The Thing About Happy Endings
There was magic in music, this she was convinced, as something jovial snaked its way up her spine, tickling at her fingertips while she stroked the raised circular edges of a record spinning to the sound of static on the turntable. Effortlessly the needle fell into the record’s groove as easy as a blade drawn back into its sheath.
Nirvana blasted from the record player, the crackled audio reverberating through the pristine white walls of an almost empty house.
There was magic in some things, and music was something you could find ecstasy. The only way magic like that could be perfected was through deals with the Devil and she grinned at the idea of the greasy, disgruntled rock singers slashing their palms, and intertwining their fingers with the hooves of Satan. She snorted at the outlandish thought. She knew all about deals with the Devil, deals weren’t sealed with hooves.
The music lifted her up as she spun on her tiptoes, floating effortlessly across the sleek hardwood floors, arching her back and raising her hands above her head like a ballerina, her glossy satin robes slinking past her elbows.
She thought about the music, rock & roll. She thought of the towering walls of this glass house painted a sparkling white, nevermind the tiny droplets of rust that now adorned the bedroom wall right next to her headboard. She thought of the chilled martini glass sloshing over with Schwarzwold, and she smiled giddy to herself.
It was classic. A timeless sort of fashionable that would never go out of style.
As she twirled past a mirror, she caught a glance at her reflection. Disheveled? Oh no. Her black hair rippled across her shoulders in think glossy rivulets, her green eyes could almost split the glass.
“You Marlena, are classic,” she whispered to herself in satisfaction, taking another sloppy swig of her martini as she strode towards the balcony of the glass house. She continued to sway to the music that pounded through her eardrums, determined that it would drown out the noise from outside, the crashing, the shouts, and the sirens.
She concluded that classic women don’t waste time on distasteful things, such as the trash moldering outside, or in her bedroom.
With one hand, she wistfully flung open the glass balcony doors, giving way to a crushing wave of heat. Triumphantly she smiled, the deafening music now blaring over the city below. Nothing could drown out her magic. She closed her eyes savoring the moment and sighed imagining that the strength of the music’s vibration could slowly decompose the body of the man in her bedroom.
Honestly when the news broke, it was perfect timing. She had no desire to have sex with him anyway. He sat shirtless on the edge of her white bed, in the luxurious condo he bought for her, fashioning a Tiffany bracelet around her wrist, when both of their phones relentlessly pinged with the news.
It was too much for him to bear. The idea that he was away from his family, his wife and his kids, that there was nothing he could do. The startling reality that all the money in the world, his money couldn’t save him, and now neither would the God he didn’t believe in…. It was just too heavy.
Without much hesitation he withdrew a pistol from some locked compartment in her nightstand. A toy hidden just for him she supposed. And he gagged himself on the barrel of the gun, pulling the trigger with an unsteady hand, his carelessness blowing his pink and red colored remains all over her beautiful bed.
“These quite literally are Egyptian cotton you asshole,” she sneered. For a moment she stared at him indifferently, then looked down, disappointed at the blood clinging to the threads of her white slip. Her ears were still stinging from the sound of the gunshot.
After comprehending the news, she realized it was easier this way…. At least she didn’t have to waste another second, pleasing a man she detested.
Her hips rocked to the music now as she precariously tottered on her balcony, toes curling over the edge, her robes billowing around her, immune to the city below. She just focused on the music knowing in moments it would be gone, in fact it might be the last time those chords would play, but she would relish in it until the record playing paused with a riveting scratch. Just like she was reminiscing the taste of the gin nipping at her tastebuds.
In a euphoric daze her eyelids fluttered open to study the block letters, ‘No Service’ in the upper right hand corner of her cell phone. With a sick sort of glee, she rocked back, wound up and hurled the phone over the balcony, watching it sail over the horizon. Around her she could feel it, the beautiful glass house sputtering out of light. Those noises that only your subconscious detects, the barely audible buzz of lights, the whir of fans, the hum of electricity. With a click it all shuttered to silence, the house behind her growing still with darkness.
She tried to refrain from grimacing when Kurt Kobain’s leathery voice was cut off mid chorus… “Here we are now, entertain us.”
The words rang in her head eerily while she pictured the lead singer’s imperfect teeth, stained in blood, as he delivered that last wicked line.
“I’m fucking entertained all right,” she said breathlessly, swirling the liquor in her sweaty martini glass and deciding it was too early for a refill. There was no denying she was afraid to face the reality of the house. Sinking disgust nestled in her stomach, when she realized nobody would come remove that man’s body from her bedroom floor.
It was a nuisance. She considered the prospect that yellow latex gloves might exist somewhere in that godforsaken house, so she didn’t have to ruin her manicure when prying him off of the carpet.
Her skin prickled at the truth.
She wasn’t afraid when it happened and she certainly wasn’t scared now, perched in a sunbathing chair, on the balcony of her opulent penthouse, in one of the tallest high-rises in New York, watching as the city burned below.
There was no hesitation in the confession. No shame in admitting that she wasn’t afraid when he blew his brains out, simply because she had never been so fucking relieved. Bored with all the men she had entertained over the years. There had been countless powerful, wealthy men, none of which had loved her. They never did. Instead she was simply something they could possess. Another shiny thing for them to collect and wrap up in that pale turquoise Tiffany box tissue paper and garnish with a silver bow. As if she was cute.
