Memories

I first met her in a drunken stupor. Lord knows if I even remember anything that night, besides the way she caught my attention. It’s clear that my memories are dark yet the moment I laid eyes on her it seems like a vivid dream. Somehow I remember her smile which only surfaced in reaction to my cocky smirk. 

“Who are you?” She demanded.

“It’s my birthday and you’re in my friends car.” She elaborated.

I don’t know who you are or how I ended up here lady, but I’ll tell you one thing, you can’t look at me like that and expect me to just disappear. 

The vodka did most of the talking for me that night. 

It’s true what she said... I was in some stranger’s car staring into the eyes of an angel and I had no idea how I ended up there. The last thing I remember is grabbing some guy by the neck in the bar and shortly after larger man carrying me away. Security? Maybe. 

I have flashes from that night that come and go during my daily life. Somehow, some random stranger just looked me in the eye and said, “I know you. I know all your shit and I’m not impressed.”

And it killed my ego.

She didn’t give me that look that so many do, the ones who want your money or out just looking for something to talk about the next day with the girls. No, she was actually offended that it was her birthday and I was sitting beside her in her friends car. 

And she looked at me and said, “Who the fuck are you?”

I had no alternative in my response but to say, “I’m your future boyfriend.”

Even though I had consumed enough alcohol to tranquillize livestock, in some strange twist of fate I remember that moment. As fleeting as it is and no matter how far I drift from her, I will always remember that split second as the words emanated from my mouth and an overpowering smile forced her stubborn glare to fade. It was then, in that faded recollection, that I knew she was special.

We continued tossing insults around for a few minutes. As the driver pulled the car over what happened around us was lost. We were in our own world. One by one the occupants of the car left. They went into a late night restaurant looking to sop up the alcohol with greasy food. Minutes went by before we had even realized we were alone.

Then suddenly...

She looked at me and said, “Where the hell is everyone?”

“Who cares?” I jested.

It didn’t really matter did it? As long as we were together. 

Her independent, furious personality took over as I’m sure it had many times before. She grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the car. 

“Okay, we don’t need them anyway. I’m hungry!” She exclaimed.

She pulled me along the sidewalk as if we knew where we were going. 

“Let me check my phone and I’ll find your friends...”

“No.” She interjected. “You wanted to talk to me, so now here’s your chance. Feed me, anyplace but where my friends are.”

"I thought you didn't know any of my friends?" She added quickly before I could strike up the next bit of chatter. 

"Well, I do." I admitted. 

I wasn't sure to be honest. I know who I went to the bar with, and the rest was pretty vague. I figured she must have been friends with Christina, the girl in accounting who invited me out that night. She mentioned a bunch of her university friends would be there. I thought about elaborating, explaining it all to her, but we finally passed somewhere to eat walking in the bitter cold.

A greasy spoon's doors opened and we were safe from the tundra. 

"You want to know something?" She said while I dragged my chair across a filthy floor. "I hate people who lie."

And it dawned on me she might not be that one girl we all look for. I realized it was possible she was a complete idiot. Not even asking another question, just assuming I was a lier. She was smarter than that.

"All people lie." I exclaimed. "In fact, when determining who might be a lier it's best to find the first person claiming they aren't. Simply because they probably told a lie in making that statement."

She didn't speak, instead, flipped the menu shut and asked me what I was ordering. She doesn't like it when people take long to order food and made her feelings clear to the entire restaurant. Yelling in satirical fashion can always put a smile on someone's face but if you're not in on the gag, it seems dread is the most popular reaction.

When the looks of fear and shock subsided over the customers around us, I realized how funny this memory would be in the future. And every I look back on it I can't help but smile, laugh a little until the tears well up and I remind myself I'm a man. 

I don't cry.

"I hate hypocrites." I declared, and two ice teas from our server's hand vibrated off the cork-board tables. 

"Hypocrites?" She mused. 

"Yes, the kind of people who might say they hate a lier, but everyone lies, so..."

A french fry bounced off the wall and clipped the side of my face. Glares from the patrons began to resurface.

"Bank shot!" She shouted. Her hands out in the air like a basketball player with the winning basket.

It's been five years since that night and I still haven't got her out of my head. Jessica Julie. She never told me her last name, I only made it to the first and the middle. We played a dozen mind games before she would even give those up. I failed at getting the last name. Probably the only chance I ever had of tracking her down in the future. Now I just scratch "JJ" into park benches now and again, hoping the next time my JJ might see it. Then wait for me. 

Sometimes you know when you meet that special someone.

You know it in your mind, your body, and you are reminded by the feeling in your environment. When you can be in the dirtiest places on Earth but they seem palatial. When the simplest observations will bring you back to that moment. The moment when you were sitting in a car, staring at a stranger not sure how you got there in the first place. Or perhaps in the back of your head you did know but you were too awestruck by beauty to remember.

But the people that we are meant to be with, sometimes they are never meant to be with us. Because of little personality quarks or it's environmental too like when an ocean can rip apart two people and plop them on other sides of the Earth. Often it's something so odd, like a person who hates liers and another that hates hypocrites. Principals I think they call that.

