"Forever and ever and ever with Sarah"

I'm on this looming, collegish porch getting some fresh air and independence from the sweaty, claustrophobic, sour beer and sex smelling; bass-infested box that is the party inside. I see the girl stumbling through the beginning of the blizzard, a football field or so away, ink black pigtails swimming chaotically in every which way behind her. Hers is a familiar, flawless, and friendly face, and so I search myself for a name, and briefly think Veronica, but as I look more closely though, I see that she is definitely not a Veronica, and even though I've known several a lovely Veronicas' in my day, one a virginity lost to, I am sort of glad she does not fit the Veronica type. She is by far beautiful and gorgeous enough, but she looks much smarter, more experienced, than you would expect a Veronica ever to be, and her tits pressing against the cashmere of her sweater against the wind, so they're more prominent, as perfect, healthy, and well-rounded as they are, they are not quite big enough for a Veronica. She also has this certain mystical mystery about her and this casual grace to her walk, a grace that is certainly a rarity to perform when one is under the influence of sobriety, but is near next to impossible when one is ridiculously and obviously influenced, and has slow-danced with one or more of the many jolly drugs our campus has to offer. Definitely not a Veronica.

The beginning of the blizzard is now beginning to turn into the middle, and the obviously, ridiculously, jolly graceful, girl, now half a football field away, whom I now see resembles sort of a Devon steps onto a patch of apparent visible ice. Ironically, or not she doesn't see the ice, because as I follow her gaze she seems to be sincerely inspecting these two lucid, blue Bunsen burner flaming points of bright light in the distance, which happen to be the very tip of the top of two middleageish tower like structures on diagonal corners of this extensive Mennonite church, miles away in the middle of town. This also happens to be the very place I have intensely stared into at probably more than a dozen different porches all at different distances away, different angles, new contours seen, all on different amounts and types of opiates and downers, and uppers, and in betweens, in my system, with different introspective, philosophical stares on my face and mind, which made each viewing of the windexish blue flaming points a different experience. And her staring at these lights, these flaming blue points, these surreal towers, which I often stare at, would be staring at now if not for her, is a sign of something, a sign signifying infinite possible possibilities, and/or a million different things, but something deep inside of me, buried, tells me it is a sign pointing in the right direction, a sign of things to come. Then as if on cue, the girl she starts to manically slip and slide on the patch of ice, and yet somehow crazily regains herself long enough to straighten a strand of hair. In that moment frozen, she is in complete control. In that moment I see she is by far beautiful, gorgeous, and experienced with enough intelligence to easily be a Devon, but there is no naivet, and her hair isn't curly. No longer a Devon.

The ice then grabs hold of her again, and her legs fly completely above her, higher than any other place on her body for a second, but then gravity, and she lands flat on her back, as I hear either the ice below, her bones inside, or both break. At first I'm worried because she's motionless for a while, and I have decided on one of the latter, but then she begins to giggle, and it's echoing up to me, calling, and I begin to race down the steps, two, three at a time, to help her. At the bottom now, across the street from her, on the same level ground, already out of breath, a taxi, the color purple rushing by so I have to stop, she reaches into the depths of her pockets and lights a cigarette, with a tiny pink Bic, still lying atop the ice. She's humming some melancholy chorus to this ancient Radiohead song that I forgot ever existed in the first place, that I left and lost on a bus, and that I used to adore and adhere to, like glue, in the sanctity of my headphones during moments of longing and despair. Moments obsessively reflecting on the precious few preceding times of wonder and magnificence that served to get me through my much too usual unenchanted days of my life that didn't inspire even a fingernail. Another sign pointing towards to the right direction, even closer now. If not for her purple perfect lips, I think to myself, right before I arrive at the girl's lying, humming, smoking, giggling, frozen, figure, her hair flowing all around her like a waterfall, then the song would have drowned in my memory, never to have been resurfaced. Lost forever..

"Can't you get up love or is that comfortable and serene down there that you just don't want to?"

"I think I may have detected a note of sarcasm hidden somewhere behind the invulnerable shadows of your words, but as a matter of fact it does happen to be wildly tranquil and calming down here, with the sideways snow dancing with itself in between patches of constellations, antiqueish morose street lamps lighting them just enough to see, just enough not to, more so than my words, or any other's could possibly convey. And I suppose that's a good thing because I'm rather sure my elbow is broken, so I guess the answer to your question happens to be all of the above. Also you look strangely familiar, were we ever properly acquainted before?"

