When Does Life Begin?

It felt like the first time the sun met the moon. Her light washed over him; she held the night sky in a warm embrace, and kissed the star-embedded skin wrapped around his face. In the presence of the other, they gleam and glow through the darkest of moments. Their brilliance blossoms into the world something new, something that protects and guides the lost wanderers in their souls. Every time their symmetrical images overlap, their smiles throw fireworks and shine; like a solar eclipse, casting a disco of small crescents over the earth as it reflects through pinholes. Cookie-cuttered from the same cloth, they share a gentleness at the core of their being. Planted by having been alone in the very darkest of places and gifted with the unyielding sight of cutthroat barrens. Having lived the same life, their vibrations overlap and weave helixed braids. It folds and hugs around their hands when their fingers entwine. It connects them and mosaics like paint on its canvas.

Pied plumes of Theo's wine-spatter scarlet melting into Chelly's crystallized glacier, as their energies mottle and coagulate. They cast shadows that sway and wander through the wind, wrapped in the other's arms. They drag in corners and tear on edges through one another's lives, leaving breadcrumb trails of tie-dye drips. Like rain, it seeps through to the fathoms of their souls and sprouts fields of wildflowers everywhere it touches. It beads and pools in their chests, water rising faster with every moment there is distance between them. However, no matter how far away, they are never alone; it is impossible to tear one side of a coin from the other. A half cannot exist without that which makes it whole.

Alas, that perfect moment of synchronicity ended. Theo slid into the lunar eclipse of an emotional embargo. Plunged into the abyss, he continues his orbit of stagnance. Adrift, oblivious that he's still facing his future and on the right track to be in her light once again. Although, he's not the only one left in the dark. Denial born out of fear drove him to silence. He isolated himself from the world and locked out the voices of any other. Without fail, dawn until dusk, Chelly would restlessly tap her knuckles against his door and each day she would get no answer. Not for a single moment did she tire and not once did it pass her mind to give up. Her heart had a duty and it screamed that mission inside her head every second.

The weeks she waited wore into years and she poured her every day into providing for him. She reminded him every day that she loves him deeper than the ocean. He told no one, yet he clung to it for dear life. It was the one thing he could grasp, when everything else felt like an alternate reality. It was the one thing he could count on to be there, to be real. Amidst a world made of shapes, it was the one thing he could feel. The sparse times he would notice a smile cross his face, she was always the only reason. He waited on her to message, and read each one over and over. Her devotion brought him back into himself. It lifted his bones with hope and filled his heart with life again.

Her gravity pulled him out of the darkness and back under the stars. The home of his heart called to him. There is no place for him unless it is beside her. No longer could he resist lying with the love of his dreams. Magnetic forces strummed and tugged on their heart strings, and plucked them into harmonious birdsong melodies. On a still night, illuminated by a frothy snowfall, he came for her as she always knew he would. He belongs in her arms, and finally he could clearly see that. She peeked through the door viewer and her chest did a cartwheel. The melting ice metamorphosed into flakes of gold as she saw him standing there. Their magic intermingled as they encapsulated each other in an embrace, sealing their desire to waste eternity together. Longing for nothing more, they were at last whole. With a kiss they vowed themself to the other. There were no words in their mouths and no doubts in their minds, yet they understood each other effortlessly. With a ring engraved in spirals, they promised that not even in death shall they part, and never again would they spend a day without gazing upon the other.

Until she got a knock at the door, more crushing than a wrecking ball. She answered to two policemen. Theo is dead. Taken from her. Their mouths continued to move as they explained that he had been found unresponsive in his room, but her ears already stopped working. Her Theo, stolen in his sleep by an accidental poisoning. Goosebumps crawl up under her flesh from neck to toe. He is not gone, he cannot be dead. They were supposed to be together for more time. They were created for each other and destined to fulfill a great purpose. Meant to thrive, grow, and build wonderous things. Now she will never see him again. One moment there, the next gone. Two years out of twenty-three spent with the love of their life, that's not long enough. It hasn't been enough time yet. She felt like it was two months ago that he told her I love you for the first time on his porch. They hadn't even had the chance to build a life yet. She can't let him go now, he can't go now. He was a gem and a masterpiece, he was her moon.

