Snow Angels

Red on white. The colors of her quirky polka dot dress. Every singular blob of crimson merged together to form assaulting hazy lines as she span around the room, humming whimsically under her breath. Brandy in hand she never spilled, even as she span. 
   In he came. Red on white. A festive tie resting fluidly on a crisp white shirt. He reached a deliberate hand forward and took hers, pulling her into him with a soft longing in his burnt chestnut eyes. He bent forward and placed a kiss on her slightly parted lips, a kiss that spoke of assurance not lust, they shone like pearls where he left it. 
   She was hanging baubles on the tree. Red on White. Metalic shades of weath.Their reflective paint gleamed at me, beating me down with a mocking grin. From where I stood I could not make out her eyes. I knew they were there, of course. Wide and infinite, deep pools of blue consuming her pupils. I'd seen those pools overflow too many times. That's how they looked when they poured through me for the last time, waterfalls cascading from them, lips shaking, accepting the fallen drops. 
   My heavy breath was fogging up the window where I stood. I tried to stop it, to cease my bitter inhales, but they only grew mightier. I could feel my own hot breath hitting the frozen glass and rebounding back onto my frosted features - thawing them. 
   I readjusted the handle being grasped tightly in my mitten coated fingers. I was clutching the wood so tightly I heard my knuckles clicking in protest as my grip tautened. Red on white. Woollen gloves in patterns of men with beards and hats. 
   I rose to my feet, my extremities burning as the blood rushed back into them, a tingle ran through me as I walked briskly to the oak front door. I noticed my large footsteps leading from the mulberry bush i'd been concealed in, making ghost tracks in the virgin snow. 
   I could no longer see them, the window into their paradisiac life now too far behind. I could hear them though. Their musical laughter muffled by the protective solid structure between us. I thought I could smell her,the impossibility of it eluding me. To me her smell was home, and in a way that's where I was, even though I'd abandoned it months ago. 
   I placed my rusty key into the trusting lock and turned. Walking into the house my cheeks seared, the sudden temperature change catching my body off guard. I strode into their perfect living room and watched the color drain from each of their faces, mutating them into standing corpses.
  That's when her screaming started. I thrust myself at them, dragging them with me. Ripping them from their suburban utopia, like a premature baby being torn from the warmth of his mother's womb. I threw them out into the cold. I don't remember what happened after that, I was just so ardently happy. 
   Red on white. The phantom etchings of their struggle making angels where they lay.Their guilty blood staining the perfect snow.

The B

We used to call him 'Big Backwards Buck'. This was due to his obesity, the fact his shirt was always backwards or inside-out and his oversized teeth. No one was entirely sure of his real name, he was 'The B' to us all. We had our suspicions; Bobby, Bill, but no one ever really asked. We made a game out of the different misshapen features of his face, scoring points for each time our miscellaneously selected objects would collide with them from across the class; erasers, balls of paper, shoes. It wasn't a particularly challenging games - he never reacted, never even scowled back, he'd just sit there taking it all - but it passed the time. I remember one day, in tenth grade, Liam Hiller managed to convince which ever grade-below girl he was dating at the time to go over to The B and lightly rub her abnormally developed breast against the arm he was resting in front of him. as he tried frantically to solve a basic maths equation. We immediately saw the blood rush to his face, but the tale dictates, the blood didn't stop there. The B stood up and shuffled out the room like a constipated penguin, waddling and tripping as he went.  One more 'B' to add to the coincidentally alphabetizable list. I suppose it should have come as no surprise to us how we found him that day. The lonely old oak standing mightily still, bearing the weight, not even creaking. Shiny black leather glinting like a smile as it danced in the sun before us, tightly wrapped around a stocky, pale neck. Ever backwards label of an ever backwards shirt to us, then from us, to, from, to, from - turning with the wind, a dissipated carousel in the breeze. Stagnent line of drool hanging from the corner of a gaping mouth, coagulating further as the seconds ebbed on.    
The note he left itself gave us no precise indication it was our fault. There was no finger-pointing, no arduous and detailed account of every incident of wrong doing, no names -not a lot of anything really. In fact I would have gone as far as to say he did not blame us in the slightest, from what we could deduce from the note itself. It was a snivelling collection of cliches about how he was sorry to his mother and why the world was not fit for him - all the things a hormonal premenstrual girl writes in her diary after a pathetic vexatious breakup. And yet I still take these meds; anxiety, depression, sleep. Whenever I close my eyes I still see his lolling tongue and his fixed, bulging eyes staring at me as they circulate, dangling from the stumpy branch. Swaying softly like dice from a rear-view mirror. And every time I try to escape these apparitions  to find solace in other corners of my subconscious mind- there he is - his eyes fly open and so do mine as I scream and scream, cold sweat covering my body. I struggle so furiously against the images burning into my dream, fiery visions from Satan's own picture house - but they fight back, body spinning at the speed of a hydraulic drill - threatening to fly from it's suspended eternal stance by that oak tree and crush me where I stand. I still have to check each corner of my room five times over for his ghost, I'm still afraid of my own shadow and those all around me. I rue the day I ever laughed at his obesity, his backwards shirts and his bucked teeth. All because of how he signed that apologetic, travesty of romanticized garbage, that trivial scribbling. An almost illegible afterword at the back of an envelope haunts me, freezes the very marrow in my bones if I ever dare to think about it; 'I'll get you. - The B'