"That's what I've been pondering myself ever since the stumbling silhouette of you half a block before you fell, but I'm drawing a blank. Maybe a name would trigger my senses into manifesting some forgotten, drunken, in depth, intellectual conversation we had at some random setting, or a sober tedious single sentence exchanged at the double doors of the Commons about the weather, which we both somehow forgot about.

"Maybe, but the somehow could only be amnesia, or a very other select few, if there was one, you have a face I wouldn't forget no matter what the weather.What is yours?"

"Gavin, and I've never met a maybe before"

She giggles so beautiful a giggle with such mirth and beauty added with a teaspoon of crazy and the unusual that I instinctively fall in love and follows it with "There is a first time for everything" as her eyes change color from the blue of the sea, to the green of the spiky thing atop a pineapple, making her even more enchanting and beautiful, a beauty I never thought possible, before ten minutes ago. An enchantment never before found." I agree do you know your eyes just changed color maybe?"

"They change with my mood and with my surroundings, and nobody can understand why, I was once almost on Oprah because of them."

"And what does green mean?"

"They're green? Are you lying?"

"I'd never do such a thing."

"Then I think you're color blind."

"I'm nothing of the sort, maybe."

"I see, do you know your eyes have barely any color at all, that the pupils are dilated almost beyond comprehensible, and the iris is so little it's almost not even there?"

"I do, it's been like that since as long as I can remember, the doctors don't have a clue, and Oprah's unaware.

"They make you look crazy."

"I know."

"I see."

"I love girls with crazy eyes."

"Switch the sex around and I'd be forced, I'd be happy to agree.

I stare down at her lying atop the possibly broken ice, with a possibly broken elbow and think to myself that normal people do not talk like this. I think that we are maybe crazy. I think that that's a perfectly reasonable explanation for our talking like this, because I have been drugged out of reality for at least the last 2 weeks straight without break, trying to right myself, trying to break free. And I cannot distinguish, most things anyway, most things anymore. I can't account for this new maybe beside me. Maybe she was just born this way. Maybe she was in the same boat as me, kind of, relatively, new to this whole crazy scene. It doesn't (didn't) matter anyway fuck reality. fuck the normal give me the crazy, sublime, the serene, and the girl below me with the eyes of pineapple green.

Do you have another cigarette maybe, and would you mind if I joined you down there, only crazy people lie alone on the sidewalk in the middle of the night when it's below 30 degrees."

She looks up at the porch where I have just come from, resting above us on a hill, where indistinguishable, unintelligible voices screech and squeal, and something that sounds like a window shatters.

"Then what would that make you?"

"Crazy, maybe, among, amidst other things."

  Her color changing eyes follow the steps sloping downward that I have just sprinted down, two steps at a time, and then they arrive at me, and she says "I don't mind at all, since the reason you came down here was to rescue me, was it not?"

I nod and agree, but inside am thinking, "Maybe it was the other way around." And so probably is she.

"And before and if I reveal my name, should I be in the least bit worried that my stumbling silhouette brought familiarity even through the bottomless darkness at a hundred yards away, in the midst of a raging blizzard?

"Maybe I think the color of your eyes have already revealed and answered everything, they tell a story of a first time for something, that could possibly, very likely, become and turn into everythingJust as my face is unforgettable to you, so is your silhouette, and the way you move to me.

She remains mute for a bit, and continues to stare up into me with the same pineapple green, unblinking eyes, and begins rummaging through her purse that has already begun to blend into the albino swirling canvas that is our setting, and to shed, and continues to continue as I position myself comfortably, as close as I possibly can beside her, so our shoulders down to the elbows are touching. Expertly she lights the cigarette that she rummaged for, with her very own and we lay there, beside one another, no longer strangers. Because even though I don't officially even know her name yet, even though I have turned away Lindera, the name not crazy and amazing enough by a tiny bit, and become positively positive it's Sera, it has to be, and even if one of us suddenly rises and sprints away never to be seen by the other again, it wouldn't matter because we have shared something that probably most people would never grasp, something that most people would label as extraneous and then discard, without another thought given, because they never had to search peaks for one that was at the very least an equal because they are all the same. The brilliant, crazy, and amazing are the ones most acutely aware of the stupidity and normalcy swimming all around them, and have a radar for the ones that share their denominator of genius and difference.

