fiction – The Rant

I met the love of my life on a rooftop. I wasn’t jumping. That wasn’t the plan in my mind when I climbed the ladder I found in the random hallway of the random building to get up there. I’m not really sure how I ended up there. I was drunk, which is something I am pretty often. Not enough to be considered a habit, but definitely a commonality.

It was one of those fate choices you have. You know when you’re walking down a hallway and you see a door or another hallway and you think to yourself, I should walk down there. I should take this road that leads to somewhere I don’t know. There is no reason for the choice. It is always in the moment, and you only ever have a second to choose. You see the option, and you either follow the plan or your heart. Most of the time when you follow your heart nothing happens. You walk down the hallway or drive down the road and nothing happens.

Life continues.

And then you have to think to yourself, was it fate? Would something bad have happened if I stayed on the original path? Would I still be walking, talking, living if I kept on in the direction I was going?

I don’t know the answer. I never have. I probably never will. I don’t like thinking about fate much. To quote one awesome character in an awesome film franchise, “I don’t like the idea of not being in control of my own life.” At least I think that’s what he says. If you don’t know who says it, figure it out.

Regardless of fate, beer, or none of the above or maybe all of the above I walked through a door, down a hall, through another door, up some stairs, and more stairs, and more stairs, down another hall, up a ladder, and through one last door to end up on the roof of the random building. I had never been on a roof other than when I would sit on the one of the house I grew up in or in the apartment I lived in my first year of college.

I was alone.

My friends had left earlier in the night which is something I was not happy about, and I started walking. A girl in a little dress walking alone in a city at night.

I never claimed to be smart.

I mean I am smart. I’m very smart when I want to be. As my mom says, I have lapses in judgement that lead me to circumstances such as the one I found myself in that night.

On a roof. Standing at the edge. Looking over. And wondering what it would be like to end it. To end it all. There would be people to miss me. A few of them would be sincere about it, and a lot of them would pretend to care. I know there would be so many people there claiming to be my friends even though they hadn’t been in my life for years. They were at one point though. At one time they were in the center of my life. Of my existence. I guess that gives them a right to have a sort of claim on me, because the time they were in my life helped to shape me. I wouldn’t be me without that time. So maybe they aren’t completely full of shit, because I’d like to think that that would work both ways.

Anyway back to being on the roof. Contemplating death. And he shows up.

At the time I did not know he was going to be the love of my life up until that point, which really isn’t saying much. That kind of makes it seem pathetic in a way. He was my great love. My first love. My first taste of what happiness could be. What it could look like.

Like I said, at the time I wasn’t thinking any of these things. I was thinking that he was ruining my perfect seclusion. He was ruining my new found spot. He was intruding in my internal dialogue of life versus death.

I’ll admit when I turned around to look at him I was happy with the view, but at that point in my drunken rage against my asshole friends I was in no mood to be kind. And he didn’t mind. I think he actually liked it.

“Don’t do it,” he said from behind me as I gazed at the bushes a few stories below me. Far enough to break the fall, but too far to keep me alive.

“Go away Jack,” was my answer. I didn’t think he would catch my Titanic reference, but I heard the soft chuckle behind me.

“Come on Rose. Step off the ledge.” He didn’t sound serious. His voice sounded like I should be waiting for the punchline of a joke.

“I’m not jumping. Just thinking about what it would be like if I did.” I’m not entirely sure if he believed me, but I heard his footsteps come closer and then saw the toes of his beaten up converse on the ledge next to me. I should’ve flinched when I heard him coming towards me. Now I know that. At the time I didn’t even think about it.

“You think it would hurt?” he asked. I could see his dark jeans, dark t-shirt, and dark hair out of my peripheral vision.

“Probably, but by that point maybe it would be over before the pain really kicked in.”

I’m not sure what rooftop it was. I know it was on a campus of the college down the street. I know that the sky was clear and the air had one of those beautiful summer breezes that can give you goosebumps and warm you all at the same time. I guess that’s how he made me feel too. Not at that time though.

I truly don’t even know if he was the love of my life. He was a love. A great love. A beautiful and perfect love, whose only fault was ending. At that time I knew none of this. At the time I was standing on a roof with a man who wore converse more beat up than my own. I didn’t know how many books he had read, or how smart he could be when he chose to be. I didn’t know how in tune he would become with my every movement. I didn’t know that I would grow to love him. Grow to hate him. Grow to need him.

I didn’t know that eventually I would lose him.

All I knew was that I was standing on a roof, I was drunk, a man was standing next to me, and we were talking about what it would be like to jump.

“By that point you would be nothing.”

“Nothing but a memory.”

“Someone else’s memory.”

