Love's Lapse
LOVE’S LAPSE
C.S.PARKER
2014
I guess for a while it made me feel good, to have someone around, to have someone to care for. I don’t know where it went wrong but now I am overcome with feelings of hopelessness. In this very hopelessness I hope to find peace. But I am alone and I am estranged. I have lost my feelings of love and it has left a very large gap in my life. What could I do? In truth I didn’t know.
I wish to say we patched things up and made things right, but we did not. How have I lived so long on this lonely journey? Am I destined to be alone? What is a degree worth if not the job that follows? In retrospect what good is love if life is not shared? It was thoughts like these that sped me on my way toward an early grave.
Permit my petulance to the unkindly truth, my name is Max Poole and I am a dead man and like all dead men life was but a dream so far away now it seems not even the shadows can remind me of her luscious curves.
There are a few of us here, in this once abandoned house, and we find comfort in each other, dying a little bit more each day along with the house and everyone in it.
I have never been philosophical but I do know now that life’s pains were only to teach us of death’s realities. There is more pain and anger here than anywhere on earth and while some of us wallow in it, I myself found myself to be in this category for several decades, but some of us rise above it and it truly is a magical world.
This is not to say I have found peace but rather I have my assurances that none of us go through life being truly happy.
So I found my place among the dead. There is Har, formerly Harvey but now only a fraction of himself, and Liza, a very toothy incantation of death, and Marro who is a spastic bit of a molten mess. Indeed we have flesh, the spirit flesh, and Marro seems to be something different all together as if he brought his tortured life into death and has done this to make himself suffer. He melts every day at five p.m. sharp and doesn’t appear till morning where his cheery self can be heard walking down the road spouting profanities at the still sleeping rooster nicknamed Puss.
In truth I could know the year but I don’t care much for time anymore as many of us timeless get. It’s a fascination Humans have with time but I like to think that all my time is gone, my time is done now I am one of the timeless.
We are a fussy bunch not much for talking and more for the rattling of pans and the slamming of doors. This the patrons of the house permit for we are but simple bits of ghost flesh not deranged enough to try to bind with a human or kill them. To them we are just annoyances or a strong wind, when we are the ones who really control the wind. There are many spirit tricks and we use them sometimes but in truth we are all a bit bored with the afterlife and laze around and dream of the next dying.
This is not to say that we know much about the next dying but rather that we know that life and death are journeys and must end somewhere, end up someplace, so we fear to leave all except Marro.
“Wake up you timeless heap of pig fodder.” Spirits are known to be nocturnal, but we are not, and also unlike regular spirits we all enjoy sleeping. I should count this as a blessing for not many of the spirits get to sleep, it seems to be a trick held only by the spirits in this house. It could be a good thing for I do dream, and as dreaming was in the middle of a lovely courting of a beautiful lass with auburn hair.
“Marro shut up! It must be four in the morning.” It wasn’t but I hadn’t been dreaming and wanted more sleep. He was early and about his daily task of waking the whole house up. Frustrated I was on my feet a spiritual glitch of movement that is hard to explain. I was feeling a bit perturbed and flew open the kitchen window and rattled the hanging pans for a bit to get out my aggression. But it was morning and I was up.
The incessant need I used to always feel to pour coffee down my gullet was gone and I was fully awake now.
Marro is sulking now no ones left to wake up but that won’t last long and soon enough he was back to his percolating self, throwing profanities my way.
“Max you heel what have you put in for this wonderful day?”
Truthfully I didn’t feel much like talking but I did anyway, Marro has that effect on me. “Go to the yard today maybe look down the road.” I did this every day and so did not understand his inquisitiveness.
“You live a dangerous life my friend.” Why he said that I wasn’t sure I have never met much that could harm a spirit. “I think I found something for you.” He says and I can’t imagine what he found for me. I desire for nothing and am content where I am.
He sees my look befuddled and so he says, “Follow me out just watch the road.”