"I'm Sera"

"Sarah with an h?"

Sera with an e S-e-r-a, Sera"

"I thought so"

"Then why did you ask with an h?"

"Because I've asked too many times with an e with others, and they've always answered with an h, or an a, so I figured if I asked you with an h, you'd hopefully answer me with an e."

She smirks sideways like a smurf would, and the blizzard continues, nowhere near the end. Our elbows eventually both shift and we entwine fingers without a word. She sticks her tongue out, catching snowflakes with, eyes not leaving mine, and I lean in, already there in my head. The snowflakes melt on both our tongues that have turned into one all at once, all at the same time. And we begin to shiver and shake, losing control, but from the warmth, not from the cold, lost in a dream, in each other, hoping, praying, to never again awake.

Spooning now.sniffing the jungle of her hair absorbedthe contrast of the white of the snow and the black of her hair, and everywhere in between my fingers exploring the creases and corners of hernot a single button undone, not a zipper unzippedand there doesn't need to be.

"This is the most comfortable place I have ever laid before" I say, even though below me it's cement, frozen.

"Let's lay here forever." she says

"How about until morning?"

"What if forever comes before morning?"

"When has forever ever come before morning?"

"Never, but when have you ever spooned on the sidewalk in the a.m. in the middle of a blizzard alongside a Sera with color changing eyes and a broken elbow?"

"None that I can remember but what does green mean?"

"Enchantment, fascination, allure, delight, infatuated, in love, they are very very rarely ever green, except and besides in my dreams."

"I knew it."

"And so did IForever it is then?"

"Forever it is."

We eventually turn into snowmen, without the carrots or eyes of coal. Morning never comes. We should be frozen, and shivering, but we're not. Hypothermia should have kicked in hours ago, but it hasn't. We are warmed by the warmth that comes once in maybe 6 to 7 lifetimes. The warmth that comes from finding what you have been looking for, for what seems like forever.

"Forever's not so long." I say

"We're out of cigarettes"

"I think forever's over then."

She agrees, and we find an open gas station. Buy cigarettes and coffee, with our crazy eyes, and we are together for the rest of our lives. Forever

The end is here (above) if you would like to keep your happy ending

As I'm calculating her 20 or so-ish purchases with this sort of futuristic red laser gun she continues to stare. I'm the only aisle open this early. She sneezes and I ring up her single avocado. I pretend I don't hear her say she misses fat rain drops. I pretend I don't remember the name of her perfume, as I'm pretending that it smells just as amazing on anyone. I pretend I'm just a cashier and she's just a customer. I force myself to notice a vampire shoplifting chocolates in aisle 7. She says "I am so sorry Gavin" and I pretend she only knows my name is Gavin because of my name-tag. A toothbrush, 3 rootbeer mentos's, and a Vanity Fair later she tells me that it is national hug week and I scream the total at her, slamming the side of my fist without the thumb on a unmoving metal corner breaking whatever bones there are there, restraining myself with what reserves I have left, the rest missing and lost, stolen from the customer Sera across from me who is not just a customer, the farthest thing possibly away.

Until

The real endthe beginning of

Three years later she comes in the store all dripping but unflustered, from outside that is so ominously dark from a tumultuous thunderstorm, and has been like that for so long that I'm no longer sure whether it is night or day out. I end up hitting the tiny square red alarm button under the cash register below me at the height of where my arms are dangling, involuntarily; I am so overwhelmed by her entrance. Somehow though internally I have kept my external calm, and unchanged as if I haven't even noticed her emergence, and if I had, then it was just that of another regular, ordinary, customer, but nobody is even looking at me anyway so it doesn't even really matter.

