? We were just talking and he freaked out!”
Izzy looked up at me, her expression and emotions accusing.
“Well?”
“We were talking.” I agreed with a faint smile, lowering my arms.
“How do we know you aren’t one of those damn voices?” Lilly demanded.
“There are no others, little flower, only me.”
Lilly looked to Peggy. “Is it really him?” she asked.
Peggy shook her head. “I don’t know…I can’t feel him.”
“What do you mean you can’t feel him?” Izzy asked.
“Can you? Either of you?”
Izzy looked at Lilly and Lilly stared right back at her. They turned in unison to Peggy.
“You tried linking?” Lilly asked.
“Of course I tried! I can’t do it. It won’t connect.”
I smiled and the room got even colder.
Izzy returned her gaze to me. “What are you doing Ike?”
“Doing? I haven’t done a thing…yet.”
“Then why are you blue?”
I shrugged my shoulders; my shirt crackled like thin ice over a river. “I was thinking.”
“I don’t see the connection.”
“I’m not completely sure I do myself, but it feels like this is the best condition for my mind to deal with a large quantity of incongruent thoughts. Beats the hell out of getting angry and losing another set of clothes.”
I took two steps towards the stairs and my shirt, pants, shoes and socks all shattered and fell away like snow off an angled roof. I looked down in disgust.
“Aw fuck!” I growled.
Lilly chuckled, holding one hand over her mouth. Izzy got up, stepped over Peggy and came down the stairs to stand in front of me.
“What were you two talking about?”
I looked up, my eyes meeting hers. “Truth, freedom, good and evil…and what a spoiled fascist brat I am.”
Izzy inhaled shallowly. “Oh.”
Lilly stood up, walked down the steps and moved next to Izzy.
“So she hurt your feelings, is that it?”
“Not at all.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Izzy asked.
“Peggy said she knows me. The real me. I disagree. She’s never had to face the real me.”
“Ahhhhh.” Lilly said sibilantly. She turned around and waved for Peggy to join them. Peggy’s eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets.
“Are you nuts? There’s no way I’m getting near him! He’s dangerous!”
“Get real, Peggy! He’s always been dangerous.”
Izzy, ignoring the two other women, smiled at me. She reached out and ran one open hand lightly across my bare chest. “It’s an interesting contrast; the blue skin and your
white hair. Sexy, in weird kinda way.” Izzy pulled her hand back, cupped her hands and blew into them. “You said you were thinking. About what?”
“Things I want.”
“Such as?” Izzy prompted.
“Alex Chorney. I want him dead so bad I can taste it.”
Izzy’s succulent lips curled into a snarl. “Is that all?”
“No. I want to stop hurting. I want that even more than I want to kill Alex.”
“Do you know how to stop hurting?” Izzy asked as Lilly turned around and went back to the stairs, grabbed Peggy by the hand and dragged her down the stairs.
I smiled, and the temperature dropped two degrees. “Of course.”
Lilly hauled Peggy forward and thrust her beside Izzy, moved up close behind the little woman and held her shoulders to keep her in place.
“Time to face down the monster, squirrel-girl.” Lilly hissed in her ear.
I laughed softly, but it came out sounding like the peal of distant thunder.
“I’ll just destroy everything that feels. That should quiet things down considerably.”
Peggy gasped and looked up at me in horror.
“You wouldn’t?”
“Why not? Peggy, your feelings affect me a hell of a lot more than they do you. They’re a constant dull knife buried deep in my guts; twisting, turning, magnified and multiplied into a million sharp toothed little maggots, each one chewing its way slowly thru my sanity. I can’t live like this Peggy, I just can’t. I can cope with the rest of humanity’s hang-ups, but I can’t bear to live with your mistrust and fear of me. I just can’t. I won’t.”
“So you’ll just kill us all? Me and Izzy and Lilly? What about the children, are you going to kill them too Ike?”
I stared down at her, no emotion on my face. But behind my eyes I could feel the flaming darkness rise, held in check only by the frozen steel of my mind. Bitter blue flames licked at my lashes and eyebrows. Death, devastation and destruction lurked behind those flames, eager for release.
“I’m the coldest, meanest, most vicious, cruel and indifferent creature that ever lived. And I can do anything. I’m free Peggy. I’m the one truly free person in all the world.”
“You’re not free. You have obligations, responsibilities…you’re not free!”
“I say I am.” I whispered dispassionately. “I say there’s nothing I cannot, will not, do.”
I bent down slightly to the side and locked eyes with
her. “Prove
me wrong…if you’re not too scared to try.”
