Luke Alden: Happy Birthday Eternity

‘I begged them to just lead you to us. I begged Dylan. And he agreed to do it. He agreed to make you understand. And…’

She sucks in air with a gasp that struggles against the pressure of the moment.

‘And I didn’t know what he was going to do to you. I told him to leave you alone. I told him that you didn’t deserve that. I told him these things and I realized that I had to let you go. I realized that I had to move on. I had to move on because holding onto you was only causing pain for both of us.’

She reaches her hand for mine.

I don’t return the favor.

‘You were becoming so far gone. And then Franklin killed himself and everything was crumbling.’

I can feel her heart beat.

‘I had to let you go. And I did. I let you go and I accepted the fact that I was going to die.

And then I was trapped. I was trapped in this stupid little cult. Trapped because I had committed crimes and I was wanted by police and I didn’t know what to do.’

Her hand comes closer.

Mine doesn’t move.

‘I was scared. I was scared and I still am scared. And now I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do because Everyone else has died. Dylan died months ago and now it’s just me.’

I pause.

I breathe.

I twist my nervous fingers and strain to figure out what my brain is doing to me. Because I was just fighting Dylan. Because he was just here.

She keeps talking:

‘Everyone else is gone and all I want is to spend my last years with you. That’s all I want. I don’t even care if it’s miserable. I don’t care because I know that I’ll feel it and that’s what I need. And I know that you need me. I know that you need me because I know that the drugs have damaged you. I know that things aren’t getting better for you. We need each other.’

And those words, they have meaning.

We need each other.

It catches me in the gut.

It catches me and it sucks all my oxygen from my lungs.

We need each other.

We’ve both been through so much.

We’ve both lost everything and gained something that we never could have conceived of before.

We need each other and I know that it’s true.

Her skin is soft to the touch.

My lips press against hers.

There’s a soft song on the radio.

I don’t know how long we’ve been together, but it’s been a while.

I haven’t been able to get her out of my head since the first time I saw her.

And now, here we are in my bed.

There’s a sweat between our bodies as we tangle the sheets.

There’s a whispered moan.

She chews on her lower lip.

And then it’s a drawn out pause with arched backs and tensed muscles.

She collapses down onto my chest.

Her head is next to my head and we’re both smiling with clouded eyes and hearts that beat against our ribs like some sort of primal drum.

‘Did you…’

I laugh.

‘I’m pretty sure that’s what that was.’

And I feel a nervous sort of lump in my chest.

‘What about you… did you… well… you know…’

She laughs and kisses me on the forehead.

‘I love you.’

I smile and squeeze my hand into hers.

‘I love you.’

We lay next to each other with blankets at our feet and pillows beneath our heads. I look up at the ceiling and my mind, it wanders to the future.

We’re both laying in bed.

I can see the light of the stars as they creep through the window and lay across my chest.

I haven’t been able to sleep all night.

My mind won’t stop moving.

Something is wrong.

At some point Evaline starts to stir.

She struggles to push herself up and out of bed.

I don’t say anything.

I only watch as she lifts her body up from the bed.

She walks across the room. To the bathroom.

It’s a lumbering walk that lets me know she’s in pain. It lets me know that she’s struggling with every step and every movement.

She’s struggling because the weight of time, the weight of life, the weight of everything that this Earth has thrown at her, it’s all caught up to her.

I don’t say anything; instead I remain silent and wait for her to come back to me.

I don’t know what time it is, there are no clocks in our room.

Seconds turn to minutes.

Silence is everywhere.

Then I hear a crash.

Entropy.

The tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity.

The inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society.

Her skin is white and pale as she lies in a heap on the floor.

I feel my hands shaking.

And I don’t know what to do.

I kept telling myself I was ready for this moment.

I kept telling myself that I could do this.

But I was wrong.

She’s limp in my arms.

I feel my insides go limp.

I feel my insides as they tie themselves up in knots upon knots.

My body is shaking.

I shake her.

I shake her because I want her to come back to me.

I want her to know that she can come back because I remember how to love her.

But she won’t come back.

She’ll never be back.

She’s gone.

Forever.

And I can’t do this.

My mind races.

I don’t want to live like this.

I want to be with her.

I want to be with her because I don’t know what goodbye means

And then my head starts to throb.

I’m sweating.

My hands tremble.

The walls, they pulsate.

I start to panic.

I want to stay with her.

And then time, it moves sideways.

My name is Ellis Jackson. I’m 2038 years old. I didn’t meet the love of my life until I turned 578. Her name is Evaline. She has pale skin and collagen injected lips. Like everyone else that lives forever, most of her body is fake.

I love Evaline even though I barely remember why. I just know that I do. I’m relying on the fact that I’ve said it so many times that there must have once been a reason for my love.

But isn’t that how we always go through life? Relying on our words to justify our actions? Whatever happened to justifying our words with our actions?