Catastrophe Jones

Bullets tore through the air, lighting up the dark as though punching through so fiercely it bled fire. He could hear guitar, hear her playing, somewhere on an endless loop; it was designed to make him falter, make him wonder. Was it her? Could it have been her? He clenched gloved fists and moved faster through the night, pressed to buildings, to cars, alleyways and undergrounds hiding him.

He chased her, always running, never catching, and he could hear the shriek and whine of metal faster than sound as it bit brick and concrete, as it kissed steel and punched glass, as it burrowed into dead earth, spun and carved against flesh.

They were catching up. He wasn’t sure if they were chasing him because he was chasing her, or if they were chasing her, and simply shooting at him to keep him out of the way.

There were hot tears on his face; he didn’t notice them, himself, but if she’d seen them, she would be more frightened than she ever had been.

Run, he’d said. Run, and don’t you ever look back.

He knew he would fall before he let them catch her. He knew he would bleed before he let them touch anything of her.

He knew she’d tear apart the world if they got too close.

Bullets tore through the air, lighting up the dark as though punching through so fiercely it bled fire. He could hear guitar, hear her playing, somewhere on an endless loop; it was designed to make him falter, make him wonder. Was it her? Could it have been her? He clenched gloved fists and moved faster through the night, pressed to buildings, to cars, alleyways and undergrounds hiding him.

He chased her, always running, never catching, and he could hear the shriek and whine of metal faster than sound as it bit brick and concrete, as it kissed steel and punched glass, as it burrowed into dead earth, spun and carved against flesh.

They were catching up. He wasn’t sure if they were chasing him because he was chasing her, or if they were chasing her, and simply shooting at him to keep him out of the way.

There were hot tears on his face; he didn’t notice them, himself, but if she’d seen them, she would be more frightened than she ever had been.

Run, he’d said. Run, and don’t you ever look back.

He knew he would fall before he let them catch her. He knew he would bleed before he let them touch anything of her.

He knew she’d tear apart the world if they got too close.

Each step, each pull, each inch higher was a drumbeat, a rhythm heard in the pounding of her blood inside her head. Lightheaded, she moved in dizzy tremblings, higher and higher, no longer looking down, no longer caring how far the fall. Somewhere above was her destination. Somewhere above was where she needed to be, and she focused only on that, the way a ten year old climbs trees without regard for getting down.

Higher and higher, where the wind exchanged its caresses for blows, and she knew she could feel the concrete, steel, and glass give and sway, even by millimeters.

Where she was going, she might never feel solid ground under her feet again; she gave up missing it, so she could continue on, and rolled with the movements, as though the city itself was a ship, and she stood at the mast, high in the rigging, reaching for the crows’ nest, looking out for the oncoming storm.

She reached the top, fingers dug against the stone, pads and prints raw for the time it took to get that far, and eased herself up onto the ledge, the toes of her boots against the building’s face, her cheek against the glass. She felt the wind at her back, the whip of it stinging cold against the sweat beaded there. Her hair was flung out behind her in a chaos of braids and curls; she grabbed for one, and came up with a thin green braid. She cut it off and tied it in knots around an iron nail that had been dipped in blood and holy water, and laid it on the window’s ledge.

Her breath frosted the pane, and one hand’s spindly half-outline left a ghostly empty space that evaporated as he woke.

Still, he fit his hand on the other side of the window, in the space where it had been. He didn’t look out over the city; he was still afraid of heights, but he imagined that right there, the glass was just a fraction warmer than the rest of the world would ever be.

I think of what you must be doing right now. You, who opened up the bottle. You, who crawled in with me. You, who poured us out over and over. You who drank me. You who lit my cigarette. You who laid your body next to me when I was spent. You who shook, like a man afraid.

You, who said I had to remain a secret. You, who took one look at me and wanted to fall at my feet. You worshipped me. You praised me. You made me your God and you raised me up.

And then in those words you made me dirty.

You made me a secret, and you locked me away.

You held me in your hands and promised me that no one would ever love me like you, touch me like you, want me like you and then you took it all away.

I think of where you must be, with your wife and children. I think of how you imagine my hands on your skin. I think of what your cries are like, agony when you have to finish for her sake, so she never knows.

But you close your eyes and imagine instead of being inside her, that I’m inside you.

That’s what does it for you, and when you finish, you don’t want to hold her. You want to be held by me. You always came back to me. You never lied about that.

Even if you lied about everything else — how you loved me. How I was the only one.

But you always came back.

You’ll come back tonight, like you always do. I’ve got a bottle for us, gold and bitter, just how you like it.

This time, I’ll be ready. I opened it already. Got it started for us.

This time, you won’t leave me.

This time, you won’t leave at all.