Service

The war was over, the job was done, and his father was free.

However, was his father really free? He wondered, ever so often, if the war inside of his dad’s head ever ended. Although his service was completed far long ago, every morning he seemed to be equipped to go fight off a battle no other could come along with.

He had heard the stories, of course, the nights spent in the beige sooty tents, the walls blackened and smudged with a varying assort of molecules that one would never choose to truly research. He heard of the thinly coveted white beds, the shells that ricocheted like lullabies in the night, and the explosions that shook a man’s chest like a mother rocking its own child.

His father had never been the same after completing his service, the way his hands shook whenever he picked up a plate, or the way he sometimes woke from the night and walked throughout the house with his eyes more hollow than a chocolate Easter bunny and a pale, ghostly look, mirrored onto his face. His sorrow plastered on to every surface in the house, the intrinsic depth of his sorrow and grief of the years, and the life, he had lost overseas. He was scared for his father, the fear manifesting in the pit of his stomach, as he watched his father flinch at the sound of the door slamming, and the way a car engine riled up on the freeway.

They commended him; they told him the words most everyone wanted to hear – however as the thinly veiled words of encouragement was thrown at his father’s brick wall of a mind, he wondered at all if the words ever won against his father’s built-up weaponry that blasted them to bits. He seemed empty and dull as he took these compliments, as if the kinds words would never really be able to patch up the gaping wound that had surfaced in the burrows of his heart. The damage was so thick and wide, that the skeletal remains were all that could be seen – the only thing keeping him upright evident and bare to the other occupancies of his body.

Sometimes, however, his dad came back.

The thick white signs on popsicle wood sticks standing in the middle of busy streets, demanding for the attention they deserve in a peaceful way where the concrete does not shatter with the weight of one’s decision. The fight for strong politicians, who stand on a single podium and protect those who can not reach the microphone. The stumbling children, walking the bright-lighted hallways of high schools, battling against embedded racism and sexism on an everyday basis.

Sometimes, he loses his dad, however sometimes, he’s able to remind him that today there are more fighting with him.

He was breaking up with her. Right now. In the middle of their wedding day, with spindles of white raining down around them, as he clutched her hand in an almost too dry-hot way. The ring was already on her finger, a dense chilly metal clenching down on the fat that encompassed her ring finger, and she was holding the one she was going to put on his.

Supposed to put on his.

But as his hand shook, pawing at her in an almost desperate way, she didn’t think the gold band would make it on to his fingers. She didn’t understand, white noise filling her ears in a way that singled out her vision, focusing solely on him. His eyes were wide and shaky, but they peered down at her. He was sweating at the collar, his chest was contracting with an uneven pant of despair, and his feet were pointed away from her as if his body was trying to make an escape but his mind couldn’t.

Four years together, they had spent and crafted a life from the ground. He had proposed, finally, on the roof of the home they shared together. Two dogs, a pregnancy scare, and the planning of marriage later and he was standing at the altar saying he couldn’t marry her.

Her dress was too constricting at the moment, the thin net stretched across her bosoms clamping own on her lungs, and she needed to get away before her mother realized her fiancé was leaving her at the altar. Her mother had been thrilled she was going to be married, the terminal illness she had been diagnosed with meaning somebody would be there for her precious child when she couldn’t. Now she would watch her daughter stare down at an empty blue carpet in front of her, alone and heartbroken.

The panic set in after a couple of seconds of mind-numbing seconds. The priest had stopped, and the crowd looked upon them with a breathless gaze. The realization had set in – the marriage would not proceed. She was frozen, almost as if watching the car collide into at an alarming speed. She would end up paralyzed, and there was nothing she would be able to do to stop this.

She wanted to stop him, to press marks into the delicate skin around his wrist, shake him to tell him to stay. If she could, she would get on her knees and beg for him to love her.

