"Corey?" Before Corey can react to the vanishing of the cat, he gets distracted by a low pitched female voice that rings out in his back. "I have been looking for you, there you are!"
The voice belongs to Candy, his almost friend, a redhead in her twenties who has been coming out here ever since she got an art scholarship last year, looking for clients. She needs to make money on the side, so she keeps on saying. Despite the scholarship, she cannot afford her studies, otherwise.
Corey likes her. In theory, that is. Practically, he does, sometimes, not.
This isn´t the right time, he tells himself.Should I pretend that I am sleepig?
Too often he can't handle her. Because you start to overlook what you like about someone else when they are constantly nearby. You stop taking it in, like a ticket booth that you use all the time at the train station. Things that are part of the repertoire your energy-saving brain is bound to stop noticing, and that can't be good, because what you cannot see any longer, you have no chance of liking anymore, either.
Maybe I should say something to her, he ponders. If I explain it to her like this, she won't take it up the wrong way, would she? As long as we don't see each other every day, it's easier to like each other, and it would be a shame if we ruined liking the other by growing too close.
Yes, it would be, that's how I will put it!
He might. Someday, perhaps, but not right now. At least she's got a bottle of beer for him, whereas the can in his hand is nearly empty. When she reaches it out to him, he takes it nodding, a silent thank you, because not even she has heard him say a single word. Nobody has, since he came out here.
Wow, the bottle looks like this beer has been chilled. Pretty fancy, he thinks. You don't normally get good things like this under the train bridge. Okay, take a deep breath, squint, open your eyes, and go, look up at her.
Her jaw! Does it ever get tired, at all? Despite all the motion that it is displaying? When she's not talking, she's chewing. Where does she get all those chewing gums from? This cannot be healthy anymore.
She has at least three in her mouth, and wait for it! There's the first bubble. She's producing more of them than a spawning frog. Somehow, impressive, but her theory that it demonstrates her tongue skills to potential clients, so she will be asked to suck their cocks in the car more often, must be bullshit.
Blowing bubbles and cocks aren't the same thing. Or are they? I could have missed something, he thinks. Maybe she can do things that I cannot even imagine. It could be, and my ex-wife would certainly agree.
"Let´s be real," she said the day he caught her cheating, "I just had to find someone who actually wants to fuck me, as disinterested as you are in sex., That isn't normal, particularly not for a man!"
"Corey, what's wrong with you, man?" Oh God, that´s Haileys´s voice again. "Where is your notepad, I asked you something!"
The wad of chewing gum with teeth marks almost falls out of her mouth when she opens it and talks.
No, he thinks, studying it, it actually can´t. It's wrapped around her tongue piercing, and right there it would remain even if someone did ask her for a blowjob.
Jesus, why does she sound so angry? And what could she have asked, anyway?
She never asks how anyone is doing, and to be fair absolutely nobody needs a "How are you". It should be deleted from the dictionary, because asking it is a complete waste of time. At best, it creates pressure where there shouldn't be any. Just like being too close.
That Hailey doesn't ask "how are you", is the very reason why we get along, Corey thinks, and thinking it, he reminisces the unrelated things that she would usually end up asking him.
Who invented the sausage?
Why does cheese have holes, but cheesecake does not?
How long can a rhino´s horn grow, and does the devil have a longer one?
Admittedly great questions like those considered, Corey cannot guess what Candy has just asked him. She looks at him like he has done something wrong.
At least I haven't said anything wrong, he tells himself. As of now, I haven't yet said anything at all, and of course he hasn't, because his disposition wouldn't even let him.
Maybe I should leave it at that, he considers. I would probably be better off, if I refused to take out the notepad in order to engage in a written conversation with someone who is already upset, and he could very well be right about that, because what Corey says would, even in written form, usually end up upsetting others even more.
Or would it make her angrier this time, if I stay silent, he starts wondering. She isn't here to work today , or could she be?
He looks at her closely.
She isn´t wearing a skirt.
No boots, and no fishnet tights, either. I
f she were working, he concludes, she would have seduction on, and that she is only standing here, angry, and in perfectly normal boyfriend jeans that somehow make her masculine, convinces him that she must have come out for some other reason.
Her big-win-butt disappears in those pants, he mourns. An ass like hers should never be hidden; it is hotter than the sun.
Sighing, he pictures it and takes it as motivation to get half up and shake a wet notepad with a pen attached out of the pocket of his pants.
Picturing it for motivation, he gets half up to shake a wet notepad and pen out of the pocket of his pants, sighs, and starts writing something down. The paper of the page nearly breaks at the surface, that is how hard he presses the pen against it.
Sorry, his note to Candy eventually reads. Not having the best of days...
"Not the best of days?" She laughs a bitter laugh. "You are joking, right?"
Oh, her grey eyes! It's always bad when they look transparent, Corey has observed. The last time that they did was when she had to spend 24 hours in the police station because of a snitching customer, he thinks. Understandable then, because due to her just a little too tightly tied corset, she didn´t have a chance to breathe.
"Man, what's wrong with you?" She groans. "Do you really not understand why I'm here? Today, I mean, even though I don't usually work on Wednesdays?"
