I go towards the light.
[End of Narrative]
Supplemental Materials
or
Chapter 14
Additional contextually relevant materials have been collected pertaining to the narrative and are as follows:
2nds.
Do we ever get another chance to make our lives happen?
Do you think we'll meet again, someday, once it doesn't hurt anymore?
Have things gone too far? Has redemption escaped us?
Is it really too late?
Il tempo sta esaurendosi.
...I don't know.
6 feet.
Tell the people that you love how much they mean to you;
Soon all will be waste. Soon Time will have her wish,
Bringing us all home
For a final kiss, and then: Sleep well, children.
299792458.
Her entire past seemed like a blank. We knew that it existed, that the memories were in her head, and they'd come up from time to time for air, taking a breath of life, and she'd speak them out loud, or write them down, holding them close to her like prizes. They were, for how hard she fought to regain them. A daily struggle.
I realized that my recent lapse of memory was something very different from that, though. I compared it to her amnesia as a point of reference only - because her amnesia was something that I had come to understand in a way. In her case, everything was lost, therefore only gain was possible. In mine, I didn't even know what I'd forgotten - except for a few things: the last time I'd used a cellular telephone, for example. That's but one small wave in a vast ocean of memory; nonetheless, it is a wave that I should have recalled.
Abuse.
The Enemy will consume you:
Regret, Remorse, Second Thoughts, and thirds.
Slowly at first, then rampant, voracious;
Take a sip from the cup,
Ease in, easy. Easy, but not as easy as you thought -
To remember Truth.
Dirty fingernails, bruised, misguided knees.
Dark circles like puddles underneath your eyes.
Something underneath the bed, whispering...
shh
shh
LISTEN! (what you wanted to hear)
You can't remember it!
Dirty sheets, sweating skin
Dirty sheets clinging to scents and wrinkles.
You know things about last night;
You know things that you want to forget.
Losing touch with other thoughts
You once swore never to release.
How we hide ourselves!
Age.
And so you should fall like a butterfly with burning wings.
Here is the orchestration, notice as the music swells,
A little wave here, a minute crest there,
Then culmination, the peak, nothing near a tidal wave, but worth mentioning to others,
Once, before you crash into the currents below.
Your life is a movie.
Your voice is a soundtrack; your movements are the score.
To the cadence of years roaring past, make your peace.
To the rhythm of your heart as it weakens.
With each step, you breathe.
With each injection, fire is diminished for a moment, but not for a moment more.
And so you should fall like a butterfly with burning wings.
Balancing Act.
We're always just on the brink of falling over the edge, I think, watching her balancing act.
She's not afraid, but I am afraid enough for us both.
Bandage.
There's no such thing as making it all better.
So she said:
sadness,
it's so very close to
madness.
which,
twisted, she admitted,
was inherently like
love.
Ah, bittersweet memories, you're damaged goods at discount prices, and spring is in the air again.
One of those moments when you're riding the line between deciding on one thing that could change these situations forever, or another, in which everything will continue as it always has, inevitably curving in a slow spiral downwards. And you choose the latter, of course, because you know that the former always leads to the other, and that no one's ever gonna save you now.
Base.
What details
do we find
when we search every crevice
every corner
each crack, each nook
when we read every page
of every book?
What details
do we discover
beneath the lines
the sheets we've slept under
a thousand times?
What things we'd never known before?
What secret path?
What hidden door?
What is in store for us?
Brink.
Euthenica® Tablets Ref 86-900-AX Euthenica / Synchronicity Drive Project Report # 4,865 (e)
INTERNAL USE ONLY ARCHIVAL DEPT
Alpha Stage research is complete.
I must have traveled down at least three or four floors, given the length of the trip in the elevator. I was a little surprised that there were that many sub-levels in the small building, but being so far underground also meant that the ground floor might misrepresent the total size of the building. Maybe all of the buildings in the entire facility were connected underground, and the ground level areas were strictly administrative and storage areas.
It didn't matter. I intended to make a quick scan over wherever the elevator ended up stopping at, checking some things out, maybe seeing if anyone was even there (although all signs had pointed to that not being the case, so far as I'd seen). After that, I planned on returning back upstairs and letting Janine and Hunter know whatever I'd discovered, and seeing what they thought about doing from there. You get all kinds of ideas in your head, anyway, when you don't know what's about to happen.
I imagined all of that would go smoothly, and the worst case scenario that I came up with involved an aggressive security guard or two escorting us off of the property with a stern warning to never return. I also considered the possibility that Janine and Hunter would agree to return downstairs with me after I informed them of the vast wealth of information that I'd discovered on whatever sub-level of the small building that I ended up on. Of course, I thought of all of that on the ride down, before the doors opened.