But she loved him too much, and so finally, he turned his back to her, the crisp black wedding suit filtering away as she watched him walk down the aisle she had seconds walked up. It was a dream to her, to walk down the aisle with the man she loved, but in the end, she ended up alone.

The lie was thick across his teeth, as he stared down at her form across the creamy white sheets. She looked thin, pale, and full of all the wrongs as the soft beeps filled the voiceless noise of the room. It was the right thing to say, as she nodded resolutely and said she would wait for her.

She wouldn’t make it long enough to realize her mother was never coming.

The pale wisps across her head, once regarded as blonde hair stood stark against the smooth expanse of her skin. She looked older than her age, the wrinkles and bare bones a friend to the intense chemo she had gotten accustomed to the past few months. Her teeth clinked when she talked, as if she was uncomfortable with them in her mouth, and her hands constantly shook, like the lively force that was invading into her body could hardly be contained.

She had spent months confined into the thick white bars of the bed, her only family members the nurses with paisley scrubs and the white non-recyclable cups they left in her room. She was ultimately alone in the last few months of her life, a punishment for leaving her past life behind for something she wanted more – a future.

Now, however, when the dust of the past days had settled, her creativity had been resolved and her strong demeanor shaken, and all she wanted was the warm palms of her mother on the side of her face. The soft brown eyes that had brought her into the world would ultimately be the one that would take her out as well seemed fitting.

She cried for her, as the thick sludge of cancer coursed through her veins, balloons of pain contemplating her demise, but never once had her mother arrived at her aid, to tend to the green veins in her forehead and the blood in her stool. She was completely, and utterly alone.

Maybe that was why he lied, in the soft light of the dusty old hospital room, as she cried softly into the white pillows for her life. Maybe that was why long after she was gone he felt almost paralyzed in his entire existence. His tongue was heavy, his bones weary, and he realized with an astounding start there was not much to live for, if they decided there wasn’t much for her as well.

He’s lying there, against her cotton sheets in her blue room with her stacked books and piled up clothes, and he’s sleeping. He looks young and serious all at the same time, the curve of his smooth cheeks looking more pronounced as he dozes with scrunched eyebrows. She wishes to kiss the tips of his brown eyebrows, to press away any tension, to see his bright blue eyes staring right back into her own.

His blue eyes remind of her swimming pools in July, when the water is cool and so intoxicating you adore the way it wrinkles your skin and leaves you smelling like chlorine – and all you can feel is the warmth on your back and the way your hair feels against the stillness of the neighborhood pool. The enigma is hidden away today, shadowed by the inlets of his eyelids, and his black eyelashes flutter against the smooth skin of his slightly purple under-eyes.

His arms are almost uncomfortable to look at, one splayed palm-side up against his belly, and the other sticking out straight onto the other side. His palms are white and creamy against the light gold of her sheets. His chest rises and falls with every breath, and the soft material of his t-shirt rises every time, and each inhales has a little snore to it.

His head lies to the side, cushioned yet bare, and the curve of his neck and jaw is tantalizing. She wants to place kisses against the thick tendons across his neck, to hide her face in a place that is seemingly made for her bones, and to inhale the scent she calls his own. She knows how her cheek will feel against the bare expanse, how it will make her feel like she has found the home she never had.

Her body fits perfectly into hers as if the two were made from one stone. Carved out with a singular knife, they complete each other. She can crawl into the sweet escapade of his arms, and find a warmth the sun could never even compare to.

And he would let her. If she knew where she was, gazing down at him at the entrance of her bedroom, he would smile his impish grin, maybe clear his throat, and open his arms wide. She would smile, and crawl right up next to him, and collapse into the body made for her own. He would smooth down the top of her hair, and press soft kisses along the curve of her head until their legs and arms were tangled, and their breathing would eventually be one.

It was simply unbelievable.

