Theo

It was with these thoughts in mind that I heard what I thought was the sound of retching coming from the alley next to the house. I ignored it at first, but once it became clear that this sound was probably someone having a very bad night or feeling sick, I decided to go investigate. Maybe they could help me with finish my beer, or, wait, no. No, sick people don't need more beer. Fuck, regardless, I went over.

A nice part of this neighborhood was that the alleys were all lit up with wall mounted lights, and so it was with perfect clarity that I saw a rather old man curled up in the fetal position. He shuddered and coughed as if he was throwing up but nothing came out -- seeing how haggard he looked, the sobering thought that he perhaps had nothing in his stomach to throw up occurred to me, and it became my Mission of the Night to commence Operation Don't Let This Old Guy Die -- I capitalize these words because if you ever have been drunk and whimsically decided to undergo a series of actions the outcome of which you are not sure of but the reasoning for them you would bet your life on, you know the sentiment. This Shit Was Fucking Important. I drank some of my beer, then crouched down.

"Excuse me, sir. Are you alright? Er, stupid question I guess. Do you need help? Can I help? Can you hear me?" He wasn't responding, but I heard him breathing, and retching, and so did what any normal person would do and sat next to him, a decent distance away in case his body decided to cough up a lung or something, but close enough that I could hear his breathing.

"I'm right here, okay sir? If you don't react to me in the next few minutes I'll, I'll go get somebody, we'll get you somewhere good. Mkay?" I doubted I sounded very convincing but after a few minutes of his continued dry heaving and moans, I decided that Something Must Be Done, but wasn't sure what to do. Maybe Stella would know? She'd think I was all considerate and shit too. An appealing proposition...

But wait, no, 911. That's a thing, that's the thing you do for people who need medical assistance. I took out my phone.

"Sir, I'm gnna' get you help. Mkay?" Pathetic, really, that I was the hero this man was receiving. He was old, I confess I was disappointed about his lack of Gandalf beard but his face was creased with lines, and stubble, his skin was frail, he had several jackets on him but shivered all the same. I got my phone out and began to dial when I heard a familiar voice.

"Young man, I appreciate the effort, but it isn't necessary."

Stunned for a moment, I kept dialing and then hit the call button before I realized that the voice which had just spoken was addressed to me and came from where he was.. I turned to look at him and was so shocked by his radical change in appearance, perhaps my mind couldn't handle it, perhaps it was just my drunkenness or the fact that generally speaking, dying hoboes don't turn soundlessly into...whatever he just became, but as I brought my hand to my ear, I found my entire body followed in the same motion and I fell to the ground, and the world faded to an encroaching blackness, and I was falling, falling....falling.....

~~

Fuck. Alright, let's see -- heart beating, that's good. I seemed to be conscious, another bonus, and sober, too. That was interesting. No visuals yet, everything was black. The fuck just happened?

"One moment, we're setting everything up." The voice came from inside my head. The voice came. From inside. My head. My fucking god what was this shit? It was my own voice, the same sort of thing that happens when you consciously think of something. You know how you sort of hear your voice inside your head? Not your spoken voice -- your voice. Imagine hearing that, but intrusively, not of your own design. Fucking creepy.

"Uh, yeah, no problem, do what you need to do or whatever the fuck, I don't know..." Maybe I was dreaming? But, no, there was no sound of rain. Or, wait, had midnight passed? was it still Tuesday even? I only dream on Tuesdays...

"Would rain make you feel more at home?" Again with the voice in my head! Fuck!

"No, really, I, uh, I'd just rather you stop talking in my head if that's at all possible, also, quick question, what the fuck? That's about it. Really, just, that: what the fuck? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HOLY SHIT SOMEBODY HELP ME I'M TRAPPED IN-"

"Now now, no need for that." I was silenced -- unable to respond, and, thankfully, the voice I heard instead originated from in front of me. Slowly, my surroundings materialized. Or, rather, they didn't: it was just a desk, lit by a universally angled source of light, and two chairs. And then, suddenly, I was sitting in one of the chairs. Let me tell you, being conscious and having no light or feeling of yourself, it's real reassuring to see you have a body again, even if everything but two chairs and a desk is blackness.

