Dragged Horse

the void

Jackson Funeral considered himself a man raised by My Fair lady, Moulin Rouge, Singing in the Rain, La La Land, and even Phantom of the Opera. The summer he turned twenty-two, he caught sight of the void. Unrelated: he also caught sight of the most beautiful woman in the world.

Her name was Alex.

She worked at Pak Mail next to the Bi-Lo on Tumack Road, often seen wearing band shirts which lead many customers to think she wasn't an employee.  Her hair was dark with navy undertones,  like ink spilt down her shoulders.  He often spoke to her, amused by how a voice could be so hush yet packed with dry wit.  

Love is a lie. He knows this now. America is built on divorces, oxytocin, and the corporate vacuum that leeches off the youth's fantasies to sell Valentine's cards and chocolate. Still, that doesn't stop him from falling into a package mailing frenzy. It's almost pathetic how his thoughts completely evaporate whenever her coral lips quirk into a smile. Suddenly every dark-haired woman reminds him of her.

Adulthood and The Void walk a synced pace. Jackson has never been the ambitious type, so when his website slash app NoirClick blows up, he feels unsure how to take to all the publicity. He never prided himself as a programmer, so giving away his work to eager buyers takes relative ease.

He never really prided himself to be anyone special.  Sometimes, he stays awake in bed until the unearthly morning hour around 1 or 2am.  He racks his brain.  For what am I still breathing for?

He isn't the 'self-pity, woe-wallower' type.  He doesn't call it depression, but will often wonder why he gets out of bed each morning. 

----

He stops seeing her at his local post office; when asked, one employee, a red-faced elderly man, scoffs at the sound of her name.  Alex had quit.  She just walked out one day and never came back.

He knows these twins; all rattail-dreadlocks, slinky strides, and chatoyant eyes. There is no self-dignity when it comes to them, and yet they know this town better than Jackson knows the back of his hand. 

To the point: they know where Alex is.

...

Along Macduff Road lies a hospital shrouded in foliage and dust, and the inside is completely vacant, seemingly to have been unoccupied since the last century.  They ascend the stairs to the roof, the scuff and scrap of sneakers audible in the surrounding stillness.  He nudges the door open with his shoulder, and his heart thuds against his ribcage at the sight of her sitting over the concrete edge.

"Excuse me, miss?" Snick, one of the twins, speaks up. "Only birds are permitted to perch up here.  I'm afraid you will need to vacant the premise."

She turns to glare at Snick before noticing Jackson a foot behind. "...I know you. The hell are you doing here hipster?"

"Not a hipster, and I heard you quit," he says.

"Yeah, I did.  But whats that got to do with you being here?"

He crosses his arms. "I thought I'd warn whoever still hung around here that they were asking to get asbestos clogged in their lungs and die of lung cancer."

"Go take your self-righteous health shtick somewhere else, because I'm not leaving."

He leaves the roof, but not the hospital grounds, neither does the twins. Overnight the ashened Macduff hospital becomes the pivot in the four of their lives.  On the second floor he discovers a sparse office area suitable for brainstorming project ideas by a cracked window.  He overhears the twins jabbering, luring the her away from the five story high ledge.