Peggy shrugged off Lilly’s hands, jumped up, wrapped her arms around my neck, locked her legs around my waist and smashed her lips against my own. The heat from her body leached into mine and I felt a glimmering thread shoot between the two of us where our lips met and then a torrent of scalding hot passion and love sprayed out and flooded my body.
I lifted my arms; put one around her back, the other beneath her bottom.
The numbing cold within me receded slowly. Very slowly. Slow enough that I was forced to weather the pain and general discomfort Peggy endured being in such close proximity to my sub-zero body. I linked with her and found multiple spots that had already succumbed to frostbite. In spite of her pain, she hung on tightly and kept her lips and body pressed firmly against me. The heat of her love never decreased, not even a little.
Trial by fire…or frost.
Her pain increased to the point where I could no longer bear for her to endure it. I released my inner flame and poured all my love for her down the link.
Peggy shrieked into my mouth, squeezed my neck and waist with inhuman strength and tried to push her body thru my icy skin.
We remained locked together like that for I don’t know how long, just holding on to one another as tightly as we could. Eventually I felt two different hands on each of my shoulders, alternately kneading the muscle and caressing the skin. Hot scalding blood rushed back into my extremities and the tingling, needle jabbing pain was truly exquisite.
“She’s passed out honey.” Izzy whispered in my right ear.
I turned my head to the right, finally breaking the contact between Peggy’s lips and my own.
“She may be unconscious, but her love’s still active as hell.”
Lilly tugged on my arm. “Come on, it’s past our bed time.” she said with a warm smile.
I carried Peggy to the stairs and started up, followed by Lilly and Izzy. I felt the pair of them whispering and giggling, tasted the light tang of their emerging lust.
I sighed softly and kept climbing.
Izzy’s hand reached up and cupped my right butt-cheek.
“Hey, no fair, my hands are full.”
Lilly laughed. “Well, maybe next time you decide to throw a tantrum you’ll remember to keep your pants on.”
Izzy chuckled happily. “God, I hope not. Peggy’s right…you have a great tush.”
“Yeah, well keep doing that and I’m gonna have one hell of a hard-on. What if the kids are awake?”
Lilly scampered up the stairs ahead of me and grinned widely. “I’d be glad to hide it for you.” she offered with a wicked grin.
I snorted with mock disgust and headed up and out into the kitchen with the pair of them following along next to me, each one with a possessive hand on my ass.
I stood naked on a vast, featureless, empty and endless expanse of dull sand colored…sand. The sky was a lifeless watery blue dome, devoid of clouds, birds, wind; even the sun was missing. It was as empty and boring as the sand beneath it. I listened carefully; not a sound. No wind, no birds, no insects, no animals, no shifting of the sand, no nothing.
I bent down, pressed both hands flat against the sand and tried to link with the earth.
Nothing.
It wasn’t so much that I couldn’t feel anything; I couldn’t form the link. Nothing happened.
Nothing.
I stood up and began turning in place, searching for movement of any kind. As I side stepped around in a small circle, I opened my senses, casting wider and wider for any trace of emotion or feeling.
Nothing. There was nothing. I couldn’t feel a thing.
I turned my senses inward.
More of the same. I couldn’t feel a damn thing, not even from myself.
“So this is what alone feels like.” I muttered aloud. The words were hollow and muted to my ears, lacking in tone, power, and feeling; as lifeless as the landscape.
On the bright side, I didn’t hurt. For the first time in a long time I wasn’t filled with emotions and feelings that weren’t my own. It should have felt good. But it didn’t. It didn’t feel like anything. It felt like…
…nothing.
I stopped circling, stuck my right index finger in my mouth, wet the digit and then held it up even with my eyes.
Nothing. No wind, no sun, no shadow and no sound apart from my own lifeless voice.
I started walking. One direction was as good or bad as any other, far as I could tell.
Time may or may not have passed. My steps were absolutely silent and seemed to make no imprint at all on the sand. Eventually I broke into a jog, just to make some kind of change in the monotony. I kept my eyes straight ahead, scanning for movement.
I might as well have been running on a treadmill for all the good it did.
Nothing changed. Everything looked exactly the same as it had when I’d begun.
I went from jogging to loping, loping to a full out gallop, and then finally to sprinting. Faster and faster, legs pumping, arms swinging, thrusting back and forth in an effort to increase my speed…and getting absolutely nowhere at an incredible rate.
The landscape never blurred, there was no resistance from the air around me, no puffs of dust lifted by my feet, no sweat on my face or body…
…nothing.
