Closure
by kenzeaye
"This voice you hear
I was just walking
I was just walking
On my own
'Cuz my heart still longs for closure"
- Owl Eyes
Spike lifted his sensitized eyes from the void between his forearm and bicep. He inspected it for a moment, suspicious of its power. The alcohol did funny things to him these days, but he didn't know what else there was to do in a town like this.
He leaned back on his barstool and yawned. The clock read 4:32 AM.
He sized up the room, stretching away the sleep in his bones, hoping to make his surreptitious examinations appear as blasé as possible. He hadn't meant to fall asleep here. The vulnerability was an unwelcome sensation.
He was alone, save for a wizened drifter asleep at a table in the corner, same way he had been when Spike stumbled into this goddamn dive. Stumbled literally, down a flight of concrete stairs, the sidewalk having curiously dematerialized. It had been his intention to adhere to the doctrine of moderation, and he was on his way home after responsibly enjoying three spirits. However, some architect of human misery had dug up the earth from under his feet and folded it neatly back down into a perfect contrivance—a sloping set of stairs, winkingly metaphorical.
It was already 1:00am at the time of his surprise descent, well past the time any respectable man his age should have been home, his son and daughter asleep in the next room, wife curled up at his side. But Spike Spiegel had no son or daughter, nor a house to accommodate them, or any nuggets of sage wisdom to provide them such as, 'Always be on the look-out for unexpected staircases.' And his wife, well technically he supposed he still had one, but probably not for much longer. The last time she'd lain curled up against him was on the sofa, the night they'd decided to split up. Her face was red with teary inflammation and departing rage. He watched it closely as she lie beside him, staring up at the ceiling, a tear tracking down her temple.
At one point in his life he'd been certain she was incapable of crying, but after they were married he came to find just how easily he could make that happen.
It was that thought that had mobilized his aging tendons and fuzzy, razed nerves, and pushed him through the door at the bottom of the stairs, onto this stool, and far beyond any conceivable sense of moderation.
He'd really tried to do something different. He was as unattached as he'd ever been, free to do whatever the hell it was he wanted, but most nights he couldn't really think of anything. He'd taken a walk down to the pier, shuffled along the sand of the tiny cove, tried to read, but found he wasn't too good at finding books interesting. Books were for people who had the capacity to learn something from them, and he wasn't sure he was capable of such youthful endeavors now.
Where the fuck was this bartender? Spike craned his neck to peer into the storage room at the end of the bar, starting a mental countdown that upon completion would dispense with his manners and relieve him of any guilt he might have felt for leaving without paying.
It wouldn't be accurate to say he'd gotten hitched on a dare, but it was closer to truth than fiction. It was as though they were both daring the other to go through with it. Or to not go through with it. It was hard to really know which. It also wouldn't be accurate to say their marriage had been based on lies, but it had definitely been rooted in half-truths—the first one being that either one of them wanted to be married to begin with.
It was his suggestion, he could take responsibility for that much—but she had agreed. He was 33, and he had a sorta job and a sorta girlfriend, and then he sorta found a gray hair in one of his sideburns. If it had given him any pause, he couldn't say he felt it at the time. But a few nights later something about it seemed to click.
Every once in a while, with seemingly little fanfare, Faye had been known to jump out of bed, seized with fear. It was some offshoot of her experience with artificial sleep. She would pace the floor, her breathing heavy and panicked, and would continue to do so until he coaxed her back to bed and talked her down. She said sometimes she was afraid to go to sleep because she'd never wake up, or if she did it would be as another person in another time.
This time she said she was afraid she'd never see him again. Her desperation was so tender and gut-wrenching and suddenly everything seemed so very real, and he told her he loved her and asked her to marry him and she said yes and they made love and swore to never be apart. But sure as the sun shall rise, the melodrama subsided and the quotidian ascended and that which had seemed so sweet and heartbreaking now appeared foolish and awkward.
But they silently followed through, and the rest went about the same. A mutually repelling force had been created in that silence, and after five years, both were satisfied that they'd performed their due diligence.
He still remembered that night fondly, though. No one had ever said such a thing to him before or since, and likely never would again.
"I don't want to go someplace where I know you won't ever be."
Fucking ironic, huh?
Spike stood and slapped some wrinkled woolongs down on the lacquered faux bois, and tried to recall just how it was that he learned to read an analog timepiece. 4:56 AM. He heard its unnerving tick echo into every corner of the dark basement.
He slipped a couple of woolongs into the drifter's pocket and closed the door behind him.
He climbed the stairs with earnest dignity, trying to erase his stumble and his fall. A few stars still twinkled and night birds chortled, but there was a luminance growing over the water. He watched the infinitesimal shifts of the shadows, witnessed the moon beginning to lose its luster.
Two years had gone by, and without a word between them. He hadn't been looking for a fairytale—he'd already fucked that up for himself. Faye was just too cynical to ever let anyone get that close. It had seemed like a satisfactory arrangement.
He turned his back and retreated from the rising sun. He'd stopped believing tomorrow would ever be any different.
I have no idea where this came from, short of saying I find the concept of marriage fucking terrifying.
For all of you Bad followers, I'm still alive and still working. Hopefully this will buy me some good will for losing pace.