Chapter 1: The Fire Inside

As  I sit in my black leather chair, I gaze out the window looking out towards the ones that define my existence. The citizens of Yonkers have been washed with my terror for two and half years. My name is James Altiwood and I am a writer. While I had never achieved the success that would label me as ‘successful’, I found myself living comfortably from the words that I tossed to the masses. Like a king chucking his left overs to the peasants, they flocked to the passages with salivation building in their gullet. They were more than ready to tear me down after briefly building me up.

I stood up and motioned towards the window, kneeling down in front of it with my arms folded on the pane. The trees waved their leaves like hands at a concert, dancing to nature’s tune. The green grass excited me, I could pick up on the children’s innocent screams and laughter. They reminded me that I do have a heart.

She had a way about her, I couldn’t look away. I was transfixed on every flip of her locks, breathlessly awaiting the next. She gave into my silent demands and positioned her hair behind her shoulders and down her back. Here I sat, smiling like a fool. She reached down into her purse and pulled out a bottle of water and took a clean sip. Before placing it back inside she looked in my direction. Of course, she did not acknowledge my presence. Did they ever?

My mind raced from the scenarios in which I could take her. If I could just show her what it all means, I’d feel that my life was complete. What am I saying? I’ve never even spoke to this woman, yet she has my heart. I admired her features from the window that separated my love from hers. Trapped in my own head again, you’d think I’d be used to this feeling by now.

She clutched the copy of the New York Times that sat next to her on the park bench and began to flip through it. She was knowledgeable about the on goings of the world around us, which was admirable.  I wondered to myself if she did any research on her own.

There are massacres happening all around the globe. Uganda, Syria, places that are redacted from the youth’s history books. I’m getting ahead of myself. I sip my tea and watch the kids play in the streets, prancing and smiling as they tag their friends. I wish I could talk to her, tell her about them. After reading an article or two, she put the paper down and searched for her phone.

Sitting on the bench with her legs folded, she played on her phone like any woman her age would. Based on my first glance I gathered that she could no older than 30, no younger than 25. She had the aura of a single mother. Her grey Hollister shirt and low cut jean shorts fit snugly, hugging her body with a bears grip.

I was drawn to her, she has to be next. I can settle for no less than her. The only thing holding me back from walking out the door and approaching her is the fact that I’ve never had a girlfriend. My father made sure of that.

My train of thought was interrupted when her toddler son approached and complained of something I couldn’t make out. It’s not like I was within ear shot. She picked him up and scampered away to her silver Honda Civic. I reached for a pen and a piece of paper to write down her license plate before she pulled away.

I was most certainly breaking my pattern by attempting this, but the fire inside raged on, persuading me that this was the right move. I was not one to argue with my inner demons. So it was settled. She has to die by my hand, and it was painfully obvious that only I could make it so.

Just Another Day

The familiar raspy voice traveled through my ears and into the deepened crevices of my mind, nuzzling inside. It didn’t want to leave and I couldn’t make it do so. All I could was sit and listen, accept what was being said to me. Talking down to me again, like a child who got into the flour pot, no surprise there.

“Go the fuck away.” I thought to myself. Of course, he spoke back and told me that I needed him to be who I was. His defiant ways were beginning to prove to be too much for me. 

His coarse tone again infiltrated my thoughts, damning me from progressing forward. I sat in the smooth black recliner and kicked my feet up on the ottoman that laid inches from me.

“Deep down I know there’s a part of you that enjoys this. You could break away from me, my chains, my stranglehold… but you choose not to. Now tell me what this says about you?”

“It says nothing, nothing of substance. Every person who has ever breathed has had to deal with you and I’m just about sick of it. One of these day I’m gonna…”

He cut me off before I could finish.

“You’re gonna what? You can’t do shit, Matt. You can’t disrupt this balance. You are nothing without me. Nothing! What you fail to realize is that you need me to be you.”

“Ok, maybe you’re right. Here’s you fail to realize. Without me, there’s no you.”

“That’s not true at all,” he quipped back. “You could keel over and die where you sit and I’d be a-ok. I don’t need you, Matthew. I already control millions upon millions of others, so you tell me why I need you again?”

