HAPPY BIRTHDAY ETERNITY

By Luke Alden

“The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity.”

—Seneca

Part I

1

My name is Ellis Jackson. I’m 2038 years old. I didn’t meet the love of my life until I turned 578. Her name is Evaline. She has pale skin and collagen injected lips. Like everyone else that lives forever, most of her body is fake.

I love Evaline even though I barely remember why. I just know that I do. I’m relying on the fact that I’ve said it so many times that there must have once been a reason for my love.

But isn’t that how we always go through life? Relying on our words to justify our actions? Whatever happened to justifying our words with our actions?

2

‘I’m going to die.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means I’m going to die.’

‘You mean you’re going to kill yourself?’

‘No, I’m dying.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I’m going to die.’

‘When?’

‘Within the next fifty years…’

A pause. A breath. A nervous twisting of nervous fingers. This is how the moment goes. This is how my wife tells me that she’s going to die. I’m incapable of processing this information.

‘I’m not sure how I should react to this.’

‘…’

And then it’s silence.

Silence like you see in the movies. The silence you get after a crucial plot point is revealed. The silence that allows the viewing audience to breathe and digest the emotions that they’re being fed.

Again.

A pause. A breath. A nervous twisting of nervous fingers.

Evaline looks into my eyes. She says that I’m the chorus to her verse. Me. Ellis Jackson. A 2038 year old narcissist who still jerks off into the toilet because he can’t get any action from the verse to his chorus.

She’s going to die.

Death is not a part of my reality.

We were supposed to live forever.

We were supposed to coast along, stuck in our ancient routines. Because when natural death stops existing, when the only way that we can die is from the unexpected, from a suicide or from an accident, there’s not a lot that motivates us to stay away from routine.

And so we do this little dance where we have no motivation, where human achievement becomes a thing of the past. We have forever to get things done; why rush?

But now Evaline is going to die.

Now Evaline is going to die and all that I can wonder is what this means for me.

Is a song still a song if there aren’t any verses?

I’m biting my lip. I’m furrowing my brow. I’m trying to wrap my brain around that which does not exist within my already established reality.

So she asks me what we should do.

‘I don’t know. Fix dinner I suppose.’

‘Ok.’

The only constant thread throughout the history of humanity is how we stick to routine. It’s not a bad thing; it’s just how we survive. Like wolves that stay in packs, like bears that sleep all winter, our routines are what keep up safe and warm.

3

So it’s evening and I’m watching television with Evaline and she’s smiling and laughing along with the beats of the show and everything is happy and normal except for the fact that she’s going to die.

But I still don’t know what that means.

So I laugh along with her.

I hold her hand.

Our fingers tangle.

I rub my thumb on her wedding ring. I was once told that the band is supposed to symbolize infinity.

What did people do before forever?

She looks at me and I can feel her eyes running up my skin. It’s a good feeling.

And this is how our nights go.

Dinner.

TV.

Laughing.

Etc.

We’ve got our routine carefully plotted; an intricate storyline where there’s forgotten meaning to the actions we repeat.

It all makes sense.

I love her.

I love her because I tell myself that I love her.

She rests her head on my shoulder.

It feels heavier than before. It weights me and pushes me until I feel as if I’ll never be able to get up. I’m not even sure if I want to.

And I don’t know how to conceptualize fifty years. It’s a meaningless number. There is no context. The measurement of time through years has essentially been forgotten.

Fifty years.

Death.

Love.

These are the things I never think about.

These are the things that I take for granted.

4

The only reason I’m still alive is because I don’t know what death is. Only people in third world countries die. Only poor people that can’t afford first world luxuries have to face death.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Here, in my reality, people don’t age, people don’t die, and people don’t get sick.

No one has kids.

No one truly grows.

We’re complacent in the fact that the world has marketed, packaged and sold us on eternal life.

I was born in the second generation of the undead. Born to parents who once knew what death was, born to parents who had felt the presence of death in their lives. Born before the government outlawed children as a means to keep the population under control.

During the initial movement of the undead. When it was just emerging, when genes that stopped the aging process were first being isolated, before the endless chemical peels and face lifts that kept our skin from rotting, some people actually wanted to die. They said that it wasn’t natural to live forever. They said they wanted to pass on to a greater place. To a heaven. To a nirvana. To a new life.

They couldn’t have children because of the new laws.

Without new generations wanting to die, the idea of death eventually just… fizzled

No one dies.

Accidents are rare.

Suicide is even rarer. Most people don’t even remember what suicide is.

And so we go on living.

Because that’s what we know how to do.

We go to our jobs that never end.

We make money to spend on gene therapy and plastic surgery.

Work.

Spend.

Live.

It’s a simple formula. It’s basic math. It’s a testament to humanity’s ability to oversimplify. Without death we don’t fear, without fear we don’t change, without change we simply dig a niche of routine so deeply that we’ll never be able to get out of it. And perhaps that’s how things have always been.

But I wouldn’t know.

You’d think that eternal life would equate to a search for greater meaning.

A need to perfect things simply because we finally had the time.

You’d think we would accumulate knowledge, ideas, experience.

Of course we don’t. Those things may have been novel for the first 200 years, but they got old.

Like a river carving out a path, adventure always gives way to complacency.

And when I was younger, before I’d found my routine, before I’d found a rhythm to base my life around, I’d always assumed that the love of my life would be someone who I would spend eternity caring for, someone that I’d never stop being passionate about. I had assumed that it’d be like in the books I once read. I had assumed that I’d spend years molding every aspect, like the perfect poem, each line painstakingly tended to.

But love isn’t about romance.

The words love and routine, they’re interchangeable in my world.

And so now I’m living this life. Spending my days with Evaline. We wake. We kiss. We leave. We work. We eat. We watch television. We go to bed. It’s natural. Without it we’d be lost.

Right now I’m at work. In the middle of another meeting for another product that’s exactly the same as the last.

I’ve got my tie on. I’ve got my freshly shaved face and cologne. I’ve got my hair gelled and I’m flashing my white teeth every time I speak.

I’ve had this job for longer than I can remember.

1000 years.

Maybe more.

When something becomes easy I tend to stick with it.

With simplicity comes complacency comes the comfort of routine.

I keep thinking of Evaline.

She is the love of my life.

She’s going to die.

The words still have no meaning to me.

Franklin, my co-worker, my pal, the person that I talk about sports with, he comes up to me.

‘You look lost.’

‘I am.’

‘Why?’

‘Evaline is going to die.’

‘Is she going to kill herself?’

‘No.’

‘Huh. Weird.’

And he’s not meaning to sound cold or callous or anything at all. He simply doesn’t understand what it means.

Death.

It’s like trying to comprehend God when all you’ve got is a bible.

So I reply: ‘Yeah, I know.’

I keep typing on my computer. Writing memo’s. Preparing time sensitive documents. Doing all the things that are now second nature to me.

‘Did you want to go get something to drink after work today?’

‘Nah, I’m good. Thanks though.’

‘You sure?’

‘I should probably spend some time with my wife.’

‘Whatever you gotta do.’

And of course I agree to go to the bar. Because it’s Tuesday and that’s what we do on Tuesday. Me and Franklin and Doug from the copy room. We all go to the bar. We all drink. We all drive home drunk. We all try and fuck our wives. We all get shot down. We all jerk off into our respective toilets. We all go to bed smelling like booze and sweat.

It’s nice in a way.

And so after work I call my wife.

‘I’m going to the bar with Franklin.’

‘Can’t you spend the evening with me?’

‘I already said that I’d go.’

‘Ellis…’

‘We’ll hang out tomorrow.’

And this is how it is.

Everything gets put off. Everything gets put off because we have forever to get things done.

5

‘Did you hear!?!’ This is Franklin. ‘Ellis’s wife is gonna die!’

There’s a broken moment of confusion where everyone at the table seems puzzled. We’ve all got beers in our hands; we’ve all got red eyes.

Me.

Franklin.

Doug (who we don’t really care about, but we allow him to join us on occasion).

Kevin the bartender.

‘Is she joining one of those death cults down south?’ This is Kevin.

‘Death cult?’

‘Yeah, you know, I hear that they have them down in Mexico and stuff. People who kill themselves just because they want to try something new.’

‘No.’

‘So she’s not killing herself?’

‘Not killing herself.’

‘Then how’s she gonna die?’

This is a question I hadn’t thought to ask. Maybe I didn’t care, maybe I didn’t think to care. How is she going to die? Why is she going to die?

When life is endless, the bigger questions seem that much smaller.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Huh, weird.’

We all down a shot. We all cheer. We’re all like rowdy frat guys that just burst into our friends room with a video camera while he was having anal sex with a virgin.

It’s a good time. I think.

By the end of the night I’m feeling dizzy. Drunker than usual. My head’s buzzing. My eyes are half shot. The world around me is fading in and out. I know that I’m holding conversations. Trying to articulate myself like most drunk people do. Trying to sound smarter than I really am.

I start talking about death with Franklin. The words are strange. Odd. I’ve rarely ever spoken about death.

And so we ramble on.

The conversation comes out in pieces.

‘I had a dog that got hit by a car once.’

‘Nothing lasts forever.’

‘I heard a rumor about people dying on the East coast.’

‘It could be worse.’

‘Fifty years is nothing.’

‘It could be you.’

‘Coughing up blood…’

‘Is she still putting out?’

Fragments. Non-linear, nonsensical. A mish mash of drunken philosophizing.

And then I’m home. I don’t know how. There’s no recollection of driving. I stumble up the stairs. To my bedroom. To our bedroom.

My body hits the bed.

My arm reaches for Evaline.

She’s not there.

6

‘She left me a note.’

I’m talking to Franklin. We’re at work. I’m tapping my foot on the ground in a 5/4 rhythm and I’m wearing a suit jacket that doesn’t quite fit my depressed frame.

Franklin looks distant.

Non-plussed.

Dead (assuming death were possible).

‘What did it say?’

‘Don’t worry about it. It didn’t say much.’

This is a lie.

I’m biting my lips because I want them to bleed. I’m chewing on my skin because it’s ready to break.

And Evaline is gone.

And Evaline is going to die.

I’m still talking but the words are dreamlike. They keep slipping out of my mouth like water from a faucet, like candy from a vending machine. They keep pouring from me in a cheap and easy fashion.

Franklin stops me.

‘Oh yeah.’

‘Oh yeah what? ‘

‘I forgot that she was going to die.’

‘I know. It seems weird.’

‘So why are you here?’

‘Because I work here.’

‘But shouldn’t you be spending time with her?’

‘…’

I look around. The electric lights hum. Office papers shuffle. You can hear the boredom and repetition in the air.

‘I mean, she’s going to die soon, right?’

‘Within the next 50 years.’

‘That just seems weird to me.’

There’s a pause.

My eyes squint. It looks like I’m thinking. It’s more like I’m dreaming.

Franklin is looking around. Searching. He seems nervous. He looks like he needs to be somewhere. He looks as if he wants to get back to work.

I already miss my routine.

‘So yeah. She left a note. She’s gone. I’m sure she’ll be back soon though. It’s not like her to just leave.’

‘Are you sure she didn’t join one of those southern death cults?’

There’s a pause. Because I don’t know anymore. Because when you live this long there are certain things that inevitably feel concrete.

We all breathe.

We don’t die.

Routines stay in place.

When the things that seemed concrete start to fall away…

‘No she didn’t join one of those.’

‘Where would she go then?’

And the air around us. It tastes stale. It’s been processed and filtered and it feels fake.

It feels bitter.

It feels vile and reprehensible and all I really want is to go outside and breathe in something fresh. Even for a second.

‘Where would she go?’

My forehead goes flush.

And the answer is that I don’t know.

Just like I don’t know what Evaline’s favorite food is.

Just like I don’t know who her best friend is.

Just like I don’t know the reason that I started loving her in the first place.

Some things just get lost in the routine.

Some things just take a back seat to the flow of time.

What does she do during the day? Who are her friends? Does she do anything? Does she have a certain place that she likes to shop? Does she make a certain noise after she kisses me?

I’m blank.

The obvious answers.

They should be spilling from the tip of my tongue.

Evaline.

My wife.

She used to be something I knew. She used to be familiar to me. The verse to my chorus. The thing that made me worth singing.

Did I ever even know the answers to these questions?

It seems so long ago.

Too distant to remember.

I close my eyes and struggle.

My body, it keeps on living, even though my memories, the ones that I thought would be cherished forever, they disappear. Memories replaced by something new. Replaced by football stats and investment earnings.

I love Evaline.

I loved her.

Now, the everyday rot of commitment has taken its toll.

‘We should get back to work.’

This is me. I’m done talking.

‘You’re right.’

And Franklin walks off.

Part of me wants to just stay here. Unmoving and unchanging.

My feet start to carry me. Back to my desk.

Papers shuffle.

Electric lights hum.

Someone coughs.

I’m thinking about what Evaline’s note said. My feet feel weighted.

7

Entropy.

The tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity.

The inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society.

8

Everyone is supposed to hate their job.

Everyone is supposed to despise their boss.

Everyone puts a cap on their human experience.

Everyone enjoys assuming that they are at the penultimate stage of human evolution.

We’ve seen all the colors that there are to be seen. We’ve thought of all the ideas. We’ve written all the melodies. We’ve danced all the dances and we’ve heard all the secrets.

There is nothing we haven’t experienced.

The comedy is that we’ve only perceived and imagined the smallest fraction of that which is out there.

The tragedy is that when we live forever, we come to the point where we don’t care if there is anything else to life. We don’t care if there are new things to experience and new perceptions to realize.

I believe there are emotions that no one has felt.

I believe that there are perceptions of time and space that we simply haven’t understood yet.

I believe that we are all ignorant of our own stupidity. Like the barking dog that assumes it is a genius.

At least I think I believe these things.

I just never seem to realize or remember them.

They keep getting lost in the day to day.

My hand is on a table. Clenching the wood grain. I can feel the bumps and grooves and imperfections. They feel perfect and real. My thoughts feels damp with exhaustion. Drowned and pained and labored to the point of disappearance.

I’m at home.

Looking at the wall.

How is it that I’ve done nothing with my life in the last two thousand years?

I fell in love.

I forgot about love.

I got a job.

I fell into routine.

Part of me remembers an echo of a dream that used to exist in my head. Thoughts of changing the world. Thoughts of revolution. Important ideas. Ideas that moved me forward in life.

I haven’t moved forward in centuries.

Perhaps the concept of relativity is right.

Perhaps we all move in a relative stance to the time in which we exist.

Perhaps human beings are fated to only experience so much before they die. Maybe we’ve just stretched and torn the boundaries so badly that eighty years of experience is now stretched out into infinity. Maybe when you’ve experienced all that you can, maybe everything just starts to repeat.

I look at Evaline’s note.

Maybe she’s right.

With her scrawled out handwriting.

Scratched onto the paper in a fit of passion. Her handwriting is alive more than anything else in this house.

Crinkled and pulled back to the brink by a second thought and a shaking hand.

There are only a few words, but they make more sense than anything else in my life. An indictment of my routine. An indictment of my complacency. Now I wonder if these words will change me.

Can I change the course of a river that has dug its bed for the last 2000 years?

Every day I would wake up with Evaline’s hand on my chest. She would make a low grunting noise when my alarm went off. I’d be gone to work before she even got out of bed. I’d kiss her forehead as I left.

After work it was back to home. Evaline would sit in her chair directly to my right, we would watch TV. We would fix dinner. We would talk about nothing in particular. We’d already talked about everything there was to talk about, at least it was assumed that we had.

Occasionally I’d try and kiss Evaline.

She was bored with sex.

I’d take care of my business elsewhere.

After that we’d both go to bed.

I don’t remember ever doing anything else in life. My past is a blur.

There’s a dull ache in my chest where she’s missed, it’s under my ribs and to the left of my lungs. I miss kissing her forehead when I leave to work. Her pouting lips and conversations about nothing, there’s a strange emotion where these things once were.

I try calling her cell phone.

It goes straight to her voicemail.

This is only the third time I’ve tried calling her in the last two days that she’s been gone.

‘Evaline, it’s Ellis, please call me and let me know that you’re ok.’

I have no clue if she’s getting these messages. If she even knows that I’ve been calling. Does the fact that I’ve been calling her prove that I love her?

Routine and love. Were they ever separate? I’m told that it takes us a while to experience romantic love, we have to build up a neurotransmitter in our head called oxytocin. It allows us to long for someone in a way that transcends lust.

It takes several years for us to build this chemical up in our head.

Most people just assume that lust is love.

Some people simply do not have oxytocin neurotransmitters.

Some people take drugs that replace the oxytocin. Drugs so that they can feel ’True Love’.

Perhaps I was just never meant to love.

Perhaps love is unnatural.

Perhaps love is illogical.

Perhaps love is like driving or watching television; conveniences created by modern society, just another vice to keep us in check, to keep us from getting too bored.

My phone rings.

The caller I.D. says that it’s Evaline.

I hold my breath.

There’s a gentle sobbing on the other end of the line.

I look at Evaline’s note. I listen to her soft weeping.

Her note: ‘You forgot how to love me.’

‘Evaline?’

And then there’s a dial tone.

9

I sit alone at home.

Things feel empty.

I can still smell her perfume.

A few stray hairs are still lying in the bed.

It’s Thursday night.

We used to go dancing on Thursday nights.

10

‘She called you?’

‘Yeah.’

Franklin looks curious. Intrigued. He’s getting sucked into the drama.

‘What’d she say?’

I’m hesitant to tell him. My lip pulls between my teeth in a sort of nervous tick. My fingers are tapping my desk. My feet are tapping the floor. There is no discernible rhythm, but it’s not for lack of trying.

My only response is ’Don’t worry about it.’

‘Why’d you tell me about this if you don’t want me to worry?’

There’s no real answer. Why does any human being spill emotions out into the open air? Perhaps it’s just a basic cleansing ritual; perhaps it’s just habit and routine. Perhaps it’s biologically imperative that we feel understood by those around us.

Feet tapping.

Fingers tapping.

My stomach has a dull ache. A sort of ache that I’m not familiar with. It pulls at me.

‘Ok, you can worry about it. Just, fuck, I don’t know. I’m sorry.’

And so Franklin goes back to work. I sit at my desk. From the corner of my eye I’m watching him walk away. He seems frustrated. Agitated. Perhaps it’s because I’m not telling him everything. Perhaps it’s because he genuinely cares about me.

That’s what friends do.

Right?

Work moves on. I catch snippets of conversation. None of it seems interesting. Every conversation seems to blur together. Every conversation seems the same. Maybe it’s because I’ve heard them all.

People are still talking about the same things they talked about 2000 years ago.

There has been no real progress in the art of talking.

My boss stops by my desk. He’s smiling. He’s wearing a tweed jacket. He looks the same age as me, he could be my father. This isn’t something I consciously think about. Everyone looks the same age. We all might as well be the same age.

‘Did you hear?’

‘Hear what?’

‘We’re having a meeting at the end of the day. It’s mandatory.’

We never have meetings.

Everything runs smoothly.

There is no need for meetings and pep talks when everyone that works here is considered a senior employee. We’ve all danced the same dance in this office for longer than we can truly remember.

We’ve all settled.

We’ve all moved past the inherent boredom.

We’ve all accepted our fate.

And so we work.

Day in and day out.

Getting lost in your job is the easiest thing in the world when you don’t actually think about it. Eventually when people ask what you do in life, all you have to do is answer with what you do for a living.

The lines get blurred.

We become our jobs.

We are efficient.

No one quits because no one cares to change. We have forever to change, why worry about finding a new job just yet?

That vacation to Hawaii? It can wait another ten years. Maybe one hundred. Maybe one thousand.

It’ll happen eventually.

My boss leaves after spending a moment hovering over me.

My fingers feel awkward.

I finish typing a memo.

My back feels rigid.

I’m slumping in my chair.

Something is off.

And so the day continues to pass. Electric lights and phones ringing. The faint sound of typing. I think about Evaline. I’m not thinking about her enough. It’s become a vague pulling. Complacency has settled in like it so frequently does. Why worry when everything works out?

