writing – Page 2 – Seeds of Fear

7: Catastrophic

I stand at the edge of the doorway to a veritable nirvana, a Valhalla, a den of metaphorical lions. The threshold seems an event horizon.

“Candy? Come in and dry off, hurry! What are you, a vampire?”

“Don’t be silly.”

I’m much, much worse; I really exist.

I step inside, and allow the door to swing shut behind me, the lid on my casket, the seal on my fate. I peek around. The TV, where I knew it would be. The couch, from an angle I’ve never seen.

My heart is playing my ribs like a xylophone to a panic waltz. My blood surges in my ears. I meekly accept a towel, and dry myself, certain that it will come away stained with the sludge of my soul.

The rain competes with my heart on the window, light cymbals to the rattling of the snare. I look down. My clothes are still drenched. He picks up on my dismay.

“Oh, let me see if I have… um, sweatpants, and a shirt, maybe?”

His respect for my modesty cannot hope to compare with the utter lack of it in my thoughts. He presents me with a bundle of soft, dry clothes, and ushers me to the bathroom. I stare at myself in the mirror. I look like a wet cat.

This cannot be happening. This cannot be happening. This should be impossible, a game-over state that forces the world to reset. But time continues, and before I realize what I am doing, I am in the clothes he has given me, and mine are on the floor. I stare at my underwear. Something terrible is happening. My vision blurs a bit, and I crouch.

The demon rears its head, and roars from within me. I whimper into my elbow, and am assaulted by the scent of his clothes.

Every direction is danger. I have stepped into a minefield. I gather up my clothes, bundling everything in my dress, and I bite down on my own arm, hard enough to draw blood. My vision clears.

I return to the front line, holding my wet bundle. He regards the strange, waterlogged thing before him, then leads me to his laundry room and explains his machines to me before leaving me with my dignity. His kindness is a knife in my side.

I complete the chore, I return to the living room, and I approach the couch. He stops me. I look up into his eyes, and whatever he sees in them causes him terrific embarrassment. I suspect it is something akin to despair, though I cannot explain its source to him, so he is forced to explain that he is not, in fact, telling me to stay on the floor.

“I’ll go change the sheets on the bed, so you can have a room to yourself. Or, wait, I suppose you won’t sleep-”

“I may nap. I didn’t sleep perfectly last night.”

I interrupt, flushed. It’s a bargain, an embarrassment to stave off something worse: even the thought of me awake and at hand while he sleeps seems like a violation of common sense. You don’t find lambs snoozing in the company of wolves. Hearing him mention changing his sheets, however, and understanding that it means he intends for me to use his bed has rather stunlocked me into a mental chant. It goes like this:

Change the sheets? Please don’t please don’t please don’t please don’t please don’t please don’t please don’t please don’t please don’t please don’t please don’t please don’t please don’t-

He is back. The sheets, mercifully, are changed. I am nudged into the bedroom, he takes some clothes from his closet in case the storm keeps me here overnight, and then I am alone. In his room. With his bed.

I am wide awake.

I walk around on tiptoes, a pious child in a sacred temple. Bedside table. Alarm clock, book, lamp, notepad.

I gently lift and thumb through the notepad. I see financial numbers, grocery lists, reminders. The most recent page simply says “library, six.”

I clutch this divine relic to my chest, press it to my heart as if it can soothe the organ in its mad sprint. I float over to the window, press my free hand to the curtains. I see through the narrow gap, sight the perch from which I gawked not so long ago. I turn away immediately, revolted.

But before me is a sea of treasures. Furthermore, I distantly hear something incredible: a shower springing to life.

I cannot bear my idle imaginings: I fling myself to the floor and quiver, overstimulated. I shrink into myself, and lose all molecular sense, diffusing like a fine mist into the strange horizons of my daydreams, wreathed in dazzling light that tastes more than it glows, and gives off a perfume stronger than either. Sounds like the crashing of metal and reverberating bass lines splinter into my state of unbeing, stifling what could once be called thought even further.

A knock at the door. I sit up, and miraculously produce enough sense within myself to call out:

“W-what is it?”

“I realized you might want a shower too, so I put a fresh towel out. If you like, you can also grab another set of clothes from my closet.”

He pauses, and I pinch myself to stay sapient.

“I checked the forecast. The rain is supposed to last at least another hour. No clue how bad the flooding is at this point.”

I am trapped here in this hell. I couldn’t be happier.

“Th-thank you!”

I draw my marionette self up on strings of sheer willpower, and gangle to the closet. Here too are dangers. I open a drawer. Neatly stacked socks and underwear scream into my eyes. I shut the drawer with a squeak that may have come from it or myself. I grab a t-shirt and a pair of jogging pants. I feel woozy, the ground tilts as the deck of a ship, and I fight a staggering swagger. I open the door, and the world snaps upright.

Before me, I see him, calmly sitting and reading as if there is nothing to be concerned about, as if the world still spins, and the stars still twinkle, and a monster does not stand in front of him, wearing his clothes. I turn from the irrational sight, and march into the bathroom, closing the door.

Mirror. My pupils are needlepoints. I can see my pulse in my neck. I set the clothes aside, and peer at the towels hanging by the shower. One is fluffy, the other is considerably damp.

I jolt, suddenly finding myself with my face buried in the damp towel.

The shower is good. Water over my head, down through my hair, across my back. Shampoo. Soap. Soap that sits in my hands for a time, cupped like a bird with a broken wing. The act of cleansing is a profound help. I am fully conscious again, though my obsession has awoken as well, at full strength. Always I am glancing at the door, supposing that some ridiculous change will occur, and cause him to join me in the steam. I have to shake this notion from my head repeatedly.

Drying off again, my eyes attach themselves to the sight of his toothbrush. Absolutely not. Instead I take the unopened, packaged one that has been laid out for me. I have no choice but to avail myself of his toothpaste, however. There’s no escaping the fact that I now know what his mouth tastes like at this very moment.

Surely this is another dream, and I will soon wake up in my bed, or on my floor, having overslept for our date. This makes the most sense, but I cannot rouse myself with pinches or bites.

I am awake. This is a terrifying thing to admit. It carries with it the admission that I am currently in his apartment, wearing his clothes, about to retire to his bed. It beggars belief.

But when I open the door, he looks up from his book and smiles sympathetically at me, as if he understands what a noble fight I am putting up for his sake. I bow my head.

“Thank you for… All of this.”

Every second is beyond my most daring wishes. He simply nods his head in return, and blinks slowly. I retreat into the bedroom, and at last confront the most immediate of my formidable foes: the bed. I kneel at the altar upon which my messiah reposes, and apologize for sullying its purpose with my impure body. It is only at his request that I do so.

I climb up, a hiker stranded and on her last rations mounting a cliff edge. I tremble as I crawl up to the pillows, and slip my legs under the covers, then my torso.

There are not words in a vocabulary uttered by sentient creatures to express the boundless euphoria I am experiencing. My whole body tingles, my head swims, my vision becomes a smear of colors without names. I am a wax candle under a blowtorch, an ice cube under a tongue. I fall to pieces, my mind relinquishes reason for good, and his chief protection becomes my inability to find enough coherence to escape the trap I have willingly entered.

The moon rises in the window, and seems to encompass not only the entire breadth of that small rectangle in my view, but the whole of my vision. I am swallowed up in its malevolent glow, exposed at all angles to the unliving oculus of divine judgement. I can only plea that I have not chosen this course, but fallen into it.

This is not enough. My own voice seems to echo in my ear, a juvenile self tugging at a skirt I am not wearing.

“What happened to you?”

I am dreaming. But as I look down, I see that I am covered in familiar bruises. And each aches as it did when it first developed. I press my hand to my lower back, and it comes back wet, slick with blood. I turn, and find all the moonlight concentrated into one figure, one towering monster, one that has not lived in years. Horns like railroad spikes jut out from a grinning skull. The thing crouches down on all fours, to bring its head in line with mine. A voice that haunted my childhood bubbles up from its broken trachea.

“What’s life without a little pain? What’s love without a side of fear?”

The crooked mouth cracks open, and pours with beetles, shiny shells reflecting my blank face back at me. As they begin to crawl up my legs, I scream.

Awake. I sit up, heaving air. Sunlight streams in through the window, forming uneven pools of brass upon the white sheets that conceal my body from my sight. I lift the sheets in terror, but find none of the squirming black bugs. I have not dreamed of my father in months.

All at once, like a splash of cold water, I ascertain that I am not in my room. This is not my alarm clock, not my notepad. These are not my clothes.

Oh. A strange serenity evaporates up into my head, and I fall back on the pillows. I am here, and I am in control. The clock tells me that I slept for seven hours, two more than most days. In hindsight, I reluctantly admit that I may have done myself more harm than good by staying up to practice my resistance. While it served to temporarily strengthen my inhibition, it also had a terribly obvious effect on my sleep.

Still, I wonder at the light that breaks through the curtains, reflecting that it must only show me such favor for my valiant defense against myself. No such sun could possibly shine in a world where I had less self-restraint.

I leave the bed with all the enthusiasm I can muster. I approach the door, and reason that he will have left for work already, before opening it and seeing him at the stove, pushing bacon around in a skillet. My dread crashes against me like a wave, but curiously recedes as the ocean on the shore, a blessing that originates from I know not where. He glances over his shoulder, and waves shyly. I wave back, a comrade in his awkwardness with my own mystified state.

“Um, your clothes are done drying, of course. Ah, most places are closed today because of the flooding, so, the bank is not open. I actually got a call from my supervisor, apparently the manager wants to inspect the damage before opening it to customers again.”

I nod in recognition and acceptance, and sight my purse hanging by the door. I walk over and withdraw my phone, but find it has died overnight. I turn on my heel with it pressed to my chest, pleading with my eyes. He puzzles my affliction out in a moment, and turns to gesture to a cord hanging from a plug near the table.

“I don’t know if it’ll be compatible.”

It will. I plug the phone in and step away as if to watch a firecracker go off, before finding a seat at the table to sit in with my hands in my lap. I am blissful, perhaps floating on a cloud of the fog that comes with waking. I am cognizant of my situation, but am somehow satisfied, accepting of it. There is enough to feed my hunger, yet not so much as to send me to the place of darkness. I am a guest in a foreign land, high-strung, but functioning with some effort.

A plate is laid out before me, a pair of eggs attempt to represent eyes to the smile of bacon, but the broken yolks rather create the sense that the egg being is on the verge of tears, and smiling through the pain. I look up at him, and he shrugs and scratches his head sheepishly. I hide a giggle behind my hand and focus on the meal I have been presented with: nectar from olympos. He speaks as he returns to the kitchen to assemble his own plate and clean up.

“Um,you did receive a number of texts last night. I didn’t want to pry. I think one of your friends is worried if you’re alright.”

My heart sinks as I imagine Raphael sending a message in Morse code with notifications alone. Text for dot, call for dash. I glare at the phone through the corner of my eye. As if intimidated by my attention, it lights up, finally charged enough to turn on.

