Hello! It's been almost five months since the first installment of this story. I've been writing during these five months, but with no satisfactory outcome. This is what I hope would get things back on track. I'd wanted to make it longer, but you all will have to make do with this. :)
Thanks to Loner (aka Bill, I think) for helping me out on this one. Thanks to Bruce in for offering his talent.
The usual disclaimers apply - this story is fiction. It doesn't imply anything about the sexuality of the celebrities mentioned.
Enjoy. I know it might take another few installments before you get an understanding of what's going on.
------------------------------------------------------------------ And the years go by so fast : part 2 by Leon
My mind wandered; the attempts at working out where it was heading failed. It was like pulling at a thread, and watch the entire heap unravel, come apart into disarray. Yet, as if tied to a rubber band, it never reached escape velocity. It seemed that I, indeed, had left my body briefly, taken off, up and away with the steam, only to come seeping back in without a hint of solution.
But all the frantic scrubbing I had begun with was not necessary after all. Two hours. Provided that I restrain myself, so as not to wander, I'd still be way ahead of the morning commute. Having decided on that, I bent my slightly sore back forward, and turned the hot water up a notch.
Concentrating on the hot water put the brakes over my mind. No longer having to gasp for breath, I took time sucking in the warm, heavily damp air that, for a short time, was all there is in this world. In a moment like this, I had a glimpse of what it's like to be calm, cool, and collected, the way I used to be a few years ago, and yearned to see myself like that again. But a more calm, controlled self is always a colder, more brutal self. Resigned, I sighed and turned off the taps with what's left of the grip of my hand.
Fresh from the shower, hunger was still light years from my being, so I threw some coffee into a mug, and waited for a small pot of water to boil. The TV set was still on, except for a couple local anchors. With my mind still heavy and clogged, I switched off the TV on my way out.
The usual early morning felt unusually thick as I swung the hatch gate open to check on the CD changer. Yellow, red, yellow, olive, white, blue, black, beige, red, and gray. No traces of Savage Garden. Sliding the CD changer door shut, I turned and sat myself down beneath the hatch gate, holding the mug of coffee I brought with me, and made a mental note. If there is a God, I must thank him some other time for giving me these few days off. Once the memories start back up, there's no escape, and that would have meant my inability to do any work. A definite killer for the kind of job I've got.
Not knowing what to do, I let myself rest against the side and stared onto the road in front like it was all I could see. Occasionally, cars passed by. The drone of their engines would spring into this world from nowhere, and disappear in a flash. I closed my eyes and all that's left were the engines howling, in ever-varying volume. I saw in my head cars rushing by. I saw a miniscule vortex - one of the many - ride the roofline of a car, then fall behind in unbelievable speed and dissipate into the headlight of another car. On and on and on. My entired being seemed to cringe, and I felt the tears coming on as I watched, listened, and imagined.
As the enging sprang to life in its coffee grinder-like sneer, one of the CDs in the back came alive, too, right in the middle of a bridge. I let it go on as the reverse gear, too, roared in its own robotic, anal way.
"acquiesce acquiesce acquiesce acquiesce is all in us..."
I hadn't realized just how early in the morning it still was. Most of the morning commute have yet to take place. On either side of me, transports and carpool lane drivers disappeared one by one, along with sunlight reflected off bare aluminum.
Having almost missed an important interchange, the airport was empty when I'd arrived. Compared to the afternoons, it was almost reminiscent of a wasteland. There was no morning crowd, leaving the entire terminal haunted and hollow. Involuntarily tense, I scanned the antique displays for the slightest hint of reassurance. The man in question, however, had emerged from one of the doors in this complex lobby, way before I managed to scan the display from frame to frame.
Some things about him never seems to change, but he was different today. Instead of the greasy, incorrectly-groomed, snobby, stubborn stick figure I recalled, he was unusually friendly.He waved in my general direction as he recognized me, and slowly corrected his path until he almost ran into me.
"Hey Rick," Darren greeted me, dropping his Samsonite for my back. "How's things?"
There's something about Darren that always conjures up memories, making me ill-prepared for the customary embrace.
"g-great. You had a good flight?"
"Yea. Flights are always the same, more or less, give or take."
But as he noticed my slight frown, he, too, dropped the smile. A familiar, ill feeling slowly crept back into me, like it has thousands of times before, except that this time I did have a valid excuse to get out of it.
