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nokingsonlyfooles · 1 year ago

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We'll see...

We took a hiatus from streaming for a while, but we decided to head back to Netflix for a month. Mainly to see Nimona and whatever else fun. We found a new one from Mike Flanagan. The Fall of the House of Usher was waiting for us. That was fun. It clunks in some places, but it's fun.

Towards the end, I felt some of that unreal brain tingle I get sometimes - either because I'm slightly psychic, or I have some kinda undiagnosed transient seizures, or the universe is a hologram and on some level I know it. Eh, could be all three.

I'm a storyteller, so take it with a grain of salt, but I'll relate to you what I said to the spouse, more or less: "You know, when Verna offers Madeline the choice, rich or famous, and she picks rich... I'd say 'Neither.' I'd say, 'I've seen both of those and they suck. I want power. I want to make changes. I want to set wheels in motion that keep turning a hundred years after I'm in the ground, and when I'm gone, I don't want anyone to know I was even here.'"

History has enough great men, and great women, and great whatever, don't you think so, Random Reader?

"'And I don't care about positive or negative, bad or good...'"

His eyebrows went up.

"'No, I want Justice.'" And I said, "I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be here, unless I talked you into it. You would've picked something much simpler, if it was just you. Would you have let me make that deal?"

He said, "I think, if we were making deals, I'd want Peace..."

"Peace?" I said. "Peace is boring. Peace is Death. Peace is the nothingness before existence and the Universe itself said 'Fuck that shit.' You don't want Peace."

"I think," he said, "if you made that deal, I'd say, 'I want to be there to make sure it turns out better than you would've done it alone.'"

My eyebrows went up. "You're here to mitigate me?"

"Yeah."

We laughed, a little.

I said, "If I made that deal, we're going to lead interesting lives."

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah."

"I'm sowwy," I said, and he leaned over me and put his hands on my shoulders, warm. "Do you fowgive me?"

"Yes I do!" he said indulgently.

We laughed some more.

"You're Mr. 'I Want the Death Note,'" I said. He'd mentioned it just a few hours ago, regarding the characters in the series and others like them. "That's really all you want?"

"Look, I talk a big game!" he said.

I believe him. Heh. He's here to make sure I play nice, I guess.

Well, it's halftime for me, if I'm lucky. Maybe a little less than that for him, if he's lucky. I've been... Let's be delicate and say I've been Nerfed for a long time. I needed healthcare. I'm finally getting some. My vision's coming back after the surgery, and it's a little balky, but now that I'm out of glasses, my stupid eye has stopped wandering off and doubling my vision. Still healing and I dunno how it's gonna shake out, but for right now, it's just stopped. I'm getting other things addressed too. I have energy for more things, even if I can't quite draw or spend hours in front of a screen yet.

I don't want to build an empire out of corpses. I tell stories. I'm telling one real long one that probably also clunks in places, and needs a tune-up that it's never gonna get because I can't pay someone to help me and I'm not popular enough to be picking up volunteers. But I'm also not gonna have a corporation breathing down my neck and trying to make it look marketable. I've chosen freedom over marketability every time, and so far it's gotten me... Very, very few readers. Very few. Like, two, I'm pretty sure.

But I still care more about telling my story without limits than forcing it into a hamster wheel to power the capitalist machine. (Don't hold me to that, but while the spouse is making sure I get enough to eat and stay alive, it's a luxury I can afford.)

That's a mistake Mike Flanagan or Netflix or someone in the creative pipeline made. That's a place where The House of Usher clunks. They try to end their story by saying "Nobody cares about this story," but we care deeply about stories. And, no, of all the things we could cut back on, movies and TV - methods of storytelling - will not be defunded so we can use the money to change the world. Money won't change the world, not for the better. Stories might. If my big, long story ain't gonna do it, well, maybe it's practice for later. Or creative fodder for someone who comes after me.

The story continues, painfully, with grave doubts and insecurity, and my art manifesto is still pending. (I'll get back on it now that the super strike is ending, if my eyes and brain let me.) I don't know what else my fragile human body and mind will let me do. Or the spouse, come to think of it. Darn him.