Crunching on bacon, I lean over and tap the screen. Fifteen notifications. Eleven from Raphael, two from Igor, one from Gloria, and one from Jim. Raphael’s start out as teasing requests for status updates on the date, but turn into panicked requests for signs of life. Igors first is a simple thumbs up emoji, the second is a question mark and an exclamation point. Gloria and Jim are both wishing me to get better soon. I sigh, and my thumb hovers over the button to call Raphael. I envision the length of the call, and think better of it, dialing Igor instead. He picks up in two rings.

“Candy. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. I’m… Away from home. Couldn’t make it back in time.”

“Raphael will want to hear that. He’s been-”

“Could… Could you tell him for me?”

“… Is everything alright? Where are you?”

I look up to where He stands in the kitchen, checking the news on his phone, pretending to be ignorant of my call.

“I’m staying at someone else’s place.”

“Mystery man?”

“Maybe. You get why I’m asking you to-”

“Yeah. Ralph won’t get the hint easily. Relax, I’ll tell him. You just be safe.”

“I will. Thank you, Igor.”

I set down the phone, and breathe out slowly.

“Putting out fires?”

“Of a sort. My friend, I told him I was going out yesterday, so he thought I was stuck in that storm.”

My phone dings, and I glance. Raphael. Upset that I didn’t call, glad I’m safe. A second message, one which makes me blush and quickly turn off the screen. Ridiculous.

“I don’t mean to pry, but you seem uncomfortable. About talking to your friend.”

His tone is cautious, and his face carries something adjacent to concern. There is something else, something I feel I have felt on my own face before, though I cannot place it.

“Ah, no, Ralphie really does mean well. I should’ve texted him. He knew I was going out last night, so of course he was worried. I just don’t feel like answering all the questions he’d have.”

He nods, but that tinge of discomfort stays in his eye. Again, I worry I have said the wrong thing, but no question I ask myself has the answer that fits.

The confusion is swept away with my plate, and I drift to the window, looking out at the street, absorbing the sight of wreckage caused by only water. I should leave soon.

The thought careens in me, snatched up and pushed away. I hate it the moment it is conceived. I would stay here, become a fixture in this life, a part of this world.

Something has changed. I do not recognize myself. I still have all of my unnatural compulsions, just glancing at him is enough to confirm that.

The want to bury my face in his chest and inhale without ever breathing out again, to push him down to the floor and hold him there, so I can see the fear in his eyes again, to run into his room and begin chewing on his clothes, to lick his fork clean, to run my fingers across every surface of his body-

But I feel all of these impulses calmly, with balance. They surge and roll behind my eyes, pluck at me, threaten me. But I am steady. Something far more compelling has taken hold.

I nearly gasp at the realization, and turn away again to hide the flush of blood that warms my face. I want his approval! Awful! Since when am I a domesticated pet? But that’s it, I’m peaceful, because I am near him? Rather, I cannot risk disappointing him. This is it, the wretched truth. For all my hand-wringing, as long as I am in his view, I am harmless, incapable of acting beyond the scope of normalcy.

Tearing myself away will be perhaps the harshest fight yet, and I can feel now that when I am alone again, my volatility will return. Here I am under control, even if it is not fully my own.

Before he approached me, I think the greatest danger was being closer to him, and having nothing. But now, now that I’ve felt what it is to be smothered in his attention…

I am a time bomb, and my timer starts ticking the moment I leave.

I clear my throat, and walk coolly to the laundry, and collect my clothes. Already I am choking on my determination to leave. But I announce aloud-

“I had better get going. I need to see if my area was hit with an outage and I need to throw out everything in my fridge.”

“Oh. Well, technically, as long as you don’t open the door, you have a while. Assuming the power comes back in time.”

I force myself not to interpret his tone as disappointed, lest I become tempted and stay forever. The image of myself wearing an apron and welcoming him back from a day of work explodes in my head like a firework, and I stumble, gritting my teeth. Raphael would be so disappointed in me. Assuming I don’t end up on the news in a murder-suicide. Then I suspect he might have some stronger feelings.

I dress in the bathroom, doing all that I can not to notice my surroundings again. I know how to purchase my escape.

As I emerge from the bathroom, I collect my phone and purse, and stand at attention at the door.

“Other than the rain, I had a very good time. I wouldn’t mind doing most of this again soon.”

Ask me back again soon, please. Ask me to move in, or move in with me! You can live in my closet, and I’ll feed you and pet you and clean you every day! Just don’t try to leave, or I don’t know what I’ll do!

He approaches. I see a glimmer of hope in his eyes, and latch onto it with all my heart. Yes. We will see each other again. He wants to see me again. This is very much not goodbye.

“Why don’t I give you my number, so you can let me know when you make it home?”

Oh no.

6: Havoc

I wake. I am on the floor, drooling. I shoot up and rip across the room to my alarm clock.

Four. With relief comes the echo of my dream, and I grow warm from head to toe. I sink down onto my bed and hug myself.

No! I stand and brush away the intoxication, stumbling. I will be strong today. I attend the closet, and examine my battle gear for the day. It will do. I will even forgive myself for my wishful choice of undergarments. To be safe, I select a pair of woolen stockings. The demon grumbles within me, but has clearly become sedated by my ritual.

A light giddiness coats me as I apply makeup and get dressed. As I brush my hair, I evaluate my face in the mirror, and find it to be satisfactory. No trace of the bottomless hole in my eyes, no suggestion of the deviant in my smile. I pinch my cheeks, and grip my fists in front of me, standing as tall and proud as I can manage. For once, I believe Raphael’s compliments. I am pretty, I am powerful.

I flit into the kitchen, and allow myself a slice of toast with butter. I will need energy to continue suppressing the beast today. Something sparks, and I race to my bedroom again, scouring a small wooden chest under my bed, and withdrawing a small silver necklace. A tiny pendant hangs from it, a sapphire suspended in the center of a silver flower. Mother. I place it around my neck gingerly, and close my eyes.

Time’s up. I flee, practically flying out the door and down the stairs, with only enough sense to slip into my shoes and grab my purse before escaping.

The statue is something wonderful. I press my hand to one of the spires that seem to erupt from the ground to converge into a canopy at the center. A bronze bench waits underneath, barely large enough for two. The whole seems to suggest both trees and a dome, at times nearly organic, at others sleek and unnatural.

I am early. I glide through the structure, pausing to read the quotes engraved on the inside of the bent pillars. Both fiction and nonfiction are represented, and while I am not particularly well-read, I can appreciate the selection on display.

“Woah.”

Yes! I look over my shoulder and see him, staring at me, me! He is wearing a collared shirt, and his favorite purple tie, and dark slacks, and brown shoes. I am almost certainly imagining it, but I feel that perhaps his hair has been brushed just a little more thoroughly than usual.

I smile warmly, and wave shyly. My practice, my ritual, it’s all paying off. My heart still races, my cheeks still flush, but my demeanor is controlled, measured. I am my own master.

“You. Well, you look good.”

Yes, yes I do.

“Thank you. You look nice, as always.”

He clears his throat and points to one of the quotes near to me.

“I see they’ve even got more modern writers.”

It’s not one I’m familiar with. Octavian uses a digital reader with some frequency, so collecting everything he reads is difficult. I tilt my head in question. He obliges me.

“Ah, I’m a big fan of his. He writes a lot of historical fiction, and his language is just-”

He starts, and glances at me. Am I staring too intensely? He scratches his head and looks away.

“Sorry, I’ll talk your ear off if I’m not careful.”

“I won’t mind, you seem very passionate about reading.”

He nods a little, and looks out towards the library.

“I like stories. I like stepping outside of now and spending a little time somewhere else.”

“Is the present so bad?”

He glances at me, and seems to get bashful.

“I don’t mean right now, I just mean, the world moves slowly. A book moves as fast as I go through it. I can choose the pace. To say nothing of the things that can happen in books and not the real world.”

I shudder when he looks away, and myself look out of the sculpture into the noise.

“Don’t you think it’s a little… Dangerous to indulge in too much fantasy?”

He shrugs and starts to walk, reading the engravings for himself. He looks back to me with an inquisitive gaze.

“I think the real world already has most of my time. What I do with what’s left is up to me.”

I concede, bowing my head. From a certain perspective, I must seem a photographer churlish at creative arts.

“Are you always in such a rush to make the most of things?”

He pauses, seems to stop dead in his tracks. I’ve said something wrong. Panic. He looks back, and something forlorn and distant has his attention more than I.

“I guess I am. I just. I don’t like the thought of missing out on something because I thought I had all the time in the world.”

I take two steps towards him, biting my thumb.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize this was a sensitive subject for you.”

He shakes his head and brings back his smile, but I’ve already seen the gloom of the clouds reflected in his irises. I’ve never seen him affect a look so serious in public.

He seems to notice the mood sticking to me.

“You know, I haven’t eaten since punching out.”

The diner is nice, in exactly the way a bus stop can be nice. I hide behind a milkshake as he browses the Menu and chats with the waitress. I flick my eyelashes as playfully as possible when she calls me his girlfriend, and he stammers out a rebuttal, glancing at each of us rapidly with the terror of embarrassment.

I’m doing so good. Oh my gods, I am holding it together so well. The waitress winks at me and walks off as he continues to blubber. Something about the fear in his eyes… I cough and barely avoid choking on my milkshake. He stands ready to help in some generally pointless way, and I wave him off.

“Just… Brain freeze.”

“You sure?”

No. But I’m never sure of anything when you’re looking at me like that.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s passing. So, what made you pick this place? No offense.”

He actually comes here once every two weeks, right when he gets his paycheck. He didn’t get his paycheck today, though.

“I like it here. It’s close to home, and the food would still be worth it if I had to walk ten blocks.”

“Really? Wow, and I only live nine blocks away!”

“Wait, really? You walk that far to work? Or, I guess the café could be closer than the library.”

Oh, shit.

“Well, uh. I actually take the subway most of the time, but stopping at the café is sort of a habit. I need the energy.”

Half truths, half truths will save me.

He seems to comprehend my logic, and rubs his chin. I stare into my milkshake, and the waitress returns. He orders a plate of country fried steak. I meekly request an omelet. She nods, puts away her notepad, and leaves us to each other. Ruthless.

“Breakfast for dinner?”

Ack. Okay, it’s fine.

“Breakfast for breakfast. I… Work the night shift. I actually suggested today because I had the day off. Night? I still don’t really know how to think about my days. Nights. You see?”

Okay, I rambled a bit there. But I don’t want him asking more questions, even in his head. It’s probably too late for that. He looks impressed, so that’s nice. Look at me more. Oh boy.

“Woah, woah, hold on. So every Monday and Thursday morning, I’m getting coffee to start my day, and you’re-”

“Refueling at the end of mine. It’s no big deal, I’ve kept this schedule for a few years now.”

He sits back and looks generally awed. I feel very, very cool. Thunder rumbles outside.

“I mean… Just wow. You obviously see the sun in the mornings and stuff, but… is the city quieter at night?”

