All For The Stygian Night

Across the tarmac, or beside it, I walked.

I was crying...laughing too. Someone had been gripping my cloak, I shook them off.

Ouch—

If it wasn't for the sharp ringing sound to my ear the next second, and the blurry cat's cradle my hands were playing, I would've never yelled a loud 'moteh-' and swung, throwing my head ahead.

Day in, day out, night in, night out, they all went out.

Yet, somehow, against my will, I was slammed against something cold, chilling. I cried, again. A hand like hers brushed me, fleecy. Or gripped me, I couldn't tell. I felt numb.

Amber eyes, brownish flecks stretched across, peered at me, and before I wanted to, a smirk even appeared on that person's face. But I was sure it wasn't them.

It was me. My head. She was smirking. They weren't, yes. The person wasn't.

A tremble caught hold of my legs, and I reverted back, where I couldn't guess. I could hear distinct hurried voices, some faded; some sharp and ringing still.

Who were they? Must be some people, stragglers, anyone. Strangers who would be so glad to help me. So glad.

A chuckle, I was sure, broke through me. I struggled against the cagey arms of that person.

I had never felt such dread and calm all in a second.

My mind instantaneously sent me back, ages ago, to the hoots which remained unanswered, Jeremy being the loudest, as I pushed the flap doors of the café and flipped the bird to anyone who refused to back away. In a hurry to what part of time my future would call the crash.

To the stygian street, to the words that were never spoken, to the small gilded locket left hanging on my open palm as my shallow breath coated it, fogged the memories. Lost.

To her mysteriously monotonous apologies tracing the air and settling heavy on the metal itself. I never saw the smirk. I never did.

I did. I just never let it besmirch the future I had planned. But I did see it, yes.

I had ignored it.

And suddenly, a gradual pain, the inner twisting grabbed me back to the now. A taste, soddy, threatened to overcome my mouth. Before I let it, my hands placed downward, I tried lifting myself, even felt a bit more eyes now staring at me.

Those amber flecks had vanished. There were dark shadows in front of me. Dull, moving together in unison. All at one, brown, black-soft and misty faces stared back. Mom's disappointed-at-my-son's act, my friends all gathering and jeering...all of those.

Fresh breeze of the night hit me, and I gulped. The night, the crowd around was alive. I knew it. I felt it. I could not not have chosen a better time to visit the bridge and participate in that stupid contest.

I needed the money!

How long was I to live on half cooked ramen?

Where the hell was I? More so, I would sell my balls—eyeballs, hell—even, for anything that could calm this burn, inside, outside, everywhere.

I stumbled; I still couldn't walk properly as I pushed forward again.

In an attempt to do what?

Instead of those thousand swirling faces being a brick wall, they all parted. None stopped me, a dawdling idiot.

Hehe

An idiot, ha, haha! Yes, an idiot, haha!

I grinned a lot, and sure as hell knew not where I was. Where I was going. Only that the stars led me. They were of a golden hue. Fun fact: stars aren't actually shiny and silvery, it seems.

"Love, live, laugh, loud, leave."

The midnight serenity and the singing soothed me, the soddy taste refused though to let me feel fine.

My shoes scraped against the gravel path, the road, whatever. Taking huge gulps of air, I passed by guys, all closing in. Something pulpy brushed my arms every now and then, its stench not helping the nausea at all.

To ward them off, I grabbed some dude's arm. If there were enough knots in my stomach, one more didn't hurt as dad suddenly stared back at me, his bald head shining under the sun.

Sun?

Ahh, why is he so juicy and pulpy?

A second later, something squishy slid down my face and onto my palms slid a very rotten tomato, smashed. And my dad, rather his image, ceased to exist. And with it the knot too. Not the nausea.

Whirling around to find an escape, I was met with gigantic faces with their tomatoes held high, ready to throw the moment one's guard came down.

What the fuck was happening?

I wheezed. Nobody ever told me to laugh or cry tears when you see the people in your nightmares stuck on tomatoes held feets away.

They weren't stabbing me inside now. However, I sunk right on the ground again, the squishy, wet ground. They were closing in. All of them were. They were just a few yards away from either sides. They were gonna attack; mom's shrill laugh grew louder, Jeremy's hoots rang that bell again.

And then—

A force and pain experienced not even standing under a hot shower was showered down on me. My poor form beaten on the ground, their faces jumbling up and down again, they blurred. They became a red blur of tomatoes.

They faded.

They all slowly faded, now, they went away. I could feel the wind swishing, legs running past by me. But I stared ahead, at the bright night, slowly seating up, my hand choking my throat.

Somehow, my nightmare hurted me less now. Was it the instant of hurling, a torrent mixture of ramen; or these tomatoes—everything, her—that did the magic?

I couldn't care less.

I was euphoric. And then I felt myself lurching forward.

But not before I felt shrieks penetrating my tipsy mind and a now clear neon green jacket comin' at me, that I finally, really gave up.

In and out.

It all came out.

I was drunk happy, and covered in tomato puree. What was new?