I don't own these characters. They are all the property of Jonothan Larson from the musical RENT.
I am drunk. Smashed. Blown out of my mind. The lights and music course through my veins. Gutter ghosts swirl in my head. I am still high from the euphoric of performing.
My fingers fumble blindly for my house key. The only light comes from the electric stars. Some idiot who strung Christmas lights on the metal railing outside my apartment. An electric jungle. The effect is garish.
There is a soft click as the copper opens the door. My lovely beer-stained door. My lovely beer-stained apartment. But not mine. Mine and hers. Ours. Our piss, our love, our beer. God, I love New York.
My fingers fumble with the light switch. Fuck. Forgot that there is no power. No juice for the lights. My eyes adjust to the darkness of our tiny flat. I call her name. Slurring it. My tongue is heavy in my mouth. Choking my words. It's hot. The odor of stale smoke still fills my mouth. A perfect cocktail of smoke and piss.
She doesn't answer. She is sleeping. She has been doing that a lot lately. Sleeping. She's been sleeping and I've been playing. And then we make love. And then she sleeps. It's a symbiotic relationship.
Unsteadily I walk towards our bathroom. I want to take a shower. To douse myself with water and scrub till my sins float away. I want to get the beer-and-piss smell out of my skin. Rub my pores raw. I am tired. Tired of the slums. Tired of myself. Tired of the ghastly Halloween splendor that is New York. Tired of Her gilded dreams.
I stumble into the bathroom. And blink. The acrid tang of blood assaults my nostrils. The city that never sleeps howls in the darkness. In a haze I walk towards her.
She has become the city. She is the city. Her tangled arms and legs are New York's twisted roads. Her splayed hair the river and parks. Her blood. Her blood is the inhabitants of New York. Her blood is everywhere. Everywhere.
It's not red. Her blood isn't red. The Christmas lights outside shine in through the glass. Their beams dissect her body. Breaking her up into violent intersections of red, purple and green. She's beautiful. She's an angel.
By her side lays a knife. The blade is still wet. It gleams. Crumpled in her hand is a strip of paper. I tease it out carefully. It doesn't say much. One line. One simple sweet line. "We have AID's." It's like fucking poetry.
I don't feel anything. I know I should feel grief. Anger. Passion. Some emotional outburst is expected of me. Nothing. An absence of feeling. The drugs are so entangled with my life that I can't tell what is Me and what is Them. I swing the knife at the paper and cut a hole into it. Methodically I rip the paper up into hundreds of little pieces. I throw the paper in the air. As the snow sprinkles down I still feel numb. Kiss me lover. Kiss me its beginning to snow. Kiss me to stop the numbness
I hold the blade up to the light. Admiring it. The lights ripple off its metallic surface. It's a work of art. Kiss me love.
I feel my arm yield to the velvet pressure of the blade. A crimson well springs up. Fascinated I watch the tiny wells fall apart as they hit the ground, I feel no pain. I feel nothing.
I ignore the body and turn the shower on. I step into the water fully clothed. I raise my face up to the water and let the liquid scour my flesh. I wait for the pain to take hold. It doesn't.