New year's coming. New me, new priorities... In part, because someone told me a good story. I'd like to tell one too.

We'll see...

(Heh, I might as well pin this for my intro. This says way more about me than the happy, apologetic face I try to show the internet so you won't get mad and hurt me. I don't wanna hurt anyone, I really am sorry. But I guess, deep down, I'm willing to do it to be heard.)

#the fall of the house of usher #writers on tumblr #storytelling #new year new me #deals with the devil #or whoever that is #oh i still want all the love i didn't get in my childhood but i'd be willing to negotiate #just enough love to last me the rest of my life please #and if i gotta die in obscurity... ok #but ONLY if i gotta

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thebittercorvus · 1 year ago

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Content warning: Death. Decay.

His best friend died two weeks ago. He saw it happen.

And he almost convinced himself, that he was having a nightmare.

"--y, and so I went to human resources to complain about Kassandra being a hostile, insufferable creep again but they said I needed to, hear me out, fucking walk it off, and isn't it a bitch that--"

Because you see, it was sudden.

Not that death gives you a warning in writing two weeks prior, stuck in your door like an eviction notice for delayed payments or whatever bullshit the landlord is on about now. Actually scratch that, he's not sure if that'd make things better or worse.

He's not sure if he would've liked to know his friend was going to die. But, saying goodbye one night after making plans to spend sunday watching a series they've been meaning to watch the entire year, just to see him slumped over his desk and without a pulse next morning...

You see, nobody tells you just how heavy ashes can be. Nobody tells you either that in the crematorium, those ovens rarely ever get deep cleaned. He's not sure whose ashes were mixed in that tiny urn he just knew it wasn't just his friend but some strangers' ashes too because there was no space in the local cemetery and who has money for the private cemetery two hours away from the city anyways.

His ashes rested in the river. Lucas dreamed of seeing the world, and that's the closes thing he could get him on a half-a-cent budget.

When he was alive, Lucas was stressed, overworked and underpaid, like most adults his age were. He had a lot on his plate, in the metaphorical sense only, because he hadn't been eating too well. The last time they saw each other, he was complaining about a weird pain in his arm, and a headache that wouldn't go away. Lucas always had a lot on his plate.

The funeral was two weeks ago. He was there. He was the one who scattered the ashes and he has alone for it. He managed to contact a relative who would identify the body, but they didn't stay long after it and they surely didn't want anything to do with funeral arrangements.

Lucas had been dead and gone for two weeks and he was about to write it off as the worst living, walking nightmare he's had in his entire thirty years.

Except, his friend clocked in the exact same hour as every day.

"Yo', Michael, are you listening to me?"

Even though he himself found him without a pulse, slumped over that tiny desk inside that cramped office.

Even though he vividly recalls having to deal with everything Lucas left behind on his own.

He didn't even had the time to process it all.

Yet there he was, walking around as if nothing had happened, looking exhausted yet still with a smile on his face, saying that he'd rest when dead like a cosmic joke at the expense of his sanity... Michael convinced himself that surely, the funeral, those endless days, everything, as unlikely as that might sound, was a horrible dream.

Even though he was the only one there to scatter the ashes.

"No, it's fine, I was listening to you," he said, feeling like he was going to cry all of a sudden. Like he didn't woke up one day to his friend being gone. It had been a nightmare. Surely it was a nightmare. A long, vivid one. "I'm-- I'm glad to see you."

Luke gave him a puzzled look. Most people would. It was a weird choice of words.

"Thank... you? I'm glad too?" he goes, rather awkwardly. "Man, are you alright?"

"Me?"

"Yeah? You look like you just saw a ghost."

He blinked the tears away, and if Lucas noticed something off, he was kind enough to let him be. He usually was.

"Hey, you-- remember that one project that's been keeping you awake at night?" He asks. If it was a nightmare, then Lucas was still working overtime to meet the project deadlines.

