TwentySix: 7 - the Ballad of Joy Random - Act 3 - the Overture

"I'm so sorry!", I weeped.

"Forgive me...", I pleaded.

"No.", she whispered.

I held her close, probably just a bit too tight, and tried to squeeze out what tears I had left in me. My dried out eyes betrayed me. I had nothing left to declare the sincerety of my emotions.

She was faced away from me, a blanket tucked around her separated us. My knuckles were still bloody and the sweat cascaded off my body, draining me of my final drops of liquid.

We huddled close despite the distance between us. Trapped in our own paradigm, escape consistently eluded us as our minds were kept busy with dramatics. The floodgates of emotion were thrown open drowning us in desperation and despair daily.

"Forgive yourself.", she added.

I went to say, 'I wish I knew how', but instead swallowed the words. A pitiful excuse spun from the lying maw of an earthborn sinner; a lie spit from the forked tongue of a monster. I was nothing but a beast clinging to my prey.

To forgive myself, I'd have to save myself. And I was far too busy putting her in danger, and saving her nightly, only to wind up capturing her, in true villainous form, and imprisoning her inside.

The dreams changed suddenly and if I was quick enough I could slide between and maybe end this cycle of mutual self destruction. Our spiralling stasis spun itself into a tower of sensation; A continual column of calamity from which we must break free.

I had to try and end this.

I exploded from the scene and shot straight into the maelstrom of encapsulating madness. I held her close below, but in order to work this out I'd have to go through our bond and come out on the other side.

Propelled out into the otherside I saw the vortex that whirlled about us. I lunged into the funnel and whirlpooled my consciousness down inside. I rode the electromagnetic wavelengths sliding further and further away from anything but us.

We were sections, avatars of altercation, swimming in the collective unconscious of eternity. Bound to each other in a dark pact, we plunged to the very bottom and beyond.

Our hatred mingled and fed off each other. Self-deploring immolation drilling deeper into numb sad sickness. Alone together we emptied the void, filling it with our ferocious insanity. There was no limit in this oppressive expanse of ourselves.

"I don't want to be a bad guy." I tried to look her in the eyes but saw only a reflection of isolation.

We mirrored our ugliness in a pairing of saint and sinner, the roles alternating in a chaotic pattern. I saved her, she damned me. She held me close, I hurt her deeply. Massochist and sadist scenerios switching like currents and circuits. A negative feedback loop careening into the yawning abyss.

I saw my hands around her throat, holding her down. I surged with pleasure, my cock growing rock hard as I increased the pressure arund her windpipe. She thanked me with her eyes. She was feeling something, even if it was only fear of me.

I found myself unable to stop as I pressed further. The princess, locked away from everything, isolated from sensation, she saw something in me. She had drawn me in, expecting maybe not me in particular, but someone with a hot darkness inside them.

I wanted to save her. Wanted her to give up the anguish that seared her, to stop her manipulative flaggellation of her flesh. I didn't want to know that I wanted to do this to her. To anyone. Ever.

But I do and I can't stop. I'm hurting her. Hurting all the hers who came before and made me feel small, made me feel stupid. I was using my power for revenge on the daughters of Eve. I was just an dirty atom infected with the serpent's curse.

"What is this madness that makes me love hate and hate love?!"

My grip slipped in the final moments and air sucked deep into her lungs over a raw throat. A raspy wind chime, an erotic sigh, a languishing breath of joy. She was alive.

I, too, was alive and wracked with horrific guilt. Was it her fault? My fault? Fate? Why did we have to go this far?

Out past the edge of fantasy, we danced out our unadulterated tactile and psychic torture; punishment, guilt, shame, humiliation. A shadow has swallowed us whole. I surrender to the blackest pit of my heart. I do whatever I feel without remorse. I hate that I want to do these things.

I hate myself. I am vile. I am filled with impulses that I can apparently administer without conscience or care. I was too polite and cowardly to admit that there never was a light inside me. There is only a cursed soul, doomed to enjoy the damnation and subjegation of the innocent.

"Shhh baby. It's okay. We both wanted this."

She cradles my head as I rock and weep for my entire life. A tear for every moment of regret, every shred of guilt, and all the buried deep desires burning me alive in the hellfire of my own design.

