Contrast And Compare

For a minute, I think back to New Years Eve of 1997.

I remember sneaking into some party, with some dudes I barely knew. It was around 7 when we were in the living room with all those other kids. We were having the time of our lives, just partying it up. And by we, I mean everyone except me. I was alone most of the party. I was just walking around, quietly, but inside I'm screaming. I look out into the crowd, and they're all so lively...so happy.
Inside they're peaceful.

At this point in the year, I'm not extremely lonely; I was just so tired. I was moving through days so slowly, and I was just so numb and cold from it all. I have so many things I have to keep track of, and on top of it all, I had monsters hunting me down, wanting to do things to me that death could never even compare to.

When could I finally stop moving? When could I find somewhere to settle down at?

I find myself in a quiet, dark room, drinking alone. I feel content with my place in the universe for a few seconds, and chuckle at the absurdity of it all. There's monsters that prey on humanity's worst Fears, and they're chasing after me!! How crazy is that? And there's a secretive government agency mixed in with all this too, and we haven't even mentioned the thing that's held within my soul yet...it almost reads like a novel!

The thing hidden in my soul is something many people lust over. It's just so valuable, and if it is captured the monsters...well, it wouldn't be too good, let me tell you that much.

The days felt so slow back then. A day could contain the memories of a small lifetime, it seemed, back then. Alot of things were just clearer, too. Things were crisp, and clean, and the best part was, it all made sense. Now, I look at the world, and become confused; what am I looking at?

What am I standing on?
What is the Earth? Something grand? Something futile?
Something...just there?

As I am writing this, I am looking into another landscape, and yet something exactly the same. It's the same party, but with one difference; it's a year later, and we both have our memories of the past year.

I met here at this party on the stairs. I remember walking up there, aimlessly, and intoxicated.

And then I heard her voice, behind me. She appeared...her name was Arienette, and from that day forward she kept me safe, away from the loneliness.

I see myself walking up those same stairs again, and behind me, my Arienette appears again. She grabs onto my arm, and says: "What's up, where you been?" I see that she's grinning when I turn around. She must have sensed how I was feeling, because she added onto her greeting: "Is something wrong?"

My insides start to scream,
as I try to smile, lie,
and say "Everything's fine."

The minute ends, and I'm alone. Arienette is two states away. I'm here, in this cold house, where the heat refuses to work, where there's no more beer left, where...where I'm stuck. I'm stuck here.

Could I risk it....? Do I want to see her that badly, where I'd risk everything...

Of course I want to that badly. She's...she's the only thing I have left.

How do I escape from here though? The Agency is watching, and the monsters are lurking the streets?

I have to think of something.

Padriac, My Prince

I remembered something today. Something from the dark abyss of my memories. It was something I should have forgotten long ago, but couldn't manage to; instead, I had to drown it in the dark waters of days gone by. It would not stop struggling, though, and I had to let go, which resulted in it rising back to the surface.

I called him Padriac. My brother, that is. I never knew him well, but I loved him, of course. He was my little brother, and I was supposed to protect him. I failed.

It causes me to be sick, those memories. I was walking down the street today when the memories resurfaced, and they caused me to fall to the ground. I was choking in coughs for a second...I remembered the water. I remember seeing my mother standing over the bathtub.

I tried to push the memories away, tried to fool my mind. I continued walking, despite the persistent ache in my throat and lungs. It's gonna be alright, it's gonna be alright, it's gonna be alright...

But then I saw my brother across the street so coldsocold and the memories...they were real...they happened. The snow begins to fall, and I fall to the street along with the snowflakes. The pain of my face colliding with the street barely compares to the feeling in my lungs.

The little boy starts to approach me, walking across the street, and the closer he is, the more I recognize that he wasn't really my brother; he wasn't even close to being my little brother. He wore some sailor suit, and had blonde hair...and his face.

He had no face. Or at least, his face was blurred to the point that my eyes could not identify a face on him.

The memories tore away at reality as this happened, and I heard the most terrible sound in the entire world; my mother screaming after realizing what she had done.

She had held my little brother underwater in the bathtub. She had killed my little brother. And the most tragic part of all this, was that it had to be done....she was no psychopath. Her own job forced her into killing my little brother for the greater good.