If it was all a dream then, on that day, two weeks ago, he last saw Lucas disappear inside his office to dream of never seeing him walk out alive again.

"Remember? Man, I couldn't forget about it if I lobotomized myself," he replies, rubbing his palms against his eyes. "C'mon now I have five minutes while the project manager reviews the damn thing and I'm trying to tell you how Kassandra is going to be the death of me--"

"Let's get out of here," he says all of a sudden.

Lucas stares at him like he's gone mad.

And maybe he did.

"Mike, dude, are you alright?"

"If I say no, will you come with me?"

"What? Seriously man, you're scaring me. Is everything alright? Did your... did your dad call or something?" he whispers the last part. "You need like. A interbrontion?"

"Stop trying to make interbrontion a thing, it's not gonna happen," he says out of pure reflex. "I'm fine," he lies, "I just... Y'know, you never know when shit's gonna happen. The project will still be there tomorrow. But, today? Today we might just see the cutest dog, and it might not be there tomorrow. Let's just see a movie. Walk downtown 'till three in the morning. Punch a nazi in the face. Let's be like, teens again, walking around the city."

"Dude, we grew up in suburbia."

"I'm not hearing a no!"

"... Man, I don't know, Johnson's been on my ass about finishing this damn thing," Lucas replies, a bit unsure about the whole thing. "What about I drop by your place after I finish this? I have a coupon for chinese takeaway that hasn't expired yet..." A non expired coupon from this man? Unbelievable. "I think." Hah, there it is.

"Y'know, never have I seen Johnson leave a second after four o'clock, while you pull all-nighters eight days a week," he insists, crossing his arms across his chest. In his dream, Johnson denied him paid leave in order to take care of his friend's fucking funeral. He's still pissed about it, and it's also a thing real-Johnson would do. "If he's got a problem he can go ahead and try and fire you."

"You know I can't really afford to be unemployed right now... And I mean, we're all pretty replaceable in life in general--"

"Not to me," he interrupts. "You're. Definitely not replaceable. Not to me."

Man that dream got me fucked up, alright.

"... Seriously man, are you alright?"

... But it had been so real.

***

It took some convincing and a little bit of crying, but in the end he convinced Lucas to leave. He doesn't usually cry, only when in the middle of a mental breakdown or right after eating a really, really good soup, none of which he's had in a while. Maybe they should eat soup, he's sure he can get away with shoplifting two cans of soup still. Who's gonna catch him, the soup police?

So they go see a movie. The tickets are unnecesarily expensive-- for a man that just shoplifted soup-- and the popcorn tastes like cardboard and the movie itself sucks so much they end up dubbing it over with an immensely funnier version in whispers.

They uh, got kicked out of the theater for that one. Even though the place was near empty on accounts of it being a monday.

After that he insists on walking, even though the place he lives is on the other side of town, and Lucas agrees because he's a saint of a man that worries too much for his neurotic friend to say no. They do see plenty of cute dogs willing to get their ears scratched, and plenty of equally cute cats who were not so willing to get their ears scratched.

And it was... Nice.

Maybe that dream was trying to tell him something. Like, appreciate more the friends you've got. Specially the ones that try and make words like interbrontion happen.

"Mike, whatever it is... You know I'm not going anywhere, right? You know that. You have to know that," Lucas insists, after they reach the dead-end alley where the narrow steps of his apartment complex is located.

Michael shrugs. "Dunno. You can't take things for granted."

"Whatever it is, you can tell me, y'know?"

"It's alright, it was..." A very vivid nightmare? In which you died of a heart attack and I was left alone to take care of everything, but it's okay now because you're most definitely not dead. I'm sure someone on the human resources department would've noticed a dead man walking, they don't want to have to pay more people than they absolutely are obligated to. "Uh, my dad did call," he lies instead. "He um, wanted me to lend him some money again." Yeah no way in hell I'm explaining that one.

He sees his friends face go red in a blink.

"THAT MOTHERFUCKER!" He shouts. "I KNEW IT! That ASSHOLE! That's it! I'm getting a fucking plane ticket to Bumfuck No-fucking-where to set his motherfucking SUV on FIRE! Give me his number he's going to hear of me again."

