Neon

At the corner of Wabash and Lake, the crowd presses in amongst itself like a swarm of vulturous flies. They press against the police proximity line with eyes full of shock and wonder. Mouths already tracing the tales they’ll tell later when they arrive home or at work. They’ll embellish. They’ll downplay.

They’ll do everything but tell the truth, in far too many instances.

It’s a macabre scene to say the least. You can see the blood long before you see the atrocity. You can smell the crowd long before you know why they’re there. I only stand among them for a moment before I feel sick at the gratuitous nature of it all.

Even from behind a swarm of bobbing heads, I can see the blood-stained gutters of the city street. I can smell the death in the air. I can hear the flies swarming and growing thicker. I swear I can almost taste the iron in the air.

The body might be cast in a cover of matt black but everyone can see the shape of the figure beneath. They all want to see the gory details so that they can be repulsed by them. So they can be enlivened by them. So that they can just say that they were there.

It’s the words scrawled upon the walls that really draw the eye, of course. Try as they might to remove them promptly, the constabulary can’t seem to pull the hue from the brick and mortar. A wall stained in crimson that reads, “And now?”

Were I of a different mind, I might be inclined to filter through them. To hear their static-laced eccentricities and false ideologies. Shoulder their inane burden of a life where they finally felt like they got to live in a life where they’ve not-so-sorely lived.

Not wearing the detriment of their existential shortcomings, I – however – do not.

–

When I arrive at the Chateau Le Taun’, I have to wait for a while at the bar. I had a feeling I’d have to. I drink mostly water but intersperse a spritzer here and a pinot noir there. I keep a shot before me that’s full of water. I keep glass that’s meant for beer beside it though it’s full of anything but.

“Arnold?” the voice sounds.

I can already hear the night’s discourse before he says another word.

I realized long ago that men respond faster. Moreover, men who say phrases like, “I’ve never done this before,” and “I mean, I’m not gay or anything but…”

You’d be surprised how many men I’ve known who were everything except what they weren’t.

Maybe that’s a story for another time.

You see, women have an innate fear. They know what can happen. They know what can go wrong. They know a part of life that no one else but they can know.

Men console themselves within the false cocoon of testosterone. They sell themselves a future where they can win. They say words like “twink” and “faggot” and later they scream words like “please” and “stop” and “help” and after that, they beg and beg and beg some more.

The profanity they espouse so easily…I find it comical.

–

When I met Tina Lynn Elsworth in the summer of three years before last, I fell in love with her in a way that I couldn’t reconcile. I am not a believer in love at first sight. I am not a believer in many things.

I loved her immediately. I loved her deeply. I loved her truly. I loved her fully.

I loved her more than I understood.

I loved her more than she could understand.

The day she left, I sat upon a couch of balding corduroy with a note in my hand and I whispered things to myself that I meant only for her. I didn’t sleep for three days. Or maybe I did and just don’t remember.

I wanted to die.

I wanted anything else.

–

I look at the collection now upon my wall. I suppose some might see a set of trophies. A set of collections.

I count them every day. I pass them as I leave my room and I remember and I remember and I remember more. And I ache.

I count from zero to thirty and I tap my chest and count two more.

I know the smaller specimens require multitudes to fill such a chasm. No less than two. No more than four.

When my phone chimes, I wonder who it is and I hope it’s another loner. Another furtive figure who seeks a nightly engagement – regardless of gender. I see a message from an unknown number and the person says that their name is Fred and – unsurprisingly – they’ve never done something like this before.

I sharpen my blades.

I prepare for tonight.

I take a moment to remove the now-shriveled muscle in my chest that came from many days ago and I look to a hall of pulsing organs in tubes of viscous yellow.

I remember how she told me that I didn’t have heart.

That I never would.

I look at my collection now. The one from Frederick K. Thomlinson was 2.73x the normal size due to some medical issue – so the associated assessments say. The ones that I retrieved from the small twins, Tabitha and Tamara, I look across a pantheon of hearts and dreams and dead desires and fulfilled requirements and I – looking at my cold, empty-eyed self in the mirror that sits atop a stand with the remains of bloody fingerprints – say, “And now?”

–

When I lie awake at night in the sprawling metropolis where lights burn through the windows like the sun in even the darkest of times, I rest my hand upon my chest the way she used to.

I can hear her voice in a world where it no longer lives.

Much as I wish I could conjure the words of her affection, all I can hear are her parting sentiments. Her ire. Her anger. Her frustration. How I’ll never be right. Never be like her.

Never be real.

Never have a heart.

I think about that and I count the ones I’ve collected.

A man, very long ago, gave me a blade and told me that the world is dangerous and that I would need his offering. I never thought it would be like this.

–

In my hollow, metal chest, I can feel the rot of the current offering. A piece of muscle and flesh from a woman called Mariland. I gained it long before I knew how to do this better. How to do this well.

I slide my metallic fingers upon my sternum and I replay the sound of her voice. All of her voices. Her anger. Her rage. Her calm. Her woe. Her pain. Her love…her sweet, desolate love.

I whisper with mechanical lips, “And now?” for I have a heart. I have so many hearts. I have enough for ages. And yet she ceases to appear.

My notifications alert me that another person has found my profile. They are wanting. They always are. I take my blade and place it close to me. I whisper her name into the wind and tell the same universe that I’ll make her understand. 

I have a heart.

I have many.

I have so, so many.

And then I ask myself – “why is it never enough?”

I’ll place this person’s blood upon the walls to tell her. To let her know that I’m answering. That I care.

I don’t understand why she fails to understand.

Why she cannot see me.

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Inspired by: https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/68187415/posts/5134075017