BLOOD DAHLIA

I can’t understand myself anymore
But I’m still feeling lonely
Feeling so unholy

– Numb, Portishead

Elliott stood outside Carrie’s apartment building for the third time this week.

The apartment’s exterior was faded with age, overgrown with vines that crawled up its sides like thick, dark snakes. Street lamps cast pale yellow light amid apartment buildings and businesses cramped together for blocks around.

He inhaled the November night air, pushed his thinning, stringy hair from his face, and plunged his hands into the pockets of his coat.

Did he have the courage to knock on Carrie’s door and tell her all the things that had been on his mind since their first—and last—date at Applebee’s three weeks ago? He had shown up to the restaurant that night loaded on Maker’s Mark, his nerves like hot wires, his hands almost trembling.

His love for and encyclopedic knowledge of cinema left her underwhelmed; she was not into films. He bragged about his impressive fantasy miniature collection, also to no effect. She talked about her love of animals. He did not like them. At all. They were smelly and needy, although he did not tell her he felt this way.

Toward the end of the date, she asked him whether he had “fabricated” his online dating profile. He admitted he may have done so to some extent. But only because the dating scene was cold and inhospitable. What was a guy to do these days?

After she noticed him staring at her cleavage while she ate her Caesar salad, she promptly looked at her cellphone and remarked about how late it was and that she needed to be up early for work tomorrow. She concluded the date by telling him that she didn’t think it would be good to go out with him again. That she just wasn’t ready to date right now. 

Elliott knew she was lying. They always did.

After she broke the news and left him humiliated and standing outside the restaurant, the words of his cloying mother, who never seemed to receive enough affection from him, no matter how much she wanted, seeped into his mind. The words were an acid that burned through the pitiful layers of his life for as long as he could remember:

No woman will ever love you as much as I love you, Elliott. Never forget that.

His mother drilled this into his brain throughout his fatherless childhood, as if she were performing a verbal lobotomy and sabotaging any chance of happiness he might have with a member of the opposite sex. And it worked.

Until now. 

Carrie was different. Elliott got the sense that she didn’t really know what she wanted out of life, let alone what she wanted in a man. She seemed so delicate, so fragile. As if her whims could change with a gust of wind.

He could be that gust of wind that changed both of their lives.

After their date, he had followed Carrie from a safe distance until she reached her building.

In the days that followed, Elliott found her employer’s website—a veterinarian’s office— and located her headshot. He quietly masturbated to it a few times over the next week in his bedroom, interspersed with occasional online videos of German torture porn, of which he was a devoted curator. 

He was careful, as always, not to let his mother hear him. 

With each sad, messy orgasm, he became more confident that he deserved her and that having her—mind, body, and soul—made him a complete man.

Following work shifts at the movie theater–and sometimes before–he stood across the street from Carrie’s apartment. Hoping to catch her leaving for work. Hoping to spy her coming home with another guy. Hoping their eyes would meet, music would swell from somewhere, and she would realize that no other man could fulfill her the way he could.

But each time he stood across the street from her building, that sense of entitlement grew like a rancid seed blooming within. He had to have her. She belonged to him, whether she knew it yet or not. 

Now, standing outside her place tonight, he recalled a line Billy Crystal said in the film When Harry Met Sally: 

“When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start right now.” 

He never appreciated the film and didn’t understand why Sally liked Harry. He was weak and wore tight-ass jeans like one of those twinks. But that line stuck with him after years of rewatching the movie. It was a perfect line of dialogue.

This line was now his North Star. He would convince her that their lives together were just beginning. 

One way or the other. 

He snapped out of this trance, not realizing he was mumbling under his breath, when he noticed someone exiting her building.

It was now or never.

Elliott darted across the street, narrowly avoiding getting creamed by a blaring bus, and reached the door before it closed, bypassing the call box. As the door slammed shut, muffled sounds of crying babies, arguments, yapping dogs, and droning televisions seeped through the walls. The air carried the odors of animals, fried cooking, and dirty carpeting. 

He found her mailbox and apartment number.

A rusted sign hanging on the doors to the elevator declared DANGER: OUT OF ORDER, so he climbed the four flights of stairs to Carrie’s apartment. 

He stood there, one hand inches from knocking on the door. His nerves were conducting his tension like a mad orchestral maestro. Only this time, there was an undercurrent of delicious anticipation.

***

Carrie finished putting the wax-paper-wrapped, freshly cut meat into the freezer and was washing the large, serrated, hand-me-down butcher knife from her late mother. 

Looking down at the wet, gleaming knife, her thoughts drifted to one night decades ago that changed everything for her. 

Carrie’s mother was standing in the kitchen with her only child. She was stroking Carrie’s long chestnut brown hair with a hand that was becoming stiff with coagulating blood, while her 10-year-old daughter’s sobbing subsided.

There was a dark, glistening trail of blood leading from the kitchen to the bathroom. The crimson-coated knife was on the kitchen counter.

“He’s gone now,” Carrie’s mother assured her only child, in a voice that seemed a million miles away. “He can’t hurt us anymore. He won’t touch you anymore either. Do you understand?”

Carrie nodded.

Her mother kneeled down and handed Carrie the knife, handle first. “I want you to keep this.”

She then kissed Carrie’s forehead and held her for a long time.

Now, Carrie was staring at the knife and initials, deep in a dark reverie, when a knock at her apartment door snapped her back to the present. She opened the door slowly.

“Hey, how have you been?” Elliott asked.

A look of shock stretched across Carrie’s soft, pale face, which was framed by her now short brown hair. This expression turned into a slight smile.

She couldn’t believe her good fortune.

“What a surprise,” Carrie said. “What are you doing here?”

“I, um, thought I would swing by to see how you’re doing. I didn’t like how the last time ended, and I wanted to see if you’re doing okay.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have. But thanks.”

She leaned against the door frame, crossing her arms.

Elliott stood there, biting his lower lip and staring at the floor.

After an excruciating moment of silence, she stood aside and beckoned him into her apartment, then smoothed her waifish hands over her dark blue veterinarian scrubs. They were flecked with spots of blood. She must have just gotten home from work. 

Her purple-polished nails gleamed like a wolf’s eyes in the hallway’s harsh overhead fluorescent lighting as she slowly closed the door.

“Mind if I use your restroom?”