Thief

She flexed her toes lazily. Naked feet resting on the hot dashboard she kept having to readjust her heels, jerkily shifting them from side to side to avoid them burning on the baking plastic. It was everywhere. The heat hitting her all over like a playful punch. Even the breeze floating in from the hopefully open window was sticky and sat heavily in her lungs. She picked up the carelessly folded map and attempted to cool herself down by batting it softly in front of her damp face. They'd been sitting stagnant in this car for hours waiting for Lucas. She'd last seen the back of his balaclava clad skull disappearing into the towering bank building at about 4:56. This gave him just enough time to nonchalantly waltz in but was late enough in the day to avoid a high witness count. Normally she'd have worried if say, Buck had been absent this long. But she knew Lucas, she knew theatricality ran through him. He'd play up to the monstrous image of a thief these people expected him to be. Yet she knew how far that ideal was from reality. She watched a dragonfly coax leisurely by the window, ascending ever higher towards the molten sun, and thought about the week they'd spent together in rehab. She thought she heard sirens somewhere off in the distance but she ignored them, entranced by the jerky, partnered dance of the dragonfly and the sun. She remembered first how he'd introduced himself as Lucas - an atypical trait for addicts, honesty. She'd been Marie that week. They'd walked together along the banks of the clear lake until the sun set across it, turning the crystal waters into a raging liquid fire. She'd spoke frantically about nothing in particular but he'd saved his words. Using them sparsely, making them precious. She hardly knew anything about this man she trusted so infinitely. She'd saved things up over the years of course. Coating the snippets of him he bequeathed her so rarely in mental bubble wrap; storing them away in the ever-growing volt she'd made for him in the center of her war-torn heart. She'd never been one for cradling secret longings. She always found a way to posses what she coveted. But she'd never found anyone worthy of her all, worthy of lulling her into a guilty state of concealment. Yet those days spent by the dazzling lake and subsequently all that followed were the best of her previously insignificant life. He'd found the pieces of her scattered across her past and glued her back together by giving her ambition, giving her back a personality of her own - one that didn't belong to cravings and narcotics. The ghost of a smile touched her face as her glassy eyes followed the peaceful dragonfly - feeling they were closer in status to one another in this moment than she had ever been to any creature before. Then her quiet musings were interrupted by Buck's gruff mutter,
'What's taking 'im so dang long? Can you hear sirens?' he breathed. She frowned harshly, not wanting to confront the questions. For Buck to vocalize it meant it was real, meant it had become a legitimate worry. The visions in her head were fast changing, contorting and mutating into dark dreams of police and gun fire. Visions plagued her of mocking blood falling from an evil injury. She imagined the metal of handcuffs gleaming like a smile as they bit down on restrained wrists. That frown pressed harder against her features as she thrust her eyes to the ambiguous heavens and noticed for the first time a dark ominous cloud to the corner of the seemingly endless sky. As she allowed the darkened obscurity to enter her exploding pupils she thought back to the time before Lucas. She could find nothing there but haze; violent shame, consuming guilt - a furious, grotesque, lecherous haze. She longed to stop the rain, to waylay it so she could spend a few more glorious moments in the assaulting heat. But she could feel the chill already, billowing in from the east. Goosebumps rose on her frivolously bare skin and her whole body shook savagely. They heard two head-splitting cracks ring out from the direction where she'd last laid eyes on the man she adored.
'Those weren't them.' Buck spoke - stunned. 'Those weren't his shots.' The first few drops of rain began to hit the dusty windscreen, making tracks like dirty tear marks as they raced to their deaths on the thirsty ground. Buck spun the wheel hectically and the car roared into life. As it jerked forward she let out a gasp of pain as the movement sent her head sharply back against the hard leather seat. She slid her cracked heels down the dashboard as she curled in on herself, wrapping her shaking arms around her nude knees. They raced away from the scene in silence but she could feel Bucks eyes flickering onto her at every traffic light, surveying her with a frenzied apprehension. He drove her out into the field, the place they'd camped during the third summer - and parked the car. He stared straight ahead through the smudgy windscreen and breathed a heavy sigh but said nothing. By this point the rain had become so violent that the furious beat of the wipers had no chance against it, their pathetic fight yielding no leeway. She delicately lifted her fingers to the handle of the door and gently pulled it towards her, she pushed the door forward and walked out the car.  She moved heavily forward, dragging her feet slightly as she waded through the deep mud. She stopped facing the trees, bent slightly forward and vomited violently. The bile burned her throat as it flew from her heaving stomach. She then raised her head towards the open sky and allowed the water to beat against her face. The icy wind was so powerful it slapped her as it passed, mischievously changing direction to catch her off guard. She embraced the pain of it all like it was an old friend, laughing into the rain - allowing droplets of it to fall down her throat as she cackled. She fell to her knees in hysterics, sinking into the soil as she did so. Her stomach throbbed but still she laughed, the muscles in her face aching powerfully from her stretched, manic smile. Tears started to fall from her scrunched up eyes yet she continued to laugh insanely through them. She held her hands to her rib cage, struggling to breath through the deranged howling. The tears combined with the rain and both leapt together from her face, pooling beneath her on the drenched ground. She was laughing harder now, the chuckling becoming more indistinguishable from shrieking the more it occurred. Then as the laughs became shrieks, they then became screams. Screams so loud they broke through the deafening wind. Screams absolutely riddled with horror and filled to the brim with loss. Screams that froze her blood as it entered her weakened heart. She screamed at the wind, pushing at it with balled, tight fists. She fell forward and allowed her face to bury into the warm mud, willing her tears to feed it. She could think of Lucas now. She had been trying so hard to keep her thoughts on the heist alone, on their failure. She had tried so hard she had almost tricked herself. Now however - she thought of Lucas. She thought of his deep brown eyes looking at her on that first perfect day, the water reflecting onto his irises, making them shine. How they'd seemed to ripple along with the lake. How everything he'd said had made so much sense to her, had been modest genius - perfection. She'd fled from one addiction to the next, allowing herself to become irreversibly dependant on his particular brand of platonic, protective love. She thought about the day he'd found her high out of her mind on the toilet floor of their hotel, the day she'd plunged off the wagon. She remembered disgustedly how she'd screamed at him as he'd picked her up, peeling her off the chilled dirty tiles. How she'd hurled vile insults and threats at him. How he'd just stood there, taking it. And then she thought of his warmth, how he'd cradled her like a baby until she sobered up, allowing her to nuzzle her damp face into the nape of his muscular neck. He'd never seen her how she'd wanted him to, never loved her the way she longed for him. He did not believe he was worthy of real love, after the things he'd done. And now she'd never see him again, never be able to make him hers - to force him into believing he could be. Everything inside her head faded into darkness and all she could see was Lucas' smile, hear his soft silky chuckle, feel his strong arms, his safe embrace. She noticed with numb surprise that she was still screaming. She could taste blood in the back of her throat and she swallowed it down. She couldn't tell if she was crying or not, she couldn't leave the fantasy that she was with him. She screwed her eyes shut and thought about every detail of that day. She could feel the muscles of his arms pushing against her damp cheek, feel his hot breath on the back of her downy neck, feel the drug induced nausea that rose through her every time he rocked her shaking body. She'd almost forgotten where she was, almost become completely engulfed in the beautiful delusion, when a car door slammed and ripped her from it. The rain had stopped and she could hear Buck's heavy footsteps approaching her. She unscrewed her eyes and allowed them to open, her face still half coated in mud they stung a little. He reached a hand down to her and she grasped it desperately, her legs trembling as they strained to a stand. They walked back to the car together, her head still spinning she got in the passenger side. Buck shot her one more uneasy look and started the car. She knew she could not think of Lucas again. She had no choice but to force him into the black box in her mind where she stored all the sordid things she'd ever done to score drugs. She knew she'd have to deal with it all one day. With every passing moment she survived in this world the box grew larger. One day she'd have to open it and confront it all, battle her maliciously grinning demons - probably by drinking a bottle of vodka and a packet of aspirin.  But for now it could be hidden away, Lucas engrossed within it. She leaned back against the cracked leather peacefully and wondered if the dragonfly survived the rain.

