Chapter 1: Underneath the Melancholy Sky

They both stood, far away from each other, on their own buildings, one under a Capri sky, and the other under a gray, melancholy sky. As they stood on the ledge of their building, both of them contemplated suicide. They both were about to jump when they thought of something that made their feet turn to lead. I’ve never given love a chance. So before they stepped off, they stepped back and walked toward the door that they entered in the first place to end their lives.

Arno

Arno Ryker was just a byproduct of his generation. He was nothing more than a peon in the grand scheme of life. As he walked toward the door he thought about how he came to the roof in the first place. It all started back in college, when he was a Theological Studies major. His minor was in philosophy. Oftentimes, he would hear about the soul and how it escapes the body upon death, and how the soul was the “ghost in the machine”. He wanted to be soul again, and he somehow turned religion into a nihilistic foundation for suicide and wanting to experience the soul. However, there was always one problem, and that was that he had too much to manage and too much to experience before he took his own life. That was why he smoked. He smoked in order to shorten time and make himself move faster. He wanted to see Tunisia, Romania, Iraq, Kashmir, China, Japan, and the whole world in a short amount of time. The way he saw it, when he would somehow inevitably turn 60, because he knew he would never actually kill himself, he was dead anyway. That was all he looked forward to. Suddenly, a thought hit him. It was due to him looking at a black sock that somehow made its way in between the gravel rocks on the rooftop. He drifted away into the deep recesses of his imagination to think of a girl. I think her name was Cat.

There he was. Eyes were open, his legs moved, but his retinae saw something different. He went back to the days of college where he would find her sitting at a table, staring blankly into the screen of a computer or with the palm of her hand buried into her face as she wrote. At that time, he was a ripe young man of only eighteen, and he had a lust for her. It wasn’t her body that made her attractive, but the way her eyes pulled one in and the way her smile sort of, under dark makeup, illuminated a room. It was one of those predicaments where he wondered if sex would make him fall in love with her, or her with him. They never actually got past taking their hats off in front of each other though. Back then, Arno was extremely religious, and he didn’t want to risk the integrity of his beliefs on a woman. The woman is like a brick in a tower. If she is made into the base, then the removal of her could cause the entire collapse of a kingdom. Keep her at the top so she can be removed easily.

It was strange for him. He was a romantic and he thought she was disgusting. She smoked, she smelled of cold cuts, and she had the mouth of a sailor, yet he was still attracted to her physically. He often wondered what would happen if he invested in her emotionally. It would be like all of his other loves. They often fell away from him like leaves from the tree in the middle of an Autumnal zephyr.

He realized something as he walked down the stairs to his car to drive off somewhere. Love is she.

Cat

She walked away from the ledge as if she was backing away from seeing her dad engorge himself in his cannibalistic tendencies with the “help” of her mother. She had a strange feeling of realization, and that was that this was her last life. She had died eight times before her attempt today. The first was when she was a small girl of five years old and she was learning how to swim. The second was when she was a young girl of fifteen as she illegally drove the vehicle by herself. The third was the following year when she tripped down the stairs of her family home. The fourth was when she went into a brief coma due to an overdose on heroin at age 18. The fifth occurred when she was riding a bike down a long, winding road on the West Coast and had happened to crash into a sign that, ironically enough, said dead end. The sixth, seventh, and eighth were so insignificant that only Cat knew that her lives were being wasted, and that was when she took big puffs from a hookah stand. This was her ninth time, and she wanted to choose carefully how her life would end. Would it be through natural or self-inflicted causes?

A voice in her head told her to run off of the edge, and she started to walk, but being that she was wearing boots, her heel snapped somehow, and she went barreling into the ledge of the building, knocking the wind out of her to the point of activating her gag reflex. She was tired of all of this, and she just now wanted to go home. So, she waddled downstairs to her car as she felt the slow precipitation drape her skin with an exotic fluid she hadn’t tasted in years. She got into her car and she started driving with the intent to leave the city and not come back for the whole weekend. She was done for the week and she wanted to just rest.

She decided to turn on the radio. She wasn’t in the mood for what she deemed to be “shitty” music and she definitely didn’t want to hear two fifty-year-old men make fart jokes as they called the mayor again, so she decided to listen to public broadcasting. As she turned it on, she heard a voice that echoed in her mind like a harmonic vibration, which awakened a dormant memory that had receded to the pit of despair in her banks. She started to think of a young man that she once knew. I think his name was Arno.

She remembered him always staring at her. That was kinda creepy at first, but then I got used to him. She remembered the first time that she had met him. She sat in the garden that was housed somewhere close to where she lived, College? Maybe. He simply came up to her one day and occupied the vacant side of the bench. He started to speak. “Isn’t it all so beautiful?” She looked at him, and she saw that he had his arms behind his head, leaning onto the bushes, staring at the Capri blue sky and the armada of tiny clouds that occupied that giant sea. “I mean, just look at the light that shines down from a place that light takes eight minutes to travel. In reality, beauty in in our past. It is in the universe’s past. One can’t help but ask, what is real and what isn’t? All this,” he said moving his hand around in front of his face around like he was painting the sky, “makes one forget and helps one to belong.”