She removes the collar from around her neck and I will her free of me with all my might. I focus my rage on this tower she has trapped us in. Every damn corner of this infernal prison. She deserves more and I am too bogged down with self-pity to be of much use to her except to bring her down.

And so we hit bottom and the entire foundation of us rumbles and shakes. We hold each other, skin on skin, as the universe ended and we are born anew in a land of starlight.

"I'm..."

I go to say 'sorry', yet stop. I'm not sorry. And from the look on her face, neither is she. She wanted all this. The pain, the frustration, the play of it all. This is what life is and where it goes. The path it leads is sometimes amazingly intense and full of unforgiveable acts.

But we don't need to forgive. I don't need to explain. I tried to save her. I failed. As I always would. With her, with anyone. But I tried. Sure, I fell sway to the influence of sexual violence, a web she cast, just in order to ensnare me and show her how to save herself.

I hugged her tight, stood up and left. I didn't look back to see if she was crying.

But I knew she was and would be. As would I be, when I was able to cry once more.

INSTANT FICTION: love.

Somehow, some way, the universe clicks into place putting us in front of each other. We look at each other and see each other and meet each other. Our psycho-symmetrical sheen glistens and shows us at our best and brightest.

We glow and know that this feeling is the reason we exist. We've found each other through all the haze and endless days of loneliness. She'd grown hard and he'd fallen sad, but now...

We fall like the angel, spiralling, smiling, dancing in a wild, whirlwind manner. Mad children giggling the days away, stealing glances, then kisses. Hands held, lips locked, we united & divided our selves, we ended and began where the other once did.

One of us loses the glazed look, that longing gaze, suddenly and before the other. We see ourselves now fully immersed and without a memory of solitary confinement. One claws, one clings, all while the memories sting.

Fear, abandonment, and dropping on down. Left behind and moving beyond, polarities swapped. Who are you, am I, are we, now that two became one and one now splits into none.

It ends. Love is hated. Cursed as the bane of mankind and that empty, lost ache is felt by the two. Buttons pushed, destroying a friendship, broken individuals crying and unable to reach out to another without crumbling, tumbling away.

When the Universe Ends. Act 3. Last.

"Hey Jake."


No, she couldnt say it like that.


"Jake!"


"Jake?"


"Jake."


An ocean of people surrounded Amber yet there she was, thrust in the middle of this crowd, and just twenty feet away from him. She had to say something didnt she? After all those dreams and signs that brought here back here. That brought her back to New York City.


Jake was lagging behind his friends and felt himself slipping away into invisible oblivion as the crowds swarmed around him. His head was down low, his feet dragged along the concrete. He barely noticed the couples that spun around him, dancing and celebrating and preparing to kiss this past year goodbye.


Amber walked up slowly as the masses cleared a path for her, destiny guiding her to him, to his embrace, to his arm draped around her, one hand upon the small of her back, the other holding her firmly against his body as his chin caressed the inside of her neck and his lip slid across her cheek before...


He thought of the last year, not of her, and wanted to lash out. Start a fight with this stupid world, kick the love out of them, punch away the dark, lonely hours spent locked in his apartment. Didnt he deserve to be happy? He just couldnt make himself content long enough for it to matter, long enough to last. Hollow empty hearts is all that he could sense around him, for it was all the lay within him.


Amber was within arms reach when she finally saw him. His shoulders were hunched forward, his head drooping low. She needed him, she would help him and then everything could be good again. She could feel complete once more. Her other half of her self was right in front of her. A touch of her hand was all it would take.


Jake whipped his head upward and began to scream at the top of his lungs. Amber stumbled backwards, her hand in mid-journey through the space between them. A few drunken partiers caught her as they all stood dumbstruck at the guy yelling with all his might at the cruel joke that is this universe.


"I HATE YOU AMBER!"


The noise of the crowd rose and Jakes proclamation was lost to the sonic tidal wave of the New Years countdown. He felt his chest and caught his breath. No one seemed to even notice, the world not batting an eye at this revelatory outpouring of a year, no almost a decade of frustration and hurt.


"10!"


Jake felt something on the back of his mind; A sad and crushed hope for anything good to come of this next year, of these next decades, of the rest of his life. But then he realized he wasnt alone, somehow, feeling that there was someone in the universe that felt the pain that he was feeling. He turned around.


Amber was also turning around, away from him, and smashing her way through the shiny, happy people, with their eyes aglow with the possibilities of endless happiness. Jake saw her running away and immediately went to reach out for her, to call her name, to scream it once more.


