Chapter 17 - Line of Best Fit
I caught the speeding train in the corner of my vision and jolted my entire body to face the scene. Frame by frame the train continued to lose its closeness and approach the Night Light main station. Fresh water splashed my pupils that knew not how to blink as a stillness overtook my body. I began to sink as I saw the moment set ablaze. At first it was only the crash of the speeding bullet into a stationary building of concrete and glass, but within the addition of unwelcome seconds, a mass flame encased all that existed. The fire proved a precursor to the fireworks to come as a heavy dark mist engulfed the surrounding area. Clearly Carmine’s deepest desire had been fulfilled, the consumption of a stockpile of viles into the innocent air.
The mist lost density as it reached out to invite me towards center. I ignored the chorus of voices left unattended in my mind, they sung in unison to renounce my next actions. I moved my body from what felt like years of sediment and swam towards the embankment that held up the railway. I would find her, dead or alive, and tell her how sorry I was.
My feet fell flat on the railway and produced an all out sprint towards the wreckage. As I approached I was met with the sounds of insanity. The collection of various voices babbling incoherently, a possible side effect of the deathly mist that had consumed them moments ago. As I became closer to ground zero, I noticed Night Light security staff, waving their loaded guns in the air, blank faced and knowing not what had just happened to them. A tingle of danger tapped my shoulder but was easily ignored. I had to get close to the still fire ridden train cars to even make out my location.
An eerie feeling landed that this thick mist was infecting me, seeping deep into my subconscious. Not to the delirious state of the victims I noticed around me, but something new still. I would need to try hard and not let my thoughts slip into insanity as I marched further into the disease.
As if a cherry on top, the repurposed light house had been reduced to mere rubble, the train shooting off of its course into the icon and removing its existence from the map of Forest City.
I scanned for the rear cars that had just contained my beautiful moment. Upon the knowledge that i found such a treasure, I glanced with every ounce of strength into my surroundings. My eyes trailed the scene, yet they were suddenly flooded with a terror I had yet to understand.
She lay there motionless, roughed up like a fight she had lost, not moving with my instantaneous scream of her name. The speed at which I ran to her faded aura ran laps around my audition running here. The flood plaguing my eyes lost to an all out storm of precipitation. I placed my now foreign arm around her shoulders and brought her lifeless body closer to me. I had killed her somehow. Maybe a day far from this moment, my indecision becoming a bad dream that she became lost in. I did not know loud my impulses were in the acceptance of such truth. Blurry eyes searched around for antidote to the moment, thoughts slipping into a dark abyss. I should let the madness win, inhale the dirty air around me and lose to this moment.
I spotted a fallen security guard to my right and dashed over to his memorial. I noticed the still holstered 9mm in his waist and kept an empty mind as I reached for it. I took one final look over to my dead bride and thought of the promise she screamed for years ago. Even up to the end, I wasn’t able to truly save her.
The trembling of my hand was lost in the sea of impulse to join Carmine in her sleep eternal. As the firearm raised slowly in altitude, its needle pointed tip met my temple. Free falling tears abandoned hope as my teeth tightened. The lock of understanding for my prior actions stepped out upon a spotlight. My muscles resisted this rotten desire, placing attention on the hesitation of my index finger. I cried aloud at the straining motion, matching the wreckage all around me. Refocusing, my breathing became quick as my finger fought through the waves of sweat devouring my body. The cold trigger danced around my finger print as the last reserve of strength placed pressure on the executioner. I wept for my life and the seconds left, decreasing the fulcrum my finger formed. A whisper met my ear, ringing aloud like a morning bell after a dark night.
STRANGER: Oh darling, what has become of you? Be a dear and put down that toy.”
My soaked eyes opened to reveal my painstaking illusion, my never ending Carmine.
ATMOS: Get out of my mind! She’s dead and I let her die.
CARMINE: Of course she’s dead, but you are still very much alive my sweet.
ATMOS: Stop distracting me! I don’t want to be. I just want all of this to end.
CARMINE: An exit should do the trick then. Please enough with the dramatics Atmos.