But they all knew there was nothing cute about a mistress. No, it was a serious endeavor. For both parties matter of fact. There were countless condos, and diamonds, and cars and vacations. Being in love was expensive sure, but being in lust would make you fucking bankrupt with all the money you spend burying your lies.
That’s how she preferred her men. Emotionally unavailable, but financially accessible. There was something about the fine-pressed suits, the crisp hundred dollar bills, neatly tucked into unscathed leather wallets, and the distant look of marvel, not love, but admiration in their eyes.
She liked the convenience of never being loved, but always being treasured and adored like nothing more than a fine piece of jewelry. It was the easiest existence in the world.
There had been so many moments where she’d contemplated the meaning of life, and the purpose of her existence, she was on a quest for the key to happiness. And after years of studying bliss in children, women and men, people of all ages, she deduced that happiness could in fact be purchased. Happiness was fleeting, and aside from acquiring expensive toys, it didn’t exist. With that knowledge she decided if she was going to live an aimless life, she vowed for it to at least be glamorous.
They had all been glamorous. And more than one had crumbled weakly at her feet. More than one of them had stained her glossy Manolo Blahniks with glistening tears and even on the more special occasions, blood.
Sure you could say their blood was on her hands, but how could that be true when it was on her feet? A question she often wrestled with when thinking about her suitors’ suicides. She never provoked or encouraged, never planted such grotesque seeds of inspiration in their minds.
Every time she could see the truth in their eyes; while they never loved her, they never grieved the loss of her either. No. What they always grieved was the loss of power when they got too close to her. There was always a definitive moment, a distinct line draw in the sand, where the power was lost. Fumbled, between hazy minds, sweaty palms, and clumsy, horny fingers.
This time, it was an anonymous man, who liked to flex his rank with a mustard colored badge that indicated he was in the CIA. Anonymous, but powerful and he’d make sure you’d never forget it. She’d never seen the badge produced for more than entrance to D.C’s fanciest gentlemen’s clubs, or first class seats on a last minute flight. She scoffed at the badge. Things like restaurants and vacations hardly impressed her anymore.
She knew very little about him other than his preferred cocktails and sex positions. Once she commented on how bloodshot his bleary eyes were. How red. How wrinkled. It was supposed to be an insult of course, and he mentioned something to the effect that his blue-light glasses couldn’t preserve his vision after staring at monitors all day. Something about his work in cybersecurity. Not like she cared.
Staring out into the abyss of smoke and flames, a horizon blurred by the heat of the destruction, she couldn’t shake the feeling that this was his fault….
The headline kept rewriting itself in her head in bold script. “U.S. Government’s Power Grid Under Attack.”
It was a miracle that they even got out that news notification before the world fell to shit. Anyone could look outside though and see the wreckage for themselves.
And meanwhile, Mr. Anonymous was busy wasting his time on her, instead of defending his country. Pathetic. She almost spat the words out loud, regarding him with the same disgust she regarded herself.
Not her appearance of course, though fast approaching forty, she would always radiate with the beauty and energy of someone a decade younger. But she knew she didn’t deserve it. And on the inside she loathed herself.
She inhaled deeply, the normally fresh summer air, thick with the poison of smoke. She licked her lips, reminiscing on her love for the pungent taste of gasoline. She reclined in her sunchair, like a housewife sunbathing from a beach in the Hamptons. Crossing her slender legs and swallowing a sip of gin she could feel the heat emanating off the rot and destruction below, nearly singeing the light hairs standing upright on her arms.
In fascination she feasted her eyes on the people below, all characters who had reached the last few pages of the only story they’d ever known. Cars were jammed bumper to bumper, their angry drivers laying into their horns with all of their weight as if that would shift the street sideways unclogging the cars from the points in the pavement where they were seemingly cemented.
She saw a beautiful family of Christians. Hitler’s dream she mused, admiring their sweeping features, their blonde locks, and what she could only imagine from this distance were tear-filled blue eyes. The family’s dirty clothes clung to sweat-soaked skin as they wrangled their children through the doors of New York’s most beautiful Catholic chapel, with the stain glass windows that winked rainbow in the sun and its steeple that pierced the skyline. The mother of the group looked up at the sky longingly praying for a miracle, before barricading themselves inside.
Your God won’t help you now she thought embarrassed for the woman, taking another sip of her drink.
Listlessly her eyes roved towards the nearby apartment complexes, with the sleek, expansive floor-length windows. The audacity of New Yorkers’ architecture. They put themselves and their imperfect lives on display in their glass houses, it was hysterical really.
On one floor, a family embraced in a circle kneeling on the living room floor, anxiously kneading each other’s hands, eyes fluttered shut, heads tilted forward in a quiet prayer. A level higher, and she watched as one of her big-wig neighbors, a prominent Wall Street broker, barked orders at his wife and children. Without a moment’s hesitation, they were haphazardly stuffing their belongings into expensive suitcases that were designed to fit all the necessities for a tropical vacation, but not an apocalypse.
Lifting her eyes, she saw something large barreling through the blaze orange sky, faster than jet speed. An ugly blurred object, that didn’t refract the moonlight. It was on the other corner of the city, but its force was strong enough that she unflinchingly braced herself for the impact as it pummeled through a skyscraper.