“It was me.” She snarled, reaching across the cold metal table with her pointy sharp fingernails. It made a clink! sound as it hit the edge of the table, and the officer sitting in front of her jolted a bit, alarmed by the level of aggression coming from the small woman. The room was a dark, muted, ugly gray, and whereas the woman had just fit in, suddenly her long black hair and big brown eyes did not seem so innocent, and the ferocious form of her features made him want to grab a pair of handcuffs.

“That bitch stole my boyfriend right from me in the 10th grade. He was in love with me!” Her voice raised, turned into a screech at this point, and her voice boomed in the hollow room. The shrill made her sound much older, like a haggard old witch cursing a young woman for her choices. “He loved me, and that stupid two-timing bitch stole him from right under.”

“Ma’am, it was ten years ago.” The officer sighed, his hand clicking uncomfortable on the desk. He had his confession, he had every right to walk out of the door, but something about the woman made him fearful to leave. He was being ridiculous, he was the one with a gun hanging on his hip, but he was suddenly very nervous about what would happen if he left before the witch finished her story.

“He was my soulmate, you absolute fool! I loved everything about him. He was perfect for me and I was perfect for him, except when she came along he was blind! Blind I tell you! It was those ruby red lips I tell you, there were shining with cocaine!.”

The officer remembered the rep lips, oddly, of the dead woman they were mentioning. She worked in corporate now, her office representing a shiny future with sparkling windows and a strong mahogany desk - although the red lip had never changed. In all of the photos on her desk, and even lingering on the remains of her dead body, a stark red lip had painted her plump form, and she had died with the color playing perfectly in.

Never mind that it wasn’t laced with cocaine (the forensic scientist had it tested), but the woman had been a serious homewrecker, and he had interviewed four other women about the relationships of their significant other.

One had not even known her wife had been sleeping with another woman, and when the officer had mentioned the rosy red lips, she had collapsed into a puddle of tears, seeping into his favorite blue dress shirt and onto his white undershirt. Her snot had been a mucus green, and after two and a half showers it still made his stomach clench to look down at his chest.

Now, however, the case was closed, and he could rest easy this weekend, maybe catch the new romance movie playing at the theater.

“But my stupid ex-boyfriend had it coming, leaving me for her.”

I looked at him across the hot-chocolate brown mahogany tables at the coffee shop. The table was a dark wash, the different textures of the colors smoothly blending together like an art canvas. It was chipped at the edge, and the diagonal cut had revealed an edge of flaxy brown table. It seemed almost fitting at the moment, how the beautiful exterior was simply present to cover up what was ugly and broken. The air smelled warm, and distinctly bitter, like someone had recently dumped an espresso on the floor and left it there to coat the ground in a thin layer of black coffee grounds.

The sun was streaming behind him, his brown hair soaking up the golden rays, and he seemed to gleam as he bared his teeth to me. He didn’t have blaringly white fangs coming out of his plush lips, but instead owned slightly yellowed down molars that stood in a perfect straight row. His black hair curled at the top, in a messy and uncontrolled way that made the edges of his curls more susceptible to the heat, and they were precariously placed fritzed and frenzied. His lips were almost constantly chapped, the lower bite having a thin-flakiness level that seemed to stretch when he smiled.

It was his imperfections that made him so dream-like.

His jagged scar that ran through his left eyebrow, the one that made the brow stand a little bit higher, making him look cockier, more of a young child running through the street with an impish grin. The constant head tilt - like you were the prey and he was sizing you up, determining if you worthy enough to be looked at. The glint in his brown eyes, the brown that encapsulated the night sky and my morning coffee and the perfect chocolate mousse cake that stood in the display cases by the cashier.

It was his world, and I was simply living in it.

I realize now, too late, too far gone, that it was all game. For him to have fun, to clutch and grasp at a heart that was beneath his, one that he could step on and the pieces would never touch his shoes. He was so beautiful to me at the time, so soft and loving, his arms warm and supple for me to come home to after a long day. I ached for his love, for his lust, for everything that stood under the surfaces of his black sweaters and brown skin. I wanted to crawl into him and find a home, unzip the many layers to his heart, and curl myself under the covers.

