The world is a really small, awful place.
It's every nightmare that made you wake up screaming as a kid, every fear that haunts you whenever you shut your eyes, every lie you twist to make true, every word that's ever stung. It's a room that closes in while you're still inside, it's a locked door, it's a floor that falls through.
When we're alive, the world is shit.
But Roger swears when you're dying, it's beautiful.
The dark alleyway is the only thing that's comforting. It's close to midnight and it's pouring, but the loft is suffocating and the silences are too long and the time isn't passing right. Nothing moves for a minute, and then in a second an hour has gone by. So I let the door slam behind me when I run out just to hear it make a sound.
I find a crate and I feel every joint crack as I sit. Strains of one of The Man's exchanges are reaching me, and a homeless man is shaking uncontrollably 20 feet from me. There are screams and music making the concrete bounce and empty promises and rain against metal and just enough sound to make me feel the shell of something. It's not reaching me, but how long has it been since something has?
His veins are bright purple now. Almost electrifying really, like how he was onstage, as they protrude from his skin, thirsting for that sweet release. I look at my own wrists, see a few scars from when he's thrown me against the wall, but see that my veins yearn for nothing. In the moment, I can't decide if that's any better.
"Hey."
I hesitantly remove my head from my lap and it burns. It's been a while since I've answered.
"You know, it's raining." She whispers, just a black phantom in the dark alley.
"Yeah." I nod. This, to her, is invitation to sit beside me. I hear the rain thrashing against the metal trashcans and her heavy breathing which is in rhythm with the orchestration.
"How long have you been out here?" I smell the hairspray releasing as her hair deflates.
I shrug. "Not long enough to get pneumonia." She doesn't humor me, just turns to face forward.
"It's quiet," she goes on, "up there. Without you."
I don't answer.
"I guess that's why you're out here." I nod. "So I thought I'd escape with you."
Her words are very fragile and for the first time that night I looked at her. Mascara was running in the right places and her hunter green tank and black jeans were soaked through. She seemed older, the way she always did when she came down from any natural temporary high she pursued. Anything to get away from herself.
That's all any of us ever did. Run from ourselves. We created to make more to us, to give us worth, to hide beneath a canvas or a guitar. That's what made us artists, because we could hate harder then anyone else.
But we could also love harder. Which was part of the reason I was risking pneumonia to be out in the pouring rain.
For once, I wished I had something to run to instead of away from.
I looked into her, through her, the way I always looked at her. And watched the way she pretended not to see.
"You can be scared." She said breathily, trembling a little from the cold that shot straight to your bones.
"There's too much fear in the loft as it is." I spoke coldly.
She shook her head slowly. "You need to be scared, Mark. You need to cry. You need to show-"
"No." I said more firmly. "You know I can't."
"Mark, Roger's dying." She shook her curls as her chest tightened and tears started springing from her eyes. "Why doesn't that hurt you?"
I glared at her with all the strength I had left to fight with. "If you knew one thing about me, you'd know it hurt more then words could express."
She flinched at the loaded words, her breath quickening with her tears. "Why don't you show it?"
"Because nothing can amount to it." I grumbled. The alley seemed to darken.
"You're turning blue," she said after a long silence. "Come in."
"I can't," I whispered. "I can't look at him."
"Why?" She breathed.
"Because when I look at him…I lose all feeling. I look at him, and everything drains and every bit of hurt or angst or grief disappears. And I want it, Maureen. Dammit, that makes no sense but what are we if we don't feel?"
She shook her head again, tears receding. "I don't know, Mark. God, I don't know." We didn't talk for a long while, our silence punctuated by sirens in the distance.
"I had a dream last night." She breathed. "The walls were closing in the loft, and you were sitting in the middle and I reached for you but you didn't move. I screamed but you didn't hear me. And I look at you now Mark, and it's like that dream is what we are." I turned to her slowly. "Mark, why can't you hear me?"
I thought about the things I wanted to hear. The things I'd had to go without. Like laughter and guitar chords and audiences hollering. His voice, that bittersweet and raw croon that was laced with every emotion I hadn't figured out yet. And I thought about Maureen and her sweet high-pitched tones and her breathy whispers. And how the world was closing in every single moment and it wasn't Maureen that was screaming, it was me and no one could hear. It was me who was fading, me who was dying.
I ran my hand through my hair and she watched my fingers trembling uncontrollably.
"Mark," she moaned in complete agony, "you're going to go too."
She grabbed my hand in hers desperately and stroked it softly. Then harder, then faster. So hard, my hand was turning fire truck red and I didn't even wince.
She leaned over to whisper, "Feel something with me."
And I guess that's why I didn't stop her when her lips met my neck.