Her heart should’ve leapt up her throat, her blood should’ve frosted over in fright. Instead she stared unblinkingly as the building toppled in slow motion, catching flame, and slowly folding in on itself, bits and pieces hurling off into the New York atmosphere in the most unorganized fashion.
A Jenga tower in New York can you believe it? She reached for her martini glass and emptied it.
The end was near.
She wondered where she would be right now, if she had actually changed. If she had used her second chance at life to do more than chase the emptiness of money and the emptier men who tended it.
Alone is how she had always felt. Alone on her balcony. Alone at her extravagant parties surrounded by snide, wealthy people who would never even remember her name…. Alone in her home watching snowflakes fall on Christmas, like she was watching the ash fall now in the middle of June.
She thought of those families in their cars, frantically trying to escape the chaos. She envied them. They may be frightened, they may be lost, but they would never be alone.
Wherever she was going next, she would be alone. Somehow that thought frightened her more than the reality that was right in front of her. She knew where she was going, but she always assumed she had a lifetime to get there and now that horrific realization inspired her to drag her feet a little longer.
She thought of that night…. A summer night. Teenagers drunkenly stumbling across the oil-stained concrete floor of one of their parents’ garages. There were countless drinks poured with cheap liquor at uneven ratios in red plastic cups. The memory perpetually perfumed in the rank stench of sweat, cheap alcohol and hormones.
They were pregaming for a high school party on the beach. After one too many drinks, they all piled into an old pick-up truck, her innocent, youthful face behind the driver’s wheel. Something sounded romantic about it all. There was always magic in the air of a perfect summer night, with the perfect soundtrack.
And even after the truck hurled itself off the treacherous path that led to their secluded beach, the soundtrack kept playing on a loop, with each hollow crack of the vehicle’s exterior rolling down the rocky embankment towards the dark waters, it seemed the only thing she actually heard, was the music. Not the crunching of bones, not the scraping of metal on damp rock, or the terrified screams of her friends, but the music. When the movement ceased, she remembered weakly opening her eyes, blood blotting her vision. Her bottom half was soaked, not with alcohol or urine, but the cold rush of lake water that was quickly spurting into the truck. The contortions of the vehicle’s metal, seemed to coil around her like a snake, gently constricting its prey.
She caught a glimpse of fleshy limbs intertwined with jagged metal and squeezed her eyes shut longing to erase the horrors of the wreckage. The vehicle was rapidly sinking into the depths of the lake, the weight of the water and the metal working with gravity to drown her, she let out a gurgled scream.
Furiously she fought against the constraints of the car frame, she flapped her arms, choking on water as she struggled to release herself from its icy hold. Just as her heart was about to explode out of her chest, help arrived.
White, brawny knuckles curled over the side of the distorted car that was almost entirely submerged. Just as the water was about to splash over her face, she got a full look at a luminous stranger. Not one of the boys who inevitably lay in scrambled pieces across the lake’s rocky embankment, but a complete stranger. A beautiful stranger.
The night was so thick with darkness it seemed to envelope him, she could only make out the shadowy outlines of a strong jaw line, and a chin that jutted out from his face. The rippling water seemed to glitter and dance across dark, colorless irises.
“Help,” she gasped, pawing through the brimy lake water.
There was a moment of calculation. The figure studied her, contemplating whether or not he would remove her from the water. Swiftly, he plunged his hands through the debris. Moments later she was lying on her stomach, hands outstretched, fingers massaging the coarse sand, sputtering up water on the beach. Before her she could see a pair of black boots.
She tried to say thank you, but the words, the breath, snagged in her throat. The simple effort of breathing, enflamed her lungs. In resignation she rested her head in the sand, thinking to herself.
Thank you….
How will I ever repay you….
Who are you……
As the thoughts dissipated, a velvety voice replied, “Your life will be more than enough.” And with a blinding flash of white light, he was gone.
She had a dingy old polaroid of that night, but somehow it still felt surreal. A dream, filled with ghosts of people she’d always remember, but human beings that no longer existed.
Later specialists would explain the power of hallucinations, a phenomenon that occurred when your body’s last dose of adrenaline coursed through your veins in one last ditch effort to survive.
Hallucination or not she settled on the conclusion that it was divine intervention. An angel. Her angel. A guardian angel that she constantly disappointed for the rest of her life.
She knew how to do the right thing…. But from that moment on she never did. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but there was something dangerous, something thrilling, something intoxicating about living life on the wrong side of the road. The exhilaration of choosing to be at odds with the world was truly the only thing left that made it bearable to be alive.
Around her people died all the time. Her friends in that terrible accident. One of her lover’s children quite literally withered away at the ripe age of three from Leukemia. Her mother died of a nervous break. The women she brushed elbows with at boutiques, or elegant dinner parties, or the fanciest clubs in New York, some had died from overdoses, heart attacks, rare organ failures, murder, suicide… you name it. The list went on. But it was never her.
She should’ve died in that car crash and sometimes… she wished she had.
Living with the guilt of that. The knowledge that she wasn’t a doctor, a mother, a church pastor, or a wealthy socialite who donated to charity annually, even if it was simply for the sake of patting one’s self on the back, they were at least giving back to the world. And all she did was take. And the only way to reconcile with those feelings, with that insurmountable guilt was to keep on taking, until there was nothing left to steal.