"9!"


Amber burst out of the crowd and into the empty street, bolting across through a wash of tears. Jake thought he should let her go. Let her run away. He did hate her. He hated having to think of her, and hope that shes okay, and that shes happy. He despised himself for being so weak so as to regret what felt so right a minute ago. Wasnt it more than appropriate that she be here to hear it? To hear how he really felt about that damn girl that has infected him, brought him low, made him cry his eyes out?


Amber ran and ran. She blew through Bryant Park where they saw that Robert Redford flick, the subway stop where he took her picture for the first time, the goddamn fountain where they stopped and kissed. She ran down wherever there was an empty space for her, heading nowhere in particular, but everywhere she needed to collect the hurt. This city was full of lost memories, a minefield of moments.


"8!"


Jake shoved his way out into the street and took after her. He knew where she would go, how she would work her way through the city, subconsciously smacking into all the spots where they had been, where they laughed and cried. He felt singed by the past, burned raw by its instant combustion of seeing her here again. Every single step towards her was cracking apart his encased self.


Jake felt her wince as she roared past the Jamba Juice store they hit after yoga. She nearly tripped passing the noodle shop, stumbling by her nail place where she took him to get a pedicure, and finally collapsed at the park. Amber had always loved this park and now it was poisoned, full of horrors that lingered inside her mind. Inside her heart.


"7!"


Amber lay crumpled on the ground as groups walked her by, assuming her to be an emotional drunken mess. Which she was. And this made her start to hate Jake, but only for an instant, before that spite turned in on herself. She gave in and let her body heave in sobbing spasms, dry heaving and coughing up all the Jake she had left in her.


Jake slowed to a walk as he saw her completely defeated. Weak. Powerless and full of utter despair, she kneeled there, her hair a mess, her legs bruised and bloody. This was an Amber that he knew well. One he hadnt seen in forever. Vulnerable. He slowed the closer he came to her. Jake looked down with watery, sympathetic eyes.


"6!"


Jake knelt down beside her and drew her into his chest. Amber didnt resist. She felt him pull her in as he lowered himself down beside her. It felt like giving up, like admitting defeat, and most of all it felt good. It felt right. The crying grew in intensity as he held her closer and closer.


Amber eventually looked over at Jake through the veil of her long hair. He wasnt smiling that condescending smile. He wasnt here because she needed him. He wasnt smug or passive aggressive or trying to make her smile. He was just there, holding her, not solving her problems or making things right. He was just there.


"5!"


They both got up to their feet and slowly began to walk to a bench. His arm was still gripping her tight, with hers wrapped around his midsection. They dropped down onto the bench and amid the chaos of this night they looked at each other naked, exposed, like they did so many nights, so many years ago.


Neither of them knew what to say. They both began words only to have to clear their throat, or slip into tears again. Instead they looked away and took in the scene around them. Dancing and singing and jubilation as only New Years Eve can provide. It was everywhere. Celebration and declarations bloomed all around. Everyone was happy. And so were they.


"4!"


They walked arm in arm, occasionally holding pinkies when they needed some space, but coming back to holding each other as they walked downtown together. Like magnets, first drawn to each other, they were now being led to a destination. A specific place that they both knew that the other knew. So there was no need for talking. Only walking.


The bus stop where he broke down in front of her after too much red wine. The supermarket they spent Sunday afternoons at. The dive bar they went to on their second date. The bagel place. The playground. Their favorite bar. The etched J & A that was now all but faded from the sidewalk they redid when they lived down here.


"3!"


They stopped outside the apartment building. They both looked up as if to confirm the number, but they both knew where they were. Right outside the bridge. Right where they had started. Only now, they were so far away from then, what could this possibly be but a farce. Some last cruel joke they were playing on each other. A place where they were one, at a time when they felt like less than nothing.


He brushed her hair from her face. She raised her trembling chin up. He looked her in the eyes and tears streamed from them both. But they didnt look away. Beneath the yellow light, outside the blue door, framed by the red bridge, they leaned in. Their eyelids shut as if they would never open again. Not on this world. Not where they wanted to be anymore.


"2!"