Sunny

His name was Sunny Sanguine and there was no subtly to the irony of that. He used to walk around our high school like a ghost, a characterless achromatic blur compiled of worn knit wear, thick glasses and a bland, vacant face. I didn't even really know his name until that day. It was a generic Wednesday, I'd had fish fingers for lunch - sat crammed into the crudely graffitied toilet stall to avoid judging eyes, like I always did. Also according to routine, I spent the rest of the lunch break attempting to revisit them through means of a carefully angled piece of cutlery and my all too stubborn gag reflex. I left the toilet feeling sorely disappointed and this increased into a mild, charring depression about the time I realized I had a ragged piece of toilet paper trailing behind my battered sneaker - like a sad homage to the 'just married' wagon I’d never ride in. I slunk down the middle of the empty corridor, my feet echoing behind me like a phantom companion, the shadow of a true friend. Lunch break was over but there was no one around so I assumed my fish finger escapades had made me tardy. The further I walked towards the library the heavier the air felt, it was as if some kind of intense atmospheric shift had occurred and every particle around me was pushing down, screaming in warning. I ignored my unease and listened to the comforting methodical thud and squeak being produced by my determined stride. It wasn't until I turned the corner towards the library that I saw it. It's hard to comprehend something that twisted when you first lay eyes on it. It took me a good ninety seconds to realize it was a human being, it took me a further thirty to process the slumped stature, the utter, formidable stillness and to take in the pool of blood surrounding it on the otherwise immaculate floor. It only took me a fraction of a second however, when my eyes first perceived it, to realize it didn't have a face. Instead replaced by mangled sinew and exposed veins, it appeared as if the face had been shot, chopped or blown off. I lifted my gaze to the bulky library doors, and becoming vaguely aware of the muffled sound of teenage voices coming from within it - I lurched forward. Sketchers landing in the clotting pool I ran full pelt ahead, unable to entirely see through the wave of confused tears that clouded my frozen vision. My breath burning my lungs with every step, knotting and loosening like a busy hangman's noose I struggled to proceed.
'MAN WITH NO FACE, MAN WITH NO FACE' a voice screamed through my psyche. I revisited the image with every unwilling blink, as if the body had been so phosphorescent that, like oxidized mercury, looking directly at it had caused it to be forever burnt into my eyes. Not even 3 feet separating me and the library doors, I threw myself through their excessive form in order to be caught in an embrace by the salvation inside. Only there was none. Upon my entry I was met by five people on their knees facing a boy I only half-recognized. His hair was slightly over his face which was twisted in a grotesque attempt at a smile, the result however was closer to a grimace.
'Come to join the party?' he snarled. He lifted his head so he was facing me but I could not see his eyes, a pair of classic 'Ray Bans' obscured them from me. He raised a hand and curled his fingers into his palm, beckoning me. With no accountable explanation I felt myself rise to my feet, a shocking dull pain passing through my knee from my outlandish entry. I dragged my heavy feet towards his patient towering form, and as I did so he lazily raised a scantily clad arm and with that, I was staring down the barrel of a gun. 'Kneel.' he commanded, his voice encrusted in malice, so I did. He walked over to me and placed the nose of the gun against mine, face to face with the weapon that had no doubt created what I'd fled from in the corridor. The cold metal was soothing against my face, now hot with panicked tears. I closed my eyes in readiness for what was about to become of me, accepting my fate and being thankful I didn't have to fight. As the metal strayed to my furrowed brow I exhaled a heavy sigh, releasing my tension through my forced breath. I opened my eyes slowly, pushing against the fear which was  forcing them shut. Looking around I saw the boy had pushed his sunglasses up into his grease-slicked mess of hair and now I could make out his sunken, haunty eyes. Crystal blue and listless their gaze shot through me like arrows of flaming ice. I tried to look through them, look past them, look anywhere but into them - but I was trapped. Everything he was feeling rushed into me, the hysterical fear, the pure chaotic rage and the dull, murderous regret and in that moment I recognized him. This boy had leant me a pen. This boy had sat behind me in psych. This boy had a gun to my head. Sunny Sanguine, typical nobody. They say don't they, that it's always the quiet ones that are the first to snap. The ones no one expects, the unadorned, the loners, the rejects. Sunny Sanguine,  a boy so faceless he had no choice but to steal his own. He broke our stare before I had found the courage, distracted searching for it in the depth of his irises. He placed his hands over his ears and bent, releasing a blood-curdling scream as he did so. Once standing erect again he motioned at me with the weapon.
'Get over there.'
I shuffled over to the rest of the people in the room, joining them as yet another hopeless hostage. Another set of limbs and possibly transferable organs to add to the five already present. Six hearts, Six brains, Six souls. The devil present in our grotty, state-funded hell. I turned my head to the woman kneeling next to me. I assumed her to be a librarian - the crow’s feet framing her slanted eyes a tell tale sign of her advanced years, her heavy lids dropping like miniature guillotines I recognized one of the people next to me as Justin Neecus, a boy I'd once thrown up on at Holly Jan's 17th. Silent tears were rolling down his flushed cheeks and as he turned to me I was taken aback by the sheer volume at which his face screamed; I do not want to die. Next to him was a timid looking girl of about fourteen, with dirty blonde hair tied in a braid. Her pretty face showed no expression, her eyes empty and lost. The ghost tracks of tears ran through her mascara and down her cheeks, pooling at the corner of her mouth. I turned back to Sunny who was still holding the gun at me and offered him an apprehensive smile. The utter confusion on his face in any other situation would have been mercilessly comical, in this moment however, I simply retained the weak smile and rubbed my aching knee. 
'Don't move' he growled, cocking back the hammer of the revolver. I gingerly raised my hands up, palms forward, in a sign of acceptance to him. My heart was beating so fast in my chest I thought it might burst through my calcium happy ribs and fly out the window, offering me a wave as it left me behind to die. In one faltering beat and with a twitch of my hand Sunny redirected the gun towards the woman next to me and with a deafening, cruel bang - he shot her through the eye. She fell forward in a heap, face to the floor and knees still bent her inanimate stance resembled a lecherous baboon begging for sex.  Someone to the right of me breathed a scream, repressing it's full need and allowing it to simply fall from their mouth. Justin had stopped crying, his face frozen in morbid shock. I looked back at Sunny who towered above me, his features twisted between ecstasy and horror. We all stayed where we were, frozen in time by what we'd just witnessed for what could quite possibly have been an eternity. With no concept of the moments passing except how we each individually perceived it. Some of us feeling the seconds of our lives rushing by towards death, others dragging along, a bitter extended torture. Eventually someone spoke;
'Sunny Sanguine. This is the police. We have you surrounded boy. Release the hostages and come out with your hands up.' Everyone in the room simultaneously averted their eyes from the lifeless body of the wrinkled librarian and turned their heads to the south window, to the source of the artificially magnified voice. 
'Shit, shit shit.' Sunny chanted, knuckles and gun to his temples.
'Well what did you expect ya sick fuck,' the boy kneeling furthest from me had begun to speak, I watched as he ran a hand through his barely-there spikes of hair and scowled 'course they done found you.' 
'Shut up Leon.' Sunny retorted, scowling just as hard back. The boy named Leon began to stand.
'What are ya goin' to do about it Sanguine. You ain't never done a goddamn thing in all ya life, look at you, ya think all this here shit is going to make people remember you exist? Ya'll always be a loser, a sad pathetic nerd.' Leon stood,  eyes locked with Sunny's. We all watched as sparks flew between the pair, an unspoken battle with only fluctuating dilation of the pupils as weapons. Eventually Sunny flickered his eyes lazily at the lifeless librarian and then onto the gun and in silent understanding; Leon sat back down. 
'I'm going into the toilet to look through the tinted windows, check out the cop situation.' Sunny breathed 'If any of you even THINK' his voice rang out around the library, echoing through the silent books 'of leaving this room you will have to scamper past me, and you will end up like this bitch' He raised a Doc Martin and punted the corpse of the librarian. She slowly descended onto her side and not unlike a mighty tree she created a dull thud with her impact. Mouth hanging open in silent scream, one side her face gone, the other side whole and frozen. Pupil fixed and her lid half closed she reminded me of a stress toy - a rough squeeze and her eye would bulge out, tongue lolling, a squeak emerging from her center. I fought the urge to place a finger in her mouth. 'So stay silent kiddies. Understand?' We stayed stunned, Justin shuffled awkwardly and someone coughed. 'Good.' He skulked out the room, keeping his narrowed eyes fixed on our collective mass. What followed was a familiar moment of expectant hush, the instant before a silence is about to be broken against an order, the calm before the storm almost - a communal intake of breath. 
'Well... What's our plan?' Leon was standing now and strode over to us all. We all stayed frozen in fear of being caught but slowly we began to loosen and adjust from our kneeling positions - like the pious catholic sneaking a peak of a playboy, fearful and exhilarated against our wills. 'I've played enough COD to know he don't have enough bullets left in that there revolver to shoot us all. I reckon we make a run for it, he'll probably be so goddamn confused he won't even have no time to get us.' Leon's face had lit up with excitement as he surveyed us all. Justin's eyes flicked to the door Sunny had just walked out through and then they roamed back to Leon. 
'Are you really willing to risk it?' Justin spoke shuffling back onto his knees 'I'm sure as hell not. Call of Duty is not real life, we don't just' he raised his arms to form antagonizing air quotes. '"Respawn" if he catches us. If we die, we're dead. It's not something I'm willing to risk because I have the lung capacity of a fetus and I can't climb the rope in gym and I don't have any muscle mass, my dad calls me a string bean and I won't be able to run fast enough so I'll get shot and I have a rare blood type, they probably wouldn't be able to save me even if they did get to me in time which they just won't..' 
'Justin.' I placed my hand on his shoulder as he spoke, tears back in his dark eyes.
'Yeah sorry,' he looked down at my small hand lightly touching his corduroy jacket, I recoiled it sharply like his vision had burnt it. 'I ramble when I'm under pressure' he continued. 
'You have a point though, some of us would of course be shot.' I offered.
'Listen to ya'll, do ya really think we's gone be survivin' this anyhow? I am gonna be in the US marines, I ain't afraid a-death. I ain't afraid a-nothing' He looked at us, behind the determination on his face I could see the distress, the nightmarish desperation peeking from behind the stony, insane courage. We averted our eyes in shame, aware of what he was about to do with no intention of stopping him. His eyes pleaded to us, and as he turned to face the door he let out a punctuated sigh. Then, bent low, he ran flat out towards the door. It didn't take very long, perhaps fifteen seconds, after Leon pushed through the doors for us to hear the bang and thud of a life ending, it seemed so small - so insignificant a sound for what it represented. I winced, my heart leaping from my chest and relocating in what felt like my throat. I could not believe how easy it was to die here, and how afraid I was. After months of starring at a bottle of cough medicine praying for the courage to drink it down - here I was, fearful for my life. That morning with the fish fingers. That morning with the pure, consuming self-loathing. It all seemed so trivial now, so far away. I looked over at Justin, he looked over at the other girl in the room. We all began furiously knee-crawling our way back to our original places. Seconds later Sunny burst into the room, he stumbled towards us, Leon's body being dragged behind him by a single foot. Sunny was crying. Tear after tear formed rapidly in the corners of his Icelandic-sea eyes and died just as quickly at the base of his pointed chin. 
'I told you... I told you not to leave.. I' His words punctuated by heavy sobs he dropped the body at his side, pressed both gun and knuckle to his temples again and once again bent-double and screamed. His scream cut through me, the anguish of it breaking my heart. 
'Why are you doing this?' I asked softly. He looked at me, the ice in his irises melting. 
'Because I have to.' Was all he said, his eyes glazing over - the liquid lost to me. He came over to me and knelt in front of me. His eyes locked to mine but they were closed now, there was no getting past that. He gingerly lifted the gun to my face, touching it to my cheek. I grazed my cheek against it like a cat nuzzling it's litter. Sunny was so close to me by this point I could feel his warm breath against the corner of my jaw, he pushed the gun further into my cheek, forcing my head closer to his awaiting mouth. 