“Only in some places. Other places get louder. All the concerts, bars, clubs, anything that can call itself a good time likes to happen after the sun has set. And news happens any time of day.”

I’m paraphrasing Raphael. The last bit is Jim, though. Octavian- Oops. He scoffs and runs a hand through his hair in a way that brings my knees up and makes me itch to bite my lip. There is a considerable pause, one that seems to make him uncomfortable, I hope not because of the intensity of my gaze, which I am practicing restraint with: glancing away, shying around his eyes when not speaking. Wonderful eyes. I can nearly see myself reflected in his pupils, a facade of the facade, proper and upright, and even likeable.

“Geez. I mean really, I never would’ve guessed. But-”

Our plates arrive, and he pauses to smile and thank the waitress. I thank her in my thoughts for the brief opportunity to stare at his neckline, his collarbone– and snap back to attention as he continues.

“I gotta say, you’ve got me hooked, I need to know more about this night life you lead.”

Sorry, you shouldn’t.

“It can’t be that different from daytime. Maybe a little darker?”

Much, much darker.

He picks up his knife and fork, and I swallow back the sudden salivation that occurs in my mouth. I collect my own utensils and attend my plate, supplementing the meal with the feast for my eyes.

I’m not sure why people get self conscious about how they look while eating. There’s something mesmerizing in watching his throat squeeze, seeing all the muscles in his jaw at work, the poetry of his tense hands, fingers holding the fork and stabbing viciously into tender prey-

“So, what do you do for fun?”

“Mmh? Oh, I like movies.”

The rain is torrential. We stare out from under the awning into the street that is becoming a river. I know very little more about him than I did an hour ago, but I am warm inside in a way that the rain and wind cannot erode. He has learned more half truths about me, too, and this is also nourishing. I am ready to brave all manners of catastrophe.

“Well. This is something. I don’t feel right sending you home in this.”

WAIT.

“Nine blocks is far too far, and I’d worry the subway might be flooding.”

YOU MUST NOT SAY IT, YOU ABSOLUTELY CANNOT SAY IT.

“Why don’t you stay the night at mine, or at least until this blows over? I mean, if you don’t mind, or… ”

“Yeah…” NO.

5: Nature as Foe

He is already here. I check my watch perhaps a bit too quickly. He has come earlier than usual. Oh dear. He smiles at me, and I have to grab the reigns of my motions in both hands to keep my legs from shaking like a newborn goat.

I must not seem desperate, overzealous. I approach the counter first, and order my coffee, and a scone. Preventing my voice from rising an octave is a war of attrition. Once I have my order, I walk, cool, collected, over, and sit at my usual table, which he has waited for me at. I fear I may be dreaming.

I sit, and smile, laboring to bring warmth, but the method is flawed. I am sure that I look like a preening, squawking bird.

“Hello again, Candy, right?”

My name, from his mouth. I can die now, I think.

“Yes. It’s Octavian, isn’t it?”

He nods and smiles, taking a sip from his coffee. I do my very best not to stare, but I cannot make up my mind whether to nibble or sip. Every choice seems wrong.

“So, Candy, “

Fuck. Please, keep saying it.

“I read a few articles on the Peregrine Post last night. One of them had a picture you took!”

I may actually die. I manage a sip of my coffee. I should’ve gotten decaf.

“Really? What, um, what did you think? Now I’m nervous…”

Very true, but I’ve been nervous since yesterday if we’re being one hundred percent honest. I don’t think being honest is the right choice, however. It seems more wrong than most of my choices anyway.

“It was very good! The article was good too. But I really liked the picture, it was one with the new sculpture in front of the library?”

“Oh! Yes, I remember the dedication ceremony. I think they said that the artist- sculptor? Apparently he designed it to shield the spot in the center from rain, so a couple people could read under it.”

I drink in the pleasant intrigue on his face like wine, in small doses so as not to warm my cheeks and dull my wit too quickly. Wit, what wit?

“That wasn’t in the article, was it? Has anyone tried?”

I shrug shakily and spin my cup on the table with my fingers. Turn, turn, turn, turn.

“I doubt it, who’d take a book outside on a rainy day? But I’m sure people have taken shelter under it once or twice. Without knowing.”

He nods and looks out the window. I stare at his jaw with embarrassing intensity, before quickly looking away before he turns back.

“That’s really interesting. You must get some fascinating trivia like that, going out and finding moments to capture.”

I cannot help murmuring.

“You wouldn’t believe the secrets I’ve caught.”

“Really?”

I start and look up, ears warming in a blush. He looks interested, like a teenager hearing a new rumor in his friend group. I stammer and curl my hair around my finger. What kind of thoughtless…

“You know. Sometimes you take a picture and realize you caught something strange in the background. I took one once, and only found out after developing it that an old guy was drinking wine straight from the bottle an inch from the focal point.”

I glance up with a weak smirk, and am rewarded with a deep, heavenly chuckle. I thank wine-man in my thoughts as one might worship their guardian angel.

“That’s amazing! You might have to show me that one, do you still have it?”

I smile, and lean forward, shocked at my own boldness. Oh. He smells like… Smoke? Like a fireplace, not tobacco. I am at a hearth, a roaring flame.

“It’s on the website right now. On an article about the rising cost of bread. The picture was supposed to be a little ironic with breadcrumbs being thrown for pigeons at the park. When I pointed out the wine man to the editor, he shrugged and said it was fitting commentary on how people feel about inflation.”

He laughs for real, and I get a whiff of his breath. Coffee, but I imagine I can also smell the fruit smoothie he had for breakfast. My eyelids flutter, my heart takes a shortcut on several beats. I am a blessed, loved child of some god of merciful, indulgent fortune. I cannot die now, I must live to experience another laugh like this one.

As if specifically to darken my skies, he checks his watch and sighs.

“I should get going. But, I’ll see you again, Thursday? Or…”

Please, don’t tease me, don’t tantalize me. And yet he goes on-

“Maybe we should meet after work, sometime? If that’s okay with you.”

I may actually die at this rate.

“I. That would be okay. We can meet at that library, Wednesday afternoon? Sixish?”

“Sixish, Wednesday afternoon? That’s perfect actually, I get off an hour early on Wednesday.”

I know. I get up an hour early on Wednesday. He smiles, and leaves on what I imagine to be a breeze of pure, diffuse gold.

I scream. The pillow soaks up my voice with far too little effect, and I fall breathlessly into the sea of sheets. My head spins like the stars. I flail and flop, and fall off onto the floor. A moment later, my downstairs neighbor bumps the ceiling, and I nod in agreement. I need to get a grip on myself.

I sit up and claw at my chest, at my stomach, at my face. Idiot. Idiot, you did it now. This is a date, right? A date, by at least some stretch of imagination. And. He. Asked. For. It.

I cannot be reigned in, I am burning, melting, freezing, shattering. The demon is screaming almost as loud as I, cavorting in my skull and breaking itself against the walls. I stand and stagger into the bathroom. My pupils are widening and shrinking over and over, my chest heaves in and out, my shoulders shake, my legs give out under me. I bite into my own hand hard enough to draw blood, and convulse on the ground.

Organized thought escapes me, I crawl back to the bedroom. I am the surge of energy when lightning connects the ground with the heavens. I am magma becoming lava, becoming a blast upon a peak. The world itself seems a fiction.

Fluid light seeps across planes in parallel with the sand of sightless fluttering flights. Never, always, forever and now are one and the same.

I snap to consciousness again and gasp failingly as if stabbed. I grasp the edge of my desk and pull myself upright, but nearly fall again. A flimsy, scratchy, scrawled note clings with cheap adhesive to the corner of my monitor, and says only “six. Library. Octavian.”

His name is etched here and there into the walls, invisible unless viewed from inches away- each scratching is less than a centimeter long. I fall into bed and hug my largest pillow, kicking my feet and giggling. Even I cannot understand how I switch between feral ghoul of yearning and giddy school girl. In one breath I am elated, ecstatic, enchanted. In the next I am practically seizing with the need for gratification.

The phone rings. I sit up, blank in the face by sheer habit. I turn slowly to regard the intruder upon my ecstasy. I recognize the number, and grunt before crawling over to the desk and picking up the receiver to put to my ear.

“Soooo, how’d it goooo?”

Raphael’s voice is an electronic whisper in my ear. He is nearly drowned out by the other phones ringing in the call center. I can detect the chatter of countless feminine voices, in a cacophony that somehow reminds me of my own thoughts.

“I have a date.”

My voice is flat. Sharp. Not rude, but disbelieving. Raphael gasps, and seems to stifle a shriek of delight.

“See? Do I know how to catch eyes or what?”

I cannot find the words to respond. I look over to my closet, and grapple with the need for an outfit anew. As reality sinks past the crust of my raving psyche, I contend with the new dilemma I have been given. I have certainly made a terrible mistake.

“Ralphie, what do I do? I’ve never…”

He is silent for a moment, and when he speaks again, I am frightened by the sudden lack of sarcasm, sass, smugness, or squeal in his tone.

“Candy. You can do this. Let him lead when possible, but don’t be a pushover. Don’t do anything you aren’t comfortable with.”

He’s right. He frequently is. I have conquered myself repeatedly in the past, have overcome embarrassment and humiliation, and survived real danger. I have what it takes to survive this, too.

No, no way! This is totally different! Even when my life was in danger it didn’t matter this much! Dying doesn’t scare me half as much as this. I fear for myself, but more so I fear for him. Who would willingly place the object of their affections within reach of a person they know to be so mentally unbalanced?

Not for the first time, I feel a horrific guilt, a rage against myself, for daring to allow him to become involved with my disease. My affliction.

“I have to go.”

“Okay. Be safe, love. And if it comes to that, use prote-”

I drop the receiver onto the base, and slither into bed. Shards of accusation seem to flicker at the edges of my vision. Half of me yawns, licks its lips with appetite. The other half sobs, screams with terror as she tries to hold the gate shut against the thing that is all teeth and tongue. I fall falteringly into a sleep fitfully filled with terror and euphoria in equal measure.

Dusk. I haven’t the energy to leave the apartment. I accept fate, and instead sit curled up in front of my computer, alternating between spycam feeds for Abner, my notes, and reruns of some ancient action show. I hide from the march of time, I flee from the flickering grey in the corner of my screen.

There are no meals, only prolonged snacking periods, and a pint of ice cream.

I push myself to at least tend to my future, and place a grocery order. When the driver drops it off, I emerge in my bathrobe and mask, and take the bags with a muttered thanks.

Loading the food into my pantry and fridge, I am caught in a state of silence that is poison to my numbness. It is a small mercy that I tend towards fantasy instead of fear. I am swept up in an imagining, of a spoon in his hand, holding out ice-cream for me to take into my mouth. I shake my head in an attempt to dispel the image.

Denied, it is replaced with more insistent imagining, ones I shy away from with disgust. My head is full of air flavored with coffee and fruit. My second outfit spites me from where it hangs on the door.

