Detective: pt 1

He had been into detectives lately.

Movies, clothing, books.

He had even incorporated them into his own writing.

That coupled with a few interesting tidbits of conversation, between them, made her suspicious.

Just as well.

If he was suspicious of her then what rational, what reasoning, would she have to not be suspicious of him, in return.

What does ‘trust’ even mean?

It must vary depending on the people involved: the situation, the relationship?

Either way, it was as a shattered orb between them.

Mutual, encompassing, pulverized.

Dust, upon the ground

Perhaps, her suspicion came from guilt over the many mistakes she had made.

Perhaps, it was because she saw herself as weak.

Desperately seeking connection.

Open and vulnerable.

Subject to manipulation, especially from those who had her trust.

She meant well, but they were not necessarily, positive character traits.

Maybe, she had always been this way.

It would explain the emotional turmoil that seemed to follow her through life.

His accusatory e-mail, months ago, and the more recent, highly cryptic message, denying all contact with her, cast the pain of their end, his distain, and the foolish choices she had made, into stark relief.

It had been a difficult two weeks, or maybe three.

Her perception of time had become, lackadaisical, at best.

She had always been, characteristically, late to events. Those closest to her had come to accept it as her ‘normal’.

But, there was definitely a change now.

She didn’t even attempt to schedule anymore.

Letting feelings and impulses guide her. Irresponsible, yes.

Tho, it did feel more genuine that way.

This eccentric trait did not appear to disturb her life too much.

So long as she still spent 15 hours a week at her part-time job, shuttled the kids to & from school and kept her bills paid.

Things looks controlled, from an outside perspective.

It was anything but..

Lately, she had a lot of time to think.

Likely, too much.

The phrase, ‘Idle Hands Are The Devil’s Play Things’ flickered through her mind.

She mused, lost in thought..

Fingering a small bottle of vodka.

Absent-mindedly considering whether she should portion it, or not.

How many weeks ago did she inexcusably force her kids into the arms of her ex-husband, extending his weekend visit?

An unapologetic action taken to escape responsibility, for a moment, so she could drive to a house outside of town in a fit of sobs, cigarettes, screams, and prayer.

I had worked.

She had arrived just in time to catch him leaving his drive, the interaction happening only with seconds to spare.

He had, reluctantly, agreed to turn around and talk.

They met outside the house.

She leaned heavily on the bumper of her vehicle.

Then, as emotions rose, relegated herself to the hard rocky drive itself.

Her part was to cry and beg to have him back in her life.

The hatred, the scathing remarks, the inability to even speak to her, the refusal to receive her messages, felt, in her mind, like a small section of hell.

His part was a set of ultimatums that would define his presence, or lack of, in her life, from that point forward.

It was unfair, by standard terms.

But, not wholly unprecedented, considering the issues they had been through..

---

Detective: pt 2 (Feme Fantal)

A number of those issues droned, quietly, in the back of her mind.

Patiently waiting their chance to build into a full, painful, memory.

All in all, she considered bad memories a sight better than the seamless threads of anxiety that crept in the corners of her mind, greedily awaiting their 15 seconds of fame.

Salvating over some trigger that would shine a gastly light into the recesses.

So she could watch the terrible things skitter onto center stage.

It was worse, years ago. Especially after the birth of each of her children.

There would be times when she was completely sucked in.

Lost in a black hole, spiraling downwards, into worst case scenarios.

The primise was always the same.

If she wasn’t prepared, who would be!?

How could she control things? How could she protect those she loved?

There was always a problem to solve, a wrong to right, a fight to win.

Even her dreams were of this nature.

Stressful, confusing, full of twist and turns. A valiant struggle for solution.

In short.

She always needed, a plan.

Almost 2 years of therapy, a few trial runs on different medications, a divorce, and a lot of mindset changes had helped, quite a bit.

She still had her moments tho.

Everyone does.

Those moments are like snowflakes or the salt crystals within teardrops.

Pain, is never shaped exactly the same.

She cherished it, in herself, in others.

Coddling it, in a backwards way.

As of somehow, holding on, analyzing every angle; studying fear itself, would somehow, make it change.

Or at the very least, one could use the debris for polishing.

What is the point of pain if not to serve as a back light, as gloss, for that which we should appreciate.

This was the story of her brain.

A painful memory rose up now.

Triggered by innocent conversation.

Nevertheless, she went back.

