Theme and Variations
by Michael John Grist

VARIATION

   "I want to know."

   "can you be any more specific?"

   "yeah. no. I guess. this is what I want, I think, but I don’t know."

   "so what do you want to know?"

   "how to, uh, how to. dammit. you’re the smart one. you tell me."

   "ok. I think you're looking for something. I think you've been looking for a long, long time. and I think, maybe, you’ve found it"

   "I haven’t found it."

   "you’ll see."

   "that’s bullshit."

   "you’re not a loser anymore."

   "what? who said anything about that?"

   "you don't need to worry about what he said anymore."

   "what are you talking about?"

   "you’ll see."

   "I’m leaving!"

   ".."

   "but you’re still here."

   "stop it!"

  He woke up sweating. Another night, another dream, leaving echoes to fade with his slowing pulse, with the memory of cold, with the words themselves. Who was it? Where was it? What were the things they said?

   In the day, he didn't care so much.

   Rubbing the sleep from his eyes he rolled from the bed, careful not to disturb the figure still wrapped up in silk.

   Who was it. He didn’t know. Just another.

   He padded softly away from the four poster bed, through the thickly warm air of the expensive hotel room, into the bathroom. No window, no breeze, no real air. Just recycled warmth. He clicked the mirror light, pushing the door to so as not to disturb the someone in his bed.

   Regarded himself in the mirror like a stranger, this face framed by the white shower curtain behind him. Smiled, as the mirror image smiled. For a second, thought he saw blood on his face, but no. The back of his head was aching, migraine, but no blood.

   Ran a hand through his dark brown hair, tousled from the rich down of luxuriant pillows and a long sleepless night. Strands clung to his forehead, clammy with that feeling of dried sweat, a stickiness.

   "Goddamn but you are one handsome fuck." He said to the mirror in a whisper. And it was true.

   He idly fingered the pain at the back of his head. Rememebering fragments of the night before. The woman had been biting him. He looked down, saw constellations of purple dots spattered across his chest from her bird-like teeth. Look like cigarette burns, he thought. Teeth like a lit cigarette.

   "Goddamn." He said.

   She moaned in the other room. He ignored it, stepped into the shower, turned up the heat and for a while stood to the side as the partitioned area filled with steam. He felt the vapour in his lungs and coughed. The heat felt good. At one point his hand began to sting sharply, and he brought it close to his face for inspection. There was a black mark along the inside line of his right index finger, a greasy cut.

   "Bollocks." He whispered, then eased his body into the jet-stream.

   Half an hour later, 6:12 am by the hotel alarm clock, he stepped out of the shower and walked across the room to where his pants lay on the floor. The woman rolled on the bed, but didn’t get up. From one of the chino’s pockets he pulled out his mobile phone, dialled a number from the address book. He moved into the breakfast bar whilst it rang, poured himself a large scotch from the mini-bar. After 6 rings, it was answered.

   "Hello?" Said a gruff, male voice.

   "Jack, it's me." He replied.

   "What? What the fuck you doing calling me at this time?"

   "I need a favour."

   "Fuck you, you need a favour. What time is it, Jesus!"

   He heard the sounds of someone complaining in the background. Jack's wife, probably.

   "Look, this is important, OK. I need you to get something for me. I’m staying at the Ritz, I need you to bring it here for me."

   "To the Ritz! Why the fuck are you in the Ritz? Why should I bring anything for you?"

   "Look, just get it for me, and we'll be sweet, alright. It'll be worth your while."

   "I heard you got kicked outta your house, your pops beat you up? Why don’t you get a fucking job?"

   "I got a job."

   "Get a fucking job and quit calling me about this."

   "This is the last time."

   "It better be worth my while."

   "It will be. Just leave it at the front desk, OK?"

   Click. The phone went dead.

   He walked over to the room phone, sipping on his scotch. Dialled the front desk.

   "Front desk, how can I help you?" Said another male voice, this one clipped and alert.

   "Yeah, I’m expecting a delivery. My briefcase, a courier should be bringing it round soon. Can you have it sent to my room when it arrives?"

   "Certainly sir. May I ask whom will be dropping it off?

   "A courier."

   "Very good. And the briefcase, will it be distinctive? I only ask due to the spate of recent robberies in the hotel. Has it your initials on it sir, for instance."

