The Originators

CHAPTER 18: BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO, RIGHT? PART II (LAURA)

I.

Spring promises. It never delivers.

Merc phones me.

"Hello. Hello. Why aren't you talking to me anymore? Why have they said you've taken, what is it, a leave of abstinence?"

"You are consistently and singularly unfunny, if nothing else. I needed a few weeks off. Nothing to set off seismic ruptures; alarm bells, calls for Chris to annihilate us. It's time I need."

I walk outside and look up into the sky. Gray, gray, gray dirty rain, except it hadn't yet rained. It will. Stranger weather than normal lately. Just when I thought I had moved everything towards normal again.

"What?"

"I want to see you," Merc commands, he isn't asking.

"Why?" He is trying to force me.

"Always full of questions. Come on, it will be fun." Merc voice enters my eardrum, lulling my brain. I want to, before, well.... But, I think of Chris. What he said. I would die or Merc would die.

To die is not something I'm particularly frightened by. It happens. It's done. You really can't do anything about it, after-the-fact, so what's the big worry?

Only those who invest in "life after death" have something to worry about. They bank on an outcome. They bet on those manic voices, rising and falling - a thunder storming, "There is an afterlife for the repenters." I don't believe them. They are lying to me. Sadly, they are lying to themselves.

Hopefully, Solomon and I have made sure I won't die. You never know; I think I'll live.

"O.k. Where?" I see a moment of Sun dancing, tantalizing; I laugh with no joy, flatly.

"Tomorrow. You know where."

I do.

Inside, I glance back searching the sky for that split second of Sun. It's gone. My foot moves to step up, over the ledge of the patio door. I stop. I don't hear the birds. I always count on birds; their eternal need to be heard just so I know nothing is too off. Their silence gives me pause.

II.

IMerc call was unexpected. I had not heard from him since our tryst. I had not tried to reach out to him at all. Not since I saw Chris; he's caused me to doubt Merc. I am sweating doubt, indecision, like the swans, like the cruisers. I am no better than them at this point.

I think I might hate him now, but I go anyway. It's only a few hours I have to give away, right. Driving up to the water, he's standing far away on one of the small docks; wooden veins moving out from the shore. He is poking the lake's waves with a stick.

I get out of my car. Those heavy monolithic concrete interstate beams loom above us, to the left of our lakefront community. Do they judge us? Me? They never blink. They never offer an opinion about this, our shared madness; the disorder we create and embrace every day.

Merc, he isn't one of us; an islander. I had slowly started to introduce him to us, to our ways.

This is a place I come to often. I move down the path knowing I can choose the dock he is standing on or twin dock five feet away. This time we are on the left side of the floating bridge. Shade comes from concrete beams holding the bridge up until it floats on the lake, give a snail green and slimy moss overtone to everything. Even the water looks green today. A good sign I hope.

"Hi," Merc waves. I don't return his greeting.

I carefully walk onto the second dock, opposite him. I don't want to fall in. It starts to rain, the first light rain to welcome the approach of spring. It arrives early; hopefully foreshadowing a continued push towards normal for the first time in several years.