Have you ever had prophetic dreams?

"C'mon now relax, he didn't even say anything--"

"I'm going to murder that backstabbing miserable attempt of a man, I don't give a shit if he calls me the wrong thing he's going to fucking meet Lucas and my fists will meet his fucking sad pathetic fac--"

Or perhaps, a dream so, so likely that when it ends up occurring in real life, you can't help the deja-vú.

Perhaps that had been death, sticking the eviction notice to the wrong door.

"Lucas?" He begins, seeing him get paler by the second. It's only now that he notices, the way his breath comes in short. Like he just ran a marathon, even though they were walking just fine a few minutes ago. They were just talking a second ago. "Lucas!"

"No, no, I just need to-- need to sit down, fuck--"

It happens in slow motion.

It happens in a split of a second.

It happens slowly, suddenly, all at once.

"No, no, nonononononono, wake up, wake up!" he cries once his friend collapses. He never learnt how to properly reanimate anybody. He doesn't know how to do chest compressions, nor has the strenght to keep a heart beating. He's regretting not learning it. "HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME!"

Through blurred eyes he sees his friend take a breath and then, it stops. His head is spinning.

This can't be real. This can't be real. This can't be-

***

"--Really, and so I went to human resources to complain about Kassandra being a hostile, insufferable creep again but they said I needed to, hear me out, fucking walk it off, and isn't it a bitch that--"

He startled awake, suddenly back inside his cubicle while everyone else worked. Lucas had walked in, in the middle of a short break while his project was being reviewed.

He's fairly certain, he just had lived through this morning for the third time.

"What day is it?" He asks abruptly, because this just can't be.

Lucas stops mid-sentence, and looks at him, extremely confused. "... Uh, monday?"

There's no way.

"But it can't be monday," he says, getting up immediately. Nobody in the entire floor seem to even care about the sudden raise of his voice. Now that he thinks about it, last time nobody even gave a fuck that they walked out. Usually he can't even go to the bathroom more than twice or some manager somehow finds out.

"Well, it oftentimes comes riiiight after a sunday, unless I missed the latest update," Lucas replies with an easygoing smile. "Are you alright?"

No. "Yes?" Definitely maybe. "I just. I need to see something."

He starts running then, and takes notice of just how nobody seems to give a crap about it. Usually they're sligthly more attentive to the world around their cubicles, at least just enough to catch some gossip, like Michael from the third floor making a run to the fire exit like a madman.

And then he's outside, and the world stares back. The kiosk in the corner has newspapers, and they're all dated to a monday. The news channel reads monday. The vietnamese restaurant across the street has a special offer for mondays and the coffee shop right besides it has a handmade chalk sign that reads "Marvelous Mondays!"

And he's seen enough movies to know exactly what's wrong.

"-ke, MIKE!" He finally hears the shouting coming from behind him. "THERE YOU ARE YOU ABSOLUTE IDIOT! WHAT IN THE ACTUAL--"

"We're repeating the day of your death, and you're going to die today at around eleven of a heart attack," he says quickly, because he hasn't learned enough from those movies. He hates them, as a matter of fact.

"... Hey did you read my search history or something to prank me, that's not cool dude," he replies instead. "But thanks for reminding me I have to update my passwords."

"Coolio69420 has been your password since we were fucking twelve anyways-- wait a minute, search history?" Lucas at the very least has the decency to look away. "YOU KNOW YOU'RE HAVING SYMPTOMS YOU IDIOT!"

"Yeah, well, I don't have hospital money."

"And I don't have funeral money!" He goes off, angry and relieved, and grabs him by the arm to drag him to the nearest emergency room. "C'mon! We're splitting the bill, I'm taking out a loan, whatever!"

"Dude this is not a dinner--"

"I don't give a shit if I go bankrupt, I'm not seeing you die for the third time!"

And he's not entirely sure how or why, but Lucas, stubborn asshole he's always been, agrees to it.

