The Big Boom [re-writing]

5:27 am [updated]

YOU DON'T KNOW HOW HARD IT WAS TO WRITE THIS.

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Christopher opened the door to his apartment and slipped me in right after as carefully and secretively as he could because, from what I came to conclude, Benedict loved to sleep right in front of the goddamn door.

Apart from the fresh redness of sunlight triangulating a narrow beam into the living room from the crack of his bedroom, nothing in my eyes was more than a dark blankness with darker, amorphous forms here and there before me. I assumed those were the dogs sleeping. I assumed, too, that instead of beds, they rather claimed their own spot in the apartment and call it theirs by nightfall.

Christopher kept quiet as he shuffled near the welcome mat to drop his keys somewhere and let Chubby fall near the couch to sleep.

I wanted that, too –sleep. I was exhausted, so...out. Entering blindly, the bridge of my foot met with the coiled body of his wiener dog, causing me to trip when I tried to avert my next steps to not accidentally kick the dog again in his sleep. In a reflex motion, Christopher's hands clasped both sides of my arms, steadying me.

He whispered something near my ear that I couldn't depict. "Sorry, they're like landmines," I liked to think he said.

I squinted through the darkness of his apartment, attempting to discern anymore dogs. Lifting my foot cautiously, I tried to pick through the dimness to see if there was another one but couldn't decide whether it was a dark pillow, my imagination, or the actual dog itself. Everything right now was an indistinguishable figure.

My mind was going to shut down soon if it didn't meet with a pillow.

Suddenly, and very welcomingly, I felt one of Christopher's hands, warm and large like a mitten, envelop my smaller one and guide me to the left where I remembered his room was from last time I was here.

I hadn't realize how frigid I was until now and wondered how he wasn't, too. I wanted him to hold onto more of me. I wanted warmth. Breathing sluggishly and fatigued from the constant walking, I placed my other hand above his and depended on adhering wherever his feet went.

His guidance, however, wasn't the best. I guessed it was because the alcohol was still coursing in us, warping our steps, tiring my body, lengthening the time spent to get from a to b. Eventually, we got to his room.

He took off his shoes and maintained this silence that'd followed him ever since he saw your grave, like he was angry beneath this subtlety and was put on pause. My attention went to the radiating disc of the sun behind the translucent curtains, not believing it was morning again. I was in a room with this guy I've heard of consistently but never met until now –now I didn't want to be alone after having such a presence for so long. I didn't want to go home.

I didn't want another ghost, but was convinced there was the beginning of one with the shape and being of Christopher.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, the cushioned feeling so inviting after such a long night, I watched Christopher lean into his blinds to open them by a notch. Neon red striped a rectangle into his dark room, the corner of it hitting my left eye. My hand went up to shield the sharp brightness and, when it lowered, I saw Christopher sit beside me on the bed, so lightly I didn't feel the shift in his mattress.

He was breathing so slowly. A brightly red fleck marked each of his eyes as they trained on me then, close enough to where I could feel the gentle, lethargic breaths he took in the space between seconds –a word I couldn't think of yet.