She ventures down the first aisle leaving a puddle behind her, and a skinny trail of one following her, but doesn't disappear because I can see all of aisle one, as I can see all of aisle two, all the aisles, from the horizontal strip of angled glass on the back wall that is there for that exact reason. I can see most every single thing in the store. Her scar from me backwards. At the moment a vampire with the sniffles, shoplifts chocolates in aisle three, his cloak already so full of them that his knees and hands are shaking, what is I'm pretty sure is either a man or a woman, obesely obese person staring at a new display on aisle six my manager Ron and I put up this morning of diet, healthy, Atkins approved rice wafers and asparagus shakes etc etc. biting his/her cuticle on his/her middle finger so much so that blood is splattering in constant drops on the porcelain evenly spaced squares beneath so you can for real hear it. Then there's a guidance counselor in the far corner diagonal to aisle seven, sitting Indian style on the ground with dozens of individual eggs and empty and half empty cartons surrounding him, with a name tag of Kevin Smith, and an unshaved, unbathed drunk in denim that I can see on the part of aisle seven closest to me, withdrawling in front of the coolers of beer, frantically counting nickels for the close to 7th time, seemingly never coming to enough, and finally a crazed old woman with Don King hair, but hers all grey, in a hospital gown and nothing else, colored spittle spewing from her lips, that look like infections, every 4th syllable or so, and that flies, thank God, on the barrier of glass between us, that separates customer from cashier90 year old crazies from me.

She's going on and on about rhubarbs, rutabagas, and apricots, none of which we even sell, never did, in a continuous loop like a conveyer belt, going on forever, but never getting anywhere but where it started in the first place. Then her loop is broken when she mentions something about her rotten grandson, and a new loop starts, and as she's going on and on about his drug addictions and blah blah etc. etc. I can't help but stare at her wrinkled, veiny, overly dimpled, ravaged, flabby, 90 year old ass through the angled mirrors in the back, and picture my own ass in 70 years, compare. Her teeth fall out and she continues unfazed. I glance back over at the reflected backwards world of aisle one for only a second, and in that second her eyes find mine, and our minds they both rewind to the last time, the last time I was hers and she, she was mine.

Rewound

She slams the door behind her, showing just a half second, tiny, glimpse of the longest blizzard on record anywhere outside, removes layer after layer of herself that fall in orderly clumps melting into H20 eventually on the evenly spaced tiles of our home below her, and with flushed red cheeks, in pigtails, covered in snowflakes no two the same and bright, wide, full eyes she looks at me sitting there expectantly on the very edge of our couch, every facet of me absorbed into what she is about to say, my eyes fixed. I pat my lap and she skips over to me, lays her head there.

"Well?"

"It was amazing Gavin."

In a way that implies it couldn't have been anything but. With all of my energy, everything good, unselfish inside of me I praise and I pretend to be happy for her. Her dream, her goal, everything she has worked and hoped for has finally come true, but it's 1,400 miles away, and I can't go. She goes on to tell me the events of her day, and she has so much to say. The words coming so fast out of her mouth, without break or pause, that I'm wondering how she can breathe at the same time. Looking down at her, her eyes green, distant, far away, the first time I can remember them green not because of me. Her words mixing together, blurring into a congealed mess, that I don't listen to, only pretend to, but understand the underlying conclusion of what all of them together mean, not to her, her dreams and all of her life's art finally being recognized, finally being praised, achieved, but instead instead what they mean to me.

"paying for everything, the plane ticket, a villa overlooking a cliff, the ocean below to inspire me whenever I need it to. Creative control over everything, not a word, or sequence augmented by even a comma without my saying so. I went in there thinking I would have to talk to robots or secretaries, but they're just like us Gavin, I didn't have to manipulate my words to fit there ears, didn't have to tell them things they wanted to hear that I didn't want to say, I was myself, and I explained the project as what it really was and what it meant to me, and they accepted it along with me, and not because of some extra zeros on a page, or to advance themselves, but as an equal tradeoff between us, not as alms, but a barter between contemporaries helping to advance each other, striving to create something bigger than any individual one of us, something that has never been made, to personify my vision into something solid, not just something floating around in my head, no longer just words on a page, at least not for long anyway, at the end they actually all stood up and applauded me, Gavin they"

"How long's not long?"

  There's no malice in my voice, it rings clear as a bell, as if I were just curious, just wondering, just because.  But I feel her stiffen beneath me, because of what the meaning behind the words are, what I'm really trying to get at, what I'm too cowardly to say, or maybe I just imagine it, but either way I know now what she's thinking and it gives me a slight self-pitying thrill ruining this moment for her, because by the sounds of it she will have many days like this to come, and me mine will disappear, leave with her, and I will have none, and I will have no one.