   "Yes."

   Broken second.

   "What are they sir?" Enquires the front desk voice

   "I can't remember right now."

   "Very good sir. I shall check the book. One moment." He could hear a click, presumably of a file opening. "Yes sir, I have your initials right here. I'll tell you the first and the last, if you can tell me the middle."

   "OK."

   "The first is G, the last N. Can you guess it."

   "Yes! Yes, it’s U, isn't it!"

   "Very good sir. When the package-"

   "Briefcase."

  "When the briefcase arrives, I shall send it up to you."

   "Thank-you."

   And he hung up.

   He walked over to the bed, the woman breathing deeply, still ensconced in silk. Who was she? He didn’t know. Where was he? It didn’t seem to matter. He stared at her for some time, before he realized he hadn't taken her in at all. She was just another face.

   Then he dressed silently, left a short message on a napkin with a black ballpoint he found on the dresser. It said:

   "I’m sorry for everything. It’s over. I have no life anymore, so you can’t be a part of it. Goodbye."

   He left it lying beside her purse, on the bedside table, with a mint-fresh 20 dollar bill. She was stirring. He left the room.

   Out on the street he flagged down a cab. It was yellow, which meant that he might be in New York, but he wasn’t sure. There were so many pseudo cities springing up in the Bounds that looked like New York, he couldn't be sure. All high rise buildings and neon, cops with guns on every corporate corner.

   "Airport." He said to the cab driver, and handed him a twenty.

   "32 or 43 street?" Asked the driver.

   "I don’t care." He said, and meant it. He didn’t have to be anywhere for a long time.

   As they drove he watched the streets, the grid-iron blocks of shops and malls and cinemas and hobos on corners before the cops could move them along, all blur into one through the window. It had been like this for as long as he could remember.

   "So where you headed, pal?" Asked the driver, conversational.

   "The airport."

   "Ha, yeah, good one." Said the driver, and laughed, as if it was a joke. "No, I mean, where to from there? Anywhere exotic? Or just in the Bounds?"

   "I don’t know yet."

   "Oh, one of those trips is it?" Asked the driver, making eye contact in the rear view mirror. Emphasis on the "those", as if now there was some understanding between the two of them. Some secret. He didn’t want to disappoint.

   "Yeah, one of those. Maybe out of the Bounds, I’m not sure."

   "Whoa, out of Bounds eh? You hear stories about them places. You sure you wanna go there, pal?"

   "No, I suppose not. You ever been?"

   "Can’t say I’m too sure, y’know? Now my daddy, he went out once. Didn’t come back though, know what I mean?" And he chuckled. The inside joke again. The it’s you and me against the world, pal, just you and me joke.

   "Yeah." He said, distantly. All these streets looked the same. All these people sounded the same. If only he could be sure.

   They were rounding a corporate art corner, air-plane embedded in the side of a globular glass building, when his phone rang. It left him a little surprised, because it hadn’t rung for a long time. He sat there and listened to it ring maybe 15 times. The driver even asked:

   "Ain't you gonna answer that, pal?"

   So he decided he may as well.

   He flipped open the lid, the display showing only a number he didn’t recognize.

   "Hello." He said.

   "I need help." Replied the phone, frantic.

   "Who is this?" He asked.

   "There’s no time left." Came the garbled reply through static.

   "What do you mean?"

   "Don’t do it. Maybe it isn’t too late. Please."

   "I don’t know what you mean."

   "Help me please, I don’t want to go."

   "I should hang up."

   "Don’t do it! It isn’t what you want! It isn’t too late."

   "Don’t call this number again." He said, then he flipped the phone closed, told it to screen all calls from that number, and put it back in his pocket.

   "One of those, eh?" Jostled the driver. "I hate gettin’ those, boy, I hate ‘em. Know what my daddy says, bout those calls? You’ll never guess. He says you gotta keep a whistle handy, and when you get one of them calls, you just blow, right down the phone, ‘til they hang up. Blow longer, if ye's like it. He figures it bursts their ears. You reckon so?"

   "I wouldn't know." He answered, then, because he felt like he wasn't making enough effort, added, "I suppose so."

   "Yup, well I sure as heck hate them calls. Keep a whistle with me at all times, don’t ya know. Got it right here in me pocket, right here." And he started patting his left breast pocket, pat pat.