I motioned for the glass of red wine that rested on the table nearby. As I lifted it and put the Riedel glass to my lips and swished around the Cabernet, I sunk into the chair and took a deep breath. In an act of defiance, I wound up and threw the glass at my forty-six inch television set. Both shattered upon impact, which led him to let out a laugh that could best be described as bone-chilling. This is what he wanted.  

“What are you trying to prove, Matthew? You can’t hurt me. I am you.”

“You’re not me! You may live here but you are not me in any way. I deal with your shit because I have to, I don’t have a fucking choice. You don’t control me, you sick fuck.”

“But I do. Look at what I just made you do. Can’t watch a Yankee game with a shattered TV screen, can ya? Better get to writing; it’s all you have now.”

“Fuck you.”  I stepped out of the living room and into the kitchen where I grabbed the jug of off brand orange juice. Opening the cupboard, I stretched my arm until I felt the plastic cap of the cheap vodka along my fingertips. I nudged it downwards and caught it in mid-air, clasping it between my abdomen and left arm. He made his presence felt by speaking up again.

“You’ve gotta be shitting me. Drowning in the bottle again, and you have the nerve to wonder why I’m here? I’m a byproduct of you, how can’t you see this?”

I slouched down beside the cupboard, dropping to the floor with the bottle in my hand. I felt defeated. He was going to win this round. I twisted the cap off and threw it across the kitchen with no regard for where it may end up.  I watched it skip across the floor and against the recycling bin that sat empty in the hallway.

“Do it, you know you want to. Give in, drink. You deserve it. Look at what you’ve been through.” He was being damn persuasive, and he knew the gospel he spoke was undeniable. I fed into it and took a shot before standing up and heading to the bathroom.

He knew what I was planning to do and pleaded with me not to. The bottle of 500 milligram hydrocodone stared at me from the medicine cabinet below the sink.

“Please don’t. Don’t do this. You were right, I was wrong. I need you! Don’t do this!”

It was obvious to him that I had the upper hand now. I pressed down and spun the top off of the bottle and dumped the contents into my palm. While thinking it all through, I mustered up the courage to stand to my feet and look him in the eyes.

I lifted my head in his direction but paused. I took a deep breath and swallowed three pills, sending a warning shot that he would not soon forget. I had seven more resting in my hand and would not hesitate to down the rest if he started his shit again. I walked over to the sink with my shoulders slouching low. I twisted the faucet on and watched the stream of water circle about the ceramic bowl and down the drain.

“Look at me. Look at me now, god damnit! You can’t do this to me!”

I finally looked up and stared back, burning a hole in the eyes that gazed back. His hazel eyes stared back and the reflection was my own.

A Piece of You

Grey skies encompassed the tone of the afternoon as a flock of black birds circled around in the skies, almost blending in with the overcast. She looked up and let out a deep, reflective sigh. “How did I get here?” she thought to herself, pounding on the hood of her ’98 Bronco. Sweat dripped down from her brow and onto the cement that rested below her feet. Despite the cloud cover, it was sweltering hot and she knew from her experience in the south that a storm was coming. A storm indeed, one that would force her to reconsider everything she had ever come to know.

It was a welcome addition to her psyche, as things had been looking bleak for some time. Her black hair kicking about in the wind and her small face showing the hurt that she endured on a daily basis proved the pain she endured on this planet. The past six months were riddled with many signs of her untimely demise, and the birds up above lent no credence to think otherwise. She felt for her cell phone in the mess that was her purse and grasped it with her left hand. Coming out along with it was her AAA card, and she punched the first three numbers into her dial pad. She stopped and put her phone away at the sight of the raven.

The bird landed on the roof of her car and stayed, stared at her. She put the phone back into her purse and stepped towards it, examining it like a young boy who had captured his first insect. Before she could muster a thought, the bird speak to her.

“Lisa, you know what all of this means, don’t you?”

“You? What you mean?”

“Not only me. The visions, the fear of leaving all of this behind. Corey. I know of him, I know it all.”

“Is there anything you don’t know?”

The bird waddled in a circular fashion, as if to detest everything she had said thus far. He came closer to her with a defiant expression on his face, head cocked to the side, as if he was above her.