Her mind floods with the whispers of his presence as his soul drifts further away from her. Every glimpse of his beauty. Every brush of her fingertip against his cheek. Every outline, furrow and curve she traced each time she touched or looked at him. Every color that coalesced to create him. Every note and octave that entranced her when he let his music take over his body. Every curl in his hair. Every step he took. Every time he danced. All the times they laughed so hard, they would lose their balance and their breath. Now he would never breathe again.

An echo from many years ago rings through Chelly's mind. When homeless, just a short stretch south from here, she had met many strange characters. One man in particular had told her something she could never forget. In the mountains up Church Hill, by the old mine at Frog Rock. Maybe it holds the key to the relief from her suffering. Maybe she's crazy for even considering it, but the paralyzing pins and needles that bite her to the bone, only show mercy as she begins the drive out to Frog Rock.

Atop Church Hill with a blanket of crisp leaves at her feet, she trudges from her car to the side of Frog Rock. She gingerly makes her way down the cliff's steep decline until she slides onto a small rocky ledge. Before her, a tunnel stretched into the moist dirt, framed by a rotting wooden door jamb. She ducks into the hole and around the left corridor. Nestled against the base of the wall just behind the corner is a handmade wooden box. Dragging the box into the doorway, Chelly pulls a screwdriver from her pocket and cracks off the lid of the box. The dim light of the overcast sky reveals several jars and a homemade book, beside a few bundles of human hair.

One jar, filled to the top with a thick crimson liquid. One filled with human teeth. One stacked full of severed ears, the others containing various rubbery and gelatinous blobs of partially decaying appendages. Fixated on the book, she examines it. A pink leathery substance stretched over its hand pressed pages, sewn at the spine and held together by a stringier thread of leathery elastic; Chelly can tell this is what she was searching for. A book entirely bound out of human flesh. Creaking as she bends the cover open, her throat squirms with maggots.

Inked across its pages, detailed drawings of mutilated body parts. Hundreds of runes and symbols. Strange hieroglyphics and foreign languages, scrawled in columns and rows, arranged in geometric patterns. Otherworldly phrases and equations written in blood, diagrams of human sacrifices so gruesome they appear alien, guides to spells, and step-by-step instructions on building altars and ritual structures.

Her phone vibrates, the solemn voice of one of Theo's roommates comes across the line. They tell her Theo's best friend found his journal while looking through his things. Among the entries, dated just after their matrimony, he stated that all of his belongings should go straight to Chelly. As they know how much Chelly meant to Theo, they extend the invitation to come to their house any time she chooses. His property is now hers, so their home is hers as well. In hopes of keeping an eye on her, they gently encouraged her to stay in his room until she is in a more healthy state of mind. Hanging up the phone, she scales the hill, book still in hand.

Chelly approaches Theo's porch and sits on the right cushion of the bench, where she would usually be cradled in her lover's arms as they shared a midnight cigarette, but this time his spot was empty. Numb and stoic in the warm night air, her eyes stuck on the dull porch light reflecting off the curves and points in a glass ashtray atop the wood table across from her. The thought of all the things she would give to be a leaf on a branch, or a metal railing on a balcony aches in her. Grounded and unrippled, just to be rid of all emotion and capability of thinking. So she too might experience the feeling of honest joy. No past, no pain, no memories. No existence besides existence itself.