We go outside and he walks on, or floats a spirit’s half walk. I watch him and he is gone. I look at the road for hours enjoying the sun and as I’m thinking it’s a shame I can’t get tan he appears, first one form and then another. We haven’t had a house guest in some time and I get frantic, not that our little house is a mess but that everything wouldn’t be to her liking. I can tell it’s a her because of her flowing hair.
Together they come close.
As she gets close I can see the radiant auburn hair.
“Max this is Aubrey she’s a very tired spirit and I told her I knew a place she could get some rest.”
I extend my hand as I am captured by her beauty and slight familiarity. “Do I know you?”
She looks down and then straight into my eyes. “I don’t know do you know me?” And she smiles. Something in my spirit is put to rest, some part of me that I cannot put my finger on and instead of feeling tired I feel rejuvenated like she has come in and made a part of me whole again.
“Go let her in and introduce her to the others and do whatever it is that you do.” Says Marro and he goes over to pretend to feed the chickens.
“Hey everyone this is Aubrey she’s our newest recruit.”
“Liza.” She says with a tooth filled smile. Aubrey takes her hand and looks at me inquisitively.
“HARRR” Screams out hard of hearing Har.
Aubrey just giggles and says, “Hi Har.” Har is beside himself by the recognition of such a beauty so he goes back to knocking over the kid’s blocks as they play. One of the boys cries and is quickly attended to by his mother who passes right through Aubrey who dissipates.
“Well that was short lived.” Says Marro who has opened the chicken coop gate and wears a wicked smile on his face.
“CHARLIE! Gates open again dang chickens getting loose.” The mother’s husband comes down, shirt off, and goes out to chase the chickens around.
“That is one hell of a trick.” I say and the truth of it is many times I have tried to lift the latch on the gate and I have never had the strength. Just thinking of it makes me tired and I decide to go back to bed to get some more rest. Most of us don’t do much, we are a tired lot and spend most our time in silent meditation of our current state of death.
I lay on my bed but I feel something weird as I close my eyes. I open them to see a hand on my chest and I look over, there is Aubrey laying next to me. “This is my bed.” I say mentally slapping myself in the forehead.
“What you never learned to share?” She says with a light in her eyes I have never seen before, except maybe one time… No. I feel sure. I haven’t ever seen it before.
“I was going to go to sleep.”
“Then go to sleep, I’ll just be sleeping beside you…” Her words drift off and I can tell she said something else but I can’t put my finger on it.
I wake up and she is still beside me.
I see the clock and immediately I jump out of bed.
“What?” She says and looks at me lazily with that spark in her eyes.
“Come on you are not going to want to miss this.” I say extending my hand. She takes it in her small spirit hand and something feels right inside. I feel like I’m going to explode as we walk into the other room.
“Where is he?” I ask.
Liza says, “Outside.” As she watches from the window.
“Wheres Har?”
“Sleeping it’s a bit early but he was coughing a fit and he went to lay down.”
Together we go outside, Aubrey and I, and we see him there and he starts to fall to pieces.
I hear her shriek and stare at me and suddenly I don’t feel so well and she’s somehow taller and I’m shrinking. I look down and I see a puddle forming where my feet once were and like a water balloon exploding I fall like mush on the ground. My last look at Marro who is melting just the same. What the hell is going on? I wonder to myself with my last perceptible thought and then there is nothing.
“Ha, ha ha ha.” I knew you could do it my dear boy so lets raise a glass.”
My eyelids flutter and all of a sudden things come into focus.
I have a glass in my hand and its cold to the touch. I haven’t felt anything like this before in my death, neither cold nor hot, it’s all been a bunch of nothing. Then I remember her touch so soft and frail.
Our glasses clank and I drink the liquid which I immediately remember as beer. How can this be? “Where are we? Marro what the hell is going on? What happened back there?”
He smiles a wicked smile and his eyes grow dark and suddenly he looks more like a demon than any demon I have ever seen. “It’s the way of it.”
“What the hell? You aren’t making any sense. The way of what?” I say getting frantic. Maybe beer will help. I guzzle the rest of it.
“Another round!” He shouts out and a bar maid comes over.
“None for me.” I say.