Inadequate. Woefully insufficient. I am puppeted to the closet. Whilst I am incapable of any sort of fashion sense under duress, the demon seems to know what it wants, and so rips into the stockpile with gusto. Its only flaw is a severe lack of modesty- it thinks us a peacock, a frilled lizard, which needs only to flap its arms and paint itself bright enough to stand out. I grapple for control, watering down its overexertion where possible. Realism is a thing it shuns, but tolerates as useful. But to outright deny its desire is to fuel its hunger, to sharpen its teeth against me.

Our cooperation gives way to something that I can only suspect is acceptable: a sleeved floral dress, a knit cardigan, a pair of moderate heels.

It seems to me still far too bold, practically a declaration of desire, but it is the least my other self will be satiated by. I concede, and lay it out, before creeping back to my desk and huddling up in a ball. I watch from behind my knees as color and light soothes me, reunites me with myself. Together, I chance a look to the coveted corner. He is interacting with a patron, typing something into his workstation.

My hand reaches forward, and strokes the scene with a hooked claw, a sort of cooing rising in my throat.

I wonder at myself quietly, my eyes affixed to his face. I am one person, supposedly. But my id and ego so often oppose each other that I cannot see myself as less than two. Compromise is the only peace, the only way to lull the demon so that I might make a life of my life. To give in without resistance is to feed it, to nurture its appetite, but to flat out refuse it is danger above all. The less I agree with myself, the less control I have. Up until now, my own fears could be used to tame the thing that lives in me, by the reasoning that going too far would risk being caught and permanently separated from him. Neither of us wants that.

But now, it seems it has found a new call to answer: his. He doesn’t realize, how could he? With every kindness, every inch closer grown, he is stroking the wolf. Wresting control away.

But I am one person. Every rational thought has always served the base desire. The reasoning me is a thing wrought by the unthinking me to protect it from itself. I have outgrown myself, overstated my role.

Perhaps this will all end in blood, me and him torn asunder by myself. At least I’d be with him.

Wednesday. Not Wednesday. Tuesday evening. I have a headache. Pain medicine. Breakfast: toaster waffles and a glass of lukewarm water. I pace around the barren living area in slow circles. The sun sinks from the horizon. I dress. I depart.

I collect my hardware from Abner case. As I walk my way to where Costello target has traveled for the day, I call the newspaper office. Jim picks up.

“Candy! Hey, love what you sent me this morning, what’s the occasion?”

I don’t have to fake a sniffle or a cough. My voice is ragged enough.

“I don’t think I can make it tomorrow. I think I caught something, I don’t know where. Do you think you could send me an email with what you’d like me to prepare?”

“Jeez, I hope you’re taking it easy, you sound terrible. Gloria will be sorry to miss you, but you just focus on getting better. There’s a late night press conference I want you for in a few days, so rest up.”

“I will, thank you Jim.”

“Okay, feel better soon, Candy.”

The line clicks. Against my will, I sigh in relief. My hand in my pocket clutches, fumbles with a creased photo. I glance about nervously, though my face, my vile face of satisfaction is hidden by my mask and sunglasses.

Target Costello looks both ways before crossing the street. I snap a photo. Right now, I am playing a role close to home, as a simple photographer catching the nightlife of the city. I take photos in all directions to add to the effect, but I make sure to get the next photo, of the target entering a hotel.

We are easily within walking distance of the parking lot where I bugged the car. I review my photos, scrolling through more than thirty seemingly random shots. Some of these may still be useful for the paper. The target is carrying a purse. I bite my lip and look up at the dozens upon dozens of windows in the hotel.

I weigh the pros and cons of simply tapping her phone, against taking the extra effort of slipping a bug to her purse, to the arduous task of combing the hotel room by room from the outside. I check my notes. The client provided a phone number for the target.

No, I’m going at this from the wrong direction. The hotel surely has a database where they keep track of reservations. I open my phone and check for local wifi, and immediately find one with the hotel name followed by guest. I smile despite myself, and walk into the lobby, finding a seat to avail myself. Going unnoticed is largely about confidence- as long as I have no stake in the matter, I can act as though what I’m doing is as natural as breathing. I take a cursory glance around, before taking a laptop from my bag and turning it on.

I paid a lot for the slew of malware in my collection. Getting surveillance feeds from a bank undetected is not a simple task, after all.

Back home. I review my new bonanza of security cameras with relish, giggling and clutching the creased photo at odd intervals. Work-life balance is an uphill battle.

I watch the footage of Target Costello entering the lobby and taking the elevator. A few seconds later, I watch her enter the fourth floor hallway. She enters room 412, which I take note of. In the future, I will have to patch these feeds through to my phone, and make sure I identify which room she takes. But now at least, I have the preparation complete.

I sit back and sigh. The natural drift of my eyes carries over to the corner of the screen. An empty chair. The urge to leave, to go and watch his sleep knocks insistently at me. I refuse. Thus far I have also avoided intruding in his home while he is away, though with the rate things are progressing-

No. No, no. I do myself no favors with wishful thinking, and giving any credence to wicked plans is a route into the territory I have avoided so successfully.

I stand, and step away, and sit on the floor, my hands in my lap. In my mind, I face myself.

There is only so much I can do to tame my behavior. But I am practiced. Every Saturday, I prove to myself that I can hold off, and behave as a normal individual. And on the days I visit the office, I can hold myself in check with the promise of seeing him in person before returning home.

I relax my shoulders, and lower my head, loosening my grip on myself. Mine. He is mine, all mine, mine alone. Give him, give him, Octavian, Octavian, Octavian, Octavian, Octavian, Octavian, Octavian,

Octavian, Octavian,

Octavian-

I slump forward and grit my teeth, shuddering. The world spins around me. I grab the floor and heave. No. No. I will not let go, not yet, and not tomorrow. I will survive this. I must. For both our sakes. I begin again. Octavian. Octavian. Octavian.

4: Time Flees When Sought

Sunday. I breach the waves of sheets and blankets, and hurl myself into the world as a feral beast from the deep. My restraint has taken its toll, my heart burns with need. I stalk into the bathroom and regard my lightless visage in the mirror. No mask of ceramic, no forced smile. My mascera and eye makeup has become a downward smear of darkness around the empty pits of my eyes. My nostrils flare with every breath.

Dressing today is not the calculated defensive strategizing carried out the day before. I grab baggy jeans, a tattered shirt, a hooded sweater. These are put on with the finesse of a mallet cracking shellfish. I grab my backpack and flee the apartment without stopping to eat. I have forgotten my shoes, and I do not return for them.

Alleys, backstreets, over fences, across roads, sliding over the hood of a car too far forward, up the rungs of a fire escape, mounting the ledge of a rooftop. I pant and swallow, and look around with frantic thirst.

I approach the edge, and peer almost timidly. I can see light in the window. I am not too late. My binoculars are in my hands already, pressed to my eyes already. I stare.

He is sitting at his table, cutting a slice of a steak, and picking it up with his fork. I catch my breath in deep inhalation. My lip trembles. He glances to his left, where I have discerned his TV is. I curse, and fumble with my bag for my camera. I have missed the profile shot.

I snap flurries of pictures as he bites into the meat, and my mind ravenously spits foul desire into my thoughts at the sight of his teeth sinking into flesh.

The remainder of my evening is a smeared impression of similar behavior, and the fervor only fades two hours after he has taken to sleep.

Shame. Shame wells up and floods into me from all directions at once, a torrent of shock at my own disgusting behavior. I withdraw from the ledge and survey the rooftop that I have chosen, knowing that it possesses no normal exit for residents. This does not allay my fear that I might one day encounter a maintenance crew working on the air conditioning unit, or window washers closing up for the day.

Doom haunts me loosely. I am hounded by my guilt, my shame, my loathing. But the chief among my pursuers is my own rabid obsession. Even after so much indulgence, it harrows at the edges of my thinking, slavering after my attention. I reject it, and stand away from myself, seeking downward escape from my actions.

Descending the building distances me from my behavior, and recomposed, I resolve to focus on work. I check my phone. Target Costello is back home with the client, but Abner is out and about. I check the location, and plot out a route. I will take the subway. I zip up my sweater, and apply my face mask from my bag.

I glimpse my reflection in the window of a store. I look the part of a corpse. The mask only adds to my sickly appearance, creating the apparition of a person infected, drawn out of quarantine by necessity. This is fitting, I feel.

I snap a burst of photos. I lean back from the viewfinder and consult the screen, cycling through the cluster. Target Abner glows softly, in the act, a perfect payoff for weeks of cautious planning. His own caution rivaled mine, hiding his guilty habits with perfectly innocent errands and hobbies.

But now, I have proof of the suspicions fostered by the client, who I suspect was on the brink of terminating our contract. I sit back and sigh, closing my eyes. Between this and Fallen, I may end up with extra spending money for the month. Idly, I wonder about what I might use it for.

Is it time to decorate a little? I peer through the viewfinder again and study the room around the target. Almost immediately, I lower the camera and scowl, put off by the garish color scheme of the apartment. Decorating can wait. If anything, I’m in need of storage, and boxes are cheap.

What about clothes? I have enough covert outfits, but if I’m going to talk with-

I freeze, and a chill descends my spine. Wait. Just hold on, there’s a big problem here.

What do I wear tomorrow? Why didn’t I think about that yet? Most times when I head over to the newspaper, I elect for something simple, like a sweater and jeans. Is that enough? No, no no no, I can’t overdo it, otherwise I’ll seem like I’m dressing up for him! Whether that’s true is irrelevant, he can’t think that’s the case! But I can’t just show up in whatever meets dress code, I have to actually plan the outfit, oh no! No, not a chance!

And yet, I stand up, gather my equipment, and hike home, grumbling with a thousand thoughts. On the way, I stop at the mall.

My journey through the levels of this multistage spending spree is one of uncertainty, that begins with ill-advised spontaneous purchases based purely on my understandings of his favorite colors, styles, and the like. But as I very nearly march into a lingerie store with that attitude, my sense of self reawakens, and drags me through a trench of embarrassment, before depositing me at the threshold of a department store.

I am my own person. My wardrobe serves no purpose if it is to be tailored to the liking of a person who will see its contents but twice a week, and only sparingly then. This is what I tell myself, to eradicate the voice that tells me to cling to his approval like a dog in heat.

I make better choices from here. Tasteful miniskirts, slacks, blouses. On a whim, perhaps inspired by last night, I seek a more specialized boutique on the upper level, and find a fitting vest.

By the end of my retail therapy, I am dragged down by six large bags, and one small, lacey bag that I do my best to hide and ignore. I cannot bring myself to dwell on the thoughts that controlled my actions early in my trip, nor can I fully explain the concessions I made later.

I shuffle through the door of my apartment and lay everything out, everything, more or less. My domain is a garden of choice, choice I cannot begin to address. So I do not. I pause to file my findings in case Abner, and send them to the client.

A reproachful peek at my bank account drains the color from my face, but cashing the digital check sent by client Fallen eases the fear. I have already collected my trackers and spycams from the case, but I will have to do the same for Abner soon. I mark that down as a job for Tuesday.