   "Damn, now where's the damn thing got to?" He said, his voice concerned.

   "I’m sure it'll turn up."

   They were rounding another corner, it felt like they just kept turning and turning, when he realized something.

   "I thought you said your father was out of Bounds?"

   "Hmm, what's that?"

   "Your father, you said he was out of Bounds. You said he says to keep a whistle, but he's also out of Bounds."

   "Did I? Oh, heck, I’m always makin’ them kinds o’ mistakes, pay it no mind."

   So he didn’t.

   They pulled up to the airport, a long parking strip before an endless series of doors, all leading, one way or another, to different places. It was when he stepped out of the cab, through the doors, and saw the policemen with their guns and the big black guys helping old ladies with their baggage that he remembered.

   "Dammit." He whispered, and turned around to leave the great airport foyer.

   But there, in front of him, in the way, stood the cab driver. The grin of a shared joke on his face. He was short, his skin wrinkled, his hair almost impossibly wispy, blowing in the breeze from the electronic doors that opened and shushed and opened and shut.

   "What’s the matter, pal?" He asked, easy.

   "I left my briefcase at the hotel. I think I'll have to go back."

   "The hotel is it eh? I know what you mean." He said, and again that dirty chuckle. "The briefcase is it, eh?"

   "Yes."

   "Guess what?" Asked the driver, taking a step back, reaching into his pocket.

   He watched him impassively.

   "I found it." Said the driver.

   "Found what?"

   "The whistle of course. I found it. I thought you might like to see it."

   "What whistle?"

   "What whistle, he says." Muttered the driver. "The whistle I was telling you about, the one my daddy gave to me, before he died, you know, for bursting people's ears with, you know?" And again the dirty chuckle.

   "Oh." He said.

   "Here it is." He said, and pulled a big black gun from his pocket. "Don’t know how I misplaced it, really. Just put it to your lips," he said, pushing the barrel against his teeth. It made a clicking sound. "And blow."

   BOOM

   The driver sank to the floor, the back of his head split open like a rotten peach, bits squelching and quivering in the breeze from the doors as they shummed shush and shut.

   He was surprised. Alarms started to go off, and the departure lounge started to flash with a red bright light, red and bright, and men with rifles clad in security clothes were running over to him. Just then they announced his name over the tannoy, a burbling static that he could barely make out. He didn’t know how, but he knew it was his name. They were calling him to his flight.

   He started to run, and the voice from the tannoy started to get louder. He knew it was close to the bone, and he had to get there soon, or he'd miss the route out. He had to get there, he was sure of it, out of the Bounds.

   Then there was the driver, running alongside him, slops of brain dripping to the waxy floor behind him as he panted.

   "Pal." He yelled, over the whining klaxon and the announcements that his flight was leaving. "Lookee here, here it is, your briefcase." And he held out the big black gun, and he pointed it at the man whose name was being called out over the tannoy. He chuckled.

   "You’ll need it where you’re going." He said, then pulled the trigger.

   BOOM

VARIATION

   "so what is it I’m looking for?"

   "I thought you wanted to figure that out for yourself."

   "yes, but this isn’t helping much is it?"

   "you don’t think so?"

   "do you?"

   "this is not about me."

   "you’re not helping."

   "what would you rather I say?"

   "just tell me what the fuck it is that I’m looking for. why am I here?"

   "you’ve already found what you wanted. you just don’t know it yet."

   "know what?"

   "that it’s your life."

   "what? that’s no help. you’re no use at all."

   "why don’t you leave then?"

   "leave? I’m not ready yet. I haven’t understood."

   "but you have. you can’t stay here forever."

   "will you stay?"

   "as long as you do."

   He woke up confused. Another night, another dream, leaving echoes to fade with his steady pulse, with the memory of comfort, with the words themselves. Who was it? Where was it? What were the things they said?

   In the day, he didn’t care so much.

   Rubbing the sleep from his eyes he slid from the bed, careful not to disturb the figure still wrapped up in the sheets and duvet.

   Who was it. He didn’t know. Just another.

   He padded softly away from the double bed, through the cool air of the motel room, into the bathroom. No window, no breeze, no real air. Just a chill rising up from the tiles, moisture trickling from the damp walls. He pulled the light cord, and pushed the door to so as not to disturb the someone in his bed.