'They told me to do it' he rasped, his voice closer to silence than sound. He was shaking. The metal against my cheek vibrating as panic overtook him. 'They said they'd leave me alone if I did. No one hears them but me. They're everywhere all the time and I can't...' a child-like whimper escaped his lips followed by a high-pitched whine 'I can't function, they just won't leave me alone. They won't shut up.. they won't shut up... they won't shut up.' His voice was growing louder in my ear. I could feel his tears of frustration falling onto my exposed breast bone. He moved his head back a fraction, his quivering lips close enough now to kiss. Turning his face to the side I noticed I could see straight through his pale irises, as if they were made of glass. I began to wonder what would happen if I pinched them, if perhaps they would shatter in my hand or simply squash between my fingers like all other eyes. He removed the gun from my face and stood up, shielding his face with his hands - using a sleeve to venomously clear it of tears. He cleared his throat and suddenly his face contorted with rage 'Get up' he hissed. We sat dumbfounded by the sudden change in him. A Jekyll-and-Hyde like transformation, he beckoned at us with a precise hand. 'I said, up' he raised the gun and angled it in between the blonde girl's eyes. She rose to her feet, me and Justin followed suit. Sunny stared me dead in the eye, his face devoid of tears and emotion now. His mouth twisted once more into that same malicious smile as he growled; 'We're going on a little trip'.
     We all ambled behind Sunny like a sad death day parade. Feet shuffling in union so as not to draw any unwanted attention, the collective two-step creating our own funeral march . The blonde girl behind me was whimpering quietly like a wounded animal being led to the slaughter.
'Hurry up.' he commanded, ushering us into the men's toilet. I still felt the exhilaration of rule breaking as I crossed the threshold of the restroom, despite the dire situation. 'Pick a stall kids' he mocked, a low chuckle rising from his stomach. We each surveyed the stalls, eyes soaking in the battered paint and the generally illegible graffiti.Unspoken surrender uniting us, we each chose the stall nearest to us to avoid unneeded movement. 'Good now lock the doors.' he growled, three squeaks of the hinges and three awkward clicks from the rusty deadbolts followed 'and wait here.' We heard the toilet door creak open and then breeze shut once more.
'It stinks of shit in here' Justin mumbled in the stall leftwards of mine.
'Well it is the men's bathroom' I said, nonchalantly.
'I don't deserve to be here.' a timid voice came softly from my right.
'None of us do.' Justin retorted.
'No, you don't understand. I've never done anything, my entire life has been school, ballet, school, ballet. I was preparing, to get a good job you know, to get a job and live. I've never smoked, I've never had sex, I've never even had a beer. This isn't fair. I do not, I do not deserve to be here. I was going to do it all after you know, go crazy at college. I wanted to be one of those spring break chicks with daddy issues who flash cameras and let freshmen do shots off their stomachs. I wanted to do it because it was so not me. No one would expect little Sophie to 'go wild'. Now I'll never get to be anything but the frigid little girl who goes to church and isn't allowed to watch 'Skins'.' On the last word her voice broke, huge great gasps and sobs breaking through her. In front of the stall, I heard someone laugh, a poisonous cackle filled to the brim with scorn. Three more deadbolt clicks and three more squeaks - my door swung forward, lightly colliding with my breast.
'Well that was the most pathetic thing I've ever heard.' Sunny stood, chest shaking with repressed laughter. His face hardened suddenly, the laughter ceasing as insanely as it began, and he pointed the gun at Sophie. 'Let me tell you something baby; life isn't fair. You wanna live then do it right now; you wanna drink a beer? We'll drink a beer. You wanna fuck? We'll fuck. But the thing is you never would have done any of those things, you would have stayed dull until the day you died. The only reason you're even thinking about how little you've lived is because I've got this gun to your head. You're not here because you've been a bad person or deserve karmic retribution or anything like that. No, you're here because you were in the library during lunch. That's right, your thirst - your farcical longing to be better than your peers, to simply achieve - that's what's killed you.'  a look of excitement passed across Sunny's face and I heard a sharp intake of breath to my right.
'Killed me?' Sophie whined, and with that; the third gun shot was fired before my widened eyes. I recoiled my foot to rest on the scuffed toilet seat as Sophie's pool of wasted blood ebbed closer to me underneath the divide of our stalls. My angry tears forming clear bubbles where they fell into the ever expanding collection of gore. I raised my head to the ceiling, craning my neck in an attempt to see past the plaster blockage and into the heaven above, to beg for it's existence. I allowed Sunny's manic, nervous laugh to wash over me as I shut my eyes. Squeezing them closed, until my lids almost merged together, I prayed I'd open them and be somewhere else; my bedroom, the classroom, the depths of hell - anywhere but here. But alas, once pried apart I saw what I knew in the back of my mind I always would; the gaunt cackling face of Sunny Sanguine.
'Come on you two, get in here.' he sang, voice mimicking a coach to a winning team, light and playful, with only a hint of instruction. He motioned to us towards the stall at the bottom of which lay the lifeless and mangled form of Sophie the blonde. 'Gotta keep my flock all in the same place, like any good shepherd aye?' He began chortling again, choking on a segment of laughter as it passed his abnormally defined Adam's apple. His joy extirpated by his symbol of manhood. As he choked I saw his features return to the scared corrupt boy who'd cried against my face in the library - that poor lost lamb. He attempted to force the smile back on his frightened face, and failed, instead settling somewhere in-between; a clown-like snarl made of but teeth and gum. 'Just stay here okay?' he mumbled, jabbing me harshly in the back with the gun and forcing me to step over the fresh human corpse laying before me and into the toilet stall. He curled his hand around the frame of the door as he shut it, his fingers creeping like the skeletal legs of an erratic daddy-long-legs. With that he was gone. We had no way of telling whether  or not he was simply standing outside the door listening again, a new part to his sick human experiment, but we didn't care. We looked at each other long and hard, barely breathing - but like children playing an intense game of 'hide and seek' our eagerness to repress breath only caused our intakes to grow and push our rib cages higher. Justin's breath had grown so furious I could feel the ghost of it on my pale cheek. I moved my foot painfully to the right, trying to avoid Sophie's crumpled body. A morbid game of twister, right foot; red. Our eyes met awkwardly, I suddenly felt very aware of his dark eyes, his full lips, his waiting hands. He cleared his throat and sat on the closed toilet lid, breaking our gaze. 
'She had a point you know.' he growled, lightly grazing over Sophie's hairline with eyes. 'We haven't really had a chance yet have we? To live, I mean.' I thought about all the things I had yet  to do and all the things I was proud I'd done. Both lists seemed so small and bland, perfect little cliches to secure my peace of mind. 
'I think I've done okay, for me anyway.' I breathed, my eyes back at the ceiling trying to signal to Heaven once more. 
'So you're saying you'd die happy?' he inquired.
'No one's ever really happy Justin.' More flawless platitudes, 'Not for long anyway. We're all either content or madly struggling to get there.' 
'That's a cheery thought.' I moved my eyes back to him, swaying a little because of my oddly arranged feet. He had a strange look about him, like he was struggling with something. His mouth was hanging open slightly,  his lips parting and forming as if he was making imaginary bubbles appear, like a dumb-struck goldfish. He twitched slightly in a grotesque fashion and his eyes bulged with the effort involved in spitting out his words. 'You know..' he croaked, clearing his throat once more he continued 'I've never even been kissed.' I stared at him. My heart was beating in my esophagus again, this time for all the appropriate reasons. I felt the sweat on my palms and balled my fists to stop it from showing, not wanting him to witness this unappealing masculine trait. My chest was heaving, breast swelling with every intake and I couldn't stop it no matter how hard I tried to repress. There was a flipping in my stomach and the more I thought about what I was about to say the more it turned - pounding around like kneaded dough, hitting the acidic walls at every turn - so I stopped thinking. 
'You can kiss me if you like.' His eyes widened in apprehensive excitement at my words, pupils dilating and lips moistening with a dart of the tongue he leaned towards me. I locked my eyes onto his, getting lost in their deep brown complexity. I could feel his hot breath hitting my dry lips like rhythmic waves crashing against a storm-weary shoreline, dampening them with every collision. When his patient lips finally reached mine I felt my entire body freeze with the relief of human contact. Electricity charging over our conjoining bodies I shivered all over. He touched his hand to my face, our lips meshing together furiously, finding escape in this show of affection. Standing above the body of an innocent we engaged in a moment she would never know - the fire of a first kiss. I could see our passion reflected in her eyes when mine strayed open, Justin's hands pulling my face closer I accidentally caught a glimpse of the bullet wound between her eyes - but I did not pull away. The inferno of our passion overcoming the putrid aura of death. It took a noise in the corridor outside to bring us back down from the mecca we'd been lost in. We pulled apart so quickly I saw a droplet of spit appear from where our mouths had been conjoined seconds before to then fall in slow motion onto the dead, void face staring blankly below us. We heard someone entering the toilet in an angry hurricane of noise, crashing, stamping and banging. We stood still, petrified between our passion and our fear, the two combining in an erotic charge of confusion I had never felt before. I moved my foot accidentally, it made a small splash as it landed in Sophie's blood - the movement outside the cubicle stopped. For the third time that day I heard a scream so hideous, so monstrous - it froze the hot thick blood in my veins. A scream so full of fear and hate - it caused the very breath in my lungs to cease. A scream of warning and of loathing, a scream of many voices. 
'Get out of my head.' he whined, voice growing louder and louder he repeated this command, we could hear him thrashing around like a panicked salmon out of water. He kicked open the door to the stall, it bounced back twice from us to the frame, barely making an impact with either. More air between the two than physical to form a collision. His flushed face was inhuman, twisted and contorted with so many conflicting emotions it barely even resembled a face anymore. 'Run.' he commanded, voice glacial. 'RUN' he screamed again this time with malice, bending double with his shaking hands against his temples. We saw the gun behind him but we did not reach for it, his command still hanging in the air like the smell of kipper on a lazy Sunday. We ran from the men's bathroom with all our might, our legs bent out of shape from awkwardly crouching in the stall. We worked through the pain, barely even able to feel it through the numbing fear. We crashed through heavy wood doors like they were made of air, hardly noticing they were even there. Never looking back to see if we were being followed we were almost out the library when we came to an abrupt halt. A fourth gun shot had been fired. We both stood in horror, not daring to check our bodies and find the wound. A few heart beats passed and neither one of us fell down in agony, neither one of us bent-double in pain. We were unharmed. We screamed our relief, turning to each other and crashing into one another in a glee fueled embrace. I looked into Justin's eyes once more, my soft smile reflected in his dark irises and his wide pupils.
'We did it' I cried, hot tears spilling down my face and landing in pitter-patter splashes all over the floor.
'We did it.' He repeated, leaning forward and placing a soft, barely there, kiss onto my tear soaked lips. I reached for the hood attached to his Abercrombie sweater and pulled it up over his head. 
'There we go, protected now.' We smiled blissfully at each other and turned to face the doors to freedom. 
We stepped through them together, I caught a glimpse of the green-blue tint of twilight touching the sky. A welcoming wave of cold air hit me and I breathed it into my desperate lungs, feeling them freeze and thaw in acceptance of my liberty. I decided I did not hate that lonely boy, Sunny Sanguine. I felt for him, I couldn't even understand how hard it must have been. I knew my share of issues but nothing quite like his struggle. A boy with so many voices, he had to silence his own.  I turned to smile at Justin, to once again be consumed by the perfect circles of hazel in his eyes. Instead however I found myself staring at a red circle. A blinding red circle. Hovering just between his eyes. I heard a shout, something about the suspect, something about Justin, something about Sunny Sanguine. All words I couldn't make out over the confusion engulfing my tired mind. I tried to speak, to vocalize my utter disorientation. But I couldn't, I knew what was about to happen.
And with that, the fifth gun shot was fired. 