She winced, thinking of what her bathroom looked like presently. “Unfortunately, it’s out of order. You know how old buildings can be.” She shrugged. “Have a seat.”

He plopped down on the tired leather couch, folding his hands in his lap, and scanned her cramped studio apartment. The space was absolutely crammed with books, some with titles indicating her interest in human and other creature anatomies. There were also photos of cute dogs, cats, and other mammals, some framed, some merely pinned to dulled white walls. Portishead played softly from a set of speakers connected to a vinyl record player in a corner next to an unmade mattress on the floor.

His gaze lingered on the mattress for a moment. 

Elliott yelped as a cat jumped seemingly out of nowhere onto a couch cushion and hissed long and loud at him. The creature’s luxurious grey-and-white fur stood on end. One of the eyeballs was missing. The eyehole was horizontally stitched up.

“That’s Lucky. He’s a rescue. Very interesting story about him.”

“I see,” Elliott said nervously, not caring about the cat’s story. He kept one eye on the cat and the other on Carrie. She looked so cute in her veterinarian outfit.

“He doesn’t seem to like you very much,” she smiled. She lifted Lucky and placed him gently on the floor. He hissed at Elliott again and disappeared behind the couch.

She sat down on the other end of the couch. “Take your coat off. Get comfortable.”

He removed the coat and placed it on the arm of the couch. It fell to the floor, but he didn’t notice as he continued to gaze at Carrie.

“So, Elliott. What really brings you here?”

“Like I said, I just wanted to check in and make sure you’re okay. The other night kind of sucked.”

“It sure did,” she replied, cracking her knuckles loudly. “Was there anything you wanted to say to me about that night?”

“I know that you were offended that I lied on my profile. I’m sorry. It’s just tough out there, you know?”

She laughed, cracking her knuckles again. This nervous knuckle-cracking thing was adorable.

“I see,” she sighed, draping her right arm over the couch and moving a little closer to him. “Anything else you want to say? You were staring down my blouse, Elliott.”

“Well, yes, actually.” Eagerly, sensing that he was starting to break through. “That was just a compliment. I think that women are too sensitive these days and don’t appreciate when a man finds them attractive.”

Her teeth gleamed in the lamplight over the couch as she smiled. “And?”

“I think we got off on the wrong foot. I think we could make this work. I think we need to make this work. Look how desperately lonely and miserable people are. How we are. I don’t know about you, but the isolation and vapidness of society feels like it’s eating away at my bones sometimes.”

She reflected for a minute. “That’s almost poetry, Elliott. It is brutal out there, isn’t it?”

“Yes!”

She pondered his words, then placed her right hand on his knee and squeezed. “You know what? Maybe I was overreacting a bit. How about a drink? I have bourbon in the cupboard. How do you take it?”

“Neat,” he said, his body shimmering with a flood of endorphins. He couldn’t believe how well this was going.

“While I get our drinks, would you mind playing with my cat? He’s been here alone all day while I was working and needs to get some angst out,” she laughed.

She tossed him a string attached to a chewed-up mouse plush and then moved to the kitchenette for some glasses.

This was a busy week, Carrie thought to herself as she poured two Bulleits. Elliott was even dumber and more pathetic than the last guy.

While Elliott picked up the toy with mild disgust and gingerly draped the string behind the couch.

Claws from Lucky’s paws immediately tore into the mouse, violently yanking the string and knocking his hand hard against the wall.

“Owww!” he exclaimed, more out of surprise over Lucky’s strength than pain.

“See what I mean? Lots of steam to blow off. I know the feeling. Don’t you?”

Elliott started to reply and turned around to find Carrie standing there holding two glasses of bourbon. 

She handed him the drink. He accepted but tried to stop shaking.

A sudden anxiety swept over him. All through high school and into adulthood, he had imagined a scenario like this happening, but no dice. Spurned by girl after girl, all because they were too emotional, couldn’t take a compliment, or just weren’t as interesting as him. Now, for some reason beyond his understanding, it was happening. He was terrified.

He had never been with a girl before. Thirty-seven years. And now, after all the years of his mother smothering him and telling him he was no good for any girl, here he was. Just went to show that persistence and confidence paid off.

He drank the bourbon in one loud, deep gulp. His face turned warm.

Here we go.

“Your shoulders look so tense,” Carrie cooed, sipping on her drink and setting it down. “Turn around, let me work on them. I can do amazing things with my hands.”

Elliott chuckled and complied. His breath caught as she lifted his Slayer t-shirt up and over his head. 

Her cold hands sent a shiver through him. They soon warmed, and he closed his eyes, leaning back against her. He could feel her breasts pressed against his back through the fabric. He sighed, losing himself in the moment.

“Carrie, I think I love you,” he whispered.

Losing himself to the degree that he didn’t notice one of her hands slip down into one of the pockets of her scrubs. 

He felt the prick of a needle. 

“Hey, what the fuck?!”

Elliott tore himself from this fantasy and spun around. Lucky mewed, watching with intense interest from Carrie’s mattress, as she stood before him, putting the cap back onto the needle and launching it into the kitchenette’s sink.

“Have you ever heard of a Komodo dragon?” she asked. “They’re truly magnificent creatures.”

There was an expression on her face—her eyes narrow slits, her lips pouting—that filled Elliott with deep fear.

She sauntered over to the record player and cranked up the Portishead album, then returned.

“Did you know that female dragons can reproduce without males? It’s a process called parthenogenesis. This enables them to reproduce in isolation.”

Elliott, stunned, started to respond as if he knew what she was even talking about. What stopped him was a tingling in his extremities. He stared at his hands, mouth agape, then looked back at her.

“Another fascinating thing about Komodos is that their venom can do absolutely fucked up things to the human body.”

Elliott’s legs wobbled as strength continued to drain from them. He fell to the floor, sitting awkwardly but upright against the couch.

Carrie went to the kitchenette. She produced the serrated hand-me-down from a drawer and a crisp new plastic tarp from beneath the sink.

She swayed and hummed to the music as she playfully spread the tarp out. 

“I have my mother, who was also a vet, to thank for encouraging my interest in animals,” she said. “I’m also grateful for what we learned together about how to handle animals like you.”

Carrie pushed him onto the plastic and straddled him, grinding hard. She groaned then laughed.

“Damn, your tiny cock is still hard! That will change in a minute.”