   He looked at himself in the mirror, some stranger’s face framed by a dirty brown shower curtain stared back at him. His skin was grey and pallid, ugly looking. There was a sharp pain in the back of his head, like maybe he was coming down with a migraine, but he didn’t think he had migraines. He wasn’t sure, it seemed strange.

   "Goddamn but you are one fucked up punk." He whispered to his reflection. And it was true.

   He idly fingered the lump in his head, felt warm liquid seeping between his fingers. He brought his hand round, examined it. Blood. Dark, clotting. He remembered the woman. Man, she had liked it rough. She was biting him, riding him, telling him how she liked it. He looked down, saw the welters on his chest and thighs, the swelling yellow of bruised flesh. He remembered her scratching his back, tearing at the meat. Wow. A real vixen.

   "Goddamn." He said.

   A noise came from the other room, but he ignored it. She'd been making noises like that all night. Instead he stepped into the shower and drew the curtain, turned up the heat, but only a disappointing trickle came out. A dribble of hot water. He considered dousing himself with that, but realized he was in no rush. Why not bathe, take it in style? So he pushed in the plug, twisted the hot tap to full. Sat down, poured in some shampoo he found on the side, one of those little motel complimentaries they give to dissuade you from taking the towels. One of the free gifts.

   His dad had used to say he was a freeloader. Taking free stuff. But that’s what free stuff was for, he’d say. They never had agreed on anything.

   Soon the bath was full and bubbling away, and he felt himself drifting. He was still tired, which was odd. Maybe he had been up late, he couldn’t remember.

   His eyes flicked open, and the first sensation was cold.

   "Bollocks!" He said, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, felt the bath water slosh and spill over the sides as he moved. It was a mucky grey, tinged with red.

   Shit. He thought to himself. I must have been filthy. He grunted, then pushed himself out of the tub. Some of the soap suds clung to his body, lingered in his hair and around his crotch. He brushed them away, and they popped with audible little "chugs", like soggy rice crispies. They left him dirty still.

   He wrapped a faded yellow towel round his waist, tightly because it was almost too small, and stepped into the bedroom.

   It was lit with a weak grey light. He wasn't sure what time it was. Before dawn probably. Walking over to the chipped old dressing table, where his pants were lying rumpled on the floor, brought a strange pain to his body. Like the blood itself was causing pain, rushing around his muscles, as if that alone was making him stiff and ache.

   It was yesterday, he thought. What happened yesterday?

   He climbed into his pants slowly, shuffling from one foot to the other as his balance came and went. He pulled a T-shirt over his head, only to find a large red stain smearing the front. He touched a finger to it. Damp. He tasted it. Blood. This left him confused, how could it still be damp? Yesterday had been hours ago. Hadn’t it?

   He pulled out his mobile phone, the digital read-out flashing up 12:00. It needed to be set, but he didn’t care. Dialled in a number he found in his wallet, walked back into the bathroom and pulled out the plug on the filthy water as it rang.

   "Hello?" Said a gruff, male voice.

   "Jack, it’s me." He said.

   "What? What the fuck you doing calling me at this time?"

   "I need a favour."

   "Fuck you, you need a favour. What time is it, Jesus!"

   He heard the sounds of someone complaining in the background. Jack’s girl, maybe.

   "Look, this is important, OK. I need you to get something for me. I’m staying at some road motel, off 66. I need you to bring it here for me."

   "66? How far along? Why the fuck would I bring anything to the highway for you?"

   "Look, just get it for me, and we’ll be sweet, alright. It’ll be worth your while."

   "I heard you got kicked outta your house, your pops beat you up? Why don’t you get a fucking job?"

   "I got a job."

   "Get a fucking job and quit calling me about this."

   "This is the last time."

   "It better be worth my while."

   "It will be. Just leave it in my car, ok?"

   Click. The phone went dead

   He stood, bemused, for a moment, then switched off his phone. Walked over to the motel phone, pressed the button for the service desk.

   "What’s up?" Said a lazy sounding voice. Probably a kid, he thought. They always are at these places.

   "Hi, I need some help getting into the trunk of my car. The release mechanism doesn't work anymore, and I don’t know the numbers of any local garages. You know some?"

   The other end of the line clicked, and he imagined the kid was checking the phone book.