From the darkness opposite me, I approached. I looked exactly as I had when I looked at myself in the mirror earlier. Perhaps it is amusing to someone else besides me that my first thought on seeing my double like this was "Not bad. Could work out a bit, though." After that thought, however, the inevitable panic set in: if that was me, who was I?

"Oh, please, Theo, talk to me with your mouth. Let's be civil." I said to myself. He said to me. I still to this day have a hard time understanding the events which transpired in this moment of unconsciousness in the alleyway, and for simplicity's sake, I think it is best agreed by all parties involved that I address this supposed mirror of myself by the name of Geoffrey.

Geoffrey looked bored.

"Okay. Civil. Gotcha."

"Thank you," responded Geoffrey, sounding exactly like me, creeping me the fuck out. "Now, let's get down to business." He then addressed the darkness, and not me, or at least that's what it seemed like. "Could we get the contract, please?"

"What contract?" I replied. He blinked and seemed a little confused.

"You mean, you haven't been informed? Surely, you're joking."

"Uh, nope. Pretty confused here. I was in an alleyway. Now I'm here." Then, a thought struck me. "Is that old guy okay? He seemed pretty out of it, then, oh..." I remembered now. He'd told me not to call 911, and then I turned to look at him because he'd sounded familiar, and I was astonished to discover he was my exact replica. "There is no old man, is that right?"

A few stapled pieces of paper appeared on the table. Geoffrey looked at me quizically. "Couldn't be.... I've been doing this for eons... they couldn't have changed, no..." He flipped through the pages then a look of immense surprise crossed his face. "Well, they never tell me anything, do they." I laughed.

"You're telling me," I said nervously. He looked at my sympathetically, then smoothed back his hair in the same way I did and went back to reading the pages extremely quickly. I could only vaguely make out the writing across the table but any time I tried to focus on it, it blurred. It was a mannerism popular to kids of my generation who liked their hair a certain way, but it's one thing to see your classmates do it, and quite another to see yourself do it directly in front of you.

"Well, this is all rather new, and part of the novelty here is I'm basically not allowed to tell you much." He glanced at the pages again. "Really, nothing at all. They moved the signature to a page independent of all other content...very interesting. I'll have to talk to Teffer about this.."

"Teffer? Who's that? Actually, fuck that, first off, why do you look like me?"

He didn't seem to hear, just leafed through the pages some more, and, sick of being left in the dark (ha. ha.) I was about to ask again when he looked up at me.

"Efficiency. Hard to breach our two places in the first place, much easier to duplicate than to create. This is your old kitchen table, and chairs." He gestured to them.I looked again, and, sure enough, discovered the burn mark my sister had made when bacon grease had splattered out of a pan and she forgot to clean it up, and the notch I'd worried into the table with a knife when we heard the news about how much longer she had to live...

"Okay. So. Here's the deal. You get...erm, powers. They aren't static, and can change. And...let me check," he flipped through the pages, too quickly to read them I was sure, "nope, yeah that's it. Sign here." He flipped the rest of the pages over and so I only saw two lines: the one on the left had a strange symbol on it, like a series of interlocking circles, and I thought I saw a snake? The right, blank. I was handed a pen, which I idly realized was the pen I'd won for third place in the spelling bee in fourth grade. It said "Arbortown Elementary" on it.

This was so surreal. A contract? I was expected to unconsciously sign a legally binding document? Was any of this even happening -- had I gone crazy? "I know in my world we sort of skip the contracts and click I agree, yes, Itunes, you can update, fuck off sort of deal, but this one seems...listen, I honestly, I don't know what's happening right now. I don't want to sign your contract, I want to go home, or I want at least some answers. Or something. Yeah?" The fact that I was not absolutely flipping my shit right now and screaming was a testament either to some mental fortitude the nature of which I had previously not been aware of, or it was a calm imposed on me by the same people which had brought me to this place.

"Listen," replied Geoffrey, "you don't really get a choice. Nobody's ever not signed before."

"Right, well, supposing I was the first one. Supposing I don't like this."