Evaline, Her picture isn’t even on my desk.

On my desk are meaningless trinkets.

The day nears an end. The shadows in the office stay the same; outside they’re growing longer. It’s Friday. A weekend. Fifteen minutes before the day ends and everyone’s jamming into a conference room. We’re sweating. We’re confused. We’re not used to this interruption in our tightly scheduled lives.

Someone whispers a joke to someone else.

There’s laughter.

It’s because we’re nervous.

The management team walks into the office. Tweed jackets. Stern faces. It’s an awkward sensation, and my already pained stomach tightens even more. My body is acting strangely. The walls pulsate and my head throbs.

‘As you may or may not know by now, the company has been bought out.’

There’s a rustle. Gasping. People are realizing what’s happening. The whole room vaguely resembles cattle on the slaughterhouse floor.

‘And so effective today, you are all terminated. I’m sure you will find the severance packages more than generous. We thank you for your years of hard work, and wish you all well in the future.’

Someone throws up.

Someone starts crying.

Someone falls to the ground.

This is as close to death as things come.

11

At the bar with Franklin.

We’re both drunk.

We’re both depressed.

We’re both in shock and jobless and wondering what the future means when you can no longer define it.

Things are supposed to remain static. It’s why we bothered to live forever in the first place.

The guarantee that we’d always be comfortable.

It’s the reason for all these botox injections and chemical peels and endless trips to the doctors where we get fed pills with names we can’t even pronounce.

‘What am I going to do?’ Franklin is worried and sweating.

Franklin’s face is red.

Franklin’s face isn’t red because he’s drunk.

‘What am I going to do?’ My lips feel chapped.

And then it’s a shot chased by a beer chased by a wandering eye chased by a furrowed sense of desperation chased by a lusty dick. In the end all we want is to escape from something.

From death.

From sobriety.

From monogamy.

We all want to get away from something.

Tonight it’s from everything.

I’m still feeling sick. Still feeling the odd weight in my gut that just won’t leave. The pain in my gut that reminds me of Evaline.

The alcohol isn’t helping.

I’m aching worse than before. With a hint of nausea and an overwhelming sense of confusion. This is me without anything at all. This is me without a love and without a sense of security and without a job and without a smile.

Franklin is mumbling.

‘Who am I without my job?’

I’m mumbling:

‘Who am I without Evaline?’

Cue the dramatic music.

Cue the desperation.

Franklin has been my friend since I started this job. We’ve rambled our way through the last millennia. I’ve never seen him cry. He’s never seen me cry.

It’s an odd thing. The way that we befriend co-workers. The way that a shared experience can bring together two radically different people. The way that shared time tends to define a relationship more than anything else.

And Franklin is rocking back and forth.

Panicking.

Mumbling.

Like ivy on a fence, given enough time two things will become so entangled that you cannot see the ending of one and the beginning of another.

We rely on comfort with the hope that we will not have to deal with anything earth shattering. Comfort becomes real. Destruction, rebirth, reality, they scream from a distance and hover right beneath our noses.

People don’t think of the future because they can’t comprehend it.

We pay attention to the pavement under our feet and the food in front of us.

Tomorrow is a cable news broadcast.

Tomorrow is a screaming alarm clock.

Tomorrow is work in the office.

The smaller our vision, the bigger the world. The bigger the world, the more scared we become. The more scared we become, the less we look around.

A shot.

A beer.

I’m drunk.

Angry.

Belligerent.

My fist is shaking and my teeth are grinding.

‘Franklin, what are we?’ From tongue to teeth to lips to air, my words are as nebulous as they are real, spoken like a drunken asshole.

‘What?’

‘We’re nothing. We’re simply existing.’

There’s a pause. Music plays in the background. People chatter. Someone laughs. A light flickers. A beer is poured. A shot is taken.

Franklin looks ready to pass out.

I’m sure I look just as bad as Franklin.

We’re in our own little world of drunken idealism.

Rambling with a nihilistic sense of self-satisfaction.

‘I don’t even dream of the future. I don’t dream of anything and nothing ever happens. I’ve simply existed day to day for the last two thousand years. I’m not sure if I appreciate anything. I’m not sure if I even care about anything.’

Franklin perks up.

Head wobbling.

Spinning.

Cross-eyed.

His ears are red.

‘We all have.’

Then the night gets fuzzy.

Things come in flashes.

We’re kicked out of the bar.

There’s an undeniable adrenaline, like falling with no end in sight.

A broken window.

A broken bottle.

A thrown fist.

An aching jaw.

Then I wake up in a field.

12

Aching.

Lost.

Confused.

I walk a few miles until my nose starts to bleed and my feet start to ache. The air is fresh and feels good so I sit on a tree stump.

I try to recall how I got here.

Nothing.

I keep walking.

Logic dictates that if I walk long enough I will get somewhere.

My mouth is dry.

My gut is aching.

Birds are flying overhead.

The grass, the trees, the fresh air. I forgot that they existed. I haven’t been out of the city in two hundred years.

A car drives by.

I’m waving and yelling. They don’t slow down.

Eventually I come to a run-down shack of a house at the end of a driveway. The windows are opaque with mold and my hands are aching for reasons that I can’t explain.

No one seems to be home.

I knock on the door.

Another knock.

No answer.

All I want is water.

All I want is food.

All I want is the easiest path back to the way things used to be.

Around to the back of the house. There’s no one, only an open field. Only two cars that are so old they may actually still run on gasoline.

‘Hello?’

My voice barely registers as a yell. My throat is aching. My teeth are grinding and causing my gums to bleed.

Around the house is nothing. Fields. Empty fields where animals used to graze. Empty fields where children used to play and people used to harvest. Now there is nothing but overgrown foliage. Wheat that has grown past its prime. Weeds that have long since taken over.

The air. The grass. The pollen.

I sneeze.

Another sneeze and it turns into a fit and my eyes get red and my throat starts to itch.

Still itching, I knock on the door again, pound, plead, yell. Nothing. No one is going to answer.

Maybe there’s a phone inside.

I turn the knob. It’s unlocked.

Inside the house is a thick layer of dust. Cobwebs. This house is old. It’s been a long time since anyone has lived here.

‘Anyone home?’

The floor creaks beneath my feet.

Evaline and I used to watch ancient scary movies. The kinds with ghosts and cobwebs and special effects that seem scary when you don’t think about them at all.

My heart tumbles as I take another step.

Another creaking sound.

On the table is a picture of a family. It’s old and there’s dust so thick that I can barely even tell it’s a picture at first.

In my hands and after I’ve blown the dust off of the picture, the family is smiling and looking happy. Four people. Two girls and two boys. They all have brown hair and big smiles and tan skin and they all look vaguely the same age. It’s a family.

You can’t tell they’re family by looking at them, because everyone has the same sort of surgical glow to them. You can’t tell they’re family, so I’m just assuming that they are.

I’m studying who I assume to be the parents. They’re holding hands, they’re smiling. They look ideal. They look like the map that’s in my head, the map that tells me what a happy relationship is.

Pictures only say what you want them to say.

I think back to all of my pictures. Evaline and me, the same pose with the same smiles. The only thing that changes is our clothes.

I put the picture of this family down and keep walking.

More creaking.

A nauseous feeling in my gut.

The draining of blood from my face.

I’m stumbling and stammering with no one to stumble and stammer to.

My knuckles would clench if I had the strength.

Instead I feel like I’ve been hit in the face with a brick.

In front of me.

In the living room.

A dead body.

But that’s not what bothers me the most, what bothers me is the feeling in my gut that says my being here isn’t an accident.

13

You never forget the first time you see a dead body.

Especially if you’re over 2000 years old.

And sure the body was nothing more than a dusty skeleton, collapsed on the floor and gnawed on by the weight of time, but it’s stuck in my head like some sort of disease. Burned into the back of my eyelids. Slowly making an intangible fantasy into a tangible reality.

Death: A symbol for a lesson we keep forgetting to learn.

If only I knew what the lesson was.

Franklin has two black eyes.

We’re sitting in his living room.

I’m describing my adventure. The drunken night that neither of us remember. The field. The walking. The house. The body.

He laughs.

My face is flush. My mouth is shut. I’m waiting for something to happen. I’ve been waiting the last thousand years. Because that’s what life is; going through the motions with the expectation that something will happen.

The expectation that things will move themselves.

We’re way past the point of accountability.

The conversation strays quickly.

To Franklin. To the girl he fucked. To the perfect tits and the perfect lips and the shapely ass. He’s making motions with his hands. He tells the story and grows more and more excited with each sentence he shares.

‘I don’t care.’

I’m an asshole.

Franklin looks at me. It’s my duty to care. As a friend. As a co-worker.

In his eyes there’s a palpable stinging where his ego has just been bruised. He looks like a beaten dog.

I’m usually more affable.

Or maybe we’re all just too sensitive.

‘What?’

‘I don’t know, I just feel like I’ve got bigger things to worry about than whether or not the latest conquest in your ongoing marital infidelity has a bleached asshole.’

A pause, a breath, a nervous twisting of nervous fingers.

‘So what do you worry about?’

‘Death. Evaline.’

‘Eh, things will turn out fine.’

I shrug.

My brow is furrowed as I run my hand along a wooden table in Franklin’s living room. I’m older than the tree this table was made from.

I pull my hand back and lean into Franklin’s leather couch. I look him in the eyes.

I used to have more friends.

I used to have dozens of friends.

People I could count on and laugh with and get drunk with and not care with.

They got lost along the way.

It was a slow drift, just like everything in my life.

Slowly drifting.

And in my stomach, there’s a pit.

I excuse myself to the bathroom. Navigating the hall, I look at pictures along the way. There is one picture of Franklin and his wife in the entire house.

There only needs to be one picture.

They’re not going to age. They’re not going to divorce. No one is going to die and the changing of fashions and trends died with youth. There is no need for anything more.

But when have we ever been satisfied with only having what we need?

And so I go to the bathroom.

When I’m done Franklin asks if I want to go get coffee with him.

I do.

We drive.

We end up at the same coffee shop we always go to. The same coffee shop where we see the same people that we always see.

We’ve been going here for centuries. We still don’t know the names of the other familiar faces.

Across the coffee shop is a new face. He’s staring at me.

I make eye contact. He looks away.

I order my drink, go sit down with Franklin, we start to talk. Out of the corner of my eye I can see this guy listening to us.

The conversation carries on.

About life.

About the past.

‘I’m not too sure where I’m going to work now, I’ve got some money saved up, so I don’t have to work for the next hundred years or so, but I’d like to get back out there sooner than later.’

When death ended, so did retirement.

I’m not even thinking about working. I feel as if I’m in a state of perpetual fog. Something’s missing but I don’t know what.

‘I’ll get a job when I can get myself together.’

Franklin nods. Sips his drink. Looks at the ceiling and the floor.

‘Hey, Franklin,’ I’m whispering, ‘someone’s listening to us.’ I gesture towards the man that had been staring at me. The new face with curly brown hair and a lanky body.

Franklin glances over and looks back at me.

‘I think you’re just seeing things.’

The stranger, the listening man, he starts to shift in his seat.

I get up and walk over to him. This is completely out of character for me, but so is being spied on.

I look down at him.

‘Hi.’

He stands up. Looks me in the eyes for a brief pause, and then walks away. Out the doors and down the street.

14

It’s Monday.

I wake up to the alarm clock. I roll over to put my arm around Evaline.

Her side of the bed is cold. I let out a sigh. I stand up. Walk to the bathroom. My head is still full of morning fog. I feel like I’m dancing while drunk.

I brush my teeth. I get in the shower. The hot water isn’t waking me up. I put on the cold water and start to shiver. I get out. Dry off. Comb my hair. Put on clothes.

I make breakfast and look out my kitchen window.

Cars are driving past.

The sun is starting to come up.

I put on the television.

Watch the news.

It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.

I sit down to eat.

The food doesn’t quite taste right.

I throw it away without finishing.

I grab my keys, go outside, stand at my car. I have nowhere to go.

I turn around and walk back inside.

The air in my house is still.

I miss the sound of Evaline.

I take off my shoes, socks, pants. Get back into bed. I would watch the sun come up but I’m not in the mood.

I close my eyes.

15

‘How did you know you loved Dad?’

I’m at my parent’s house.

My mom is drinking tea.

She looks the same age as Evaline. She looks the same age as everyone in this country.

Her hair is pulled back as tightly as her face and she’s wearing cherry red lipstick that makes her look paler than she really is.

Her eyes are swimming around, they flick back and forth.

She pauses.

Clicks her nails on the table.

Her mouth opens and shuts.

It’s a fresh coat of lipstick.

Her throat clears.

Eyebrows arch.

A pause. A breath. A nervous twisting of nervous fingers.

We’re outside.

In the backyard gazebo with the wood base that splits at the edges. The two hundred year old gazebo that looks new because my father paints it every other year.

One hundred coats of paint, but underneath it all, this gazebo, it’s a mess.

The sun shines.

My mom, she finally gets around to answering me with an ‘I don’t know.’

This is the answer I expected. This is the same answer Franklin had when I asked him. This is the same answer I had when I asked myself.

No one seems to remember the reason that they love someone. They just accept it as is. They just take it for granted because they never have to worry about it.

I’m slowly starting to worry.

And who knows, maybe I shouldn’t worry, maybe the answer doesn’t truly matter. Maybe we just have to learn to accept some things in life. Maybe we never truly realize why we love someone.

Silence.

I soak in the sun.

My pale skin feels like it’s on fire. The sun is burrowing into my bones.

And in the house my dad yells something that neither my mom nor I can understand. We ignore it. He yells again. We get up. We go to the living room where he’s sitting. We stare at the television.

We’re entranced by the glow.

We’re stupefied by the images.

My skin is crawling.

On TV there’s a building on fire. In the bottom corner of the screen are two grainy faces captured in a security video.

One is familiar in a distant way.

Curly hair and a skinny frame. The guy from the coffee shop.

The other face…

It’s Evaline.

A pause. A breath. A nervous twisting of nervous fingers.

Part II

1

Someone whispers: ‘Watching you fall apart is like watching a poem write itself.’

And ten years move past me.

It feels like I’m falling.

Then I wake up.

In bed.

The morning sun glows with a golden hue as it filters through the curtains.

I’m sleeping in the middle of the bed now. I no longer wake up at night worrying that I’m crowding her.

The indentation of her body is gone.

The vague smell of her perfume has dissipated.

My loneliness becomes duller with each year and each month and each day.

2

‘Quit trying so hard to find meaning in your life.’ This man in front of me, this stranger that I know so well, he raises his hand up to my shoulder and grips it, I wince. He’s facing me, looking me in the eyes. ‘Instead, why don’t you go give your life meaning?’

2047 years into my life, haven’t I already found a meaning?

Maybe I’ve found more meanings than I can forget.

The truth is that I’ve found nothing but failure and drugs.

2037 years followed by 10 years of falling apart.

I’m a shadow.

And this man, he’s gripping me hard. He wants me to understand. He wants me to move forward.

I smile and nod and don’t bother to take in what he says. I never do.

This man, his name is Jim, he’s my new friend, and by friend I mean that he talks to me.

It’s funny how change happens so quickly when you let your guard down.

There was a day when I knew what tomorrow would hold. Certainty was all I knew.

I live moment by moment, and I hate it. The uncertainty of it all, the lack of a safety net. Everything feels dangerous; each moment exists on shaky ground.

My only escape is in a drug that has no name.

A safe haven from the fear that tomorrow brings.

Jim, he wants me to climb out of this hole. He wants me to live.

It’s a nice thought.

I appreciate that he cares, but every day I swallow a pill and slip away and try to pretend that the mess of my life doesn’t exist; his caring can’t seem to change that.

Jim asks; ‘where do you want to be?’

The answer is automatic as I tell him ‘I want to be back at home.’

‘Where is your home?’

‘It doesn’t exist anymore.’

‘Why doesn’t it exist?’

‘It disappeared with my wife.’

‘Your wife left you?’

‘I think so.’

‘Can’t you go back?’

‘I’m not sure if she exists anymore.’

Jim gives me a look, one that I can’t define, one that leaves me cold.

‘Well if you can’t go back to the way things were, why don’t you just make something better? Give your life a new meaning.’

I look at Jim. I’m blank.

I keep telling myself that sometimes we don’t bother to realize that there is more to life than what we’ve experienced and what we’ve seen.

I keep telling myself this and I keep forgetting to listen. I’m always forgetting.

Body odor hits my nose.

Stop. Go. Stop.

Jim smiles.

I start to walk away.

Jim says goodbye.

I say goodbye.

I’ll see him again soon. He’ll talk to me and try to be inspirational and I will dodge his questions and not listen to the things he has to say.

Jim, my friend on the city bus, he’s just another stranger.

And then I’m off. I look around. I’m nervous and excited. I rub my hands together.

They say that everyone needs a vice, something to take away the monotony, the routine, the fear. They say that we all fall back on something, and when we can’t find something natural; something like exercise or love, we find something chemical, like booze or pills.

3

In a parking lot.

The city is living and breathing around me. I’m looking shifty and nervous. My hands are anxious. I’m looking like anyone else hoping for another fix.

A fix to cope.

A fix to fill the void.

A fix to create a void.

Ingesting designer drugs that no one ever takes. Recreational drugs that have all been forgotten by the world at large. People don’t do drugs because they don’t realize they have a void. People don’t realize they have a void because they don’t even know it’s possible to have a void.

There is no loss. Only gain, at least for most people.

The ones with steady jobs.

The ones with true love.

The people with routines and comfort and a vague definition of happiness.

They don’t know loss; they don’t know anything other than the feeling of coasting. But, just because you don’t know or perceive something, that doesn’t mean it’s not there.

When I had a job I didn’t know loss.

When I didn’t have loss I didn’t think of anyone but myself.

I still only think about myself.

Mostly because I’m all I have. That and pushers that make me feel like I can escape.

So here I am. Talking to this man I’ve met a hundred times. Talking to the man that sells the drugs that make me think I still have a job and a wife and a reality that doesn’t resemble the guest bedroom in my parent’s home.

One hundred pills.

I stole the money to buy these. Stole it from my parents.

‘So how are you?’ I’m trying to strike up conversation with my dealer.

He laughs.

Shakes his head.

Junkies always try and befriend their dealer, they want a free ride.

Dealers don’t befriend junkies.

I’m a junky.

I’m addicted to a former reality.

Sometimes when you lose a routine, you’ll try anything to hold onto it. Desperately clawing, clinging and screaming.

We’re all addicts in denial.

I just happen to take pills. I just happen to realize that I’m an addict. I just happen to be honest with myself.

I walk away.

The city streets seem darker from the bottom up.

I haven’t had a job since Evaline disappeared. There’s no work for anyone. At one point there were opportunities, at one point there was room for growth, but then things started to settle, no one died and everyone had a task, eventually it came to the point where everything was set in stone.

Sure, companies occasionally collapsed under the weight of over productivity. That’s what happened to mine. We became too good at our jobs, so we lost them. But, by and large, people produce and consume at a steady rate and therefore everything remains static.

A rat runs past me.

I’m walking home.

My parents don’t worry about me because they don’t think about me. They’re too busy working. I haven’t been assimilated into their lives yet. It’s been 9 years and they still forget I live with them.

Sometimes I forget.

I forget when I wake up in the morning, and the sun shines and my dreams become tangled with reality.

Of course that tangling happens less and less; my dreams continue to seem further and further away.

And right now I’m rattling with a pocket full of pills.

Each rattle makes my heart race.

I want to get home and ingest and forget.

Yesterday can’t get here quick enough.

I pick up the pace and think about swallowing the pills. I think about my yesterdays. I break into a run. Thirteen blocks.

I’m desperate.

Always running.

I get home. No one’s around. Two millennia old and living with my parents. I go to my room with a glass of water and a magazine.

Pop a pill.

Sit on my bed.

Start to read.

The magazine is several years old. It’s about Evaline. It’s about that fire that she lit.

