Always Together,

And then she let go of my arm, got into her car, and drove off to deliver the hope of something normal for her son.

I sat down on the curb, my legs not able to withhold the weight I'd just been struck with. I sat and I quickly fell into a mess. I felt as though, piece by piece, I was breaking apart, right there in the parking lot of Clark's One-Stop.

I looked up to the skies and began to rock. Back and forth. Back and forth. As if it were the only glue holding me together. I wanted to leave my body. Leave the pain behind. Float out into the atmosphere and never return. I wanted to return to prison where there was nothing to make sense of. Where everything was nothing. I rocked. And I rocked. There was nothing else I could do.

It was over. With her words, it was over. An official end to this momentary stop in 'pretend it didn't happen land.' And the end was too much to bare. I rocked. And rocked. And felt as though I were melting into the curb. As if reality was smothering my existence. But the end never quite came. And I continued to feel pain.. And feel. And feel. And I wanted it to be over. All of it. Any of it.

I stood and began to walk. To the apartment. To leave this all behind. Still rocking in my head. Back and forth. Back and forth. Wondering why. Always why. Where was God? And why did it have to be this way?

Why?

But there were no answers. Not from God. Not from the world. Not from myself. And Clarity had not given the answers. Where could they be found? And why did this have to happen to me? I did not understand the pain. Why I was fated to carry it.

I looked at all of the cars driving past as I rocked down the sidewalk. Thought of all of the people in them, going about their tasks, living their lives in taskful purpose. Making it work. And I wanted to be any one of them. I thought of the thousands of people that had come and gone through the store. I wanted to be them. The lady with the screaming children. The man who hated his wife. The woman looking for her turkey in Walmart. Any of them. Let me be any of them. I thought of Cal. Let me be Cal. Let me look back and see the past, not the present. Let me look forward and see the future, not the past. I thought of Jacob. And how he just....existed. Not talking much. Not expressing much. He was just...there. And let me be there. Let me exist. Let me be numb! Apart from all of this. And I thought of that old woman who had to go home and see her son without an arm. And a whole bag full of horror. Let me be that woman. Let me have her burden. Let me be her son. Take my arm. Let me see the blood and gore and injustice.

LET ME HAVE SOMETHING NORMAL! ANYTHING! LET ME HAVE A MOTHER!

And there it was. There she was. My mother's face. Faint in my mind. There she was. The only place she remained. And why did I have to lose her? WHY!? Take it back! Take the whole ruined thing back! Come on God! Where are you!? Take it back!

But nothing would take it back. Or bring her back. Nothing could change what was done. There was only now. And the ghosts. And the pain. And the loneliness. And the foresaken hughe of each day. And it was all just too much. Too much to come to terms with. To much to forget. To much to hold on to.

I tore at my hair, ripped at my skin. I collapsed to the ground, in the middle of the sidewalk. I punched the cement, instantly taking off their skin. I punched at my thighs below. I punched at my own face. I screamed and I screamed. I screamed up to God and asked him to take me away.
I dug and I dug at the pain, trying to make it be something else. Anything else. I cursed at time, begging it to leave me alone. But the pain just stayed inside. And burned. Burned all the way to my soul. And I was burning alive.

And the whole weight of hell, it was right there on my shoulders.
--*--

I want to go back to prison. I want to go back and watch time take me apart. I want to go back and know nothing of this place, on the other side of it all.

I looked out across the urban sprawl of San Bernardino. At the brown layer of smog hanging above the buildings for as far as the eye could see. At the mountains hardly visible through the pollution. A truly wretched place, I thought. And the damn place mirrored perfectly the way I saw myself.

I was sick. In the head. For the past hour, I had been standing on the roof of our apartment building, thinking of all the ways that I could return to prison. I could rob a bank. I could take a hostage. I could do a lot of really terrible things. And the worst part was not thinking such things. The worst part was knowing that I would never be able to do any of them. I would never be able to get myself back on the inside. I was stuck out here. I was stuck with my feelings. With my past. And I wasn't traveling anywhere down the road of time. I was watching the same stretch go by, time after time after time.

I wanted to jump. It was six stories. I probably wouldn't die, but the pain would go somewhere else. But who would pay my medical bills? Not Clark's One-Stop. Not the government. And then I'd be trapped even more. I wanted a long nip of whiskey. Or any alcohol. Any numbing agent. But I hadn't stuck around long enough to pick up my paycheck. No money.

What the hell was going to happen to me? I couldn't watch this torture take hold forever. It was just too much for any human to walk with.

"Not as pretty as Michigan, is it?"