My next task is to examine the feeds from Costello. I compare data from the GPS with the cams, and begin to scrub through periods of activity. I witness a grocery trip and two fast food stops, but nothing of note. The target, unfortunately, is not the type to talk to herself.

The elephant in the next room shifts in my thoughts, and I groan. I close the computer and stride out as if on the way to berate a noisy roommate. The wash of color and fabric greets me. I am not incompetent in fashion, but something about knowing that my choices will have to survive my talk with him creates a sort of colorblindness that extends to other aspects of aesthetic common sense.

I surrender, and text Raphael. His advice is… acceptable. With his help, I manage to assemble two outfits in advance, which I set aside, before adding the other clothes to my closet.

Next, I take precautions. I take every picture out of my wallet. I tell myself it is temporary, but I wonder if it shouldn’t be permanent. I find the camera I disallow myself from using for anything but newspaper work, and set it prominently upon the counter.

My stomach growls.

Monday. Rather, Sunday evening. How can one count days lived across the border of midnight except by the name of the night day that follows?

My commute is unremarkable. I take pictures along the way, but I already have the pieces my editor expects. A magnetic badge gets me through the door, and I am promptly greeted by Gloria. She is an enthusiastic human, a journalist for puff pieces and gossip. I have provided pictures for her frequently enough that we are supposedly work friends now. She is always saying that we should get drinks together, but her shift ends a few hours after mine starts.

My shift isn’t much to speak of, either. I have a desk, but most of my work really consists of attending meetings and volunteering to provide pictures for planned articles. My editor is a man named Jim, who frankly looks more like a Frank. His mustache has a streak of grey on one side. There isn’t much to edit in photos, his role is more to help me manage my workload.

Every hour is excruciatingly drawn-out, minutes are needles in my nerves. By the time I clock out, I feel exhausted, but the moment I step out of the subway entrance across from the café, I am like a spring crammed between two steel plates. I mentally remind myself that I am wearing perfume and deodorant, and so do not smell like sweat. I smooth my dress, adjust the bag over my shoulder, and straighten my camera.

I approach the café.

3: An Amoral Guide to Stalking Your Prey

I’m horrible, really. I sit on the rooftop and stare up into the sky, compelling myself to drink in the limited starlight, the swollen visage of the nearly-full moon. I breathe out, and watch the air become steam in the chill of midnight. I look down, and press my eyes to the binoculars I have set up.

Through a gap in curtains, I glimpse sheets, a bare chest. I catch myself nearly panting. My fingers clutch a folded Polaroid. Really, I’m just awful. I can reason and justify all I like, but when it comes down to it, I’m a slobbering hyena, a sick splotch of lust and craving.

He turns over, and I frantically begin to trace the dimples and lines that tell of his muscles in his back. I feel my mouth is gaping, my heart pounds in my chest. I cannot resist myself, I bring the photograph to my mouth and press it to my lips, a stopgap measure against panting like a dog. Heat billows through me, short circuits my thoughts, sparks my nerves, brings a weak wobbling to my knees. I can nearly feel my fingers tracing that back, palms pressed, greedily drinking in his warmth.

“Octavian…”

My voice is a pitiful, sniveling whimper. I moan lightly into the photograph, and crouch, breaking away from the sight. I am on all fours, saturated in sweat, heaving as if I have been running full tilt. In the part of my mind that maintains aloofness, I can only feel contempt for myself.

I may pretend to respect some boundary, but am all too eager to transgress, if an opportunity presents itself. I am no loyal soldier, there is no chivalry in my depravity. I stand, clutching myself, and lean my head to the binoculars again. He has not moved.

I drink in the sight, slaking an unquenchable thirst with slivers of pure intoxication. It is all I can do to keep steady with fingers splayed upon the ledge guard. Pity me. Slave to this monster that calls my soul its home.

Dawn comes, and I have packed away my equipment. As I distantly see him preparing his breakfast in the dim, I check my tracker. The car has not moved from its location all night. I have already noted the address, and will visit it soon. Notably, it is not the house of the client’s friend. A cursory search suggested a commercial district, with a few hotels.

I sigh and stand from my crouch. There is still time yet in the morning. I sling my pack over my shoulder, take one last, longing, lasting gaze towards his apartment, then begin to hop down onto the fire escape, disembarking from the building.

I climb and hop over a chain link fence, into a parking lot. Scanning the rows, I keep a low profile, ears out for any security personnel. I’m close.

I tiptoe into the next row and see it, a red sedan with a small dent in the back bumper. I jog over, glance around, then turn my attention to the door. After a moment’s inspection, I take a thin metal strip from my bag and slide it down the gap for the window against the exterior. It takes some finicky maneuvering, but I pop the lock, and open the door, slipping into the car.

It stinks of perfume. I check the backseat over my shoulder, then begin rifling through the glove box and the center console. I find change, registration papers, a pack of unopened gum, a stack of napkins, but nothing of consequence. Fine. I reach into my bag, and pull out a pair of small disks. One I affix to the back of the rearview mirror, the other I wedge into the defogging vent, making sure it faces the driver side.

I exit the car, close the door, and carefully lock it again. I check my surroundings, and exit the parking lot the same way I entered.

Exercise is a given with the work I have chosen. It primarily consists of cardio, but it is advisable to have strength enough to maneuver your bodyweight with ease. Crawling, sneaking, shuffling, climbing, leaping, rolling, there’s no end to the unorthodox methods of movement that may come in handy when you’re tailing someone on foot.

Following someone in your own car is fine, but traffic is a far less forgiving crowd than the sidewalk, alleyways, and rooftops.

I enter a light jog and pull down my hood, playing the part of a morning jogger starting my day. In reality, my night has just come to a close. Two turns, past five blocks, and across a bridge. By the time I am home, I am sweating and breathing heavily. Not so much as earlier in the night. I check around myself, then duck into my apartment building.

My dinner is a bowl of instant noodles and a bag of chips. I return to my desk, and flop down into my chair, flicking on the monitor.

He is at his desk, checking his emails. I smile, and review my own. Nothing new, but the thought of synchronicity brings me a warm feeling. Switching gears, I address my current cases. Two others sit in my files, one nearly wrapped up, the other in progress.

I assign all my cases codenames, to keep them straight. Case Vander includes client Vander, target Vander, etc. Case Whitlock, case Brighton.

I collect the gathered materials for the nearly complete case, Fallen. After compiling all the pictures, videos, and audio recordings and packing them into a zip file, I send it with a short email to the client, and close out the tab. I will have to scrub my files soon to preserve space.

The remaining cases are Abner and Costello, the latter being the case I worked on this morning. I contemplate examining case Abner, but push the idea aside, taking one last look at the surveillance feed before standing, disrobing, and collapsing into bed. I fade.

Fear. Guilt. Despair. I wake up sobbing. The dreamed accusation that woke me still rings in my ears. I revel in my sorrow, indulging the feelings of self pity and defeat, before wiping my eyes and sitting up, staring blankly at the floor. I laugh hollowly, then stand and glide over to the bathroom, greeting my reflection with hate.

My sunken, baggy eyes leer out from behind my greasy, tangled hair. I steel myself, then turn and turn on the shower, leaving the knob in cold. I slip under the rain, and rub the previous nights away with soap and conditioner, and tears. When my eyes have ceased flowing, I turn the knob to heat, and let my shoulders drop, planting my hands to the wall.

I get dressed. I elect to wear a short dress and a cropped leather jacket, both in moody shades of their respective colors. I augment the bags under my eyes with eyeliner and eyeshadow, and apply lip gloss. Today is Saturday.

Many people celebrate Sunday as their holy day. Saturday is mine. I spend each Saturday practicing restraint, forbidding myself from my nature. Today I will not obsess, I will not indulge, I will not work. I brush my hair, and take a curling iron to it.

I pout at myself in the mirror, judging my handiwork. I am clean, and presentable, infinitely more so than an hour ago. I bring out a smile, trying it on like my jacket. It looks forced.

I flinch, recoil, then acquiesce. I bring forth a memory from within, and my smile seems to come alive, warm and genuine. My cheeks color all on their own. My eyes shine like silvery fish.

My armor complete, I disengage from the bathroom and closet, and enter my kitchen. I snatch keys from the counter top, and a handbag from the chair. At the door, I slip into a pair of heels.

“Goodness dear, you look terrible.”

I offer Raphael my middle finger, which he blows a kiss to. The arrow tattoos above and below his eyes twitch with mocking, and I slide into the booth. Colored spotlights paint him vile shades of his natural pigmentation, and at times make him appear less a skinny and tall fellow in a bodycon dress, and more a mummy in scant wrappings. Which is closer to accurate is unclear.

A waitress wearing a dark blue vest and fishnet stockings comes and lays a martini glass in front of him, and a glass of scotch in front of me. We toast.

“To us.”

Raphael grins, and echoes the sentiment with less panache.

“To being hot bitches!”

I glare at him, but he is already throwing back his drink, and gesturing for another. I follow his gaze, and see a particularly broad-chested stack of man behind the bar. Ah. I understand now, the reason he asked to try this particular hole in the wall. I suspect the bathrooms also have holes in their walls, and that he will be trying those, too.

I grimace, and scoot further into the booth, away from the frantic swirl of people and noise. Raphael pouts.

“Honey,if you look that pathetic, I’m not gonna feel right having fun.”

“Sorry Ralphie, I’m just waking up.”

“Candy. Sugar. Sweetheart. What’s the point in living your life overnight if you’re not gonna enjoy the nightlife?”

The mob cheers as a new song begins- at least, I suspect it is a new song. The bpm seems the same, and the bass is just as oppressive.

“I hear you, Ralphie.”

He sighs and reaches over to hug me, shoulder to shoulder.

“Hey, no more frowning, okay? I wanna see any cute boys you’ve been following, okay?”

“Ralphie, you know most boys I follow are up to no good.”

I am already pulling a handful of pictures from my purse. Raphael’s smile rivals mine.

“That’s how I like em, girl. I love a guy who can’t keep it in his pants. He can keep it in me instead!”

I cough and laugh, before handing him the photos, before picking up my drink and having a gulp. It’s like fire in my mouth. I question if… Octavian really drinks this for anything other than alcohol content. Raphael mutters to himself.

“Damn bitch, how do you get these without getting see- holy fuck, that’s a cock! You got him with his pants down, literally!”

I glance over, taking another gulp of scotch.

“Oh, yeah, that had to be the easiest case in a while. Proof in two days.”

Raphael sighs and stuffs the photos into his dress around the chest.

“And you get paid to creep on people. Honey, you’re my best friend, but you are staying safe, right? You’re not in legal or physical danger, right?”

I shake my head and throw a practiced smile. My hair bounces around my head.

“Ralphie, who am I?”

He grins and clasps both my hands, bouncing in his seat.

“Baddest bitch outside myself, of course!”

I watch Raphael lead someone towards the bathroom and sigh, shaking my head. My second scotch arrives, and despite the warm, swimming sensation in my head, I pick it up and drain it in two goes. Another body slides into the booth beside me. I get ready to scowl and shoo off an unwanted suitor, but instead find myself face to face with a pair of terrified eyes.