“Come on brother let’s get wasted.”
“Well I suppose one more won’t hurt.”
And that’s how it went we drank till the morning and then walked home.
On the way I felt better and I didn’t even sleep.
“See you feel great don’t you?” What was he reading my mind? “Spirits aren’t meant to sleep. Those poor suckers are just oozing spirit energy and you and me kid we can harvest it.” What did he mean harvest it?
“Marro you aren’t making any sense.”
“It makes complete sense. Those loosers all have broken hearts and their pain is our gain.”
Then I thought about her and taking advantage of her wasn’t right. The next thought came on like a hurricane’s hail, heavy and deadly. I have to get them out of there.
“Marro hang outside for a bit ill wake them up.”
“Five minutes.” And I hoped that would be enough.
“Liza wake up.”
“Oh hey Max what happened yesterday?”
“Just get your things and be ready to leave.”
“Ok.”
“And wake up Har.”
“Ok.”
At least she listens to me when I give an order. I guess I have always been the leader of the house if only to be drained by Marro.
She’s sleeping and she looks so pretty and for a second I feel it. She is the woman of my dreams and she is here now. Here for me to love and save from Marro. I wake her up and she smiles at me.
“I was just dreaming about you.”
So then it wasn’t a dream it was something real we shared. Then came the realization of what Marro had said, “I’ve got something for you.” How did he know of our sleepy romance? It’s too much to ponder we didn’t have time.
“Get up we have to go.”
“I’ll get up if you kiss me.” Kissing her is a thrill I couldn’t have imagined but I do it anyway and it feels great. She gets up and says, “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know yet.” I say as we spirit run out the back door.
We are flowing through the forest and our pace slows. We can feel he hasn’t given chase.
We all look back and then we hear a voice, “You looking for me?” Its Marro but now he has red skin and a tail. I shake my head as if my vision is blurred somehow but the red doesn’t shake off. My mind fades back to a comic book I must have had when I was a kid. Now this is strange, having a flashback from my life, but even stranger is the comic’s name, “Demon Killers.” I wish I remembered what it said about killing demons. I mentally flip the pages but its no use the comic looks like heirogliphs.
“Marro you cant stop us we are leaving.”
He answers with a wry smile, “I think you are going to march your way back up to the house, stay there and never leave again.”
“I’ll fight you if I have to.”
His response to this is the sickest laugh I have ever heard and suddenly I believe it, Marro is demon. Like I said I don’t know much about killing demons but I give him a shot of air.
He barely budges.
I’m at my wits end I haven’t learned too many spirit tricks. Then he turns around, spinning in a circle and he looks like he is on fire. And as I realize that he is he throws a fire ball straight at me. I don’t have time to react or maybe I’m just scared and don’t react but the fire ball doesn’t show any signs of stopping. Its getting closer and closer and just when its about to hit me Liza puts out her arm stopping the fire ball and consuming it. I cant believe what I am seeing. Who is Liza?
“You’ve had this coming for some time demon.” She says and she is suddenly dressed in all white flowing all around her. In her hand is a sword and she lunges at the demon stabbing him right in the stomach. “I’ve been dead a long time Marro and you are not the first demon I have killed. I have to admit I grew tired of it and decided to rest. I’ve been waiting for you to reveal your true colors.
Then she hoists up the sword that is so sharp it cuts his torso in two right up the spine and out the head. Then he just dissipates like he was never there. The only remaining remnants of his presence are the three drops of demons blood on a fern stem. Liza goes over and licks it off.
“Gross.” Says Aubrey as she holds my arm and presses against me.
“I always loved the taste.” Says Liza far from excusing it from our minds but in hers it must make sense.
She turns to us and says, “And you two.”
“Us?” I say.
“What did we do?” Aubrey asks.
“You two were lovers in life and now you are lovers in death. I know its not much but you have each other so no more fighting and killing yourselves.
I did. I killed myself. But wait…
“Yes honey I did too. After we broke up I couldn’t go on any more. If you weren’t in my life I didn’t want to live.”
“I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.” I say and I kiss her.
Comments