my beacon will choke if yours is taken
I drag my feet along the streets, turning right and left and dodging people without thinking. Walking home is mechanical and I welcome the calmness of the familiar things. Like Satan.
As soon as I see him, sitting on my front steps, a flow of emotion and heat pour through me. He looks up and concern grips me. I can't bare seeing my devil like this. Vulnerable. Wounded. His skin is pale, with dark circles below his eyes, hands frantically tapping a cigarette as I approach him. I can tell he hasn't slept since those few hours in the blue bedroom. Satan drops his head back with a thud against the door.
“Are you okay?” I hug his legs, resting my chin on his knees.
“I feel rough,” He yawns.
I want to smooth those purple shadows with kisses. He gives me a weak smile like he heard what I was thinking.
“Do you know what I've realized?” He doesn't wait for my answer “I'm filled with information about you. You're in my head constantly and it's not just memories; all your weird idiosyncrasies, your delightful perks...” He pouts his lips mockingly and I burst into laughter, an hysterical on the verge of sobs laughter. Satan cups my face with his hand. I instantly turn into him like a pet but he shakes his head and pulls away.
“When I got home Joe was listening to Alligator. Which, by the way, finally. I'm tired of having to endure witch house and industrial or, whatever, drum and step.” We laugh and tssk youths at the same time. It's cute. It's us. I can't be in love with Satan. We would never be happy. “Anyway, it was kinda of a lovely afternoon. We sat on the living room listening to that record repeatedly, drinking my dad's whisky on the couch, almost passing out.” I laugh again at his dramatic sigh “I was reading Goethe's Faust and I couldn't stop thinking about you. Every single sentence of it reminded me of us so I stopped. Secret Meeting was playing again. Do you remember that sunday last January? It was fucking freezing. We didn't get out of bed to eat or even pee, for hours we stayed under the covers, complaining. I didn't mind one bit, I was secretly overjoyed. You grew anxious and got out and up all of the sudden, do you remember?”
I nod, unable to speak.
“You said you were tired of that record. Do you remember?”
“I remember everything,” I manage to whisper.
He exhales loudly. “You changed it because you felt like you were betraying Walkmen, Aurora. I watched your face, your porcelain hands holding Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone, the guilt and remorse on your lips slowly morphing into a smile as you sang,” He stops and buries his face on my neck, sniffing my hair “I'm so very sorry.” He mumbles.
“You're not making a lot of sense.” I chuckle, standing up ready to drag him to my bed and lull him into sleep but he looks up at me, holding my gaze. It's raw and desperate.
“Will you let me be your best friend?” He pleas.
There's no need to assure him he already is, I now understand where this is going. The lingering feeling of goodbye is breaking my bones. I feel as if I'm being repeatedly punched in the chest. When Satan gets up I swear I can hear his bones crack. My head explodes with all I wanted to say but no words come out. You need meat, Julian. Please stop with the veganism bullshit, your health is more important. Let me cut your hair, it's too big. Those boots are ridiculous, by the way. What are you, a cowboy? I feel like Cat Power. I'm devastated. And I need wine. Are we inside Good Woman? Would we even make sense outside songs? Why can't you stay and love me and grow old with me? Is it because I love bacon? I'll quit bacon. I promise, Julian, I'll quit it this very instant. Please stay. Oh, kiss me, I've quit bacon. He quickly walks away. He's gone. I stand limply on my desolate street, overcome with grief like a wife watching her husband sail off to the deep blue sea.
remember that night you were already in bed, said “fuck it”, got up to drink with me instead?
It is still weird to be in Paraíso without Aurora.
There are new kids at our table, kids who look like we looked and laughed like we laughed and drink as much as we did. The staff knows my name but they don't remember her; she became a character from a story Avon tells when he gets nostalgic.
It's thursday, the day Nathan and I meet for coffee. He walks in wearing a jacket with elbow patches and I tease him about it. He's a high school history teacher, all young and cute, and there's this one kid who isn't afraid to show his affections for him. Just talking about it makes Nathan blush. It makes me miss Aurora more, when we're like this, lazy with cigarettes in between our teeth.
We order fries and a couple of beers.
Once in a while I run into Satan, Julian, on my way to work. He seems to be doing well, looks healthy. He always asks me about Aurora with intricate delicacy. I smile, say “She's good.” And he nods, a hand going for his curls out of old habit. He wears his hair short now.
Aurora writes me letters, mostly. She says she enjoys to sit down and cut paper, that it soothes her. Her life doesn't seem particularly stressful but I guess a girl like her was born haunted and restless.
In the end there was a lot left to know, to be explained... It's funny, in a slightly sad way, how you get involved in the lives of your friends and then, because of a fallout or distance or simply time, they are no longer part of your life but all this information stays with you, filling drawers in your brain.
It's like dying a little, isn't it?
About the author
Natacha Cutler is a girl who, quite frankly, sucks at writing her own bio.
Connect with the author
Hi there, good folk who made it all the way to the last page. I hope you had enjoyed these stories — and the previous ones, if you haven't read them you should, you definitely should. Feedback is ENDLESSLY APPRECIATED. Do keep coming back, vol iii will be available shortly.
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[email protected] Blog: https://ceaseroundedfury.tumblr.com/
Cover art: https://www.carinatous.com/
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