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Beta'd by Erin.

Human Touch - part 4/10: "limbo"

by Ralu


One step forward, two steps back...

Back where everything starts and nothing ends, forever spinning in circles. Back where he'll always be, in the darkest corners of his mind. Nowhere. (Lardner) Fucking anywhere.

***

Watching the raindrops filtering through his fingers, clouds reflecting across her eyes, disturbingly similar. Stormy, black-blue, troubled - just like his'.

"We'll get there, we'll get there... Don't worry, Chris, we'll get there, both of us..."

The road - stretching out like a lizard's tongue - the only thing he's known all his life. The map of his soul...her soul's compulsion.

"We can go anywhere we want..."

Holding his hand tight, dragging his small body along the road, hitch hiking. Men, sometimes women, but mostly, overwhelmingly just men...

"Wanna ride, sweetheart? Is this your kid? Hop in..."

Trees flashing on the wet windshield, cigarette smoke twirling like river snakes in love... his mom moaning on the back seat, white fingertips leaving sticky marks on the car's window...

Her chipped, red painted nails -- that's what he remembers the best. Not her face, not her smell, not even her voice.

"You're mine, baby. I'll never leave you, not ever."

He remembers her words, though.

Her eyes. Leaden. Stormy, early October morning clouds.

"You've got mommy's eyes, baby. You've got mommy's eyes..."

***

One step forward... (--'Welcome home, Chrissie!...'--)

***

A word of ADVICE, coming from the WISE...

Keep your head down, but don't go all submissive, not all the way... Just enough to please him; enough to make him wanna *keep* you. For you know sooo well...you're NOTHING without him. Dead meat.

"Fucking faggot, you like that, don'tcha? I know you do. I know YOU."

Well, since you asked... I. *LOVE*. EVERY. FUCKING. MOMENT! (SIR)

I fucking revel in it, crawl and wallow in your shit, sweat and come. Make myself HARD -- all because of you.

Most despicable willingness, most painful need...

Everything you can think of throwing at me, I can take it. I'm stronger than you'll ever be, 'cause you've never been where I have. You'll never be where I am.

I can take all of YOU, Sir - every motherfucking inch of you, the very last drop of that poison your body leaks without even knowing it... All of your thoughts. Each and every one of your words...

Blending inside me like oil... (Blood.)

That's what you gave me. A word of advice...

***

And then - out of nowhere - fucking LEAP!... (--'Head on, baby. Head fucking on...'--) Crashing each and every time.

***

"Hey, Angie! Let's get married!"

"Will you marry me, Kitty?"

"Bonnie, I wanna (re)marry you."

Again. And again. And...again... That mindless fucking wander. Or maybe not *mindless* at all...

How can you get that which you seem patently incapable of giving? How can you ask for something that's not a part of you? And how can you have the audacity to ask it out of others - blame them for failing to give it to you - when you know you yourself can't give it back? You CAN'T. You don't have the right to. 'Cause you're not...(--*worthy*.)

Bonnie's resentful gaze, her wounded eyes. That quiet voice, screaming on the inside: "Why? Why are you doing this to me?"

He had no idea. Not a fucking clue. He could never earnestly tell why he did any of those things. Still, he pushed. He pushed, and he pushed 'til there was no place left to go for any of them than *out*.

Out of the marriage, out of the normalcy he'd looked for - and avoided - all his life. One massive, overwhelming contradiction.

(One step forward, two steps back...)

Crab-like. Building up a wall so thick no one - not even he - could ever break through. Sheer fucking survival instinct... Trying to get close, wanting, craving that unbearable intimacy... At the same time, being wary enough to not ever get too close... (Preservation of...nothingness.)

And - in between everything - stacking up inside himself one failure after another; one regret after the other, after...

Mindless wander...

Letting his life slip through his fingers, scatter like ashes. Wasted.

Completely alone.

***

So you *feel* yourself - 'cause this ain't about choice - sinking...drowning. Spinning out of control, unleashing the monster. He's inside you - and you know it. The deepest, darkest fear. Thus, you choose - yeah, you finally *choose* - to erase yourself out of life.

***

A sudden, unexpected move, a silent cracking noise. (Snap) And he's dead; this man - whose name you didn't even bother to remember - is dead. Lying still at your feet. Just like the one before him. And the one...

Your brain's swimming in drug-induced blurring waves of emptiness. You feel nothing...nothing but fear. Of what you've done. Of getting caught. Of...what you've done...

(Of what you are.)

Jesus, sweet Jesus...where am I going? Where am I going?!...

(Save me, save me... Why aren't you doing anything? Why aren't you stopping me?...)

Where are you?...

(Stop yourself. If you can.)

The only way you know how to: die for everyone who's ever cared about you; die for the ones you've hurt. Die for yourself. To stop yourself...

Death and prison are one and the same: a way out of life.

So...(--do it.) What the fuck are you waiting for? You know...you can't stop yourself. Even though you could never admit it...you know who you are. And what you've done.

The man lying at your feet - cold and lifeless - is whispering what you already know: you're dead, Chris. You're...death.

So...(--do it.)

***

Except...you're still breathing. You're not dead, 'cause this ain't hell. No, this is fucking *pur-ga-to-ry*!... And the worst, the single most horrible fucking thing about purgatory is that it still retains a faint illusion of hope. (Like a punch in the gut.)

Sure, we're all gonna die and nobody's gonna end up in heaven, but...until then...purgatory is timeless. Barren.

And hope - the illusion of hope - is just what it says: an illusion. That doesn't mean you stop chasing it, though. It never does.

'Cause, after all...(--you're still breathing.) Only the dead don't have a need for hope. For...illusion.

***

I look at you and I see everything I've never had; I look at you and I see all the things I've never been. I look at you and I see all I've ever wanted.

And I WON'T let go. Not now, now that I know... My eyes are open.

You're here, with me. Near me, all around. *Inside* me. (That which I've never had.)

My eyes are open. And I CAN'T let go.

---end of part 4/10---
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