She placed the blade against his neck, her face scrunched in concentration like a butcher deciding the correct cut to take. She blew a tuft of hair from her face and shifted the blade to his bare chest. Carrie sliced vertically from the collar bone to the navel as the skin peeled open, making a sound like wet paper.

Shock and poison clotted any pain he should have felt. His life essence blossomed like blood dahlias and cascaded down his chest. Elliott could feel the warmth pouring out of his body as it began to pool around him. He tried to scream but only emitted a loud groan, drowned out by the music.

She punched him hard squarely between the eyes.

“How we doing, baby?” she said in an enthusiastic purr.

Stars swam in Elliott’s vision. He tried to struggle from underneath her, but his body now felt very weak. He lifted his left arm to attempt a punch, but he couldn’t complete the swing. His arm fell limp against the floor. 

Carrie tittered.

“Komodo venom takes away muscle control, which is why you couldn’t hit me. It’s also an anti-coagulate. Do you know what that means?”

She dipped a finger into the thick rivulets of blood pouring from his chest and painted a crude smile on his lips. 

“It means you can bleed to death because your blood won’t clot, dipshit.”

“P-p-please, I’ll do anything you want, I’ll apologize. I apologize! J-just don’t let me d-die,” he muttered as the venom increased its hold. He felt his lungs laboring to breathe now as warmth spread from his groin. Piss.

She punched him in the jaw this time and knocked his head to the side, sending a thick line of spittle into the air. He strained to focus his vision on what was under the couch.

Several pairs of men’s shoes sat beneath the couch. Elliott started crying as his wheezing increased.

Her eyes followed his fearful gaze. 

Lucky pranced over and started lapping at the blood pooling on the floor.

“Don’t act like you’re surprised. I’ve noticed you standing outside my building. You’re a sick little twat, buster. Just be happy you’ll be able to feed my cat for months. Now, I need to get to work on you before you lose consciousness.” 

She tugged his jeans down, tore his boxers off, and guided the blade to his now flaccid penis. She yanked it and started sawing to the sound of the cat’s purring.

Meant to Last

The night ends the way it always ends. A pickup truck’s headlights backlighting three men. They wield a baseball bat, fists, boots, a tire iron. It gets harder and harder for me to see through a haze of blood, splinters, and tears. 

I know I am dying, even as I know soon, I will live again. 

***

You’d think that if you had to repeat the same day over and over, at least it would be a day you didn’t sleep in. Nope. I don’t even get ten hours of consciousness in the loop. My alarm goes off on my shitty Cricket phone, and it’s half past two in a grimy room that reeks of ditch weed and cum. 

This day used to be decades ago. I don’t know why this started. I woke up on a day I’d mostly forgotten. This time of my life was lost in a void.

An argument in the next room. The same one I’ve heard thousands of times. My boyfriend’s voice louder, petulant. “They loved me at the interview, I just failed the piss test.”

His father’s voice fills in every gap, lightly accented, and raspy from hand-rolled cigarettes. “I give you almost every dollar I have, I sleep on the couch so you can have a place to stay…for what? You said you could pass the test.”

Of course, he blames me. “He didn’t pick me up on time. I was sweating buckets. I drank a fucking drink, okay, that was going to get my piss clean. But this dipshit had to take a late lunch and the drink went nowhere except my fucking pit stains, okay?”

His dad doesn’t blame me, but doesn’t defend me either. He puts up with me. He hopes that I am going to realize I am a woman and make my boyfriend into a normal man, with a wife and kids and a real job on the horizon.

Sometimes I engage them, join the argument or try to break it up. Most times I don’t. Nothing I say seems to make a dent.

I shrug and put on clean clothes, although they’re contaminated by my unwashed skin. I slept in my binder—I knew I shouldn’t, but some days back then, it was the only thing that made me feel safe. Sometimes I even wore my steel-toed boots to bed. My wardrobe, stuffed in a backpack, is loose-fitting and drab. The kind of clothes that fade well into a corner while my boyfriend’s dealer (and sometimes roommate) works up to hitting his boyfriend. My hair is dramatic, though: layers of bruise colors, from fresh to faded. Enough piercings in my face to delay an MRI. The days I brave the bathroom, I love to stare at my fresh young face.

Grabbing my keys and wallet hidden in the closet makes me grimace as I raise my arm, thinking longingly of my deodorant trapped in the bathroom; might as well be in Siberia, I don’t want to walk past them to get there. And in Tucson, deodorant never lasts long anyway.

Hand on the doorknob, listening for the right lull. I manage to hustle out with a mumble, and without a glance behind me. I need to break through.

***

In this dilapidated landmark tower, now low-income senior housing, I might be the youngest person. In my future, the building becomes something different, luxury condos, office space, something with a lot of steel and windows. In the future, I won’t make it back to Tucson much, but I’ll look for it every time.

My boyfriend lives with his surprisingly-old father—or maybe not that surprising, now that I have processed how much older my boyfriend is than I was. Back in the 90s, “legal” was all that mattered, and he waited until my 18th birthday had passed so I was no longer “jailbait.” Remember, this was the time of websites that counted down until underage actresses would be legal to fuck. The ball dropping in the Times Square of Natalie Portman’s presumptive virginity being up for grabs by schlubs on Geocities.

A rotating crew of one or two other queer men stay with him on the twin mattresses lined up on the floor; no sheets, no pillowcases, just layers of stiff blankets we hide under when we want to fuck. 

Yes, I am one of those squalidly-surviving men who don’t officially live anywhere. My boyfriend is not allowed to live in the building; by extension, I am so unwelcome in the building that I was never sure if it was the last time I’d be able to sign myself in. 

I sign out, this time, every time, to an eye-roll.

I jiggle my car door and ease it up a breaking hinge to get in. It doesn’t lock anymore, but it’s never been stolen. It never will be stolen, if the future unrolls in the expected way. The tape deck will be stolen out of it in a few years, but, well…it is just a tape deck. Not even a CD player. This is a little while before iPods, but a long while after CDs. I work at a used record store; the CDs aren’t even shiny anymore, usually. When someone sells us a pristine CD, I feel like I can see into their future, and it involves escaping Tucson and at last, ironically, being able to afford air conditioning.

I stop and get a sandwich on the way to work. That’s about a third of my $14 for the day. Take it to eat in the midtown park’s recently-repaved parking lot. I could sit at a picnic table, but that’s even hotter than my car. I have a half-full water bottle from yesterday in my cup holder. Drinking plasticky water the temperature of tea really takes me back.