Room

Her eyes were always a deep grey, a soft liquidized metal. I remember distinctly how they hardened when she died, as if her pulse had been all that was keeping them fluid. The solidifying reminisce of a distinguished lava lamp, creating frightening shapes to frame the empty pupil. I walked into that room for the first and the last time that day. The bed was central, the rest of the room cluttered by noisy, intimidating medical equipment. I noted with hollow amusement how the bed we once laid in together was so full of lust and life in comparison to this bed, this bed was just there. Nothing more than a place to store her. I walked over to her placid form and took her hand in both of mine, rough callus fingers caressing over loose skin, denting veins where they met. She lifted her gaze to mine and I saw the empty space within her irises and knew what was to come.
'Julie.' I choked, my voice lost somewhere between my longing for her and my fear. She slightly parted her assaulted lips, blood glistening on the deep slits in them, a ghost breath hanging between them - I took the signal and bent forward and lightly touched mine to hers. Her taste was chemical, as it became in the final months, it burned my tongue slightly causing it to retreat snail-like and take shelter behind my teeth. They'd moved her from a room tight with the tension of hope to this empty vacuum of despair. We both knew, in an morbid unspoken understanding, that we were there until her end. I placed the back of my hand on her forehead, in an attempt to gauge the extent of her illness by the heat radiating from her. I hoped maybe my soothing touch would obliterate what was growing inside her mind, that my love would be enough to stun her into remission. It wasn't. She breathed her final breath against the badly shaven underside of my tightened jaw. I tried to catch it in my own mouth so maybe I could exhale the life back into her, but it escaped between my dry sobs and I watched it float away forever.  Her soft, liquid eyes. Frozen eternally in time. Never to lock with mine again. I held her against my shaking chest for hours afterwards, unable to let her go even when the nurses came in to drag her vestal away. My fingers gripped her stiffening limbs so aggressively they left fingernail marks in the areas where her blood began to pool. Remembering how her hair bounced when she ran, how her smile melted the ice around my heart and how perfectly she writhed against me, knowing nothing would ever bring me that joy again. They eventually had me removed from that room. My eyes blurring in angry tears as I stared at her one last time. Onyx where warmth had once been, mortal darkness monopolizing everything we were, and all we would never be.

