Chapter One
I'm caught in a contrapuntal nightmare, layers upon layers of chaos clash, crash, and dispute within me, and they threaten to tear me apart. Close my eyes in the morning, keep them open at night, I breathe slowly and evenly, and I'm calm on the outside. Calm on the outside. Calm.
The sun rises over the horizon setting everything ablaze; I watch in horror as trees, grass, clouds, and even the blue of the sky bursts into flame. A bird flies calmly through the inferno, paying no mind to the fire licking at its feathers. I want to scream a warning, but I know. You're calm on the outside. You already know. Inside, you're as scared as I am. Will your wings to take you away from this rising Hell on Earth as I will my legs to run, faster, faster, just get me away from here. Am I still calm on the outside? The fire is creeping in. It starts in my chest, burning a hole in me; the flames catch my legs, I have no more strength; my legs burn like blades of grass. And in my head I hear you screaming a warning, the amplified ticking of a bomb, stop running, stop running, STOP RUNNING. You have nowhere to go.
...
"Honestly Charlie, you don't have to repack my suitcase." You sit on the edge of the bed, chewing your lip as I pull everything out of the case, piling your clothes on the table.
"It'll be more organized this way, trust me. I can get your two bags into one suitcase. Just watch." I hold up a Green Lantern t-shirt briefly before turning it around and folding it into a neat square. My hands move automatically, systematically sorting clothes into precise stacks of little squares, tight, packaged, like they came out of a machine. Shelton once joked I had packing down to an art. And like a typical temperamental artist, I never admire my own handiwork; instead I take it all apart and do it again.
You stop me before I get to that stage, however, coming up from behind and wrapping your arms around my waist, hands going to my wrists. Your lips press to the back of my neck and I can almost hear you thinking, stop running.
I can't stop running. I can't. And now I'm jumping hurdles.
"I'm gonna miss you."
You smile. "I'm gonna miss you, too." I watch as you take the last folded shirt from my hands, placing it on the table, pulling me away from the organized pandemonium of stacks and stacks of clothes, their creepy categorization, all machinated clones of one another… I'm pulled into your arms, the safety of the simplicity of your embrace, the clarity of your gaze. Never mind that it's just for one last night.
...
Shannon and I see you off at the airport the next day, and as promised, you check one bag instead of two. We stand at the large window overlooking the runway, watching as your plane tears down the asphalt then lifts into the air, higher, higher, until you're swallowed by the sky. The thought is disconcerting and I'm unaware of my distressed expression until Shannon reaches over and uses his thumb to rub the worry lines from my forehead.
...
I dream that night of the sky, blue and orange and turning black, splitting open into a giant hell mouth, thousands upon thousands of writhing tortured beings trapped between the jaws of a wailing, shrieking, demon. The world will soon burst into flames and I'm screaming, screaming for the angels to close the door.
...
In the morning I breathe slowly, steadily, willing myself to be calm, calm on the outside. I've done it hundreds of times, so often it's become routine. But this morning something's different. Calm on the outside – I can't be calm on the outside. How ridiculous to even consider being calm on the outside.
A sharp pain tears through my heart and I clutch my chest, sitting down on the bed. Breathe slower, Charlie. Slower. Another pain, harder, and I'm doubled over, forehead meeting my knees. I said slower. For fuck's sake, calm down. I close my eyes; will the pain away, my pleas persistent even when the pain spreads through my chest, traveling down my arms and legs, my extremities numb, tingling, before bursting into flames. The pain travels up my neck the slowest, a massive fist gripping and constricting, tighter, tighter, until my world turns black and I'm falling, unconscious before my head hits the floor.