“Don’t you realize where all of your fears live? I live in the same place, and it’s all in your head. You can’t honestly think I’m carrying a conversation with you, right?” The bird fell back and rolled around in a fit of laughter in front of her vulnerable eyes. Whatever this raven would follow up with she would surely buy into.

“If I’m talking to you, and you’re talking to me then who is the crazy one?”  the bird quipped while remaining on his backside. Lisa clenched for the bird but he rolled out of her reach and on his feet in one quick motion.

“Why are you doing this to me? Don’t I go through enough? What do you want from me?”

“What is it that you think I want?”

“Do you know how annoying it is for someone to follow up a question with?” a question

“Do you know that you did just that?”

Lisa shook her head as if it would help to get a grip on reality. She reached into her open window and retrieved a twenty ounce bottle of Diet Coke. Bending down at the face of her vehicle, she sat on the ground as tears replaced the sweat that previously hit the ground on her behalf. She checked her phone and noticed two missed calls from a debt collection agency. She brushed it off as no big deal, she ignored them most of the time anyways.

The bird crept down from the roof to the hood of her crimson Bronco, startling her when he assumed she was ready to pick up the conversation.

“Leave me alone or I swear to everything, I will kill you!”

The bird chuckled and danced around the hood to prove that he was too quick for her to kill. She bent down once again. Unsuspecting to the bird, she picked up a piece of broken road from the left of her and stood up. She placed the piece of pavement into her back pocket and rekindled the conversation.

“If your kind could kill me with their bare hands we’d be extinct by now! You can try but I guarantee you can’t do it. Not possible. Nope, no way, try me.

Rain started to drop from the sky in symmetrical pellets, hitting everything in their path except the two who stood face to face. She stood up to look him in the eye and let out a furious scream just to gauge the reaction from the bird.

“Tell me what you want me from me right now or you’ll die. I’m not joking.” She said this with a stern look on her face. The bird knew she meant what she declared.

“You make it seem like I don’t know what you’re about to do, what you’re planning. I know it all.”

“You don’t know shit! You’re a fucking bird! You can’t even speak. . .  fuck! What am I doing to myself?”

“If this is what you think this is, you’ll be able to grab me and kill me with no problems. End your fears with me. Kill me.”

“I don’t want to kill you. I swear I don’t, but If I do, does this all end with you?”

“I can’t tell you that, Lisa. You live and you learn, it is up to you.”

She dug for the rock in her back pocket and the raven remained still as the shadow of his death overcame him.

Promise

There was a chill in the air tonight. I sat on the far end of the bar as she stepped through the door. I marveled at her presence and knew that I must keep the promise that I made. Her face was perfect; an artist couldn’t render her any better.  She was here, right when he said she would be. I glanced down to my watch that hugged my wrist. 11:27 PM. She took a seat a few stools away from me, draping her beige raincoat over it. Her sleeves dangled inches from the beige tiled floor.

I couldn’t help but to admire her absolute beauty. Her hair hung down to her shoulders, resting on her navy blue sweater.  I remarked of her eye color. “Brown eyes, huh? Does that mean you’re full of shit like the rest of ‘em?”  She laughed and said, “That’s a good one.” I played with my beard, it had become a habit to casually stroke it.

The bartender approached her and asked what she’d be drinking tonight. She cracked a smile that reaffirmed everything that I’ve ever questioned. She was an angel, she had to be. The fact that she was here now was a blessing in itself. She’d been through so much.

The torment that comes with possessing a tortured soul haunted her on a daily basis.  To be a prisoner within the crumbling walls of your mind, to know that you try your best and it’s not enough . . . yet here she sits, with a smile and laughter emanating from it. How could she appear so happy on the exterior when she housed those evils deep within her, in a treasure chest begging to be pried open?  She desperately yearns for the one who desires to open it.

I tried before. I didn’t expect her to remember me. After all, it was so long ago. She placed her ten dollar bill on the counter, but before the barkeep could collect, my hand hovered the paper and waved off his advances. I told him I’d take care of it and he offered me a shot on the house. He turned his back to pour me a shot of Jameson and I stood behind him and removed the .357 from the back of my jeans. He was dead after the first shot but I continued to empty the clip into the bottles of top shelf liquor. His body hit the floor with dead weight. He cracked his skull on the counter top, so if the initial shot didn’t kill him, this would.

