I, Devil (a love story)

Chapter 54: Wendy

Wendy woke up from weird dreams. It was raining outside. The weather had been strange for a long time. Climate change gripped the earth from the storms to the rising sea. An earthquake struck and rattled all of the North American west coast. Wendy lived in Michigan and was relatively safe. However, nowhere was really safe. Floods were soaking the cities and suburbs of the Great Lakes.

Those things were so big and Wendy was very small. Wendy just celebrated her 38th birthday and went out to dinner with her son, Charley, and daughter Katie. It went well and she was given a card and a few small gifts. Even if the world was ending, hers was still continuing.

Wendy even went on a few dates since the earthquake, but nothing seemed serious. Mostly, she missed her closest friend, Noah.

Noah was a really, really weird guy, and it wasn't because he was a transgender person. That didn't bother her-- even though it seemed to bother literally everyone else. Societal expectations still fell short of reality. He was weird because he was a quiet artist. He was reclusive. He grew up Catholic and she never knew very much about religion. It gave him mystique she couldn't explain. He understood that sometimes things could exist even if they were inconsistent or unseen, like fairies. Catholics also seemed mysterious-- with the incense, cathedrals, and robes. They seemed to hold secret knowledge about the world. Wendy even felt a little sorry for him. He did not have a lot of friends.

Noah's closest friend, Joshua, was back and forth with seminary school. Noah didn't seem to have anyone else. His father was in jail and his sister moved to Maryland. However, Wendy was wise enough to know that it wasn't healthy to have a romantic relationship with someone just because she felt sorry for him. So, Wendy distanced herself. But, she couldn't help but think about him from time to time.

She loved him, she couldn't help it. Wendy loved people very easily. She tried to move on but she couldn't. What was nice about Noah was how they could be friends even if it wasn't romantic. Wendy knew that if she dropped by that there wouldn't be strained sexual expectations. Noah was empathetic and sensitive. He was also easy to find, as he rarely left his trailer in the woods.

Wendy decided to hunt him down, to pay him a visit. Deep down, they held a connection. Wendy often felt she met Noah in her dreams. She felt she dreamed about him all the time. That was the problem, that was why she couldn't let him go.

Noah didn't usually remember his dreams so he had trouble relating to her experiences. That was another thing they differed. Wendy had an elaborate dreamworld and she remembered every detail. Noah just went into a great, black Void when he slept. He rarely remembered anything, even when he tried.

Wendy loved driving to his house. She also felt good for him that he had his own place, all to himself. It was good that his father was in jail, the piece of shit. Wendy had no sympathy for people that abused people and animals.

The drive to his trailer was through a long and winding road. It slithered down secret, treelined passage ways and little creeks along the side of the road. Wendy couldn't stop thinking about Noah. It had been a while since they seen one another. She couldn't stop thinking about the weird dreams she had been having, either.

Noah was such an interesting person, thought Wendy. He was almost as strange as her. Wendy was an artist and she had known a lot of other artists in her lifetime. She lived a weird life-- she known people that could talk to ghosts and circus performers. She met gender nonconforming people in nightclubs. She had even slept with a famous person or two. She married a musician, the father of her two children. Then, when their father died, Wendy was left to find who she was all over again.

Wendy had given a lot of thought about things like identity. She always knew who she was. She felt that other people-- like Noah, also came into the world knowing who they were. Wendy was certain she even met a ghost or two, people who continue being themselves-- even through death.