She ignored him, but only caught the word belong. She had a sandwich in her mouth and a bottle of water by her side as her arms were crossed on her lap along with her legs. She thought that he was a dork. He continued to talk, but this time, she took notice. “My name is Arno, by the way.” In a rush, she put a fist a few inches from her mouth and chewed fast in order to introduce herself as an act of obligatory reciprocation, but he again talked. “Please, enjoy your food. I do not wish to know your name, I merely will give you one. How about Cat?”

She swallowed. “Why Cat?”

“Simply due to the fact that I’m potentially falling in love with you. You could be a bad omen or a good omen.”

She froze. “What?”

“I said, I’m falling in love with you. What, do men not fall head-over-heels for you often?” She was silent.

“How old are you?”

“Nineteen. Why?”

“It seems that our age gap is too big for us to have a relationship.”

“Really? Why Cat?”

“Because I’m in my mid-twenties.”

“Balderdash. Age is but an arbitrary number. Beauty and love are mandatory requirements for having a successful relationship. Anyways, I’ve got to get to class (oh, so it was college!) Anyways, see ya around Cat!” He walked away, and Cat simply sat there, frozen like a deer in the headlights. She then did something that she hadn’t done for a long time. She felt the need to do Heroin, and she resisted it. She then grinned before taking another bite of food.

She got on to the interstate and drove home, that grin from so many years ago resurfacing on her face. What a dork.

Arno

When Arno walked in to his house, he dropped his mail onto the dining table and went to rest in his bedroom for a bit. Today was a long day, and all he needed was a nap of some kind. He wanted to dream. There was a time in his life where the only time he could clearly interpret reality was through dreams. He had no idea of what was going on with his eyes wide open. The world was duplicitous and backbiting. He didn’t like any of the kids in his school, and his teachers confused him as to what they were trying to teach him. Something was just wrong, and he needed to understand it. So, through dreams he did.

He plopped onto the bed and shut his eyes. He started to dream. He was sitting in a bar, hoping for someone to find him. The way the fish swam were eloquently like horses bounding over the horizon to a new tomorrow. He saw a face. Wow, I want to have sex with that person. Who is she, oh wait Cat? I love her, but does she know that? Oh man what if the bartender tells her about the way that I like to watch the catfish fall from the ocean view of the shuttle to asteroid Blue?

The doorbell rang and Arno was awake. He didn’t remember anything from his dream. For some reason or another, he suddenly had the urge for fish. He walked to the door and he opened it. It was a package. Did I order it? On the package it said:

Arno Ryker

(Address)

Yup, that’s mine. I wonder what it is?

Arno threw the package onto the table and used his keys to open it. Inside was a book. It had a white cover, and inside were blank pages. He didn’t know who sent it and he didn’t know what to do with it. Simply, he tossed it aside as he went to the bathroom to clean himself off of his suicidal thinking and go to work. He would have to explain to his boss why he was late again, and he couldn’t lie this time. Such was the burden of reality.

In the shower, he felt the tiny drops of warm water roll off of his skin like fine pearls of a clam from the deepest depths of the ocean. He heard Enigma’s The Cross of Changes playing inside his head as the window in his bathroom made the entering sunlight dance like waves. Slow, beautiful waves. He didn’t understand why this was happening. His faith was worn down like sand in the hands of man. He didn’t believe in a higher power, yet he wanted to so badly. Everyday he asked a simple question, “Why?” However, it became apparent that it was not as simple as it seemed. As the water continued to touch his skin, time slowed down and Arno started to cry. Why he was crying, he didn’t know. There was just something so beautiful about what was going on. The way the light danced, and the way he was so pure at that moment. It was like he was a child basking in the air of a new world. Everyday that world became newer. Today was the newest day for him. Today was a new experience.

Cat

Between her yellowed fingers rested a cigarette near the end of its life. The light danced through the cloud break like a waterfall. Rainbows abound, the sky resonated a frequency that couldn’t stop making her smile. Nobody noticed that passed her by on the street, because her fingers covered her mouth. Behind it lay a beautiful smile. Arno likened it to a row of diamonds perched in a beautiful pink nest. The petrichor that emanated from the asphalt and concrete that made her crush her cigarette earlier than usual and made her breathe in like a swimmer desperate for air. She wore a skirt that went past her knees, boots that went up to her knees, and a gray sweater that was loose fitting. She wanted to feel warm today. She thought that today would be a beautiful day, and it was. She felt like she could fly into the sky, not knowing where she would land. After all, it was better than killing herself and hopefully she would fall into the arms of the man who would love her for the rest of her life. Then again, this is reality, and there is nothing else but reality. Her smile then lessened to a grin, and then her face went stoic as a small clunker of a car passed in front of her. What was the name of this city? Oh yes, Ebonyville. The name of the town was very strange to her at first, but she became adjusted to it quite fast. Darkville. What about the sun? The sun. Perhaps the sun is love. It’s just like Hafez said, “The sun has never once said, ‘You owe me.’ A love like that lights the whole world.” From her pocket she took out a whole carton of cigarettes, and she threw them away. She had decided that she would go cold turkey. Oftentimes, the smell of cigarettes would taint the world around her. No more. She wanted to be apart of the world, not afar. The clouds cleared, and behind them rested a blue sky and a yellow sun that seemed so yellow that it was bright. Cat started to walk down the street. After all, she had a train to work that she needed to catch, and her smoke break was over, forever.