He raised an eyebrow, and looked pretty pretentious honestly. I wasn't sure how much I liked the look of Geoffrey, which is to say me. "Dude, sign the fucking page. Or you fucking die, they pick someone else." Immediately after this a low rumble reverberated in the wherever-I-was, and it shook me to my core. For a brief instant, I felt Power -- true, unadelterated, raw manifestation of will, and it scared the living fuck out of me. I felt exactly how small I was, and Geoffrey, well...

Geoffrey exploded. I watched myself combust in front of my eyes. Chunks of me flew into the darkness to disappear. As far as intimidation goes, it was a pretty successful tactic.

And so it was, that on the day my life was to change forever for better and for worse, that I signed my name on the line on the same table on which rested my left eye and a bloody piece of my elbow, and the surrounding darkness faded back in. My last thought, I believe, was something along the lines of "I didn't get to read the fine print."

I had no fucking idea what I'd just committed to. It's very important to me that you understand that the rest of my life was motivated by this moment of coercion. Be kind to me in your judgments, and before questioning my morals, or my character, or anything really, ask yourself: would you have done much different?

Ch. 6: Stella

I awoke to angels singing. Or, no, I awoke to the feeling of silk on my skin. The softest silk, caressing my cheek, no, pressing hard against it, envelopping me...

Really, I woke up in an alley to someone slapping me awake.

"Theo? Theo! Wake up! Fuck, where's my phone..." Apparently they couldn't find theirs because soon after I heard this sentence, I felt hands enter my pockets, one by one. All were empty -- I don't bring my wallet to parties with open bars and I'd tossed my keys to Sai earlier, my phone having slipped out of my hands when I fell unconscious, but when the hand went into my front left pocket it grazed against my dick and immediately retracted.

"Oh, uh, sorry, if you felt that. Oh shit there it is." I heard a clammer, then someone dialing, and then that same feeling of incorrectness came over me as when I saw Mia leaving. Whatever phone call was about to be made should not happen. This time, I didn't need to ask for things to change. I could make them change.

I felt a rush of energy as my body came to life again, I realized I hadn't been breathing and with a gasp I took in a huge breath of air, I became aware of each of my limbs in a way perhaps only possible if you've been made unaware of their existence while being conscious.

I suddenly felt that I had a leg. I'd never felt it in this way before, not the intellectual understanding of knowing I had a leg but rather the feeling not of the leg doing anything but rather the fact of my legs own existence became immediately known to me and this seemed to happen to every organ in my body, every limb, every neuron firing in my brain, my veins, my skin itself wrapped tightly around it all, my eyes and eyelashes, every hair follicle, every part of me was shuddering right now, I must have appeared quite the epileptic. Wait, my lips...There was something wrong with my lips. Or, I realized, smiling, something right.

I knew exactly where I was, who was in front of me, the nature of the call they were on, the feeling of surprise and shock. I knew the waves transmitting from the phone were being received six point three seven miles away in a police station, that their lines were full but would clear any second, and, without understanding how, I cut the connection between the phones. It stopped ringing. I opened my eyes, and saw Stella sitting next to me, holding the phone with one hand, taking my pulse with the other. She saw my eyes open.

"Oh fuck Theo, thank god, oh Jesus are you okay? Here, follow my finger." She held her index in front of my eyes and moved it back and forth in an attempt at some pseudo-medicinal remedy, but I didn't bother looking. I knew I was fine -- I couldn't tell you how, but I had this implcit knowledge that my body was functioning better, in fact, than it ever had. I was doing great, and much more interesting to me than her finger was her face.

How could I ever have called this face anything less than beautiful? It was a kind, worried face, she was frowning and there were tears welling in her eyes. They glimmered in the light cast from the wall mounted halogen lights. How could I ever have tried to categorize this face in the same level as Mia? It was a different game entirely: her face wasn't sexy like Mia's, it was just, simply put, kind and beautiful. Pale like the moon.

"Theo, please if you can hear me follow my finger."

I couldn't break from her eyes. I wasn't sure if it was something that I'd never noticed or just something new but these eyes had to them a depth I had never seen before. I didn't just see their color, I saw their color as manifesting a part of her own identity, part of her entire being was reflected in those eyes. My god. Every rivulet of color, the miniscule flecks of black and brown, it all meant something so much more than it appeared to visually. It was a language! I needed to articulate this. It was important.

"Stella..."