I was dreaming, of course. Of everything I'd always wondered. I wasn't on top of this building, looking East, out across the southwestern wastelands of America. Not really. I was in bed. Fast asleep. And this was a dream. The dream I'd dreamt of having, the dream I'd hoped and feared of having. So I found myself continuing to stare out into the pollution, and the congestion, and all of the waste America created. Because this was a dream. And if I turned around and found something good, surely, the dream would be over.

Only this was not a dream. And I was not asleep. From the farthest reaches of possibility, this moment had arrived. Here and now. And I did turn around, ever so slowly, for if it was a dream, the most vivid of dreams, I did not want to stir myself from it.

And there she was. In a different time now, she was not as I remembered, of course. But there she was. With tears in her eyes, and down her cheeks. With a strained smile pursed on her lips. Her hands clenching the waist of her pants. On her tip-toes. Long brown hair, dancing in the wind, there she was. Skin glowing in the late light of the day, there she was. Eyes enchanting green, that told of all the majesty she saw, there she was. Perfect, in every way, forever, there she was.

Here she was.

I sunk, unoticeably to my heart-lost self, my back sliding down the smooth cement of the raised rooftop ledge, until there was as much solid ground beneath me as possible. The well of emotions within me came fluttering up in waves, carried by the nerve-wrecked butterflies now flying about, having been trapped within for so long. Breathing was not of air, only suffocating and intoxicating emotion, in and out. Her tears turned to fluttering emotion as well, and I watched in great agony that was not all agony, as she took large gasps of feeling. And it was infinitely surreal to see her, feeling.

She began to walk toward me. And my heart broke in uncountable directions. In pain. In suffering. In relief. In great joy. In love. In hate. In the past. In the future. In this, the greatest and worst moments of my short and scarred life.

And she arrived at me, coming to her knees, teary to teary eye, for the first time in more than eight years. And I looked into to her eyes, and I knew the pain of all the lifetimes. I knew the suffering of all the Earth's creatures. I knew the death of all that was innocent in this one life we are given. And it was all more than I could bare. She put her forehead to mine, and her hands to my temples. And I felt her skin against mine. Felt her life against mine. And my tears turned to rivers. And my emotions churned to a roaring sea. And my heart broke the dam, and I felt more than I knew possible. And it was too much.

"It's too much, Clarity. It's just too much. It's too much."

And her dam broke and she became a river and a roaring sea and we weathered together, in the moment.

"Not any longer, Ansel."

And she brought me into her chest. And she wrapped tightly around me. And I wrapped tightly around her. And we were together, in what way I did not know. And it did not matter. And for a very long time, everything else melted away, and we breathed one another's life.

--*--

"How did you find me? How are you here?"

"None of that matters, for now. All that matters, is that you are here. And I am here."

"But why are you here? Why did you come back for me? How can you stand the sight of me? The touch of me?"

She began to cry more tears. I cried more tears. And there were only more tears, for many moments.

"A promise is a promise, Ansel. Forever."

A promise had always been a promise for Clarity and I. I was sure, however, that had all changed on the night. But here she was, staying true to everything we'd ever held onto. And I could not come to terms with how this all had happened. How it was that she could be here. Not in this life. Humans were not this strong. Not in these times.

And I cried for awhile longer. For everything I'd missed for eight years. For everything I'd caused for eight years. For everything I did not yet understand. And I was afraid. To know more.

The night began to set in, chasing the day out of our moment. And the air grew brisk. We both shuddered, still in one anothers arms, still looking endlessly into the others eyes, trying to find the place we left off in, so long ago.

"Let's get back down to your apartment."

"You've been there before?"

"A couple of times."

"How?"

"Cal."

"But how?"

"We're old friends."

That could not be true.

"Wait. Cal's been in prison for the last thirty nine years."

"Well, not exactly. Do me a favor Ansel. Give your questions time. The answers will come when they're ready to come. Be patient."

"Alright."

At this point, surreal as it all was, tormenting and perplexing as this new reality was, I would do whatever she asked. She was here. With me. Some impossible way.

"From what I understand, Cal and Jacob have a Thanksgiving Dinner prepared for us. And I think we all sit down and eat. So that you can say goodbye."

"Say goodbye? What do you mean?"

"What I mean is, we are leaving, Ansel. Tonight."

"Where are we going? Where could we possibly need to go tonight?"

"In time."

Time. Eight years without her. Eight years of knowing nothing of her, of having no idea if I had ruined her. Time, I could give.

We walked into the building, back to the apartment, and I wondered like hell, how this whole bizarre thing was going to turn out.
--*--