afterlife

People don't seem to care too much that that librarian is dead. I didn't even know her name, but for some reason, I can feel her absence. There's that feeling that someone I might have seen on the street and nodded at is gone forever and I never even knew her. I saw her photo in the paper today. She was surrounded by cats. Fat cats that obviously loved her just as much as she loved them. And she looked happy.

I joined the crowd watching them bring her body out of the burnt library, the library that I never visited. I told Alex not to look and I thought to myself don't look don't look, but I looked. We both looked. I held Alex's hand because she let me and we watched the last bits of smoke rise from the library and into the sky.

armageddon

I was out for a walk when the end of the world began. I'd always feared this. I even had an emergency backpack filled with supplies in my closet back home. I hadn't had a place for it in my dorm room and I haven't been home since I moved here. For once, I honestly didn't think I'd need it. But it's always the moment when you really need something that you don't have it. It's a cosmic rule.

It seemed like flames erupted from the ground all round me. I was trapped in a circle of fire. I fell to my knees on the concrete and covered my head. People ran around me. Peeking out from behind my fingers, I saw the prostitutes from the antique shop across the street feeding the flames, their cheap, faux silk bathrobes fluttering in the breeze. Their faces frozen and stained like snarling African masks.

I moaned. A body lay a short distance away from me. I didn't know if he was alive or not. It didn't look like he was breathing. But I told myself that that was just the shimmering heat of the fire that made it hard to tell. It was just the ashes in the air that made my eyes water.

Someone was pulling me up by my underarms. "Come on!" Alex screamed in my ear. It was just the the sound of breaking glass that made her voice sound so far away. She hoisted me up and slung my arm over her shoulders. I told her she was strong, but I don't think she heard me because she didn't say anything, just hauled me away one step at a time.

"I told you it was coming!" a man streaked by screaming. He looked right at me. "Didn't I tell you?" I nodded, but I had no idea who he was or what he'd told me, if he'd told me anything at all. Something wet and warm was dripping down my neck. I could feel it slipping down into the collar of my shirt.

"Come on," Alex said again and I tried to help her help me.

And then suddenly, we were in the middle of a street - some street that no longer resembled a street - and every one was moving by so fast except for three people standing facing each other. In the light from the burning piece of wood one of them held, I could see their faces. Mr. Day held the torch. He was screaming words and thrusting at Ethan with the fire. Ethan stood in front of him, flinching a little each time the flame came closer to his skin. Beside Ethan, standing like she was all alone in the world, was that repair woman Ethan had told me not to trust, Edna. She looked up at me and then at Ethan. Her lips moved, but I couldn't hear her.

Maybe I'd gone deaf. Maybe that was blood leaking from my busted eardrums. Maybe I couldn't read lips as well as I thought I could. Maybe she didn't say, "vampire."

burning

Ethan easily unlocked the roof: he ripped the knob right out of the door. He shook his head and squeezed the hunk of cheap metal in his hand until it no longer resembled a doorknob, but a twisted piece of wreckage. It fell to the gravel with a chink. Ethan laughed out loud. "Come get me," he said. He walked to the edge and sat down. His bare feet scraped the brick.

Mercutio poked his head out of Ethan's pocket. His nose twitched. His whiskers gleamed in a flash of lightning. A fat drop of rain plopped on his furry head, right between his ears, and the mouse ducked back down into the safety of Ethan's pocket. Ethan laughed again.

"I know who you are," Edna said quietly from the doorway.

Ethan didn't flinch. He knew she'd been there all along. "I know."

"I know what you are." She took a step out onto the roof. Ethan heard her hand tightening on the door. She didn't want to let go but was compelled closer.

"I know," he said again.

Somewhere below, a fire was burning. Ethan could smell the smoke, feel the heat on his sensitive skin, the embers brushing against his face. A piece of paper floated up and landed on the ledge next to his hand. - boy could make out nothing of his face now, and something about the still figure there distracted him. He started to say something again but - That was all the little bit of paper said. Ethan snatched it up before the wind could carry it away again. The paper crumbled to dust in his fingers. "Come here," he said to Edna.

She came. Slowly, her feet leaving heavy impressions in the rocks. And then she was beside him. Smoke stained her skin and made it greasy. The bruise on her eye shone. He didn't say anything, but she sat down beside him, her legs dangling like his, her heels against the building and her feet against the air.

"You are not afraid," Ethan said. Edna shook her head. "No," she affirmed in a whisper.

"Burn it to the ground," he said.

Her head turned to look at him. He didn't know what she saw, but her face became closed off, far away. It wasn't fear. It wasn't amazement. There was nothing there. The fire below reflected in her eyes. "Burn it to the ground," she repeated.