Then the elevator stopped. I pushed all of my ideas to the side.
The doors opened.
Cauterized.
When they leave, you want to cut it off completely, and cleanly, and cauterize the wounds, so that the healing process can begin. With medicines, and social events, and time, it should become just another set of scars.
struggle
Have a hard time letting it go, do you? Have a hard time forgetting all of these things on your lists; have a harder time remembering the things that you thought you'd never forget? How to love, how to live, how to lie...
Charlie.
What can I say, now? It's all the same.
Sleep comes, and sleep goes. Things may rotate; things may look different in the afternoon than they did in the morning; Always at night, when they seem to be something else completely. But they never change, not really.
Everything seems important, and maybe it is, sometimes. Flip it over and it changes, the dynamic of it all, the way the currents touch it, and it's upside down and backwards and it's useless. Same object, different perspective.
Sometimes, you don't ask for him, but Charlie the Ghost will come, and he's there in those most vivid and lucid moments when you're failing to sleep; reminding you: how years ago the afternoons were long and you could conquer galaxies in an hour. When once, you investigated the closets, searched for doorways into other worlds, other times, any other place besides the boring
turn of hours in the day. Waited for fireflies, made lanterns with them, watched them, in some innocent but sickening way, as they faded and died.
Everything dies, Charlie tells you, so don't act as if you've risen above the cycle. Don't act as if it's forever. It isn't. If luck permits, it may become one of the memories, some twenty years later, the ones that keep you from sleeping. Otherwise, it's all gone, forgotten... in that, at least, we are all forgiven.
Comfortable Touch.
It's the only thing that's real, I think. Because love is such a sacrifice in itself. Because love is giving up oneself to the will and whim of another.
Code 020.
STATUS REPORT: PING #59477 SUBJECT 70617468
CODE 020: CRITICAL ERROR: ADVISE SUBJECT RETRIEVAL NECESSARY FOR FURTHER ANALYSIS
CODE 020: CRITICAL ERROR: PROBABILITY OF LATENT CRITICAL PROCESSING EXCEPTION 0.36%
ANALYST NOTES: UNAVAILABLE
SECONDARY NOTATION:
I stepped into the elevator, though, deciding that it was too late to turn back. I checked the control box inside; there was only one button available. There were no markings indicating whether the elevator went up or down, though, so I still wasn't sure if it would take us upstairs or into some basement somewhere.
"Are you guys coming?" I asked them, waiting on them to get into the elevator with me.
They looked at each other, and then Janine took a step in my direction, but Hunter grabbed her arm, holding her back.
"Is that really a good idea?" He questioned. "We don't know where it's going, or if there's anyone there, or how illegal this really is getting, even, considering that we're kind of trespassing already, using fake ID cards to get past the gates, and have yet to see anyone who works here."
Janine made a funny face. "We're already committed, Hunter," she reasoned. "Somebody should take the elevator, anyway. It's not as if it's going to be some trap or something. That creepy and ominous thing that I said was just a joke. I have a weird sense of humor. Besides, like I've been saying all along, I really think we're at the wrong place."
"Whatever, guys. Wait here," I said, pushing the button. "I'll be back in a couple of minutes."
The doors closed. That was the last time that I saw Janine or Hunter.
Commit.
Committed to another ancient treasure, another ancient box. You've seen your share of those vines entangled, embracing, strangling the rotting wood that conceals immeasurable wealth, or so you say. I never found much use for stolen gold, anyway. So, sinking like a ship, you hold a desperate cry out in the direction of heaven, hoping that the gods will notice you; some long lost myths in the shadows by your side.
Don't wait up for me.
Don't worry, I won't.
Connection.
She wore a barrette, metal, in her hair, it was in the shape of an infinity sign, and she had on those nerdy glasses this time. Bottle blonde, just like they almost always are, with the darker roots growing out and the hair cut short, of course, smoking her cigarettes like a professional would, someone in a commercial. They're all the same, small frames, nice curves. Unlikely to gain weight as they age. Her arm sleeved with tattoos of something foreign but oh-so-colorful, complete with the high water 501s and the army-navy Red Cross bag that served as a purse. White tank top over black bra, she probably had her nipples pierced and she probably put out on the third date. That is, if she wasn't preoccupied with her notebook as she scribbled little memos to posterity and crappy poetry about being dissed in a relationship and lyrics for her band that never-will-be. They're all the same, anyway, and they're always cold, so they turn the heater up in September and they steal hoodies from boys and they name their cars with names that change depending on the time of day, and the mood.
Cup.