During that particular 24 hours, a regular, but stressful day had bled into a terrible night (which happened a few times a month, even with intervention).

This particular time the shift in her mentality crept on slowly the night before his 5:30 a.m., 12hr shift.

They both felt the unease in the room. Restlessness permeated the air.

It swelled like a cold front blowing in from the West.

He saw the change as her brown eyes darkened to black.

The light in her withdrew, curling into itself, as she became more tense.

The storm became tangible.

Bending trees, pelting rain, shrouding the sky.

Curt responses, crackling silence.

Tears falling, shoulders turned coldly away.

Distain and outage had come to play.

He adamantly, tearfully, refused to stay up with her.

Refused to listen or comforter her any longer.

It was one of those nights.

Her mind seethed with anxiety, fear, melancholy, sadness, anger and despair.

There was no right answer, no salve, no antidote for the venom within.

He all but knew it.

She assumed as much.

Yet, selfishly, she expected him to stay up and try.

Again, and again.

All the plans for tomorrow mattered so little then. Backlit against her darkest moments.

 

Detective: pt 3 Universes

It occurred to her that she had not fully, unbiasedly, trusted him for a little over a decade, now.

Not since the first time he broke her heart. A little voice inside her whispered cautionary tales.

Perhaps, the trust was incomplete, in some ways, since the very beginning.
She was never one to believe in happy endings.

It wasn’t that she didn’t have hope, or the longing.

She never could dare to fully believe that she had found something so perfect, so amazing.
Even though ‘amazing’ is exactly what she told herself, it was.

Otherworldly, even.
Directly proportionate to having created a universe of their own.

At first, thoughts of that natue seemed nothing more than silly, quirky, exasperated ways to explain the big feelings that come with an intense romantic relationship.

They were young, free, and full of wanderlust.
As such, these glowing conclusions were usually reached after some type of intoxicant.

Marijuana, alcohol, dabbling in psychedelic mushrooms.

The relationship became a bubble.
One they were happy to reside in alone, and, as often as possible, responsibilities be damned.

He was the one that fit her.
The one that was meant to be in her life. She knew it to her core.

Bouts of light, childish, easily dismissed anxiety teased her.
Taunting that she may have, simply, gone insane.

She dismissed the notion quickly.
She’d had thoughts like that before, particularly when no one else seemed to understand the full range of feelings she experienced, every. single. day.

The two of them were connected.
She was sure.
It was, all consuming, and it felt like nothing she had ever experienced.

He knew her in ways only she was intimate with.
He was the only one in her life that took her, just as she was, and thought it a thing of unspeakable wonder.

She hadn’t realized then, just how much that kind of unconditional acceptance had been missing from her life.
Or maybe, a starved, sad, lonely part of her did and held on like a tightrope walker to the line.

They sang songs and played instruments.
Weaving tales about the different colors that now broke into their lives.

She wrote short stories about the two of them. About how God had known exactly what she needed, and sent her exactly that.

The pair clung to that premise, the actualization of unbreakable unity, through every stolen moment they could manage.

As it turns out.
If you tell yourself something enough.
If you believe something is true, rationalize, fictionalize, and analyze something, often enough.

Sober or not.

It eventually wedges itself into every corner of your brain.
Coloring all the things you think or feel.

It’s quite a thing to get lost in, really.
A bit unhealthy, perhaps?

There were those that would say, it wasn’t real.
It was as real, to her, as the air she drew into her lungs.

Her experiences came to her in flashes.
Echos of laughter and screams swirled for a few drawn out seconds in a scene of half painted memory.

It was often spurred by a snippet of a song, a piece of leaf, the outline of a stranger, the light of streetlights on a cold, foggy night.

The memories had their place in assuring her guarded, tense, sensitive, hypervigalant, manner.

Sometimes they came in dreams.
There was a bit more leeway in the reality of things when she was asleep.

Unfortunately, the lack of rationale did not provide an escape.

It only seemed to make her fight against it harder.
She would wake trembling, her breathing uncontrolled, every emotion crescendoed, her nerves pulsing.

Control.
That was key.

There was nothing controlled about how she felt for him.
Especially not, 13 years ago.

She was still a kid then.
At twenty, a young adult can’t legally drink, in the states.

Lucky for her she spent a lot of time and money between the ages of 19 and 21, chasing after him.

Visiting over seas.
Doing what ever she could to give them one more moment.