She continued to watch the downfall of America’s city, the empty martini glass swiveling in her palm. A loneliness nagged at her now, slowly slurping her up from the inside out, where she could feel herself gradually been squeezed into the vortex of darkness.
She had seen all the things, lived all the life, but she had never been loved. She had only ever been alone.
Now as inescapable doom approached she considered what life would’ve been like if she had used her second chance. If she had ever actually loved.
More stressful that’s for sure. If she had children at this moment in time, a family, a husband, she would be dying of a broken heart at the inevitable truth that she couldn’t save the things she loved most from their impending death.
But at least she wouldn’t be alone.
Like the apparition of your face, appearing in a steam fogged mirror after a shower, the faces of past opportunities revealed themselves with gradual clarity.
#
Adam, a young country club athlete. Bred from Manhattan’s finest, his mother had been an adored socialite, frequenter of the most expensive gyms, brunch clubs, and charity galas. His father a cardboard cutout of any other sleazy Wall Street investment banker. She had been in her early 20’s at the time. Adam didn’t know it then, but his father had paid for her country club membership. It took a few flirtatious encounters poolside after Adam’s tennis games for him to muster up the courage to buy her a drink. When he flashed his black card and she caught glimpse of his last name, she nearly choked on her cocktail. How disappointed she was. Adam was very conversant on more than just stocks or ESPN. He was fluent in the language of psychology, and she had to admit his enthusiasm for the tragedies of the human brain was endearing, a man who wanted to dig around in the dark shadows of people’s minds out of curiosity and a desire to help, and not for his own financial game. She found it captivating, almost as captivating as the cords of muscle, wound tightly underneath his snug tennis polos. His innocence to the corruption of his family would hold steadfast, and for that she was grateful because he was a man who would one day be capable of loving.
Fuck them both what a delightful game that would’ve been… father and son. But she knew you didn’t fuck men unless you meant it. Because there were consequences for such trivial things as feelings, and she preferred to limit sexual encounters down to the most primal financial transactions.
#
There was Jack, who was so boring she could vomit, but she loved him, nonetheless. He was a young salesman, an “aspiring CEO” on business in New York from somewhere in the Midwest. Chicago most likely. The night he laid eyes on her, he found her gleeful in the wake of cancelled plans. The man she was entertaining at the time had family plans. What. A. Shame. The consolation prize was his visa for the night and she unblinkingly brandished the card at her favorite Italian restaurant. Ordering herself the entire menu, and a bottle of the most expensive cabernet.
“Do you need some help?” A voice spoke confidently, as an eager young man approached outfitted in the stereotypical grey suit of every other finance man in New York. He was approachable, unmemorable, simply put plain. There was nothing unique about his dark, hazel eyes, his disheveled hair, styled to one side, or the shit-eating grin on his face. He quite literally looked like any other Jack you might meet on the street. Average in weight, height, looks, and probably intelligence.
Taking a swig of the wine, she paused mid-drink to glare at him.
“Thought you needed some help with all that food,” he gestured unyieldingly, pulling up a chair and plucking a noodle from one of her dishes. “We both know looking like that means you’re only going to have a bite, otherwise you’ll be forcing yourself to throw up for the next two weeks.” She sneered at him in disgust but couldn’t stop herself from giggling. The brutal honesty of it was almost funny.
She enjoyed the company of someone her own age. And that night, she didn’t dance with him, she didn’t go home with him, she didn’t even kiss him because she knew that a future with a man like Jack would never amount to anything more than average. Even if he could really love her, it would have never been enough. It would have been a happy ending alright, a boring one.
#
The one that stuck with her though, was Victor. He tended the corner bar on the street of one of her old apartments. She loved it because it was private and cozy, a place where she could actually afford her own drinks. A getaway where she could temporarily leave her perfectly accessorized, glossy magazine cover, airbrushed self, at home and be anonymous to the men of New York.
Victor, had sprawling tattoos that coiled around the tendons in his arms, all the way around his burly fingertips. She had spent many hours, studying the ink penned into his flesh and spiraling up his arms, peeking out from beneath his fitted T-shirts.
They would talk vehemently for hours upon hours about anything under the sun. He was an encyclopedia, designed to turn its pages specifically for her. Any question, any philosophy, any idea seemed to be chased by Victor’s rambling explanations that would leave more questions dripping from her lips.
However, like every young person feigning drive and motivation, like every tragic dreamer, every failed artist, Victor would spend hours babbling about his goal to become a fighter pilot in the Air Force and one day a politician. He wanted to change the world… what was truly special about Victor, was he believed deep down to his core that he would. But ambition meant nothing if there was no follow-through.
She never saw any progress. Daily he mentioned these goals, but for over two years he remained a staple at that cozy bar on the corner. One day she realized that maybe it was because of her, and the night before her newest affair moved her to L.A. for the summer, she said goodbye.
She could see that she broke something inside of him, like a new mirror with a crack serrating its perfect surface, the vein from his forehead bulged with the surprise, but he never stopped smiling. Wiping the bar in circular motions of denial, he watched her finish the remaining gulps of her final beer.