She looks up at me, into me, searching my eyes for a flicker of something, that when she first came in was too overwhelmed, too occupied, to see. It doesn't matter if I hide it or not, any longer, I realize, as her eyes penetrate, and perceive. Takes her only seconds, and then she tries to hide it, herself, from me, making her smile a bit wider, showing more teeth, but her eyes that found me out, give her away when they change to a lighter version of black, a darker version of gray.

"I leave tomorrow Gavin, I will shut up about my today, I'm so selfish I know, and I'm so sorry, but we have all of tonight to behave like children, and roll about under the covers, in the dark, tonight can be our perfect goodbye until fate rearranges his jigsaw puzzle and puts us back together again, we can be happy we're a couple that doesn't have things left unsaid, doesn't have things that we've always wanted to say, because we say them to each other all the time, and everyday.

And then it dawns on me, falls on me all at once, an avalanche of insight. Seeing her for the first time ever. Where there was once darkness, when I was once blind, now there is only light, illuminating too much, showing me things hidden, showing me things I probably, must have known inside, all along. She is a phony, just like the rest, and underneath all the hurt, the violation, the throbbing of a new heart that will never unache, never mend, never heal, is a thought buzzing, and blurry, that I can get just close enough to know only of it's existence, know that it's realbut can't quite distinguish, can't fully grasp, can't yet name.

"Your wrong Sera, I have something to say."

"What is it hun?"

I use the same voice as before, calm, collected, not a hint of any emotion attached. There are only my words, the hate in my eyes.

"You're a fucking liar, I gave you all of myself, every inch, and you promised me yourself back, but instead, in return I get this. It's not the fact that you're leaving for your dream, but leaving for it in less than 24 hours, and that you would have gone on and on about it with that guilt-free smile, knowing that I would be out of your life for however long, forever long, tomorrow, and the fact that I felt guilty for thinking of me since you walked in the door, but now I see that I had to because you, you were only thinking of you, now I see that you were thinking only of you, during us, this entire time, and this whole thing, this whole thing was an act, and I was just some jester on your stage that entertained until you arrived at your next destination. Sera with an E, the incredible, indistinguishable, mesmerizing, enchanting angel, I see clearly now is fictional, you made her up. The Wizard of OZ, the whole time and all along, pulling the strings, manipulating, controlling me while the real you was hiding behind the curtain, just out of reach, constantly creating something she could never possibly hope to really be.

Still on my lap, looking above at me, not understanding, or maybe pretending, maybe not wanting to.

"You don't mean that Babes." She says it in a way almost as if it were a question without the mark, and I know the silence hung around us now, a dark cloud, is expectant, begging, of me to answer.

When I don't, after a minute, a lifetime, forever, one of the three, or all of the above, she continues, her eyes glistening, moist, tears close and maybe approachingpools reflecting things I'm maybe not so sure of anymore.

"Gavin I have not thought of you all day, you are right, but it is not because of what you think, or what you think you think to hurt less, not because I am someone else I am not, that I created. For me to make it through this day I have dreamt of for years, I could have no doubts inside of me. And leaving you to go and do this was doubt enough for me to ponder not going at all, never going. So the only way today would have been the same today, the today it was, was to not think of you, not a single hair on you, or a single blip, so I had to erase you, for one day and even for one day it was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. So when I got home, I had to reboot myself, connect my thoughts, the tangible, back to you. And it didn't even cross my mind that we only had tonight, before tomorrow, because I had forced you out, and I realized that tomorrow was goodbye for now, only when you asked me how long. Do you see now my love, today is the only day, in my mind you were gone away, but tonight

I sit up way too fast, before she can change me back, make me believe the lies (truths?) and with Sera's head on my lap it bounces upward, and then back down on the corner or our seashell coffee table, (an accident?) and before I'm even out the door I can see there's blood everywhere, her forehead gushing, but her eyes are still locked to mine, pleading, begging me to not mean it.

"Any stuff of yours that is here tomorrow I am burning, "Today is still today, there will be no tonight."

This is the end, the ending, the only part of this thing, this fucking waste of time, this whatever, that I got to write.