Yo-yo

There's a harsh blinding light above you - and it's flickering, flickering in a jolting, irregular manner that is driving you insane. You want to avert your eyes from it but you can't, the nausea is causing you to restrict all movement. Even the smallest nictate evokes that sour, corrosive bile to form in your throat again. If it was to collect there once more it'd have no choice but to eternally canker away at your already raw flesh because you don't have the strength to spew it out. 
   Your arm has lost most of its feeling, instead replaced by a steady dull throbbing and an insufferable pinch from the DIY moth-eaten tourniquet still bound around your feeble joint. You yawn, every muscle in your body shaking as you strain them with the mighty intake of breath, seizing in protest. 
   God's gone now. You thought, for a fleeting moment, that he might still be holding you; but you can't feel the intense warmth of his hand any more. Layla's still here of course, embryonically coiled around the bass of the antiquated, busted sink. As you look at her you're fondly reminded of birth. Not that you remember your own, but in general - new life. You think to yourself how fitting it is that she is lain like this, to mark her rebirth into the world of opiates, theft and prostitution that looms above her now. A faeces encrusted pillow and a bleached tile bed, Jesus of the new age. 
   You remind yourself to tell God of this sardonic epoch if he ever returns. You chuckle at the notion but that causes the nausea to rush at you again, pulling your brain through your spine and flipping the room around you. You're just a dirty forgotten rag in a washing machine. 
   You feel it on your face before you taste it in your mouth, the putrid recurrence of yesterday's frugal meal. You lie there for a moment, feeling the chunks of food churning in your mouth as you choke, silently weighing up the pros and cons of death by asphyxiation against standing up. You decide that the central park subway toilets aren't where you want your soul to remain trapped if, for some inconceivable miracle, you're not going straight to hell. 
   Turning on your side you attempt to stand but gravity is twice as heavy as it normally is today, so your joints buckle underneath it all. You lie with your vomit coated cheek pressed hard against the synthetic gelid marble. Layla moves somewhere to the right of you but you're not sure where, the fall - however pathetic - caused you to move positions dramatically. The rest of the room might as well be the depths of another universe to you now, you'll never know where anything is again. Due to this adverse manoeuvre you’ll never find Layla, and you'll never find the exit; never find either salvation. 
   You rise on balled fists, knuckles taking the brunt of the increased gravity and your abused disposition. Wiping the vomit away with your sleeve you begin the daunting 5 foot crawl to Layla. You consider grabbing onto her battered Doc Martin and pulling yourself towards her (or her towards you, whichever came first), but presume it in bad form to use your girlfriend as a guide rope. Instead you squirm like a caterpillar, in a rippling convulse, into her vicinity.
   After much exertion and several close calls on the vomit front you reach her and hold her in a warm embrace; your bodies melting into one, glued together by tragic serenity. 
   As you listen to the sound of her aberrant heart palpitations you feel like survivors. Two lost children in a bomb shelter hiding from enemy shells. Two death-row inmates avoiding their judgement day. Two peas in a dingy, STI infested pod. 
   Every so often your heavy lids will part, searching for God, but somehow you know he's not coming back. Remebering the warmth and hazy clarity he inspired in you, you're overwhelmed by sadness. An agonizing stabbing occurs somewhere underneath your ribcage as you realize God will never hold you like that again. Your chest tightens and dry sobs escape your peeling lips drowning Layla in a sea of unmerited emotion. She awakes and turns to you with her purple eyelids still down, she can feel the extra gravity too. 

'What's wrong baby?' She rasps, a voice so hoarse and worn it could only ever belong to her in this concurring moment. 

'I miss God.' You whine back, spraying her face with spittle in your enthusiasm to convey to her your distress. 
   She half opens one eye, scrunching up the other as if to balance out the action. In that slit of eyeball amongst the confusion you can see a life of broken promises and lost loves - a mess of teenage angst. In yours she can see a violent thirst and a final dysphoria that will soon belong to her. She parts her thin lips and they quaver as she inhales the sufficient oxygen needed to speak; 

'God will come back, you still have his yo-yo' 

Shadow

He always sat with his back to me. In the corner booth left of the stage, he was always facing that stage despite the fact there was never anything to see there. It was eternally empty in a way that inspired excitement, as if the show was about to begin - but it never did. The bar was spacious, scarce pieces of mix-matched furniture sporadically clumped around the place. Metal office chairs paired with high stools around ankle endangering oak coffee tables. The place was a mess. There was never that many people there, a few regulars who faded into the darkness surrounding them and I was thankful for that, it gave me a clear view of him.

I favored a seat by the bar, stool facing outwards, my scarlet heels pointed in his direction to show my availability hoping he'd look up and see me - but he never did. He was known only as Shadow around those parts and it was very fitting. In a way we were all shadows there, shapeless figures sipping on solitary drinks, each tormented by one past or another, half lost in a communal smoky haze from a host of lonely cigarettes. Each individual mind plagued by unique troubles sharing combined solace in flowing alcohol. My first visit to this bar was entirely accidental. I ducked in to hide from the increasing December cold outside. Unusually the cold from the outside doesn't reach through to the lost souls in this bar. To me the warmth feels out of place here, adding a homely feeling to our assaulting, isolated ambiance. It seems unlikely that somewhere where death hangs in the air, exhaled breath does not. In this town the cold can be felt in the marrow and the winters sneaks up on the people. They'll get a preview in October, a brief week in which the frost will set in and there'll be a sudden change in the wind, and then summer will return to toy with them as if nothing had transpired. The cold will arrive again to attack around mid-December, catching the folk off guard in show-offish sundresses and khakis. Winds that cut through flesh like arrows through sinew, and pierces from all angles. I'm never caught out with the weather, I always dress for winter - heavy cord jackets atop matted fleece undercoats. Mostly it's to hide the revealing numbers underneath, protect my modesty, but in the winter my overcautious layers have a double use.

Shadow was here on my first chance visit to this bar. I walked in and stood a moment in the threshold waiting to thaw out and the feeling to return to my extremities. As soon as I could feel my toes I walked over to the bar and ordered myself an ironic 'Vodka straight, honey' and then took a seat on the nearest stool. Scanning the room my eyes fell on him, his profile silhouetted by the stage lights. I'm not usually one for cliches, but it was love at first sight. I started coming back at that time weekly and absorbing all I could of him. He'd arrive at roughly 9 every Thursday evening. I'd be in position by the bar from eight thirty, sipping on a martini, my stomach flipping every time the corroded little bell above the door sounded feebly. When he did arrive he'd walk past me to his table at the front. Every week as he sauntered past, eyes fixed with determination to the floor, I'd hold my breath, lips pressed painfully in silent prayer that he'd look up and see me, but again - he never did. He'd then take to his usual seat at the front and order a whiskey. He'd nurse the first sullenly, soundlessly contemplating life, like any man, at any bar, all over this harrowed nation. After the second or third, he'd begin laughing at thin air. An infectious chuckle which rose like a bubble from his chest and burst forth, hitting every wall in the bar and ricocheting right at me; forcing me with a gentle hand to join in. At around midnight he'd reach his peak, singing aloud to the music in his head; fast southern anthems, the words never quite accurate. His emerald eyes twinkling with an excitement mine mirrored. Never without a cigarette between his fingers he'd expel the smoke in perfect rings and I'd watch as they danced above him, expanding at the pace they were floating until they dispersed and died too high to be saved by mortal hand.

Waitresses would come over to take further drinks orders and they'd flirt with him, he'd be polite back and touch their hands, make them laugh but I knew he wasn't interested. Even on the occasions I saw him leave with one I knew it was only because he was growing lonely waiting for me to approach him. Every night as closing creeped closer I'd have an internal battle with myself. Reasoning that it was too soon to introduce myself I'd always go home disappointed. I longed to speak to Shadow, to confirm to him that I was everything he was looking for. I knew I could fix what was broken within him, I could see it there, even from a distance. The dark hand of past regret and blood shed hovering above him. It really showed after his tenth drink. The songs escaping him became less lively, macabre ballads about lost loves and war torn nations. He no longer made shapes with the smoke but instead allowed it to abdicate from his barely parted lips as it wished, or it was expelled with his sighs like the breath of a listless dragon. It was after he reached this stage that he'd usually run out of money for drinks, curse and stagger back past me and out into the desolate night. This was also the time I'd usually foolishly consider, and begrudgingly decide against, approaching him.

I knew one day we'd converse and he'd realize I was what he'd been longing for his whole life in the same climactic moment of crashing recognition I had experienced when my tired eyes first fell upon him. I dreamt of him, his soft half-smile, his gruff whisper telling me he loved me, his large coarse hands exploring my body pulling at the skin stretched over my collar bone, his lips hunting for mine. I thought of him in this way often, but it wasn't just sexual longings I had for Shadow, to me he was everything my father told me I'd never have; love, a family, happiness. Most nights as I watched him I'd become hopelessly lost in exquisite delusions, my eyes glazing over as if a protective film had come down behind my irises to protect my visions from leaking out and exposing me to the acrid world. He laced every thought my mind conjured throughout my empty days. Each emergence of him causing my heart to swell and indanger me of collapsing. If I was brave I'd walk right over to him and take his hand, and blindly lead him running into our future.