For us, it was the fact that I tried to lie to figure out her last name. It was all in good fun of course, I didn't really care. To me no more sinister than her french fry bank shot. The real deal breaker though, was that the night we met, her friend was wearing a tiara. No birthdays were being celebrated, only a wedding. 

Some lucky friend of hers didn't have the hang ups we did. 

For me, I take comfort in my memory of a greasy potato hitting me in the face. A memory I've played over and over for five years. One that I will continue to run in the replay theatre in my head. 

I don't have that special person to wake up next to, but I'll always have the thought of her.

The thought of a beautiful hypocrite.

Liberation

There’s a knock at the door. Brad is outside anxious to tear apart my sanctuary. He wants to snoop, defile and criticize everything that makes me whole. I would just leave him there but the cold rain and wind is something I wouldn’t force on a family member.

I open the door and he bursts in like this is his home. It’s not. It was our parents’ before they died but nothing can change the fact that they’re gone. He looks around with disgust on his face. The look dissipates. He reverts to a sympathetic brotherly posture. His black hair is soaked and a five o’ clock shadow covers his face. Looking at your twin is like looking in a mirror but never as detailed because you notice all the minor differences. I always see the extra fat around his cheekbone. His puffy exterior is something that sets us apart.

“How’ve you been?” He asks. 

I sit down on the sofa with my feet touching the floor. I keep my right arm tucked nicely in a sweater pocket. 

“I’m good, I’m very good.”

“Are you?” He walks through the living room; his gaze glides over my most valuable possessions. He doesn’t notice a ten-foot nylon rope underneath the sofa.

“What’s this?”

He’s looking at my news-papier-mâché death’s head. A giant hand forged skull that has taken place of my coffee table. It’s made from over three hundred newspapers. I used oatmeal and honey as binding agents. It takes up most of the room. 

“It signifies the end of our corporeal lives. There is something spiritual, esoteric out there -a force that is stronger than us- and I’m going to realise it.”

His nose turns up at the smell of burnt flesh that lingers within the air. “Listen Doug, I want to realise what’s going on in your head. It seems like you are getting worse. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

He’s trying to tell me there is something wrong with my brain. I know what’s wrong, people try to understand things they will never comprehend and in doing so they make up wild suppositions. They parlay their theories to make sure you always remain three kinds of crazy to the outer world. This eliminates the possibility of repudiating claims against you. That is what’s wrong with me Brad, it’s very simple. I’ve been emotional dissected by know-nothings.

He sits next to me on the couch. “I haven’t been able to get hold of Doctor Cheney. Have you seen him lately?”

I shake my head, no. “He stopped coming by.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I’ve convinced him that I am fine.”

Brad’s hand touches the stiff, oatmeal-plastered newspapers. “I don’t think we can call this, fine”

I relax into the couch. I feel unrestrained. His discovery of my monument unshackles me like an oppressed commoner who has proven his despot’s corruption. “I am going to liberate myself from the material world.”

Brad pulls his hand away from my creation. “What the hell are you talking about?”

He doesn’t understand that he is one of my oppressors.  Unwitting intentions aside, his contribution isn’t absolved by ignorance. He needs to understand. He thinks we have a connection. But our connection is a manifestation of his egoist nature. Because we both look the part, he waits for the day I’ll be just like him.

He gawks at Dad’s antique armoire, laden with thirty-one black candles. “Do you have anything to drink?” He asks.

“There is beer in the fridge.” Brad loves beer.

He helps himself to ale, as he takes a swig something catches his attention on the freezer door. He glares at me over the open concept counter separating us. The freezer door swings open and a mouthful of foam spatters the wall.

“What the hell is this?” The beer bottle shatters against ceramic tile.

He is referring to my severed hand. His head turns and a silver serving platter on the counter catches his attention, hot coals I used to cauterize my wounds stare him in the face. 

He pulls my plastic wrapped hand from the freezer to check authenticity. I can only imagine how he thinks it looks like his own.

The aroma of burned flesh is overcome by bile seeping from Brad’s mouth. 

He runs over to me and towers above. I feel his hands pull at my sweater and I give in to what he is trying to do. He’s trying to see if this is real, perhaps it’s a prank? I pull my right arm out from the mohair covering and my blackened stump sits inches from my brother’s face.

“What have you done to yourself?” He cries.

I wait. Tears sink down his cheek. They will stop soon.

“Watch this.” I demand; as if to say ‘stop your tantrum and pay attention’.

Brad is stoic.

I walk over to the armoire. With my right arm I reach for a candle and I grab it hold it in the air.  The candle floats through the air in front of my stump. I tilt it back and forth, raise it up and down. Brad gasps and sinks into the couch. 

“I have a phantom hand now.” I declare.

I enter the kitchen and throw cutlery around the room. Brad sits on the couch in shock. The metal objects hover above my stubbed arm.

I return to my brother. I can see the worry in his eyes.

He grabs his legs like a child in trouble. “Explain this all to me, please?” There is desperation in his voice.