"Ohmyfuckinggodthankgodareyouokay?!" She launched herself on top of me, apparently unconcerned with the filth around us. It wasn't the worst as far as alleys went, honestly, it was, like I mentioned, a nicer neighborhood, but it was still an alley.

"Stella,"

"I came out here looking for you because you didn't look good, and you didn't, you know, respond to me when I said,"

"Stella."

"And I just saw you lying here on the ground and you weren't moving or breathing and I thought, I don't know I thought,"

"Stella! Holy fuck!" She abruptly came off of me, wiping her eyes. She sniffed once.

"I'm so sorry, Theo, I-"

I don't know how, but I possessed a supremely elegant dexterity as I adjusted my hands and feet to push myself up to a seated position akin to hers in one smooth movement. She looked at me, at a loss for words at this sudden lithe movement.

"Stella, you are the most beautiful thing I have seen in this world." Apparently I have massive balls when I come out of a coma. A part of me definitely was surprised at this utterance, but more surprising than this was what came from me next. I adjusted to my knees and cupped her face with my right hand, caressing her cheek.

"Thank you so much for coming to look after me. You don't understand how much I appreciate that. I'm sorry for not responding to you obviously hitting on me earlier. I'm a complete idiot. I'm doing okay now." I took her hand with my free hand and squeezed gently. "I'm doing really okay now, you got me out of it. I was just feeling a little sick." It was unnerving how easily the lie came. "I don't know what happened, but you brought me back." More lies.

She took a few measured but stuttered inhales and as she did so I remembered how big her breasts were and how generous her t-shirt was, looking down at her chest expanding and contracting with her breath, I shamelessly enjoyed the view. She still hadn't said anything, and I looked back up at her face. She was tearing up.

"Stella, I'm okay. I'm okay." I knew she needed to be comforted somehow, but more strange than that was I knew the way she liked to be hugged: she loved burying her face inside the crook of people's necks, which her ex hadn't enjoyed because it tickled him, and she'd often speculated if that particular lack of connection there wasn't the kernel at the center of their dysfunction...

Holy shit, where is all this coming from? What the fuck? I knew I needed a lot of time to figure out what had just happened. I'd signed something? Right?

"Theo I just, I thought you were gone. Fuck, I mean, fuck, I didn't know you or anything but I...I thought you, you know...I thought -"

"You thought you gave CPR to a corpse?" That's what had been going on with my lips. There was hints of lipstick on it. And her saliva. Something deep inside me, something I didn't understand at all, somewhere deep in my chest and in my stomach nudged the notion into my head, it wasn't me, I promise, or at least it wasn't there before. Maybe it was the new me. Whatever it was, it tasted her saliva...and it wanted more. A lot more.

She laughed bashfully, and blushed. It was the cutest goddamn thing I'd seen all night.

"Yeah. Hah, yeah." She punched my arm. "Don't do that to me again."

"I promise I will never scare you again. Thank you for checking on me, again, I can't say it enough."

"Fuck. Fucking...fuck."

At this point I realized that we were sitting in an alleyway, and that there were many better places to court a beautiful woman. She seemed to have the same thought because we both looked around, then looked back at each other, and burst out laughing. Sometimes, laughter is the best way to cope with the shit you don't understand. Sometimes, it's all you can do.

"How are you feeling?" she asked. I heard genuine concern, but it was lighthearted.

"I need a drink. Do you need a drink? I need a drinl. Or six."

She grinned and stood up, offering me a hand up. I took it, but instead of simply standing I did so while pulling her towards me so that she fell off balance, and then suddenly I was standing up and with a swoop of my other arm, with strength I didn't know I had, I was holding her torso in one arm and her legs in the other, and her head was resting against my neck. She looked up at me with an expression of wonder that I would cherish forever.

"Yes," she said, faltering, "I could use a drink." She giggled, hopped out of my arms, and as we walked back I reached for her hand, and she must have been doing the same because we met halfway, and so it was that we walked back into the party drunk off each other, glowing, ready for the night to unfold in earnest.

Ch. 7: The Party, pt. 2

Do you ever have those moments where you realize that not only have you been looking for something you didn't know you were looking for, but that you also have just found it? It's the Hero's Journey wrapped into one feeling: the longing, the desire, the resolution, all in one moment.