   "Sure, mister, yeah, I got some numbers. But if ya like I could just come out and jimmy the lock with a screwdriver for ya, if ya want. Same thing as a garage'll do, 'cept less expensive my way."

   "Yeah, that'd be great. You got a minute now then?"

   "Yeah, just drop on by the booth, I'll be there in a second."

   He put the phone down, then walked over to the bed, the woman still wrapped up in the sheets. She looked odd, somehow. Like, in a strange posture. He’d read somewhere about how some people could slip into excruciatingly painful positions in their sleep, and not even notice it until they woke up. He thought it best to leave her be, left a short message on a scrap of brochure paper with a blunt pencil he found on the floor. It said:

   "I’m sorry for everything. It’s over. I have no life anymore, so you can’t be a part of it. Goodbye."

   He left it lying beside her pill bottles, keys and make-up case, on the bedside table, with a crumpled 20 dollar bill. She was moaning again. He left the room.

   The kid was waiting outside the room when he opened the door, and recoiled backwards as if struck when he stepped out.

   "Holy shit mister, what stinks in that room?" He asked. "And what’s up with your shirt, eh? What’s that red shit?"

   He looked down at the shirt.

   "It’s paint." He said easily. "I've been painting. The smell is just the setting agent. Sorry. It’ll be gone real soon."

   "Yeah, well I hope so, my boss is coming round soon and if he smells that, shit, he won't be a happy bunny."

   "I hear you, it’ll be gone. Now about the car."

   "Yeah, which one is it?"

   And they looked at the lot. A mostly empty, old tarmac with gaping heat holes, parking lot. There was a mustang, a chevy, a few battered old SUV's and a family saloon. But none of them looked familiar. He couldn’t see his car.

   "Shit, I dunno."

   "Well, it’s gotta be here somewhere right?"

   "I don’t know."

   He didn’t know. He couldn’t see the car. It wasn’t there. The kid walked over to the chevy, pointed to it.

   "How about this one, is this it?"

   "No." He said. "I don’t think so." And his temples began to throb, and the back of his head felt weighted down somehow.

   "How ‘bout this one?" Asked the kid, tapping the hood of the mustang with his screwdriver. The pain was mounting.

   "I think I’ll go back to bed." He said sensibly, and turned to return to his room, but there was the kid, somehow in front of him, holding the screwdriver in his hand like it was a gun, pointing at him.

   "Where's my 20 bucks mister?" He asked.

   "What 20 bucks?"

   "The 20 bucks you promised me for opening the trunk of your car. Look, see, it’s open."

   And he turned around, and there was his car, the trunk open, sloshing around with the dirty bath water, all red and grimy, that he’d flushed away hours ago.

   Was it hours ago?

   "That’s some weird place to keep paint, mister." Said the kid. "Now where's my 20 bucks?"

   "I don’t know where it is." He answered, saw the kid with the screwdriver held to his head. "I haven’t seen it."

   The kid grinned, said: "Too bad." And pulled the screwdriver's trigger.

   BOOM

VARIATION

   "alright, what the fuck is going on?"

   "you know"

   "fuck fuck fuck, I don’t."

   "what’s your name?"

   "your name. what is it?"

   "I."

   "dont know?"

   "of course I know."

   "you don’t."

   "I do, just give me some time."

   ....

   "try this: you’re nothing to me now."

   "my father?"

   "yes. your father said that, didn’t he?"

   "I. I don’t remember."

   "you’ve found what you wanted, then?"

   "leave me alone."

   "do you want me to go?"

   "no. don’t go."

   "you can come too."

   "I can’t."

   "maybe your father didn’t mean it."

   "no."

   "maybe he didn’t know."

   "this isn’t fair."

   "is it everything you hoped?"

   "I didn’t hope for this."

   He woke up stiff with the deep cold. Another night, another dream, leaving echoes to fade with his speeding pulse, with the memory of warmth, with the words themselves. Who was it? Where was it? What were the things they said?

   In the day, he didn’t care so much.

  Rubbing the sleep from his eyes he rolled off the wooden pallet, glanced to the left, at the body of a woman wrapped up in jackets and newspapers. She was splayed out, unhealthy looking, how can her legs be stretched like that, he wondered. He wasn’t sure if she was breathing or not.