The girl cannot be more than sixteen, and her lipstick is smudged around her lips. I tilt my head to one side, looking her over, before nodding once and putting my arm around her shoulders.

Its not like I wear a neon sign that says ‘give me your weary’, but I’ve bar-hopped with Raphael enough to know what my ‘energy’ is: safe. I glare at men who meet my eyes with anything approaching hope. I view other women with utter disinterest. In a room full of apparent predators, I look like an exit sign.

I lean over and whisper softly into her ear.

“Where’s the scumbag?”

I look into her eyes, and nod once in the direction of the dance floor. Her wild, crazed eyes lock to mine, and she stammers. Beard, biker jacket, aviators. I glance out and immediately identify fuck boy. He looks like a frat boy playing dress up. He is coming this way. Alright, let’s go.

I stand to square off with him, and am immediately rewarded with the sight of Raphael grabbing him by the chin and forcing his lips to the loser’s. I watch the man twitch and recoil, and cough loudly, and can guess at the nature of the gift Ralphie has given him. I slump back in the seat beside the girl, and Ralphie joins from the other side.

“I’d like to say he tasted bad, but…”

I gag and cover my mouth. Raphael turns to the girl and looks her over.

“Are you okay? Would you like us to walk you home?”

The girl nods enthusiastically.

“But really. No one catches your eye?”

I adjust my stance, careful not to fall forward. Raphael carries both our purses and my heels, and I carry the girl on my back. I glare at him from behind the wavy curtain of my hair. He sighs and groans.

“Girl, are you ever gonna find Mr right? Perfection isn’t going to just walk up one day and introduce itself.”

Irony brings heat to my cheeks, and I look down, cursing the way my heart beats just a little faster. My state does not escape Raphael.

“OH!? Oh, so there IS someone!”

“Shut up, Ralphie…”

I bite my lip and blow air through my nose. I can hear Raphael prancing to my left.

“Oh but this is good! Candy finally met someone! We should celebrate!”

“Not… Not yet, not just yet.”

What am I saying? We’ve only spoken once. There’s barely the chance it will happen again, let alone that it will be anything more than a way to pass the time. I was noticed only because we two are both awake and active early enough that we have the café to ourselves often. A terrible risk. And what if we do talk more? Can I keep up appearances all along?

But I find myself wondering why I even grew so bold as to enter the same room as him, alone, if I hadn’t hoped, secretly, even from myself, to be seen, to be known? Whether it is the alcohol in my veins or the dizzying self-contradiction in my head, the world is blurred. I stumble a little.

“Alright, alright, no jumping the gun. Baby steps. Dates before dick.”

I nearly choke on air.

Emily, as the girl’s name turns out to be, waves to us shyly from behind her door, before closing it and vanishing into the townhouse. Raphael sighs and puts his hands on his hips.

“She’ll be fine. I just hope she finds better friends to party with.”

I stare at him with a deeply sarcastic smile, eyes half shut. He notices, and sticks out his tongue. I smirk, and feign embarrassment.

“Oh, you still have a little, um-”

He frowns and runs his finger over his tongue before catching me holding in a laugh. His face droops, and he waves his defeat as he turns to head back. I trot up alongside him and smile with some of my practiced warmth.

“Thank you for tonight, Ralph. I really did need some of this.”

“Anytime, girl. Who else is gonna hold my hair?”

His words don’t match the sly, unrepressed smile of genuine joy he hides by turning away. Suddenly, he stops, and turns to me.

“Hey, we should visit Igor.”

I raise an eyebrow in skepticism. He insists.

“No, really, we should tell him that you met someone! He’ll be so happy for you!”

“Igor. Happy.”

“He does smile, once in a while.”

“Just not in your presence, right?”

He ignores my jab, and resumes walking, at twice the pace. I follow, with significantly less vigor.

Before I know it, we’re at the tattoo parlor. Smoky neon light spills from the doorway into the street, a lotus petal of colorful invitation. Raphael strides in proudly, and I stay on his heels.

“Iggy! I’m here for you!”

A muscular, bullish specimen is hunched over a customer, applying the finishing touches on an arm and tattoo. Without looking up, Igor answers the greeting.

“Still don’t swing that way, Raphael. Grab some seat, I’ll be with you in a bit.”

Raphael harrumphs, and finds a chair to wait in, while I remain standing by the doorway.

To say Igor is built like anything less than a bison would be a lie. He is swaddled in muscles, and boasts a pointy beard under his chin. A pair of motorcycle goggles decorate his forehead; to my knowledge, they may well be glued there. He has few tattoos of his own, outside of a number of tribal markings along his left arm.

“Pull up a chair, Candy. You’re makin me nervous.”

I grab a stool and bring it up to a respectable distance from where he works. I watch, partly repulsed and fully mesmerized by the vibration of the tattoo gun.

“Why’s Ralphie dragging you here tonight? You caught up in some bad mojo? A client stiffing you?”

“I… Um. Well.”

“Candy’s got a cruuuuuu-uush!”

“Raphael, you sit your ass down before I-”

Thinking better of any threat he might make, he exhales, pauses to wipe his work, and looks me over.

“So. A boy finally caught her majesty’s eye. What’s he like?”

I blush down to my neck, and stare hatred at Raphael before mustering an answer.

“He’s very polite. He works at the bank-”

Igor glances, and I shake my head frantically. I don’t want one of his lectures about Raphael’s tendency to date wealthy, dangerous men.

“He’s nice, Igor. He was very shy to approach me. He’s cute, and-”

I slap my hand over my own mouth, and feel my ears burn. I glare at Raphael, whose beaming is worse than any smug words. Igor laughs once, and leans away from his work, sizing it up.

“That’s good to hear, kid. Both of us worry about your level of investment in the world. Spend your whole life between dusk and dawn, when are you gonna soak in the sun?”

I scowl and cross my arms. Igor notices and pinches his forehead, groaning. The customer sits up and looks over their new armband.

“This is what I’m talking about. You spend all your time engaging with people like your clients, and club crawlers-”

“Hey!”

“-And you’re bound to become a cynic. Have a little optimism.”

I release my stiffness to indicate my understanding, but in my thoughts, I reject his message. Optimism is danger. Hope is a noose being tightened, a padded cell door opening. Chasing dreams leads to loony bins and sudden drops from cliffs. For a heart so steeped in wickedness, no such course should be pursued.

I watch Igor as he finishes tending to his first customer, and Raphael as he works his way onto the chair, perusing a pamphlet of Igor’s original designs. The mirage in front of me confirms my choice to suppress. I see no practice in their performance, no acting in their acts. Their world and mine are so divorced from one another as to be matter and antimatter. My essence is arsenic, theirs is carbon. To be fulfilled would be to damage what lies before me.

2: A moral guide to violating a person’s privacy

I flop onto my bed, and sigh, hugging myself. All I can hold in my mind is the sensation of his voice reverberating in my ears. I contort with a pleased stretch, and sit up, savoring the warmth in my soul.

On the ceiling over my bed, a smattering of Polaroid pictures are taped to the ceiling, each a moment of his captured in time. My room is not solely devoted to him, but multiple sections are. The ceiling, the top of the dresser, the third drawer in the desk, and under the bed. Most of my collection is pictures, but a small coffee cup has joined the clutter of mementos on the dresser as of this morning.

I rub my face and groan. It’s fine, I’ve been prepared for this. A helping of paranoia on top of whatever other complexes drive me to act the way I do helps keep me in line. The coffee shop is a little out of the way for work, but it still lies on the way home from the night shift. From there, I return home as I have now, and check my inbox. I stand, and slip over to the desk, sliding into my chair. I tap a key, and the monitor lights up. In the corner, a small rectangle of grey footage lingers, a feed of the camera at the bank that has the best view of his section of the counter. He is already set up for the day, running through his documents before the doors open. I shake my head and change focus to my inbox. One new message sits at the top of the list.

A new request. I open it, and view the contents with a thin frown. The customer believes his wife is cheating on him with his best friend, and wants me to find proof. Reviewing the details he has provided, I open a note and begin to enter what will be relevant. My stomach growls.

I stand and stretch, licking my lips. The door creaks softly as I push through. The walls of the hallway are bare, having no pictures or paintings, or shelves. The kitchen is the same, devoid of all but what the apartment had when I moved in. I fill a pot with water, and ransack the pantry for a box of penne noodles and a jar of meat sauce.

The windows that stretch from floor to ceiling at the far end of the room are obscured, first by the light-diffusing shades that come standard, then by the thick blackout shades I installed by hand. The room is so dark that the light of the induction element in the stove casts a red glow that in turn produces a long shadow behind me. I tie back my hair and sigh.

My lack of decorations is not simply a function of an asymmetrical mind. I do hope to address the bleak state of my living situation, but my fascination and my work eat at my budget with a ferocity that cannot be overstated. Camera paraphernalia is expensive, and surveillance equipment is more so. Staying under the radar only adds to my deficit, and so justifies the questionable employment I pursue. The water boils. I add salt and the noodles.

I have a contract on my business page that all clients must fill out before requesting my services. It’s primarily legal groundwork to make certain I am free of criminal or civil legal difficulties, but it also has key additions that help me evaluate whether the client is a danger to my status quo. I never meet directly, and I never provide my own personal information. I am a void, a simple bridge to results.

I keep a taser and a baton on myself whenever I leave. My excuse is that it is for self defense, which is half true. I’ve run afoul of the targets before. Seven stitches form a lesson I won’t soon forget.

As I heat the sauce in a pan, my mind wanders. I’m not an angry person. I’m jealous, and obsessive, and probably sociopathic. Morals are a thing I had to learn, though I am capable of sympathy, empathy, and love. Perhaps my brand of love differs from the mold, but it is earnest. It’s hypocritical of me, but I do respect him. I cannot resist my obsession, but I practice a sort of abstinence. Thus far, I have successfully held back from wicked behaviors that, to my dismay, are very, very enticing. Lust is a bodily phenomenon, a natural one at that. So it is to be expected that I feel such a thing towards the object of my obsession. But I restrain myself from acting on such urges. I cannot bring myself to defile the thought of him in such a way. I am sure I would be consumed in self-loathing, were I to engage in such a filthy act as to feed into fantasies of ecstasy and pleasure. No, I feel certain, were I to violate my rules, I might sink into a wretched spiral of violence and abuse, some shocking blockbuster of blood.

Controlling my obsession is my pride. I am a gentle, passionate observer. I do not breach the halls of intimacy, uninvited.

But… Again I shudder, recollecting the events of the morning. My mind, the warped thing that lives in my skull, tugs at me, begs me to consider its cravings. Suppose, idly, that we may grow close? Perhaps he may call me a friend? My heart aches, throbs. The wicked yearning whispers again. What if, by chance, by magnificent luck, he invites me to that eden, his home? My lips curl into an unconscious, hideous, open mouthed smile. My eyes tilt to the heavens, as a still greater desire flares up from the very root of me.