The woman tried to scamper away but I told her to stay put and she did just that. I asked for her name and told her she would need to follow my every instruction if she wanted to make it out of this alive. When she questioned what all of this was about, I shook my head and told her that she’d rather not know the details.

I dug into my jacket pocket to cease the vibrations from my iPhone. I had two texts and seven notifications. I realized that time was ticking away and put the device back where it once rested. I sat back down at the bar and invited her to join me.

“May as well. Free drinks, right?”

She appeared skittish, but eventually came to her better (or worse) senses. She sat next to me at the bar, closer than before and wanted me to tell her what all of this meant.

“What do you think it means? We’re having drinks at a murder scene. The body is still there.” He pointed to the slain bartender. “Time is important at this stage of the game, but never important enough to ignore the act of sharing a drink.”

“This is a game to you? My life is a joke? Who are you?”

“Who I am is not important. I just need you to trust me. Do you?”

“I’m supposed to?”

“Yeah, I think you are. If you only knew, if only I had the time to tell you.”

“Don’t give me that. If you can take a few minutes to have a drink with me, in front of a corpse no less, then you can sure as hell spare a minute to explain why my life is in danger.”

“I can’t do that. Time is everything and it’s running out.”

“Yet you sit here and sip away at that fucking poison.”

“You down me for the same thing you came in here for. Even if I did tell you, you wouldn’t believe it. You’d think I was crazy. This whole thing is meaningless.”

“Nothing is meaningless. You have to know that I can accept whatever this… is.”

“Then so is everything.  No matter what you do or say in this moment, it doesn’t change the outcome.”

“What if it did?”

“Don’t throw rhetoricals at me. Finish your drink. We have to go.”

“No, I’m not going with you until you give me a valid fucking reason. I don’t even know your name and you want me to put my life in your hands?”

“You used to know my name. You used to know everything about me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course not, I knew you wouldn’t. Do you want to?”

“Want to what?”

“Understand. Do you want to understand?”

She thought about it for a moment. I looked at her and picked up on a sense of anticipation filling the room. She was leaning towards trusting me. She nodded her head, giving me the green light on letting her know the truth about us.

“What if I told you that in a past life we were married? Please know the reason I had to tell you this. You’re going to die within minutes. You have a brain aneurysm that will kill you where you sit in exactly seven minutes. I wrestled with the idea of seeking you out. The truth came to me after I was in a coma last winter. I got hit by a drunk driver and was left to die in the windshield. It was hours before anybody helped me. I couldn’t believe it the day that I woke up in the hospital to a nurse wiping my chin after being spoon fed apple sauce. Enough about this, your last moments shouldn’t be about me.”

She knew that she losing grip of her life with each passing second. She recognized the cold reality that she didn’t have a chance to gather her thoughts. She needed to speak now.

“Why did you tell me this? Why would someone want to know this? Where were you going to take me? I deserve to get these answers. End it right.”

“You deserved to know this time. You’ve been taken from me in this way two times before. I couldn’t let it be a surprise this time. I was going to take you across the street to lay in that field and just look at the night sky. I guess it was silly of me to think that it could’ve happened. I’m surprised you didn’t ask why I killed him.”

“Why did you?”

“To show you this was important.” I rose up and my hand graced her shoulder. I bent my head over and kissed her on the cheek as I walked away. “Until next time, my love.”

Before I reached the door I heard her body drop from the stool and onto the floor. I didn’t look back, I couldn’t. Pushing open the door, there was a man waiting for me outside. He came to me and extended his hand. I shook it firmly, regret in my eyes.

“See you in twenty years, bud. I’ll be in touch.”

“You always are.”

Crossover

“It Was a Very Good Year” by Frank Sinatra blared over the speakers at Detective Carter’s retirement party. After twenty years of serving his community, he was pushed out of the force due to an overall lack of results in his later years, so you could safely assume that this song was ironic considering the circumstances.

