and hold you 'till you're quiet.
betelgeuse
He meets her in a parking lot. Grey cement, grey sky, grey girl. (if he didn’t squint he would have missed her) Her eyes are trained east, straight into a lonely sea of skyscrapers, far away and set on somewhere else.
“What are you doing outside?” he shouts across the distance. Emptiness grabs onto the sound greedily, spits it back out. She turns toward him, too small for any distinction.
A sigh bubbles through her chest. “What are you?”
They trample junkyards. Abandoned stuff, he tells her as he picks through car parts. She listlessly follows along.
His fingers close around a bottle of gasoline. People are unfaithful. Knocks his fist on a few cars before they jump over the fence. Hollow metallic sounds break the would-be silence.
Empty city. Sounds ring and echo through her ears like she is just a piece of space herself.
They count their possessions. His: gasoline, ratty car, meager water skins. She presents him to her tablecloth, supply of straws, and maps.
“This isn’t my home,” she says, eyes trained east. Far away and set on somewhere else. “I’ve been here for two years, but this isn’t it.”
His toes bounce against a dusty windshield. “They don’t like giving water to outliers like us, you know?” Chews the end of a straw between his front teeth. (it feels strangely comforting)
Eyes flicker, up down, dark to normal filmy brown. “I know.” Turns back east to where her mind is.
The people underground are all about communion. Preventing the (inevitable) end, pretending the (inevitable) end isn’t unavoidable.
They are different. Taste the word against their tongues. Different. Somehow, someway, something.
Different.
He drives. She listens, eyes trained everywhere else but on him. The smell of gasoline floods through the car, sputters and sticks onto their clothes.
His mind wanders. Everywhere else but him. Exhaust billows out of the engine behind them, black cloud in the midst of a grey horizon.
The map is hers. Bites at his fingernails. He is only listlessly following along.
Her head is lolling against the frame of the window (the glass isn’t there anymore. punched out, she assumes. for the better, the humid air tells her.) when she is thrown unsubtly forward in her seat. Hears him pull the lever, hears the roar of the engine disappear. She misses it.
“What are you doing?” she asks him. He sips from his water skin, dark silhouette against the silvery road.
Caps the pouch. “It’s getting dark,” he replies. (she can’t tell the difference when she looks outside) “Let’s stop here for tonight.”
Her eyes bare into him until he is merely skin and skeleton. “No,” she says carefully, enunciating clearly. “You can’t.” Breathes deeply once. Twice. (the humid air is hard to push down her lungs) “We can’t.”
He sighs, burying his face into the crook of his arm, leaning heavily against the wheel. She leans back in her seat, waiting. “When I said that people were unfaithful, I didn’t mean us.”
Sometime during the night, his elbow jabs into the horn.
She looks out the window, eyes trained east, dark silhouette against the silvery road.
The road rolls beneath their feet, carpets and blankets of untrodden uneven concrete. Car wheezes along, tires thumping against every indent and bump.
They vibrate with them. He laughs when his head almost hits the roof. She points to the clanking seatbelt next to his seat.
He puts it on.
Night comes again. He twists the key, car sighing in defeat before turning completely silent. Silence, and it engulfs them.
“There’s a spring around here,” she tells him, getting out of the car. “If it’s still there, we can refill our water and bathe.”
The doors slam. Their footsteps grind against the gravel, flopping soles and old sneakers striking against the ground. She stares at the dirt path, he watches the sky.
Water skins dangle from their fingers. (leftover droplets tracing the inside of the pouches) “How much gasoline do we have left?” Her lips quiver over the words, in between closing and opening , voice coming out distorted by the release and block of breath.
They switch positions, her eyes to the sky, his to the ground.
She plunges underwater, hands against her ears, and screams, screams because there’s so much but so little to say, screams because east is too far away.
Her chest turns watery, lungs filled with moisture. Chokes, once twice three times, and it hurts so much that salt leaks into the sweet spring but she can’t stop, think of stopping, imagine stopping.
And the monochrome water pushes against her.
They are tired. Humid air tapes the smell of gasoline into the car, onto their clothes.
She stops listening. He wishes he could stop driving, but he can’t.
The people aboveground simply don’t know what they’re doing. Realizing the (inevitable) end is coming, trying to do something, get something out of life before the (inevitable) end arrives.
They are different. Taste the word against their tongues with the last traces of gasoline. It sputters (she counts four times, he counts none) before blowing out all together, tired tires halting atop the gravel. They listen as the roar of the engine disappears.
And then they get out, doors slamming, sounds of their movement breaking the would-be silence. Flopping soles and old sneakers strike the gravel, water skins dangling from their fingers, set east, far away and someplace else.
Their silhouettes melt into the humid air. Grey cement, grey sky, grey girl and boy.
This is them, trying.
(if you didn’t squint you would miss them.)
(the sleeping giant remains stagnant. amber eyes hide behind pitch lids, waiting to be reawakened.
inhales. the molten core burns orange, burns brighter than any flame. exhales, releasing amber into the universe with its open eyes.
and in that last moment, the world will see red, a saturated dip of the bloody sun into the sky.
and in the moment after that, the universe will be black, empty, silent once again.)
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