   He stood up, rubbed his eyes again, stared for a long time at her face, half obscured by the collar of a heavy black jacket and her curly hair. Blonde, he thought. Blonde, and that’s all he could make out. The rest was just the face of a person, just another person and nothing more.

   He shook his head, it ached, the air cool and clammy against his skin. Walked over to a murky puddle where rainwater had gathered at the tunnel entrance, dripping from the roof. No window, no breeze, just the lazy splash of water from above and the chill rising from a frostwork mud floor. He swung his head, neck stiffened from his wooden pillow, saw the sun like a white hole in a dreary grey sky, and wondered if it has always been like this.

   He could just about make out his reflection in the slurry puddle, a white oval framed against a dead dawn sky. Grimed and colourless, the face of a ghoul, not his, he thought..He felt a splash of water on the back of his head, and he spasmed with remembered pain. The aching, the flashes of colour, the onset of a nightmare migraine.

   "Goddamn but you’re a fucking loser." He said to the addict in the puddle. And it was true.

   Reaches around to the cobbled mess tangled with his straggly hair at the back of his head, feels scabs, clots oozing. His hands come back red. Killer migraine, he thought, but do I get them?

   He washed his face in the image, watching as the puddle turned to mud, drops of red spreading like oil through the grey. Wondered at the marks on his arms, scratch marks and bruises, and remembered the night, and the woman. She’d put up a fight, and it hadn’t been easy. She’d liked it, he knew. She’d fought hard, but she’d liked it in the end. They always did. Whores.

   "Goddamn." He said, out loud.

   Time had lapsed. He felt lost. Staggered out from the shelter, feet trailing in turfed up mud ruts, glazed eyes staring across the river and the rest of the wrecking yard. Heaps of broken metal, paint shredded with the rain, washing machines, cars, tricycles. The world span around him, the migraine bearing down upon him and he remembered having a dream about his head hurting. He could only see in shades of grey, nothing was clear.

   It started to rain, and within seconds he was soaked.

   "Bollocks." He said.

   A noise came from the dark of the tunnel. Somebody was moving but nothing was clear, just shapes and the steady drizzle of rain. He took a few tentative steps closer, squinting in the downpour.

   "Hello?" Said a gruff, male voice.

   "Jack, it’s me." He found himself replying.

   "What? What the fuck you doing here at this time?"

   "I need a favour."

   "Fuck you, you need a favour. Where the fuck are we, Jesus!"

   He heard the sounds of someone complaining in the background. A dim shape behind Jack.

   "Look, this is important, OK. I need you to get something for me. I’m staying on that pallet over there, under the bridge. I need you to bring it there for me."

   "That pallet? You’ve really lost it. Why the fuck would I even go close to that shit-hole for you?"

   "Look, just get it for me, and we’ll be sweet, alright. It’ll be worth your while."

   "I heard you got kicked outta your house, your pops beat you up? Why don’t you get a fucking job?"

   "I got a job."

   "Get a fucking job and quit bothering me about this."

   "This is the last time."

   "It better be worth my while."

   "It will be. Just leave it in the puddle ok?"

   Jack’s shape recedes into the grey.

   He staggered back to the pallet, curled up next to the contorted woman, slipped an arm around her cold shoulders. Things weren't supposed to be like this. He knew that, but he wasn’t sure how.

   Everything was becoming grey. He could feel the pain spreading through the strands of his body, like the blood itself was drying up, carrying the pain from his head and back, redoubled. Everything hurt. Everything slowed down.

   He turned to the scrap-yard, but he couldn’t make out more than a blur, like driving through the slipstream of a truck. Nothing was clear, the migraine was rubbing it all out.

   When he turned back to the pallet, rest his head on the hard wood, the woman was on hands and knees delving into the puddle at his feet, batting about inside his reflection, her bones jutting against sagging skin as she rifled through the slop.

   "It isn’t there yet." He said calmly to her back.

   "It’s always been here." Came the dead voice. He was suddenly terrified. Her hair was grey and black. He could see scalp through it’s matted waves, and blood around the edges.

   "It’s always here when you look for it." She said, and he found himself getting up unsteady and trying to run away, too afraid to stay, to see her ragged bones clumping within their sack of flesh any longer.

   "I’m sorry." He sputtered, tripping backwards over chunks of old metal stuck in the mud.