He glanced down at the newspaper in front of him and read a disturbing headline, “SERIAL KILLER STILL AT LARGE, CLAIMS SEVENTH VICTIM IN TWENTY DAYS.” His wrinkled face screamed a hellacious existence; he’d been beaten and battered by the game of life. His bristly moustache had remnants of alcohol resting within. Detective Carter shook his head and ordered another shot of rum. The bartender glided over to his seat and poured it for him, and continued to do so after the shot pourer stopped at one.

The detective spoke, “I’m not paying extra.”

“With your pension? Ha. You should be buying the whole bar a round.”

“Funny.” He tipped his head back and swallowed the rum without hesitation. “Fill me back up, I’m going outside to have a smoke.” Detective Carter turned in his chair and reached for his jacket to brace himself for the cold Yonkers autumn.

As he walked towards the exit, he felt a dark presence enter him to his very core. He felt it deep within himself, yet proceeded to push the door open. Once outside, he reached inside of his coat jacket for a fresh pack of Newport 100’s. He did his ritualistic exercise of packing the cigarettes, three times from each direction. He tore off the cellophane that enclosed the pack and tossed it to the ground with no regard.  

“Littering is not good, detective.” The man behind the voice stepped out from the shadows and stood two feet from Carter.

“Do you know who I am?”

“Should I?”

“Considering you’ve spent the last year and a half trying to catch me, I’d say you should, yeah.”

The detective’s mouth sat agape as the man strided over to him to look him in the eye.

“How does it feel to know that I’m not close to done? I’ve perfected my craft, more than you could say for yourself. You’ve exhausted every method to catch me, yet it can’t be done? Why is that, Jon? Want me to fill you in?”

“Be my guest. You’re somebody else’s problem now.”

“Ha. That’s funny. You’re funny, Jon. You know something, detective? And I use that term as loosely as possible because you’re nothing short of a living, breathing punch line. You’re an old washed up drunk who couldn’t catch a seven year old playing freeze tag.”

Jon let out a deep sigh, clearly becoming agitated at the words this man was lashing at him.

“What’s the matter, getting under your skin? Truth hurts doesn’t it? Now let me cut to the chase here. Ha, what a turn of phrase, huh? Maybe if you’d done exactly that I’d be rotting on death row right now, but no. You didn’t have what it takes and never did. You’re a disgrace to your profession and the force both. You should be ashamed of yourself, Jon.”

“Say what you need to say and get the fuck out of my face.”

The man let out a sincere belly laugh and leaned back against the wall. He turned his head towards him and spoke freely.

“You’ve spent the last, what, fifteen or so months trying to get me, Jon? What’s one thing you didn’t do?”

“Enough with the riddles, either say what you need to say or leave me be.”

The mysterious man took two steps back and walked in a short circle. He stopped and gathered his thoughts before letting them out into air between them.

“What you did wrong, what they all did wrong, is that you and everyone else who is on my trail neglects the notion of thinking LIKE me. Think like a ruthless, homicidal maniac. I know, it’s not easy for you heathens to do such a thing. I want to be caught. I want my name to live in infamy.” He took a turn and began to walk away. With his back turned towards the detective he said, “My name is James Altiwood and I will turn over the ends of this Earth to prove my point… and you will witness it. Have a good night, Jon.”

Jon disappeared into the shadows of the night and Detective Carter stormed his way back into the bar. He was furious. That was until he reached his seat, rum on the bar in front of him. He allowed the shot to slither down his throat. He sat back and went through what James had said to him in his head. As the words spun around like a rampant tornado, he stood up at once and placed a twenty dollar bill on the bar. “Here’s your tip, have a good one.”

About an hour had passed before Detective Carter pulled into the Home Depot parking lot. He stepped out of the green Ford Taurus and made his way to the automatic doors. The sliding doors opened and he walked through them with dark intentions in mind.

He thought to himself, “first things first, garden department. James wants me to think like him, then that is exactly what I will do.”

He did just that, once stumbling upon the garden department he came across a teenage boy wearing an orange Home Depot smock. As Jon called for his attention, the boy turned in his direction. His hair was a mess and he wore a plaid shirt beneath the smock. The worker’s name tag read BILLY. He asked if Jon needed any assistance. Jon shook his head yes and asked where he could find a hatchet and a shovel.

As Billy directed him to the hatchet first and shovel next, he thought to himself that he may have just waited on an aspiring serial killer. He was right.