Unable to be outside for any longer, she takes a deep breath and enters his bedroom, his energy welcoming her with a hug. The disturbed beaded bamboo curtain clatters into silence behind her. Aside from his bed sheet, every instrument, camera, bauble, antique, and piece of clothing was exactly where he had left it. His journal lay on the desk, where his friends had left it for Chelly. The first four days and nights she laid on his bed, in a chrysalis of his embroidered duvet. Only moving to keep herself alive and to flip the pages of his journal, memorizing every word and studying every nuance in the craftsmanship of every letter. On the fifth day, the door creaked open with a knock. Theo's best friend, and roommate, informs her in a low voice that the funeral is over. Saturated in pain, she didn't attend with everyone else. At the click of the door shutting, her chest screams like a hot teapot.

The space between them tugs on her soul and pushes her mind into raging waves. His absence sends her into an eternal high tide. The place in her sky where his illumination nested and glistened over her, ousted by a black void. With every breath, she craves and starves to feel the warmth of him. The candlelight flicker in his eyes each time he would glance at her, burns in her like a branding iron. The rare jewel of a smile that would electrify his face like the northern lights, was larger than life. His tired eyes like emeralds, set in the center of eyeglass lenses held together by makeshift copper wire frames. She gasps for air, drowning on dry land. She cannot survive another day without looking into those eyes. The tornado swallowing her whole rips her to pieces and she dissolves into her mind.

Chelly stands in the wake of a stone labeled Theo. Her feet are bare, cut up, and bleeding. She has no recollection of how she got there. Her face was sore, drenched in tears, and felt swollen. Her knees hit the ground and soil envelopes her fingers, staining in the creases of her palms. Nails chip and cuticles shred as her fingertips blue and bleed. One foot, two, three. She scrapes the caked dirt from Theo's casket. She beats the wood with all her weight blackening her arms and legs with bruises. She scratches and rakes, ignoring when two fingers snap and twist backwards. The wood splintering, she claws and scrapes until its seal cracks and she shoves the box open. There, motionless and vacant, lay Theo. As beautiful and perfect as the last day she saw him. Chelly throws herself into his coffin to embrace him, showering his face and neck with kisses. At last, she can barter with the universe for more time with her partner.

With strength derived from madness, Chelly hauls Theo's body from the hole and places him in the backseat of her vehicle. She drives her lifeless lover to her apartment, across the street from his house. Hidden by the pitch darkness, she takes him under her arms and carries him into her studio. With the book of black magic open on her coffee table, she begins constructing a ritual circle. She draws the spiral runes and arranges twenty-seven candles according to the book's diagram, carefully measuring with a ruler for each placement. She lays Theo in the center of the glyph and with a pair of pliers, she rips out four of her teeth. As she walks around her living room, Chelly places a tooth in four places on the symbol while reciting a passage from the book. Next to Theo's body, she constructs a medical siphon and cuts two slats under Theo's clavicle bone where she inserts tubes into his chest cavity.

Grabbing a large hunting dagger, she walks into the center circle to complete the final step. She crouches beside Theo and leans over the siphon. She says one last I love you too Theo and holds the knife just above her elbow, drawing the blade down as hard as she can. She screams as she hacks her arm until fully severed off and it falls into the siphon drum. She drops the knife and drapes herself over the drum. Her mangled bicep pouring every drop from her body, as the siphon pumps her plasma and blood into Theo. Chelly watches his body leak and pool over the floor, as she loses consciousness and her sight goes black.

Chelly peels open her eyelids, a painful, bumpy, hard sensation within them. Vision warped and distorted, she panics. Reaching up, she pulls a plastic cap out of each eye and realizes she's lying on the ground. She's wet from head to toe and feels as if she was wearing some kind of coat with heavy shoulder pads. She leans into a sitting position, her surroundings a blur. She tries to open her mouth but there's something in her mouth holding it shut. Wiping her eyes, her vision slightly clears and she sees her own body slumped over the siphon drum. She chokes on a manly scream behind a wired shut mouth and holds Theo's hands, now her hands, in front of her. She dives for the knife, and plunges its serrated blade into Theo's forehead. His body goes limp once more, and Chelly is released from the nightmarish horror of her life.