They never figured out that it was her. Every few months another building burns down. Every few months another part of the cities history is destroyed.

I assume that she has at least something to do with the fires.

Mostly I’m hoping.

Since the first fire there’s been no contact from her.

Her number was disconnected.

She stopped calling with silent sobs.

In a way it’s like she never existed. Her parents stopped talking to me. Her friends never talked to me in the first place.

Given enough time everything fades.

She’s faded, her memories and her scents and her touch and her feel. It’s gone.

And so I’m here reading a magazine article about her actions in hopes that it will cause me to flash back to a moment with her.

Fifteen minutes pass and reality starts to shift.

The walls bleed away and the colors and lights begin to move to the left of center. The first minute is like a bad acid trip. If you start to panic then you’ll go back to a bad memory.

I stay calm because there’s nothing left to get upset about.

Reality continues to peel away.

My chest feels tight.

And here I am with Evaline.

We’re on our first date.

4

We met through friends.

It’s the same stupid set up you always hear about

And so when we meet, she hates me. I’m not funny enough. Not, tall enough. Not smart enough. I’m not her type and most likely I’ll never be her type.

She’s gorgeous.

We talk. She feigns interest. She doesn’t make me think of the 100 other failed relationships I’ve had.

Maybe I finally know what I want. Maybe I’ll no longer have to be that lonely guy that everyone sends on blind dates.

Maybe after failing so many times I’ve finally learned what to look for.

Of course that’s not true.

Of course everything about her is only accentuated by the rush of blood to my dick.

She’s probably just pretending to listen.

Listening to me talk about my job.

About my portfolio’s.

About my holdings.

I talk and her thumb rubs the side of her martini glass. She has on dark red lipstick; the color of a ripe cherry.

She has a certain smell.

A certain way that she carries herself.

And some people say that when you find the person you’re going to love forever, when you find the person that you’re going to marry, you just know. It all becomes clear. It all makes sense. There is no doubt. When you meet the person that you’re going to marry, time stops. Unfortunately when you live forever the concept of time means very little.

And so I flirt.

And she rejects me.

‘You’re beautiful.’

‘Nice line.’

Evaline wants nothing to do with me. She looks away every thirty seconds.

Bored.

Hazy.

Not interested.

She’s annoyed with me after an hour. There’s no chance for us. This is a wreck. A mess. Somehow I just can’t shut my mouth.

She’s beautiful.

She’s bored.

I’m Awkward.

We’re both anxious. I try to talk to her but it’s as if we speak different languages.

I spill a drink.

She pulls away.

It’s on her dress.

She goes to the bathroom.

People dance.

People Push.

People Stumble.

It’s a drunken wave of people with nothing better to do than keep moving.

I’m sitting at my table.

Alone.

My friend, Dave, the person that Evaline knows, my anchor in this situation, he comes up to me from the dance floor.

‘You really fucked that one up.’

‘Yeah.’

Someone stumbles past me.

A new song comes on.

The lights hammer down.

My fingers start tapping on my thigh.

My eyes move anxiously.

My stomach burns like there’s a small gas fire. There’s a need for fresh air. There’s a need to escape. There’s a weakness in my feet that prevents me from moving.

Failure never becomes easy.

If failure were easy we’d all be dead.

Evaline comes back. Her eyes drain me. She’s the first to speak.

‘So…’

‘So?’

Dave moves away with a smirk on his face.

‘I just wanted to have a nice time. Meet a nice guy. You’re sitting here talking about the stock market and investment portfolio’s. You’re talking about things that don’t matter. I’m not interested in your financial securities. I just want to know you.’

She emphasizes ‘you’.

A pause. A breath. A nervous twisting of nervous fingers.

‘I’m sorry.’

She smiles a soft smile, and although she may understand my nervousness, it doesn’t matter. The pitter patter of shallow conversation drowns the evening and eventually she leaves.

I watch her walk out the door.

Later I jerk off to the image of her in my head.

I don’t see her again for 50 years.

5

Wake up.

Fucked up.

Head spinning; I feel as if I’m going to pass back out. My legs and hands and face are numb, my gut is growling for food.

I look around. The world is exactly where I left it. Unchanged. I don’t know how long I was gone. Maybe five hours, maybe ten. I never bother to time myself. Time doesn’t matter. Time is an antiquated notion. Time doesn’t move forward, moving forward is up to me. Currently I’m far too self involved to make any sort of forward movements.

My head aches as I sit up. Thinking of Evaline. I want to bury my face in the pillow and pass back out; instead I get up to piss.

I walk through the house.

It feels empty. It is empty.

Go to the bathroom.

Go to the kitchen.

Get food.

No one is around. The place seems deserted. My parents are most likely at work. Always working. Always trying to get by. Always trying to save money and make ends meet.

I’ll never get used to not working. I’ll never detach myself from that identity, the identity that tells me I’m nothing more than my job.

Who knows, perhaps I was never anything more than my job. Maybe people really are no better than the work we produce, and now without a job, without a girl, without a life; maybe I’m nothing at all.

And I’m out of the kitchen.

Back to my room.

Most of my possessions are gone.

Locked away or sent to the dump.

You’d be amazed at how much trash one man can accumulate in two thousand years. You’d be amazed at how much of your life gets filled by knick knacks and possessions that will be forgotten within a month. You’d be amazed.

And maybe if I’d accumulated a life that meant something, maybe then I wouldn’t be here today. Here at my parent’s, eating a sandwich and watching the clouds roll along the skyline.

Time allows us to take things for granted.

I take far too much for granted.

Perhaps it’s just part of being human.

Outside I hear a noise. The sound of something breaking. I get up. Step outside. Nothing is there except for a faint smell in the air. I breathe in, it’s familiar but I can’t place it.

Back inside I finish eating. Get up. Start to pace. Pick up the phone. Dial. It rings. I pause. Wait. Breathe in. Bite my thumbnail. Breathe out. Someone picks up.

‘Hello?’

‘Hey Alicia, it’s Ellis.’

‘Hey, baby.’

And this is my secret.

6

People say you can’t replace love with a cheap fuck.

Alicia smells like vanilla and screws like she’s off her medication.

And it’s me and Alicia and memories of Evaline that dance in this bed with a floral print comforter. I don’t know what I’m doing and I know it’s wrong, but still I keep going.

Sometimes all anyone wants is to feel a little less empty.

I take pills. I fuck.

I’m not sure if this is the right way to get rid of the excess loneliness, but for the moment it makes me feel ok.

When we’re done we both sweat and heave and breathe deep. It’s the most sex I’ve had in one thousand years.

It doesn’t feel like it used to. I don’t get the same rush and my teeth don’t clench in the same fashion.

It’s strange. The touch of a new body; new smells and sights and sounds that you never would have conceived on your own.

I’m sucking air.

I tell her it was good.

I haven’t been to a gym in decades. It was once part of my routine, and like everything else it slipped away.

Why do I let everything slip away?

I’m out of shape. Wheezing. It’s embarrassing. I’m supposed to be tone and trim and fit and ready to run a mile and fuck all night. I’m supposed to be someone that I can only dream of being. Someone I’ve never been in my two millennia of life.

‘You’re getting better.’

Alicia is a bitch and I don’t mind it. Alicia treats me like shit because I don’t tell her to stop. Alicia is just some girl who I met on the sidewalk a few years back. Just some girl who I stumbled through awkward conversation with. Just some girl who, for a few minutes of formulaic fucking, can make me forget what I’m trying so hard to remember.

Love and infatuation are the worst drugs of all.

You kick one and move to the other, but in the end, you want them both.

Alicia gets out of bed and smiles. Her skin is pulled tight, she’s draped in a blanket, she’s tan with brown hair and blonde streaks and all the other homogenized affects that so many people tend to parade around.

She’s also got a tattoo of a butterfly on her lower back.

She goes to the bathroom.

I lay in bed. Think of Evaline. Wonder what she’s doing right now. I’ll never know. She could be dead for all I know.

And Alicia comes out of the bathroom and gets back in bed with me. She presses her face into my chest.

She smells like vanilla.

I’m sweaty.

What’s left of her makeup is about to rub off onto me.

I’m ok with that.

And Alicia is a different type of girl. Single. She says that’ she’s been married 22 times. Maybe she’s finally given up. Maybe she can see through the bullshit. I doubt it.

There are moments when I wonder if we’re doing more than just fucking.

Maybe we’re creating a bond. Maybe this is the development of a relationship. I can’t even tell. Everything is clouded in a decay of grief and loss and drugs. For all I know we could be on our way to getting married.

I’m still married to Evaline.

I squeeze Alicia tight. She smiles. I smile. It feels good. Above me the ceiling fan is spinning.

After a few minutes I finally get out of bed. My legs feel weak. I’m not dizzy but my heart is beating fast.

I put on my clothes. One pant leg at a time.

‘So what are you up to for the rest of the week?’ This is me trying to make small talk. I’ve never been too good at it. Maybe that’s why I can’t hold onto my friends.

‘I’m just working for the most part. Going to the movies with some of my girlfriends this weekend. Maybe I’ll hit the bar. I’m not too sure.’

I smile and nod and try to think of something witty to say, but I can’t. I don’t know Alicia all that well. It’s been a few years but she still feels like a stranger when I talk to her. It’s just her body that I know so well.

‘That sounds fun.’ This is me wincing at how fake I sound. I could care less about what she’s doing.

‘Yeah I know! There’s this really funny movie coming out on Friday, ugh, I can’t remember what it’s called… But I think it’ll probably be pretty good. Plus we’re going to a bar in town that serves the BEST appletini’s. It’s really going to be great.’

I miss the conversations that I used to have with Evaline.

And now I’m dressed. Sitting at the edge of Alicia’s bed. She smiles. The comforter is wrapped over her shoulders as she sits up next to me. We smile at each other, but it’s not a genuine smile, more like a smile that you’d give to a passing stranger as to let them know you’re not a complete asshole.

Then Alicia does something that makes me flinch. She grabs my hand and squeezes it tight. There’s a connection that’s missing on my end.

She’s genuine.

I’m just trying to fill a void.

I might as well be jerking off into a toilet.

We hug.

I leave.

I hit the pavement and walk to the bus stop. The weather is nice like it always is. The wind is moving and the sun is shining and it’s early morning.

There’s hardly any traffic.

For a moment I stop.

Stand.

Watch as everything passes me by; the cars and kids and insects and pets.

Everything keeps on moving.

Nothing seems to stop and nothing seems to go anywhere.

And I think back to yesterday, the way I felt when remembering the first time I met Evaline. The tastes and sights and sounds and…

My whole body freezes.

The smell in the air from yesterday. Outside my house. That was the smell of Evaline’s perfume.

7

For some reason I can’t let go.

Her smell and her very being still bleed from my veins.

So I’m at my parent’s house. They’re gone. Gone like they always are. I sometimes wonder if they ever even see each other. In the end I guess they’re no different than anyone else.

I’m wandering around outside and looking for any trace of Evaline that I can find. Something to tell me that she really was here. Something to let me know that I’m not just another crazy man. Something to let me know that the perfume I smelled really was hers.

And most likely I am crazy.

No job.

No wife.

Living with my parents.

To any outsider it’s obvious that I have issues.

We’re defined by our independence. We’re celebrated for our autonomy.

So here I am, standing outside in my parent’s garden. Barefoot and broke; a mess that smells like yesterdays fuck. I need a shower. I need to get my life together. I need some sort of closure.

I think that in the end I’ve found the concept of closure to be nothing more than a human invention, something we’ve created to give us purpose. Another thing for us to strive towards.

When you live forever you tend to think that closure will happen later than sooner.

The truth is that we’re just lazy.

Nothing is hard and nothing gets too messed up. We live forever and we don’t have to worry about not getting a chance to make things right, we have forever to get things right.

I had 2000 years to get love right.

I’m still failing.

I wanted it to read like the perfect poem.

I wanted to build something beautiful.

I always assumed I’d have more time to get it done. More time to perfect the concept of love. I was promised eternity and now I’ve got a gun with a slow trigger up against my head..

And so I feel a sinking in my gut and in my head and in my heart. The force of gravity pushes my soul to my feet as I walk back into my parent’s house.

Here I am.

Ellis Jackson.

Jobless.

Loveless

Void of all the things that I’m supposed to rely on in defining me as an adult.

Somewhere along the way I messed up.

And now I’m feeling nostalgic.

I couldn’t find Evaline outside, so I’ll now find her however I can.

I go to my room. Get out my pills. Grab a magazine.

It’s: Bottle, hand, mouth and then my head spins.

My heart beats a lonely beat.

I’m reading.

Thinking.

Deliberating on the faint smell of Evaline that drifted past me yesterday.

Time falls away.

Things feels cold…

8

Soft song on the radio. Cold fingers. She’s drunk again. My lips are dry. I lean in to kiss her. She pulls away. She doesn’t like me that way. I try to kiss her again. Her lips are puckered tight. She tells me to stop. My heart sinks.

We watch a movie. She keeps drinking. The night wanders aimlessly. I want to tangle the sheets with her. She wants me to be her friend. My thoughts are drifting away.

It’s past midnight.

She’s still drinking. I’m getting sober.

I finally get up to leave. One last hug for the night. It’s long and we pause and I look her in the eyes and my body shakes and my lips quiver and my heart is thunder and lightning. I know better than to go in for a third time.

I leave. We’ve been friends for 3 years now. I blew my chance. Maybe I never had a chance. In the car I’m listening to the saddest songs.

Maybe she’ll love me tomorrow.

9

I wake up in my own vomit.

I’m wearing nothing but a blanket and I’m covered by the blackness of the room I’m in.

I can’t tell what time it is.

I can’t tell where I am.

It seems no different from any other day.

So I get up. Go to the bathroom. Clean up. Look in the mirror. Curse the sight of my own face.

I haven’t moved forward in life since I hit puberty.

I’m getting desperate and I can’t seem to realize it.

The phone rings.

I pick it up.

It’s Alicia.

I don’t know what day it is. Not that the day matters to me.

She wants to grind her hips to mine.

I’m too far gone to argue.

‘I’ll be over there in an hour or so.’

I shower and then I go outside.

The smell of Evaline. It hits me again. I cock my head. Look around. There’s nothing and no one. No movement or sound or anything. I walk around the house. Try and act like I’m not looking for her. She has to be here, she has to be near me.

I search the bushes and the garden and the driveway and every other part of my parent’s property.

Maybe she already left.

Maybe I’m imagining things.

I begin to leave. Walking down the driveway. Out of the corner of my eye I catch a movement. I spin around. There’s nothing. No family or friends. No Evaline.

Hands in pockets and eyes to the ground, I walk away.

Alicia. Escape. Something to get my mind off of the yesterdays that I keep reliving.

Alicia: Someone to keep me from thinking about all the loneliness that fills my future.

And I keep walking. It’s a half mile to the bus stop. The concrete on the sidewalk is fresh. There are no cracks, there are no flaws.

Finally I get to the bus stop. There’s nothing to do but think.

I look down.

I’ve let myself go.

There’s a small bulge in my gut that makes me stand out from the crowd.

I don’t have abs.

My chin is beginning to double.

I’m a mess.

People gawk as they move past me.

The bus comes. People get off. I get on.

I sit down. Near me is my bus riding friend, Jim.

‘Hey Ellis. How are you today?’

‘Good.’

‘You seem distant.’

‘I am.’

‘Anything you want to talk about?’

‘No.’

I’m a jerk. I should be nicer. I should be more outgoing. I should be open to the people who at least pretend they care.

The rest of the ride is silent.

My stop comes. I give Jim a smile. He nods. I get off the bus. I turn and watch it pull away.

Through the window I see a familiar face.

Curly hair and a skinny frame.

It takes a second for me to realize who it is.

Ten years ago.

The man from the coffee shop.

The man from the security footage.

10

I ran after the bus but couldn’t keep up.

My sides ache.

I’m dizzy.

Alicia looks at me with disgust.

I apologize.

She asks what happened.

I can’t find it in me to explain.

She tells me to try.

I open my mouth. Words fail me. At this moment it feels as if everything is failing me. Words, love, life.

Alicia tells me that I’m half insane.

I tell her that there’s a good explanation.

She rolls her eyes.

I’m frustrated.

‘I think I’m being followed.’

Alicia laughs.

I frown.

She’s not going to understand.

I keep talking. As if I can paint a clearer picture.

‘This man, with curly hair, I saw him ten years ago. I saw him on the bus today, but I didn’t see him until I got off. He was with Evaline in the security camera footage and…’

I give up.

It’s not going to make any sense.

Alicia is laughing.

‘Are you crazy?’ She asks this with a half smile on her face.

‘No.’ And this is me with defeat in my voice.

This is me giving up.

Alicia laughs and thinks that I’m joking and she calls me cute and she tells me that I crack her up and when she does that I can feel my finger tips begin to tingle.

She takes off her clothes.

Tits to my face.

They’re perky and full of saline.

She has tan lines.

Her skin looks like leather.

Tongue to tongue and hands to skin.

She licks me from neck to ear and back again. My body shivers. And she giggles a soft giggle as if she’s proud of her accomplishment. My mind begins to fade away into the fog of lust.

We don’t make love.

We fuck.

This isn’t gentle.

I’m frustrated.

Angry that she can’t help me.

Angry that I don’t have anyone to talk to about this.

Angry that I haven’t been more proactive in finding Evaline.

I’m tired of giving up, and as I grind my hips, I can’t help but think thats all I’m doing. Giving up.

Alicia is screaming in ecstasy.

When I look at her face I don’t see anything. When I look into her eyes it’s as if she’s lost. Vacant, blank and vapid.

I assume that it looks the same from her view point.

I thrust harder.

I can’t finish.

My mind is elsewhere.

I roll off.

She looks disappointed.

‘Aren’t you going to finish?’ She seems offended.

‘No.’ And I don’t try to make things better.

She begins to pout.

Her lips go tight and her fists ball up and her cheeks get flush and she wants me to be hers.

I get dressed.

She looks like she’s going to cry.

This is a power struggle. This is her attempting to feel ok with our relationship. This is me not caring either way.

I’m ready to leave. Standing up. Looking towards the door.

‘Please don’t go.’

I start to go.

There’s no point in staying. We’re nothing more than fuck friends. We’re nothing more than two people trying to get some sort of relief. We have nothing in common other than a need to get off. Our bodies want everything and our hearts want nothing.

My feet carry me forward.

Part of me wants to be stopped. Part of me wants to feel needed. The other part just wants to walk until I’ve forgotten all the centuries up until now. Part of me wants to walk until I can start over again.

I just want a second chance.

To love.

To work.

To get things right.

Up until a few years ago I thought I did have it right.

I assumed life was perfect.

I had a routine.

I had safety and security and all the things that people strive for in life.

Now I’m not sure what I have.

I hear Alicia rustling behind me.

‘Ellis, please, there’s something I need to tell you first.’

I stop moving.

‘I think I know that curly haired man you were talking about.’

And it’s a pause, a breath, and a nervous twisting of nervous fingers.

11

I’m sitting in Alicia’s kitchen. I’ve been up all night. My gut is sore and my head aches and I want to sleep but I can’t. My mind keeps moving in circles. It keeps trying to process life. It keeps trying to make sense of things that shouldn’t make sense.

Alicia is passed out on her couch.

We talked until our mouths were dry and our eyes were dull.

There was a passion in the way we spoke.

There was a cadence to our words that reminded me of what it means to be alive.

There was more to us than collagen and leathery skin; there was a depth that I thought had been lost to complacency.

I told her about Evaline.

I told her about my yesterdays.

I told her about what I had.

I told her about what I lost and about all the things in my life that make less and less sense the further I get from them.

She listened.

She replied.

She told me about her loves.

Her losses.

The little things that she misses from the years before.

Awkward hands and nervous breathing.

The conversation moved forward only to fall back.

Back to the man with curly hair.

The man who Alicia began running into a few years ago.

Right around the time that her and I began speaking. Right around the time she and I began fucking.

