Alice Day

Outside, the sky was weeping, dripping a mass of greyness, like the spark and shininess and the glimmering lights of the world had been bled dry with the rain. Everything blended together at the edges as I ran, until the next moment I was aware I was running on soggy sand, making my way across the beach to the figure standing with her feet on the edges of the surf. I had never spoken to Alice Day before then, but I had seen her every day of my life. She was always there, wherever I was, for as long as I could remember. I had seen her, but we had never spoken, but I was drawn to her presence like everyone else in town was. She was a magnet and we were small slivers of iron, snapping to her and refusing to let go.

She was tall and broad, skin pink and dusted with spots of brown across cheeks and a nose that was shaped like the hilt of an assassin’s dagger. Her eyes were where lightning struck the ground, deep and dark and rare and frightening. Those eyes turned to me as I slowed to a walk, kicking up sand in a form of greeting. Those eyes looked at me, blazing fierce. Those eyes were burning the flesh right off my bones.

“Hello,” was all she said, her voice cutting through me like broken glass and shattered china. I didn’t speak; my mouth was dry and tasted like the last bitter dregs of coffee and I didn’t trust my tongue enough to let it communicate with her. “I’m Alice Day,”

It was a needless introduction, we both knew that. But it was nice to hear her say it, nice to feel that normalcy of a simple exchange of names when the world was crumbling down like a condemned building under demolition. Bits and pieces of everything were falling all around us and I could feel the dust and debris of the universe and the world filling my lungs, making them burn and heavy and sick. But Alice Day did not look to be in any distress about the world disintegrating around us. In fact, she was a pane of glass, completely at ease with the world, and I fell in love with her.

The human face is capable of creating up to 7,000 facial expressions, all thanks to the 44 muscles tensing and relaxing under the thin skin of our faces. That would stand to reason that we can feel up to 7,000 different things. Watching that girl, watching Alice Day, I felt every single one of them simultaneously. Her face was elastic as she watched me break apart like the atoms did in the very air around us. Like a rubber band stretch too far before snapping back and stinging your knuckles.

“Do you know what’s going to happen?” she asked, and I think she had to yell it to be heard over the sky screaming, but I’m not sure. Everything was too big and too small and too loud and not loud enough. I shook my head, not speaking now because I knew I wouldn’t be able to hear me over my own head crying out for help, crying out for her to touch it and make everything right again, please help me, oh please save me. The smile she gave me was glistening and deadly, teeth gnashing in their pearly little rows, grinding and feral. “It’s all going to end, now,”

I didn’t know what to say, so I once again opted to say nothing. I don’t think she minded because she lowered herself onto the frothy sand, and I watched her from above as she wrote ‘END’ in the damp clumping sand with her forefinger. There was silence, ringing silence for a minute as I just watched the creature sitting on the ground watch the sky that was cracking along the middle.

“Nothing here is real,” it was a whisper, the sound of a page turning. I can’t believe I could hear a sound that soft, and here I was, listening to the truth, the painful, gouging truth that burned exquisitely, as low as the rumblings of the deepest earthquakes. She knew all 7,000 things I was feeling. She knew that I was breaking and shattering apart with controlled chaos on the inside, right under the skin on my torso and arms and face. I think she could read my mind, if she wanted. I think she could map out my own head to me and tell me what I would think before even thinking of it. “Yes, nothing here is real,”

Her voice was almost sad, and I felt like I should feel the overwhelming crush of depression like anyone else would, but I didn’t. All I could feel was 7,000 different things, and love most of all. I looked at her, and I could read words in her skin. Paragraphs of blotted ink and rosy flesh that told me stories of my own creation, and of my own destined obliteration.

“What do you mean?” my voice was trembling like shutters in gale force winds, whipping about and threatening to break off and spiral into the eye to never be seen again. Her baleful eyes that were cold and hot and warm and cool stared at me, and the sea began to bubble and hiss and steam.

“This is all just a figment if my imagination,” I felt like the sticky sweetness that lingered on your fingers and around your mouth for hours after eating fruit, like dark squealing skid marks on deserted roads next to little wooden crosses. “I just made all this up, and it’s now time for me to go,” tears of salt met tears of sea as she cried silently, staring off into the distance as the sea started to burn.

“You are real,” it was concrete certainly and unflappable confidence in my voice. “You are real, Alice Day,” her nod was slow and purposeful. She gripped the earth in her hands quickly; trying to hold on to what this morning seemed to be solid ground but was now only an illusion.

“I made everything here up,” thunder cloud eyes rimmed with red drifted up to stare at me. “Even you’re not real,” It was like free falling. It was like being punched in the gut and having the wind knocked out of you. I wasn’t real. My hands- shaking, or was it the world that was shaking- rose up to rub my face. It felt there, I felt like I existed, but I knew I wasn’t. I knew that I was not.

“I think, therefor I am,” I muttered, sitting beside her on trembling legs and trembling ground. She laughed, crystal bells that were both sad and beautiful. A flower at a funeral. I tried to think of a time where I was alone, where I was real and solid and here. But I couldn’t think of anything. All I could think of was being near Alice Day, seeing her and being seen by her and knowing that she was the love of my life but never even speaking to her. It was never the right time. We were lovers for the end of the world, for the end of my world, for the end of hers. Her lips met mine for a moment, and she tasted like the salty air and peppermint and everything beautiful in the world and chanted apologies.

“You’ll be gone when I’m gone,” I knew that too. Her eyes were wide and sorry and I wanted to wipe the look and the tears in her eyes away. Instead, I touched my forehead to hers, and told her it was okay, it was fine, I don’t mind not existing, not really. My lips met hers, and I pulled back and smiled at her, giving my permission. Her smile was caught between my hands, a sad flash of white and pink lips that said yes, I know this must be, but I do not want it to be so.

She sighed, the world crushing down on her, and the gun was in her hands. I wasn’t surprised to see it. It looked as if it was always meant to be there, and maybe it always has been. My 7,000 emotions settled down to just a handful, some of them I don’t understand. One, though, was acceptance. Her soft fingers traced the barrel, and I knew what she had to do, and she did too. I kissed her again, eyes squeezed shut to remember everything about her, about me, about us, and I moved down to rest my head on her crossed legs.

One of her hands was in my hair, and I knew the other was holding the gun to her head. She whispered my name, and I closed my eyes tighter, not wanting to watch as the world caved in, and my world ended. I just wanted to remember her face, remember my own, remember all 7,000 things I’ve ever felt.

There was a click.

She said my name again, and whispered goodbye.

Goodbye, Alice Day, I thought to her.

She pulled the trigger.