Luke Alden - Happy Birthday Eternity

She emphasizes ‘you’.

A pause. A breath. A nervous twisting of nervous fingers.

‘I’m sorry.’

She smiles a soft smile, and although she may understand my nervousness, it doesn’t matter. The pitter patter of shallow conversation drowns the evening and eventually she leaves.

I watch her walk out the door.

Later I jerk off to the image of her in my head.

I don’t see her again for 50 years.

Wake up.

Fucked up.

Head spinning; I feel as if I’m going to pass back out. My legs and hands and face are numb, my gut is growling for food.

I look around. The world is exactly where I left it. Unchanged. I don’t know how long I was gone. Maybe five hours, maybe ten. I never bother to time myself. Time doesn’t matter. Time is an antiquated notion. Time doesn’t move forward, moving forward is up to me. Currently I’m far too self involved to make any sort of forward movements.

My head aches as I sit up. Thinking of Evaline. I want to bury my face in the pillow and pass back out; instead I get up to piss.

I walk through the house.

It feels empty. It is empty.

Go to the bathroom.

Go to the kitchen.

Get food.

No one is around. The place seems deserted. My parents are most likely at work. Always working. Always trying to get by. Always trying to save money and make ends meet.

I’ll never get used to not working. I’ll never detach myself from that identity, the identity that tells me I’m nothing more than my job.

Who knows, perhaps I was never anything more than my job. Maybe people really are no better than the work we produce, and now without a job, without a girl, without a life; maybe I’m nothing at all.

And I’m out of the kitchen.

Back to my room.

Most of my possessions are gone.

Locked away or sent to the dump.

You’d be amazed at how much trash one man can accumulate in two thousand years. You’d be amazed at how much of your life gets filled by knick knacks and possessions that will be forgotten within a month. You’d be amazed.

And maybe if I’d accumulated a life that meant something, maybe then I wouldn’t be here today. Here at my parent’s, eating a sandwich and watching the clouds roll along the skyline.

Time allows us to take things for granted.

I take far too much for granted.

Perhaps it’s just part of being human.

Outside I hear a noise. The sound of something breaking. I get up. Step outside. Nothing is there except for a faint smell in the air. I breathe in, it’s familiar but I can’t place it.

Back inside I finish eating. Get up. Start to pace. Pick up the phone. Dial. It rings. I pause. Wait. Breathe in. Bite my thumbnail. Breathe out. Someone picks up.

‘Hello?’

‘Hey Alicia, it’s Ellis.’

‘Hey, baby.’

And this is my secret.

People say you can’t replace love with a cheap fuck.

Alicia smells like vanilla and screws like she’s off her medication.

And it’s me and Alicia and memories of Evaline that dance in this bed with a floral print comforter. I don’t know what I’m doing and I know it’s wrong, but still I keep going.

Sometimes all anyone wants is to feel a little less empty.

I take pills. I fuck.

I’m not sure if this is the right way to get rid of the excess loneliness, but for the moment it makes me feel ok.

When we’re done we both sweat and heave and breathe deep. It’s the most sex I’ve had in one thousand years.

It doesn’t feel like it used to. I don’t get the same rush and my teeth don’t clench in the same fashion.

It’s strange. The touch of a new body; new smells and sights and sounds that you never would have conceived on your own.

I’m sucking air.

I tell her it was good.

I haven’t been to a gym in decades. It was once part of my routine, and like everything else it slipped away.

Why do I let everything slip away?

I’m out of shape. Wheezing. It’s embarrassing. I’m supposed to be tone and trim and fit and ready to run a mile and fuck all night. I’m supposed to be someone that I can only dream of being. Someone I’ve never been in my two millennia of life.

‘You’re getting better.’

Alicia is a bitch and I don’t mind it. Alicia treats me like shit because I don’t tell her to stop. Alicia is just some girl who I met on the sidewalk a few years back. Just some girl who I stumbled through awkward conversation with. Just some girl who, for a few minutes of formulaic fucking, can make me forget what I’m trying so hard to remember.

Love and infatuation are the worst drugs of all.

You kick one and move to the other, but in the end, you want them both.

Alicia gets out of bed and smiles. Her skin is pulled tight, she’s draped in a blanket, she’s tan with brown hair and blonde streaks and all the other homogenized affects that so many people tend to parade around.

She’s also got a tattoo of a butterfly on her lower back.

She goes to the bathroom.

I lay in bed. Think of Evaline. Wonder what she’s doing right now. I’ll never know. She could be dead for all I know.

And Alicia comes out of the bathroom and gets back in bed with me. She presses her face into my chest.

She smells like vanilla.

I’m sweaty.

What’s left of her makeup is about to rub off onto me.

I’m ok with that.

And Alicia is a different type of girl. Single. She says that’ she’s been married 22 times. Maybe she’s finally given up. Maybe she can see through the bullshit. I doubt it.

There are moments when I wonder if we’re doing more than just fucking.

Maybe we’re creating a bond. Maybe this is the development of a relationship. I can’t even tell. Everything is clouded in a decay of grief and loss and drugs. For all I know we could be on our way to getting married.

I’m still married to Evaline.

I squeeze Alicia tight. She smiles. I smile. It feels good. Above me the ceiling fan is spinning.

After a few minutes I finally get out of bed. My legs feel weak. I’m not dizzy but my heart is beating fast.

I put on my clothes. One pant leg at a time.

‘So what are you up to for the rest of the week?’ This is me trying to make small talk. I’ve never been too good at it. Maybe that’s why I can’t hold onto my friends.

‘I’m just working for the most part. Going to the movies with some of my girlfriends this weekend. Maybe I’ll hit the bar. I’m not too sure.’

I smile and nod and try to think of something witty to say, but I can’t. I don’t know Alicia all that well. It’s been a few years but she still feels like a stranger when I talk to her. It’s just her body that I know so well.

‘That sounds fun.’ This is me wincing at how fake I sound. I could care less about what she’s doing.

‘Yeah I know! There’s this really funny movie coming out on Friday, ugh, I can’t remember what it’s called… But I think it’ll probably be pretty good. Plus we’re going to a bar in town that serves the BEST appletini’s. It’s really going to be great.’

I miss the conversations that I used to have with Evaline.

And now I’m dressed. Sitting at the edge of Alicia’s bed. She smiles. The comforter is wrapped over her shoulders as she sits up next to me. We smile at each other, but it’s not a genuine smile, more like a smile that you’d give to a passing stranger as to let them know you’re not a complete asshole.

Then Alicia does something that makes me flinch. She grabs my hand and squeezes it tight. There’s a connection that’s missing on my end.

She’s genuine.

I’m just trying to fill a void.

I might as well be jerking off into a toilet.