Suicide Mornings. Or: In his heart, she had found home.
Suicide mornings. His mind on the past. The lie of the old city. The bored sky of a city not alive. The stranger. When he would awake, the old thoughts would fix his day for the time in front.
Apathy, the strength of it.
Nights were no better. The division absent of pulse.
He knew he would leave there or become one of them. To join the plain faces, to feel what they did, to forget they were nothing. Man of the world lost, not enough. Inside, the fire would wait. Outside, the film on his body grew. Roots inside him hot. What rose outside his skin, the constant mark of time without color. Before the money, after
the money. His love taken away, the last place had taken her by seeing her leave. The café there. He was spit on by a ghost. When she walked out he knew he had exposed himself. To keep the ghost inside would have been easy. She had noticed things about him. He had problems. She loved him more than they did. By his side she would not leave.
In his heart, she had found home.
When she left, she was taken.
The stranger, called to the city who stole her.
When the detective walked onto the scene, she had been split up her middle. Sliced open, teeth obliterated. The look on her face. She was taken at night. The stranger, one year later, after the start of the mornings that would end him had he stayed another day, the city peered south and pulled him on in.
A gamble.
When starving:
A hunter would simply hunt, without regard for history of prey.
Dusk upon the city. Aria. The stranger pulled awake, walking the blocks. Buildings ripped down by light, they reflected the sky, and he knew he was never leaving. He was never leaving alive. What he had felt when the city called him home. The city knew he was a man, and nothing more. He was one of them. When its search stopped there, he
was in, and it looked on to count other things. He was in place. Its context. Firm, and without failure.
A city can be intentional.
The stranger walked dusk, glanced up at the glass high, and looked down the street.
Intentions were not without arrogance.
Murder was the highest arrogance.
—Back upstairs, remembering. His stare on the city, his first love. His first day in the city when it had called him. The list in his pocket. Business readied. He had arrived at night. In the diner across from the building, Aria walked past. He watched her unlock the door to the lobby. She disappeared inside. He waited an hour, walked over and
rang the buzzer. The door opened. She introduced herself as the landlord. Not the building manager, not the landlady. Sour. It only sat upon the tongue that way for a moment. The holdings company had already approved him. His place upstairs, end of the hall.
Four years ago:
His first love, the last place. From the last place she was called tothe city. The last place spat her out without knowing it. A job interview. A hired car, a job with the city. Long drive. Her fear of flying. Her fears would kiss his heart. An opening move, the city brought her in to work in the day. Hired, she lived in a place north of the quarter.
Administration. Government. Her degree. The place she left had the spot filled for good. Looking out to the buildings, the stranger remembered her tears. She stepped inside the car, and he closed the door for her.
Four times they had seen each other after she left. Always him flying in. Always him asking her back home. The money had not arrived. Had it, he would have left the old place in a minute. He did not have a closing talk with her the night she was destroyed. It haunted him. It haunted his blood.
Her job in the city, solid. Her love back in the old place. His struggling heart. The mound of dreams from which he waited. Night after night, at his desk. Reading giants. When he was not into a book, he was writing their plans. The plans, suppositions across her heart. The look in her eye, an animal love. His mind for business, confused forever in art. His father, the dying wish in a man to see his son succeed beyond
him. Her love. Crippled by the arts not calling him. His soul lit bright. Blue flame with no end.
The night his love was destroyed. The night his father had died, the same abrupt change to both sides of his heart. Streaks through obsidian appeared after the phone call from the city. On the plane, her only family alive, he had watched the land below. Of all the people inthe world. His two, on the same night. When he had reached for the phone he was sure it was her. They shared the energy. He reached for the phone to call her, to let her know his older was gone now. To hear her voice. Satin chalk in his mouth. His phone rang first. Her eyes deep, nothing deeper lived. Closed now, above the sheet, the stitching would make a V from the table. Thick, risen up. Her shell there. Last kiss. Lips of clay, mold for the end. Dried and dead. He filled out the forms, plans for the body. She would choose ash. He did not have the heart to keep
them.
A place across the street from a strip club and a bar next door. Sitting at the curve of the wood. No sleep, none in sight. Two shots, a pint, and a tall Jack Coke down the road. A woman behind the bar then. She asked him why he looked miserable. He stared through her, and she let him be. That night there had been the two of them, after the fat man at the end of the bar staggered to his feet, paid without a tip, and
made his way west down the boulevard. The stranger stood, dropped the tab on the bar, cleared it clean with twenty on top, and walked out. The bartender in the back, changing her blood above a mirror. The night above. His people, people no more. Two dead things now. The old city waiting. The horror of the street where he was, what she
had gone through at the end. She had been in the quarter, but the quarter was not in her. Places like there did nothing for her. When she was not working, she was on the phone with him until she had to sleep. The drink, mixed his fatigue. The city around him, not its concern. He was not ready. The connection of his sadness to the loss
of love, unnoticed. A tourist feeding the night, he meant nothing else. Aria. Back then, on her nights off. She walked. The boulevard was her favorite. Away from what she had done in the place before. Her youth torn back by her father. Her mother, unresponsive. When she took her father away from Earth, her mother followed him from the next room. Close one door after, open the other to do it again. Aria was fourteen.