She didn’t have much other choice.

Before the ink dried on his Air Force recruitment form, he was putty in their hands, to do with as they wished.
Regardless the promises made to him, during recruitment.

She was partly a blame for that as well.
Often, she wondered, what it would have been like for them if he hadn’t joined the military.
If she hadn’t pushed him so hard to do more with his life.
To get off his ass and put some real effort into building a future together.

One that didn’t involve being fast food workers, delivery drivers, or overnight stocking crew.

Not that there is shame in working these jobs. Many do so, happily working, shamelessly content, fufilling roles critical to the functioning of life, as we know it.

At some point during her younger years it had been imprinted upon her spirit that she must make a difference.
Move a moutian.
Do something that would bring honor to the ideals she held in place.

Deep inside, she could not shake the feeling that there was more for her, for them. There had to be. They were better than that.

Nothing could stop the Lovers Rain.
It came like their love, hard and steady, slow and light, sideways, dripping down their faces, and seeping up between their toes.

It served as baptism from above. Patterning on the tin roof.
A melody only they could understand.
Beading on their skin, like, the dew caresses the grass.

Delusions of grandeur?
Perhaps?

She was adamant it wasn’t just some fairy tale she made up in her head.

Detective: pt 4

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

It was days like this. Days full of drizzly rain. The kind where the Sun never wakes. Wet cold seeps into your bones. Days energy and modivation are nowhere to be found.

All she wanted was to be snuggled up close to someone she loved, reading a book with a hot cup of something-or-other. She did exactly that with her kids from time to time. Especially around Christmas, but, moments passed differently when shared with a partner.

There’s nothing better than findinug that awkward, yet somehow comfortable position. Intwined in each other, but still separate. A cup warming her hands. The smell of a paperback book. The ink stamped on the page. The heartbeat and warmth of a loved one lying close. Both lost in their own little worlds. Absorbed in whatever book they had chosen. Pausing occasionally to share a funny tidbit or a thought with the other. Fully enjoying themselves in a relaxed quiet way, like a fall leaf floating down onto a pond at the end of October.

A slow peaceful time. when the world’s weight shifted off her shoulders just a bit. There were always a thousand things to do. Twenty places to go, and five more errands to run. She knew the feeling all too well. Her brain kept her pointedly aware nearly every moment. I guess that is one of the reasons why it was so important to her to be able to have those moments with those she cared about.

---

When you’re close enough to someone that you can have the real, unbridled, raw, honest moments. You feel like it’s safe to share everything. The pain, the anger, the joy, the fear the laughter, the tears and everything in between. When those feelings are disrupted..When everything you thought it was pops like sleet lashing the ground. When it goes on like that, for days, for weeks, for months.

When the torent of negativity will not ease it grip and all you can think is, ‘how did it come to this?’

That is the time to put your money where your mouth is. It was in those moments she doubled down.

He didn’t.

He fought like a living thing trying to break free of a poacher’s net. Flailing, seething, lunging, playing nice, gnashing, clawing, crying, desperate to make, the net, that thing he can’t understand, right.

Longing to run again. Gliding over the Earth. Wanting nothing but to experience everything it was, when life as they had known it, began.

But when he settles.

When they found that indescribable, satisfying, perfectly comfortable state. It was nothing short of, incredible.

If only it was an essence that could be bottled. An alluring, tangible, yet unstoppable force driving the senses.

He remembered the sheets, the shirts, the late night ambiance, itself, that somehow carried her scent.

He mourned.

He remembered.

He reatched.

He was alone.

Alone in the emptiness. Asleep at the wheel. Able to change his fate as much as an infant frees itself of it’s soil.

The thought grounded him.

He alone would find the way. There was no one else. Nothing to guide him to the reality he endlessly longed for.

He had always promised her it would ‘be ok’.

————-

Detective: part 5

She was sad

For all of his Sherlock charm he was still often left clueless by the sheer volume of the things she could feel.

Her feelings varied greatly. Spanning from Bliss to nonsensical blubbering.

During one such moment she started a novel about him. About her.

Laid out like a play. Placed in a past time where his grandfather lived through him. Slipping into this world through fractures.

Splinters in time.

The story went like this..

“It glistened, tantalizingly. The heat wavered showing clearly for a moment all he desired. Scratching on reason like roses amongst thorns in the greenery of the soul.