ATMOS: Carmine, can’t you see it’s over.
CARMINE: Pitty, I can’t. In fact your life has just begun dear Atmos. You should be thankful she’s just a ghost now. Ghosts are far more manageable than ex lovers.
ATMOS: You’re not helping! You’re not real!
I returned the shining piece of metal back to my skull.
CARMINE: Dearheart. I’m sorry about this mess of yours. But please listen. This choice, towering in front of you, is not your way out. It is nothing more than an illusion, one far more deceiving than yours truly. Just because you fell in love with a setting sun doesn’t mean that the darkness of night should be eternal. Darling, take my hand. Follow me to the horizon, just maybe we can watch the sun rise once more.
The weight of the gun felt too heavy to hold, it lowered to the floor as my glazed eyes focused on the fragment of my mind still craving life. I hadn’t noticed her bare state, absent of any clothes she stood naked in front of me.
ATMOS: What have you done to me..Carmine….I….I don’t know what to do anymore.
She smirked.
CARMINE: You shouldn’t love. I’m not real. But maybe that doesn’t matter, maybe I’m simply your escape from this hell.
ATMOS: I’m just so tired, I’ve wanted for so long an end.
Her hand unwound my fingertips that held the weapon and grabbed my palm tightly.
CARMINE: Up you go.
She winked after her delivery.
CARMINE: You’ll have to carry her. Carry her my love so that you can bury her.
I felt the flood of my eyes as I turned to face the lifeless Carmine on the scorched ground. I no longer had thought, I simply did as this illusion of mine said. With fragile arms I collected my ending, clinging her lifeless body to mine and followed Carmine to this described escape.
I held Carmine in my arms for the journey through madness to the dock at the train station. A slight rain began to enter the frame, causing subtle reflections off of every stationary object. A single untouched canoe sat awaiting our pilgrimage into what stood next.
My legs trembled stepping into the foreign canoe as I balanced the weight of death in both arms. Carmine found use in these fragile seconds, removing matches held in a small tin at the base of the lantern affixed to the boat and striking into existence slow dances of new born flames. The glow painted the interior of our fresh casket with haunting shadows. I set Carmine down at the stern of the canoe, closest to the raised lantern. I knew the amber lighting wouldn’t reinvigorate her skin, but I had to try. Her eyes no longer glowed, their power given back to the gods that had created her. I sat motionless in the purgatory until Carmine snapped her fingers for my attention. I gave little notice to the chorus of noise around me as all that had been sucked into this moment carefully crafted by Carmine, now rambled with absurdities, beyond delirious from the moth mist in the air.
CARMINE: Shall we embark on a funeral?
Eyes still ablaze and fixed on the deceased, I grabbed each ore hoping for reprise from this moment. Darkness still surrounded the landscape, yet a sliver of light peaked above the horizon. I cared little for a change in the hue upon us, Somehow instead my wonder grew towards my beautiful illusion.
CARMINE: Focus Atmos, a eulogy would do nicely.
ATMOS: I don’t know exactly what to say. In the end, she became a stranger. All I can speak to are the things I wished she had been.
CARMINE: Perhaps start there. Whisper into the dark morning air sweet nothings about your neglected wishes.
ATMOS: I thought if we could remain in love, even after years apart, it would signify something special. It would mean that we had a love no one else could have.
CARMINE: You say it is time that makes love grand, are you sure about that?
ATMOS: Maybe after she had left I knew that our dream no longer existed, but I wasn’t going to give up. I still believed her and I were destined for the stars.
I smiled with the same ambition responsible for my endurance following Carmine, it had been nice to dream all of these years.
ATMOS: I guess that is why you exist Carmine. You were the bridge extending miles to the place I couldn’t reach. The utopia where her and I would be together again.
The waterworks came, my thoughts forced to watch the memory lost of the last true time I had seen her. When she asked for my hand in the afterlife, escaping to the underworld.
ATMOS: But I’ve made a mess of things, death proved me wrong.
CARMINE: Well, lucky for you, we still have a mess to make ourselves.
She winked with an eerie reflection of the seduction I had just witnessed on the train.