The sailor boy looks down upon me, and the snow stops. He speaks, but I do not listen. The little boy chuckles about something as I recall that this wasn't happening; I was staring into a mirror. 

I saw eyes rimmed with red and a face pale of a stupor. Whoever this was, he was drunk. I look down, and see the sink, filled with tiny shards of broken glass and blood. My fist is cold and shaking, and I realize that I had broken the mirror; but what had I been staring into?

I look back, and see that there is only the medicine cabinet. Inside, I see the familiar pills the agency in charge of moving me had given me. A second later, I'm gulping a bit too much down, and staggering out of the bathroom. What had happened? Had I morphed back into the city again?

Every so often, I am dragged into the Emptiest of Cities. It's a place where no one can save me from the monsters that hunt me, in reality, and in my nightmares...

That monster, the one who had pretended to be Padriac, was one of those monsters....and one of the most stubborn of them, at that. This particular monster was extremely close to capturing me, actually.

I tried sleeping, could not. I keep thinking back to last year. I can't stop thinking about...her...and how she had changed me. I want to see her again...

But with these beasts pursuing me, and this Agency watching over me...I'm stuck here.

If Winter Ends

Children yell and scream while messing around in a playground outside of a school building. Though it is quite cold outside, they run around as if it’s summer. Some cries can be heard, but they’re muffled out by the joyous exclamations. 

The sounds bother the lone stranger in a dark, cold room. He strums his guitar, trying to think, but the children ruin his concentration. He is frustrated at first, but nostalgia intervenes, and he recalls his own time spent on the playground long ago. He almost longs for those days, when he didn’t have to worry about the things he has to worry about now.  

The sounds increase, however, and are almost deafening. How are they so loud? What are they doing? And below the chattering, the stranger hears a static, and a hum, underneath the yelling, and he guesses correctly just exactly what is happening; there aren’t any real children outside. There’s something else outside, playing around with the stranger’s memories.

He gets up, and looks outside, to confirm this fact. There are no children on the small public playground, but instead there is a lingering gray blur hovering over the swingset. Of course they had followed him here…after driving everyone else away, they wanted to be sure that he was alone. 

The person sighs, and sits back down on the bare bed. He picks up his guitar, and pic, and contemplates playing a song, but ultimately decides against it. His head is beginning to ache again, so there was no point in playing it anyways. 

The buzzing outside stops, and the gray blob is gone; he can feel it leave. With that distraction gone, the painful thoughts and emotions drift back into view for the young man. He is so lonely, and oh so cold.

A week ago, he had been moved again, to a new location southwest. Every few months, he is moved to a new location by a company he is bound to, for secure reasons. He had at first accepted this, but now, it had gotten to the point of it being ridiculous.

He had met a girl; someone who had changed his entire perspective on life. She had finally dulled the pain, and had taken away the buzzing. Everything was brightened; the shadows had been eradicated.

The nightmares had finally stopped. He was happy…for a while.

But he was whisked away one night; the dream ended that quickly. Taken away to a state, and branded with a new name and life. He was completely alone. 

It was so dark for him in that place. Shadows swallowed everything. And he has to adapt to that, again? There’s no light to follow this time. Maybe, he would be swallowed by the darkness. That’s entirely possible.    

 He’d rather die than let that happen, come to think of it.

So he was planning to do something. If things didn’t change soon, he was taking his car and driving off a fucking cliff. He couldn’t do well on his own again. A human being can’t deal with extreme loneliness. 

At the same time, he was telling himself, over and over again, that things were going to be alright. Things were going to change; someone would come and save him, right? Someone cared…right? 

No. Wrong wrong wrong. Everyone’s gone, completely gone. How stupid, this thought! He was cut off from society, never to see the light of a bustling city again! From now on, the only City he could see would be The Emptiest City on Earth; a City only he could see. 

It was always in his dreams, this city. But no need to talk about that.

What to do, what to do. 

Writing away in his journal, pretending to be someone looking in. This person is me; we share the very same name. I am the sad boy, alone in a house in the middle of Winter. 

We are both dying; slowly, but it’s happening. 

The buzzing's started again.

Please, someone take me away from here. Pleasepleasepleaseplease

It’s gonna be alright, it’s gonna be alright, it’s gonna be alright, it’s gonna be alright,….