It was a spitting image of Buck William Faulkner, ten years past. He walked slowly down the side of the asphalt, smoking his last cigarette. Fifty-seven years of life had etched a worn, some might say -wise, look on his face.

Had it really been that long!? The years continued to pass. Pages of a book, left spine down, in the wind. His peppered locks were just long enough to be buffeted by the breeze of the passing traffic. He casually swept them back and to the side with his left hand. A habit he picked up, from his grandfather, which had started causing a semi-permanent part in the front inch and a half of his hair. The gesture, unconsciously, represented his exasperation with the whole ordeal. As he walked he surveyed the various vehicles bustling through the busy city. No one would stop. No one had stopped, in what seemed like, ages. Occasionally, a kind drunk would stop him on their stumble home, to talk about, the meaning of life, existence, and everything. A long lost compadre he became until they ambled onwards, again, suddenly blind and deaf to his existence.

Once, he was sleeping propped between two buildings, napping, after a particularly nasty jump.A young girl said, ‘hello’ as she walked by  Stopping in her tracks. The mother oblivious to anything that couldn’t be written off as an invisible friend. A stray cat catching the eye of a child too neive to close the window. That was a cruel one. It gave him hope. Hope that his girls could see him again, one day.  A few druggies had noticed over the years. Which typically lead to a case of wrong place wrong time and caused him nothing but trouble. Even the occasional cat would even see him as visceral. He took comfort in their company when they were not too put off by, as near as he can figure, the smell, of dead space. He was, essentially, invisible. Others looked right through him like he was a whisp of smoke on the breeze. He kicked a marble sized chunk of broken pavement and walked forward listening to the dull rise and lull of heavy traffic. He scanned for anything unusual, any connection with this place. Worried he was wasting more precious time. Then it happened.

A brown haired woman with even darker brown eyes – like a pool of life giving water in the night- looked oddly at him. Actually locked eyes with him, as her face scrunched up in what he could only call curious, confused empathy.His heart skipped a beat when he saw the brake lights illuminate on her black sedan. Slowing as it passed. She had seen him. He knew he saw a flicker of recollection on her face. He stumbled a step over the lose edge of the asphalt, losing track of her for a few moments. But that is all it took. A few moments. That’s all Iife really is. He righted himself with what could only have been the silkiest looking half-skip, toe-catching hop he could muster, and looked up again just in time to see her break lights blink out again, as the car glided ever forward merging into an endless sea of metal and plastic. That look. She hesitated. She saw me. She seemed to know me. He thought to himself. That never happened anymore. He furrowed his brow and frowned. One side, then the other. Just another sliver of the dead space. He had to know by now. He chastised himself for haphazardly pasting any true meaning onto the event. Hope peeled at the edges of sanity whenever it fancied. Just to skitter off again at the first sign of relief. He grimaced at the cynical reference. He was sounding more and more like his father. Angry, resigned to a life of pain, slowly betrayed by his mind and body, just enough life left to curse a dog now and again. However, more appropriate words escaped him. How else does one describe such a state.how could he ever put into words the plane he traveled.. His experiences would make a lot more sense if, or when, he woke in a ward of some kind. One for the mentally ill or those trapped in long term comas. Blank space: a description. Now, before everyone starts thinking Buck had found himself subject to a run off the mill case of psychiatric dysfunction. Take a few moments and actually listen.He had a life once.  A job. A house. A wife- or soon to be wife- It wasn’t for lack of his trying. Two kids. There were numerous wonderful, borning, frustrating, relieving, scary everyday things that made up his life. He walked through it with his family, learning, growing, loving, forgiving. Then it all changed..His first time in Dead Space felt like just that, death.

<<Within, the pressure makes your eardrums vibrate, like riding SUV at 60 miles per hour, with only the back windows cracked. A bright void, cloaked in the most fierce wind, but deathy still, within. A place in which time folded in on itself, and senses bent. Emotion ran. Life was seen in tiny flecks along the walls. Just out of the corner of one’s eye. More numerous than grass on the Savannah during the rainy season. Diamonds in the white nothing. Out numbered, he assumed, only by the very atoms that make up all life. Tangible under his body and yet, just out of reach.It was, complexity, wrapped in an enigma, nestled in a box of obscurity. And yet, it was…not wholly unpleasant. He felt connected somehow. It vibrated with life. So, so, much life.  Stitched into the seams. Like a symbolic golden thread, glinting occasionally, intricately woven into a heirloom. >>