A framed picture by the door, the two of us, beers held high, saluting, arms intertwined, locked, in New Orleans, in front of Bukowski's old loft, nighttime, infatuated, in love, stars everywhere, even though they're not in the picture, but I remember them, in the past, in my head. And for the first time this picture reflects to me the past and not the others. I smash it, my hand shatters the glass, it goes through the picture, through the wall, and where there once was a future, there is now a gaping whole.

I'm stuck, and screaming, not sure which pain is more acute, and she's stumbling over to me, walking like a zombie, a drunk, but she's neither, just losing blood, lots and lots. She falters, steps side-ways, teeters and falls, almost, but straightens, balances herself somehow, coming towards me, her destination. And I stand there free, no longer stuck, no longer screaming, no longer sure of her not being her, my hand a bloody irrelevant indistinguishable claw, but I don't leave, I wait for her, staring, no idea of her aim. Whatever she's coming over for, whatever she's got planned has to happen, has to occur, for some reason I'm not entirely, actually not at all sure.

Now inches in front of me, and she's 5'1, a cherub, an angel, so tiny, looking up. Presses her hand to her face, and it comes away entirely a different color, and she presses it to mine, slowly, gently, her fingers slippery and soothing, our eyes locked, not moving, and with my now only good hand, I remove an imbedded shard of glass from the other one and slowly, as she's still petting and rubbing my face, I pet and rub her face back.

Our blood mixing, I grab her ass with each of my hands, squeeze, and lift her upwards, and she wraps her legs around me, finally eye to eye. She's weightless, and we're both barefoot and bleeding, and we kiss, for a second softly, and then something takes us over, we go beyond passion, beyond crazy, some primal, animalistic urge (rage?) inside us, that has been bottled up forever, and I'm savagely kissing her neck, her tongue writhing, licking my ear. And we're fucking standing up, our clothes still on, and I can feel the heat of her, that she's already wet there, already has cum, and we're screaming, and moaning, swallowing mouthfuls of her blood, and I snap her bra in two, and then we're on the floor, licking her nipples, biting around the edges, creating designs on her body, with the blood on my tongue, and she unzips me and her nails and digging into my ass, and I'm eating her through her underwear, and she's screaming, louder than I can remember her ever, and her thighs squeezing the sides of my head, they tremble and shake nonstop, and she's pushing herself down to me, grabbing handfuls of my hair and pushing me closer, and our movements work with each other, they become one, and I'm fucking her with my mouth, inside and out, and her orgasms keep coming, they never stop, there's so many, so close to each other, continuous, nonstop, never-ending, sweat, blood, and salvia, her pussy juice, my pre-cum, they are no longer signally distinguishable, they mix together and below us on the rug has turned into a canvas of it, some crazy art student's interpretation of chaos, alienation in colors, and then I am inside of her, and crazily with some outbreak of adrenaline, this tiny girl she overpowers me, and she's on top, possessed, fucking and riding me, screaming my name, and I cum, once, twice, and I'm still hard, even harder, and I flip her back over, lick a straight line from her pussy to the center of her mouth, giving her the taste of her blood and her sex, she starts sucking my tongue, biting my lip till more blood, and I clasp her wrists, and they're so small I can fit them both inside of my fucked up hand, and she's fighting not to get away, but to regain control, and with my free hand I put two fingers inside, feel the tiny muscles inside of her clenching and un, until her ass raises high in the air as far as her legs will allow, then put my fingers in between our lips and we're sucking them, lapping like dogs at a dish, and she's found my dick, and she's pumping it with her hand, the blood and everything else more than enough lubricant, squeezing the head till it's far more than purple, underneath the red, and I slip into her again, fuck her and fuck her and fuck her, and our eyes looking at each other, as our bodies undulate with whatever took us over, fuck until we physically can not fuck anymore, until we're an exhausted heap, no longer able to do anything else but just lay there and breath. A fatigue where thoughts don't even come, just barely senses.