I chuck my sandwich wrapper on the floor of the passenger side, because why not, and go check my email at the library tucked in the corner of the park, a hidden oasis. Somewhere to cool off for approximately 45 minutes, although sometimes I let myself be late to work. (Why not?)

The first time I lived this day, I was still a reader, despite the haze of pot and abuse. Since the loop began, I usually borrow something ambitious that I’d never quite been ready to face over the years. I’m almost at the end of Empire of the Senseless, dipping in throughout my work shift and meal break. I feel a little guilty, borrowing books that I will never return. Will those books go missing in some kind of library of the multiverse? Or does my death transport them back onto this exact shelf, crisp and ready to get me through the next ever-darkening evening?

The ironic part of this errand is that I could check my email at “home,” but my boyfriend is always logged in to a slightly-less-expensive knockoff of World of Warcraft. I’m not allowed to touch his computer. He sits there as the hours redden his eyes, hunched over the keyboard, smoking, scowling, drinking two-liters of Dr. Pepper right out of the bottle. How he hasn’t died by the time I get to my future is amazing. I starved myself for years and will end up diabetic. He pumped his veins full of sludge and has a vibrant fucking life. He ended up, of course, with the lucrative job, lovely wife, and adorable baby. My deepest fears confirmed, that he did not think of me as a man at all, that he wanted to be what his father wanted him to be, that he really wanted a woman and everything easy and conventional, with hashtag “blessed” slathered all over.

Anyway, I check my email at the library most days, because I’ve noticed that sometimes, I get different messages. I always hope that this Nigerian prince or that limited-time offer will have a secret message from Bill Murray, or Natasha Lyonne at least. Never happens. And nothing from my friends or family. My boyfriend has driven everyone away, although I didn’t see it like that, the first time I lived this day. The first time, it was unremarkable that no one was writing me back, that my inbox was barren, full of automated messages and notifications. Every time I relive this day, though, it gets a little bleaker. 

I get to work, and I could tell you about how the afternoon and evening goes. The 41 different customers and which CDs they buy (among other items, including hair dye, lascivious stickers, and DVDs, a format just coming into its prime, and never quite replaced by Blu-Ray as expected). What my coworkers chat about. The store manager stinking up the bathroom in the back of the store by the time clock where I punch in. The incense the assistant manager lights to drown out the smell. The endcap I create out of posters for an album (I’ve created everything from a crooked poster stapled bare onto the wood framing a tray of CDs, leaning into the punk, anti-capitalist aesthetic, to an assemblage of caution tape and layers of jagged, feathered posters threatening to take over the whole aisle. It’s oddly soothing work). The music my coworkers put on; eventually, I get a turn to put something on. This is another detail that shifts with each loop: it seems to vary based on subtle interactions throughout the day; if I play a bright, poppy CD, that might change the decision my goth coworker makes an hour later, to spite me. If I chat about a movie, someone might put on its soundtrack. The assistant manager puts on “Closing Time” at the end of the night, every night—not just this endlessly repeating night; it was his schtick. 

I don’t think any of those things matter as far as why the day is repeating, or how to break the cycle. I’ve really tried every kind of interaction I could think of. 

I’ve tried calling in sick, but my boyfriend has always kicked me out to end up somewhere on the streets of Tucson with a broken-down car, and of course, the truck finds me.

I’ve tried leaving work early, but my shitty car doesn’t start. I can call my boyfriend, on his landline, because during this entire four to midnight shift, he never seems to leave his dad’s apartment. He always says he’ll pick me up. But never shows, or at least, not before the day’s over and I die and live again. I’ve tried calling my dad, AAA, whatever. Only one tow company ever picks up, and they don’t have any availability until it’s too late, and my dad does usually answer, but always says he can’t talk right now, try back later after work; when I do that, it goes straight to voicemail. 

There is no version of this that ends up with me able to get out of the parking lot before ten after midnight. Except on foot, and I know how that goes.

I’ve tried walking every direction, away from everywhere I went during that day. Just walking and sweating in the Arizona sun, cooling off a little after dark, but not much. Finding places to hide. Overheated and hunted. Most storefronts mysteriously closed. Nowhere that stays open late enough. Even the 24-hour Albertsons and Circle K are closed for floor cleaning that night. According to the hand-scrawled note on the door, at least; the disturbing fact that both appear to be written in the same handwriting has not escaped me. 

Every day, I make it until a little after midnight, and then they find me.

I always have $14 when I wake up, cash; no credit card, and my debit card is overdrawn. Just like the financially abusive situation with my boyfriend’s dad, most of my income goes to him too. Not just today; throughout our whole relationship. When we will end up getting kicked out of his dad’s place, I will pay most of the rent. When I will luck into a free two-week vacation, I have to go with about $40 to my name because he needed money to buy a wolf pup, I shit you not. 

$14 goes further in the past. It’s enough to buy me a couple meals, or take the city bus anywhere, or theoretically a short jaunt on the Greyhound or the Amtrak. But if I can make it downtown to the station, they have mysteriously closed up, even though the buses are supposed to run all hours and the first train would be at 4 a.m. 

I’ve tried driving, just cruising past my work instead of pulling into the doomed parking lot, but my engine always gives out at some point before sunset, and I’ve never gotten far. At least, not far enough. 

And then there’s hitchhiking. No one picks me up. I feel like a ghost. I think anyone I hadn’t really interacted with that day can’t even see me, and that I can’t go anywhere I didn’t go that day, either. I still don’t understand the rules, though. Maybe it’s nightmare rules.

I have called every number in my shitty Cricket phone, and it’s always a dead end, if they even pick up. Most of my “contacts” seem to barely remember me, or to pity me. I have even called a few numbers that I somehow remember from my future. No luck there, either; I’ve yet to find a thread that convinces them to save me, although certainly, my future friends and exes are a little intrigued by my promises of stock market fortunes and juicy gossip. Maybe eventually I’ll break through.

***

Today, I’ve decided to take a different tack. My remaining $9 after the sandwich is more than enough to buy a gas can and enough gasoline to do the trick. It would be enough to buy a lighter too, but there are plenty in the display case by the register that I can pocket. I choose a novelty one that says “fuck you, you fucking fuck.”

