Catastrophe Jones

Turns out its easiest to ignore the world when you’re in too much pain to stay conscious. Except that when you’re ignoring the world, sometimes bits of things you never wanted to remember like to slip out of the dull, black places in which you drowned them, and float up to the surface of that place behind your eyes.

Flutter.

He twitches in the cab, in the back seat, as he takes them across town. He can’t speak; if he opened his mouth, blood would run from his lips — he’s dimly aware of that, of the taste of it, thick and sweet and wrong.

Flicker.

He tips his head back, lets it rest on the cushion, feels the warmliquid copper run down his throat. Salt. Red. There are tears uncried crusting around the edges of a heart that had thought–had hoped–it had forgotten how to feel.

The driver’s not perfect. She hits a small bump; he bites his tongue and gags on the blood he’s passively swallowing. It’s all done without expression, without lines on the drawn, pale face, without sound, without movement detectable to the outside world.

He can feel the warmth of the young woman sitting near him, and wishes it would burn him up.

He’s still smiling.

In the cab, he leans against his door, his arms curled around himself. The driver is experienced in this, perhaps — she looks both pissed and worried as she avoids potholes, traintracks, other cars and pedestrians. Barely. There’s no swerving; it’s mostly smooth. He keeps to himself, eyes falling shut as pain, exhaustion and blood loss creep up on him.

Her house is destroyed — he should’ve had her leave sooner. He should’ve told her to go. He should’ve done his assignment sooner, called the bosses, explained.

He should’ve something. Anything.

Now she’s there, wet and covered in smoke and slime — the safehouse will have to be abandoned after tonight. He wants a cigarette. He wants a drink.

He wants to stay conscious, because he’s certain he’s got to say something. I’m supposed to tell her something. Bright eyes look to her — his are glassy and unfocused, and finally just sort of slip away as he tastes blood in his mouth.

It’s like the insides of him are soon to become the outsides of him.

Everything has gone from bad to worse, and is certain to go from worse to truly fucked.

So why’s he smiling?

[NOTE: WP and I are having an argument. Please don’t be upset. It doesn’t mean we don’t love you. You’ll still see me every day, so long as I don’t have to ‘have a talk’ with WP any more.]

“I want you to find… a fellow traveller,” he said softly, his voice rasping and low. “I want you to not be alone. You’re no good alone,” he said, not unkindly. He looked to her, but his eyes were not as focused as they’d once been, and his gaze kept slipping away, unfocused and fading.

She held his hands and did not say anything, and over the next days, weeks, and so short months, the grim smile on her face became a worn out set of clothes.

When he was gone, she no longer knew how to be naked.

Two creatures stood in the dim red-orange glow of the old-style lights casting strange shadows across the nearly-deserted boardwalk.

“Sixteen hundred credits. And a half for the knight’s tax,” the merch-monkey hooted, his fuzzed lips peeled back to show steel teeth. He held up a thin, vaguely glistening envelope, marked F33-NX in faded black script. “Half now and half plus five percent in six days or we’ll take your balls,” he growled, laughing.  The calm light in the half-ape’s eyes shone in strange contrast to the furious greed lining his brow and lips. “Not a token less. Not even for you, magister.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” said the other, looking far more a man than the sales…thing that was driving the bargain. He handed over a small card and said, “Take all of it now. I’m not interested in your loan.”

The shop owner stared at his customer in disdain, but stared harder at the card, then shrugged, and tapped the small piece of plastic against his warped proximity reader.

The machine beeped quietly, whirred, and then a green light popped up, and a small voice announced “Transaction Complete!” in sixteen different dialects at once, the loudest being one the magister remembered from his homeland so many years ago.

The apething handed the card back, as well the a wide, mostly-flat plastifoil envelope, saying, “S’nothing on this to say it was mine, you understand. And the transaction will show as a discrete debit to a youth charity, but if you have anyone dig, it’ll be revealed to be a jaguar-and-prison-rodeo-clown-fetish site with multiple dogchild-trafficking holoporn producers.”

The man nodded, tucked the envelope and card away, and turned without another word, quickly walking away.

“Wait,” the owner called. “What did you want it for? What the fuck do you really plan on painting with it? You know the ashes are Schedule III contraband. And if you’ve got the base paint, they’ll already suspect you. No one buys red anymore. You’ll get caught. Everyone gets caught when the canvas goes up in smoke, or neighbor’s dog explodes, or the housing complex burns down.”

“Not going to paint with it,” the man says over his shoulder. “Gonna write with it.”

“But what the fuck are you gonna do with that?” the shopkeep yelled, resisting the urge to run after the man, to get the answer. When the magister turned, the half-ape quailed briefly, from what he saw in the other man’s eyes.

“I’m not gonna set the neighborhood on fire. I’m gonna set the world on fire.”