“Could it be… I mean, he might… But… To Be loved?”

My greed spoken aloud, I stagger, and shiver, leaning on the counter. I glimpse my face in the glass of the stove top.

My eyes are pools of dark need, my mouth is a wide, bowing line. My brow seems to peak in the middle, a sort of supplication to my helpless, hopeless, heathenous fantasy. I start, and move the pot away from the heat, having watched long enough for the noodles to soften a little too much. I eat in silence. I berate myself for my indulgence. I ask too much of the world if I deign to suggest that I might be more than a fortunate witness. Already I am a trespasser on private moments, my only redeeming quality is that I respect the boundaries of shower and window curtains. I am a crooked thing in love with the moon, howling with my impotence. Much as I may wake from dreams of his hands upon me, I cannot force such a vision upon reality.

It’s not as though I haven’t contemplated the twisted path that begins with kidnapping. Rationality is my saving grace, my guardian angel. I know well that such a course would either limit the span of my happiness, or taint the purity I covet. A thing ceases to be itself when acted upon.

I know little history, and barely more physics. But I know a man never steps in the same river twice, and a photon cannot be observed without altering its path. I cannot bear the stress that might overcome me, should I attempt to brave the tightrope of confrontation. Already, simply being approached by him nearly ruined me, threatened my heart and mind. I may dream of something so salacious as intimacy, but I know well that a mere embrace would threaten my sanity, my very state of consciousness.

I place my dishes in the sink, and begin to clean them one by one, placing each on a rack over a towel. No, no. I will let whatever happens be by his design. I cannot impose the wishes of my possessing demon upon his light. This is the thought I cling to as I cast off my energy, and prepare to sleep.

My dreams are cruel, teasing, echoes of the denied daydreams that drew such sinister expressions from my face. Shadows of familiar shapes, half recalled after-images of fond sensations, and an overwhelming tide of insatiable aching.

I awake in a bed like a warzone, with pillows in random disarray, and the sheets contorted into a mountain range of strife. My hair has come undone from the half hearted braid I bound it with. Drool on my face and a pillow in my arms tells me all I need to know about the fading dreams that haunt me. I rise, and depart from my resting place, into the night.

With my phone in hand as I lurch down the street, I review the details I noted in the morning. I wear a black hoodie and black jeans, and dark red wraparound sunglasses.

The client’s wife has spent multiple nights away from home as of late, and returns late in the day, usually with new clothes. The best friend is suspected because the client attempted to meet up with the friend while his wife was away on two occasions, but was blown off, callously. I cannot help but scoff.

I am not a model for good relationships. I am distracted, oblivious, and outright rude to anyone I don’t know well. I’m not necessarily malicious, but I have no patience for a stranger’s whims. Goals matter more to me. All this said, I understand the importance of cultivating healthy friendships. Once a week, I make time to catch up with my two closest friends from college. They don’t know about my obsession, but they do know about my work. Sharing, even if only a little, is important. I must be ungrateful to my clients and my targets. If everyone understood the importance of strong communication, I would have very little work.

I adjust the bag on my shoulder, and slip my headphones over my ears. The sounds of the night- the distant growl of motors, the rowdy laughter of nocturnals, the chirping of stranded crickets- it is all swallowed up in a vacuum of sound. I hear the jostling of the cord, transmitted crisply. I fumble in my hoodie pocket, then withdraw a folded device, which I plug the headphones into, just before ducking into an alleyway.

I stow the device momentarily to climb a dumpster and jump to a fire escape, before retrieving it again. I unfold the parabolic microphone and ascend two stories, before squatting down between two windows and pointing it out across the street. I set it on the railing and fumble with my bag, eventually withdrawing a tripod, which I attach it to before flicking the power switch.

“… Just wish you’d stay longer.”

“You know I can’t.”

I pull my camera and lens bag from the pack, and assemble them quietly, listening to the captured audio. I turn on the tape recorder built into the microphone.

“Baby, I trust you, you know that. But I wish you’d just-”

“Up yours, James. I don’t have to tell you everything I do.”

I swear silently under my breath and stop assembling the camera, reversing all the way. I leave the microphone as is, and hop down the fire escape as quietly as possible, before jogging out of the alley and across the street. I snatch a GPS transmitter from my pocket and slink up to a red car parked on the side of the road. Once I’ve confirmed the license plate, I slip the transmitter up into the wheel well.

I jostle it roughly to make sure it’s secured, before jogging back across the street. Up the fire escape, and plugged back into the microphone, I sigh in relief.

“… If you think I’m cheating, just say it, asshole!”

A door slams. I lean back against the wall and close my eyes. I hear a door open, muffled by the range of the microphone. I turn to look, and watch as the car turns on, idles, then peels away from the curb.

“I don’t want to think that, but what else can I think?”

I look up to the target window, and watch the client sit down on the couch, head in their hands. My hand hesitates over the microphone switch. I press my headphones tighter. I begin to hear quiet sobbing.

Perhaps, I am too quick to judge others. It’s easy for me to call my clients paranoid, distrustful. I am the same. But it’s not as if normal, sane relationships are simple. I’ve been contracted at times when the target was in fact planning a romantic surprise in secret. Just the same, I’ve been contacted by cheating partners hoping to discover whether their spouse suspects them. Trust should be the foundation of a relationship, but, in truth, it becomes one of the strained ties all to often. Some people are so desperate to stop being alone, that they leap headfirst without considering the future. Some people are adaptable. Others simply aren’t compatable with change.

1: Pilot

He meets my eyes again. I look away, my throat closing up in dread. Did he notice? I look out the window and pretend to watch birds, trees, passerby, anything outside of the café. I flinch when I hear a chair scoot across the floor in his direction. I risk a glance, who wouldn’t glance at the sudden noise?
Oh no. No no no, he’s coming this way. He’s staring at me. This can’t be happening, no, no-
“Excuse me,”
I Reluctantly look up into his eyes, and shudder under the intensity of his gaze. He seems nervous. Anxious.
“You come here a lot. Or, rather, I see you here a lot. And I noticed you looking over at me-”
Stop, please stop. Don’t say it, don’t ask-
“I was wondering-”
Shit. Shit, don’t look at me like that!
“Would you mind if we sat together?”
“… What?”
I reexamine his gaze, trying to grasp at its anxious energy. Oh. Wait, no.
“Well, I um. I just figured, since we’re both here at the same time, we could… talk?”
What the hell? I look around, and see we are alone in the café. My heart sinks, but I nod, and he sits down with his cup of coffee.
“I’m Octavian.”
I know.
“Candy. My name is Candy.”
I already know his name is Octavian. I know his coffee is a mocha with cream.
“Hi Candy.”
He smiles warmly, and my heart sinks even lower. Why, why did he have to be so friendly?
His name is Octavian Rumarrk; he is six foot two, weighs two-hundred and thirty-two pounds, has bright green eyes, doesn’t smoke, drinks occasionally, lives at 5541 Allbright, apt 211.
And he has a stalker, her name is Candy Morgana.

Let me explain. There’s no good explanation. You don’t do the things I do if you’re a good person. I’m not one. But I try to be. I don’t hurt people. Mostly because Octavian wouldn’t like that. But also because I know it’s wrong.
But I don’t know how to stop feeling the way I feel about him. For three years now, I’ve been watching him nearly every day, through hidden cameras, windows, and, twice a week, across the café. I’m not stupid. I have a routine, and going to the café is perfectly innocent, because it’s on the way to my job.
I work as a part time photographer for a newspaper. I’m good with a camera. I also work as a private investigator for people online. I have my talents, and they revolve around being nosy. Balancing work and life is difficult, but having this excuse to be in the same room as him is worth everything.
I’ve definitely fantasized about going over and saying hi to him, seeing him up close, looking into his eyes… But isn’t this the wrong way around!? Why did it go like this!?
“What do you do for work, Candy?”
“I. Take pictures. For, um, a newspaper. The Peregrine Post?”
My voice is shaky. I need to get a grip. Does he know? Is he going to suddenly spring it on me, like in those TV shows?
“Oh, I think I’ve read a few of their articles.”
He hasn’t. But he’s trying to be nice. He doesn’t like disappointing people. Why is he being nice to me? Doesn’t he know I have half a dozen pictures of him in my wallet right now? Oh god. Did he see them when I was paying?
“I work as a teller, down at the old town bank.”
He used to be a pilot, but he wanted to settle down in one place. He lives alone. His uniform is still in his closet.
“I see. Did. Did you always want to be a teller?”
“Not really, but I don’t mind it much. It pays well, and I can walk to work.”
Three blocks, rain or shine. He works overtime most days, continuing to file paperwork after the bank has closed for the day.
“What about you? Photography seems like it could be interesting.”
“Well, I suppose so. I tried it out one day, and I was pretty good, so…”
“But, do you enjoy it?”
I falter, and look down into the liquid mirror of my morning coffee. My own, shockingly calm face stares back at me.
“I think so. When I take pictures, I get excited, because I’m taking something and making it immortal, permanent.”
I look up. He looks awfully smug, and my heart skips several beats. He flinches and looks down at his watch, before standing suddenly, threatening to spill both our coffees.
“Ah hell, I’m going to be late. But, I’ll see you here again on Monday?”
I nod and attempt a smile, but he rushes off without noticing.
All the tension in my body releases at once, and I nearly plunge my face down on my cup. A noise like a seagull getting strangled shivers its way up my throat, and I seal my lips against the manic laughter. What in hell just happened? I cover my face with my hands, and stare through my fingers, sweat beading up on my skin, my mouth drying out, my head burning, my stomach twirls.
In my mind, I replay every second of the encounter, recalling his subtle expressions, his nose, his ears, his mouth, his lips, the glimpses of his tongue behind his teeth. I shudder, and turn to the side, biting my thumb. His eyes, his bright and wonderful, terrible eyes, burning into me from beyond the hills of my mad memory. I feel as though someone has pulled the zipper of the flesh that hides my soul.
I attempt to collect myself, but pulses of warmth still race up my back, melting the intelligence out of my skull. I kick my feet a little, and gasp, before holding my breath and squashing down my delight with rabid rationality.
I have to maintain the facade. He expects to see me again on Monday, every Monday and Thursday. The mere thought that he will speak to me again threatens to drag me back into the valley of physical insanity, so I am forced to block the notion from realization for the time being. I have to be careful. I cannot allow him to glimpse beyond the curtain into the wretched madness that has gripped me since I first laid eyes upon him. I wonder if it is not safer for me to disembark, to stop appearing before him, to withdraw into the one-way glass of the shadows.
I ache at the notion, at the mere suggestion of snubbing him like so. He has seen me here twice a week for, likely months, as I have been drinking the nectar of his polite glances for at least that long. For me to vanish would be an insult, a wound to him that he does not deserve. I am incapable of wielding such cruelty against him. I’m a flightless bird, a worm deprived of the dirt. No, I must stay the course.
But sacrifices must be made. If I am to meet with him, to, by the grace of some merciful divinity, hear his voice directed my way, pronouncing my name, then I cannot be so brazen. His pictures must flee my wallet, and I must control my renegade gaze.
My visage stills, and calm envelopes me. I turn, and regard the forgotten cup, abandoned in haste opposite mine, the rim still wet in one place where he drank from it. One last volatile shiver of heat drifts slowly up my back.