How he missed his life. He smiled I half crooked smile at himself and gave a scoff. Yes, that about covered it- – heirloom..if the heirloom was a big white, never ending, faintly glittery, wall-less box. Instead of a comfortable, lovingly made, quilt.He could analyze and describe until he was truly and completely sick, but the questions still remained. How did he end up there? Why did he have to be the one to fall in and out? Why couldn’t he control it. Why couldn’t he find them.Ka-Clunk! A spray of cold, grey, gritty water pelted his legs, jarring him out of thought. He halted and looked up, begrudgingly amused. That, he thought. That is, appropriately descriptive. The place was a pothole. A pothole in the universe…and he, a moth chasing an ever flickering flame.

Scene 2

Will watched the second hand falter then click onward, stubbornly, in the old battery operated clock tacked haphazardly to the wall in the, seemingly abandoned, Mom and Pop Auto Body, shop.His skin prickled briefly as he weighed the odds that the clock’s defect was evidence of a fracture here. He’d learned, time, was one of the things affected by their proximity.Along deformed animals (that’s a story for another time), bodily fluid – from a person who died of a broken heart. (I know it sounds stupid. Quite cliche. Go ahead and look up broken heart syndrome, I’ll wait). An empty glass phylactery hung from his belt. His fingers brushed it lightly. If he had some of those he could ride for a while. The mind is a powerful thing. The smart used it to their advantage. Usually with mixed results. There’s a reason people say it’s a blessing and a curse.The dumb just didn’t use it. Everyday functioning became an autonomic reflex. That must be nice. Or at least it looks nice, from afar. Simple, clean. Quiet, in it’s own way. The list of talisman he was on the look out was now up to five.  He had trained himself to be aware of subtle changes. It wasn’t his norm and more often than not awarded him with blinding headaches. They were the only warnings he got before stumbling into dead space, again. Constant low level anxiety. Cursed to notice what others do not. Forced to question what others take for granted..After all.. the faltering of a clock could be just a dying battery. In fact, it was likely.But, could he take that chance? His growling stomach interrupted his pondering. Jarring his thoughts back to the task at hand. He remember eating in the distant past, but couldn’t put his finger on exactly when. The pastry had been hard as leather at the edges with an ambiguously flavoured, sticky, center. Was that yesterday?Each day’s edges blurred into the next. A haze. Damage control, survival; searching for answers. Will surveyed the mostly empty room. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he took in the sparce decorum. A desk and filing cabinet were staged to the right, by the window. A neglected water fountain adorned the far wall. Just above, a sign with a peeling arrow, noted the location of the restroom: Left, down a small hallway, shrouded in darkness. To his immediate left, A silouette caught his eye, an outdated vending machine, squatted against the wall.His stomach pained at the thought of food, no matter how poor in quality. He moved uncounciously forward. Drawn by his base desires, until he was wiping the glass with his tattered sleeve to get a clearer view of the, assuredly, outdated treats within. Wrapping his hand and forearm in his coat he violently backhanded the plexiglass. Once. Two times. Pain radiated up his wrist. He winced. The continuing pounding motion caused his metacarples to grind against each other in a most unsavory fashion. Finally, his efforts where rewarded. The facing cracked and splintered. He reached in gingerly. Scraping his forearm lightly on the uneven surface. Potatoes and salt. Flour, a sugar glaze, with a touch of cinnamon. The cheap, outdated, snacks were a Kings banquet. A mouthful of brittle saltyness. A mouthful sticky sweet. He was more than halfway through each package before he started to really taste them. Then, the flashbacks began. She had spent the last of her cash on a 3/ $1 deal at a mid-scale gas station just outside town. Snacks, she said, for us, and the kids. They had laughed at the subpar quality of sticky goodness that had substituted for breakfast on that busy day. The salty roughness of the semi-stale chips pushed into his mind a recollection of one of the many late night trips for a purchased meal. Sandwiches and chips sufficed for dinner, when they just couldn’t manage to cook a healthy meal..How he wished he could have paused, then, to cherish the time spent together. The simplisity of it. Hunger momentarily sated, he dozed propped against the old machine. They came back to him, randomly, unintentionally, without warning. Most frequently, in his dreams. His past life. The world he knew. Familiarality. Home. A life torn away, as he slipped, unwillingly, into that first fracture.He started awake. Damp, disoriented and shaking. The room seeming to tilt around him, riding the tail end of a rush of carbohydrates.Sleep never came easy these days. The pushing onward never seemed to end. Fictionallity. Efficiency. Determination. Sought after traits, recognized by every corner of the universe. Hidden, beneith the surface, lay his ‘lesser’ human qualities. Fear, uncertainty, rage, utter defeat.The latter were held tightly in check. Shown only in the presence of those who gained his implicit trust. Will pushed himself to his feet steadying his back against the machine. He took a few deep shaky breaths, grounding himself. Then slowly turned to fill his trusty black back-pack with the few remaining items from the old vending machine. Two rolls of hard candy, three packages of chips, a sticky package of chewing gum half melted by age and heat, two bags of pretzels, and one bags of salted peanuts.His mood had, somewhat improved, in light of his new found fortune. This haul could last him a few days, if he was careful.

