Luke Alden - Happy Birthday Eternity

They felt we were insane for only having one voice in our head.

Sometimes I wonder if they’re right.

I should know who I am by now.

2000 and some years old and I don’t even know when I am.

I look at Evaline sitting next to me. I begin to wonder if this is another hallucination. I begin to wonder if she’s anymore real than the Evaline I’ve been staying with these last few weeks.

The doctor told me that things would get worse. That my brain would start to cause me more and more problems. The drugs, they’ve starting eating away at my memory. They’ve started mixing things up.

Evaline looks upset. This moment is familiar. I’ve lived it before.

I ask what’s wrong.

She starts to shake. She buries her head into my arm. Her shoulders clench.

Her body quivers in a rhythmic way.

I’d hold her eyes if she cried them out.

She tells me that she’s been cheating on me. She tells me that she has been seeing another man.

And then it all clicks. I had forgotten about this. It happened over a thousand years ago. We moved past it. I think. She cheated on me and I got upset. We almost broke up for good. Then for some stupid reason, we ended up back together.

And I want to tell her things will be ok, that she doesn’t need to cry. That I love her and want to work through all of this. I just want to be with her. But those words, those words that lay on the tip of my tongue; they never bother spilling out into the air around me.

It’s like a dream.

Because all I want to do is love her but all I can seem to do is yell.

She’s crying.

I’m furious.

Red faced.

Shaking.

‘Who was it?’

And she doesn’t answer.

And I already know who it was. I know because I’ve lived through this moment before. The answer, it’s stuck in my head. It was just some guy. Someone I never knew. Someone she knew from work. Inconsequential from start to finish.

‘Was it Franklin?’

I have no control over my mouth or the words that seem to be forming within it. I feel possessed. And this, this is my séance. This is where I call upon the dead to inform the present.

I’d say that this was a dream, but I know that it’s not. It’s too real. It’s too tangible. I’m too in the moment.

And Evaline. She won’t even look at me.

I want to tell her that it’s ok, because I love her and that love means that I’m going to try to make things work.

Regardless of the emotions that I feel at the moment, I will try.

And Evaline. She starts to walk away. She tells me she needs to be alone. She tells me not to follow her.

She walks into the next room.

I follow.

She’s on the phone. She’s trying to call someone. Trying to have someone make her feel ok.

I want to hug her but instead I pull the phone from her hand and throw it to the floor.

I know that this is what I did before, but it all feels wrong now.

And perhaps I’ve grown more than I realize.

Evaline picks up the phone and starts dialing again.

‘Leave me alone you fucking asshole.’

‘You need to stop running from this goddamned situation. You need to answer my questions and at least give me an iota of respect.’

‘Go away. Just go the fuck away. You’re a fucking asshole. I cheated on you because you don’t even respect me as a person. You treat me like shit. You’re selfish, self centered and manipulative.’

This is the part where I fall apart.

This is the part where things go black.

And as my chest raises and my lungs fill with air, all I can feel is my body deflating.

My face goes pale.

My hands tremble.

I open my eyes.

My hands and feet are tied.

I’m in a room, on a chair.

It’s silent.

It’s dark.

It’s familiar

Someone whispers in my ear: ‘You’re dying and you don’t even know it.’

And moments pass in a fragmented hallucination.

We weren’t always in need of saving.

Then a man came along and told us that we were.

Many people believed it.

Many people still believe it.

It’s easy to think we’re flawed. It’s easier to think that death is our salvation from these flaws. So what happens when we don’t die?

Why would we need salvation if it can never be reached?

And maybe that’s the key to it all, belief in something we can never reach. It gives us motivation, a reason to keep moving. That or it makes us lazy. Because deep down, in our hearts and our guts, we know that we’ll never be saved and no matter what we do, no matter how despicable we are as human beings, there is nothing that will right our wrongs.

Dylan, that’s the man with the curly hair’s name, he tells me that he wants to die. He wants something bigger than himself. Perhaps salvation. Perhaps the preservation of a natural order.

He speaks to me, but I only hear pieces.

‘Death gives a purpose.’

‘Without out it we are aimless and boring.’

‘Sculpted, tanned and without hope or dreams.’

‘You don’t run a race if you know that it doesn’t matter when you finish.’

Dylan tells me that death is our best friend and our greatest teacher.

And this is what it’s like waking up from a head injury:

First things are foggy. Then the fog lifts and then you’ve got a stranger with curly hair telling you that you’ve wasted your life.

At least this is how things are for me.

Tied up.

Freaked out.

A little dizzy.

And I’m trying to figure out if what I just experienced, the little flashback with Evaline, was it a dream or was it a hallucination?

I can’t tell.

And behind Dylan is Evaline. The Evaline from my head. She’s looking nervous and silent and when I make eye contact with her, she quickly looks away.

I want to tell her to leave. I want to tell her that she doesn’t need to see me like this.

I want to tell her these things, but I also want to preserve some form of dignity in front of Dylan. So I keep my mouth shut and listen to what he’s telling me.

The rope is hurting my wrists.

And so he continues with his diatribe. His little song and dance about death.

I nod my head and act like I’m paying attention.

I act like I’m paying attention, yet I can’t take my eyes off of Evaline.

She smiles.

I smile.

Dylan looks behind his shoulder and then back at me.

‘Are you listening to me?’

‘Death is my greatest teacher.’

He shakes his head. He looks behind his shoulder again; thrown off and agitated.

He leaves the room.

My stomach growls.

I’m starving.

I’m still tied up.

I start to pass out.

I dream of Evaline.

In this dream she tells me that she was cheating. I tell her that we’ve been together for centuries, we’re bigger than one single fuck up.

When I wake up, my bones ache and my jaw is numb.

When I wake up, I open my eyes to a fist pulling back.

They say that you’re only as good as what you can take.

I must be no good.

I’m ready to cry after the first swing.

And I yell: ‘Fuck off you asshole.’

No one’s listening

And then I feel a tooth go loose as the back of my skull starts to do a shimmy and a shake.

It’s Dylan.

I start thrashing around, wildly.

My body aches and I can feel blood dripping from my smashed-in face. I yell again. Louder. No one listens. Louder. No one responds.

Another fist and my brains are starting to feel like syrup in my skull. And it’s a pause and a breathe and a nervous twisting of nervous fingers as I feel my skull bounce against a wall.