Yesterday's News.

Don't.

    "The other night I was here, sitting right on this spot and you told me how beautiful I looked and how it wasn't the alcohol talking when we both knew it was clearly the alcohol talking and I kind of laughed it all up and you joined me after an awkward second or two..."
  -"Wait!", he interrupted her for the first time that night, "I can't remember a damned thing, Carrie. Truthfully I can't but I could see how  a few drinks..."
  -"Hold on a second there, Dave", now it was her time to interrupt him, "you don't know what you're talking about, dear. You just don't." She was sitting on the window sill exquisitely gathering her elusive thoughts and trying to disentangle them as if they were a ball of yarn.
-"No", he said, "I know my own thoughts and my own words, I know them all." He laughed and closed his eyes but quickly opened them back up. Softly.
-"Truly."

  He searched her soft skin underneath the blankets, his breath hungrily seeking her warmth. She whispered something intelligible, very near his skin. Her lips were wet against his, her teeth were sharp and he felt her bite deep in his heart. She pierced his skin and drew blood, the sweet nectar she was forever longing for. He felt like screaming but didn't. The pain led to pleasure which brought chaotic reflexes of an orgasmic end. He laid between dreams and nightmares, gently intoxicated by her strange emotions. Drunk within her abrutive hazards, he coughed desires at the night. She was aware of his bruises and of her own thirst for something his. A clarity of purposeful chimaeras chanted a lonely song towards their shared emotions. The lustful game ended then and there.

  
  He thought he heard a strange noise coming from outside before he opened his eyes. She stirred somewhere to his left. And again he thought, this time opening his eyes, of the creeping noise which woke him up. There was no sound out there now, but the echo of it still lingered inside his mind. "Wake up", he whispered at no one in particular. She stirred again, almost like if answering his soft reclamation. He sat on his side of the bed, his back aware of her presence and her stirring about. A null ache ran down the back of his head towards the lumbar. He wanted for something to be out there, something dangerous if possible. Dangerously murderous, he hoped. But he knew. There was no one out there. Nothing. Nada. Nothing he could sink his fingers into. Nothing he could rip to shreds, if necessary. Just the night and the road and the other houses and trees and fences with gardens trapped within and maybe a lost lullaby out of some princess's mouth. Maybe. Who knows.

  -"I had a dream. I had a dream that you were an angel and that you were falling down some cliff, down the side of a never-ending mountain and into a dark hole beneath. You were tumbling down violently towards that hole and the steep surface of the mountain was smooth and clean, with no rocks or jagged edges to slow you down or stop your murderous fall towards that hell of a hole. I could see you still flailing about as your rolling body approached the edge of the hole with nothing to stop you from falling right into its darkness, into its light-evading bottom, a gaping maw of death forever open. Always ready to devour. Always hungry. Forever black."
  "I was looking at you from some point between the summit and the hole, switching back from left to right. Staring down at your endless tumbling. Your flailing limbs were approaching the edge of the hole when a sudden explosion of light coming from deep within the hole washed us all with a blinding sheet of whiteness as the face of the mountain quickly dissipated into wakefulness. I refused to open my eyes, wishing to hell to go back to the cleansing feeling that blinding light gave me. It saved you and it saved me. It saved us from the darkness..."

   The strain of wakefulness showed up as watery beads upon his forehead. Either the hard dreams or the sudden awakening corrugated his heavy brow with semi-clinical symptoms of maybe death or something close to it into a rattle of deflating ecstasy. Did he imagine her presence all along? Was she a figment of his treacherous imagination? The story unfolded upon itself once again as the event horizon of some marvelous equation. He stared at the ceiling as all his phantom thoughts percolated through the matted soil of his pink and callous brain.
   Dave heard the pitter-patter of the rain outside as it hid another noise closer still. Someone was knocking at his door. Maybe her, he thought. Her with the voluptuous lips and facial scenery of a dreamy yet deadly faerie. Her with the uncontrollable opinions and imaginary angels. Meanwhile, the knocking continued. It's her. Has to be.
   He opened the door to a smiling Pete. A funny smile with dangerously creepy wrinkles. He looked tired. Dave felt scared and saddened for the poor creature smiling in front of him. "Come in", he heard himself said, regretting it as soon as the words left his mouth. The street behind Pete looked desolated, the sky pale and sickly yellowed. Oh, Carrie where art thou?

   "I never left. I slept at the bar for a while and at home when it was bearable enough. I could see the damned thing from my own bed. That's why I mostly slept at the bar."
   Dave poured himself a drink first before refilling Pete's glass for the third time. The strength of the whiskey warmed his chest and scared all the insecurities away as the holes in Pete's story filled themselves up with the dreamy fogginess of drunkenness. He could see it. He could see up there now. Even without looking. And the fact that Pete could see it too...... Crazy Pete. Drunk-ass Pete. Belligerent Pete. Fuck!
   Dave wanted Carrie back. He wanted her to talk about fallen angels while they drank fine wine. He didn't want to be here with crazy Pete. He didn't want Pete here. Nor this whiskey that was slowly poisoning his brain and twisting his veins into barb wire.
  -"Yes, Pete", was all Dave could say. Yessir. Yes. Tell me, Pete. Please do. Yes. I believe you . I believe every single word coming out of your mouth like silky miasmas. I do. Please tell me. Yes. Now, Pete. Show me . Show me now. Where is it? Show me. Now.
   -"Don't ", he heard her distant barking as an ersatz howling to an angry moon. Carrie was out there. Waiting for her fallen angel. Calling out to him. Vehemently.
  -"Dave. Don't."