Scene 3

The shards of plexiglass tinkled in the vending machine case. The casing groaned with sudden pressure. Dick cut his eyes toward the sound. A look of concern creeping onto his face. He was certain he was standing stock-still. Too stunned to move, but sensations of dizziness, disorientation, spinning, washed over him again.

He blinked, once, twice, staring at the wall in front of him, then the floor- they were, in-fact, intact, still. Maybe it was nothing.A miniscule earthquake, rattling things, a train rolling past through town, a rush of adrenaline and cortisone from the meal and subsequent dreams.. He rubbed his eyes, trying to steady himself, to clear his head. Then, the wall before him shimmered, ever so slightly. A ripple. A near undetectable movement. Something you would see in the corner of your eye, but dismiss as nothing. He exhaled slowly, forcefully. It WAS coming.. With it came familiar feelings of dread, uncertainty, anger, pity and guilt. No!..not yet…It was too soon. He had only managed sweep the west side of town. How long had it been since the last phase.

Four or five days? A week, maybe. It wasn’t long enough. He needed more time here, before being dumped out, God knows where, again.The room began to flake and peel towards him, like the leather on an old worn pair of shoes. Tiny flecks of matter at first. Bits of color. Life flitting past, frozen for a moment. Delicate snapshots of what was once before him. Like ash on the breeze. The flecking continued, picking up intensity and size. Until large half dollar specks, the images that represented this life, bombarded him, much like, a blizzard of memory howling in a near death experience.For something so tangable, so real, to dematerialize before your very eyes. It was unsettling to say the least. Each time it unnerved him to good very core, caused him to question what is real. It was enough to drive any lesser man insane. A point Will was about to discover, very intimately, for himself. In it’s wake, each peeling sliver left bright, white hot, veins of light. Haltingly he walked toward them. How could he not. The attraction was, magnetic, an insatiable. pulling within him.Suddenly, Buck understood what drove wild animals caught in traps to knaw their own appendages off. His only change to end the shifting. His only chance at peace, at being in her arms again, was to submit to what was happening and move forward. As he neared, the veins of light became piercingly luminess. Acceptance washed over him. He felt his consciousness slipping away. In the transition he clung to thoughts of her. Deep in a waking paralytic sleep. Digging desperately within himself for a sense of purpose and self worth. Lost in a subconscious haze full of half-truths, hurried dreams and emotion.In the farthest recess of his mind he wished with all he was:It could be different this time. I’ll pass away. I’ll just die. It will finally end.The thought of being with his family trickled through. It haunted him. Awakened the monster. Waking the survivor within. He turned way from death and willed himself to hold with every fiber of his being. Nothingness, bright, nothingness. A flood of sensation roused him. He pushed the wave down with gritted teeth. Fetal position on his left side, hands at his head, attempting to ease the pounding pressure, on his ear drums. He had arrived. Groggy and disoriented, he pushed himself to his feet resting his hands heavily on bent knees. Deep, slow, breaths helped steady his shaking.

Finally, Buck straightened. His composure gathered, as much as possible, given the situation. He steaded his pack and looked ahead, into clean, bright nothingness. Hints, wisps, of color flickered in his peripheral vision. Daring his mind to assign meaning or structure to any one. He had seen them before, fooled many times by desire. Analyzing and rationalizing. Looking desperately for a way home. Such was the void. He laughed begrudgingly to himself.

Move forward. Across the universe, and the spaces in between, it was the only thing to do. So he did.