“I’ve figured out how to leave the material world, how to control my spirit. Five hours ago I cut my hand off with a cleaver and burned the wound against hot coals. I didn’t even feel pain. It was a test. I wasn’t sure it would work but I had to start somewhere. It was the only way I could be certain that this process would work and now that I know that it does it’s time for me to complete the process.”

Brad squeezes his thighs with purple palms. His subtle reaction is to spare my feelings, to protect me from direct contempt seething inside of him.

“How are you feeling?” He asks finally.

I sit next to him. He puts his hand on my leg. “I’m fine. Really, I am so much better now that I have figured this out.”

“Well… I’m glad, that you found something positive from this.” He can’t take his eyes off my stump.

“When people understand what I have discovered there will be a revolution in human consciousness. Imagine shedding your human body and becoming a spirit.”

Brad nods his head. “You’re going to change the world.”

“It’s more than that. This proves that the world is meaningless. Forget the world; this is about all of humanity.”

He squeezes my leg with his hand. “How will I see you when you reach the spirit world?”

I ease in to the cushion. “I will still be here. You just won’t be able to see me.”

“Will I be able to talk to you?”

“I’m not sure actually. I don’t know what happens when someone is fully liberated.”

Brad leans over and puts his arms around me. It feels awkward on my part.

“I love you.” He says.

“Forget being sentimental. This is going to change everything for the better.”

He remains silent, pats me on the back and walks to the door. “I’m going to head out now.” He says.

“Leaving already?”

Maybe this is too much for him. It’s not every day that you see something break universal laws. It’s not every day you see your brother control objects in a ghostly manner.

He gives me one last hug and door closes behind him.

My twin brother has left me. 

I have to proceed with my plan. There is a feeling of hesitation inside me but I purge it. Knowing I will be leaving the material world -with it my brother- is something awful. I know I can be closer to him once I enter the celestial plane but, it is difficult to say goodbye; especially, because I never did. He will forgive me once I visit him in my spirit form. I know that to be certain.

I take the rope from under the couch and tie a noose knot into it. Three days ago I inserted a metal ring into the ceiling strong enough to hold my bodyweight. I run my hand over the death’s head and recite an ancient verse in my head. My arms reach up to the metal ring and secure the noose to it. Around my neck I feel the nylon heavy on my neck as if it were made of lead. 

Standing on the couch I make adjustments to ensure the effectiveness. 

A few seconds now…

It’s difficult to say goodbye to everything you know; even though it will be so much better on the other side.

My body leans forward and I can feel the couch slip away from my feet. There is a flash before me. 

Something is happening that I wasn’t expecting. 

It is something awful.

I would like to say my life is replaying itself with sentimental recalls of my brother and me during our childhood but this isn’t the case. There is honesty I have never experienced burning through my head. I am seeing things I never noticed before.

I feel my body lurch. My windpipes are constricted.

I can see the recent moments of my life in complete clarity. Brad really is such a gentle person. When I picked up the candle from Dad’s armoire he never said a thing. He could have pointed out that I was holding the candle with my left hand. When I threw silverware in the kitchen he could have told me I was using the hand that I hadn’t cut off. He was protecting me. He knows me so well that his insight forced him to lie. Anything else would have broken the reality I had made for myself. He protected my delusion. And instead of calling the police or my psychiatrist he simply left me, partaking in the charade, to keep me from being upset. He knows me too well.

He is probably on the phone to Dr. Cheney right now, convincing him to come in haste. That is why he left so quickly, to find help as discretely as possible. But it’s too late. My realisation is too late.

I was wrong about everything.

My world is going dark.

Space Tits Alpha

“Name one thing in this Universe that is absolute.”

“The speed of light, it travels at a constant.”

“Nope.”

“No?”

“If you are travelling at ninety-nine, point nine nine percent of the speed of light what happens?”

“Gravity around you increases"

“Right. And if you are in a ship and you run from the back of that ship to the front, do you go any faster?”

“No, because gravity has dilated space.”

“See?”

“I don’t get it.”

“If you are in the ship and you look out, everyone else has slowed down and to them, you sped up. But that is only because we are using light as a reference. If you were light, you would say that you sped up and everything else is a constant.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“Don’t you see? Light is a constant because we say it is. Because that is what we use as a reference point.”

“Okay, so what does that mean?”

“It means that we decide to see reality through choice. How far is a mile?”

“By foot or by car?”

“Doesn’t matter, is it a far or short distance?”

“Far I guess.”

“Right, and if we measure it in inches it has a larger number associated with it.”

“Sure-.”

“And if we measured it in light years it would have a very small number associated with it.”

“-right, but humans can’t travel light years.”

“We can’t because we don’t think in light years, we think in inches and miles. If we broadened our view on reality things that seem impossible would be everyday opportunity.”

“I don’t think I can agree to this.”

“Look, when people wanted to travel in space they had to get a general consensus from the world first. Look how quickly everyone made it there after Sputnik was launched. Before that, for thousands of years humans just sat around this rock saying, ‘I like it here; I can’t wait till I die to go to the heavens’.”

“I see your point. So what you are saying is, the girl over there by the lunch counter, in the green dress, isn’t a ten and I am not a four. And because of this reason I have a chance with her if I go and talk to her.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Sorry man, but I still think she is light years away.”