It took me nine months of playing shadow to Shadow to actually speak to him. On this particular evening I'd been observing him customarily from my stool by the bar when nature had called and I'd slunk away to the bathroom. I noticed as I was urinating that there was a crude poem carved into the cistern. I giggled at the sloppy rhyming of 'Penis' and 'Hygienist'. After relieving myself I stepped out from the squalid cubicle and was face to face with him. My head began to reel, I felt as if I'd stepped into a paradoxical universe where both vulgar nightmare and purest aspiration merged into one. I stared upon the soft complexion of my love, his face half cast into darkness by the meager light above us. Us, the two of us, standing not even a meter apart, close enough to touch. My eyes searched his for recognition, exploring the deep brown of his irises as if looking for fossils within barren soil. Swiftly they flicked towards his lips, the right corner had raised softly in a warm smile and I knew it was about to happen. I saw our lives lain out before us, like a many pronged road map with two smiling faces leading the way. Everything my existence had the potential to be was created in that hint of a smile, and shattered by what came next.
'Jesus Christ.' He said through snarled lips, a loathsome smirk twisting his features. His empty, judging eyes drank me in, moving up and down my frame. The emerald in them dead. Once such a precious stone, now just polished glass amongst pebbles on a shore. With a mocking chuckle he turned and exited the bathroom, leaving me in my place among the excrement and the stench that accompanied it.

I stood there stunned for what seemed like forever, running the scene I'd just witnessed on a loop behind my shattered protective screen. Searching through my subconscious I found that all the blissful fantasies I'd conjured up had been replaced with that snarl and a cruel realization. The whole affair had been a deviant misconception, a string of romanticised events coupled with an extreme, crippling loneliness had caused me to imagine that Shadow was perfect, and that he was mine. I now realized he was a drunk, a narrow-minded boozer and his kind despised me on principal. I slowly turned to look at myself in the battered bathroom mirror. My eyes explored this man's face as if it wasn't my own but as I blinked so did he and I began to realize why. Heavily made up eyes struggled to adjust to the dim lighting as they slid across my features. A grotesque monster in cheap, smudged lipstick. I ran my fingers through the rough synthetic hair that hung from my head, barely able to feel it at all. I exited the men's room in a daze, kept my eyes to the floor to hide the steadily flowing hot tears of humiliation. Walking out into the dissipated street a familiar cold consumed me, I lit up a cigarette, receiving the smoke into my lungs gladly. I held it in front of me as I walked, a glowing ember of hope and an eventual promise of death - my one friend in the world. I never went back to that bar.

Scar

The shouts of unseen children followed him as he made his way behind the stalls. His world ablaze from the light of a flashing neon sun, he placed a filter-less cigarette between his dry lips and inhaled hard. He felt that haze fall over his mind that can only come with the feeding of an addiction. When he pulled it out again to exhale it took a tiny piece of his skin off with it, he licked his wound, enjoying the taste and the pain. His eyes rose to the open sky above him, squinting in defence against the heavy rain. The cigarette was starting to burn with every toke; he drew in a final dirty breath and flicked it away, watching the embers bounce and falter against the muddy floor. He was starting to feel uneasy alone in that alley, he walked on towards his destination - the sounds of life seemed far away now and the silence was pressing in on him. He stopped in front of his objective and squinted around him. The feeling of agitation was growing with every dwindling moment. He took to pacing the space outside her door to take his mind off it. He noticed the rain getting harder, beating him down like tiny exploding fists, he was already drenched but now he wondered if he'd ever be dry again. Just as his eyes were adjusting to the absolute darkness around him a sliver of light broke through accompanied by the rusty squeak of an abused door. His eyes shot up hopefully and there she was, her perfect eyes glaring at him through the damp haze.

'Inside.' She hissed venomously. He trotted over to her like an overly excited puppy, sliding in through the cracked door. His body grazed against hers, dampening her with the outside world - she winced. 'Take off that coat, you're drenching the trailer.' She walked over to the dingy faux-marble kitchen counter and reached for two odd, chipped glasses. She looked at him coldly and slowly raised one eyebrow, realizing he still hadn't taken his coat off he scrambled out of it in such a haste he knocked over a frame. She sighed exasperatedly and poured two whisky straights before walking back over to him. He watched as she drank, never a wince with even the strongest liquor, and here he was nursing his poison like a housewife. He knocked back the entire glass, coughing and spluttering as it burned down his throat and into his organs, he could feel her judging, beautiful eyes watching him and so he looked up through repressed tears - she caught his gaze, and began to take her clothes off. She slid her straps down her shoulders and motioned for him to help her with the clasps. He cleared the distance of the trailer in two enthusiastic strides and placed his hand softly against her neck and led it to the fastening of her dress. He undid her clasps with fumbling hands, slightly catching her skin with his nail; not like she noticed - she was numb by now. He placed his cold, coarse hands against her exposed pearly skin, and gently turned her so she was facing him. He pulled her body against his and desperately forced his mouth over hers and felt that haze descending over his senses again. He angrily grappled at her breast, making fingernail indents all over her delicate skin. She placed her hand against his chest and quietly bore the ordeal, only kissing back when his thrusting tongue gave her no other choice. He knew she despised him. He was well aware that every time he left her trailer, she cried herself to sleep, nursing a bottle of gin and mentally blocking him out so she had the strength to wake up the next day. He knew all this, and he didn't care. He was so dependant on what she gave him that it no longer mattered to him - he couldn't stop. The guilt faded long ago when the burning desire began to take over. He could see the knife in her hand and he grabbed a handful of her hair in his and pulled it back roughly, causing her to whimper in pain.

'Do it.' he growled against her neck, his erection was beginning to hurt against his tight jeans. Her eyes locked with his and he could see the disgust in them, the vile hatred behind the stony expression. She brought the knife down so it's cool menacing tip was lightly pressed against his side, he felt the excitement rush through him like an electric wave and he quivered with anticipation. Staring straight through him she slid the knife into his flesh. He cried out in a repulsive combination of pleasure and pain and simultaneously felt warm substance between his legs from his ejaculation.  His eyes rolled back into his head as the pain and ecstasy became too much, his knees buckled and he fell back, happily chuckling. He could feel himself losing consciousness but it didn't matter, she'd tend to him, she always did. When he awoke he'd be clean and clothed and he could pay her and leave. He knew he'd be back; the memory only lasted so long. He thought about his wife and repressed the urge to vomit, not sure whether it was the pain of his wound or the pain of his sham of a marriage that was producing the bile. There was only a certain amount of times he could fuck her while picturing another woman's face before their faces merge and he lost the appeal. The time between his visits was becoming less and less, he was starting to feel irritable and shaky after shorter periods of time. Like any addiction the constant longing, the consuming lechery was taking over his life. He knew he had a problem, but he also knew he could never stop. He’d always come running back to this trailer behind the fairground, to add another scar to his violated mentality, and his tattered skin. He'd keep taking the desecration, giving himself to her, until he had nothing left to give. His mind hazed over as he passed out, swimming in fond memories of blood and semen, completely consumed by his masochistic obsession. 

Rifle

Esben Jannson brought the axe down in one swift motion. A rip of wood and a dull thud signalled that he had completed the task. It was far from hot in the cabin but he was damp with sweat. He barely had time to register the beads sprouting on his crinkled brow before they sped between his eyes and down his nose. Playfully leaping off at the tip, to fall to their death upon the dusty derelict floor. Although closer to the Skårki mountain than most dared to be (the nearest town being 3 hours away) Esben felt truly blessed as he collected up his freshly chopped wood and headed towards the main house. The air outside was crisp and still, the way it always was at dawn. As Esben looked around at the frosted grassland and snow flecked forest, a sadness gripped him. This realization of solitude was one he often had when surveying his land; the place had an eerie forgotten feel to it. Everything in the mountain's shadow had the ability to play tricks on even the calmest mind. Was that rustling’s source animal or maniac? Are those my footprints or has another been walking this path? Esben averted his gaze from the permanently dark woods, smiled, and shook the snow off his boots, the feeling of unease shedding with it. 