After the juvenile psychiatric ward, she was released for good. Four therapists deposed, her abuse mitigated the rule. Her adult life, hers. Sins expunged, said to her with a smile. The judge had a story like hers. Out of that place, onto the street. Money from her aunt who had passed. Her only family left. Not a fortune, but she had enough to begin without care. Her aunt had cheered her silently.
Back then, the night air pushing itself. Four hours left until the dawn would make the skyline unreadable. Aria. Walking back from a tattoo. Black hearts on her fingers. The air outside, the freedom of control. She walked back up the boulevard. Her fingers, slow and steady burn. The release of it. The ink within her fingers, different. Breaths in the ink. Her father fading from thought. Had he owned the guts to tell her he was wrong, to tell her the truth. When moments had passed between them, away from her bed, he ignored her. What he was doing, he chose to owe her nothing. His mind was fixed from his own past, his own people who used his flesh. He was damned, like her
mother. To own up to his daughter, to give her what was ripped away—he let the past keep it from all. If she was damned, he was the one made true to tell her. To know by his spine she was hated by God. But he was only a coward, her mother only his shadow.
The stranger back then. Leaving the bar, the air in there. What he was given, only his love had seen it. What he could give to the world, what he could feel when no one else could. What he knew about strangers, they would not believe. She believed when she saw it. Her love, a heart so open, a soul burned with the sadness of them. Hers had been the only one strong, the only one he would know his life was worth. She knew she would die with him, or die alone in wait. Down the boulevard. This glorified street. The sidewalk with two bodies moving toward. The stranger, his love would be ash in the morning. He looked around, his heart heavy beyond tears. Changing
there, he moved through the air and thought to his love, her soul, to where it could be. One thought, broke from his mouth.
“Where are you?”
He stared into darkness. The shadow moved closer.
The stranger, back then. Outside of the bar. Heart soaked, fatigue. Floating in drink, it sat there confused. The city planted the seed. The shadow moving on him. Aria. Pulled from her walk. A shared idea without her knowing. Its only flower dipped in blood. To call the stranger, to make the city home after the death of his love. It would take her shadow colored in. Call from above.
Without effort.
Without mercy, it gave it in spades.
Broken heart, soaked.
The eyes of Aria.
Right on time.
Back then. Only his first love knew what he had. More than the city could guess. Instinct was only one half. The eyes of her. The wind thatknew her name, gone through him. What he saw inside. His face, hidden by a shadow cast sideways down the wall. With the city upon her, no need to look over. The stranger read her, and at once the sacrifice of his love was made known to him.
Known to no other, on the ground or above.
The old man in the field across watched the silhouettes.
The flower gone east, the stranger paused. The wind around him,
he went the other way and waited.
He already knew where to go.
Back in the old city, he readied his business, his ear to the window. On a night when he sent the thought skyward. He would die with one more night in that place, the city reached over land, let him know where it was, there was life left.
The stranger had been ready for months.
The stranger, now. Back upstairs, remembering. The night pulled down, out across the city. Something in his heart. Something new. Outside, the wind watched his window, waited, and left to continue where the city sent it next. When it was gone, the stranger walked to the door. The hall door opened and he leaned in to watch. Her long ghost.
The first time he knew she was there before a sound.
When he had passed her in the hall the first time, his face, hidden by a shadow cast sideways down the wall.
The beat between them, fixed only for out there.
Summer in the city. The building hummed. Air conditioners fastened high, they bulged from the windows. The landlady, away from her desk. Body built new, her birds watched while a younger man lay beneath her sex. She finished, and he left. He was one of three. The need for love erased by her now, her body strong beneath her age.
Morning runs, food cooked only from health. As the weeks grew hot, she ran at night. The building, full now, with the exception of the top floor, where Aria and the stranger lived, and always the place between them. The last tenant had died there, an old man, shut himself in and cut the walls apart, pulled up the floor for no reason, and destroyed all lines of electricity and plumbing. Renovation was put off, and the
place was simply forgotten.
The young man gone. Her, behind the counter. Her birds calm, her nose in philosophy.
Had she known life was like this—she reached back through time and wished her husband murdered years ago.
A child of the city, true blood, now.
Aria. Summer brought light late to her. Quilt over glass slid to the side, the light from out there breaking in the open door while she showered. Her thoughts with the water. She was hated by God. The city had named her, and she was alone. On days when the Sun shone late, she wondered about the years in front. The faces in the city, they
saw her, a statue that moved. Her heart, older in the morning. Out of the shower. Foot to floor. The creak. In her closet, she found her clothes. Another night of the stage. When she would tire of it, the city paid her more. In the mirror. Her face, the only place without ink, and she knew she was done with it. Her walls complete, the tomb for her father. She dressed, left the quilt the way it was, and locked her door. At the hallway end, she turned. The light from the apartment at the end of the hall, a shadow behind it, from feet to the hole in the center. She remembered only then, the man who lived there, and she let the thought go. He pulled back when the hall door closed. Aria in the lift, his mind clear of all plans.
He had learned how, while he waited for the city to pull him in.