A plenitudinous vacancy. An abundant absence wherever I looked and the best part was that I didn’t have to share it.
I slowed down gradually and finally came to a complete stop. I took a deep breath, even though I wasn’t in the least bit fatigued, lowered my head and examined my feet.
White on sand. How absolutely, amazingly, astoundingly far from interesting.
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked my toes; almost, but not quite, expecting a reply.
What I did get, the instant the words left my mouth, was a resounding stereophonic throbbing right above both my eyebrows, and a faintly echo-ish reverberation that lingered for quite some time deep within my ears.
And it really hurt. A lot!
So there was something in this great wide empty, besides me. Still, beggars can’t be choosers.
I stumbled forward, hands clamped hard over my ears and bent at the waist, doing my best not to verbalize in any way shape or form.
Too bad for me, each uneven step brought increasingly audible distant whispers to my aching ears. And as the whispers grew closer, they grew louder; and as they grew louder they became increasingly more painful.
I dropped to the sand, crashing hard on both knees, and the sound was so shockingly abrasive, abusive and agonizing that I damn near bit my tongue clean thru.
What the fuck is going on here? I bellowed in my mind.
I stayed on my knees for…I have no idea how long...but it seemed like days. I did not want another sample of whatever had caused that incredible pain.
Slowly, very—very slowly, I raised my head and lowered my
hands. I looked straight ahead,
unblinking. At the edge of the horizon I
saw something that hadn’t been there before; two small indistinct forms,
My heart began to beat a little faster.
Slowly, very—very slowly, I put my left hand down on the sand and started to stand up.
So did, I think, the two figures off in the distance. And faintly, barely noticeable to begin with but growing larger and more threatening with every muscle movement, the mind ripping pain returned.
Quickly, without thinking, I threw both arms up in the air and waved the two distant figures down.
Shit, please let them understand! I prayed.
They both slowly sank back down to crouching positions.
thankyouthankyouthankyou…
I started loping towards a point directly between the two, and when I’d covered about one third the distance between us I stopped. The two dots were now clearly distinguishable as human forms, but still too far away for me to tell anything more about them. I raised my left arm, hand palm down and held it out, indicating that the figure on that side should stay still then lifted my right arm and waved the individual on that side to come towards me.
The figure rose up cautiously and I stopped waving; the pain threatened a comeback.
I stayed still as the figure on my right ran towards me, rapidly closing the gap between us. And as the distance lessened I was able to make out more and more of the individual’s physical characteristics.
He was my size, had long hair like I did though his was bright red, ran with the same loping stride I used, moved easily and with an untrained style that I found myself envying.
Closer and closer, his long legs ate the distance like a starving man at a buffet table.
I could finally see his face. Pale skin…weathered and worn, wrinkled and beneath that aged surface were snaking blue veins, much more obvious and evident than the ones that showed beneath my own skin. His chest, arms and legs were covered by sparse thin reddish hairs, and while he appeared to be in good physical shape, he didn’t have the same muscular definition I did.
His eyes were like my own, pale grey, blood shot and filled with the same pain I felt throbbing distantly and insistently behind mine. He looked like I’d imagined, as a boy, I would when I got older.
He came to a silent stop about six feet from where I stood, looked me up and down, nodded silently and slowly crouched down.
I nodded at the crouching man then waved for the figure on the left to join us.
If anything, the man on the left ran even faster and more athletically than the one on the right had. Almost as though the hounds of hell were on his heels, or should I say, as if he were the hounds of hell on the heels of some poor damned sinner.
He arrived quicker than the other had. Taller by a fraction than the first man, same long hair, but his was as black as a raven’s wing, and his skin was the exact same shade as my Granddad’s had been. His eyes though were exactly the same, pale grey, blood shot, but instead of being filled with pain, they leaked blazing anger. The body below his head was absolutely hairless and the man was ripped. There didn’t look to be an ounce of fat on him. Where I had a small abdominal four pack, this guy’s belly was a freaking washboard. Every damn muscle group stood out savagely defined, just begging to be admired and appreciated.
The hairs on the back of my neck bristled.
We all shared the same facial structure, the same sharp cheek bones, angular jaw and prominent eagle beak nose. But where the man on my right looked to be in his late thirties or early forties, and I knew I looked the same as I had when I was in my early twenties, the man on my left appeared to be both youthful and mature. He looked eternal, timeless and unchanging.
He looked exactly the way I’d always wished I could have.