ATMOS: Won’t you disappear now that the person you’re supposed to be is buried and gone?
CARMINE: She doesn’t look buried to me. Don’t be mistaken Atmos, I’m a part of your life now.
Her smirk illuminated in the darkness. With it, she stood up and reached under our seat, pulling out a blue and white embroidered blanket. Slowly she draped the ghostly cover over dear Carmine. Her nude body sat down inches from me as her gentle non-existent hand landed on my leg.
CARMINE: Love is not enough. You must understand that you’ll need more than just love to carry on.
ATMOS: But love is enough for me, sometimes it feels like the only thing I need.
CARMINE: Have you not learned anything this morning my dear? This act of devotion you’re used to, tying your happiness to an offering from another. Look around you Atmos, I don’t think it is another funeral that you’re looking to attend.
ATMOS: And just what am I supposed to be doing instead then?
CARMINE: Balance darling, you and I and you and her. Two matches in a matchbox.
She struck another match from the small tin used to illuminate the canoe moments ago. Allowing the flame to slowly burn just above her fingers, her eyes waved gently towards me as she flicked the consumed twig into the misty water beyond.
CARMINE: You’ve slipped, fallen quite far into the depths of a thick sludge, yet you are unaware of its texture. Love is only half of the ladder out. You’ll need to open your eyes to the debris around you, begin to fear its existence.
ATMOS: I don’t understand, what would I have to be afraid of?
CARMINE: Me of course. Don't let this death get in the way of the truth. Carmine became your addiction, I saw to that. It will take more than forgetting her face for you to move on, you'll have to run from me as well. I'll be hunting for you Atmos, today has earned you a head start, don't waste it.
She gave a mesmerizing smirk that came with the introduction of guilt, knowing that she was more powerful than the ghost in her image.
CARMINE: Smile Darling, it is a gift to be haunted. This new exhaustion will form you into the one Leigh dreams of. We’re all looking for a villain in our lives, your search is no longer needed. You’ve found warmth Atmos, be a doll and thaw yourself for me.
The sun on the horizon cast the soft strip of red light across us. Carmine’s hair began to hold a red tint, somehow transitioning into a permanent alteration. The faint light had created the illusion that each individual hair strand had been freshly dipped in kerosene, dancing side to side in the hopes to suppress any acquired sparks. Withering slowly as they left the padded mass of long red hair kept untamed and inviting to catch such a fire. These charred fibers met and ended at her bare shoulders.
ATMOS: Your hair is on fire, Carmine Red.
CARMINE RED: You fond of it too? I wanted to switch things up for you, now that there is only one of me left.
The wind picking up on our voyage had partially removed the blanket concealing Carmine, exposing her face. I looked at the excess make up she had used to be presentable for her last performance and could now see the cracked skin underneath. She had changed from youth, as so many do. I felt an avalanche of tears echoing down my face, this voyage would signify our goodbye. Carmine Red squeezed my leg for attention, looking for the continuation of our verbal spar.
CARMINE RED: Have you decided what is next dear Atmos? This canoe holds all the traits one might need to move on.
My eyes locked in trance with Carmine’s hollow pupils, slightly oscillating with the movement of the solace waves around us. A gust of calmness blew over me, drying out the aqueducts that contained the constant spill of sadness.
ATMOS: What would it feel like? to erase everything her and I had?
CARMINE RED: The bird in it’s cage is safe from fear, yet the one that flies dangerously in the sky cannot shed it's ability to feel free. You’ll never truly forget her, but do take back the corner of your heart held in her cold fingers. Let’s wipe the slate clean, starting with introductions.
ATMOS: Introductions, start at the beginning again. Alright then, I’m Atmos.
CARMINE RED: Short and sweet, my turn to play. Hello stranger, I’m Carmine Red and I am a Destroyer of Worlds.
A deceit clung to her words. The sound of an engine could be heard in the distance. The kind of sound that all would know meant the working of a ship long lost. I looked at each version of the long lost love that stood before me. The collision of the two worlds that had consumed me. I noticed Carmine Red was standing, her perfect body illuminating in the early morning light. She knelt in towards me at a whisper's distance.