“One more,” he commanded sliding another sweaty glass across the bar towards her. There was something pleading in his eyes. Those startling green eyes, that could’ve been mistaken for her own.
Ruffling, his dark hair, he straightened and walked over to her uneasily, heaving in a breath like a ballplayer winding up, pulling his bat back to take his swing.
His face was filled with the promise of a proposition.
“You don’t have to do this you know,” he murmured gently, the same glimmer of life that illuminated his eyes when he was talking about ideas, or art, or history, it was there now. As if this was just another one of their casual conversations. “You don’t have to go there anymore…. I love you I think you know that.”
She refrained from snorting at the idea, her lacquered fingertip tracing the foamy edge of her glass. The sour taste of the beer, suddenly nauseated her. How could somebody love someone they’d never been with? Never kissed? Never known? They’d never had a conversation, or a chance encounter outside of this bar. The roles of their flirtatious game had always been confined to that of barkeep and patron. How could you love somebody you’d never really been with? But it didn’t matter, because she had been with him, their thoughts had melted together over the course of the past two years over cheap beer and conversation molding into a brilliant chemistry experiment. She had been with him and she did know him. Which meant she also knew he was never leaving that bar, not for the military, not for the love of his life, or for a sparkling political career.
Still those words haunted her. I love you. No one had ever said that to her before. None of her men had ever said those words.
“I know you love me too, I can see it in your eyers….” He was persistent.
She shook her head, refusing to meet his gaze. “No.” She said resolutely.
“You do,” he countered, sure of himself, his hands leaving the bar now, his muscles growing tense in frustration.
“We could be great, you and me. We could see the world,” he promised. And for a moment there was silence, the pause becoming pregnant with the rumbling laughter of mockery that escaped her.
He believed it. He truly believed that he would amount to something more than a bartender.
“I don’t want the world,” she laughed cruelly.
“Why not? We could have it Marlena….” Her name sounded beautiful when it rolled off his lips, as poetic a sound as a fancy perfume label or a French cuisine.
“Because the world ruined me,” she spat harshly, pushing her beer aside, and clambering to her feet, leaving Victor stunned.
An excuse you might say. Except it wasn’t an excuse it was the truth. The world had ruined her. Had chewed her up and spit her back out. After that accident she would never be the same. Happy endings didn’t exist, because if they did fighter pilot Victor would’ve professed his love and not Victor the bartender.
The world ruined her because it ruined everybody, planting unrealistic expectations in our minds at early ages and never giving you the means or the resources or the human capabilities to fulfill them.
Victor would live on forever in her mind though. Even though their interaction was brief, he became her “what if?” that beautiful stranger you fantasize about because you don’t even know them or you don’t even remember them correctly and you never will. Where you wish away their flaws and only remember their potential. Therefore you can bend them and mold them, their existence malleable to your version of the perfect stranger. He was always her “what if,” the one she imagined a life with. Her knight in shining armor. Though she hated to admit it, his face often filled the faceless void of the stranger who saved her whenever she recollected that night. The details fading in and out of focus became sharper every time she rehashed them.
He was the face of her husband, her lover, the father of her children. He was the face of the person, she wished was sitting beside her in this moment. Comforting her as the world came to its abrupt close.
#
A deafening shriek splintered her concentration, sending her reeling back to reality. Remarkably, over the sound of the chaos she could hear a woman mourn her child.
“My baby…” she screamed, over and over and over, like a broken record her voice never growing hoarse or wavering.
Startled, she lumbered to her feet peering over her balcony at the siren sound below.
A young boy was splattered along the sidewalk, his limbs lifeless, a small incision in the very center of his forehead, below him a pool of blood greedily roved the sidewalk soaking his clothes and staining his mother’s bare knees.
A bullet hole she realized.
“My bab—” the woman’s scream was cut off her body violently lurching back against the side of the building her neck falling slack as her skull ricocheted against the building’s glass windows. The sound of a bullet reverberated the high-rise, the air bursting with the promise of gunfire.
Confused she scanned the surrounding streets looking for the gunman. Her eyes landed on one of the most crowded intersections jam-packed with cars, she could only see the smooth surface of the cars’ tops, but she heard the whisper of another bullet whizzing through the air, the sound of it deflected off a car’s metal exterior.
More screams surfaced, as the people inside the wounded vehicle, threw open the car doors and started sprinting up the sidewalk, barreling towards an unknown fate. Boom. Boom. In an instant both figures’ forward momentum was throttled, as if they hit an imaginary wall, their warm, limp bodies falling knees-first towards the sidewalk, their gaunt faces smashing into the concrete.
She looked up, her heartrate suddenly accelerating with the realization that she was a target amidst the open fire. Panicked she studied the rooftops looking for the shooter.
Sure, a bomb knocks down one of New York’s largest skyscrapers, but a bullet is what really scares you.
She welcomed the warm sensation of giddy laughter dislodging in her throat.
Boom… boom….. the warning of gunfire sounded again, and her eyes fluttered down to see another group of pedestrians, executed in a cross walk. Her heart thundered in her chest. This marksman didn’t miss.
Craning her neck over the edge of her balcony she nearly lost her balance, one hand clutching the railing and the other rested over the vase of her martini glass.
