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.