@C. O’Connor, 2018

The air, it whips past my stone demeanor chilling my bones. What looked like a quaint street only minutes before has morphed into a dark and dismal place. The clouds over head seem to be rolling, marching, hunting after me. I can hear the whispers behind me. I can hear the footsteps coming ever closer like feathers on pavement. Maybe if I pretend they aren’t there they won’t be.

I pick up my pace.

I told them not to bother with me. I told them not to follow, but their kind rarely listens to advice. They are too confident in themselves. They think that they are the master hunters of the world.

My worn down leather boots are held together by duct tape and gorilla glue. I pray they don’t fail me now. My arms beat against the air as they swing, and my mind it races. My mind seems to be my worst enemy. It shows me all of the ways I could die. All of the worst ways I could be ripped apart.

It shows in great detail my skin being ripped from my limbs. In my mind the process is slow and drawn out. One small strip of skin at a time. One stream of blood at a time pouring from my body. Rushing to meet the ground. My own blood rushing to be away from me.

The footsteps behind pick up pace along with mine, and the wind it blows my hair across my face. I haul it behind my pierced ear as I glance behind me.

Bad choice.

They are closer now. They see me look and I see one smile a wicked smile. He knows I am trying to get away. His long fingers pull into a fist as I look away and quickly cross the street.

The neighborhood looks like a place that should have people out and about, but of course there is no one. Why would there be? The rolling clouds are above me now and a boom of thunder sounds in the distance, shaking my duct taped boots, sending vibrations up my spine.

I hear before I feel the rain. It starts behind me where they are, and I have a silent moment of pleasure knowing they are wet when I am still dry. The moment is quickly over when I feel the freezing drops on my arms. I can see the steam roll off of my blazing skin.

Movement catches my eye, and I see a broken swing swaying haphazardly on a tree. Its flies free in the wind holding onto the tree’s bough with one rope. Where the other is I have no idea.

I jump over a fallen branch on the leaf covered sidewalk. Ahead is a corner. The road I’m on ends. I can either go right or left. Right or left. I hate choices. I don’t know where either choice leads. They look the same.

I go left.

Wrong.

I’m surrounded.

I stop as the footsteps behind me turn the corner. I can practically smell the smiles on their faces. I can see their hungry eyes watching, wanting, waiting. Their white hunter’s eyes. No color no feelings only hunger.

There are at least ten around me. They planned it. I wasn’t running away. I was being herded.

Maybe I underestimated their hunting skills. The stories all say they are the best.

I see him, his stretched fingers tapping on his long slender leg. He was the one I told. I told him not to follow me. Behind me I hear snickers.

Above me is an old tree. It’s huge so I guess it has been there for ages. It still has its leaves all golden brown. They herded me here. Their bodies practically match the strong branches of the tree.

Movement catches my eye and in the window of a house I see a child. He is small with brown hair that flops into his eyes. He is looking at the storm clouds, watching for lightening. After a second his dark brown eyes catch onto mine. He smiles and waves.

Pain laces down my arm as a nail scratches. I see the small river of blood that follows and I jerk away only to be scratched by another. It feels like being caught in a bed of razors. Where ever you turn there are more.

I hear the boy scream. He can’t see anything. Only a woman thrashing and bleeding.

The wind picks up again making my own blood smear across my skin mixing with the rain drops. Leaves fall from the tree. I reach my hand up and one lands on my fingertip. It stays there. Perfect and unmoving.

The things don’t notice at first, they are busy feeding off of my life and dreams that are falling from my skin. I pull my hand down and look their leader in the eye.

He knows.

I told them not to follow me. Now it’s my turn to smile.

I blow on the leaf like one blows a candle on a birthday cake. His eyes widen, and I hear his shriek before he tries to run.

One step. That is how far he gets before he bursts, transforming into a pile of leaves. The others barely notice. They are young and naïve. They don’t notice when their limbs begin to change, to disappear.

It takes a second for them to morph, before they are gone. Dead. Dead as a pile of leaves.

I look to the little boy who is still sitting in the window. There is fog around his face from heavy breathing, and his hands are plastered to the glass. Those brown eyes look like disks. Those soft brown eyes will forever be changed.

Once one sees majick they can never go back. He saw the spindly tree looking men drinking my blood. They were drinking my dreams, my hopes, my happiness. He saw their long talon like nails. He saw their white lifeless eyes, and razor teeth of a wolf. He saw the burst of light as each of them transformed into leaves.

He saw my wounds heal on their own. He saw my blood move back into my skin.

He can see me. My black eyes with fire in them. The horns on my head. The red markings on my skin. He can see the monster I am. I see the fear in his eyes before I turn and walk away.

There is always something higher up on the food chain waiting to strike. They may be the best hunters of the day. But I am the best trickster of the night.

I told them not to follow me.

@C. O’Connor, 2018

The Rant

Tag: fiction

False Nothing: Entry 1

Trickster