CARMINE RED: Time to run..
Her left eye blinked as she approached the edge of the vessel and dove into the depths of the Deep Pines below that held our two realities in tact. I watched as cascading ripples caressed the side of the boat in her wake. They were soon met with a battle of turbulence as the roaring engine appeared at my threshold. I walked over to Carmine’s corpse for one final moment. Most of her body had become exposed from the racing wind around us. I took care in grabbing her left hand, bringing my lips towards her skin and tallying a second long awaited kiss.
ATMOS: This is goodbye, farewell my dear.
The noise in the distance grew in intensity as I turned to see the full cast of the Sunshine Dreamers, Leigh commanding from center. Her exploding smile found the unattended dry brush inside of us both and erupted the moment into flames.
It felt as if an entire world had begun and ended since I had crossed paths with Leigh. Heart soaked paths that had spun in a continuous orbit around us, until colliding in unison at our center. I felt changed from the soul that departed these aged docks hours prior. Still lost in emotion, I felt the shedding of a rotted system of skin with the death of dear Carmine. Although I would miss her, I craved the long awaited next chapter. Leigh would need to save me from any sneaking hands, eager to pop out of the ground to pull me back under.
Her petite arm reached out as the boat glided towards my position. Slightly soaked from the rain that had been recently introduced, her fingers dripped with potential cast in gold by the sunlight accompanying the rain.
LEIGH: I can't express how happy I am to see your face, hop aboard!
ATMOS: I’m ready Leigh. I’m ready to leave.
At an arm’s reach Leigh drew me in for a short reunion, allowing added seconds for our bodies to be held tight together. She kissed my cheek and motioned for Cameron, the one clearly responsible for my search party, to board my canoe. He immediately patted my back in an eager chant.
CAMERON: I am so glad to see you chief, you had me at a coin toss.
His sentiment in the moment mirrored.
ATMOS: You too buddy, somehow it has been too long.
Cameron proceeded to enter the canoe, walking slowly towards the ruins of the woman recently acquainted. His arms mimicking shovels, lowering to the quiet blanket Carmine Red had placed on her.
ATMOS: Please leave her there. She would want to spend the end floating along the place she fought to preserve.
Leigh slipped out.
LEIGH: Is that her? Is that your Carmine?
ATMOS: Mine no more.
I understood now the collective contrast proven to exist in life. Obtaining clarity in love’s opposite, the snapshot taken of the rose left decayed to spoil. Strange, a part of me found comfort in the fear Carmine brought with her. Her tortured puppet, clinging on to the wish that the flower could one day be reborn, oblivious to its continuing decay. The feeling of peace that came while driving down a windy road in autumn, with your hand creased out of the window. Smiling at the coldness of your finger tips. She would be buried, covered with shovel upon shovel of a spring time love. Yet every now and then I might wonder about the fleeting shiver of a familiar uncertainty. The feeling of frost that brought curiosity to if she was standing at my back, awaiting her chance to devour me once more. I would need to frame my gaze on Leigh, the one responsible for my escape. The one unknowingly tasked with keeping me from ever turning around. My eternal love from fear.
I walked past Alastor to the bow of the boat, noticing the instant placement of his hand on my shoulder.
ALASTOR: Job well done Atmos. Your training has proven complete. Take time to mourn, it is most proper, but when you are complete in waving goodbye to the past, I do ask you come to me at once. At such time you’ll be ready for your next mission, if you so choose.
ATMOS: Are we in the business of espionage now? Hiding in the shadows under the orders of others.
Leigh walked over to us during our volley of conversion.
LEIGH: Spy games, is that what is next for the Sunshine Dreamers?
I smiled at her outlook. The ghostly canoe holding the final chapter of a rotted season began to lose visibility as we sailed off. The day had brought death to the story I had held on for so long. Yet there Leigh stood with her untainted innocence, the sincerity that is stolen from us all after adolescence. She was always a part of this story, her arrival had become the suncast exit out of a burning maze. A subtle warmth that if left unattended would burn the world ablaze.
T H E E N D.