***

They save him, although it was a close call, and he gets to have a headache about the bill on the way home with his very much alive friend walking besides him.

"That was scary, you say you kept having dreams about me dying?" Lucas asks in between sips of water. "That's horror story levels of creepy."

"Yeah, well, but it worked and now you're alive."

"And you're bankrupt."

"But you're alive," he insists, like nothing else could matter in the world. Nothing does, as a matter of fact.

"... Dude that's kinda gay."

He punches him in the arm. Ligthly. "Friends don't let friends die of prophetized heart failures!"

"That's a brand new sentence," Lucas laughs.

The light at the crosswalk turns green. It's a bit of a long way home but for the life of him, he can't remember where he parked his bike and he's fairly certain he left his wallet in his desk. He wants to have faith but he know of an asshole or two that will undoubtelly just take whatever little money he's got left.

"Hey, you said the dreams were super realistic, right?" He hears Lucas ask besides him. They're still crossing. It feels like the crosswalk was...

Weirdly infinite.

"Yeah, why?"

He hears Lucas stop besides him. Which is weird, in the middle of a busy crosswalk, with cars and people around them. Usually the city is extremely noisy.

When he looks back, Lucas simply is standing. Somehow, he's in the middle of the street, while he's on the other sidewalk waiting.

"Lucas?"

"Say, Mike," he hears him say, like a whisper from somewhere beyond. "You'd know, if this were a dream, right?"

For a moment, it feels as if the world stills for a second.

Then he blinks, and it's over. There's music coming out of a cornershop, and a group of girls are trying to record a dance video in front of a flower shop. The cars are honking impatiently at the stoplights that are taking way too long to turn green again.

Michael smiles at him, extending his hand so his friend will just hurry up and meet him on the other side.

"I'm sure I would've noticed by now," he replies.

Lucas lets out a sigh, relaxing visibly, and continues walking.

The light turns green.

***

"--She doesn't need to hide behind religion to be a phobic piece of shit, really, and so I went to human resources to complain about Kassandra being a hostile, insufferable creep again but they said I needed to, hear me out, fucking walk it off, and isn't it a bitch that--"

He gets up so fast, the chair falls to the ground. The sound echoes in the otherwise silent office, and nobody even looks up from their computers to ask him to kindly shut the hell up.

"It's monday," he says, stricken by horror.

"... Yeah?" Lucas replies, looking more and more concerned by the second. "Mike?"

This can't be, he thinks desperately, making a run to the stairs. The elevator's been broken since the last week and only now they're trying to fix it. Many people has complained about accesibility issues, and the only thing the company offered was a work from home option for them while the elevator was being repaired. There were notices everywhere that the repairs would be done on monday and when he walks by it, sure there are they working on it.

But he doesn't dwell in there.

Instead he runs to the fifth floor, to an office he's got a key of even though he absolutely should not, but does anyways because Lucas more often than not forgets about his, and walks by a couple of people that should, by all means, wonder what the hell is some dude from the third floor doing in there uninvited.

He was so happy about seeing his friend again, that he didn't notice just how... irresponsive the rest of the world became.

The door is jammed. It usually is, that's not a big revelation. They've complained a lot to get it fixed and yet the best they could give Lucas was some oil to mantain it himself. He's since then told everyone that it was a fire hazard and the department simply told him to work with his door open if it bothered him that much. He's been meaning to buy a new lock himself for months now.

Then his friend died, and it didn't matter that much anymore.

And when the door finally opens...

"No, no, this can't be, I just saw you. You were-- you were just talking with me, you're fine!"

Just to find a decaying corpse, slumped over a desk.

"Wake up!" He cries, even though there's maggots eating off his flesh and flies everywhere. It's impressive nobody had issued a complaint for the smell. "Wake up! Wake up!"

"Lucas?"

And then he turns around. And sees...

Himself.

From two weeks ago, when he first found him. In that dream... Or, what he thought had been one anyways.