They kissed. A long, familiar kiss filled with emptiness, a shred of shared existence pressed between their mad lips. Jake and Amber began to dissolve and suddenly they were two strangers making out in a spontaneous, passionate fury, fighting each other with their battle-hardened hearts, and now, naked in emotional ecstasy. What was him in her, and her in him, was breathed into the other as their mouths closed slowly, their lips holding on, yet slipping away like the seconds in this final, beautiful moment.


"1!"

When the Universe Ends. Act 2. Lunch.

Outdoor patio. Vodka cranberry's chasing the salad. Amber was crumbling. Jenn and Thom were chatting away as she filled her mouth with lettuce. Her eyes danced over the foiliage that decorated the beautiful California day. But she would not look at him. Not at his eyes.

Jake adjusted his glasses. He willed his hands not to shake as he slurped his soup. Thankfully his hair was hanging a tad long so as to hide her from his view. Why is she here? Jake wondered if she was as striking as she was in that dive East Village bar nearly a decade ago. Or did the years and travel craft her into that woman he wished that girl to be?

"Jake, remember that girl we met at that reading for that off-Broadway show? The blonde who played the mistress?"

"Um. The, uh, one that invited us to the rooftop party?"

"Yeah. What's her name?"

Jake swallowed hard and slowly turned his head towards the one person who ever loved him. The silly, sappy, crybaby that always had to get her way with a pout and a scrunching of her nose. Those damn pajama pants and the pint of Phish Food. Stevie Ray Vaughn playing in the background. She drove him crazy but here she was, blossomed into such an amazing woman that he didn't even deserve to look upon.

"Amber."

His goddamn eyes, Amber screamed.

"Right," snapped Thom, "Amber Mills. Anyway this chick is perfect for the part..."

Amber felt herself melt inside. Behind those lenses, blue-green memories. I hate him. I hate that he makes me feel this way. Amber had shuddered when she heard her name come from his lips. Those damn lips. Lying bastard lips that sold her on a life that she didn't have. Amber closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"You okay?" Jake had leaned in and near whispered.

"Fine. Just allergies." Amber dropped her hand to her side. She kept her eyes down. She could see his hands.

Jake reached up and took off his glasses. His lips parted slowly as if he were about to say...

"Amber..."

Amber excused herself from the table as Thom and Jenn chattered on about location. Jake watched as she made her way to the restroom.

"New York is the way to go. You lose a certain...feeling if you switch it up."

"I'm telling you San Francisco is the heart of it. I know it'd work perfectly."

Jake made a small ruckus as he stood up and squeezed through towards the bathroom. As he rounded the corner Amber burst out of the bathroom. A near collision had set them both back on their heels. Caught off guard, they reach for their chests in a gasp to catch their breaths.

"Jake." It felt like an exclamation in her head.

"Listen, Amber...we should talk." He reached out for her arm. She felt familiar. Friendly.

Amber shirked back subtly from his outstretched hand. She shook her head in defiance and to clear her head. Who was he to be like this now? After all this time she felt a twang of resentment that rattled her.

"Forget it Jake. You know how this goes down between us. Why are you here even?" Amber looked away as she went to walk past him.

Jake grabbed her forearm in a caressing grip. Firm and confident. This isn't Jake. Who is this? Another bastard full of empty promises. Above Jake's fingers his eyes ran along her veins, pulsating with the rush of blood. "Don't. Please. We..."

Amber pulled her hand free and used it to fuel her anger. The anger at herself. No, at him. He broke your goddamn heart Amber. How could you forgive him? How can you forgive yourself for letting him in?

Jake turned away. He knew her. He should have gone a different way. Said something different, been different. I should just leave her alone. It's just pathetically selfish to want something from her now. After all this time. She was different. She was the same as ever.

"Forget it Jake. Forget what happened. It's history. I'm going back to the table."

She began walking away immediately as if to punctuate her statement. Jake's head swung around low and lonesome. She felt his cuteness behind her. She knew how he'd be using those damn eyes to get to her. Amber felt Jake's stare as if it were his fingers sliding through her hair, rubbing down her back, brushing against her neck.

"Goodbye Amber."

When the Universe Ends. Act 1. Life.

Jake and Amber were in love once. They became something different and then they parted ways. He stayed in the city and found a routine. Shesaw the world and found herself.
So on opposite sides of the world they started over and lived their lives. Jake began working for a company that had nothing but advancement opportunities and security. Amber started making her way with an assortment of odd jobs allowing her the freedom to explore. They hadn't spoken in eight years.