He had said ’hi’ to her at the grocery store.

And again the next week.

Then at the coffee shop and on the sidewalk and everywhere else until it was more than coincidence.

They would stop and chat and he would ask questions and she would answer and they would part.

I still don’t know if it has anything to do with me. That’s why my mind keeps going in circles. Maybe I’m just reading into things when I shouldn’t. Maybe I’m trying to put together a puzzle using all the wrong pieces. Maybe I’m just trying to put together the puzzle with the wrong picture in mind.

Maybe we’re talking about two different people

But it’s too coincidental.

It’s too convenient.

It has to be the same man.

And I wonder where Evaline is right now.

Is she with this curly haired man?

I breathe in deeply.

The air in Alicia’s apartment has a different taste to it.

I hold it in.

I try not to forget.

Someday I will forget.

Someday I will have to take a drug just remember this moment.

I used to think that Evaline was part of me. I used to think that she was part of my heart and part of my soul. I used to think our love was perfect and beautiful in every way. At least that’s what I kept telling myself. I told myself that our love was perfect until I believed it.

Now in this quiet moment where loss is the topic of the day, I realize that someday I will forget about her. Someday the time we spent together will seem insignificant.

Someday I will move on and find another woman and get my life together and all the yesterdays that I spent with Evaline, they will be replaced with new yesterdays, they will be replaced with new loves and passions, new moments of depression and lonely jerk off sessions on the toilet. A day will come where I won’t be the same person. A day will come where Evaline will be nothing more than a picture in a drawer.

In fifty-thousand years I won’t remember that this moment ever existed.

I let out a sigh.

I listen to the world around me.

I don’t want to forget.

Ever.

12

I take a pill.

I want to be somewhere else.

Time moves sideways.

My chest grows tight.

13

‘I love you , you fucking bitch.’

This is me.

I’m grabbing Evaline’s elbow.

She’s crying.

My nose is bleeding.

And this is love.

Uncontrolled.

Primal.

In some messed up way, this is love.

‘Let me go you fucking asshole.’ The words slip out from Evaline’s broken lips.

She slaps me. It stings my face. She keeps cussing. We’re in her apartment. She kicks my gut. My grip is gone. I’m stumbling.

My face connects with the ground. It’s cold. It soothes.

Evaline keeps yelling.

Slapping.

Punching.

I’m getting bruised.

I’m bleeding.

She runs her nails across my face. .

‘You fucking cunt, calm the fuck down.’ the words fall from my swollen lips.

My hand goes to Evaline’s shoulder. She stumbles back.

‘Leave me the fuck alone, Ellis.’

She’s on both feet.

She tells me to get out of her apartment.

‘Fuck you’ is what I manage to yell back.

My voice is broken from yelling. My eyes are clouding up. My broken skin is mixing with the air around me.

‘I’m not leaving until you apologize.’ This is my broken plea.

‘Apologize for what?’

‘For fucking another guy.’

And Evaline’s hand lays across my face for a brief second. A slap. There’s a burning where the welt raises on my skin.

‘You fucked around on me first.’

We’ve been together for one hundred years.

We’re like children.

There’s a pause.

My shoulders slump.

We’re catching our breath.

I can’t bring myself to leave.

Evaline breaks.

Knee’s to the ground.

She’s sobbing and crying and shaking and the tears mix with my blood and land on the floor like some sort of wet and sad poem.

I’m watching.

Not sure what to do.

Not sure if I care to do anything.

Eventually I’m on my knee’s next to her.

We kiss.

We kiss hard.

Our faces are wet with blood and tears and spit and passion.

We ache.

It becomes a race to undress.

Love isn’t spoken with vowels and consonants.

Love is a verb.

And we’re moaning.

On the kitchen floor.

There’s broken glass beneath us. It sandwiches between our backs and the linoleum.

We cum at the same time. Evaline throws her head back. I grunt.

Primal.

Uncontrolled.

From the gut.

This is love.

14

So I wake up and my body aches and my head hurts and my eyes burn and I have to piss. It takes a moment, but I get up.

Everything is blurry.

I can hardly see. The sleep is clouding my head.

I go to the bathroom.

My body is slumping against the wall.

The drugs are messing with me more and more every time I use them. I can feel them killing my brain and my body.

I can’t stop.

I keep holding onto yesterday.

I keep holding on and all it does is hold me back.

We’re all addicted to yesterday. Why else would this world be so nostalgic? My addiction is just a bit more physical in its nature.

I shake my head.

Everything is still blurry.

My gut is aching.

I stumble back to my room. Step by step, I’m propping myself up with the wall.

My eyes are closed.

I fall into bed.

There’s something next to me.

I turn around. It takes a second for my eyes to open properly.

It’s Evaline.

15

I didn’t realize how much I had missed her.

16

Evaline is lying next to me.

It can’t be real.

I have to be dreaming.

I am dreaming.

Except I’m not.

She’s there. Next to me. Touch, taste, smell and sight. Evaline’s there and sleeping. The same gentle snore. The same soft body movements. Even the same pajamas she wore years ago.

For a moment I can’t speak.

I can’t think.

My mind can’t process anything other than the dim glow of the world around me.

I’m lying in bed.

In my parent’s house.

Curled toes and squinting eyes.

I figure I’m finally crazy.

I reach my hand out to her.

Lay it on her shoulder.

She’s warm and soft and exactly like I remember her.

My heart feels warm.

It feels full.

I smile.

Sun in my face and parted lips; my voice cracks with a dry tongue that sticks to the roof of my mouth.

‘Evaline?’

I give her a small shake. She jerks away and lets out a tired sigh.

My hand is still on her shoulder.

The sun rises and paints the room yellow.

She tangles the sheets.

I tangle them with her.

She looks me in the eyes and smiles and yawns and breathes and exists.

‘Hey Ellis.’

Her voice and sound and cadence are exactly as I remember.

I lean in.

We kiss.

Tongue to tongue; we taste like morning.

We hug.

We hold.

It’s dramatic. It’s epic.

Cue the orchestra. Roll film.

We hold each other until I lose track of time.

Finally I whisper in her ear.

‘Where were you?’

She pauses.

17

The morning is spent in bed.

We look like quotation marks as we lay together.

It feels good.

18

We prepare dinner together.

Me and Evaline. Evaline and I. There are a million things I want to ask her; unfortunately I can’t recall any of these things. We watch the sunset. We eat.

There’s a calming feeling as she puts her hands around my arm and her head on my shoulder.

I can’t find it in me to be upset with her for leaving. She can’t find it in herself to explain where she was. We leave it at that. I missed her too much to be upset, or maybe I didn’t miss her enough.

The sun goes down the stars come up; they shine and reflect off of the glass outside. In my lifetime I have seen stars disappear from the night sky; pinholes that vanish from the landscape above. They were aged and gone long before I ever realized it had happened.

When Evaline first held my hand I felt like I was going to throw up. I wanted it so badly; I had fucked it up so much. I assumed we were never going to be together. I assumed that my chance had passed.

Right now, holding onto Evaline’s hand, I feel nervous. I feel the same way I did when we first held hands.

There were points in my life where I doubted the reality of love. I doubted the true existence of such an emotion. I broke it down and looked at it as nothing more than a chemical reaction; I dehumanized it.

At this moment; my doubt gives pause.

Inside my parent’s house we sit in silence. We take each other in.

Her hands are small and delicate and her fingernails are red and her skin is pulled and her body is tan and her teeth are white.

For a moment I feel as if I had literally dreamt of this moment some time ago.

And time, it passes far too quickly. We talk and we listen and for once I realize that Evaline is important to me. For once I don’t just know, but actually realize what Evaline means to me. I realize what it means to love her.

Our conversation moves in a gentle flow. Nothing is truly spoken but we communicate in other ways. And it’s a soft squeeze and locked eyes because words don’t seem to work. We’re inside. We’re at the kitchen table. My parents come home.

They’re together. They’re laughing. They were out dancing.

When they walk into the kitchen they give me a strange look.

I’m smiling.

They’re not.

‘Hey!’ This is me being excited.

‘Hey…’ This is my father sounding confused.

There’s a pause.

‘Isn’t this great!?’ This is me still excited.

There’s a breath.

‘Isn’t what great?’

I look at Evaline. The smile is leaving my face.

‘Evaline is here.’ I put my hand on her shoulder.

My parents look at each other. They look at me. My mother speaks first. ’No she’s not.’

There’s a nervous twisting of nervous fingers.

19

The way I felt when I first kissed Evaline was amazing. I had tried and failed before.

Like most people I base my actions off of assumptions.

Like most people: The assumptions I have are generally wrong.

I almost gave up after the first try.

Luckily I’m stupid.

Luckily my brain and my body don’t get along.

We were hanging out. We were sober.  We were watching movies. It was like so many times before.

The moon had come and gone.

We were tired.

My arm had brushed against hers earlier in the night. It made my spine shake.

Her hand had brushed my leg. It made me lose my breath.

Hour by hour we moved inch by inch.

By morning my arm was around her.

Our eyes were half open.

Our cheeks brushed.

We kissed.

It was teeth and skin and sweat until our bodies were pressed together so hard that it became difficult to breath.

We kissed until our lips became raw and our flesh was soaked.

When I left it was almost noon.

I was late for work.

Now when I’m kissing Evaline I don’t know what to feel, because I know deep down that I’m only kissing an illusion.

20

Evaline has been back for a few days now. Things feel like they used to. Except for the fact that I’m without a job. Except for the fact that I don’t have any friends.

My parents tell me to see a doctor. They’re concerned about the way I’m acting. They’re concerned about the way that I can see Evaline when she’s not really there.

I tell them about the drugs I have taken.

They look at me in shock.

They don’t know how to comprehend who I am.

There’s nothing I can say to them.

I make an appointment.

21

On the way to the doctors. I’m with Evaline. On the bus.

A man gets on. He asks if he can sit in the seat next to me. I tell him no. He looks at me with confused eyes.

He wants Evaline’s spot.

He’s missing an arm. It’s cut off at the elbow. He’s got a scar on his cheek. A crooked smile. Rough whiskers on a rough face.

He looks tired and when he talks he sounds exhausted.

He sits down in the next row back.

I turn to him and apologize.

He smiles and says it’s ok.

He has a smoky smell and a smoky voice to go with his smoky eyes.

I don’t bother to get his name.

I’m holding hands with Evaline.

She’s looking vaguely disgusted. She hates the bus. The smells. The sounds. The way it makes her stomach rattle when it lurches forward.

And the one armed man watches my hand squeeze her hand. And our eyes meet. He laughs in a restrained sort of way.

I ask him what happened to his arm.

He tells me that not many people ask him that question.

He tells me that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I ask if it hurts.

He tells me that phantom pains never go away.

I squeeze Evaline’s hand again.

I look over to her.

She’s wearing a different outfit. A different hairstyle. A different smile.

Time doesn’t make any sense.

22

I go to a doctor.

He takes a picture of my brain.

There’s something wrong with it.

He says it’s not going to get better.

He tells me it’s going to get worse.

23

Today feels like yesterday.

I get up.

Kiss Evaline.

Make Breakfast.

She wants me to start looking for work. She tells me to check the classifieds.

I start looking through the ads. I concentrate.

My head is throbbing. My jaw is clenched.

There’s an incredible weight on the left side of my head. My eyes are watering. I’m squinting.

I look around.

Evaline’s out of focus.

I can feel the beat of my heart, it causes a pounding in my skull. I go through the medicine cabinet but can’t find any medicine. I ask Evaline what I should do.

She moves her mouth. Her words don’t sync up with the moment.

‘I don’t care about your portfolios.’

I look at her with a confused look.

She looks at me. She looks at me as if nothing is wrong.

The headache leaves me as quickly as it came.

‘What did you say?’

‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘No, you said something.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘I asked you what I should do, and you replied.’

‘You didn’t ask me anything.’

‘I was just looking for headache medicine and asked you what I should do.’

‘No, you were sitting there reading the classified ads.’

It’s at this point that I feel confused.

My palms go sweaty.

I let the subject drop. I don’t know what else to say.

We finish breakfast and we go for a walk.

The pavement and fresh air are nice.

People stare as they pass me by.

24

And when we sleep, we sleep like a jigsaw. We trade off breathes as if each exhale was a cue for the other persons inhale. We dance; even in our dreams.

And when I wake I forget that she isn’t real.

And when I wake I don’t care if she is real or not.

And when I wake I hold her as if it were yesterday.

25

We’re arguing.

‘You need to get a job.’

‘I can’t.’ My voice is restrained.

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know what I can do.’

‘Do what you did for the last one thousand years.’

‘No one is hiring. This isn’t a world that has new companies springing up every five seconds. We’ve gone as far as we can go.’

‘There has to be a job out there.’ Her voice is low.

‘I thought there would be. When I first lost my job, I thought I could find another one easily. I can’t. When you lose your job, you’re done for. People don’t employ you. People don’t even look at you. I might as well be dead.’

‘We need money. We need to get out of your parent’s place.’

‘I know. I don’t know what to do though. How the fuck are we supposed to get out of here? I’m half crazy as it is.’

‘Shut up.’

And we pause.

There’s a tension.

This feels like an argument we might have had before.

And she starts to cry.

She feels helpless.

I feel helpless.

It’s like I’m suffocating underneath a frozen lake. You can see the world above you, but no matter how hard you try, you can’t get to it.

‘What about your other friends that lost their jobs? What are they doing?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t talk to them.’

‘When was the last time you talked to Franklin?’

‘I don’t know. It’s been years.’

She looks at me in disgust.

‘You’re not supposed to abandon your friends.’

‘I abandoned a lot of things.’

‘You need to hang out with him again.’

26

I’m worried about myself.

27

Franklin’s got a beard and a smile. He lets me know that he missed me. I let him know that I missed him. We shake hands and we sit together and we talk as if we never lost touch.

The truth is that it is like we never lost touch.  Because relatively speaking it hasn’t been that long since we’ve talked.

I explain that I’m living with my parents.

He laughs.

He tells me he’s living off his savings.

He tells me that he’s still married.

Still cheating on his wife.

Still acting like the same person he was ten years ago.

Like the person he was five hundred years ago.

Franklin hasn’t changed. Franklin doesn’t plan on changing. Franklin doesn’t necessarily need to change.

His wife walks in the room. She wears a frown. She nods hello. She asks if we need anything to eat. We tell her no. She leaves. She goes about her business.

I don’t know if I’ve ever even been formally introduced to her.

‘What brings you here anyway?’

Franklin sounds somewhat curious.

‘Evaline told me I should get back in touch with you.’

‘Oh, she’s back?’

‘Well, yeah, kind of.’

‘Kind of?’

I fidget. I look at the ground. I run my hand along the counter in Franklin’sFranklin’s kitchen and pause and gather my thoughts and try to figure out what I want to say.

‘It’s kind of complicated.’

I don’t want to sound crazy.

‘How so?’

‘Never-mind.’

Franklin gives me a strange look. I can’t seem to make eye contact.

‘Are you sure everything is ok?’

‘I guess.’

‘You guess?’

‘I really don’t think you’d understand.’

‘Try me.’

‘I’d rather not.’

And it goes back and forth like this until we both sound defeated.

He asks if I want to go hang out at the bar.

I tell him yes.

He grabs his jacket.

We leave.

He drives because I can’t.

We go to the same bar we used to go to.

We order the same drinks we used to drink.

Our conversation plays with the same rhythm it’s always had.

We sit with our backs to the bar. We look at the people around us. Elbows up. Chests out. Eyes wandering.

Franklin spots a girl he wants; ’I’d fuck her.’

‘I wouldn’t.’

I get a strange look. There was a time I would have agreed. Things have changed.

I want to go back to Evaline. I left her at my parent’s house. She was eating an apple. We were talking about old times. It was nice.

The bar is loud and it makes my head hurt.

We take a drink.

We talk.

Another drink.

We talk.

My head starts to spin and the lights blur together and the voices drown amongst themselves. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Evaline.

I point.

My words are slurred.

‘Hey! There’s Evaline now!’

Franklin looks at me.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Evaline! She’s right there in the bar!’

My finger points. My eyes are lit. I am lit.

Franklin laughs.

‘You’re drunk.’

We both laugh.

28

‘How was your night out with Franklin?’

‘Good. I didn’t expect to see you at the bar.’

‘Well…’

‘You should let me know next time!’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Did you have a good evening at home?’

‘It was ok. A bit uneventful. I went to bed early.’

‘I know. You were sound asleep when I got home.’

‘I was tired.’

‘I don’t blame you.’

‘I don’t blame me either!’

We laugh.

‘You looked so peaceful. You looked beautiful.’

‘I probably looked like a mess! I was probably drooling and snoring!’

‘Not at all.’

‘You flatter me.’

‘You deserve it.’

We kiss. Small. Simple. Nice.

We spend the day watching the clouds.

We spend the evening drinking wine.

We go to bed early. I wake up to a phone call.

It’s Alicia.

She saw the man with curly hair.

29

‘You fucked her?’

This is how my morning starts. Because I never bothered to talk to Evaline about the things that should matter. Because I never bothered to tell her about Alicia. It was a mistake on my part.

‘Yes.’

‘Why would you do that? Don’t you have any consideration for other people? Do you ever even think about anyone besides yourself?’

I’m feeling beaten. I don’t want to talk.

‘You were gone. I…’

She doesn’t let me finish. She keeps yelling. Her words bounce around in my skull. I wear her anger in my stomach. I feel like I’m about to lose it.

She stops for a moment.

I reflect on the phone call. I don’t know how to process it. I can’t talk about it to Evaline. I don’t even know if I can talk about it with Franklin.

She starts yelling.

Tells me I’m a horrible human being.

Tells me I’m a monster.

I stand up and look her in the eyes.

I’m unsure of what to say. And my hands rattle as if they were dancing to a nervous beat in my pockets.

I wonder if I should say nothing at all.

Maybe I should just walk away.

And Evaline stands up.

Storms out of the room and I watch her go but don’t bother following.

Instead I leave the house.

I need to talk to someone.

30

I’m on the bus.

I’m alone.

The gears grind and the people talk and the germs multiply.

Sitting next to me is the man who always rides the bus.

‘I need some advice.’

‘What kind?’ Jim’s voice is deep and rich and happy. He makes me feel comfortable. He makes me feel ok.

‘It’s kind of odd actually.’

‘I’m all ears.’

And so I start my story. I tell him about yesterday and today and how they all seem the same. I tell him about Evaline and the drugs. I tell him about my memory and her memory and my reality and everyone else’s reality.

Then I tell him about Alicia. About the phone call I just received.

The curly haired man. The one that was with the real Evaline. He contacted Alicia. He wants me to get in contact him. He wants me to meet him on this bus in a week.

I don’t know what he wants.

I tell all of this to my friend on the bus.

He listens. He tilts his head and scrunches his face in consternation.

I’m not sure what I want him to say. I’m not sure if there is anything for him to say. Maybe I just want an ear that is real for once.

Maybe I just want someone who isn’t drunk or a product of my hallucinations.

I would have gone to my parent’s, but they’re too busy living their lives to listen. So this seemed like my next best option.

‘Well, are you going to meet him?’

31

I can’t eat.

I’m nervous.

I can’t think.

I want to call Alicia.

I don’t want to get in trouble from Evaline.

She came back, but she hasn’t spoken to me since the fight. She looks at me with angry glances. She scowls at me with hurtful eyes.

Her body tells me what she would never verbalize. I feel as if we’re falling apart. I feel as if I’m falling apart. I want to hold her hand. I want to be close to her. I want her to understand that the intentions of my heart and the intentions of my body are not always one and the same.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that love is a verb.

32

The week passes with a slow crawl that makes my head ache and my nervous hands shake.

33

It’s time for me to meet the curly haired man, so I get on the bus and ride it until my stomach feels nauseated and weak. There’s nothing better to do than to listen to the chatter of other people. Unfortunately I’m having a hard time filtering the words around me. The world sounds like a mess.

My foot taps against the floor until a blister begins to swell.