But the blankets were too thick to travel, and the jagged fabric left long cuts in my soft skin. The road grew treacherous to his heart, and no longer was the game to win his heart over a simple game – it was the hunger games, one where brutality and tragedy would lead you to win.

In the end, I had to kill myself to end as the richest, to gain his prize.

A heart that no longer sat steady in my fingertips.

In his mind – he was running. He was running away from the broken police lights, the deafening thickness of the sirens in his ears, his feet were just barely tapping the slick black pavement of the ground, but he was running. He could almost feel the great expanse of his lungs, the slight sweet burn at the way his organs would be choked off from every breath, the way his cheeks would feel against the cold air on this night – smooth and shivery and like a shard of glass through the sky. He doesn’t have a destination in his mind, not tonight, not ever again, he’s running, running, running.

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this, you see, not tonight. He had been exhausted, the weight of the world seemingly pressurized into the backs of his shoulders, right underneath the stretch of his neck and where he kept his failures. His muscles had been aching for days, the tendons and veins clogged up with the broken remnants of dreams he had as a boy. He was incredibly young, and blaringly innocent, and he had not yet faced the bright expanse of the world. The most fascinating thing about him was the way his hair smelled like grass just recently after it was cut.

He had gotten into the car that day, had leaned his head back against the seat. His car had always smelled old, with a burnt crisp edge of something faintly unpleasant. He had tried over and over again to mask the scent, to compel his mind into believing that his car truly smelled like overpriced lavender or some Hawaiian scent that never truly existed. All that he was left with was bitter undertones and a whole lot of cheap smells. Sometimes he wondered if that’s what he was doing with his life – masking a truth that he could never truly accept. He had run his hands over the smooth cracked leather of his steering wheel – old, and warm, and just like his father had left it when he had gifted it he trekked off to college.

“You’ll do great, my son!” He can hear it echoing faintly in his ears, right next to the smothered noises that are dimly muted in the back of his head. His father’s voice was always a bit smooth, a bit rough, the perfect kind of mixture when you don’t know what you need. He wonders, just a small thought in the back of his unfocused mind, what his father will sound like when he hears of this. His face is starting to ache, his jaw awfully close to the gravel that’s lining the road beneath him.

It wasn’t his fault.

He was driving, turning the corner, wondering how his life would end up – would he forever be young and stifled in an office that he hated, in a life that he no longer wanted? Would it get better? Did he have hope, or did his life end the day he had decided the way it would go? The car had turned, the truck had flown, and now he was splayed on the ground.

His bones were a lot stiff, almost like the joints in his body had turned into the thick tar that creates the roads and swirls like molten depths of blackness. His cheek was beginning to ache with the presence of little rocks jamming into his skin, but the pain has been washed away in a pool of numbness – he can feel the volume, the thickness of the rocks, but all they are is a remnant of something he will be parting soon. He thinks he can distinctly feel wetness in his blue dress shirt, it’s quite a thin material anyway, and it’s sticking to his skin very uncomfortably and making his body feel like he had jumped into a cool summer lake, and was expected to walk around in the clothes he had swam in.

In his mind though, he was finally running. Away and far and to new and great places. He was feeling the burn in his mouth and the dizziness in his head set in a soft, fuzzy way. It was a welcoming sort of reprieve, an vigorous ending to a indolent life. His speed picks up in his head, so fast, so dizzying, that his eyes have to be squeezed shut so that he can keep a focus on his path – a narrow path, one that reminds him of going home, on the cracked beige sidewalk sitting outside his parents’ house. Except now he wasn’t bleeding, he wasn’t a child, nor was he the man who grew up in the monotonous setting he had called his beginnings- no, he was just a boy, going for a run, with his years ahead of him and a smile on his face.

He was heading towards a white light.