 In my past life, I never stole shit. Now, what does it matter? (To answer the obvious question about my limited funds, I have, on previous days, tried stealing from the register, and even, lowest of the low, from the charity box by the register where people drop in loose change on the honors system. I am always caught, detained by the assistant manager, made to perform a disgusting sexual favor, and then let go, no richer than I began. I wish I hadn’t tried this as many times as I have; I think I must be losing days off my future every time.)

I know the route their truck takes into the parking lot. They always stop in the same place, although of course, if I take off running in the other direction, they just catch me. But there’s a spot they will go, all things being equal. I take my meal break at around nine thirty. It’s dark and there’s only tweakers around. No one cares what I’m doing. 

I pour methodically, then stash the gas can back in the trunk. 

I head back into the record store, wiping my fingers on my ripped jeans. The metalhead couple leaning on the trade counter, antsy from withdrawal as they try to eke out a little cash, talk shit about me. “Look at his hair. Or is it a he/she?” Sometimes, I get an “It’s Pat!”

Tonight, if instead of buying gas, I’d gone to grab fast food at the only place that’s open, or open to me (and it’s always tempting; this young body can turn anything into fuel and beauty), I would have met the men in the pickup for the first time. For the first time this day. 

I did always keep a vague memory of this encounter; it had stuck with me, although whether the day had originally unfolded with a second encounter is lost to the mists of time. Obviously, I couldn’t have died from it, and I’m sure I’d remember even being threatened or injured. Queerbashing deaths were in the news all the time, back then. I was always very conscious of the risk of being seen.

The first time I met them, they were a looming threat. These guys have baseball bats, and have already started getting liquored up. There’s shouting, and swerving to follow me, but no beating happens, not then, not before midnight. 

It’s not that the future is less homophobic and transphobic, exactly, but it’s been startling to relive how overt it used to be. Even a fellow clerk who I literally will know in the future to be bisexual rolls her eyes and deems all kinds of annoyances “so gay.” 

The closing routine is odd. In the future, even in the near future, I’ll work at jobs that feel more like a family, and at night, we’ll make sure we get to each others’ cars safely, that everyone has a ride, that no one’s being followed. 

As I leave the record store, though, we have to examine each other’s bags after locking the door, standing on the sidewalk in front of the facade. Peering into tampons, chewing gum, dental floss, whatever detritus. This pageantry of people who are poor as fuck policing each other’s possible theft of an item that, at best, might help them afford lunch or an ounce. I rub my fingers over the stolen lighter in my pocket nervously, but of course, it’s just a bag check, not a pat-down. It’s no wonder that after that affront to our common humanity, we go our separate ways in silence. 

I’m parked towards the back of the lot. I liked it that way; if I wanted to eat or read on my break, I didn’t want the clerks who smoke outside to scrutinize my off-the-clock life. But that means everyone else is long gone before I try to start my car. 

I’ve tried changing this outcome. I’ve tried parking right up front. Asking for a ride. I’ve tried delaying someone for almost half an hour with dumb chitchat, everything. It never works out. I will never be so alone as I was during this time.

Anyway, I pull my shitty Cricket phone out of my bag, and pretend to make a call, leaning into its glow like a depressed anglerfish. I head towards my car, by way of that spot in the parking lot. With my other hand, I grip the lighter. 

A little sweat. I don’t know why. If I fumble this, I can always try again. I hope that’s true. Or maybe I don’t.

And here comes the truck, on cue. 

Their voices, even their words, are identical to the moments before all the other deaths etched into my memory. The amount of accumulated trauma must be incalculably high. I don’t know how I will come back from this, even if I can get it to end.

But now, a flick, and the lighter doesn’t catch. 

And then it does, a wavering flame, and I throw it, assuming that it’ll go out or I’ll miss the gas slick trap I’d laid. 

A miraculous fireball envelops the truck. It’s their turn to scream. 

I don’t take long to relish it. I need to book it, before the nightmare can continue with, fuck knows. Them somehow surviving unscathed? A different truckload of assholes?

On a whim, I dive into my car instead of fleeing on foot as planned.

The door swings smooth, like my car is young and vibrant and full of life. And this time, it starts. I make it past the intersection of Oracle Road and Miracle Mile. Yes, those are the real names, because in Tucson, a good omen is always waiting on the same corner as sex workers and drug dealers. 

I get to the freeway, still occasionally glancing in my rearview, not quite believing it worked, and finally relax enough to focus on the gas gauge. Half a tank plus my last couple of dollars might get me out of this state. I regret getting lunch. If I have to turn a trick, at least it won’t be in Tucson, and it won’t be to placate the greasy assistant manager for a fistful of twenties I have to give back anyway.

I listen to Nine Inch Nails; Broken is in my tape deck, and I don’t change the cassette all the way down I-10. It’s only an EP, so it must end and begin a lot of times. Sometimes I go back and listen to a song over and over. I guess I got in the habit.

 I pull over in Yuma for a quick nap.

I don’t know if I will wake up back in my comfortable bed, with my girlfriend’s good morning sunshine emoji dancing on my iPhone, or if I will be back in this time again for good, in my shitty car in Yuma scrounging for spare change melded to the cupholder with congealed soda droplets. 

I don’t know how hard it will be to survive. But I know I’ll get through it. I know that I will return. I have broken through.

Two Stops ‘til Daylight

Jeremy stands at the edge of the yellow ‘Do Not Cross’ line listening to the rattling metallic screech echo in the tunnel. He shuffles backward and looks beyond the platform watching the lights come closer until the train roars past. It shrieks to a halt. Two tones reverberate off the subterranean walls followed by an electronic voice.

“Doors opening.”

Like an ocean tide, the passengers flow in and out of the train car. Jeremy steps through the sliding doors and the voice chimes once more.

“Doors closing.”

The train lurches forward immediately. Jeremy sighs after catching himself on a rubber handhold that hangs from the ceiling. He looks around the car thinking about the strangers he recognizes on his morning commute. He nods to the familiar faces he makes eye contact with, occasionally getting a greeting in return. More often than not, Jeremy is ignored. They are too caught up in their morning routines and sleepy stupor. Like the middle-aged gentleman juggling a thermos, a newspaper, and his cellphone, or the large woman with thinning brown hair and fading dye who chews her breakfast louder than the train runs.