"Hey, I've told you not to sleep in here how many times now?" He hears himself saying, like in that first dream. He steps aside, and sees a spitting image of himself, another Michael, walk closer to a corpse that now looks fresh instead of decaying. Almost alive. "C'mon now, I brought you breakfast. Lucas. Hey, Lucas!"

It all plays out exactly like the first time.

"Dude stop this, it's not funny," he hears his own voice waver again. He sees himself walk closer. Closer. And put a hand on his friend's shoulder.

He sees again, the body fall off and roll over.

Dead. Dead. Dead.

"HELP!" He hears himself say, for what feels like the millionth time now. "SOMEBODY CALL AN AMBULANCE! SOMEBODY HELP ME!"

"Have you learned your lesson yet?"

The world around him disappears, as soon as he turns around.

There's only himself and the fresh corpse of his friend and, across the void, something that looks like Lucas, walks like Lucas, know things only Lucas would know.

But isn't. His. Friend.

"Who are you?" He asks. "Why are you doing this to me!?"

It smiles at him. The smile resembles his friend too, but only on surface level. There's a glimpse of red in its eyes, that he never noticed before.

"I recall you saying, as you scattered his ashes on that smelly river, that you'd trade your soul just to have him back for a day," the thing says. "Perhaps you should be careful when you speak with a dead man's ashes on your hands, who knows what wicked things are listening."

"Take me back to my world," he cries, kneeling still next to his dead friend. Just like he remembered him. "I can't see-- I don't want to keep having to see him die. This is not what I meant. I wanted him alive again, not-- not having to see him die every day for the rest of eternity!"

"See, that's why you usually word your wishes more carefully my man," the thing says, reappearing by his side.

Up close, it doesn't look nothing like Lucas. Just like a walking corpse, wearing the skin of a man he knew like the back of his hand.

"I don't want this wish," Michael repeats. "I-- I have pets, that I need to take care of, my tortoise. I need to go back."

"Sorry, no refunds," the wicked thing says, smiling with far too many teeth.

"Then I want to change my wish."

"Aw, but I don't think I can do that you see, it's a soul we're speaking of. Valuable things. I sell them, I know what I'm telling you," it says. "But go ahead, let's see what can I do for you."

Michael swallows dry.

He had to try, at the very least.

"My place for his," he says, and the thing's eyes seem to shine brigther. "I-- I will take his place. Just. One last day is what I'm asking you. Let him live, and take me instead."

The thing smiles. It's almost kind, so much that for a moment, he convinces himself it's his friend smiling to him again.

"Did he ever knew?" It asks him.

"... What?"

"Oh, nevermind, I don't think you're even aware of it yourself," it says, getting up and walking away. "A shame. Anyways."

"Wait!"

"One day is all you're getting my dear, pathetic friend," he hears the thing say. "Others have traded their souls for money and youth. Wisdom. Power."

"I just..." he begins, unable to explain himself to the thing across him. It smiles back, knowingly. "I didn't even got to say goodbye."

"Oh, don't you worry," it says, and the world begins to fade in front of his eyes.

"You better wake up, it'll be late for work."

***

He's not entirely sure yet why he left himself be convinced by Michael to just leave work early and go walk around, but he still did it and the thirty messages on his phone from Johnson are there to remind him it's not always the best idea to let Michael have his way all the time.

Should've told him no. But by god, that dog we saw on the way home was so cute.

He was just looking at the picture the dog owner took of the two of them-- a very kind lady that really tried her best to give her number to Mike, just to have the endearingly, annoyingly oblivious man talk about the dog nonstop for ten minutes. He was also adamant that the two of them appeared in the picture with the dog, even though Lucas' never liked pictures.

But these turned out alright. He might just misuse the office supplies to print them.

"I completely forgot to tell you yesterday, you were in such a hurry, remember Kassandra right?" he says, walking inside the office Mike works in, just to find his cubicle empty. "Huh."

"He didn't arrive today," he heard Hera say, the person working just opposide of Mike's desk. "No notice, no anything."

"That's weird, I saw him yesterday," Lucas says, and they just shrug.

"Hangover?" Hera asks.

