Body In Ubu's Light

I lay dreaming while I was grieving

Trying to conjure the magic that was ours

before

somehow

we died.

I've been having the same dream over and over again. Spike tells me he's been having it too.

We're -- not Spike of course -- sitting at the restaurant eating, talking, the sound of the other diners white noise behind us. There's a beautiful view of the city on our right -- on her right -- and every few minutes I take furtive glances of her through it. They're always wrong somehow but I never seem to remember that the next time I steal a look. It's dark in here. You'd think for what we're paying they'd have a few lights, I quipped earlier in the evening. It earned me a smile. It was worth the lame joke.

Dinners over now. We just sit there and I want to say something to her. I can't remember for the life of me what it is either in the dream or when I awake. But I'm not looking at her, I'm caught up in trying to figure out what it is I have to say. I don't even look in the window anymore. Then I have it. I know what it is. I say her name to attract her attention. She hasn't been looking at me either. Somehow I know she's been staring into the candle flames. When she looks up at me everything's wrong. Her eyes are wrong. They're too wild, too alive, unnaturally bright. I say her name again but this time not only is the question gone but confusion has taken its place.

"What you didn't expect it to last did you Angel? You didn't think I'd stay your sweet little-- Oh, I see. You did." She laughs at me then. It's soft, doesn't attract the other patrons, but it's wrong too. She might as well have been laughing high enough to shatter glass with more than a touch of hysteria. It's all contained in that little musical tinkle. She shakes her head making her earrings dance and sparkle. "Oh it's too unbelievable. Really Angel? Really you expected me to stay innocent after all that's happened, after I sacrificed myself?!" And here she's fierce. There's clarity in her voice but it's the clarity of madness.

All I can think is that I drove her to this.

She wears a huge smile and licks her teeth seductively . . .hungrily. Her eyes sparkle with mischief and desire. I don't know what's happened to her but I still want her. She won't have me. "Oh no no no dear Angel. Demon with a soul?" She raises an eyebrow and looks down at me with disdain. Standing she drops her dinner napkin oh so casually, and finally, on the table. "Just not my thing anymore."

I always awake before she flips that blonde hair and walks away. And always it's the same word on my lips, "Buffy."

Fin