The dark skinned man came to a halt and slid into a relaxed at-ease stance. He nodded to the crouched man and then to me.
The ball was now clearly in my court.
If we try to do anything at the same time, the pain will return. Only one can move, or speak, at a time. I took a breath I knew I didn’t need before continuing. Where are we?
I remained still and waited. The crouching man looked up at the darker figure, who nodded silently.
The same place we always are. In your mind. He looked up at me expectantly.
Why can’t I hear anything or feel anything, except pain when we move together?
You wanted to stop hurting, right?
I acknowledged his question with a nod.
Well, this is it. There’s nothing here that can hurt you now. Nothing to cause you pain.
Nothing but myself.
That’s right sunshine, the dark skinned man said, are you finally getting the picture?
There’s nothing alive here?
Only you.
Mom said life was pain. I thought to myself. Myselves.
That wasn’t her…it was never her. Or your Granddad or your sister or your wife. It was you. It was always you.
Life is pain.
A single entity is not
life. the crouching man said.
No?
A single entity is an event; nothing more, nothing less. An instant in time that occurs, passes and is
quickly forgotten. Life is a series of entity events, a mass of serial entity
events. Life needs life. Life feeds on life. Life,
by definition, cannot exist alone and independent. Everything that lives needs other living
things. Give and take. Symbiosis.
Doesn’t matter if we love it or hate it, approve or disapprove, agree or disagree; it is a fact. It might even be the only real Truth.
Face facts, wonder-boy, the dark man insisted hotly, you can’t survive alone. You need the emotions of other people to live. You’re not like them and you never will be. They live their lives in an emotional isolation. You don’t. Not anymore. You feed off their emotions, and those feelings fuel your existence. You need them. All of them.
What’s the catch? The symbiosis? What do they get out of feeding me?
They get you. What does a remora get from the shark it feeds off of? Protection? A chance to continue the serial entity event of its particular species?
Is that all I am?
The pale man on my right looked up. What else do you need?
I don’t know…I just thought there had to be more to it than that. I take from them, so if the relationship is truly symbiotic I should give something tangible in return.
Certainty. That’s what you give. Certainty in how you feel about them, in how they feel towards each other, in how they feel about themselves. If you love them, they know it. If you hate them, they know that too. There’s no doubt, no anxiety, no suspense. In an uncertain world you’re the one thing everyone can be sure of, but only if you’re sure of yourself and your place in that world.
He smiled at me and I saw pity in his eyes. Humans make life more complicated than it really is. No reason for you to fall into that trap. Take their pain and anger; give them a better chance to extend the Life event, give them security and certainty. Give them health, happiness…hope. Give them whatever you think they need. Take their emotions, they’ve got plenty to spare, but leave their philosophy alone. It was never meant for someone like you.
I thought about what they’d said for a long while. Then I nodded and the crouching man stood up, and the three of us stepped towards one another at exactly the same moment.
The pain was loud, it was intense and deep; it was every nightmare I’d ever had as a child, every ache and wound I’d felt as an adult, every nasty taste, every awful color combination, every obscene fashion choice ever made by anyone at anytime in any place…it was murderous, extreme, devastating, debilitating, demoralizing and just downright unpleasant.
I thought I was going to die, or be sick, or scream, or weep or laugh or vanish down my collapsing head and neck…or possibly all of them at once.
But I didn’t. We didn’t.
I put out my right hand and lay it on the shoulder of the pale man with the red hair. He put his right hand on the shoulder of the dark man, who put his hand on my shoulder.
And I said, “I choose Life.” And the nothing all around us cracked at the explosive thunderclap caused by those three simple words.
The sand became dirt, and from the dirt there grew grass and plants and trees; from the dirt bubbled up small fountains of water and from the pooling water emerged fish, and from the edges of the water grew trees. Clouds formed in the sky, which became a darker blue, and a ball of fire rose from behind the distant expanse of dirt and water and the air filled with the sounds of high flying birds. From the grass came the chirping and clicking of insects and from behind the trees emerged men and women with children in their arms.
Emotions and feelings filled the empty void within me; discomfort, pain, fear, jealousy, greed, joy, wonder, admiration…and love.
I held out my arms and embraced the growing throngs of people. The two figures, light and dark, faded away like the last lines of a song as the people drew closer and formed a ring around me.
And I saw what I had done, and it wasn’t great, but it was pretty good. And I was pleased. There was time now, and with time I could make things better, if I chose to. The sunrise and the approaching night were the first day of the rest of my serial entity event.
And then that damn alarm clock from hell went off and I woke up.