Ethan smiled. Really smiled. Did she see the fangs? Did she finally feel afraid? He held his hand out to her and she took it.

"I trust you," she murmured.

Ethan laughed. "You shouldn't."

heaven and earth

Ethan lunged suddenly for the door and opened it. Standing in the hallway was Mr. Day, the super. Ethan leaned against the door frame. "It's so good to see you again, Mr. Day," he drawled.

The other man was bed-sheet white. His eyes were beady and blank. His mouth moved, but no sound came out. Sweat formed on his neck where his skin met the collar of his shirt. "Ethan..." he breathed. "You... you..."

"Is there something wrong, Mr. Day?" I didn't like the way he said that. I shifted on the couch to get a better view of Ethan's face.

Silence. Heavy breathing. Sweat dropping. Fear leaking from his pores.

"What is this, Criss Angel Mindfreak?" Mr. Day said. His voice was whispery and dry, like dead leaves.

Ethan smiled. "Excuse me?"

"Am I being Punk'd or something?"

"I don't follow..."

There was a silence. I could hear Mr. Day's heartbeat across the room and his breath whistling from between his lips. And then Ethan shut the door and I couldn't hear anything.

---

It's really strange, the things I can remember. But I can't remember anything about that day after that moment. The door shut and boom - nothing. Something inside gnaws at my brain, telling me that remembering is important, but I can't seem to focus my thoughts. Everything turns into a grey blur and I can almost see something, if I just squint a little harder... And then I'm back where I started.

I'm walking, and when I walk, I keep a list of the things I bump into and the people whose paths across which I have strayed.

1. A man jogging - He looks tired. Tired from more than just constant movement. I smile at him and he salutes me. Why? He wears a Rob Schneider t-shirt and sweat stains proudly. An accomplishment.

2. An old woman riding a bike - Her grey hair is pinned up neatly. She looks very severe, but I have a sneaking suspicion it's just a front. She likes things the way she likes them and she doesn't take shit from anyone. I can see that in the weave of her cardigan. I hear her cry as she almost runs me down, "Sidewalks are for moving, not for dawdling!"

3. A girl in red boots - She has a notebook in one hand and a pencil in the other. Her red boots contrast nicely with the dirt beneath her feet. She doesn't look up as I pass by. She's writing. I wonder why she doesn't look up. I smiled, but she'd never know. I hope what she's doing is important, even if it's only important to her. That's a start.

4. A woman looking out her shop window - She holds a drink. A ferret curls around her neck. She's frowning as she watches the street, frowns as she sees me staring, then pretends not to notice. I think about how pretty she was once. I can tell. She still carries herself like she did when she was 20. All confidence and nothing to back it up except make-believe and hearsay. I like her, she's honest, but she doesn't realize it.

5. A girl sitting in a tree - She stares at the sky. Her skirt billows around her and she looks much too small for it. Her black hair is dirty and curly. She looks at me. "There's not much grass here," she says. I nod and tell her that I know. She breaks a hard piece of bread with her fingers and catches the crumbs in her skirt.

6. Alex - I see her sitting alone in Jorri Rae's, eating waffles and reading a book. When she glances up to look out the window, her hair reveals her face. She doesn't see me. Then she turns to the book again, hunching her shoulders over it like someone's going to take it. Her hair is like a curtain.

An armed truck blocks traffic. People are yelling and cursing, standing half in and half out of their cars. Like they all have somewhere really important to be. But no one does. Not here in this town. Once you arrive, you stay, no matter what you think. It grows on you, grows inside of you like a nasty mould. And you never get rid of it because it always comes full circle. I think after a few months, I've accepted that. I wonder how long it will take everyone else.

I hear whispered plans to blow up the truck, shoot the driver, and steal all the money. But no one does anything. There's nothing to do but scream and yell and sit and wait for traffic to move again.

A man sidles up to me. He smells like dust and stale air. His clothes are rags. His hands rub together once before he claps me on the shoulder. Like my dad used to do when I was younger and had done something right. I almost expected the man to say "I'm proud of you, son," but instead, he said, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio."

This guy gets it.

seven

Ethan sat on the roof. His feet dangled over the side of the building, bare heels scraping the brick. The people below at the carnival weren't quite ant-sized. Maybe, marble-sized. The rides looked like prehistoric insects, large and colourful. Ethan gripped the ledge with both hands and scooted forward. His teeth pinched the cigarette in his mouth and he grimaced. The smell of funnel cake and port-a-potty drifted by. He could taste it and he was glad he was already holding his breath.

The roof door opened and Day stepped onto the gravel. His boots crunched quietly. Ethan waited for the man to speak, and when he didn't, Ethan did.