She let out an unrestrained scream, shielding her eyes in the crook of her elbow to save them from the flying shrapnel of glass as a bullet shattered her cocktail, the shards tinkling like chimes as they skittered across the floor.
Removing a trembling hand from her face, she looked straight ahead and saw a dark figure, cloaked in black, perched on the top of the nearby building, with an eye peering into a scope and a steady finger poised over the trigger of a matching AK-47.
For a moment she held her breath, squeezing her eyes shut and standing motionless, expectantly waiting for the man to pull the trigger and end it all.
But when she opened her eyes the sniper was gone, the only evidence of his existence was the sting of blood that seeped into the creases of her hand from the sparkling bits of glass wedged into her flesh.
In resignation she padded back into the house, leaving a trail of delicate blood drops staining the white washed wood floors. The more her mind turned it over in her head, the more exasperated she became.
Why the fuck didn’t he just kill me?
She fashioned a loose fitting bandage out of paper towels and plastic wrap, that haphazardly clung to her bloody palm. Since she wasn’t apt towards domestic tendencies it was a miracle she even had supplies for anything but cocktails. The numbness of her scare began to pervade her body and her vision. Almost blindly her fingers assembled ice, gin, vermouth, and olives in her copper shaker and poured herself another drink. Impressed with her handiwork she wandered back out to the balcony.
Why was it never her? Now she was finally scared. So many times she had contemplated the meaning of life. The reality crashed into her like an oncoming train, her gaze lost in the murky horizon of smoke and carnage like a deer in headlights. She had served no purpose, she had not done anything great, she hadn’t even been loved. And no one would remember her.
What stung worse was the brute force of the truth that no one would remember her because she might be the only one to survive. Suddenly, she longed for death. For the escape from whatever was happening around her.
The fantasy coalesced electrified by the intensity of her emotion. The image swirled in her mind of her slender body hurtling, head first, in an elegant swan dive, eyelids peacefully at rest, hands outstretched overhead, back curved in the delicate sensual arch, before her body collided with the pavement.
A gritty sound of ice scraping against her cocktail shaker, coaxed her back to life, putting her on edge like prey that is acutely aware of the looming predator.
She heard the clink of martini stems brushing against each other, and the gentle tinkle of gin filling the glass.
Slow, deliberate footsteps thudded against her kitchen floor, the cadence of heavy soles reverberating the floorboards. Growing closer and closer, and halting just a few feet behind her.
Her breath snagged in her throat, momentarily paralyzed with fright. She couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes, her teeth puncturing her lower lip in agony, the metallic tinge of blood pooling against her tongue.
The disjointed breathing reminded her not of a ghost, but of a dead man. Her imagination vividly conjured up the image of her dead suitor, hovering in the doorway, yellow toenails scraping against the floor, suspended in mid-air, head limply dangling off his neck. She could practically see a sinister grin curling up the cold dead lips of the corpse, as he sipped the martini he’d just poured with the only half of his face that was left.
This was it….The karmic justice she was due for.
“Have you come to kill me?” Her voice squeaked, fragile and shrill.
Who the fuck is this…. She thought not of the intruder, but of the weakness buried somewhere within herself making its debut.
She hadn’t sounded so fucking helpless in her entire life. Except maybe the night of the accident.
“No,” a low voice growled, just beyond her shoulder, so close she could feel his exhale needle the hairs at the nape of her neck. Her entire body was trembling now, afraid to open her eyes and face the interloper.
Frigid lips brushed up against hers, a wet tongue lapping away the blood that had collected on her lower lip.
She threw her head back to scream, but an equally cold hand locked over her mouth, nearly crushing her cheekbones in an unforgiving vice.
“No need to scream my dear….You look like you’re having a hell of a time,” the voice cackled, abruptly adopting a warm quality. “ So I thought I’d join…..nothing like a party at the end of the world.”
When she finally found the bravery to open her eyes she realized it wasn’t a corpse at all, but a shadowy, handsome man, draped in black fatigues, a dark AK-47 carelessly strapped to his back. The sniper.
“Why didn’t you just kill me?” she screeched recoiling away from him so quickly she nearly toppled over her chair.
“Sweetheart, my bullet only kisses those who need mercy…Not the ruthless,” with a lascivious wink he offered her the martini that was cupped in his other hand.
With caution she plucked the glass from him, studying its contents as if poison. “Cheers,” he grinned removing the black handkerchief that sheltered his face…. And those lips.
“Who are you?” she asked hesitantly, her eyes fixated on the reflection of herself, distraught in his dark sunglasses.
Marlena the beauty…. Marlena the savage…. Reduced to shambles as the final clock was ticking. Studying her reflection she was horrified to realize her age was finally starting to show. Tisk. Tisk.
Brooding in silence, he cocked his head in her direction without providing an answer, but she was certain she already knew.
“Are you….” She fumbled for the words, embarrassed to even say them out loud, but the world had been demolished before her eyes, she figured crazier things had come to be true.
“Are you an angel?…..” her voice trailed off. “Are you my angel?” She couldn’t see the ethereal light behind his eyes, but in her gut she knew he was back to save her again.
Sipping his martini and reclining back in the adjacent sunchair, his head rocked backward with the roar of his laughter.
“A strange man with a gun, who’s shooting innocent people shows up on your doorstep, quite literally breaks into your home, and you think he’s a fucking angel?” the man gloated. “Don’t be silly.”