Midnight. Lift to lobby. Landlady watching him walk. Her stare, seasoned. At the counter they talked of summer. Her new life noticed, paid compliments from his smile. He let the red bird bite in, and he walked into the night. She swallowed him with her stare, and the phone rang. One of her three asking for an hour with her. She hung up and took her birds inside, readied her bed.
Two shots, a pint, and a tall Jack Coke down the road. Later than usual. His mind blank, his mind thinking about the city in the summer. Buildings ripped down by light, they reflected the sky, and he knew he was never leaving. He was never leaving alive, and the city used it for blood. The bartender, beads of sweat. The stranger watching the people there. The city packed itself in summer. He sat and drank. Calm. Something in his heart, and he had felt it from Aria, from her place while she showered. He had felt it.
A bet a gambler would make, the share he would take.
How he would put up the bet would mean the hand.
The city at night.
A gamble.
When being hunted: the longest living prey knows the history of the
hunter. When it hunts hungry, it could falter. Confident, it would lose
the share.
Aria. Off the stage, in the back room. Dressed, and out the front door. The stranger stood, dropped his tab on the bar, cleared it clean with a twenty on top. Aria walked west. He waited, and he walked east.
Aria, walking the blocks to leave the night on the stage. In summer,
she would walk west past the building, stop at the edge of the quarter,
then walk back around the blocks. The circle back home would put
her in the lift just before dawn.
The stranger. His mind, empty. His thoughts on the beauty of the night. A child of the city, forever in awe, he played the role. The air, the Moon high and warm. The faces of the night. Rough and beaten. His stare through them to keep them from exchange. The time and night, the exact date of back then, when he had stood in front of the bar
across the street, the darkness. Punctuated by a shadow. Where his love had gone, he had asked the air, and the city had answered him.
Aria. The end of the quarter. Her walk back up the blocks. The stranger moving. Opposite for the building. From above, they were walking the figure of the blocks, away from each other, to meet at the same door. Either corner rounded.
Aria. Four blocks up. Her figure.
Another block and he would send the thought skyward.
The old man in the field. Pulled to his knees. The bars had closed their doors. The people headed back, the streets empty of those with places. Pulled to his feet, neck raised to rooftops. He gripped the blade down his side, listened, and moved to hunt.
The stranger. A block from Aria. Stalling his steps. His mind on her. His thoughts on her hair. Her eyes, how he would crush her heart with a kiss. Her long ghost up the block. Out of his mind, on the street. Her ghost being fleshed, his mind on her in the world. Behind her, the shadow moved with no bones. Two blocks behind her. The stranger watched over her shoulder.
The shadow running.
It ran east, to catch her. It ran against time the wrong way.
A gamble. His. The old man.
When a ghost must hunt with the flesh of another, when it must
gamble. Confident, it would falter.
Taken by surprise, it would lose the share.
The stranger, high ground. Above him, constricted air. A wind wanting to blow him off the street without exposing itself. The old man, pulled to his feet in the field just moments ago. It was on him alone. Torso leaned out, running the street. The stranger walking up on Aria. The old man, losing ground. The city waiting. The stranger
moving toward. Aria within. Her face clear to him. The shadow moving, the stranger counting the speed. His thoughts skyward. His arms around Aria. The shadow fleshed, the old man. Teeth bared above the blade pulled.
Somebody had come to pluck their flower:
Do it again , son, this time keep his head for fun.
Four feet from Aria. The face from her. The man she had seen twice in the city. It came to her there. Sideways shadow of the wall and hall. Up into his eyes. Deep. Her mind going to work. He was there for something. Something in his heart. Eyes. Deep. Cobalt over hazel. Behind them, darkness. Not for her, for everything after her, for what was before she could only guess. Hair blown back dark, stressed by obsidian. He was not part of there, he was part of her.
Aria. Footsteps behind. A shuffling. Turned around. The old man, teeth and blade. First time she felt fear in the city. Overhead. Wind ran around the corners of the buildings. Wounded wolf howl. The old man, to push past Aria and take the head.
The stranger. Aria in his arm. Safe. The old man off the ground. Lifted by his throat. The stranger let her go. Life leaving the old man, in that moment. He thought about the field. The stranger, stared into the old man, shook him by the throat, and the blade fell to the street. The old man, his body working backward toward death. Hanging half
broken. The stranger looked at Aria. Her look took its place, and when he looked back into the old man, his eyes told him he would live, and he would only live to tell the city it would lose her.
He tossed the old man aside.
When his elbows hit the ground he reached for the blade.
He ran off the block screaming, buried it in the heart of the first man he saw.
Aria. Up into the eyes of the stranger. Safe from her own heart. Her face against his arm, he opened the building door. Lobby. Landlady having sex behind her door. He raised an eyebrow, and Aria laughed. She counted the years behind it. In the lift, up into his stare. His hand raised hers to see her ink. The black hearts. He stared into her, his smile, nothing there but information. Put her hand down, and spoke the first words. He let her know her demons were dead. They only had to die once. Out of the lift, he slid the cage closed. Into the hall, he walked her to
her door. She opened it, and she took him inside.