"I see you got my note."

"What the hell is this?" Day asked.

"You didn't read the note? How rude."

"Of course I read the note!" Ethan could hear paper crumpling behind him as Day pulled the note from his pocket. "Come to the roof at sundown. There's something you should see," Day recited tersely. "So, what? What should I see, besides you trespassing on my roof? What I should do is call the cops!"

Ethan rose slowly and turned to face the other with his back to the city skyline. "Call them. Tell them you have another jumper." He smiled.

Day's face paled everywhere except for the two splotchy patches on his cheeks.

"Is this the third, fourth?"

"Seventh," Day whispered. He swallowed.

"Seven..." Ethan removed the cigarette from his mouth and tossed it over the side. He whistled and watched it's descent. "That's a pretty big number. One or two, they could have been depressed, touched in the head. Three, four, five, maybe even six, you can dismiss that. That's average for these parts. But seven? Someone's bound to get suspicious, don't you think?"

Day's mouth opened and shut. He looked like one of those goldfish they were giving out as prizes at the carnival. The kind of goldfish that only lives long enough for you to get home and put it in a bowl.

He cleared his throat. "I don't know what you're talking about." His feet shifted in the gravel.

Ethan's smile grew, but he didn't laugh, not yet. Instead, he touched his head and bowed deeply. As he stood, he raised his arms out to the sides and held his hands to the sky. "Goodbye, Mr. Day," he said as he tipped backwards and fell.

Day lunged for him, but it was too late. He fell to his knees and grabbed two fist-fulls of gravel. "Fuck!" he screamed. He waited for a crunch and a splatter. He waited for a scream of horror. And when neither came, he exhaled. The gravel sifted through his fingers. He smoothed his hair back, stood, and walked slowly to the open roof access door.

---

I don't know what made me leave my room, but I found myself exiting the building without remembering having gotten out of bed. I kept my eyes down as I walked. I couldn't look at the carnival; it reminded me of the other day, which reminded me of Alex, which reminded me that I was now officially broke, and that I'm just pathetic all around.

There were feathers on the ground. I stared at them and kicked at them as I walked. Where they had come from didn't bother me.

"What the hell, man?"

I looked up. I'd rounded the corner of the building and was in the back next to the dumpsters and cardboard houses that the homeless had erected. A dirty man stood with his hands to his head and a dog crouched beside him, barking. "What the hell?" he yelled again.

Ethan stood in a pile of mangled cardboard, holding his stomach and laughing. He looked up at the top of the building and held up both middle fingers.

"Laugh all you want, you bloody wanker, that's me house you're standing in!" The homeless man pointed feebly to the boxes under Ethan's feet. The dog growled and whined.

Ethan collected himself and reached in his pocket. "Here," he said separating a few dollars from a cigarette packet and handing them to the man before walking away, still smiling. He hadn't seen me watching.

There was a sniff from beside me and I jumped. My shoulder slammed into the side of a dumpster. A girl was standing next to me. In her hand she held a trumpet. "More fall from the sky every day," she remarked with a shrug.

I rubbed my shoulder. "Yeah... Strange..." I replied as I backed away.

I knew I should have stayed in bed.

secret keeping

The door to the roof was thrown open and a man stood silhouetted in the frame by the hallway light. A girl leaned on the wall behind him, chewing gum and twirling a set of keys on her finger. The man's mouth opened in a triumphant "aha!" and then snapped shut as he was greeted by darkness and the oily glow from the carnival lights down below.

"I thought you said he was up here."

Edna shrugged. "He was."

"What the hell was he doing this time?"

She shrugged again. "Couldn't tell."

Day groaned in frustration. "Next time you catch him up here, call me, don't leave to get me. Just wait up here and watch, make sure that little shit doesn't move... Got it?"

The girl nodded and popped her gum. Day slammed the door shut. Ethan could hear his heavy feet as he descended the steps, but Edna remained standing just behind the door. Waiting. Ethan could hear her breathing.

Ethan crouched on the ledge above the door. He took his bow out from underneath his arm and pulled it across the strings of his violin sharply. A wail rose in the night that blended perfectly with the screams from the riders of the tilt-a-whirl.

Ethan could hear Edna's smile from behind the door as she finally turned to leave. He knew she'd keep his secret, not out of a sense of duty or because she liked to torture Day with her knowledge. Because it was too good to share. Like Ethan, she liked to keep things to herself and think about them at night as she fell asleep, letting them swell up around her and cover her.

Ethan grinned and launched into Saraste's Zigeunerweisen, the tinkling carousel music as his accompaniment.

