DISCLAIMER: Not Mine, I receive no financial compensation for what I do in my spare time.
This Parody of Life
And if I Could Choose a Place to Die
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
The sound was irritatingly hypnotic. The tile wall was cool against his aching head. The porcelain was smooth against the pain that was once a body.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
The lukewarm water immersed an Earthly form. The dripping water caused small ripples to form disturbing the otherwise calm surface. The energy spreading was minute to a body, undetected. But to the other objects it meant everything. It ruined their steady state throwing it into chaos.
Chaos was something he understood very well. He hadn't invented it, but he had long studied the phenomenon and its effects. A little chaos, an unwanted release of energy could cause a ripple to form in a bath or level a city.
He'd devoted the past few years of his life becoming an Agent of Chaos. It was his calling. It was his real purpose in this otherwise boring parody of life.
He'd lived a meaningless existence until the day he'd returned to his apartment and stopped just around the corner from the building entrance. A small, insignificant decision to light a cigarette and stand outside to smoke had changed the path of his life.
He hadn't heard a sound before the body fell to his feet. Unable to respond in anyway he stared down at it. As screaming, yelling and eventually the call of sirens filled his ears he took in the sight.
The blood slowly spread in a wide pool from her head. It touched and then surrounded his brown shoes. Her lifeless eyes stared into the sky and her lips were parted slightly.
She was his next door neighbor. They had lived beside one another for two years, their lives having never intertwined. He didn't even know her name.
The absurdity that her life had ended at his feet hit him and he let a small chuckle escape his lips. It grew into a hearty, sick laugh and he stepped backward through her blood and looked at the people standing around them, gawking. He laughed and they looked at him shocked. They looked at him like he was a monster. They looked at him like he was crazy.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
The sound brought him back to the now and he opened his eyes a little to see the water pool at the opening of the faucet before gravity pulled it to the surface below.
Everything falls.
"Hey." A voice came softly through the stillness. It disturbed the meditative silence between him and the drops of water.
"What?" He growled only it came out more as a groan.
Fingertips pulled at his right and then left eyelid as a blinding light violated his vision in each eye respectively.
"Were you asleep?" The voice inquired.
"Go away." He spoke with more conviction. She drew a breath and held it as he squeezed his eyelids shut. He heard her climb to her feet and leave the room.
He opened his eyes and afterglow of the light filled his sight. It was a simple, unwanted disturbance. It was chaos.
He raised his hands before his face as he became aware once again that the pain was his. They were rough, calloused and still had blood and paint beneath the fingernails.
He cupped his pruned fingers and dipped them into the dirty water before pouring it over his head. Sweat, dye and paint stung his eyes. He leaned forward and pulled the plug.
He slowly raised his pain racked body to a hunched form and pulled the curtain closed beside him as he turned the water on and pulled the lever to switch the valve to the shower head.
Cold water shocked him awake. He drew a sharp breath and quickly blew it out as the pain in his sides punished him for trying to breathe. He grasped the knob and turned it to warm the water that splashed against him.
Green dye washed down his body in rivulets as he worked the shampoo through the tangled mess in his hair. It smelled like lavender and mint and he hated it. Women had to use these highly perfumed products as if it mattered. The media and fashion shilled their wears to them with the promise that it would make them "feel more feminine" and "drive him wild."
Whatever. He washed his body with her body wash that promised it was relaxing and smelled like eucalyptus. The array of odors temporarily distracted him from his pain as it filled his sinuses with their sickeningly strong aromas. He smelled like a woman, or what They thought women should smell like. He smelled horrible.
He rinsed as much of the scent off him as he could before turning off the water and tearing open the curtain. The hot steam in the air still smelled like "calming, soothing relaxation." He couldn't get away from it fast enough.
He stepped out of the bathtub and dripped on the mat as he studied the floor. 'Where the hell are my clothes?'
She must have taken them.
He grabbed a towel from the bar and carelessly dried himself and wrapped it around his waist. He made his way to her bedroom and pulled back the sheets and removed the towel before he lay down. He closed his eyes as every part of his body punished him simultaneously. If this was what getting old felt like he decided he never wanted to reach that age. This was almost a certainty due to the choices he'd already made for himself.
He heard approaching footsteps.
"If you shine that damn thing in my eyes again, I'm going to break your wrist." He muttered as she stopped beside him. In his minds eye he saw her close those blue eyes and shake her head.
"What exactly Do you want me to do?" She snapped. He heard the fatigue and irritation in her voice. "After being gone for two years you storm in here wrecked, beaten and blown up and you tell me not to help you!"
"I don't need any help." He spat as he opened his eyes and took in her angry visage.
"Then why are you here?" She seethed and then bit her lower lip and glared at him. He managed a painful smirk.
"This is just another rest stop on the road to Hell." He said and then laughed. The laughter hurt and then somehow eased the pain. It always did. He laughed harder, louder.
"Screw this." She said mostly to herself as she whipped the sheet back and drove a syringe into his leg and quickly depressed the plunger.
He grabbed her arms and pulled her onto the bed and rolled atop her. He closed his eyes as his body screamed and then laughed again. She wrestled against him as he pinned her down and slapped her face. He began to feel the drugs kick in and blinked his eyes and shook his head.
"What, what was that!" He demanded as he began to slip into unconsciousness. He shook his head again and tried to prop himself up above her. She steadied him with her hands on his arms.
"I'm making you more cooperative, Jack." She said in a soothing voice.
"Don't call me that." He slurred as he lost the fight and slumped onto her, his face pressed against the side of hers. "Don't ever call me that again." He growled into her ear.
One of her hands slid over and gently rubbed his shoulder as the other crept into his hair.
"I missed you." She whispered and then there was nothing.