My nerves won’t let me go.

She’s going to die.

She was going to die.

Evaline is burning down the city.

Building by building.

She is tearing down all that is old.

I begin piecing things together.

I look at my hands.

I’m over two thousand years old.

I’m starting to feel it.

The bus stops.

The man, the one with curly hair. He gets on. Our eyes meet. He walks to the back of the bus. My vision starts to go blurry. My right side goes numb. My eyes roll to the back of my head and my body starts to shake. I can feel my heartbeat in my head.

Everything goes black like a moonless night. And while I can feel my breath escaping from my lungs, there isn’t much else that I do feel.

When I open my eyes I’m no longer on the bus.

When I open my eyes I’m no longer with the curly haired man.

I’m on a couch. My old couch. I’m in my old apartment. I sit up. I look over. Evaline is walking through the door.

Part III

Someone once told me something profound. He told me of a saying by the Australian Aboriginals. It’s short and sweet and goes like this:

‘I’m surprised that you do not spin off the Earth in your loneliness.’

What he meant was not what I had perceived.

The Aboriginals do not think in the way that most westerners do. They have many voices in their heads, the voices of their ancestors and their family. They are constantly speaking with friends and people they care about. Within their head exists a multitude of consciousness.

‘I’m surprised that you do not spin off the Earth in your loneliness.’

They felt we were insane for only having one voice in our head.

Sometimes I wonder if they’re right.

1

I should know who I am by now.

2000 and some years old and I don’t even know when I am.

I look at Evaline sitting next to me. I begin to wonder if this is another hallucination. I begin to wonder if she’s anymore real than the Evaline I’ve been staying with these last few weeks.

The doctor told me that things would get worse. That my brain would start to cause me more and more problems. The drugs, they’ve starting eating away at my memory. They’ve started mixing things up.

Evaline looks upset. This moment is familiar. I’ve lived it before.

I ask what’s wrong.

She starts to shake. She buries her head into my arm. Her shoulders clench.

Her body quivers in a rhythmic way.

I’d hold her eyes if she cried them out.

She tells me that she’s been cheating on me. She tells me that she has been seeing another man.

And then it all clicks. I had forgotten about this. It happened over a thousand years ago. We moved past it. I think. She cheated on me and I got upset. We almost broke up for good. Then for some stupid reason, we ended up back together.

And I want to tell her things will be ok, that she doesn’t need to cry. That I love her and want to work through all of this. I just want to be with her. But those words, those words that lay on the tip of my tongue; they never bother spilling out into the air around me.

It’s like a dream.

Because all I want to do is love her but all I can seem to do is yell.

She’s crying.

I’m furious.

Red faced.

Shaking.

‘Who was it?’

And she doesn’t answer.

And I already know who it was. I know because I’ve lived through this moment before. The answer, it’s stuck in my head. It was just some guy. Someone I never knew. Someone she knew from work. Inconsequential from start to finish.

‘Was it Franklin?’

I have no control over my mouth or the words that seem to be forming within it. I feel possessed. And this, this is my séance. This is where I call upon the dead to inform the present.

I’d say that this was a dream, but I know that it’s not. It’s too real. It’s too tangible. I’m too in the moment.

And Evaline. She won’t even look at me.

I want to tell her that it’s ok, because I love her and that love means that I’m going to try to make things work.

Regardless of the emotions that I feel at the moment, I will try.

And Evaline. She starts to walk away. She tells me she needs to be alone. She tells me not to follow her.

She walks into the next room.

I follow.

She’s on the phone. She’s trying to call someone. Trying to have someone make her feel ok.

I want to hug her but instead I pull the phone from her hand and throw it to the floor.

I know that this is what I did before, but it all feels wrong now.

And perhaps I’ve grown more than I realize.

Evaline picks up the phone and starts dialing again.

‘Leave me alone you fucking asshole.’

‘You need to stop running from this goddamned situation. You need to answer my questions and at least give me an iota of respect.’

‘Go away. Just go the fuck away. You’re a fucking asshole. I cheated on you because you don’t even respect me as a person. You treat me like shit. You’re selfish, self centered and manipulative.’

This is the part where I fall apart.

This is the part where things go black.

And as my chest raises and my lungs fill with air, all I can feel is my body deflating.

My face goes pale.

My hands tremble.

I open my eyes.

My hands and feet are tied.

I’m in a room, on a chair.

It’s silent.

It’s dark.

It’s familiar

2

Someone whispers in my ear: ‘You’re dying and you don’t even know it.’

And moments pass in a fragmented hallucination.

3

We weren’t always in need of saving.

Then a man came along and told us that we were.

Many people believed it.

Many people still believe it.

It’s easy to think we’re flawed. It’s easier to think that death is our salvation from these flaws. So what happens when we don’t die?

Why would we need salvation if it can never be reached?

And maybe that’s the key to it all, belief in something we can never reach. It gives us motivation, a reason to keep moving. That or it makes us lazy. Because deep down, in our hearts and our guts, we know that we’ll never be saved and no matter what we do, no matter how despicable we are as human beings, there is nothing that will right our wrongs.

Dylan, that’s the man with the curly hair’s name, he tells me that he wants to die. He wants something bigger than himself. Perhaps salvation. Perhaps the preservation of a natural order.

He speaks to me, but I only hear pieces.

‘Death gives a purpose.’

‘Without out it we are aimless and boring.’

‘Sculpted, tanned and without hope or dreams.’

‘You don’t run a race if you know that it doesn’t matter when you finish.’

Dylan tells me that death is our best friend and our greatest teacher.

And this is what it’s like waking up from a head injury:

First things are foggy. Then the fog lifts and then you’ve got a stranger with curly hair telling you that you’ve wasted your life.

At least this is how things are for me.

Tied up.

Freaked out.

A little dizzy.

And I’m trying to figure out if what I just experienced, the little flashback with Evaline, was it a dream or was it a hallucination?

I can’t tell.

And behind Dylan is Evaline. The Evaline from my head. She’s looking nervous and silent and when I make eye contact with her, she quickly looks away.

I want to tell her to leave. I want to tell her that she doesn’t need to see me like this.

I want to tell her these things, but I also want to preserve some form of dignity in front of Dylan. So I keep my mouth shut and listen to what he’s telling me.

The rope is hurting my wrists.

And so he continues with his diatribe. His little song and dance about death.

I nod my head and act like I’m paying attention.

I act like I’m paying attention, yet I can’t take my eyes off of Evaline.

She smiles.

I smile.

Dylan looks behind his shoulder and then back at me.

‘Are you listening to me?’

‘Death is my greatest teacher.’

He shakes his head. He looks behind his shoulder again; thrown off and agitated.

He leaves the room.

My stomach growls.

I’m starving.

I’m still tied up.

I start to pass out.

I dream of Evaline.

In this dream she tells me that she was cheating. I tell her that we’ve been together for centuries, we’re bigger than one single fuck up.

When I wake up, my bones ache and my jaw is numb.

When I wake up, I open my eyes to a fist pulling back.

4

They say that you’re only as good as what you can take.

I must be no good.

I’m ready to cry after the first swing.

And I yell: ‘Fuck off you asshole.’

No one’s listening

And then I feel a tooth go loose as the back of my skull starts to do a shimmy and a shake.

It’s Dylan.

I start thrashing around, wildly.

My body aches and I can feel blood dripping from my smashed-in face. I yell again. Louder. No one listens. Louder. No one responds.

Another fist and my brains are starting to feel like syrup in my skull. And it’s a pause and a breathe and a nervous twisting of nervous fingers as I feel my skull bounce against a wall.

Dylan asks if I’m ready to listen. If I’m ready to change. If I’m ready to acknowledge that everything ends.

I fail to understand.

I look at Evaline.

She’s watching me.

She looks strange. She’s looking distorted.

I’m not ready to listen. I don’t want to listen. I don’t care what this asshole has to say to me.

His diatribes about death, they’re meaningless. All I want is information on Evaline. The real Evaline.

So Dylan stands up and paces around with an obvious frustration.

And I ask: ‘So you’re the one that burns down all the buildings?’

And he looks at me.

Curly hair resting against his sweaty forehead. It’s angry eyes and heavy breathing as his fists begin to ball.

‘What does that matter right now?’

‘Well, I was just curious.’

And he doesn’t say anything. He just stands there, hovering over me, breathing heavily. Clenching his bloody fists. I watch my blood drip from his knuckles. I watch it pool on the floor. The light from above reflects on it and provides a deep red coloring; like a ripe cherry.

‘I guess you don’t have to answer that.’

And it feels like my voice is caught in my throat. It tries to move past the blood that slowly drips down to my gut, but it fails. My voice is rough and hoarse. My voice bubbles and quakes with the sound of a disrupted complacency.

And Dylan stops.

‘It was me.’

He crouches in front of me.

And I ask ‘Do you think you can just beat me into submission?’

He pauses with a thoughtful look. I feel tired as I watch him contemplate and eventually open his mouth.

‘I’m not trying to beat you into submission, I’m trying to beat you out of it’ and he looks at my broken face. ‘There is no sense of loss or fear in this world.’

And I’m listening to the words, but they’re not making any sense.

‘Loss and fear?’

‘Why do you think I’m hitting you?’

Things have suddenly calmed down.

‘Because you’re an asshole.’

I feel like I’m choking.

‘Because you don’t know how to feel scared.’ He pauses. ‘You aren’t scared and you don’t truly know what it means to feel anything other than complacency.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘How so?’

‘I feel sad because I’ve lost Evaline. I know what I feel.’

‘Do you?’ He stands up. ‘I don’t think you do.’ He paces. ‘You’ve felt approximations… variations. You’ve probably even felt a dull ache that feels similar to the emotions that you’re truly capable of. But I don’t know that you’ve felt loss or fear since you were a child.’

He walks across the room and his voice goes soft and gentle. ‘Human beings have an incredible capacity to adapt. We have an incredible ability to quickly feel complacent and forget what everything else might feel like. You may think that you’ve felt loss. You may think that you’ve felt fear. But even if you have, you’ve forgotten. You’ve realized, possibly consciously, possibly subconsciously, that you are going to live forever. You’ve realized that, in the end, nothing really matters. You’ve adapted to the sharp pain that love entails and you’ve lost the fear of loss, because when life is infinite, nothing is lost forever.’

And Dylan paces around some more. He looks at me. He smiles and then frowns.

‘When I was younger I felt things in the slightest of ways. I didn’t know death and therefore never knew consequence. Without consequence, I never felt fear or loss. Without fear or loss you can never know what love and happiness are. Because love and happiness, they are predicated on the notion of fear and loss. There is a give and take to our emotional spectrum, and once you take one simple thing like death out of the formula, everything else leaves.’

A dull ache crawls along my skin.

‘You have approximations of emotions, but you do not know how intense they can become.’

And I start to open my mouth to ask a question. I start, but I don’t manage. My words fail and fall and falter and I’m left without so much as a sound.

‘She just wants you to understand.’

And with that, Dylan leaves the room.

Evaline watches me with a blank stare.

I’m feeling something, I just don’t know what it is.

And I’m aching.

And the pain is starting to make me dizzy.

And my eyes fall shut.

And I dream.

5

I’m nothing without passion. I haven’t been passionate in a millennia.

I dream of passion with Evaline.

It’s a sensation that feels foreign.

It’s a sensation that I cannot articulate nor truly comprehend.

I thought I knew what it was.

Turns out the entirety of my life has been the equivalent of the sun cresting the horizon but never truly rising.

6

I wake up and I can’t see straight. I ache but I’m not aching like I should be. I’m feeling somewhat comfortable.

And then I realize that my head is on a pillow.

And I realize that I’m in my parent’s house.

On my bed.

And Evaline is laying next to me.

I press myself against her fake body and I smell her fake hair and I kiss her fake neck.

My lips are sore.

They sting. They’re swollen.

I should go see a doctor.

But I won’t.

The pain will linger.

The pain will last.

The pain will remind me that things can be more than what I let them be.

And I am a creature of limits. Limits that I impose on myself. Limits that I have created and held onto without truly knowing or understanding

And I kiss Evaline’s neck and she moans and twists and turns like I always remember her doing. She turns to me and smiles and buries her face into mine and we embrace, for a moment I think that maybe it’s something that I can hold onto.

I can’t.

I’m beginning to realize that what I know, it’s not real.

I get up.

Brush my teeth.

Look in the mirror.

My face is swollen and my eyes are black and blue and my nose is crooked.

I need to change.

7

I keep pulling my hair as if that will change the world.

And it doesn’t help that I see her all the time. She’s right there but I know that she’s not. And no matter how hard I try to lie to myself, I can’t seem to make the situation something that works for me.

I’m sick to my stomach with a guilty burn that reminds me of an emotion that I thought I forgot.

I wish I could find her.

And I look at her.

I want to yell.

I do yell.

‘I want you back!’

And she looks at me and I know she’s not real but she’s all I have.

‘Then find me.’

And I stand there for a second. There’s chatter in the background from a television that’s on too loud.

I can’t find much to say. My heart is racing and my forehead shines with a sweat that comes from nerves that burn.

Because I don’t know if I can love her like she deserves to be loved.

Because I don’t know if I can change who I am.

Because I now doubt all the emotions that I’ve ever had.

But I guess that’s what it’s all about. Fear and doubt. Right now, my greatest fear, it’s of being alone forever.

Forever is a long time.

And I know that she can’t answer, but I ask anyway:

‘Where are you?’

With my body slumping over, with my frame sitting on the edge of a bed that’s older than it has any right to be, with my heart trying to crack my ribs and my lips that scab from pain I’ve felt, with all of this, I want her to know that I want her back.

And she stands there and stares and she tells me that she’ll know where she is when I know where she is. And me, I’m feeling like I should already know, because I was with the curly haired man. We were in the city, I know we were. And so I know that she’s in the city. I know she is. She had to be with him. She had to be somewhere close. She had to be watching. She knew where I was.

And maybe it’s wishful thinking.

And I know everything has a meaning.

There’s no way that I would be abducted for no reason at all. Maybe this is her way of telling me what she’s up to these days. Maybe she’s trying to let me know that everything is ok.

I have no clue.

I just want to hold her.

So instead of sulking, I grab a bag. I go to a dresser. I throw some clothes into it. Evaline, the one that’s part of my brain, she looks at me and she starts to ask what I’m doing but the words never come out of her mouth.

She knows what I’m doing.

I sit down at a table. Part of me feels that I should write a note to my parents, let them know where I’m going. The other part of me, it knows that they won’t notice that I’m gone. I’ve been gone ever since I got here. I’m a broken down mess.

I’m a broken down mess and while they may notice it, they don’t know what to do about it.

I don’t bother with a note.

I grab my bag and ask Evaline if she’s coming.

‘Do I have a choice?’

And with that we walk out the door.

I don’t have a car.

There are no reliable means of transportation.

So I go to Franklin.

Three knocks and he opens the door.

‘What happened to your fa…’

I push him inside and close the door behind us. He looks confused.

‘I’m going to find Evaline, either you come with me or you give me your car.’

And Franklin, he’s looking at me with big stupid eyes that betray a confusion that I don’t care to explore. All I want is to get where I need to be.

And Franklin starts to open his mouth.

8

Time passes as if it’s going somewhere. It keeps moving as if there’s an end destination. There isn’t.

No change.

No progress.

9

I’m driving Franklin’s car.

Moving down a city street at a slow pace. Franklin, he elected to stay at home. Told me that he wanted the car back by the end of the week. I have five days.

Evaline, she’s my passenger.

She’s my illusion.

She’s my purpose.

And I’m driving as if I know where I’m going. The problem is that I don’t. There is no set path. I don’t know where to start.

I only know where I want things to end.

And Evaline, she smiles.

And I pull into a gas station.

The car rolls to a stop and it feels good to be mobile. It feels good not to be trapped on a bus and faking conversations with strangers as if they had some sort of relevance in my life.

I park.

Kill the engine.

Stare out the window.

I’m not sure what I’m doing.

I’d ask for directions if I weren’t so aimless.

I’m like a shotgun spraying the canvas of this city until I finally hit some vague semblance of a target.

And so goes my life.

My chest aches.

I look at Evaline.

I go to hold her hand as if that will dull the feeling that reminds me of something I never realized I had. I stop short. Pause and look down. Her wrist is frail and she’s wearing a bracelet that I bought her for an anniversary that I never truly appreciated. She always wore that bracelet.

I get out of the car.

Breathe in the air around me. It fills my lungs and I smile and I walk and pause and look at the car. I look at Evaline. She smiles at me. She waves.

I walk through the gas station door.

I hear a chime.

Then things move sideways.

I’m with Evaline.

In our old apartment.

We’re naked.

10

And someone once told me that love will find a way.

Someone once told me that love wins.

People tell me that love can do a lot of things.

Right now it provides me with a sweaty fuck that makes my eyebrows curl and my jaw ache.

Right now I’m with Evaline.

In our old bed.

Remembering.

Existing.

And I would say that we’re both younger, but youth has no meaning when there is no such thing as ‘old’.

We kiss.

Our lips hover and lock.

My veins feel as if they’re tangling with her heartstrings and my hands feel as if they’ll never be able to let go of what they think they have.

I whisper.

‘Stay.’

She moans.

She kisses my cheek.

And I wish I could express what this means to me. The chance to be who I was. The chance to live what I’ve already had.

There are moments in my head where all is lost to hopeless romanticism. There are moments in my heart where nothing exists but the passion of a love that can only be imagined.

At least these are the things I’ve told myself in the past. In the days where I didn’t doubt the emotions that I thought existed in my body.

I kiss Evaline.

Her sweat lingers on me.

It isn’t real.

It’s a memory.

I think it’s a memory.

It has to be a memory.

My head is beyond messed up.

And Evaline kisses hard and shoves her tongue deep into me. Her back arches and her fingers lock and she lets out the smallest of sounds as our love and lust mix up and become confused in the most physical of their representations.

She lays next to me.

We’re sweating.

Soaking the bed.

Both of us breathe heavily as if the oxygen we suck in can somehow replace the pieces of our souls that we give to each other.

She tells me that she loves me.

I open my mouth to tell her the same.

My eyes are closed.

I suck in the air and the words come out and my eyes open and my hands are on the steering wheel of Franklin’s car and we’re somewhere in the city.

I don’t know what’s going on.

And as the words escape my lips, they start to feel hollow. The start to feel used and bored.

Imaginary-Evaline, she looks at me and smiles. She tells me that she loves me back.

I pull over.

Get out and start to walk as if I know where I’m going.

All I know is that I’m going somewhere. And my feet start to ache and my body starts to sweat and I realize that I’ve just walked to our old apartment.

I sit on the front steps.

I’d say that it brings back memories but all it does is cause me to lose my breath. I’m tired of remembering.

All that I want is to be.

Then I realize that Evaline, the imaginary one, she didn’t follow me.

And I’m feeling that much lonelier.

11

When you’re infinite, you don’t think of the future. Yet, somehow, all you ever manage to do is reminisce about the past.

12

I fell asleep on the stoop where we spent so many good years. Curled up and aching on the concrete of this city.

I’m trying to find something, I’m just not sure what it is anymore.

I’m not sure what’s compelling me. I’m not sure why my feet move in the circles that they do.

There aren’t many things I’m too sure of at this point.

And so I’m rubbing sleep out of my eyes.

I can’t see straight. I can’t seem to move in a line that resembles progress. The present folds into the past and all I can do is experience the cruelty that yesterday provides when shown in the context of today.

There are moments when I believe that she is through with me.

There are times when I think that all I ever worked for was irrelevant.

And then I realize that I never knew what I had.

I realize that I’ve never felt what it really was.

And maybe there aren’t any goodbyes when it comes to infinity.

And maybe I’ll be able to feel something that I’ve never felt.

Maybe I’ll begin to realize what I had.

Maybe I’ll appreciate what I have.

I stretch and yawn and I look at the sun as it moves away from the sky and back to the Earth.

I look at the city around me; it feels like things are closing in.

I close my eyes and I feel that familiar sensation.