---

"Really, I don't mind. It was nice of you to try." Alex tucked the bear key-chain into her shirt pocket so its beady black eyes could peer out from over the top, mockingly. The stuffed elephant that I hadn't won watched our backs as we made a hasty departure from the booth.

I sighed and kicked a pebble. "Sorry my aim's not better."

She grinned. "I thought it was funny when you hit that guy in the arm."

"It was not!" I shouted. "He wanted to kill me! Did you see the size of his neck? It was wider than my torso!"

Alex shook her head. "I was too busy looking at the dart sticking out of his arm to notice his neck."

I kicked at a clump of grass sprouting out from a crack in the pavement. "There are those water gun things. I was always pretty good at shooting, well better than darts, anyway..."

Alex's eyes bulged and she swallowed audibly. "I don't think..."

"Don't be silly," I said, taking her hand and pulling her along with me, trying to ignore the fact that her fingers were squirming in mine. Am I doing something wrong? Should I let go? But I don't want her to think I don't want to hold her hand. I do. I just don't want to make her uncomfortable. Am I making her uncomfortable? Am I over thinking this? I know I'm over thinking this.

By the time I had made up my mind to drop her hand, we were already to the shooting booth, and it was her that pulled away from me. I turned to her as I reached into my pocket, pulled out my last five, and handed it to the guy in the booth. At least I'd already paid rent this month...

Alex was pale. Sweat shone on her face. She stared at the water guns. Her hands shook as she rubbed her shoulders and swayed on her feet like someone trying to keep their balance. "I have..." she croaked. "I have to go. I'm sorry," she whispered before running away.

I called after her, but she didn't come back.

"You gonna play?"

I frowned at the guy in the booth. "Can I just get my money back?"

He said nothing, just pointed to a sign on the wall beside the rack of prizes. No refunds.

I played and I lost and I went home empty handed.

a storm is coming...

Ethan sat on the roof of the building, his legs dangling over the edge. The rain plastered his hair to his head and reduced his cigarette to a soggy clump of paper. Mercutio squirmed in Ethan's pocket. He didn't like getting wet. Ethan reached into his pocket and petted the mouse. With an indignant squeak, Mercutio sank his teeth into Ethan's thumb. He didn't draw blood.

So Day wanted to know why Ethan walked the roof at night...

Ethan sat and watched as the city was thrown into darkness, the humming of electricity giving way to silence, beautiful silence. He thought about a poem he once heard somewhere.

"A storm is coming, Frank says. A storm that will swallow the children. And I will deliver them from the kingdom of pain. I will deliver the children back to their doorsteps. And send the monsters back to the underground. I'll send them back to a place where no one else can see them. Except for me. Because..." Because why? Ethan couldn't remember any more.

---

The moment I saw her, I knew I had to say something. A series of lists ran through my head like a ticker-tape. Conversation starters, ice-breakers, casual comments. Talk about the weather. Talk about the food. Talk about her hair. No, don't talk about her hair, that's creepy.

"Uh..." Oh, God, she's looking at me. She looks kinda nice. Not really pretty. Well, not really pretty anymore. She might have been once.

"That's a good book." That was so lame. She's smiling. Does she think I'm stupid? I am stupid. What was I thinking, coming over here? She's going to blow me off, wait and see. Damn, I'm an idiot.

"I know. I've already read it."

"Oh... Why read it again then?"

She shrugged and turned the paperback over to study the cover with a pleasant frown. "Interview with the Vampire" was blazoned across the front in red, curling script. "It's my favourite book."

I nodded. "Yeah. One of mine too." My feet shifted. I didn't mean for them to, they just did. It looked like I had to go to the bathroom. Or like I had some weird restless legs condition.

She looked down. "You want to sit?"

With you? Yes, please.

"Sam Marconi." I sat and held out my hand at the same time, dipping my wrist in the syrup topping her stack of waffles. She laughed and handed me the napkin, still warm from her hand.

"I'm Alex," she told me.

"My brother's name is Alex," I blurted, mentally slapping myself.

Alex laughed again, a sound that made me shiver despite the sweltering heat radiating from the kitchen at my back. "Well, you can call me Captain, just so you don't get us two confused."

I shook my head. "Oh, I don't think I could confuse you with him. My brother's a guy and you're... not. Yeah, you knew that already. Well, I mean, I hope you'd know that already. You've been you for, I don't know, I'd guess maybe twenty-four, twenty-five years... Er, maybe less, probably less, definitely less. Nineteen years? Please kill me before I do it myself."

Alex/Captain set her chin in her hand. "I'll let you do it. I don't like blood."

"But you're reading a vampire novel."

"That's different."

"Is it?"

Two and a half hours later, I had a number of reasons why vampires made infinitely better lovers, a list of books to read, and a date for Friday night.