   "For what?" She asked, head aligning with her body, withered hands slowing in their palpitations under the mud."

   "For everything." He said, the words sounding foreign, as if he barely understands himself.

   "Why?"

   "It’s over."

   "Why?"

   "I have no life anymore."

   "Why?"

   "I don’t know!" He shouted, afraid she would turn round, catch him like this, and he would be gone. "I have no life, so you can’t be a part of it! Here, take this, it’s everything I have." Found himself holding out two halves of a twenty dollar bill, limply attatched by a stretch of scotch tape, soggy with the rain. "Goodbye."

   He tried to run but stopped when he heard a raucous screech from behind, and somehow the click of metal through the driving rain

   "It’s been here all along!"

   He dropped to his knees, watched her approach through the clogged mist of rain, raised his hands pathetically before him.

   "Goodbye." She said, eyes bloodied in her face like bullet-holes.

   And.

   BOOM.

VARIATION

   "you’re remembering, aren't you?"

   "leave me alone. I don’t want to talk right now."

   "but why? this is your moment of glory, isn’t it? wouldn’t your father see how wrong he was now? imagine him calling you a loser!"

   "leave me alone."

   "you of all people."

   "leave me alone!"

   "alright then."

   "what?"

   "where are you?"

   "..."

   "i’m still here."

   "this isn’t fair!"

   "you see it now?"

   "I don’t believe it! I hate you! it isn’t real!"

   "and yet here you are."

   Sat in the mud, under a bridge somewhere. It was raining. He opened his phone, called a number, waited as it rang 15 times. The line crackled.

   "I need help." He yelled at the silver metal chunk, held at arm's length.

   "Who is this?" Asked the phone

   "There’s no time left." He shrieked, the pounding rain drowning out his voice.

   "What do you mean?"

   "Don’t do it. Maybe it isn’t too late. Please."

   "I don’t know what you mean."

   "Help me please, I don’t want to go."

   "I should hang up."

   "Don’t do it! It isn’t what you want! It isn’t too late."

   "Don’t call this number again." Said the voice, then hung up.

   A moment passed, and he waited.

   It rang. He watched the lights flashing, listened to the ring tone recycle 15 more times over, then he flicked it open.

   "Jack, it’s me!" He stammered, but all he could hear was a piercing whistle, bursting through his head and he couldn’t think, the migraine coming back.

   "I don’t want it anymore." He panted at the phone. "Take it away!"

   The whistling subsided. A gruff male voice spoke.

   "I’ve already brought it."

   "No! I don’t want it anymore."

   "I’m afraid it’s too late for that."

   "No!"

   "You’ll need it, where you’re going." Said the voice, followed by a burst of light in his mind, static raking over his vision. He blinked, swayed, and when the fit passed he saw the chunk of silver metal in his hand for what it was. A gun. Hung it up.

   BOOM

THEME

   "oh."

   "oh?"

   "oh."

   "you with me now?"

   "maybe. what can I do about it?"

   "nothing."

   "you mean it’s too late?"

   "of course."

   "what if I leave? if I leave and never come back. I’ll fly away, steal a car, you’ll never see me again. I swear. I just want to leave here."

   "you can try, but there’s nowhere to go."

   "how do you know? how can you be so sure?"

   "because you’ve already tried."

   "there has to be a way! this can’t just be it!"

   "but this is it."

   "just this? but what’s the point then? am I supposed to learn my lesson? where’s the point?"

   "there is no point. just consequences. now come with me."

   "I don’t want to go."

   "there’s nothing else to do."

   Looks around one last time, sees only dank shadows, puddles of murky water lapping red with something. Somewhere wet, cold, alone. The pain in his head is dying away as the world shrinks before him. Pale grey morning light filtered in through sick-looking clouds, fading to black. His life. Tightens his finger on the trigger, ready to go, then he remembers.

   BOOM

   He’s already done that once.

©2004 Michael John Grist

michael john grist is a 23 year old English teacher working in Tokyo, Japan. not for long though. in a few months he`s quitting to head off around the world for a year. on a bike. wish him luck :)

other stories by him can be found in the archives of house-of-pain .com, silverthought.com, quantummuse.com, alternatespecies.com, twilighttimes.com, apocalypsefiction.com and savagenight.com.