Part 4

It was, if nothing else, it was peaceful here. Still. Quiet- once a person adjusted to the ever present, white noise and pressure. He even slept in the void, occasionally. On one such occasion he had been sure he just missed her. By a hair; in a winking glimpse of a warped mailbox and address sign his sleep bleared eyes fell upon. His jolt awake had sent him falling out into to ‘realities’ grasp once again. And she slipped a way. Or rather, he did, but given he had yet to find way of mapping the dead space, it might has well have been any mail box. If it was what he thought he saw at all..

He was more careful now. Triggering the ether to part was not something he had managed gain control of, but there were signs, subtle changes. An almost indecernable glint. Goose bumps. None of which he had garnered in his desolate slumber. Sleep now came in short bursts, hunched over, cradeling his pack. Onward he walked doing his best to clear his mind and allow it to subconsciously process his peripheral vision. Letting his equilibrium, his internal compass, his spirit… Whatever science was calling it these days… guide him.If he lost faith in the very force that kept him alive, there was truly no hope. He reached for one of the two half gallon milk jugs he kept tied to his backpack straps. How long would he be here this time. Would his scant provisions be enough? Food was a luxury, water a necessity. He took a long pull of the plastic infused water. Rationing was becoming second nature. Any time he slipped through a fracture water was the first thing he found.It boggles one’s mind to think how much perfectly good water is wasted. Fillng trash cans full of plastic bottles of all shapes and sizes. The convince lost on them, a mear second thought. A quick fix for what they only know as a hint of thirst.Cast away, forgotten, deposited. Out of mind. A treasure trove for the lost and downtrodden. It had kept him alive. He moved forward at a leisurely pace. Stepping wherever felt right. Down the expanse he moved. Concentration and meditation only got him so far. Occasionally he sang a song under his breath. 80’s ballads were his favorite. So much passion to be found.It wasn’t productive, he knew, but it was a sight better than the self destructive habit of dwelling on his own problems.

Teary eyes, afraid, and a gut full of remorse….’…who wants to live forever..Who dares to love forever..’..The melody flowed through his mind as he mouthed the lyricsAudible, or not, he couldn’t tell over the vibrations this space. They filled his ears.He let them drown his thoughts. It was the only therapy available to him. A small half-smile crept it’s way into his right cheek. They used to joke about wanting sensory deprivation chambers. Life seemed so hectic, so stressful, so chaotic, then. Was she ok? How were the kids. Those girls were a carbon copy of her. The slight differences only hieightened their uniqueness. Three special ladies. His ladies.There comes a time when a man (or woman) must decide what they stand for. What they are willing to sacrifice for ‘the greater good’. The answers vary and are not consistent from population or gender, save females, post gravis, and divorcee women. This small selection, often unwittingly poor’s themselves out for those they love. Often reviving what seems, lack-a-desial, at best, from those that claim love for them as well. Good relationships falter because of the people within the relationship. Great relationships fail because of out side forces. The few that last are a perfect accumulation of those within having the ability to rise above and manage outside influences together.

Part 5

Once upon a time, there were things that surpassed his wildest dreams.

That is said not for the cliche, but simply because the only words in the English language that can come close to being adequately descriptive of the feelings she gave him are that simple. Not unlike the standard detective noir novel. She needed saving. She came to him. Open, begging. Desperate for the things only he offered. He longed only to be back in the mundane. To ferry the children. To make the standard everyday choices of ‘what is for dinner’. To break open the space in-between. To do and to value all the everyday mediocre things that, he now came to realize, made each day worth living. To move seemlessly though each week. Months passing in a blur. The year turned into two then four. All the time they spent learning, growing, becoming extensions of themselves. Moving forward to something named only in ancient texts. He was her utopia. Her, his desert isle.Castaways on fertile soil. Free to make what ever they will of the lives before them. Open to possibilities drempt. Bearing down on life with willingness. Finding just how to sway in the tide of change that is ever among us. Feeding off each other for inspiration.Longing to find a place they belong. Settling quiet in each other’s arms.

The story she had written slashed to the front of his mind. God how she struggled with it.

She struggles to find the right words, the right mood. With wether or not it was even any good. He loved every second. He wished he would have told her then. Pushed her to get published. He wondered how different their life might have been.

he should have never left her alone. If he had knows then the emptiness he would feel, here, without her. Cut off from everything he knew.

Detective: part 6