My lungs twist inside my body.

My mouth goes dry.

13

It’s a strange ache that crushes my heart until the beating crawls to a near stop.

Evaline is leaving me.

I had forgotten.

And it’s a full body shake as she walks out the door. I can’t quite make sense of the feeling. It’s a sadness, I’m aware of this, it’s just… deeper.

‘You know, we could have made this work.’

And I’m struggling for words. It’s like gasping for air.

And the me of now, I’d like to tell her she’s beautiful. That she’s the chorus to my verse.

Instead it’s:

A pause.

A breath.

A nervous twisting of nervous fingers.

And she’s waiting for me to say something. To make her want to stay with me. I don’t have language for the way I feel. My love is in the shaking of my hands and the weight in my chest. And for all I’m worth, I can’t seem to translate the beats of my heart.

My mouth won’t open.

My lips won’t part.

She leaves. She leaves me with glassy eyes. She’s leaving with a friend.

Packed bags and a sense of purpose.

The me of now; I know she’ll come back. Yet, the melancholy gravity I feel, it betrays otherwise.

Does she know what she means?

What she means to me?

And so I sit.

Alone.

The sun creeps through the window and I watch it crawl along the floor. There’s a static feel in the air.

There are moments where I glance at the door, half expecting her to walk back through. It’s a hope that keeps me going.

I had forgotten this feeling.

Perhaps I had blocked it out.

Perhaps my brain wanted to spare me.

I’ve been left by many women, and while I’d deceived myself into believing that I’d toughened, and that I was strong; it’s now obvious that was a ruse.

And so I sit.

Shallow breathes.

I’m waiting for something to happen.

For Evaline to come back.

For my heart to be content.

The sun disappears and moonlight shines through the window and into my apartment.

It feels nice to watch the stars come out. It’s nice to feel as if I am of no consequence. To feel that the moon and the stars will exist without my regard.

And still I live.

Stars keep disappearing from the sky.

The sun keeps aging.

Everything keeps moving.

Here in the past, waiting for Evaline, I know that she won’t come back for quite sometime. But somehow I’m finding a comfort in knowing that she will indeed be back.

Someday.

And my eyes grow heavy.

I sink into my old chair.

I flutter in and out.

And then it’s no longer yesterday.

But I’m still in my apartment.

14

My head feels like it’s going to split open at any second. My eyes slow to a dizzy sort of spin that seems to tell my body that everything is not going to be all right.

Because this isn’t my home.

Because this, at one point and time, it was my home.

And there’s a shaking to my gut as I see my old place worn down by someone else’s life.

My initial thought is to panic. To Run. To leave it behind.

But I don’t.

I sit down on a couch that I never would have bought and I think about how things used to be.

They’re thoughts I can never seem to escape.

It seems that all I do is exist within my yesterdays.

And the sound of my feet tapping the floor reminds me of the loneliness I would feel. Sitting next to Evaline. Watching TV. Waiting for something to happen. Waiting for my heart to explode.

But I wasn’t lonely, was I?

We fought and fucked through every inch of this place. For hundreds of years we wore this place to the bone. And then we would rebuild.

We would always rebuild.

I miss her.

Her memory.

Her skin.

Her way of existing.

And I know it’s locked in my head.

But somehow that’s never going to be good enough.

I miss feeling frustrated to the point where I’d jerk off into the toilet and go to sleep early because all I wanted was to feel her skin against my skin but all I ever got was a shove and a dirty look.

It wasn’t like that, was it?

A pause.

A breathe.

I’m waiting for something to happen.

Nothing happens.

And so it’s a nervous twisting of nervous fingers, because I want to remember her for all that is good. And suddenly, I feel like I’m remembering her for all that really was.

My head hurts.

I’ve got fingers that try to shake their way off my hands.

I need to walk.

I need to get up and out of here. Away from all that this is, or was.

And my heart is beating up my Adams apple as I stand to go.

I pause and there’s a feel of static.

Evaline comes and goes from my vision.

I shake my head.

Blink.

Try to stay in this moment and out of that moment.

I start towards the door.

Look back.

Look to the spot where she first told me that she was going to die. I was so disinterested. I didn’t know.

I didn’t understand.

I still don’t know what it means.

To die.

To lose someone.

And as I stand there lost within my wreck of a brain, I hear a jingle outside.

Keys.

A voice.

Another voice.

Feet shuffle.

The doorknob turns.

15

Someone once told me that 99% of our actions are based on fear.

Fear of love.

Of losing love.

Of living.

Of not living.

16

The door opens. The couple, the tanned, pulled and peeled couple with skin that looks like plastic hanging off a skeleton; they pause when they see me.

They’re unsure of how to process what they see.

Me.

A stranger in their house.

In their living room.

This doesn’t happen.

This shouldn’t be happening.

I’m just as shocked to see them. Because they look like we did. Like Evaline and I. When we were together. When nothing was changing. When everything was comfortably the same.

They look like Evaline and I when things were nice.

And then the lady, her face pulls and shifts. It bunches and twists. I watch it change in a surreal sort of fashion. And now she’s looking like Evaline.

She is Evaline.

Though I know she’s not.

The man next to her. He remains the same. Staring at me with a slack jaw.

I’m staring back.

My head starts to hurt.

And Evaline, she says:

‘Who the fuck are you?’

And me, I know it’s not her. I know this, but still I say:

‘Evaline, It’s me…’

I pause.

Breathe.

Everything feels muted and gray. Everything seems slightly darker. Everything feels as if it’s shifted.

‘It’s Ellis. I miss you…’

And my words come out in an unsure croak that lets me know that my body and mind aren’t going to be getting along.

‘Who the fuck is Evaline?’

And I watch her face change again. Back to someone that I don’t know.

I stutter and stammer until words fail me and the man in front opens his mouth.

‘Jackie, call the police.’

And he’s calm and collected. He’s not bothered. There’s no reason. Things like this, they don’t happen. The routine is complacency. The challenge is in knowing how to react to anything that challenges this.

And Jackie, the girl who would’ve been Evaline. She’s got a flippant attitude and a puzzled voice as she asks what the number for the police is.

Because sometimes it’s easy to forget that the police even exist.

And I’ve got a full body panic as my guts start shaking and my head starts aching.

My hands sweat.

And the man who actually lives here; he’s telling me to stay put. He’s still scrambling to get the police on the phone.

My feet feel antsy and I start to wind up.

I need to leave.

And the man’s face, it pulls back. Further. Tighter. Higher. And then he’s Franklin.

And I’m not sure what to do.

‘Franklin?’

My eyes are wide.

My skin fills strange.

I keep searching for air. For oxygen. For something to keep me going.

I know this isn’t Franklin.

My eyes squeeze shut and then pull back open.

And it’s the stranger and his wife. But the apartment, it’s changed. It’s decorated.

The apartment is now the one that I lived in.

The decoration is all there.

And my body goes sick.

Spinning.

Aching.

Sweating.

This doesn’t make sense.

I just want Evaline.

And then she’s standing next to both of them.

Evaline and this strange couple. Suddenly yesterday and today don’t seem all that different.

I feel the panic in my gut begin to boil until I’m able to articulate the sensation with a primal sort of yelling.

‘Fuck.’

And I run.

The man, he tries to grab me. But he’s weak and scared and really doesn’t know much of what to do. This might as well be a movie to him. This might as well be the eight hundredth sequel to the same action franchise that he’s been watching since his childhood.

I move right past him with a shake and a twist.

To the door.

My hands fumble.

I slow down.

Grab the knob.

I’m out.

My feet hit the sidewalk and there’s a distant yelling as I tear out as fast as I can. Until every part of my body feels like it’s on fire.

My nerves are spastic.

I stop.

My hands go to my knees and my back arches.

I throw up.

It burns.

Everything burns.

My mind races and my eyes light up.

My head spins and my thoughts combust.

I think of the tape. The one with Evaline and the stranger. Lighting fires. Destroying old buildings.

Burning down yesterday.

Burning everything.

And my body is electric. Everything burns.

And then I hear a siren.

17

My legs hurt.

The world is a blur.

I want to be safe.

I want to be sound.

I can’t seem to get anywhere. I can’t seem to get away from the screaming sirens that chase me though this endless city. They whisper through the alleys and they dance down the streets.

People crane their necks and watch as I fall apart with each footfall. People point. They laugh. They stare. Some take pictures. Some people don’t notice me at all.

I run and the word runs around me.

I move past the restaurant where I had my first date with Evaline. I see her inside. I see her drinking. I see her waiting for me.

It’s not real.

Franklin drives by me in the car that I had borrowed from him.

It’s not real.

If lungs could pop, I’m sure that mine would. Instead they just ache. Instead they just tell me that no matter how good you make yourself look, it doesn’t mean that you’re actually in shape.

I’m false advertising.

And then I trip.

Stumble.

Prepare for the pavement.

When my face hits the ground I find myself laughing. Because this is insanity. Because this can’t be real. Because I’ve most assuredly lost my mind.

I flash back to the doctor.

He told me that things were going to get worse.

And I wish I would have prepared myself, although I know that I never could have.

The sirens keep coming.

I pick myself up.

Start to move.

I feel fear. Is this fear? It feels familiar. Maybe I’ve known it all along. Maybe this is how I’ve gotten this far.

I dodge into an alley and then realize that was a horrible idea. A dead end that smells like garbage. I turn around and hit the sidewalk.

Maybe I shouldn’t be running.

Maybe I should slow down and walk. Act normal. Blend in. Get lost.

I’m always lost.

And I see my parents. They walk past me holding hands.

I stop.

‘Mom! Dad!’

I’ve got a whirlwind tempo to my voice. It’s how I imagine dizziness might sound.

They both look at me. They smile. Their fingers are locked tight. They’re locked together. They’ve become the same person. Figuratively speaking, of course.

‘You’ve got to help me. I don’t know what’s wrong. My head. It’s fucked up. I can’t seem to get anything straight anymore. I can’t seem to make sense of anything.’

They smile and disappear.

Yesterday becomes today and back again.

I see Alicia. I know she’s not real. I haven’t seen her in years. Or have I? When was the last time I saw her.

I’m not sure anymore.

I ask her what to do.

She tells me the same thing she told me before I took off on this stupid adventure to try and excavate and reclaim my past.

She tells me to find Evaline.

She’s probably right.

I need an anchor. I need something to tie me down. I need something.

The sirens scream.

I thank Alicia.

She disappears.

I start to run.

Pick up the pace.

I don’t know where to find Evaline. I still want to find her. I’m still trying. It’s all that I’m holding onto at this point.

Evaline is running next to me. Her memory, it smiles. I smile back.

There’s a loneliness that pushes me.

But there are times where I wonder if I’m not as lonely as I thought I was.

And I cut through several side streets. The good thing about being ageless is that you get to know the city fairly well throughout your life.

I climb a fence.

My feet make a clapping sound as they hit the sidewalk. I pause and check myself. I’m pushing my body too hard. It feels like it’s going to fall apart.

I keep running and I start to wonder what is holding me together.

The sirens begin to grow distant.

I begin to slow.

The stars are out. Burning up the night sky. I’m at a jog and I look up to the night above. It reminds me of a thousand other nights.

It’s peaceful.

And then the sirens disappear. Perhaps they’re still looking for me. Perhaps they’re not. I don’t know. I doubt they even know who I am. I doubt they even care by this point.

And the couple who were living in my old place, they’ve probably already moved on. They probably don’t care that I’ve come and gone. And why would they? I’m the smallest of speed bumps in an endless life.

I get to my parent’s house. Walk inside. It’s dark and dusty and I don’t care.

I walk to my room and sit down.

18

For all the years I have lived, I’ve accumulated so little.

A scattered few pictures that sit in a box and beg to be reminisced upon. Candid moments sealed in my memory. A hazy recognition of times that were once important.

Time may have little meaning, but it takes its toll.

The past is a mish-mash of what I can manage to untangle from my knotted brain. It’s a kaleidoscope of pieces that pretend to be a whole.

And I’m sitting in my room.

Thumbing through memories.

Holding onto Evaline.

And she sits down next to me. But it’s not really her. A memory. Although at this point I’m no longer sure if that’s any less real.

My fingers touch her fingers.

Why do I always come back here?

To these memories.

To my parent’s place.

Everything in my life seems centered on what was.

My eyes meet her eyes and it’s a shy sort of greeting that betrays feelings which were thought to be forgotten.

And the stars outside creep through the windows and into our laps.

‘You know, I miss you.’

It’s not a profound statement. It’s just what I feel. And the words come out in a slow crawl that tells me I’m giving up hope.

I hold her hand tightly because I can’t let go.

And Evaline, or at least her memory, pauses with a thoughtful look.

She asks:

‘Do you remember the last time we went camping?’

And the memory, it’s faded and washed out. There are moments I can recall. I remember it was a good time.

We kissed.

I remember the shuffling sound of our sleeping bags as they rubbed against the tent; as we thrust our hips together like maybe it was our last time.

I remember the crackling of fire.

‘I think I remember’

She smiles. Puts her head on my shoulder.

‘Where did you go?’

She doesn’t answer.

And it’s a soft kiss on the cheek that makes my body remember what it never forgot.

‘I told you where to meet me. You just don’t know it yet.’

And I feel my body tense up.

She’s right. I think.

But my mind, it doesn’t work how I want it to.

I put my arm around her and look out the window. I’m watching the stars.

Thoughts wander.

I hear a door open and shut.

My parents are home. They’re talking to each other. Laughing. They’re in the kitchen.

My Dad:

‘I love you.’

‘Oh stop it, you’re drunk!’

‘Baby!’

‘Is Ellis here?’

‘I don’t know. He’s been so in and out anymore. Probably not.’

‘I wish he could get over her.’

‘Babe, I don’t know what I’d do if you left me.’

‘Yes you do, you’d move on!’

‘Maybe I wouldn’t want to.’

And I look over to Evaline.

I need to remember.

19

It feels like my past is chasing me.

I can feel it breathing down my neck; and the hairs stand on end like they’re trying to escape my body.

So I ask my mom for pictures.

For reminders.

For something that will allow me to give myself to the past. So I can remember what was. So I can remember the moments in my life that have meaning.

So I can remember what I already know.

Because I know there are answers.

And I know I’ve said that time has little meaning to me, the reality is that it’s taken everything from me.

The things I cherish.

The things I want.

The things I didn’t know I wanted.

And when I ask my mom for these photographs, she gives me a strange look. A look filled with pity. A look that tells me that she no longer knows me.

I’ve changed.

My face is sunken with a desperation that is reminiscent of hope.

For once in my life; I need something instead of simply wanting.

And my mom, with her warm eyes and distant words; she tells me that she doesn’t have any.

And my face doesn’t change, but inside I am lost.

‘Why would we have those pictures?’

I stammer.

‘We lost those ages ago.’

The word still won’t come.

I look at the floor and try to think of something to say. Something that will make me feel as if I’m not completely lost.

‘Ellis,are you ok?’

And I look up. My cheeks are flush and my body is warm.

My mom, she wraps her arms around me. I feel my body go limp as I start to relax.

And I may have forgotten how to love Evaline, but I still remember that I love her.

I tell my mom thanks.

I walk back to my room.

I’m feeling like a child. Thousands of years old and aimless.

My brain is rotting in my head. I know this because a doctor told me so. I know this because I see Evaline even when she’s not around.

And I got to my room.

I want to speak to her.

And she’s sitting on my bed.

‘I can’t find a picture.’

‘We never took pictures all that much.’

‘I know. I guess I just wish we had.’

And she doesn’t reply.

‘You know I’m scared to lose you.’

‘You lost me years ago.’

‘I know, I guess I took you for granted.’

I pause.

The words keep coming: ‘Just like every other fucking thing in my life. My job, my family… I didn’t care and I’m still not sure if I do care. But I think this is what it feels like. To give a shit about something other than the motions I’ve always gone through.’

‘You always cared in your own sort of way.’

‘And by this you mean my own self absorbed sort of way.’

‘Well, it’s not like I wasn’t guilty.’

‘We were pretty comfortable with things.’

‘How could we not have been?’

‘I still don’t know what caused you to run away. I still don’t know what it was that caused you to change.’

‘I don’t know either.’

‘…’

And we pause.

Hold hands.

Her head is on my shoulder as we sit on the edge of my bed.

‘I wish you could just tell me where to find you.’

‘It’s never gonna be that simple.’

It’s a pause.

A breath.

A nervous twisting of nervous fingers.

Because I know she’s right.

Because I know whatever messed up part of my head that controls what this imaginary Evaline says, it’s right.

And I’m scared to lose her even if I’ve already lost her.

And I keep telling that to myself.

For ten long years I’ve told this to myself..

I’ve already lost her.

And though my head and heart want to make sense of it, my body and my being won’t let me.

At least I think that’s how it is.

Anymore, I don’t know.

And the sun creeps in and warms me.

I close my eyes and feel it on my body.

And the sun creeps out.

I open my eyes as my body shivers.

I turn to Evaline.

‘Now what?’

‘I don’t know.’

And my eyes go to pill bottle on my dresser.

20

My life has been a constant series of unmet expectations and this is no different.

I keep waiting as if something will happen. The walls don’t slide away. The world doesn’t shift. Nothing seems to happen.

And I sit in my bed. Evaline sleeps next to me.

Rays of light illuminate the particles of dust that fill the room.

I can’t tell you the last time I dusted.

I can’t tell anyone much of anything these days.

I close my eyes and concentrate hard. I try to make things happen.

My body feels tense as I try to force yesterday into claiming me.

And yesterday doesn’t want me, not today.

I stand up with a nervous shake that rattles around in my gut.

Something should be happening. Something should have happened.

I need yesterday. It’s how I live out my today’s. It’s how I remember who I am. It’s how I define my purpose and my place in this world. My memory provides the context and reason for my existence.

I’m not interested in making new memories without Evaline.

I’m hoping that the pills will take me to the answers that I need.

I’m hoping that they will make me remember where Evaline may have gone.

But everything is jumbled and tangled. I feel as if my brain has threaded everything into a giant knot.

I stand up and walk around.

Out my room and into the hall.

My parents are watching television.

The evening is here and the day has gone.

I smell a familiar smell and realize that there is food cooking. It makes me hungry. It makes me comfortable.

I peak into the kitchen.

It’s some sort of pasta dish and it makes me remember Evaline, just like everything else seems to make me remember her.

I feel a pain in my chest and in my brain. It’s a pain that I can’t quite figure out. It’s a pain that is becoming more and more familiar. It’s a pain that grows sharper and sharper.

I walk away from the food.

I don’t want to smell it.

Don’t want to be reminded of the things I can’t control.

I sit down with my parents.

My father has his arm around my mother. They sit on the couch. They watch television. There’s a slight smile on his face as she pushes herself close to him.

I look at my parents and realize how accustomed to each other they have become. They may even be in love, but I can’t tell. I know that I couldn’t tell when I was in love.

‘How are you doing?’

And this is my Dad asking me the questions. I feel as if I haven’t spoken with him in years. His voice is soft and gentle and it makes me think of times where we would hang out.

The moments are faded and fractured in my head, but there was a time where we were close. There was a time where he and I would talk about life. We used to go and do things together. He’d complain about my mom and I’d complain about Evaline. But much like the continents; we drifted.

And we care about each other, but it’s a different sort of caring.

A different sort of affection.

Because time will take everything in the end. It’s something I’ve slowly begun to realize.

And though I am his son and he is my father, we have forgotten the roles that we once had.

‘I’m ok. Feeling a little weird I guess.’

My parents both look at me.

My mom speaks up: ‘What’s going on?’

I’m not sure how to answer. Nor do I really want to.

‘I’m just having an off night is all.’

I let the brevity of my statement provide the majority of my communication. She looks at me. Soft eyes and tight skin. She’s concerned but doesn’t know what to say.

I change the subject.

‘When’s dinner?’

‘We already ate.’

The lingering smells aren’t lingering quite as much.

I pause.

I’m not sure what to say or do or think.