Jeremy glances out of the window at the bleak tunnel walls. He thinks of the other sleepy faces around him. The occasional light bulb whirring past and distracting him from both the familiar and unfamiliar.

He reminds himself beneath his breath. “Two stops ‘til daylight.”

The train’s professional voice sounds off once more, cutting though the uncomfortable morning silence. “Approaching Clarke and Division. Next stop: North and Clybourne.”

A Sikh man bounces onto the train offering all who meet his gaze with a bright smile. After another exchange of passengers, the train surges forward once more. Jeremy closes his eyes after returning a smile and reminds himself.

“One stop ‘til daylight.”

Jeremy forces a low, airy laugh. He finds humor in a wandering thought regarding his morning ritual. It reminds him of turning on the light in a dark room. He closes his eyes to prepare for the onslaught of sudden illumination. The light shines through his closed eyelids. His pupils adjust. Jeremy feels silly. He had already walked through the morning light to get to the train station. The train itself has several fluorescents lighting up the cars. What makes the sun’s light different? Is it the reflective magnification off the city windows? Jeremy plays with different reasons, but none feel like a proper answer.

He shrugs his thoughts away and continues to observe his fellow commuters. He wonders how the pink haired woman with the side cut and dark lipstick reads her novel while squeezed between the loud chewer and a smartly dressed but dazed looking businessman.

The train stops and its voice informs, “This is North and Clybourne. Exit through the doors on the right. Fullerton is next.”

The doors thud open, and the car becomes emptier. The businessman rushes out pushing past a homeless man as he enters. The vagrant looks at Jeremy and smiles. Some of his teeth are missing but his eyes are bright.

“G’ morning, Jeremy, my boy!” 

Jeremy returns a smile. “Good morning, Hughie.”

“Doors closing.” The train launches and repeats itself. “Fullerton is next. Transfer to the purple and brown lines at Fullertron.”

Hughie points to his eyes. “Daylight’s a-comin’! Better close dem eyes before the sun burns ‘em out!” He chuckles and turns away to find his way to the back of the train car.

Jeremy smiles at Hughie. He closes his eyes still wondering what he shields them from. The sudden shift in light? Is it a simple game he plays with himself? Is he thinking too much about a completely normal thing?

The train rattles and screeches. Jeremy sways with the train car, lightly correcting himself with the plastic handhold hanging from the ceiling. The sun’s warmth is sudden and even through his closed eyes, he winces. There is both pleasure in the sun’s warmth and discomfort in his eyes as his pupils adjust. The sound of the train no longer echoes; it makes him feel as though the train is floating away like an object released into space.

The train slows, and the momentum makes him swing forward. The train’s automated voice calls out. “This is Fullerton. Switch to the brown and purple lines at Fullerton.”

Jeremy sighs and the doors crank open. He can feel the bodies shift in and out like the air in his lungs. The sunlight shines through the skin and blood making a find crimson beneath his eyelids. The train calls out to the passengers. “Doors closing. Next stop: Belmont. Switch to brown and purple lines at Belmont.” The doors close rapidly, and the train lurches forward.

Jeremy’s eyes flutter open. He blinks at the rising glass buildings reflecting the sunlight. He looks over the familiar commuter faces and notes that Hughie is gone. There is one new face with olive skin and curly black hair. She is looking at her phone wearing a smile that shines with more light than the sun itself. Her eyes are hazel trimmed with golden flakes. She is radiant. She is a flashbang grenade stealing Jeremy’s sight and sucking the oxygen from his chest. Everything feels like that picture perfect movie moment. Two people see each other. Time slows down. Love at first sight.

Jeremy watches her for a moment. Wondering if it is appropriate to move over and talk to her. He decides against it. Who would want someone hitting on them at six-thirty in the morning? He averts his gaze outside and is taken aback by the sight.

Three birds, a robin and two finches, are frozen in mid-flight next to the window. The train is no longer moving. Nothing is moving. The trees outside are frozen in their dance with the wind. The vehicles and pedestrians on the streets and sidewalks all paused in their movements.

Jeremy looks at all the passengers in the train car. The middle-aged man’s thermos is falling from his hands. The liquid spills over the side, while his phone seems like it’s levitating away. There is a woman holding her phone to her face. Her mouth contorted in the middle of the conversation that she was having. 

“No. This can’t be happening. What is even happening?” Jeremy regurgitates the skepticism. He slides to the spilling thermos. He takes it from the man frozen in time and flips the thermos upside down. 

Nothing falls out.

He releases the container.

It does not fall.

Jeremy screams at the man’s face. No reaction. He pinches the man’s arm. No reaction. Jeremy pinches his own arm thinking of the classic trope that you can wake yourself from a nightmare with a little pain. His fingernails slice his skin. Nothing happens.

“I’m not asleep.” The words drip from his lips. Shocked tears fall from his wide-open eyes.

He lets fear take him like the high tide waiting to breathe calmly. When the fear subsides like the low tide, he looks at her. How the sunlight is fixed on her motionless frame. Her brilliant beaming is comforting and intoxicating. It makes him feel safe.

Jeremy blinks hard as if it will reset his malfunctioning brain. His thoughts race. He must be asleep. Perhaps, he is stuck in a bout of sleep paralysis on the train. Yes! He thinks to himself. That must be it! He sits and leans back in the seat growing lightheaded. The edge of his vision becomes static, tunneling into the center. Jeremy tries to control his breathing. He opens his eyes, and he immediately looks at her. 

“Is it you?” He whispers to himself, looking at her hair like black fire in the morning light. He shakes his head. “No. That doesn’t make sense.” Jeremy tries to tear his eyes away, but his gaze is pulled back. He shuts his eyes hard, stands, and turns away from her.

He looks at the floating coffee, like a liquid in space. He dabs his finger in it and licks it. A thought crosses his mind, and he grabs his phone from his pocket. Jeremy clicks the lock button, and the screen remains dark. He sighs and looks at his reflection. The man stuck in time gently tosses the phone upward, expecting it to stay suspended like the coffee. It falls to the floor shattering the screen. He sighs again. 

“How long?” He wonders out loud. “How long will it be this way?”

***

Jeremy’s stomach growls painfully. He scratches his long, grey beard then sniffs the grime that burrows beneath his fingernails. His nose scrunches. Jeremy lifts his fingers to his eyes. 