They stopped calling as the old patterns kept resurfacing no matter how hard they tried to remain civil. A birthday phone call became a fight, which seemed to defeat the original intention. Both came to the decision that it was less painful to let go.

Jake wouldn't have called if he hadn't met three Amber's earlier that week. A temp in the office had just been called in to replace a co-worker that had quit suddenly. Her name was Amber.

"That's funny." He said, more to himself.

"What's that?" she replied.

"Nothing." He dismissed the remainder of his thoughts with a shake of his head.

But these thoughts of the past wouldn't be shaken so easily. At lunch a day later the waitress; Amber. And at the bar that friday, the new bartender...Amber. Her name was suddenly everywhere at once. 'Had Amber always been such a popular name?' he wondered. He was beginning to question his sanity, when he dropped his address book that Sunday afternoon.

It had fallen open to her name and number. Well, the last known number he had for her. It was actually the number for a friend's apartment she was staying at in Australia years ago. He dialed and had the phone up to his ear before he realized it was ringing and that in one second she would answer and what exactly was he going to say.

"Hello?"

Hang up, that was the first instinct. But frozen in that moment, somehow he spoke. Words were coming out but what was it that was being said exactly.

"No, she hasn't lived here in...forever it seems."

"Oh, no?" Automatic reponse.

"No, but I still talk to her. She's been in India, working at a museum over there. Do you want me to give you her number?"

Jake hastily declined the offer and regretted it fully as he hung up.

Amber was running around, keeping herself busy, never stopping to think, not letting herself remember. Immersed in culture and sights, her head barely above the surface of herself, she was content in separation from everything familiar. Foreign nights, international friends, and not a Jake for ten thousand miles. Until that September in Beijing.

This Jake was everything her Jake wasn't. Every feature and characteristic about as polar opposite of the Jake that was somewhere back in her city, doing who knows what, with who knows who. The attraction was there from the moment they met. Through a mutual friend they had come together in a heated and passionate two weeks as they bounced from Taipei to Hong Kong.

She couldn't sleep. She looked in at this new Jake and then back out to this city that once beckoned her, and now seemed to haunt her. She had stopped for too long and now things were rushing back in to fill the spaces between India, Australia, Thailand, Russia, and Egypt. She felt like Amber, American Amber from the big city once again.

So she ran. She snuck out of the hotel, leapt into a cab and headed for the airport. Her hands were shaking and she snagged a pack of cigarettes at her first opportunity. Eight years of quitting gone down the drain in a moment. She smoked nearly the entire pack before she boarded the plane.

Where was she going? She had bought a one way ticket with the rest of the credit she had but she wasn't sure exactly where she was headed. Glancing down at the ticket she realized she was headed back to America. Thankfully the money she had was only enough to get her to California. At least it was the wrong coast. At least.

The captain's name was Jake on that flight. The cab driver that picked her up from LAX was also named Jake. Amber showed up at her friend's apartment with her one bag and a head full of Jake.



Jake had been dating off and on for the last eight months. he made every effort to look for girls that wouldn't look like her, talk like her, remind him of her, but it seemed impossible. Underneath their exteriors they all became her in the end. And it hurt.

It was a scab that he kept accidently ripping off. She seemed to be every girl in this damn city and how could he escape her. It wasn't just the New York senisibilities that he couldn't shake once he got to know each girl.

Beth, the cute Asian girl he had met that night he saw that cover band with Jon. She had the same glasses and sounded just like her on the phone. The psyche student, Kelly, had the same last name and grew up in the same town as her. Jake had to run when he realized that Eve had her old phone number.

Thom was headed out to Hollywood to pitch a project and Jake needed to clear his head. He took those built up vacation days and headed out to the West Coast to forget about her.

Amber was working as an underling on a Lifetime original movie filming within walking distance from Jenn's house in Los Angeles. Amber had forgotten all about him by now, having made the rounds of LA. Enough slimeballs, losers, and wannabe actors had turned her off to dating altogether and so she plunged herself into working.

Amber's bank account was growing and she had just about enough to put down for a new, modest, apartment in Santa Monica. Other than occasionally hitting a few quiet bars with the girls, she mostly cradled a bottle of red wine and read every book she could get her hands on.

It all fell apart in a day.