"He's on recovery," Lucas shoots back, almost offended.

"Sorry, had no clue. He never talks about his personal life," they say. "Try to call him, but I've been trying all morning and it just rings."

"That's 'cause he keeps his phone on silence," he mutters to himself, but still grabs his phone to give it a try.

He sees the contact. It reads that last time he was online was just this morning.

The last message he received from him was just a short goodnight, after Lucas sent him the dog pictures.

... He can't seem to shake off the bad feeling.

And, almost on cue, his phone starts ringing.

"Should've tried to find you sooner, I knew he would reply to you," Hera says, a bit teasing. "I mean I also pick up when my friends call me--"

"It's not him," he says, afraid, reading the name on the caller id.

They look up at last.

"It's his landlord."

***

He couldn't get there fast enough.

They found him on the bathroom floor.

"This has to be a joke," he says, looking at the body hidden under a white sheet. "You-- I saw you yesterday. Get up man, this isn't funny."

"Sir, we need a family member or a spouse to identify the body," he hears someone say.

"Well there's only me, is that not good enough?" He snaps back.

"Are you a spouse?"

"No."

"Sibling? Cousin?"

"He's the boyfriend," he hears the old landlord say.

"We're just friends," Lucas insists.

The man in front of him gives him a look.

"Listen, it might be easier to handle the paperwork if you say you're the boyfriend," he explains. "Not that it will be any easy. Are you sure there are no living relatives? We couldn't get a hold of anybody."

He remembers an old white man with his unkept beard and red hat and unnecesarily enormous SUV and the belt he would always carry around like a whip and use as such more often than not.

"There's nobody but me," he replies, resolute.

The man doesn't look convinced, but doesn't press either. "Alright then. I'll give you a form, make sure to explain you're the boyfriend--"

"We're not--!"

"--'cause if you don't young man, the hospital will just keep his body for research, and I don't know 'bout your or his beliefs but unless he specifically asked for it to be this way, that's not a way to go."

Then he's left in an empty room, with a nervous tortoise walking around and a form to fill.

He saw Mike, just the day before.

"For fucks sake."

He needs a walk.

***

There's way too many people by the river for him to yell. He joked often, that if he were to day, Mike should just scatter his ashes there and see where the wind takes him. He's always wanted to see the world, but never had the money for anything more than a trip to the bay two hours away every other summer.

He took Shelly with him, because now the tortoise would have to live with him and his cat. Mike would do the same if something were to happen to him.

His friend is dead.

His friend is... dead.

"God dammit," he whispers, and sits just behind the railing, trying not to cry and failing to do so.

He's not sure how long it took or just how many people walked by. He can't be the only person in this god forsaken city who just got the worst news of his entire life.

... He didn't even got to say goodbye.

"Life's cruel, ain't it?" He hears someone besides him say.

When he looks up, a woman is smoking besides him. She looks at the river, and blows out the smoke. A gust of wind takes it away.

"Want one?" She offers.

"I hate that brand," Lucas replies.

"More for me then."

He keeps sobbing for a while longer, while the woman goes through her entire pack. And then, opens a new one.

"What would you do, just for a chance to see a loved one, just one more time?" He asks after a moment.

"Don't got one of those," she replies. "But I'd do just about anything to scratch my dog's ears one last time."

"What happened to them?"

"Got ran over by a car."

"Sorry," he says.

"'s fine."

There's more silence after that.

"Right now, I'd just sell my soul," he mutters. The woman stares. "If such things exist."

"Oh, they do. I've heard they're expensive, even," she says.

"Expensive enough to bring a man back to life?" He jokes.

She grins at him.

And, maybe it was just a car passing by, an illusion created by the traffic and his own exhausted mind.

He could've sworn, her eyes just flashed red.

"I'm sure I can work out a deal for you, dear Lucas."

Your friend always said “I’ll rest when I’m dead,” so much that it became his catchphrase. He says it again today when he came into work, going about his daily routine. This normally wouldn’t be concerning, if not for the fact that you attended his funeral two weeks ago.

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