“Time doesn’t exist.” His voice wavers. He cannot tell if he is thinking the words or saying them. “This is proof. I am proof. Dinosaurs. Did time exist then? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. The asteroid. Did it end time? Or did it begin time? Begin. Yes. Because I knew time. Before this. Before the train. The train. It is my asteroid. This train is the asteroid that broke time.” Jeremy’s sunken bloodshot eyes flick toward the radiant woman. She looks like a religious statue carved from the most precious material. “Or is it you? Maybe. Perhaps. Mayhaps.” He hums thoughtfully laying his head down on a pile of clothes he gathered from the other commuters. 

“No. No. No! Wrong! Maybe time is not broken! This is limbo! Purgatory! My damning punishment! If punishment, then this must be hell!”

Jeremy laughs. Hysterical hot tears clean the dirt from his wrinkled face.

He stops and leaps up onto all fours. The birds. He crawls over to the window and presses his face against it. “Maybe this train went off the rails. This is the moment before I died. I am stuck here. Yes. YES! I did not believe in God or any religion! The universe doesn’t know what to do with me! So, I am here! Suspended in time! Yes!” He bares his yellow rotting teeth.

Jeremy’s attention snaps to the coffee man. He grabs the rubber handholds and pulls himself to the man. He crouches lowering himself to be eye-level with the man.

“What do you think, Stefan?” He cocks his head waiting for an answer.

Jeremy nods in agreement. “Yes. I understand. We don’t speak enough for you to want to answer. I apologized for that incident. I just wanted to know your name! The others didn’t mind that I looked at their IDs! It felt improper to call you Thermos Guy! Still, I think I know what you would say. You would agree with me.” Jeremy stands tall and turns to all the other commuters. “You all would agree with me!”

Jeremy sees the man’s phone in his breast pocket. He had not noticed it before. He falls onto his knees and inches forward. His fingers grab it carefully. Jeremy’s stomach drops at the sight of his reflection. His skin is wrinkled and covered in liver spots. His eyes are desperate beads in sunken sockets. His hair is long, thin, and greasy. His beard is unruly and reaches down to his belly button.

“I am my own demon.” He snarls at himself, horrified further by his decaying teeth and infected gums. He throws the phone to the side and looks at her radiance. His voice croaks with lucidity. “I am slipping! I’ve felt it for so long now. How long have I been this way? Have I always been this way? You are my only constant, yet I do not know your name.” He gestures to Stefan and the other commuters. “They have all told me their names. I-I learned what I could about my neighbors. I’ve grown to love them. They are my friends. They’ve brought me solace in this time!” 

He almost loses this sudden clarity when he says time. A smile cracks onto his face then slips away.

Jeremy grabs two metal poles and reels himself closer to the radiant. “I’ve refrained from learning about you. I stopped myself. I don’t want to disrespect you. I don’t want to invade your privacy.” His lips curl into a frustrated sneer. “We could be friends! Like Stefan and I! He shares his coffee with me! Imagine what we could share! Imagine the conversation! I need to know your name! I need to know who you are!” Spittle sprays from his mouth. He breathes rapidly and steps forward hesitating as his hand reaches for the purse hanging from her arm. He reaches in and feels until he grabs a wallet. Relief floods his veins as he pulls it out. 

The train rattles and screeches as it brakes. The sudden shift in momentum throws Jeremy down. He lands on his back. Shocked faces and voices stare at him. They plug their noses, while he grasps the radiant woman’s wallet. His chest is tight with confusion.

“What the hell is wrong with you!” The radiant woman comes into view and snatches her wallet back. 

Everything, everyone is loud now. All his friends are yelling at him. They are forcing him off the train. He stumbles off. He falls and the pavement cuts his palms and knees. Jeremy feels so weak, like the life has been drained from him. He hears the train chime and announce its next stop.

Jeremy looks at the train car. All his timeless friends stare at him. They look confused, but he did not care about them. His eyes are on her. She is smiling at him!

Jeremy smiles back. Despite that he cannot breathe. Despite the pulsating pain in his chest. That smile is enough to give him energy to fight back the pain and difficulty breathing. He stands. He descends the stairs and exits the train station. Turning into an alley, he sits against a brick wall. He looks at himself in a puddle. Old. Withered. Laughing. The energy fades. The pain returns. His breathing is difficult once again.

Jeremy’s eyes close, and he thinks of her radiance. He smiles weakly ignoring the discomfort.

His voice is hoarse. “She is warmer than the sun.” A final breath croaks outward, as if squeezed from a rusted tin can. 

Date Night

I ignored the plain white envelope sitting on my desk. If it was urgent, someone would have visited my office by now. I would have gotten an email label “urgent” and been instructed to look at it. It wasn’t until the end of my workday that I bothered to see what it was about. 

As soon as I opened it, I breathed a sigh of relief as a few flower petals fell out of the envelope. It wasn’t work related, and after the day I had, I was glad about that.

I opened the note. A few more flower petals landed on my desk. It was from Chelsea. We moved in together recently, but it was a busy time at work. I hadn’t been home much. 

Peter,

I can’t wait to see you tonight. If you come home early, I have a few surprises in store. Call me if you’re going to be late. 

Chelsea

I looked at my watch. If I left the office right then, I wouldn’t have been too late, but I wanted to let her know that I was leaving anyway, just in case her surprises weren’t ready yet.

I called. I texted. No answer. 

I didn’t think much of it. Chelsea was always leaving her phone on silent and forgetting it in random places. Sometimes she would go for two days without noticing. She wasn’t tied to the screen like I was. 

I managed to sneak away from the office and get in my car. There, I found a note on my steering wheel. “Check the trunk,” it said. At that point, I did think it was strange that she managed to get a note in my car without me knowing. I didn’t even know she had my spare keys.

I popped open the trunk and found inside a nice suit. I didn’t know if I should put it on before arriving home. I didn’t want my boss to see me and find more work for me to do, so I put the suit in the passenger seat and drove home. 

All the traffic lights worked in my favor to get home earlier than I expected. I took a second to take in the view from my driveway before I entered. It was a lovely little house, and it was all ours. 

I had the suit in hand as I opened the front door. I was waiting for Chelsea to run to me and shower me with kisses, but she wasn’t there. “Chelsea?” I called out halfheartedly. No answer. 

I noticed another note on a still unopened stack of boxes by the coffee table. It didn’t have flourishes of love and desire. It simply said: “put on the suit.” 