My mom looks at me: ‘Do you remember when you were young? When you and your friend Jim would go on all those adventures? You would always go camping for days at a time. You seemed so happy with him. He brought something out of you that I haven’t seen in a long time. Whatever happened to him?’

Then Evaline, the imaginary one, walks in to the room. She’s smiling and wearing a new outfit and she looks beautiful. I look at her. I look at her wedding ring. My heart skips a beat and my head starts to ache.

And then my mom turns her head and smiles towards something that’s just over my shoulder.

‘So you must be Evaline?’

And then we are around a campfire.

Smoke fills the air.

21

There are few things that cause me to feel shaken.

This is obviously one of them.

It’s been a minute and I’m not feeling any better.

Evaline smiles at my mom. She opens her mouth.

‘I’m doing pretty well. It was a long day at work. Sometimes I wonder if everyone but me is incompetent at their job! Otherwise I wouldn’t have been so late in getting here. But don’t worry, I remembered the marshmallows!’ And she holds up a bag.

And my mom, she smiles and laughs a polite sort of laugh. My father, he smiles and then looks to me.

‘What is going on here?’

Everyone looks at me for a moment and then turns away.

I pause.

I breathe deep.

I twist my nervous fingers around and around and around.

Then I realize that this is all a memory. This isn’t too long after my parents and Evaline met.

And I’m not sure how this happened. I’m not sure how the past has snuck up on me in this fashion. Because the walls should have melted away. Because I should have noticed some sort of change.

Instead it all happened in a blink of time.

One moment I’m at my parent’s, the next moment I’m at a campsite that’s roughly one hundred feet away from a parking lot.

And for all the tree’s and foliage, I can still smell the exhaust from the world around me.

A few more deep breathes and then I smile wide and get with the moment.

‘I’m sure everyone knows how to do their jobs! It’s just that you’re far better at it is all.’

I feel awkward. Out of place. Unsure and insecure about what should be easy for me. My words are stuttering and stopping and failing me all at once.

My mom: ‘How is living together?’

Evaline: ‘It’s going really well… well, as long as I can keep Ellis in line. He has a tendency to be a slob. But I think it’s just because he’s such a forgetful person. But hey, he’ll figure things out eventually. I mean, you don’t run a race if you know that it doesn’t matter when you finish.’

Everyone laughs.

‘I think he’d lose his head if it weren’t attached to his body!’

And my mom laughs.

‘Sometimes I wonder if he’s lost his mind as it is!’

I laugh.

‘I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to bring his lunch to him at work. It’s like I’m there almost as much as he is! Sometimes I feel like I should just wait at his work with all his daily supplies. It might be easier for our relationship!’

There’s a lull and I feel my mind spinning around.

‘Like yesterday, he had forgotten a whole bunch of important documents for a presentation he had to give! I had to take them all to him in the middle of his conference.’

And then I remember back to that day. A room full of executives and me in a suit that cut off all my circulation. I felt like a complete jackass in that familiar conference room.

And I pause.

I breathe in.

I twist my nervous fingers in my nervous hands as my nervous body starts to connect the dots.

My adrenaline is flooding me. My heart is in my throat.

‘Holy shit! I know where you are!’

22

She’s at my old job. In my old office building. I should have realized it before. Where else would you find an abandoned building in this city? There aren’t any.

I feel dizzy.

23

It’s a slow and sickly walk. Bile creeps up my throat and nerves make my feet feel like dead weight.

I don’t know what I’m expecting, but I expect something.

I woke up from yesterday with a head that felt cracked wide open. Complete with spinning eyes and aching skin. I could hardly see straight because everything about my existence was throbbing.

And now as I walk to where I used to work, I start to wonder what it would mean if I did find her. Would things be the same as they always were? Would we fight about the same things we always fought about? Would we laugh at the same stupid inside jokes? Would we eat dinner together every Friday night? Would we still dance every Thursday?

I’ve never faced anything like this. For a moment I feel myself alternating between a feeling of exhilaration and absolute terror.

Will she understand how I feel about her? Will I understand how I feel about her?

Am I going into this with the expectation that things will be as they once were?

My hands are shaking.

The air is cool but not cold.

My skin looks pale and pinched like it’s trying to escape my body.

And I try to make myself feel centered.

I can’t.

I can’t and so my thoughts spin until my guts get dizzy.

What should I expect when I get there?

Am I going to be tied up and beaten like before?

Is she going to greet me or is Dylan going to attack me?

I don’t know what to expect. I don’t even care. I barrel forward with the hope that something will be resolved.

And maybe that’s just what I shouldn’t be doing

Because what are the odds that she’ll really be there?

I’ve been down this road before. Full of hope and excitement. Driven by the strange delusion that if I keep pushing forward, then everything might just go back to the way it was.

And I want my future to look like my past, yet I don’t know what my past is.

And I think back to conversations I had with Evaline.

The silly conversations where we made plans that we knew would be broken.

And I walk up to my former office and stop at the front door.

It’s run down and boarded up. For a second I think that I’m crazy to even imagine her staying at a place like this.

But it’s only for a second. A second and then I swallow my doubts and try the front door.

It’s not locked.

I go in.

My head starts to ache.

There’s a rush of smells and sights that flood me.

They flood me until I’m weak in the knee’s.

Until I drop to the ground.

And then I’m at my old desk.

24

Neon lights and ringing phones.

I’m wearing an old suit and staring at a computer screen while my boss hammers on my dignity.

‘Did you really think it was ok to put this in my box without proofreading it?’

He throws a stack of papers down in front of me.

His face is red and his neck muscles are tight. He’s staring at me with a white hot glare.

It makes my skin ache.

‘Maybe you could do things right if your fucking wife wasn’t always visiting you at work.’

And this is how it was.

Another part of my endless life of eating shit.

I resent my boss.

I resent my job.

And if I remember correctly, this is the exact moment where I forgot how to love Evaline.

Is that even possible? To remember the exact moment that you forgot something?

‘Your god damned wife is going to be the end of you and your fucking job. She’s going to destroy everything good in your life if you let her.’

And I sit. Taking it.

At the time, I believed him.

It was ages ago.

I was young.

Stupid.

And I listened because I wanted to be on top of everything.

And my boss, he hovers over me while I stare at my computer screen.

I’m waiting to hear the words that come out of my mouth. The shit eating words that show how I have no spine.

Because, if I remember correctly, this is the point where I apologize for being the royal fuck-up that I am. This is where I throw away my pride. This is where I abandon my wife.

And I wait.

My fingers tap.

My jaw clenches.

I feel a rage that makes my insides shake.

And nothing happens.

I don’t apologize.

He doesn’t move.

Seconds tick by and I realize that something is wrong.

This isn’t how I remember things happening.

And my boss, he opens his mouth: ‘Well?’

And I clench my fist and push my chair back.

I’m on my feet and nose to nose with him.

I feel a thousand years of regret boiling inside of me.

‘You’re a real asshole.’

He looks confused.

‘I love my wife.’

And my fist goes back.

I feel the adrenaline.

And there’s a popping sound as his nose breaks.

Then I’m alone.

In my old office.

There’s dust hanging in the air.

Something feels wrong.

25

As I sit at my old desk in my old office, I feel a brush against my neck.

It’s Evaline.

The one from my head.

She kisses me on the cheek.

I tell her to go home.

I don’t want her memory to be around me. Not now.

She asks if I’m ok.

I tell her no.

She asks if I need anything.

I tell her that things will be fine.

She asks me why I’m acting so strangely.

I can’t give her an answer.

She leaves.

26

I’m in the building and I can feel the dust as it settles in my lungs. It makes my chest ache and my eyes sting.

I look around and everything is run down.

Light fixtures hang from the ceiling.

The walls are cracked.

Dust covers every surface.

The windows are boarded up but sunlight still peaks through.

And I look around, making a note that this is exactly where my old workstation was.

I cover my mouth with my sleeve and try my hardest to hold my lungs inside my body. Then I realize that my sleeve is getting damp.

I pull my hand away.

I feel my heart in my throat.

My ears are ringing.

Blood has soaked through.

I need more light, and so I go to one of the windows. I pull at the wood that someone has loosely nailed to the cracked walls. It breaks off easily and light floods into the room.

I’m squinting for a second before I finally open my eyes.

It causes my head to ache.

I catch my reflection in the window.

I look like hell.

I look around the room.

It looks like hell.

The building is tattered and broken. Rodent shit covers the floor.

I walk around and hope for a clue. I’m hoping for something to hold onto. Something to keep me going.

I start to wander.

My footsteps kick up dust until my lungs start to ache.

I stumble forward and lean against a metal door that’s spotted with rust. I pause and try to remember where it goes. I can’t remember, but still I turn the knob.

It’s the old cafeteria.

I walk in with the expectation that my brain will send me to another day and time. Instead I find myself standing around and admiring the room.

It’s full of cots.

They’re abandoned.

Covered in dust and chewed at by the rodents that now call this place a home.

Everything is aging and falling apart.

I back out of the room.

This place is abandoned and I’m not going to find anything.

Still I search.

I go upstairs.

All the sunlight is fading. The building, the place where I made so many memories, it’s full of shadows.

I run my fingers on the wall and make a trail. I pull them away and they’re caked in dust.

I sneeze and my eyes burn worse than they did before.

I’m on the third floor with only half a notion as to where I’m headed.

These halls, they used to be busy; now they’re dead.

My head feels light and I imagine that it’s from a loss of blood.

My knees feel weak and I imagine that it’s because I’m scared of the future.

And I go through a door to what used to be a conference room.

It’s just like I remember it.

And this is where Dylan had me tied up.

But it’s different now. Worn and battered by time.

I step inside and a soft light trickles from a skylight that I hadn’t noticed until now.

And I wonder what I should do next.

And it’s a nervous twisting of nervous fingers.

And then my skull aches as I fall to the floor.

27

They say that you’re only as good as what you can take. So why am I taking this again?

And I yell: ‘Fuck off you asshole.’

And then I feel a tooth go loose as the back of my skull starts to do a shimmy and a shake.

I start thrashing around, wildly.

My body aches and I can feel blood dripping from my smashed-in face. I yell again. Louder. No one listens. Louder. No one responds.

Another fist and my brains are starting to feel like syrup in my skull. And it’s a pause and a breathe and a nervous twisting of nervous fingers as I feel my skull bounce against a wall.

Dylan asks if I’m ready to listen. If I’m ready to change. If I’m ready to acknowledge that everything ends.

28

When I come to I’m in a heap on the hallway floor. I feel dizzy and shaky. I feel as if things have gone horribly wrong.

And then I realize that they have.

So I push myself up off the floor.

My arms feel weak just like my head.

I lurch forward. Throw up. Gag on the acidic taste of bile that sticks to my tongue. It’s at this point that I realize I’m starving.

It takes some time but I finally make my way off the ground and out the door.

I stumble: winded and sucking the air like a fish out of water.

I lean against the wall with sweat that causes my clothes to hug me tighter than Evaline has in a thousand years.

I’m bleeding and a mess.

I’ve never felt like this in all my existence.

I knew that things would get worse. The doctor told me that things were going to get worse. I just didn’t want to believe it.

And it takes me a minute to find some balance, but eventually I head back to the stairs. Back towards the exit. Back towards fresh air and reality.

I walk close to the wall and feel as if I’m going to fall to the ground at any moment.

As I’m walking I notice that my finger markings are already gone from the wall. They’re covered by dust.

When I get to the stairs I can hardly see. The building is getting darker. Night is stealing away the light that had slipped in.

My footsteps are echoing.

And as I get to the ground floor I hear the sound of something breaking.

My head snaps around, but there’s nothing to see; it’s too dark.

And then I hear footsteps.

I look around but can’t make anything out in the shadows.

And so I start moving for the exit.

My joints ache as I keep myself low to the ground.

I’m distracted by the shuffling of feet.

They’re getting closer.

And then I hear something else break.

I stand up and run.

For a moment I wonder if it’s Evaline that I’m running from. I wonder but I don’t want to find out. For all I know it could be a security guard. For all I know, it could be Dylan.

I pause when I get to the door. My hand lingers for a fraction of a second, and it’s almost as if I can feel the time passing me.

Then I’m out the door.

The night is cold.

The stars are shining.

I’m running when I need to be going back.

And it’s at this point that I realize that this isn’t something I can do on my own. I need help.

And so I start towards Franklin’s.

29

I’m out of breath and on a park bench.

I just threw up twice in a trash can.

My muscles ache and burn as I sit here with legs that throb. I’m feeling the exhaustion of the last few days kick in.

I feel as if I’ve been awake for years.

And I can’t seem to fight my eyes as they fall shut.

I dream of Evaline.

And in this dream we’re newlyweds with fingers that tangle like the sheets of our bed.

I tell her that I love her.

She tells me that she loves me.

And I know that we both mean it, because in this dream we’re both too young to be afraid of love.

And in this dream we both age.

Our skin wrinkles and hangs from our bones.

We become weaker and weaker with each and every year.

And we don’t mind the gray hair.

And we don’t mind the passing of time.

And we’re both hunched over as we walk the streets together.

We both know that death is coming.

But it’s ok, because we’re with each other.

30

When I wake up I’m still on the park bench and I’m feeling hung-over. Ear bleeding, gut twisting, sweaty palmed; hung-over. It hurts to open my eyes, and I’m not sure if that’s because I don’t want to let go of my dream or because my brain is half gone.

But, anyway; I take a moment and then stumble to my feet.

The sun is starting to rise and the birds are starting to sing.

I have to squint so that I can see clearly, and it’s when I’m squinting that I realize how much I’ve fallen apart. My body is betraying me, or maybe I’m betraying my body.

Regardless; I’m in shambles.

I’m in shambles and I need Franklin.

I need Franklin to be a friend.

To help me make sense of things.

To have my back.

But first I have to piss. So, I search out a public restroom and pinch my nose in disgust as the overwhelming stench of the tattered bathroom grabs hold of my gut.

There is grime that has been here for 100 years or more.

And I try not to breathe.

I piss and attempt to keep my mind off of this room that I’m in.

And then my feet go out from under me.

And the world, it moves sideways.

31

Things look strange where I am.

My muscles are tense.

My vision is blurred.

I hear things but it’s all muffled.

And then I look at my hands.

They’re shaking with a confused flood of emotion.

I don’t know when I am. I don’t know where I am. And when I squint hard I can see Evaline sitting in a chair across from me. She sits and looks out the window. Out into the night. Out into the darkness. She has a smile on her face as she watches the stars in the sky.

I want to stand up and give her a hug. I try to say something to her. But this is a memory that I can’t seem to manipulate.

And so I sit here with my tired body and watch as she looks toward the eve.

And I think of all the stars that have come and gone before I ever realized they had been alive.

And she moves her eyes from the window to me.

I strain to see through my blurred vision.

She’s not wearing make-up.

Her hair isn’t dyed.

Her skin isn’t tan.

She is aged.

And she comes over to me.

Things start to come into focus.

32

When I come to; I’m walking.

I’m almost to Franklin’s house.

I feel shaken.

Shaken because I don’t know if I was dreaming or remembering.

I can’t make sense of it.

And as my weighted feet carry me forward, I start to wonder if I’ll ever regain control of my body and my mind. I start to wonder if I’ll ever be in control of myself.

I stumble for a moment and catch my breath.

I should be worried about the fact that I have no recollection of how I got to this particular place.

In some ways I feel as if I’ve begun to give up on myself.

When I finally get to Franklin’s place, I start to feel a nervous sort of rush wash over my body. It feels as if I’ve been here in this moment a thousand times before, but I suppose that’s what happens when you’ve lived a life as long as me. Things start to jumble together.

Things start to repeat.

I stand for a moment and stare at his front door.

I want to knock but it’s as if my fist is weighted down. It’s as if my body is refusing me. So instead I look at the door with blank eyes.

I’m waiting for something to happen.

Waiting for my muscles to take control.

And finally my hand lifts.

And finally I knock.

I hear a rustling inside and I watch as the door handle jiggles.

And then my gut feels as if it’s on fire. My entire body soaks itself in a sense of dread.

And it’s a pause.

A breath.

And Franklin’s wife answers the door. She doesn’t say a word as she stands looking at me with a face that betrays more sadness than I have seen in all my years. She looks at me and her lips open in a failed attempt to speak.

And then the fire in my gut, it spreads to my body.

I look at her and open my mouth:

‘Are you ok?’

She shakes her head and tears roll from her eyes.

She shakes her head and her body starts to shake.

She shakes her head and I feel lost.

And it takes a minute, but she finally regains composure. Hands to face; she dries her eyes and looks me over.

‘Why are you here?’

I’m starting to wonder if maybe she finally caught Franklin cheating on her. I’m wondering if she finally hit a breaking point and decided to cut through the denial that has been weighing her down for several hundred years.

But I know that’s not it.

I pause.

She asks again.

‘What are you doing here?’

Her voice is stern and tired.

Her voice is gentle and in shock.

I can’t seem to find any words that fit this moment. Every syllable seems to be like a jigsaw piece that does not fit.

It’s a nervous twisting of nervous fingers and finally I open up my mouth. I open up my mouth and I ask her where Franklin is.

She steps back.

Her face scrunches.

Her chest rises and falls.

And that weight that her body had betrayed to me; I can feel it too.

‘Why are you doing this?’

And she asks this with a genuine concern in her voice. She asks this with a gait that moves in a sad rhythm.

‘Doing what?’

And she looks at me with puzzled eyes. She stares at me as if I’ve lost my mind and I want to tell her she’s right. But I suppose there’s no point in stating the obvious.

Her words come out in a hushed anger.

‘Coming around here and asking for him like that. How could you do that? Why would you do that? You know that he’s been dead for years.’

And it’s at this moment that I feel the hollow nature of my chest as all the breath escapes from it.

33

‘Look, you knew that my past was going to catch up to me at some point. I thought I could outrun it forever, but that wasn’t true. I slowed down. I faltered. And all my yesterdays, they took everything.’

This is Franklin.

This is my best friend.

He’s just a memory.

Like my wife.

‘We all have to reckon with our life at some point. Unfortunately it just wasn’t something I could handle.’

He’s been dead for years.

He shot himself in the head.

He used a rifle.

The stain on the wall eventually came out. But not before his wife figured out how to let go of everything.

‘I couldn’t make things work.’

Franklin is dead and I don’t know what that means.

I’m standing outside.

On the sidewalk.

‘There wasn’t a funeral because my wife didn’t think to have one.’

And he knows this because I know this, but for the life of me, I can’t seem to remember any of it.

I sit down on a bench.

He sits next to me.

‘I was caught cheating. I was caught and she threatened to leave me. It wasn’t something that I could deal with. It wasn’t something that I wanted to deal with. And no matter how hard I tried, she wouldn’t listen to me. She wouldn’t take any of my explanations. I couldn’t fix any of it.’

And Franklin was an asshole.

‘I tried to make things right. I tried to pretend that things were going to be ok. But it was a lie and I knew it and she knew it and we both knew that there was no way we could un-tie the knot that I had spent a millennia tying.’

Franklin was an asshole, but at least he was honest.

‘So here I am. Dead except for the part of me that hides away in that fucked up brain of yours.’

And now I’m wondering where I’ve been if he’s dead. I’m wondering when I am. I’m panicking because I don’t know where or when I am and I don’t know how long I have or haven’t been here.

‘You know, you always pinch your eyebrows together when you’re nervous or panicking. It looks like you’re trying to take a shit.’

I laugh.

He laughs.

And I don’t know where I’m going from here. I just know that I need to go somewhere. I need to go back to my old office building.

And I don’t care about noises in the dark and I don’t care about being alone when I go there. Not anymore.

‘You know, you need to stop worrying and just go find her.’

34

How long has it been since I’ve seen her?

Since I’ve seen my parents.

Since I’ve existed in any sort of ‘normal’ way.

I don’t know.

I can’t even venture a guess.

Am I in a memory right now?

And I feel my muscles aching as I make my way to where I used to work. My heart is beating a confused beat.

I am overwhelmed.