I loved the way that she laughed, with no reservation, no awkwardness, without fear that she might laugh embarrassingly or stupidly. She laughed freely, something I had taught myself not to do a long time before then as a means of keeping a low profile. Laughter, to me, was a reason to be self-conscious, at least until she came along.
Curiosity #1.
I am the blazing fire of resentment, a needle scraping across the grooves, a strong wind pulling a kite with a frayed string.
Before we arrived here, we smoked opium together. Hardly romantic, she sat on the toilet and I leaned against the bathroom wall and you could hardly hear the bubbling of the cheap plastic water pipe through all the noise of the party as we burned our coveted score away.
That's the end of it, she tells me, places the pipe down in the bathtub, and reaches for her cigarettes. Outside, thunder, and the building shakes a little. I stare at my reflection in the mirror. I investigate my teeth. My mouth is dry, I can still taste the alkaloids, and I feel like I have tar underneath my fingernails. It appears as if the flowers on the wallpaper are spiraling around in circles, but I know that it's all imagination, running reckless.
I need to talk to you... later. I need to tell you something, she says, between indulgent drags off a menthol cigarette that crackles as it burns to the filter. And I push her words to the side, like so many stupid magazines that I can wait to read later, all piling up and cluttering the waiting room tables in my mind, because, you know, everything is cool. Everything feels good. So I kiss her, and she bites my lip, and I taste a little bit of blood, and she mumbles an apology. It doesn't matter, she doesn't hurt me.
It won't be long before we're somewhere else, a universe away from here, but for now, I'm content to trace lines with my fingertips across the curves of her skin while all the seemingly forgettable music hooks itself irrevocably into the back catalogues of my brain, where it will wait, like a snare, to tear at my heels whenever I try to run.
Curiosity #2.
There are sirens, somewhere. Far away from here. Closer, the dim callings of the trains as the rails hum and sigh into darkness. Closer still, the sound of the highway people, bleary-eyed, north to south, south to north, all lost somewhere between painted lines. All heading home, or leaving home, or without a home. These are the sounds of a city that dreams as it's raining outside in the night.
What were you dreaming about? She asks me, concern in her voice sounding alien after this gulf of years that we've spent growing apart together. It must have been pretty bad, she yawns, stretching her arms toward the ceiling, palms upward. She counts something, then, on her hands, using her thumb for the first digit, and I realize that she's doing so in binary. Whatever it is, it's lost, and she continues. You destroyed something, she says.
There was a ghost, I tell her, and though there's no such thing, I shiver.
No, not anymore, she replies, and she seems sad and resigned as she rolls over and faces the wall. She begins writing something with her finger on the paint in the dark, and I leave the bed so that I can look out of the window.
Outside, the world seems a little emptier, and over my shoulder, I hear her sigh.
Curiosity #3.
Today, we're burning the past in a commandeered 55-gallon garbage can. We're burning all of the heretics of our yesterdays at the stake; we're giving all the mementos of heartbreak that we've ever known a true trial by fire - without a jury. There's smoke and it's everywhere, and tomorrow morning you will smell it in our clothes and hair. We're declaring war on all of the lies and broken promises that anyone ever made to us, foolishly committed to paper.
She's crying as she throws the photographs into the flames. One trembling handful followed by another, and another. I pause and I debate the consequence of our actions, each irrevocable motion forever banishing both the good things and the bad. With time, even the memories will blur. I hear the rose-filled vodka bottle crack at the bottom if the furnace, imagining the glass as it begins to glow. Into the fire, the novel I never finished. Into the fire, pages and pages of alternate histories, of better tomorrows for both of us, of the imaginary people who become trapped inside of everyone's heads. Today, they die. Today, we are free.
<
br /> She pauses for a moment, and I watch as she lights a cigarette. She takes a long drag, half closing her left eye while raising her right eyebrow, and with her eyes she is asking me what, or who, or when I will destroy next. So as the glowing ashes rise, drifting on the temperature flows, I pick up notebooks, illegibly scribed with music. I pick up scrapbooks, overflowing with magazine clippings and articles. I pick up so many letters from lovers who walked out in the morning but still haven't returned. I pick up bloody knives and smashed toy cars and casings of bullets and broken microchips. All rise, please move towards the fire.
In the end, there's nothing that can be saved.
Now, she steps closer and kisses me. Her lower lip is warm, her nose is cold. Her hands are on my chest, fingers spread out as if to grab me, to stop me, or perhaps to push me away. In a motion, she turns, and she wraps her arms around me, and she's standing behind me. Like a little kid, she's peeking at the fire: curious. Afraid. And here we remain, together, forever, observing the warm glowing corpses of our pasts.
Curvature.
curvature. the sphere of the earth, tilting away beneath our feet.
Disbelief.
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