Luke Alden - Happy Birthday Eternity

I give up.

It’s not going to make any sense.

Alicia is laughing.

‘Are you crazy?’ She asks this with a half smile on her face.

‘No.’ And this is me with defeat in my voice.

This is me giving up.

Alicia laughs and thinks that I’m joking and she calls me cute and she tells me that I crack her up and when she does that I can feel my finger tips begin to tingle.

She takes off her clothes.

Tits to my face.

They’re perky and full of saline.

She has tan lines.

Her skin looks like leather.

Tongue to tongue and hands to skin.

She licks me from neck to ear and back again. My body shivers. And she giggles a soft giggle as if she’s proud of her accomplishment. My mind begins to fade away into the fog of lust.

We don’t make love.

We fuck.

This isn’t gentle.

I’m frustrated.

Angry that she can’t help me.

Angry that I don’t have anyone to talk to about this.

Angry that I haven’t been more proactive in finding Evaline.

I’m tired of giving up, and as I grind my hips, I can’t help but think thats all I’m doing. Giving up.

Alicia is screaming in ecstasy.

When I look at her face I don’t see anything. When I look into her eyes it’s as if she’s lost. Vacant, blank and vapid.

I assume that it looks the same from her view point.

I thrust harder.

I can’t finish.

My mind is elsewhere.

I roll off.

She looks disappointed.

‘Aren’t you going to finish?’ She seems offended.

‘No.’ And I don’t try to make things better.

She begins to pout.

Her lips go tight and her fists ball up and her cheeks get flush and she wants me to be hers.

I get dressed.

She looks like she’s going to cry.

This is a power struggle. This is her attempting to feel ok with our relationship. This is me not caring either way.

I’m ready to leave. Standing up. Looking towards the door.

‘Please don’t go.’

I start to go.

There’s no point in staying. We’re nothing more than fuck friends. We’re nothing more than two people trying to get some sort of relief. We have nothing in common other than a need to get off. Our bodies want everything and our hearts want nothing.

My feet carry me forward.

Part of me wants to be stopped. Part of me wants to feel needed. The other part just wants to walk until I’ve forgotten all the centuries up until now. Part of me wants to walk until I can start over again.

I just want a second chance.

To love.

To work.

To get things right.

Up until a few years ago I thought I did have it right.

I assumed life was perfect.

I had a routine.

I had safety and security and all the things that people strive for in life.

Now I’m not sure what I have.

I hear Alicia rustling behind me.

‘Ellis, please, there’s something I need to tell you first.’

I stop moving.

‘I think I know that curly haired man you were talking about.’

And it’s a pause, a breath, and a nervous twisting of nervous fingers.

I’m sitting in Alicia’s kitchen. I’ve been up all night. My gut is sore and my head aches and I want to sleep but I can’t. My mind keeps moving in circles. It keeps trying to process life. It keeps trying to make sense of things that shouldn’t make sense.

Alicia is passed out on her couch.

We talked until our mouths were dry and our eyes were dull.

There was a passion in the way we spoke.

There was a cadence to our words that reminded me of what it means to be alive.

There was more to us than collagen and leathery skin; there was a depth that I thought had been lost to complacency.

I told her about Evaline.

I told her about my yesterdays.

I told her about what I had.

I told her about what I lost and about all the things in my life that make less and less sense the further I get from them.

She listened.

She replied.

She told me about her loves.

Her losses.

The little things that she misses from the years before.

Awkward hands and nervous breathing.

The conversation moved forward only to fall back.

Back to the man with curly hair.

The man who Alicia began running into a few years ago.

Right around the time that her and I began speaking. Right around the time she and I began fucking.

He had said ’hi’ to her at the grocery store.

And again the next week.

Then at the coffee shop and on the sidewalk and everywhere else until it was more than coincidence.

They would stop and chat and he would ask questions and she would answer and they would part.

I still don’t know if it has anything to do with me. That’s why my mind keeps going in circles. Maybe I’m just reading into things when I shouldn’t. Maybe I’m trying to put together a puzzle using all the wrong pieces. Maybe I’m just trying to put together the puzzle with the wrong picture in mind.

Maybe we’re talking about two different people

But it’s too coincidental.

It’s too convenient.

It has to be the same man.

And I wonder where Evaline is right now.

Is she with this curly haired man?

I breathe in deeply.

The air in Alicia’s apartment has a different taste to it.

I hold it in.

I try not to forget.

Someday I will forget.

Someday I will have to take a drug just remember this moment.

I used to think that Evaline was part of me. I used to think that she was part of my heart and part of my soul. I used to think our love was perfect and beautiful in every way. At least that’s what I kept telling myself. I told myself that our love was perfect until I believed it.

Now in this quiet moment where loss is the topic of the day, I realize that someday I will forget about her. Someday the time we spent together will seem insignificant.

Someday I will move on and find another woman and get my life together and all the yesterdays that I spent with Evaline, they will be replaced with new yesterdays, they will be replaced with new loves and passions, new moments of depression and lonely jerk off sessions on the toilet. A day will come where I won’t be the same person. A day will come where Evaline will be nothing more than a picture in a drawer.

In fifty-thousand years I won’t remember that this moment ever existed.

I let out a sigh.

I listen to the world around me.

I don’t want to forget.

Ever.

I take a pill.

I want to be somewhere else.

Time moves sideways.

My chest grows tight.

‘I love you , you fucking bitch.’

This is me.

I’m grabbing Evaline’s elbow.

She’s crying.

My nose is bleeding.

And this is love.

Uncontrolled.

Primal.

In some messed up way, this is love.

‘Let me go you fucking asshole.’ The words slip out from Evaline’s broken lips.

She slaps me. It stings my face. She keeps cussing. We’re in her apartment. She kicks my gut. My grip is gone. I’m stumbling.

My face connects with the ground. It’s cold. It soothes.

Evaline keeps yelling.

Slapping.

Punching.

I’m getting bruised.

I’m bleeding.

She runs her nails across my face. .

‘You fucking cunt, calm the fuck down.’ the words fall from my swollen lips.

My hand goes to Evaline’s shoulder. She stumbles back.

‘Leave me the fuck alone, Ellis.’

She’s on both feet.

She tells me to get out of her apartment.

‘Fuck you’ is what I manage to yell back.

My voice is broken from yelling. My eyes are clouding up. My broken skin is mixing with the air around me.