She could see in the mirror of his shades her pale, perfect cheeks flushing a deep shade of crimson. Something about this man’s audacity made her feel small….Men never made her feel small. Feel worthless. She hung her head disappointed. It wasn’t a ridiculous question considering the fall of New York was still happening in real-time all around her. The plumes of smoke growing so thick it was becoming difficult to breath.
“So this really is the end….What are you doing here then?” she snapped, slowing drawing herself out of her shell. She never let men make a mockery of her.
“The love of my life lives in the building, I wanted to come rescue her, but I got a little sidetracked by the party over here.” Again a wide grin unfurled up his face, revealing a set of sparkling teeth. He was chuckling to himself as if they were both involved in some elaborately construed, undeniably funny practical joke.
The end of the world….
Ha.
Ha.
Ha.
“I mean you’re sitting here in lingerie drinking a fucking martini while people are literally burning alive,” his husky voice giddy with laughter. “But I would expect nothing less from you.”
“Who are you….” She inquired again, goosebumps starting to line her arms, as unease churned in her stomach. “If you’re not the angel from the night of my accident who are you? Why do I feel like I know you….” Her voice tapered off catching in her throat, another impossible thought planted in her brain, the seeds slowing starting to bloom.
“The angels are coming my dear I’m sure they’ll be here any minute…. And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire,” he recited the words flawlessly, like a pastor preaching to his congregation on a cheery Sunday morning.
“There’s a lot of fire down there,” amused he peered over the edge of her balcony for dramatic effect. “But I don’t see any fucking rainbows.”
“Who….are…. you….” She whispered tersely, angling her body away from him.
Something felt very wrong.
“Marlena…..” he paused a somber cloud passing over his expression. “Don’t you remember me?” With unsteady fingertips, she reached forward and methodically removed the hat and sunglasses that concealed his features.
“Victor,” she whispered breathlessly. In that moment she swore she could’ve felt her heart bursting at the seams of her elastic skin. “Victor…” she drowned in a wave of relief collapsing into his lap. Tenderly he stroked her shoulders as she began to sob, weeping, wet, hot tears into his thighs.
Her mantra had always been that no man was worth the price of her mascara. She could feel it gumming together her eyelashes, smudging her face in warm streams.
But this wasn’t any man…. This was her Victor….
“It was always you Marlena….. it was always you.”
There was solace in his embrace. Her fingertips fluttering to feel his legs, his arms, his face.
Was he real?
She remembered after her car accident, the doctor’s warning of hallucinations being wielded as a survival technique, and it dampened her excitement. But the warmth of the man’s skin, the coarse fabric of his clothes, the light moisture on his lips… that was real. His touch was real.
Her whole life she’d been alone. Wandering the jungle-like streets of New York empty-handed. For some there might be peace in it, but for her it became a torturous fate she learned to accept. Like an anxious student on the last day of school, she felt like she had been watching the ticking hands on the clock of her life make the most painstakingly slow progress, and she dreamed of the release she’d get, hearing that final bell…. Until it was here.
Watching the sand drain out of her hourglass, she desperately wanted to scoop it back in, but the grains of wasted opportunities and memories slipped through fingers.
The fruition of her distant thoughts of happiness, of picket white fences, of smiling babies, and old porches with matching rocking chairs, had come to life before her. Her “what if” had appeared out of thin air when all those listless daydreams were out of reach.
At least now she wasn’t alone…. At least now she knew she had been loved.
“Stop with the tears my love,” sternly he cradled her chin in his hands whisking away the tears with his thumb.
“But my entire life has been a waste,” she said in anguish burying her head in the crook of his neck, breathing in his musky scent. “I’m so sorry I didn’t spend it with you.”
“Heyyy….” He protested, again cupping her chin in his brawny hands. His green eyes twinkled with joy. “Your life was not a waste,” he reassured, longingly pressing his lips to her forehead.
“After all…. look at all we accomplished,” he triumphantly gestured at the world below, pivoting her shoulders so she could share in his admiration.
Her brow furrowed in confusion. “I’m not following…” her voice grew distant.
“Turns out you were right about me,” he said delighted with himself. “I never became an Air Force pilot or a politician. My dear, whether you and I became a political power couple or not, this was all going to run its course.”
Below, the sprawling streets of New York were piled not only with polyethene bags bursting with the anecdotal remnants of human existence, bodies were haphazardly strewn across streets and sidewalks. Rundown buildings and restaurants that might have been considered impressive in stature but had never been adorned in anything but a thin film of New York filth, were now smoldering in rubble. On the horizon, dense spirals of smoke barreled towards them with the force of brewing thunderheads. In moments she knew they would be cast in an unforgiving darkness, blacker than even the gloomiest of starless nights.
So infatuated with the human before her, she couldn’t comprehend his words.
“Instead I became part of the Russian intelligence team…. and you,” he chortled pointing an accusatory finger at her chest. “You said I wouldn’t amount to anything.”
“I didn’t say that,” she stuttered, still caught up in the details of his face, the freckles flecking the bridge of his noise, the crooked chisel of his beautiful, lopsided smile.
“But you thought it.” He shrugged. “And you…you became a whore,“ his callous words were gut wrenching, like a serrated knife being guided through her abdomen.