The house itself was still small but made of brick and mortar,as apposed to wood like the cabin. In the far corner of the room was a stove, inside it a dying flame - feebly attempting to spread warmth around with little result. Esben rushed to its aid, snatching it from the brink of death and providing it with new fresh logs on which to feast and indulge. The fire ebbed higher, gaining strength and with the glow of the room restored Esben sat on his plaid chair and put his damp feet up onto the stove. He now had approximately fourteen minutes before Isak would wake up and he'd have to start the routine for the day. He closed his eye and began drifting away towards a dream, grateful for the almost-quarter hour of stolen sleep. A loud bark and footsteps from the east side of the house announced that Esben's calculations had been wrong. Isak was awake. He listened to his son pottering around, hesitating and mumbling as he collected up clothes for the day ahead. Within five minutes Isak strolled into the kitchen, his dirty blonde hair fell over his eyes as he entered the room. Barely thirteen and already approaching 6 foot, Esben's son was a picture of Swiss cliché right down to his pale blue irises. Isak smirked softly, pushed his hair out his eyes and chimed;
'Morning father'
'Good morning Isak, I trust you slept well?' Esben swiveled in his chair so he was facing the battered dinner table. He pushed the stool across from him out with his foot and gestured for Isak to join him. Their dog Rudi ran between the chair legs and settled under the table.
'I always do father.' his son replied, lowering himself into the presented seat.
   Esben knew this answer to be true of late; however things had not always been this quaint and light-hearted in their little mountain home. Esben handed his son a plate of food and watched his eyes light up. Those same eyes were the ones Esben's voice used to inspire fear within. The same eyes that would struggle to repress tears of pain produced by Esben's own fist. Esben had a history of heavy drinking and it was this addiction which had lead to years of constant verbal, often physical abuse towards his son. Esben was shameful of those years, those memories. They inspired a dread to fill his heart, but with months of practised repression he quickly stifled them. Every time he looked at his son now he was filled with a powerful paternal urge to protect him from harm. Luckily the only harm Isak had ever known has ceased on the day he tried to run away. Esben's wife Ide had fled years ago, and he realized his son would do the same if his violent behaviour did not change. 

So he started by giving his son his prized rifle. The rifle had always been Esben’s favourite procession. He used to get distressed if ever Isak even looked at it, warning his son against touching it in the best way he knew how. So when Esben presented his son with it as a gift it became obvious that the demons inside him were ebbing away, and they could start afresh. In the days before, this gun would have been used as a tool to aid Esben's violence towards Isak. Now he could use it to teach his son, not to behave, but to hunt. 
‘Isak, you’ve barely touched your meal.’ Esben spoke stonily, he saw his sons features tighten before they broke into an apprehensive smile, Esben smiled back to assure his manner was one of a lighthearted mocking.
‘I am just excited for today. Can we start now?’ Esben looked at the glee in Isak’s eyes. Isak broke the traditional Swiss mould in this one way; he had the playful soul of a child. Most men had already lost their whimsy by adolescence but to make up for lost years Esben was trying to keep his son young for as long as he could. However he knew this place couldn’t hold him forever. There was a whole world beyond the Skårki and Esben would have to let his son move on eventually. For now however it was his job to keep his soul young.
‘Yes, follow me.’ Esben lead Isak and Rudi into the cabin to get the gun. The routine could begin. He watched as Isak loaded the rifle exactly how Esben had taught him, paying special attention to make sure the cartridges faced the right way. Next he put on his winter coverings, hat, scarf, gloves, extra hat, extra scarf and extra gloves. The best sheilds a father could provide his offspring against the menacing Swiss assualt. 
‘Are you ready to go hunting?’ Esben began. Isak nervously looked over himself, at Rudi, at the gun, then back.
‘Yes Pa.’ He replied strongly.
‘Are you sure?’ Esben teased. At this Isak looked panicked, his eyes searched Esben’s and the room – looking for anything he’d forgotten.
‘…Yes Pa.’ he replied eventually.
‘Okay then, do you promise to bring back birds for dinner?’
‘I’ll try pa.’
‘Hey now, do you promise?’
‘I promise.’ Isak said sternly, the look of adventure back in his eyes.
‘Then off you go, take Rudi.’ Esben gave his son an encouraging pat on the shoulder and with an accomplished smile Isak whistled to the dog, turned on his heel and left. 

Esben went back into the house and sat down at his type-writer to begin writing. His mind a mess of verbs and metaphors he barely noticed the time pass. He had finished by lunch, he looked out at the forest and wondered why his son had not yet returned. Once again exercising his flawless ignorance, Esben quashed the unease and attended to more busy work. With each ebbing second of the clock Esben’s fear grew, he started to get up to check out the window at every imagined sound. As the sun began to set Esben knew something was not right. Isak usually returned by lunch, the temperature was dropping with every minute and once the sun had gone down the forest would be impossible to navigate through. Esben threw on his winter coverings, hat, scarf and gloves, no time for extras, and ran out the door towards the forest. He followed tracks that appeared to be made by Isak and Rudi, they entered the forest at the closest possible place to their home. 
'ISAK' Esben screamed his name as he took his first step into the forest. If there were still 
footsteps to be found here, he could not see them. He followed the moon beams through gaps in the foliage all the time calling for his lost son. He found he could no longer trust his instincts, with the utter panic of losing Isak ready to consume him it was all he could do not to fall down and cry. He ran through the darkness, unaware where he was going and not even bothering to remember where he'd been. The trees whispered around him, laughing at his struggle. What if something terrible had happened? Had he heard gun shots? Were there wolves this side of the mountain? Esben felt like these thoughts were at his shoulder, following him through every clearing. They were everywhere, grabbing at his heels, lodged in his airway, coiled round his chest and growing tighter. He ran fast to escape them but it was meaningless, they had the upper hand. Hiding in the shadows, he could feel their stare, penetrating his soul and forcing him to think the worst. But he mustn't doubt. Isak knew these woods, he knew what to do. Esben taught him how to work the gun long ago, cohabiting in woodland surrounded by wild animals it would have been irresponsible not to. 
'Isak!' he tried to call once more, but only a hoarse whisper escaped him. His voice now lost along with his son. Esben slowed his run to a walk. Covered in mud, shit and blood he had no choice but to let the thoughts wash over him. He knew his son was dead, he'd known it since before the sun set that day. He allowed the doubt to enter him, where it became morbid certainty. It was the solitude of this place, it was in his bones, spreading through his organs like a virus. Just as his feet were about to give way he turned into a clearing. Esben's heart leapt.

There he was. His blonde hair in his eyes and a guilty look touching his features, Rudi sitting lazily by his side. 
'Isak!' he managed to growl. Isak stared at his father, then down at his feet looking crestfallen. Esben ran to him and embraced him with such force that he let out a small pained gasp. 'Why did you not return at lunch like you usually do?' when Esben released his son he found Isak could not meet his gaze. 
'I couldn't find any game.' Isak's voice cracked as he spoke, his eyes once again repressing tears Esben had caused 'I didn't want to break my promise to you Pa.' Isak looked up with apprehension, but seeing his father's face so deformed with such a strong mix of emotions. Isak's expression warmed. Esben burst into loud, relieved laughter. 
'Let's go home son' he chuckled 'Give me the gun' Isak outstretched the cold gun towards one of his father's hands and thread his fingers through the other. Though usually opposed to affection like this, Esben felt he owed Isak. With Isak's hand warming in his and Rudi bounding slightly ahead, he began back to the house happy to have things back to their reliable routine. He closed his fingers around the cold barrel and held the gun at his side. 

Only there was no gun. Esben's hand reached around thin air. His other hand squeezed nothing too. There was no dog. The foot prints leading out the woods belonged to only one pair of feet. Esben began to whistle, still trapped in his grief-fuelled delusion. He shook off the feeling of isolation once again and happily stumbled through the grove in a hallucinogenic daze. 
He had been doing the same walk every day for three years. 
Ever since his son had fled from a beating, run away to the woods, and shot himself.