Here

He awoke on a park bench, sitting next to an old man wearing a surgical gown.

“It’s about time you woke up. You must’ve been laying there for hours.”

He sat up and shook his head, perhaps knocking the cobwebs of slumber away from his brain. Putting his head in his hands, he seemed to be confused.  He was clearly disoriented and eventually asked the man next to him how he had gotten here.  When no response was given, he turned in his direction and realized that he was gone.

The man rose up and strolled down the pavement and came across a young kid playing alone in a sandbox. Scratching his scrappy beard and fixing his Marc Jacob suit to get the wrinkles out, he stopped and let the moment fill him, past memories overcame him. Memories of similar times, he staggered backwards and had to sit under a nearby tree to collect himself.

“Hey kid, where are your parents?”

He turned his eyes to the child’s direction. Again, the child in question was gone. Out of the corner of his eye, the man noticed a water fountain. He figured that maybe he was just dehydrated and was in need of some water.  He stepped over to the fountain and leaned his head down, taking in the water flow.

A brown SUV pulled up nearby and approached the old man that he had spoken to earlier. Six men, all wearing different colored hoodies huddled around him and began to assault him until he collapsed to the pavement. He tried to speak up and say something, perhaps save his life. The words would not come to him.

Putting his hands on his head, he let out a shriek of rage, frustrated with the ways of this world. He tried to run over and assist the dying man, but he stood up and walked away as if nothing had happened. The SUV circled the area. The old man in the surgical clothes waved them down and they pulled up in front of him, opened the door and he hopped in the van.

His head spun. “Where the fuck was I?” he thought to himself. He turned around and saw a woman before him.  She was gorgeous. His first thought was that she was an angel, but she lacked the wings of one.

“Hello.”

“Who are you?”

“Shouldn’t you be asking yourself the same question?”

“What? No. My name is Sheldon Jameson and I live in New York. This clearly isn’t New York, so where the fuck am I?!”

She chuckled and walked around him. Her blonde hair was kicking in the wind, dancing, teasing him.  I told her to have a seat with me on the bench nearby but she declined.

“I will stand by this tree, though.”

He didn’t argue with her. Sheldon made his way to the tree and leaned down next to her, back against the tree.

“How long have you been here?”

“You tell me, silly boy. This is yours. All of it.”

“What? No. I’ve never been to this place in my life, how can it be mine?”

“It’s mine too. Yours, his, the boys, it’s everybody’s. We made this together.”

He rose up and was visibly agitated with how this conversation has went thus far. His face turned a brighter shade of red as rage began to take over.

“Listen, lady. I don’t know you, you don’t know me, now stop breaking my fucking balls and tell me where the fuck I am!”

“Calm down. What is your name?”

“James Sheldon.”

“What’s that? But just a few moments ago you said your name was Sheldon Jameson. Who are you, again?”

“My name is Sheldon Jameson and I live in New York.”

“Are you sure?”

“…No. No, I’m not. What is this place?”

She motioned her finger to tell him to look behind him and what he saw startled him. There stood a seven foot man, a near giant, telling Sheldon, or James, to come with him. Without a moment’s hesitation, he did so.  They walked together down a paved pathway and eventually reached a forest so beautiful that it actually took his breath away.

He needed a second to collect himself before he could continue on. The giant kneeled down before him and placed an arm on his shoulder, which seemed like a twig in comparison.

“What is wrong, my friend?”

“I am not your friend. What is with everyone here calling me that? I don’t KNOW you people. Why am I here?”

“Didn’t you used to ask yourself that question a lot? I’m sure many of your kind have. It must be a quite the transition for you. You have no idea where you are, or the beauty of it. Do you even know where you have been?”

“Why should I care where I’ve been? I’ve been to a lot of places. Chicago, Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, California..” he was cut of mid-sentence by the seven foot man with silver locks down to his waist.”

“I have heard stories of these places that you mention, but that is not what I mean. You are far beyond the land you once resided in. Are you ok to continue our journey? There’s something you must see. If you cannot keep up, I will carry you.”

“No, no, that is not necessary. It’s just… this place. It’s astounding. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful, so pleasing to the eye.”