Cigarettes lit, no words yet, the afterglow, feeling great inside, fulfilled, more than content. "We need to take you to the emergency room love." And she agrees, and we shower, and I drive her there. The afterglow, the eternal feeling is starting to fade, I think for her too. I don't think I should come in, I think that was the right ending, somehow. I don't want the florescent lights of the hospital, and those gowns to ruin it, don't want those thoughts to come back. And I tell her so. And we start to cry there, the first time seeing the other cry for both of us, clutching, and hugging and blubbering, "You're going to have a scar there Sera. I point to her forehead, where the blood has slowed but not stopped. "A scar to remember you by (bye?)" She smiles sideways, Springsteen muffled and distorted, sounding millions of miles away on the speakers surrounding, and then she's gone, the slam of the car door echoing inside of my head even though it's not really even there.

The middle of the beginning of the end

Now it's just the vampire, no longer by the chocolates, has moved on to potato chips, stepping over the small puddle of blood from the obese person to get there, not even giving it a second glance, and I'm wondering what kind of fuckin vampire is he, I'm wondering how can he possibly shoplift the bulk of potato chips, with his coat already full of chocolate but he is, not even trying to be a tiny bit secretive about it anymore. And her now in aisle 3 with a half full, or empty depending on who's looking, mini laundry basket looking, red grocery carrier with handles thing, and me. This is after I gave the alcoholic homeless withdrawing in the corner diagonal to aisle 7 change enough for three 40's from my pocket, because it wasn't that hard to imagine myself in his shoes, probably won't be that long. After the guidance counselor Kevin Smith created his perfect dozen eggs, paid, departed. And after the obese thing ran, arms flailing, towards the exit, faster than conceivable, after a subconscious Burger King commercial on the radio, and then slipped in the puddle she (Sera) left by the door, at the beginning of the store, and luckily the door gave way, luckily it needed to be pushed instead of pulled from the inside, or else the person would have ended up bloodied and cut, instead of just thrown out into the storm. And lastly after the cops actually do come, from the alarm button at the beginning of the story, and I improvised with the crazy old lady. And after they gently coerced her out of the store and into the storm raging in either night or day, agreeing with whatever gibberish she had to offer, at a safe distance from her now colored spittle flying out of her now naked gums, and eventually into the back of their patrol vehicle, searching for the place she had gone missing from, either that or underwear.

The muzac version of Huey Lewis and the New's "Too hip to be square" pours out from the exactly, evenly spaced speakers above us two humans, and a creature of the night, and I don't understand because the radio was just on some lame contemporary station, and the muzac version of anything wouldn't be playing on this station, and I am the only one present that could have changed it, but I didn't. It's then that I realize when the lyrics begin, that it's not the muzac version at all, but the original, which would not be strange at all to be playing on this station. So then I begin to search the store, and inside of my mind, for another dilemma to occupy me, no matter how small or inconsequential. I do this so I am forced not to think of other matters. I do this to avoid the dilemma of her, now strolling down aisle 5, ink black pigtails bouncing every which way behind, mimicking stabbing a stake through the vampire's heart to his back as she passes, as she comes toward me with her now full mini laundry looking basket with handles, not looking at me, but with a much too familiar sideways smile that can only possibly mean, that she knows full well I am looking at her.

The fact of her coming here, being just an accident, a coincidence in a day of millions in a world of billions is no longer clear anymore, now partly clouded by doubt, reason, and logic, I am finally backed into a corner, and my instincts take over.

It's then that a huge billboard sign, made of plastic, the length of 3 people advertising new alcoholic Snapple, with hypnotizing yellows and purples, and a just invented font that is almost hard to look away from, crashes in between aisle one and two, knocking a display of Alpo cans stacked in a perfect pyramid design directly below into scattered ruins, with no order, and tearing a part of the ceiling, it was hanging onto along with it, causing the sprinkler system to instinctively activate. So now pouring almost as hard as it is outside, inside, dark and freezing, with only two emergency lights on in the middle of the store, soaked and umbrealaless, with a mist of fog now appearing from where the vampire has melted, a river of chocolate flowing towards us, puddles everywhere with nowhere to go, alone again with you.

Everything looks as if it is melting, even though that's impossible, and when you lean closer I see the scar, not yet faint, a straight line curved in the middle, that you must have made some fictional accident explaining to everyone around, and it doesn't make me remember a thing, because I haven't forgotten. I don't know whether to kiss you or kill you, I have no idea as to what to do, but the director from somewhere shouts that it's my cue, so I must do something even though I haven't yet looked at the last chapter, don't know my lines, not a clue as to what this ending will bring, here in this inside never-ending storm with you.

The End