It was the fever that got to her at the end as she was under the covered tent. As she lay on the desert floor, she closed her eyes before she heard thunder. Her eyes shot open, and all she saw was Gabriel, flying down toward her, giving her his hand, bringing behind him relief from this world, and she began to smile. However, it was  light brighter than Gabriel that interfered with her happiness. She struggled to see him, standing there, his eyes the most sad she has ever seen them. She then understands that she doesn't want relief, even if it is by divine mandate. She realized that she wants to suffer in this world just a little bit longer, with him.

This is my final entry. Not because I am dead or dying, all though I very well might be. Nay, I'm just done. Nobody will ever read this. I stand on top of the building hearing the screams and seeing the fires illuminate the street, and I'm responsible for all of this. Me. I'm laughing. Why? I don't know, I'm deeply confused. I think it's because I'm happy and I did something. I ended the world. I ended the world! They never said I could do anything! I look out at the sunset, and it's a blood red color. It's like the shade of the Earth after its sins have been brought to its surface. This is its reckoning, and the world shall know me as an invisible Satan. In my hand is a vial, an empty vial. Below me are men that are hungry. They eat their own children, who have no idea what is going on, screaming as the hug they expect is going gorily awry. They are the most confused, but their wives and husbands are just in terror. They leave the children behind. I am the Boogeyman. I am God.

Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze.

"Excuse me while I kiss this guy."

Early morning,

Dew dropping,

Sun rising,

Tide falling,

My mind soaring.

The smell of alcohol

Wakes me up.

I see something tall,

My wife, holding him up.

The curtain is opened,

I realize that she is waiting,

For sunlight to mold his aura

Into something more prescious than gold.

I hold out my arms,

She lends him to me.

I hold him tight,

He breathes softly.

My little man.

"What should we call him?"

A feeling I have,

Excuse me while I kiss this guy.

     You know, you're pretty lucky to have stumbled upon this letter, this parchment made fragile by the weight it happens to carry. Allow me to introduce myself, I am Mr. Bones-in-the-ground, Dr. Ashes-in-the-wind. As far as you're concerned, having read this far, you want to know what this letter might give you. The truth is that I don't know. Who does when it comes to life? Eighty-eight years on the road and there's no looking back, so the only thing I can give is what I drove by, what I hit, and where the top rolled down and the air lifted me from my seat and made me free.

     You know, at this moment, I can only think of three things, three phrases of wisdom that might benefit any (or most) individuals. Without further ado, here's my first tidbit: look to the stars and realize that you are amongst them. I used to do this as a child, but only the former. The latter came as I started what the arabs call 'Aaql, or, in short, competence. Whether we realize it or not, we dance everyday whether we like it or not. We spin with the Earth, the Earth spins with the Sun, the Sun spins with the Galaxy (or what ever other intermediate there is), and the Galaxy itself spins with it's siblings in the darkness. They keep dancing, as if they weren't being watched. They don't stop dancing, they carry on. Much like us. We are amongst the stars. Don't you dare forget it.

     The second thing that comes to mind didn't hit me until I was married. Keep falling in love until someone falls with you. The idea is to never ever NOT have a muse that brings out the best in you. The one who is right for you is the one who makes you go out and do something so extraordinary that you have to upstage yourself every single day until you find yourself trying to crush coal in your hands to make a diamond for them. It's the love of your life that tells you to stop, and that their name on the Moon was enough for them to fall for you.

     My last bit of advice is___________/

I am sorry, I am getting weaker, I'm afraid I do not have much time left. It's ironic, because I have plenty of

She was alone. Her child was sleeping. She was cleaning the dishes. He's late. She puts a dish down. Crash. It doesn't come from the sink. It comes from the basement. She takes a few steps and peers down those dark stairs. Her telltale heard tortured her for a minute before picking up the phone. Operator.

The officer walked up to her. She didn't see him, that...corrupt Sandman with a shard of glass, tearing up her peace of mind. "You're lucky ma'am. We've been lookin' for him for a while. As it turns out, he's a rapist. Multiple offenses. It's lucky you called us when you did." He put his hand on her shoulder.

There she stood. Staring down those dark stairs. Is it that big of a deal? Maybe it was just a rat.