"I'll go get the car."
the morning traffic was manic as we departed the airport.
"So where you staying Daz? Booked any hotel in particular?"
"Nope." He stopped for a second. "I was wondering if I could crash at your place."
Oh God. What made he think I'd let him?
"S-sure."
"So what have ya been up to Rick?" Darren asked as he bent and groped for the seat controls beneath his thighs.
"Power seat. To the right of your handsome ass."
"Oh. Excuse my handsome ass!"
Darren burst out laughing. I, too, laughed, but didn't quite have the right intensity.
"Just a few Japanese cases."
"Anyone I've heard of?"
I did not have what he wanted to hear. As I slammed my feet down and manouvered ahead of an old lady who was literally walking the dog, I gave Darren a list of the artists I've worked with.
"...Larry is not a mattress king. He's a mattress GOD..."
One of Howard Stern's adverts spilled into our cabin, Beyond that, though, he too seemed to retreat back into the console, deep into some place between the engine and the footwell. A somehow dreadful silence overcame us as I steered off an interchange in one slow move.
"You know what, Daz? This is not the way to talk between us."
Having thought that it'd be hard to say - it ususally was - it was surprisingly easy. It's probably all the driving, all the concentration that goes into driving.
Darren seemed annoyed. "What do you mean this is not the way?"
"Look, Daz, I know I probably chose the wrong words. I'm just saying that it's hard...it's... not easy to talk to someone you've been in a relationship with."
Looking out the corner of my eyes, I saw his fist clenched. Yet he came around, bit by bit, from hell to Earth, slowly easing himself out of the heat. When he spoke again, he was resigned but not upset.
"You're right, Rick. It's not easy."
The world beyond the eight or nine windows of the car had changed from low concrete barriers to green, vintage homes. Still some miles to eat before we arrive, but it felt like arrival was long overdue. My restless hands fumbled as I searched the dial for something that'll last me the rest of the journey.
At last, the condominium that was our destination was in sight. The headlights came on as we slid down, from the outside world into a somewhat unnerving well of darkness. Neither Darren nor I bothered to turn down the radio, now buzzing in the absence of waves from the outside world.
Still unreasonably tense, I struggled to maintain some hand-eye co-ordination, dropping the keychain as I fumbled in search of it at my door. I knelt down to pick it up, only to find Darren a step ahead of me. Dim light from the bulbs hit the keys and bounced off, making its whereabouts painfully obvious as Darren offered it to me, with an apologetic smile flashing from his face for a split second.
My living room was brighter and breezier than I'd recalled; the familiar view of the city through a wall of glass was of great comfort to me. Passing it en route to the bathroom for a splash of water, I noticed the crowded mess through a small door next to the kitchen wall. I no longer had a guest room; the small room originally intended for that purpose had been transformed into a bizarre hybrid of home-office and meditation space. Asking Darren to leave his Samsonite next to my bookshelf, I hit the answering machine. I - "You" - had four messages.
"Oh God! Rick call me back ASAP!"
beep.
"God god god Rick where are you? CALL ME BACK!!"
beep.
a low, subdued "aaaaaargh!!"
beep.
"Watch the news Rick!!!! Call me!" Click.
"Is that Nikki?" Darren asked as he struggled to pull some piece of fabric from his bag.
"Nah, it's Erin, my boyfriend's sis." I tried to tread lightly.
"Boyfriend?"
Again, I tried to ignore the tension seeping through my toes and shooting for my brain. "Yes, Darren. Don't tell me I don't have the right to see someone else."
Darren, certainly, whined in protest, but I never quite heard him as I dialed Erin's number and felt for the right button on the remote control.
"What's the news? So big that you can't spill on an answering machine..."
Erin faded out into a low sob. A stranger's voice, obviously stretched and hardened, filled the room.
"...the pilot had initiated an emergency landing fifteen minutes before the crash... we know that there was a failure in the aircraft's hydraulic system, but we do not know yet what the extent of the problem had been..."
I bit my lips. Darren approached me, walking from his bag, with a shirt hanging around his forearm.
"What's the matter, Rick?"
I pointed to the smouldering wreckage on the TV screen. What remained of a set of three economy class seats, charred and broken, faintly made itself present behind slices of the fuselage.
"T-t-that. He was on that flight. M-M-M-Mark. Oh Mark."
------------------------------------------------------------------ to be continued. write me... leon@mac.com