Suddenly, she grabbed his chin in her delicate hands, imagining crushing his jaw in her fury.
“How dare you,” she snarled her lips curling over her teeth.
But she knew it was the truth.
The appearance of her anger only seemed to entertain him more.
“The most beautiful whore in the world of course.” He smiled something sweet this time, leaning in to kiss her. His mouth hungrily forming around hers, his hands rocking her hips towards his.
“Come here my love,” he extended an outstretched hand, nimbly rising to his feet. Unsure of herself, she stumbled after him and he caught her in his embrace, nuzzling her close to him.
“You think we could’ve done any of this without your help?” He whispered, clutching one of her hands in his.
“I have not a clue what you’re talking about,” she countered their green eyes locking.
“All it takes is one slip-up you know. One fuck up,” he started laughing wildly again, the sound of the lunacy grating against her eardrums.
“One mix up between devices for the purchase of say a Tiffany bracelet…” suddenly she became conscious of the silver ring hula-hooping around her wrist, growing heavier with her guilt, like a handcuff shackling him to her.
“A Tiffany bracelet bought on a government phone, and a government email checked on a personal device…. And voila…..” he momentarily let go to appreciate the carnage below.
A shiver unraveled down her spine. She could feel her pulse thudding in her ears. She thought of the remnants of the man whose brains were splayed out across her bedroom. She thought of his balding head, his aging face, those bloodshot eyes weary from staring at monitors all day…. And the mustard badge….
“No,” her lips formed a halo around the word.
“Oh yes, you’re the most beautiful distraction my love,” he pulled back to stare at her adoringly, tucking a dark lock behind her ear.
“Poor fella,” he mused. “I should know…. You were so beautiful that night I met you. With the light of the moon and water flickering across those green eyes.”
“Water,” she interjected. “You met me at the corner bar.”
Another wave of laughter rumbled through his frame. She could feel it, one arm wrapped tightly around the small of his back as if clinging for life, the other hand interlaced with his as they swayed side-to-side to a phantom melody.
“No, I met you at the surface of the Lake of Fire,” his warm breath tickled her ear.
Despite the sweltering heat of the flames and the reeking destruction, her skin grew clammy and cold. Her limbs feeling as heavy as lead. She knew that this was the moment where fear should take over, she felt its paralytic slowly coursing through her veins, but the love seemed to overpower it.
“It was you….” There was a question in her voice.
“Of course it was me,” he chided. “It was always me…. Just like I knew you’d always be my girl. You’re the star of this show….”
Instead of running, she held him tighter. Dancing lightly on her toes so that she could rest her cheek on his shoulder, playing with the frayed ends of his wild black hair. This was the moment she’d been waiting for, her happy ending, she was determined not to let her disbelief spoil it.
“Why this though?” She could feel the threat of tears just beyond her glassy eyes, some alien part of her filled with remorse for the lives spiraling towards an unfortunate end below.
“You told me…” his words were spoken soft, but deliberately. “That we couldn’t be together because the world ruined you…. So I ruined the world.” His voice teemed with pride.
The fear had dissipated. Hallucination or not she relished the moment, knees buckling in hysterical fits of laughter.
He held her close to him, satisfied at her reaction.
Out of all the shitty, pathetic and nauseating romance stories she had lived out, all paled in comparison to this. The hungry flames lapped at the city below, and she brandished the biggest smile…. A smile of happiness.
“That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard,” she cried, wiping away the tears to kiss him with the most passionate urgency.
“I love you.”
“And I love you.” He bowed his head against hers, and they giggled and danced as the impending blackness charged in.
They twirled and they danced with the fluid grace of ballerina figurines, spinning in a music box, feet moving agilely across the deck, her white silky robes intertwining with his black fatigues, a grey blur.
“You will never be alone again,” he murmured gently to her, as their movement crescendoed into a graceful dip, he lunged forward, her spine arching backwards over the edge of the balcony, the toes of her left foot barely planted on the ground. Her face was tilted towards the sky, gravity pulling down her dark, wavy hair as it rippled in the breeze, waving at the concrete below.
“I will see you at the bottom my love,” he smiled at her one last time, something dark spawning out of his pupils like spilled ink that clouded his green eyes. With a grand bowing gesture he let her go, releasing her thin frame from his hands.
The lurching weight of her body drifted downwards, up and over the edge of the balcony, her toes kissing the floorboards of the deck goodbye.
As if in slow motion she peered through each floor’s window as she plummeted, like an elevator descending to the bottom floor. She felt the rush of her robes billowing around her, his smiling features growing more distant.
In her last moments she cursed the man she loved and that preposterous smile on his face. Her happy ending mockingly waving back at her.
Any onlookers who lived a few more minutes to recall the moment would tell different stories. The righteous, the generous, the loving, would tell you they saw a drunk woman dancing alone, hands poised around the skeleton of an invisible man, before stumbling backwards to her demise.
The sinners of the world, those who had become familiar with the likes of selfishness and greed, watched the most beautiful couple dance to the symphony of screams at the end of the world, watching as the dark and handsome man, let her go.
Because that’s the thing about daydreams… they masquerade around like happy endings.
As her world drew to a close she laughed to herself.
That’s the thing about happy endings…. They don’t exist.
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