“There are many places like this here and I’d like to show them to you. Come.”

Sheldon, or James, stood on his feet and began trekking through the forest with him again. He asked for his name, and he said it was Samuel. They made small talk for about a mile or two, mainly about what life was like back home for Sheldon, or James.

“We’re here” said the monstrous man. “Follow me.”  He walked behind Samuel as he forged his way into a lavish castle. He had to use a handful of different keys to open the door. This prompted Sheldon, or James, to ask just what was so important in these quarters.

“You are.” Samuel said.

Samuel pushed open the stone door and told him to go inside. He followed his orders and ventured into an empty room.

“Is this a joke? Why am I in an empty room? Explain yourself.”

“Give me a second. First of all, what is your real name? I ask you this once.”

“My name is Sheldon Jameson and I live in New York.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. My name is Sheldon Jameson and I live in New York.”

“Step forward and stand in the middle of this room. When I tell you to look up, I want you to do just that. Do you understand me?”

Sheldon nodded in agreement.

“No. Tell me that you understand what I just said to you.”

“I understand.”

Samuel stepped out of the room and into a corridor nearby.

“Sheldon! When I flip this switch, I want you to look straight up, you got me?”

“I got you.”

“Look up.. now!”

Sheldon looked up and saw a bright light, actually a variation of them. Purple and blue lights colored his figure. Tears came over his face and he stepped away from the light. Samuel came out of the darkness and stepped forward, approaching Sheldon.

“Is this heaven?”

Samuel giggled to himself and said bluntly, “no sir, you were already there.”

A Letter To You

Sarah,

I don't get how you thought that being your friend was my goal. I'm not saying that I didn't like being your friend. I can be anyone's friend, but not yours. Our relationship is too deep for friendship. It's painfully obvious that we want different things and I can't stand for that. I can do a lot of things, but I can't sit idly by and watch you give yourself to other people who don't deserve you. Yes, I feel entitled to have you. I'm sorry that I feel that way, but I do. You won't find another me and I won't find another you. Ever.

I know that opening up is not easy for you, and it's not easy for me either. From the beginning I knew that you were a special person. What does it take to get you to love me? You say that you do but never show it. I always did. I did everything that I possibly could to show you just how great things could be between us. I remember you asking what I expected out of seeing you. I got what I expected. A great night, we laughed and drank and had a lot of fun.

I don't feel like any of this was a waste of time. At all. Getting to know you, seeing you smile, making you laugh will always be a part of me. I thought progress was made that night. I guess I was wrong. One thing I don't understand and never will is how you feel that everything was meaningless. Just another guy seeing you. You knew what I wanted. It was you. It's always been you. It still is, but you made it clear that it can't be.

Knowing that you can go around and be with any guy that shows an interest but not me is incredibly hurtful. What did I do that was so wrong? I feel that we had a real honest to god connection. You say that you loved me in a special way, but you were always distant. Why? Why did I have to go to extreme lengths to get your attention? I'll never understand that. I'll never understand how we can have what we had and you just brush it off like it's nothing.

I said what I said because I was really upset with you. I want this to work. You don't. And that sucks. It really sucks. Everything that I said was true. You don't care about me, what I feel or what I want. You never did. It's always been about you and that's not fair. You say that these words hurt you, but you do nothing to prove me wrong.In a way, it's not even my place to say things. But when you look at it, it is. All of the effort, love, money and time is lost on you.

Is it because it's me who does it? Why can't you see yourself with me? We get along so well most of the time. It's like everything I've ever done gets pushed by the wayside and I really don't get it. I try to. If somebody did what I do for you, I'd be the happiest person alive.

I don't want to hurt you, Sarah. Never have. Shit happens, though. I wanted to take you away from all of the bad things that bring you down.. but you don't want it. You don't want me. I can't be your friend. This is really an all or nothing situation. You can't tell me that you want to run away with me, that you know that we're more than a passing opportunity, that you want me as a partner for life, and expect me to be ok with being your friend.

I've never loved anyone more than I've loved you. I show it, I prove it, even in anger. Would I do what I did if you didn't matter to me, if I really didn't love you as much as I say I did. You won't even give this a chance to work. You put the brakes on us before we could even start the car.