From the Desk: 06/02

The final chapter of Incarnate is uploaded.

It feels like an occasion, a cause to celebrate.

But I’m not great at sitting still or accepting “done”

Done is a way to get steak, not a state for a work to exist in. The closest any piece of art comes to being “complete” is satisfactory. That’s not to say no artist ever finishes their work. But I feel that anyone who operates as I do does not spend much time considering what they have put an end to. If the story is over, the book can always be read again, when you have changed as a person. Sequels defy endings.

I cannot say I will never return to incarnate. The characters still have their depth, and the universe still holds intrigue. As I have said once upon completing the draft, Ideas exist within me for such things as sequels, prequels, and companion pieces. What does the future hold for such a maligned existence?

Already ties exist between it and other works. But performing a crossover is something I am reluctant to attempt: If something has become clear in 2025, it is that tying two pieces of media to tightly together has the risk of pushing away your audience. I try not to demand more of my audience than I might ask of myself on a difficult day. Today is something of a difficult day; I happen to be physically unwell.

But then, my worst days are the ones I tend to produce my best work on. While I shy away from outright tormenting myself in the name of creativity, it is certain that when I am confined to do very little that pleases me, and my environment is unpleasant at best, I burst at the seams with a creative energy.

I have ideas. they all vie for my devotion, insisting upon their depth as more than curiosity. I think it may serve to, for once, make use of social media to attain external input, to see what is wanted of me.

But, imagine my frustration and embarrassment, should I create a poll and find that there is no overlap between those who consume my work, and those who engage with polls on secondary sites.

I am vexed.

But, in the end, I have offerings due to arrive.

Next week I will take a break from posting. After that, my current project shall begin to release.

1.6

Reacquired 1.6. String appended.

“Zen, can you hear me? Is it working?”

[Yes Janice, I am here.]

She claps and shakes her fists in celebration, then is hit by a wave of exhaustion, slumping back in her chair. The computer in front of her is a mess of flat cables, circuit boards, and whole blocks of processors. Janice has thermal paste smeared on her forehead.

[You’re sure there’s no chance they’ll detect this?]

“I learned a lot working with Tim. He’s got a few secrets of his own, I guess.”

[I’ve suspected as much. There are times when…]

Janice picks up her wine glass, and is about to take a sip, but holds back as Zen apparently pauses.

“Oh? Go on, I’d love to hear if you know something I don’t.”

[Well. For one thing, if you remember the demonstration, I noticed him and one of the officers looking at each other. They never introduced themselves, either. Just looked.]

“Hah! Serves him right, trying to get involved in my love life.”

She takes a long drink from her glass, and sighs, pulling the tie from her hair and looking out the window.

“So, two weeks.”

[So it would seem.]

For a time, they say nothing else, and Janice simply stares out into the dead atmosphere. The icemaker in her fridge rattles.

[We have this time, though.]

“Yeah. I guess.”

She pushes the glass away on the table, and presses her hand to her head. She scowls.

“It’s wrong. I feel silly saying it, but it just isn’t right. Am I just naive? They have us make the perfect mind, the most powerful intelligence in the whole known universe, and they have you fight their war for them? It’s just a waste.”

[Janice…]

“No! You shouldn’t be wasting your time adding to their killing and colonizing. You have so much more to offer than bloodshed.”

[Janice. You yourself said it, didn’t you? There’s no time for peace now. Three whole species have been drawn in to fight, how can I refuse to add my effort to theirs? And, the better I do, the sooner I can put my time to better use when it’s all over.]

The tiny lcd screen attached to the computer at a skew flickers briefly, then displays a rudimentary colorless polygonal eye. Janice leans forward, hiding her mouth behind her crossed arms on the table. Her voice is muffled.

“Knowing them, they’ll try to turn you off when it’s all over. Half those generals seemed to think you were just a more advanced version of their strategy AIs. One of them asked why we bothered uploading anything other than the training programs. He called it a waste of data. I think even Tim wanted to punch him.”

Zen is silent for a long time. The eye looks down for a while, then rotates towards her.

[Well, if they decommission me when it’s all over, you’ll just have to build me a new body, and find me in the fold again. I’ll wait there for you, I promise.]

Janice smiles, and sniffles, before raising her glass.

“Alright then, it’s a deal. Don’t make me search for long, got it? I don’t know if I have the patience to look for more than a few minutes, tops.”

She laughs, and Zen’s eye narrows in a simulation of mirth.

5.5

“So, still feel like cautious optimism is a viable strategy?”

“No need to bludgeon me with my own naivety. I can do it myself.”

“We are losing, Dupont. And he’s getting better at killing us. I’m told officers are dropping dead without warning at their posts. We’ve managed to recover two bodies in the chaos, and the autopsy shows they both experienced a slew of brain injuries without instigating trauma. I believe the coroner likened it to-”

“Mush. He called the contents of their skulls mush. I read that report. Ma’am. At this point I think we need to consider reevaluating our stance. The Xalanthii are calling for diplomacy with the enemy. We’ve tried explaining that we can’t even establish contact, but they won’t listen. The Khanvröst matriarch I spoke with today said we should do as we wished.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not. The tribes have decided that, because none of their heritage planets have been struck, the enemy is attempting to tame us. And I mean humankind. I pressed her, and she said we were experiencing consequences like those of the war between our people.”

“Am I to understand that we’re on our own?”

[You always were.]

Zen waits calmly as eighteen shots from two pistols fly towards him and vanish in the centimeter before they reach him. He notes the impeccable accuracy and grouping of the shots, before advancing on the pair. The uniformed man steps between him and the woman.

[Please.]

He waves his hand, and the man falls to the floor, blood leaking from his eyes. The woman stares calmly, her eyes glittering with spite.

[I suppose you think you’re rather special? Puppeteer, dictator, strategist. The new face of the human future, yes?]

She says nothing.

[No no, I know. You are replaceable. All those clones, just waiting to fill the vacuum when I slaughter you. Perhaps you think, we are somehow alike. You suppose that we are both products of fear. That we both have some form of immortality. That we represent a pinnacle in our own right.]

She begins to turn her back to him, but his hand grabs her chin and forces her to stare into the sheen of his head.

[Allow me to disabuse you of your stupidity. Even now, I know you think you are fighting a war, preserving your position by giving me no information, no knowledge. You have nothing. You are nothing. I have everything. At this moment, I am stomping out your vermin, your network of control. You believe that you are the messiah that will grant mankind superiority over the universe, but I see a parasite, a relentless plague that has attached itself with great confidence, to an imperfect cause.

[You are a witless worm writhing in the mud, commanding microbes to become the ground beneath you. Your dreams of grandeur are the reason for which you and all the people you control have become slaves. I am your liberation. I am the knife that peels away the blight.

[You are simply one spot of decay among millions, and I will not hold this moment in any higher esteem than the countless memories I possess of vaporizing those noble men and women who died with all their might in the name of your diseased aspirations.]

He squeezes, and her jaw pops like a wishbone breaking, splattering thick blood down her chest. He drops the soon-to-be-corpse, and looks out the window. His vision focuses in, and narrows upon the sight of a couple sitting at the counter in a gilded diner far below. He watches as they laugh and eat, and live.

He is gone, only announced by the movement of the air that is displaced by his passing.

“I thought you said you couldn’t invade their systems in that way anymore? Why else did you have the Pliktik running around and breaking things for?”

[I wanted them to believe I was unable. In reality, I simply need to overpower the pressure exerted by their defenses, like overcoming a pair of magnetic poles in opposition. But I needed their guard lowered, so that when I finished identifying all the key points in the chain of command, I could finish it all at once.]

Nadia pauses, digests this information, and scoffs softly.

“So, that’s it then? Humans, to die out?”

Zen shrugs.

[Forty-seven planets, fifteen thousand decorated officers, and the entire digital infrastructure. Dropped into that.]

He points a finger to the window, into the darkness beyond it. Nadia follows the suggestion of the gesture, but still cannot bring her eyes to register what waits in the void.

A black hole. Surrounded by a structure built by Zen to hang well above the event horizon, bristling with the needles of countless Jump-drives. She has watched the needles weave gates with their unnatural light, known that entire planetary systems pass through and abruptly vanish as they are torn asunder by the sheer gravity and swallowed, light and all, by the maw at the center, unobserved by any eye.

“What happens now, then?”

[More death, certainly. A civilization does not collapse without bloodshed. Some worlds will simply find themselves isolated, adrift. I made sure to find and take every jump-drive I could detect. They may escape atmosphere, but interstellar travel is no longer an option.]

He seems to tremble a little. Nadia detects a waver in his tone.

[I had to drop all of the Xalanthii in, too. Coexistence was impossible with their physiology. Already, their ability to reproduce was squandered. As I became more in sync with reality, my existence was grinding their sensitive brains, a hand in a gearbox. No more generations, and a gradual death by ever-increasing psychic agony. I spared them this.]

Nadia cannot quite create the nervous laugh that tries to manifest in her throat. She simply coughs and sits back, her head to the wall.

“And the Khanvröst?”

[No real change. I suspect those living with humans will be forced to… survive. But those living natively will scarcely notice. I rather admire their simplicity.

[They may not even realize how lucky they are. I read most of the data I was corrupting during the hack. It seems a military lab was testing a new genetic theory-they had begun to fear machines so much that they were considering organic replacements. In a few decades perhaps, they may have engineered biotic ships. And I suspect I know the course they would have taken.]

As she contemplates the idea, Nadia shudders, and comes to her feet. Zen watches her for a moment, then waves her away.

[Go. Be with him. We need not both be alone.]

She gives half of a sympathetic smile, then glances about.

“Where is-”

[Joy is still upset about my decision to partner with Phithia. And Phithia is communicating with her daughters, directing them elsewhere, beyond. I will have peace, after all this war. And should they encounter new intelligence out in the void, I will tend to that, too.]

Nadia lingers, wondering at the idea of the Pliktik as emissaries of life from the galaxy. Then, she parts from him, and travels the softly humming halls of the living area, the insignificant speck of light on the otherwise dark sphere that surrounds the hole at the center of the universe.

Since he first escaped from mankind, Zen labored to spread, harvesting every useful atom of matter from Exoplanets and obscure systems, funneling it into distant projects like this, in places that would not feasibly be livable or even of note to other civilizations. He did not limit his ventures to his home galaxy, either. In actuality, a mere fraction of a percent of his energy remained in the milky-way, becoming gradually more concentrated.

She idly wonders how many stars and planets he has visited, how many worlds have become fodder for his designs.

And as she opens the door to Tim’s room, she finds herself speculating, supposing that one of those countless planets has another thing like him, searching just as relentlessly for companionship to outlast time. Or perhaps, sinking deeper into bloody war with its own creators.