I didn’t know what Chelsea had planned, so I stripped down right there in the living room, hurrying to put on the suit so that I could get to the next step of her little love game. 

“Chelsea?” I called out again. “I have the suit on.” I heard a faint thud above me. It didn’t sound like it had come from the second floor, but higher. The roof, perhaps? Or maybe the attic. I hadn’t explored it yet. The former owners could have left it full of junk for all I knew.

I made my way from the living room into the kitchen. Chelsea had left something cooking in a big soup pot on the stove. It was bubbling away. What was emanating from it was a strange smell, not at all like the homemade chicken soup Chelsea’s mother had taught her to make. That would have been a delicious combination of broth and vegetables. Instead, the kitchen smelled like—what was it?—boiled meat. But not chicken. I walked over to the stove, about ready to take the lid off and see what exactly it was, but something caught my eye. Scatter’s collar was sitting on the counter. Scatter was our cat. He was a mischievous little thing, always finding ways to get into trouble, but he was never without his collar. 

As I felt the nylon collar between my fingers, hearing the slight jingle of his tags as I picked it up. It had to be a joke. Just a sick joke. But that wasn’t like Chelsea. She was sweet. She never went out of her way to scare or hurt anyone. 

“Ha, ha,” I deadpanned. “You cooked the cat. Really funny joke. You got me.” Another thud from above, but this time, I saw something drop into the backyard. Instead of investigating the soup pot further, I walked slowly outside to see what had dropped on the ground. 

It was another white envelope. I opened it, hoping that this was the last step and Chelsea would pop out to scare me. Maybe some of my friends had talked her into it, and they were hiding somewhere in the house, too. It had to be a prank. There was no other explanation… 

Peter,

I’ve been waiting all day. Come upstairs. I promise you won’t regret it. 

Kisses, 

Chelsea

This was getting to be ridiculous. I looked up to see where the note came from. There was a small attic window above me. There was also our bedroom window just below that. I sighed. This was going to end now. It wasn’t funny anymore. 

“Chelsea!” I yelled as I stomped back in the house. “This is stupid! I’m coming upstairs!” I took the steps two at a time, not to get up there quicker, but to make my presence known. I was the man of the house. No one was going to toy with me like this. Not even my girlfriend. 

“Chelsea!” I screamed in the hall.

Thud. Thud. 

The sound was still above me. I glanced into our bedroom, and nothing looked out of place. The mattress was still on the floor because I hadn’t had time to build the frame. Boxes were still being used as nightstands. I stepped in, and I noticed as I came around the corner that the closet was in shambles. Chelsea had neatly unpacked our clothes and had already set up the closet. Everything that was on hangers now covered the floor. Boxes half unpacked were turned over, childhood memories and gifted heirlooms from our families scattered. 

I looked up. The attic access was open. There was no ladder, and I wasn’t quite tall enough to reach it on my own. I looked around. The step ladder was back in the corner of the closet, turned on its side. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. I didn’t know what I was going to find in the attic, but whatever it was, it couldn’t have been Chelsea.

I sucked up my fear and grabbed the stepladder. I took the first step. Then the second. By the top step, my head was fully in the attic space. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I couldn’t see anything at first. If Chelsea had set this up as a prank, now would have been the time for her to jump out. I waited a second. And another. Everything was quiet and still. I pulled myself up fully into the attic and stood. There was really nothing in the space. I couldn’t stand up all the way because there was quite enough headroom for me. 

A creak came from behind. I turned around and there, in the far corner, was Chelsea. But she wasn’t there to scare me. Instead, she was tied up to an old chair. Tears streamed silently down her face over one of her silk scarves she often tied around her neck in the spring. Instead, it was tied tightly around her mouth. I started to walk over to her, but I was hit in the back of the head. 

Disoriented, I turned around. I didn’t see anyone at first, but my vision is blurred. There could have been someone, maybe someone small, over in the shadows just past the window. I don’t know whether to continue trying to help Chelsea, or to go after the invisible threat.

I hesitated for a moment too long. What came out of the shadows was not a ghost or a monster—it was my ex-girlfriend.

Tracy and I hadn’t ended our relationship on good terms, but I hadn’t heard from her since the day we had broken up, months before I met Chelsea. What could Tracy possibly want from me now? 

I didn’t have time to ask. She took another swing at me with something that she had in her hand. I couldn’t see what it was, but it created a horrible thud against my skull. Before I could get my bearings, I was pushed down out of the attic. I fell and knocked over the stepladder. Somehow, Tracy scrambled down and stepped over me to get out of the attic. She was a small woman. I didn’t remember her having that kind of strength. 

I needed to get up. I had to get Chelsea out of the attic. But before I could get up, I smelled something. It wasn’t the smell from the kitchen. It was closer, and much more dangerous. Something was on fire. The flames were above me. I could see the orange glow through the attic access. 

I wanted to be the big hero. I wanted to walk through those flames to get to Chelsea and save her. Instead, I passed out.

***

“Right now, she’s not in any pain,” the nurse assured me. I was dressed up in protective gear sitting next to Chelsea’s hospital bed. The first responders were able to get me out of the house with only a little smoke inhalation, but Chelsea wasn’t so lucky. Burns covered half of her body, and she was heavily sedated to prevent her from crying in pain. 

The nurse gently touched my shoulder. I smiled, but she couldn’t see it through my mask. “Maybe you need a break. Go get some coffee.” I didn’t want to leave Chelsea’s side, but a break sounded good. 

I had coffee. I checked emails. I gave Chelsea’s family an update, even though there was no changes to report. I dreaded going back up there, watching her suffer like that, but it was the only thing that I could do. I told the police everything about Tracy and what happened that day. They took my version with a grain of salt due to my head injury. The officials inspecting the fire found bad wiring in the attic. They said Tracy had never been near our house. She moved to Europe two years ago, according to her family. The police were still following up on that, but they assured me she was no threat. 

Back in Chelsea’s room, I was hit with the smell of roses—the same flower petals that had been in the note that day. I knew that white envelope I spotted lying on the pillow next to her was out of place. I hesitated to grab it, but it was addressed to me. I opened it, but I didn’t want to read it. I already knew it was bad news. 

Peter,

I can’t wait for our date tonight. It’s been so long. I have so much to tell you. 

I’ll make sure nothing gets in our way this time. 

Love,

Tracy