And when I think of the fact that Franklin is dead, I can almost wrap my head around it. It means something to me.

And the sadness that I feel from this loss, it makes it hard to move.

Gravity slows me to a crawl.

And my movements make me feel as if I will never get to my old office.

As if I will never get anywhere.

As if I knew where anywhere was.

I don’t even know when I am.

I don’t even know how old I am.

And I think back to everything that has been happening to me. I think back to everything that I’ve gone through since Evaline disappeared. And now I’m wondering if she isn’t already dead.

I remember when she first left.

I didn’t understand.

And as things moved forward, I had hoped things had changed.

But I don’t even know if I’ve been moving forward. Maybe all I’ve done is gone back.

I look to my right.

There’s a field.

There’s a house in the distance.

It looks old and worn down.

It reminds me of something that seems like ancient history.

It reminds me of a time before the endless process that is staying alive. It reminds of when I was still in the double digits of age.

I had gotten lost while camping with my friends. Jim. Dave. People who I have forgotten about over the years.

I ended up in an old abandoned field.

I was lost and scared and confused.

No one was home and I broke in.

I found dead bodies.

That was the only time I had seen someone who was dead. I had forgotten about it until now. And I’m not sure why I’m now remembering it, but I suspect it’s because of Franklin. Because death has come back to my life after so many years.

I feel sick.

I keep walking.

Hands in pocket.

Head down.

And with each step, I try not to think about what has happened and what I can no longer remember or what I don’t realize that I am remembering. I’m simply trying to move forward.

35

When I get to the old office building I don’t waste any time.

I don’t stand and stare at the door.

I just walk in.

It’s no longer dusty.

It’s cleaned and it’s polished and it doesn’t feel abandoned like it once was. I start to wonder when I am, I think for a moment and I decide that I don’t care.

I walk up the stairs.

To the old conference room that I had been taken hostage in.

I walk in.

It’s empty.

I go back downstairs.

Stand in the lobby.

I hear a clicking of feet.

I don’t run.

I don’t move.

I don’t care if it’s a security guard. It doesn’t matter at this point.

They’re coming up behind me.

I turn around.

It’s Evaline.

Her skin is wrinkling and being dragged down by the gravity of time.

Her eyes look weathered.

She smiles.

She’s not how I remembered her and for me, that means the world.

I run to her.

We kiss.

It feels right.

Part IV

1

And time has passed me by.

Years fade in and out.

Someone whispers: ‘Watching you rewrite who you are is like watching a poem fall apart.’

And I’m at home. With Evaline.

She’s dying.

She’s leaving me for good.

And I don’t remember how I got here, but when did that ever matter to me?

Her body looks frail and her hands are wrinkled. She’s lying in bed and staring at the ceiling.

The skin that drapes her body is loose and marked by years of cheating nature.

The sun is bright as it pushes into the room.

I’m sitting at the edge of the bed and I’ve got my head in my hands.

‘So what are we going to do today?’

I ask this with a voice that drags itself from my body against all the weight of my years on this planet.

She smiles a half smile and she opens her mouth.

‘I don’t know. Maybe we can stay in bed?’

‘You need to eat.’

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘But you need to eat. You’re so skinny. You don’t have any fat at all.’

And it’s true. Her body has begun to collapse in on itself. Her cheeks are sunken and so are her eyes. It’s a strange thing for me to see, but that makes it all the more amazing. She’s changed and that’s something that I haven’t seen a lot of.

‘Look, I’ll eat, but first I just want you to be here with me. So stay already.’

And I lean down close. Kiss her on the forehead. Smile and look into her eyes.

I missed her even after she came back.

I still miss her in some ways.

But the excitement of what we have now, I’m not sure I can describe it in any way that makes sense.

And so I stay in bed next to her. My hand goes to hers and squeezes gently. She smiles and I smile.

We watch the world outside our window.

Birds fly.

The sky is motionless.

A wind causes the tree’s to sway.

And now I’m wondering, after all these years; was it worth it?

2

‘Where the hell have you been?’

We’re still embracing each other in the lobby of my old workplace. Our bodies press tightly and the pain of loneliness starts to edge away from my skin.

‘I’ve been where I’ve needed to be.’

We pull our heads back. Look each other in the eyes.

She looks different. Weathered. Haunted.

‘Why did you leave me?’

She pulls away. Looks toward the ground.

I feel the weight of the situation as it settles into my stomach.

And there’s a moment of confusion that hovers around us. Because things have changed. Because we’re not who we were before. Because we’re not the people who fell in love so many centuries ago. And I want to tell her that it’s ok. That we’ve changed but change doesn’t mean we can’t still be together. It doesn’t mean we can’t make things work. But, I’m scared and she is too. I can see it in the way she knots her fingers and tilts her head.

And then my head throbs. My eyes ache and there’s a ringing in my ears.

I look up and my memory of Evaline is standing next to the real Evaline. They’re wearing the same clothes now, but they’re not the same people.

I look at the younger version of her. The Evaline that I know. The Evaline that I missed. The Evaline that I remember. I look at her and I feel comfort. I feel closeness. I feel the warmth that my satisfied longings have brought to me.

She opens her mouth.

‘This isn’t what you wanted and it isn’t what you expected. You always think that things are going to be just the way you remember them, but you know what? They’re not going to be that way. I’ve changed. And the way that I see it is: You can go off with her and try to figure out how you’re going to make things work with someone who’s just going to die, or you can go and be happy with me. I’m a memory, but I can make you happy. I know how to make you happy.’

She smiles and I feel a flush of warmth come over me.

And Evaline, the real one, she looks at me.

‘Are you ok?’

I shake my head.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Look, I know things are different. I know I ran off. I know I look old and strange by your standards. I know these things, but I also know that in our time apart I’ve realized a lot of things. And, I know that I miss you. I know that I want you in my life, for however long that is. I just, I don’t know, we need to be all the things that we never were.’

And she pauses.

‘Because I don’t want to feel trapped like I did before.’

I let the words rest in my head.

And Evaline, the fake one, she says:

‘You can be happy forever with me. She can’t do that for you anymore. You know that. She’s growing older and she’s going to die. I’m a memory, you can have me forever.’

I start to feel sick.

I look to Evaline, the real one.

‘I just want things to be like they were.’

And she looks at me with a face that betrays hurt and confusion.

‘Like they were? Don’t you remember? Our relationship was horrible. We fought. We didn’t pay attention to each other. We didn’t make love. It was horrible.’

And my memory of Evaline, she flickers in and out.

It makes my head hurt as I watch her. I feel my lungs struggling as the air gets sucked from my chest. I feel my heart racing as my brain struggles to stay in the moment.

I don’t know what to say.

And Evaline’s memory she tells me that I only have to remember the good things.

And Evaline, she tells me we can build something better than we had before. She tells me that her eyes have been opened. She tells me that there’s so much for me to learn and experience

My head is throbbing even worse now.

‘But where were you? Why did you go?’

‘Because our relationship was shit. Because I needed to breathe. Because I was bored with our life and everything that it involved.’

Her aged eyes look at me with a conviction that causes my skin to pinch up on itself.

And my memory of Evaline, she keeps fading away.

It’s a pause and a breath.

It’s a nervous twisting of my nervous fingers.

Her eyes are red with sadness and happiness.

She’s crying.

And then I hear more footsteps behind me.

I turn around.

It’s Dylan.

3

We’re eating.

There’s brightness and clarity to everything. It almost feels as if I’m going to drown in the reality of the situation.

I watch as she struggles with the food.

Her jaw is tired.

Her hands are tired.

Everything about her is tired and slow. It’s painful for me to watch her as she fades away.

Yet, I know that she’s ok with it. This is what she wanted.

Because we all have choices.

Every moment is a choice.

And this; it’s her choice.

And now; we make due.

She looks at me over her food, gray hair falling across her forehead.

‘You know, I think we should go for a walk.’

‘You know that you can’t walk too far. Your knee’s are too weak.’

‘I know, I just thought it would be nice.’

And we both go back to eating.

We’re silent.

4

I don’t think.

I don’t think, but I do manage to react.

And so I’m on top of Dylan before he can process what’s going on.

He didn’t expect to see me today, this much is obvious.

I push him to the ground and pin him with all my weight.

I bar my forearm against his throat.

He struggles but I don’t let up.

Everything inside of me is white hot.

Everything inside of me is on fire.

And through the blood in my ears, I can hear Evaline screaming.

I can hear her screaming, but I can’t seem to care about it.

I push harder.

His face goes red.

My cheeks are burning up and I can feel my muscles struggling against my skin.

He’s kicking his feet up.

He’s trying to knock me off of him.

‘You motherfucker.’

The words come out of my mouth without much thought.

The words come out of my mouth with silent rage.

And I’m not sure why I’m doing this.

But I do feel that it’s what I should be doing.

My body starts to shake from the adrenaline.

And then I feel Evaline’s hands on my shoulder. Trying to pull me off. Trying to snap me out of this insanity.

‘Ellis!’

And she’s screaming.

And all I can think is that this man has spent far too much time with my wife. All I can think of is the fact that this man stole Evaline from me.

Dylan, he tries to speak.

Sound ambles out of his mouth in a choked stuttering.

He can’t say anything.

And finally, Evaline, she pulls me off.

I tumble backward.

My head crashes on the ground and I find myself staring at the lights above me.

I’m exhausted and I take the moment to try and work out what to do next.

My chest rises and falls with a heavy depth.

And my lungs, they struggle.

And my heart, it races.

I don’t move.

My eyes start to burn.

The adrenaline exits my body but leaves me shaking on the floor.

And I sob.

I let it out.

Years of anger and frustration and whatever else I’ve kept bottled up within me, I let it out.

I think of Franklin. My parents. Alicia. Loneliness.

My thoughts race through my mind as I explore everything that I’ve gone through and everything that it has left me with.

And in the end I’m left with the realization that I don’t know what was real and what wasn’t.

I don’t know much of anything.

My head hurts.

I see Dylan getting up off the ground.

Brushing himself off.

He looks confused and he looks angry.

I tell him to leave and give me a moment with Evaline.

Then as he exits, Evaline crouches down next to me.

I see my memory of her flicker in and out.

And Evaline, the real one, the love of my life, she tells me that we have to talk.

5

We walk at a slow pace.

We walk as if we have all the time in the world.

And while we may have one day had time; this is no longer true.

There is an end date.

There is an end date and it causes everything else to feel that much more compressed. It causes everything else to feel that much more real.

The sun is shining.

It’s fall.

The leaves are falling.

We hold hands.

I feel her loose skin as our fingers tangle up.

This moment, it will have an end, just like everything else.

She looks at me with a smile.

‘This is nice.’

And I find myself nodding in agreement. Because it’s true. I took things like this for granted in the past.

We spend the next few minutes in silence before I open my mouth.

‘You know, Franklin almost had me convinced that you had joined some sort of southern death cult.’

I laugh as I say this.

She smiles.

‘Why southern?’

‘You know…I have no clue.’

My thoughts wander as we meander with a cadence that reflects our conversation.

Finally we start to slow.

I can see that she’s in pain.

Her eyes are at a squint and she’s becoming weak.

We sit down at a park bench.

She leans her head against my shoulder.

We take in the moment. We let ourselves breathe.

She brushes her fingers up and down my arm with a slow drag that causes my body to tingle.

And this feels right.

Like a poem.

Like a song.

She’s the verse to my chorus.

And I ask if we should have lasagna tomorrow. I ask this because I know that it’s her favorite food.

And she doesn’t answer.

She stares out toward the horizon.

Finally:

‘I’m going to die.’

I pause.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

I breathe.

‘It means I’m going to die.’

I twist my nervous fingers.

‘You mean you’re going to kill yourself?’

‘No, I’m dying.’

Then we let ourselves sit in silence.

She looks at me and I keep looking forward. Watching her out of the corner of my eye.

I feel nauseous.

I feel nauseous because I understand.

We don’t have much time left.

6

‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this. All I really knew was that I had to go. I had to go and I had to find something new for myself. I didn’t feel complete. I didn’t feel like a real person. Everything was dull. I was alive in the most basic sense of the word and nothing seemed to be changing that.’

We’re sitting.

We’re sitting on the curb.

Outside my old office.

The streets are dead.

The world feels quiet.

‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this and I missed you constantly. I really did, I mean, why else would I call you like I did? I wanted to talk to you and to be with you. I wanted to let you know that I was ok. But I couldn’t be with you. And hearing your voice, talking to you, it was all too much for me to handle.’

The world around us is static.

My eyes are focused on her.

I watch as she moves her hands with her words.

They move with gentle rhythms and unsure gestures.

‘I had been ready for things to change for so long, and then one day, they did change. I found Dylan passing out stupid little pamphlets on a street corner. He told me that there could be more. He told me about death. He told me that everything is supposed to die. He told me that without death, without the concept of death, we can never truly understand life. And you know what? It made sense. It was a chance meeting and it changed my life.’

The words shake with reluctance as they escape her mouth.

‘It made sense and I knew that it was the answer to all the empty feelings that I had. And at first, I didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand what endings meant. But then, things changed. I met more people like Dylan. We started to pull strings. We wanted other people to understand what life really meant. We wanted people to understand that death was important to life. We wanted people to understand that endings were important because they gave everything else a meaning.’

Tears escape from her eyes.

They streak down her face.

They reflect in the light from the world around us.

‘I wanted you to understand. I kept watching you from afar. I was going to bring you in but I knew you wouldn’t have come willingly. You wouldn’t have understood. You were too oblivious.’

Her words sting with a truth that makes my guts feel hollow.

‘And Dylan, he saw that I missed you, and so we devised a way to make it look like your work was going under. There were people at the top of your old job who associated with us. They made it look like you had all worked yourselves out of jobs.’

There’s a pause.

‘We only wanted people to understand what they had in life.’

There’s a sadness in the way that she speaks.

‘I only wanted you to feel things.’

A slowness in the way that she orates.

‘I kept hoping that you’d understand things. I kept hoping that we’d figure out a way to be together. I knew that things had been shit before. I knew that. But I kept clinging on to this idea that if everything was played right, that if you finally understood what it was to be alive, if you finally understood what love was, then maybe we could work things out. I kept hoping that you would understand so that we could finally be together and so that we could start to build something that was greater than what we had before.’

And I think back to what I’ve lost.

My job.

My home.

My best friend.

My mind.

I think back to these things and I feel myself at a loss for emotion.

‘Some people were crazier than others. I was too. When I first started with these people, I knew that I was going to let myself die, I knew that much. It was what I needed in my life. It was the missing piece of the puzzle that caused everything else to make sense. And then I lost sight of everything else.’

There’s a weight in my stomach and in my feet and in my soul as I listen to the words that she speaks.

‘We started burning down buildings. We wanted things to be public; we wanted the world to understand. We were radicals with a bunch of ideas that we didn’t know how to express. And I guess part of me just wanted to do these things so we’d get noticed, so that you might start to understand what was going on. I guess I just hoped that all our insanity would be like some sort of signal to you.’

She pauses.

Looks at the ground.

‘And then you started taking those drugs. You started taking those drugs and you started seeing Alicia and I started to give up. I couldn’t take it anymore and I wanted to let go, but I also wanted to fix things.’

She looks up.

She chokes on her words and her tears and in the silence that engulfs us, she starts to shake.

‘I begged them to just lead you to us. I begged Dylan. And he agreed to do it. He agreed to make you understand. And…’

She sucks in air with a gasp that struggles against the pressure of the moment.

‘And I didn’t know what he was going to do to you. I told him to leave you alone. I told him that you didn’t deserve that. I told him these things and I realized that I had to let you go. I realized that I had to move on. I had to move on because holding onto you was only causing pain for both of us.’

She reaches her hand for mine.

I don’t return the favor.

‘You were becoming so far gone. And then Franklin killed himself and everything was crumbling.’

I can feel her heart beat.

‘I had to let you go. And I did. I let you go and I accepted the fact that I was going to die.

And then I was trapped. I was trapped in this stupid little cult. Trapped because I had committed crimes and I was wanted by police and I didn’t know what to do.’

Her hand comes closer.

Mine doesn’t move.

‘I was scared. I was scared and I still am scared. And now I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do because Everyone else has died. Dylan died months ago and now it’s just me.’

I pause.

I breathe.

I twist my nervous fingers and strain to figure out what my brain is doing to me. Because I was just fighting Dylan. Because he was just here.

She keeps talking:

‘Everyone else is gone and all I want is to spend my last years with you. That’s all I want. I don’t even care if it’s miserable. I don’t care because I know that I’ll feel it and that’s what I need. And I know that you need me. I know that you need me because I know that the drugs have damaged you. I know that things aren’t getting better for you. We need each other.’

And those words, they have meaning.

We need each other.

It catches me in the gut.

It catches me and it sucks all my oxygen from my lungs.

We need each other.

We’ve both been through so much.

We’ve both lost everything and gained something that we never could have conceived of before.

We need each other and I know that it’s true.

7

Her skin is soft to the touch.

My lips press against hers.

There’s a soft song on the radio.

I don’t know how long we’ve been together, but it’s been a while.

I haven’t been able to get her out of my head since the first time I saw her.

And now, here we are in my bed.

There’s a sweat between our bodies as we tangle the sheets.

There’s a whispered moan.

She chews on her lower lip.

And then it’s a drawn out pause with arched backs and tensed muscles.

She collapses down onto my chest.

Her head is next to my head and we’re both smiling with clouded eyes and hearts that beat against our ribs like some sort of primal drum.

‘Did you…’

I laugh.

‘I’m pretty sure that’s what that was.’

And I feel a nervous sort of lump in my chest.

‘What about you… did you… well… you know…’

She laughs and kisses me on the forehead.

‘I love you.’

I smile and squeeze my hand into hers.

‘I love you.’

We lay next to each other with blankets at our feet and pillows beneath our heads. I look up at the ceiling and my mind, it wanders to the future.

8

We’re both laying in bed.

I can see the light of the stars as they creep through the window and lay across my chest.

I haven’t been able to sleep all night.

My mind won’t stop moving.

Something is wrong.

At some point Evaline starts to stir.

She struggles to push herself up and out of bed.

I don’t say anything.

I only watch as she lifts her body up from the bed.

She walks across the room. To the bathroom.

It’s a lumbering walk that lets me know she’s in pain. It lets me know that she’s struggling with every step and every movement.

She’s struggling because the weight of time, the weight of life, the weight of everything that this Earth has thrown at her, it’s all caught up to her.

I don’t say anything; instead I remain silent and wait for her to come back to me.

I don’t know what time it is, there are no clocks in our room.

Seconds turn to minutes.

Silence is everywhere.

Then I hear a crash.

9

Entropy.

The tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity.

The inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society.

10

Her skin is white and pale as she lies in a heap on the floor.

I feel my hands shaking.

And I don’t know what to do.

I kept telling myself I was ready for this moment.

I kept telling myself that I could do this.

But I was wrong.

She’s limp in my arms.

I feel my insides go limp.

I feel my insides as they tie themselves up in knots upon knots.

My body is shaking.

I shake her.

I shake her because I want her to come back to me.

I want her to know that she can come back because I remember how to love her.

But she won’t come back.

She’ll never be back.

She’s gone.

Forever.

And I can’t do this.

My mind races.

I don’t want to live like this.

I want to be with her.

I want to be with her because I don’t know what goodbye means

And then my head starts to throb.

I’m sweating.

My hands tremble.

The walls, they pulsate.

I start to panic.

I want to stay with her.

And then time, it moves sideways.

11

My name is Ellis Jackson. I’m 2038 years old. I didn’t meet the love of my life until I turned 578. Her name is Evaline. She has pale skin and collagen injected lips. Like everyone else that lives forever, most of her body is fake.

I love Evaline even though I barely remember why. I just know that I do. I’m relying on the fact that I’ve said it so many times that there must have once been a reason for my love.

But isn’t that how we always go through life? Relying on our words to justify our actions? Whatever happened to justifying our words with our actions?

Content

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ETERNITY
By Luke Alden

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV