NO-NAME LOVE STORY

I knew the blood was fake, so I assumed everything else was just in my head.  From the knocking and the doorbell to the murderer and the homicide, they were all some silly thoughts in my mind.  The shower was loud, though, and the fact that I was showering with no one else present in the house never floated my boat.

            I went from soap to shampoo, conditioner and finally to facial cleanser subconsciously.  Nobody is here, I thought.

            There was some more loud, imaginary banging, and what could have been footsteps pounding up the stairs.  It’s nothing.  I reached for the water knobs and:

            The door was kicked open.  A man opened the shower curtain to the side with one hand, and held a pistol in the other.

            My heart started to beat faster, harder.  Fuck it, might as well accept this and—

            Silence filled the bathroom.  I had turned the water off and pulled the curtain to the left, and I stood, my heart still pumping so hard my chest simply wanted to burst.  Drying myself and dressing as fast as I could, I opened the door briefly.  Nobody.

            My mobile phone never rang, and I began to worry again.  My pulse just couldn’t slow down.  I hate worrying.

            If guardian angels exist, maybe little personal demons do, too.  Evil spirits, with cold and ugly hands.  Hands that are on your shoulder one minute, and the next, you are head-locked.  Hands with long, sharp nails that dig for your heart.    These guys just don’t know when to stop fucking around.

            It’s beginning to lighten up, though.  They used to screw me over wherever I was: there was one in my bed in the morning, another hiding in the walls of another room.  They followed me during the day and there was often one waiting for me in bed at night.  Or maybe it was just one.  What-fucking-ever.  Point is, they were annoying as hell.  Ha, hell.

            It all started with:

            A cupid.  That’s some kind of angelic being, right?  Anyway, he shot an arrow with a heart-shaped tip into my ass one day, and my life couldn’t have been better.

            Then came:

            Six-six-oh-six.  Well, actually, six-six-oh-six has nothing to do with anything.  I simply thought it would be entertaining to stick it in somewhere with the angels and the demons and hell…  (Or maybe it does.)

            THEN came:

            This lying, backstabbing homeless devil-worshipper dude.  Seriously.  This guy was some fool with “666” tattooed on his forearm or something.  He had put me on a path that would eventually lead to my mental downfall.

            Now you’re painting your first chapter black.

            There was always a nobody, and even when there was a somebody, it still felt like a nobody until one day, my heart sunk to my stomach and that somebody who I thought was a nobody became a somebody.  I felt warm despite the cold, dry January air.  From that day on, there was a reason behind the pulse vs. clock race.  Or was it clock vs. pulse?  Something.  I always felt my heart beat trying to push the hour hand, the minutes and the seconds with all its might, but to no avail.  As the days began to pass by, it eventually gave up; the clock’s mechanisms fell apart and its springs popped out, leaving the heart to pound with no meaning, its longing echoing throughout the confinement of my chest cavity.  In text, it was fifteen months; really, it was only three hundred days that the heart was led by a hand.

            Was it luck that was by my side?  Maybe.  Each card flipped and revealed – I scored.  Hello, Lady Luck.  You must be my guardian angel.

            My pawns were laid out in front of me; our grounds were being perpetrated and we were being attacked.  One by one, the devil snuck up on them; now they were gone, out of my reach.  My hand hovered and knocked the queen piece on accident, but he went for my hand and caressed my knuckles with his thumb.  The queen rolled into the king, and it was the fastest, scariest roller coaster ride down.

            I slowly rose from my seat, my hand still in his.  The chairs, chessboard, and table immediately fell into the floor, and we began to dance.  At first, the world was ugly and grey; then, a large chessboard formed on the ground, the feeling of war was all stuffed up in my chest and flowed through my veins.  My eyes were vacant and empty, but I danced like I knew how to dance all my life.  The devil simply grinned as an unknown being was ripping something apart inside of me.

            I begin to lose control of myself

            My lust is so blind, destroys my mind

            Step, turn, twirl, dip.  Say goodbye as we dance with the devil tonight.  Hold on, hold on.

I was on the ground, trying to regain my consciousness as though I was napping the whole time.  I swept my left arm across, expecting to feel the somewhat grainy texture of a wooden chessboard, imagining the disgusting yet you-can’t-stop-smelling-it scent of one.  My arm hit something, a person, and I hastily flipped to one side to face him.  It was the king.

My voice was weak, but I attempted to call out for the devil anyway.  I failed, and the king, my king, curled his body and placed his head on my chest, his forearms resting on my shoulders.  In the pain, I’m waiting for you.  Although I felt a sense of security, he, like myself, was vulnerable.

The devil spilled out the ivory pawns he took from me in our game.  He picked one up; it was just like the others, all trying to protect me.  He looked up, through the dark ceiling and into the sky.  I am the shadow on the wall, he whispered under his breath.

So sacrifice yourself and let me have what’s left

I know I can find the fire in your eyes

I’m going all the way …

Don’t you dare look at him in the eye.  Tears rolled down my face, creating an adhesive on my mobile phone’s screen that stuck onto my skin.  I saw her back facing me from every angle, her thumb reaching for the “end” key on her phone.  My words meant nothing to her, but everything she did and said killed me every time.

Looking back at the chess pieces, the devil noticed the pawn he picked up earlier.  It went from ivory white to ebony black, a silly pawn to a powerful empress.  But he didn’t care; he didn’t care about her or me or anything; only himself and only winning.

We continued to play these worthless games, using chess pieces as our weapons, later forgetting about the game and danced as the sky turned as black as black could ever get.  It was always like that, and I always found my king where the light of hope shone.  He would have his arms open for me and they embraced me as I lost myself in my heart, my tears, and my rage.

The king prepared me for a final standoff with the devil.  Our hearts exchanged words in heart-lingo, but I went by intuition and climbed to a peak where the world was viewable in three-sixty and I stood strong and tall.

I was sitting at the foot of my bed, my back against the wall.  The room emptied itself out of the furniture, dust and miscellaneous objects; the ceiling opened outward like a box, the floor doing the same and the room became a flat, disassembled cardboard box.  The nighttime air was pleasantly cool and I breathed it in slowly and deeply.

There were millions of stars in the sky but I heard thunder from a distance.  A breeze blew loose strands of hair across my face as a deck of life-sized cards was fanned out in front of me, its complex back design reflecting the color of the night sky.  The jokers revealed themselves to me and ripped each other into pieces to eliminate their existence.

A card was pulled out from the deck and placed in front of me.  Queen of Hearts.

Another card was pulled out, but placed on the opponent’s side.  King of Spades.  I could bet my life on it and win.  The card stood up, its backside facing me.  It was pure black until a figure emerged and stepped into this world and my game like the card was a window.

I smiled an innocent-evil smile and looked up at the sky.  Life-size chess pieces began thundering from above, taking the devil by surprise.

I can show you that I can see right through your empty lies.

Shout and start creating confusion.

I screamed at him, but the booming and rumbling deafened my voice.  He understood me, though.  He finally understood and acknowledged everything as the accompanying chessboard slammed on top of us, knocking the chess pieces over and sending the cards fluttering into the air.

            Game over, sweet pea.  I won.

            My mother’s personal demon takes vacations often, but when he’s in town, you have to run and hide as though you’re living the Holocaust life.  The night before, I took all the blows to the gut, endured the slaps across the face and accepted the kick on the ass that sent me flying out the door.

            I ran and stood in the center divide of the avenue.  Lights were on everywhere, but there was nobody around.  No cars were racing each other down to the highway and there were no gangs tagging the multi-colored warehouse up the street.  I felt fear form in my stomach and I told myself to scream.  I produced nothing but a scratchy, useless, helpless yelp.

            My feet felt heavy as I tried to run up the street.  I told myself, run faster!  I tried!  You barely tried!  Try again!  I can’t…  I hate dreams like this, dreams like you! …

            I won’t last long in this world so wrong.

            I fell to my knees and punched the asphalt.  Suddenly, someone’s arms embraced my waist and another person’s hand was brushing my hair behind my ears.

            I began to notice the fuzz of the blanket draped over me and took note of how warm I felt.  Still sleepy in dreamland, I tried to figure out where I was.  A mobile phone was going off, playing some cute melody as an alarm.

            My little panda was sitting at the edge of her bed, looking at me; apparently, I was sleeping on the floor.  She smiled sweetly and asked if I was okay.  I wasn’t able to say; my body was sore everywhere and I was still weak from sleeping.  She started talking but the words never processed in my mind.  Instinct told me something that she wasn’t telling me.  I want to know where he is, and if he’s okay, my eyes said.  I was able to feel the disgusting crawl of little demon men walking this earth.

            Indeed, his heart fell victim to their claws; at the moment, it was only temporal, but it was definitely a spider laying its eggs so that its offspring can take over the world in the future.  His world, specifically.

            Not long after, the mother spider died and we forgot about the eggs.  In the meantime, we took advantage of our days together again, finally, at last.

            Disputes with the higher-up’s broke out though, which then turned into civil wars.  When we were injured, we were each other’s refuge, until the day when we had a civil war between ourselves.  The initial cause meant almost nothing, but it somehow escalated to a world war.

            Who were our allies?  And who were the enemies?  Who is telling us the truth and who is lying?  It was difficult to read where each string of the spider’s web pointed.

            We tried to make truce but it was always broken.  We tried to love again but something was always missing.  We tried to start from square one as girl friend and guy friend but it always led to sex.

            In the pain, I’m waiting for you.

            Unfortunately, the war still rages on. My heart was stitched up many times – scarred for life and immune to emotions. Can’t love, can’t hate; don’t get scared when I’m angry and don’t get your hopes too high when I’m “myself.”

            Life was always a game in disguise.  It didn’t matter what kind of game it was; it had to do with the dealer dressed sophisticate.  You are silently told to undress the dealer with your eyes.  Off with the blazer and the silk black tie and start picking at the semi-transparent buttons on the white dress shirt.  There is a black and red spot on their chest, right where their heart is, with veins branching outward.  You can see it pulsing…

            This world is still infested with the wrong beings.  They’re everywhere, dancing with your heart.

            Every night, my phone would ring and wake me from my late afternoon-early evening nap.  I would listen to him as if he were right next to me, telling me everything he has to say until he couldn’t think of anything else.  Something would tickle me and we would laugh together until the night blanketed us.  And together, we would sleep in each other’s heart, embracing our chests as we dreamt of time stopping and forever in our control.

            In the pain, I’m waiting for you.

            If it’s all dreams

            Now wake me up

            If it’s all real

            Just kill me …