It is Wednesday, aha, Corey finds himself surprised. I would have thought it is Sunday. But out here, every day feels the same. It is always just day.
"Have you looked at the date? The 16th! And what month is it?"
If someone marries her someday, they will have a lot to deal with, he finds himself thinking.
Anniversary and wedding dates.
That of the last threesome.
That of the last pizza that was devoured and regurgitated together, due to the raging stomach flu.
What does it matter, anyway? Dates are irrelevant, and that is not only out here. The next date anyone should care about is the date to end it all. How do you even really know what date it is? In the past, days and years were calculated differently, so the journalist in him knows, which is why what year we even have is always only guesswork, whatsoever.
I need a sip of beer, if I'm supposed to answerher, he concludes with a silent sigh.
At least, the can is chilled, oh, how good it feels!
Her glances are chilly, too, but they don't feel nearly as good.
What's going on with her today?
Well, some days it might make sense to ask how someone else is feeling... But starting with it now? That's not an option; she would feel weirded out.
I´ll come up with something else, he shrugs to himself, while his pen scratches over the wet notepad again.
Well, I have no idea what month it is, his note to Candy reads. Are we at a bookies ? Then I would put my money on March, but I've lost half of my annual income at betting before, so just tell me! I got to find out already, so I won´t miss the incredibly promising job interview with my dream employer.
Usually, Candy is into sarcasm, so why is she not laughing now?
"It´s April, Corey," she remarks as if she is disappointed. "The 16th of the month."
She says it slowly and emphasizes it strangely Is it supposed to mean something to me? He wonders. Wait, what did she say again? April, the 15th or the 16th?
Dates! Completely meaningless when you cannot even remember them for two seconds!
Is it the death anniversary of an acquaintance she might have talked about, before the frostbite last winter? It could have iced it out of my memory center, Corey guesses. My hypothermia might have iced it, or the corresponding synapse shattered due to a nearly toxic load of whiskey that I needed to fall asleep day after day.
If it is, in fact, a death anniversary, I am a dick for not remembering it, he gives out to himself, even though he was not to blame for the hypothermia. Only for the whiskey, the only thing that made him feel warm.
I would apologize to her if I had, in fact, forgotten about someone else's death, he plans to give in.
What day in April is it again? Did it have single or double digits?
Does she look angrier now?
Damn, this sun!
He cannot see a thing anymore, not even her face, and perhaps that´´s for the best.
"It's the 16th, you retard. Your birthday."
Excuse him? His, what? He frowns.
Oh, man… She might be right,..
You only celebrate until you're 18, and when Corey was that age, he had no friends, hence, no party.
Knowing this, he wonders, why would I care to remember my own date of birth? At what? 43 years of age?It could be even older, he thinks. Anything between 43 and 45.
It doesn't matter, anyway, because birthdays are a scam that capitalism came up with to sell the shitload of useless things that everyone calls gifts.
Wait, that's right!
It is the very reason why he never before told Candy when he was born.
How do you know that it is my birthday today, his new note on the notepad displays. It isn´t like I have ever told you.
"Oh, you don't say!" Candy shakes her head. "I found it online., you idiot! Yours is on Wikipedia, or does old age keep you from remembering? Once upon a time, you were super important..."
Why on earth would she do that? I must have really pissed her off, he thinks. Otherwise she wouldn't dare to bring it up.
Yes, he used to be important, as long as the truth was. On some days, the aggressive sunlight pries open his eyes in the morning, and he imagines that he only dreamed the highlights of his life, instead of having experienced and lost them. Then, for the moment, he is neither happy nor despairing, because a dream that hasn't been lived can, at least, be preserved, if you bury it.
With ink in the prisoner number that is engraved in his chest, it is usually his own skin which reminds him that he made his dreams of searching for unconditional truth become reality, and right there, in the real world, they were erased. Along with his most important revelations, down to the last line on a crumbled up piece of paper. Every truth that he unraveled has become as meaningless as himself. Almost as irrelevant as something that never existed, in the first place.
Not even ashes or dust remain of my dreams, he thinks, and you cannot bury things of which there is nothing left.
He wishes that they had killed him. Then the revelations which he dedicated his entire life to would have kept their credibility and purpose.
Then I would be gone, he thinks, but they would be living on. They would still be out there, for everyone to read, and give my lost life meaning. They could still correct history and change the future, if I had been killed and not declared a terrorist.
By their claim that he is an enemy of the state they deprived not only him but all his revelations of impartiality and significance. They denied them every right to exist by dismantling him, and every truth that he have ever reported about they made into a terrorist act, the interest in which makes others terrorists, as well.
It isn't the first time in history that something like this has happened, but here, in his country, people are only told about journalists in Russia and China who are serving time as terrorists, because their revelations opposed a dictatorship. In seemingly free democracies, the masses are persuaded to consider a dictator elsewhere the enemy, so they are distracted from what is going on in the countries that they call their home. That is how behind its people´s back, and despite it, in plain sight, a former democracy elevates itself to a dictatorship these days.
It has been happening not only to him in recent years. Almost everyone who was on to them and has spoken up has gone to jail. But the lemmings that are the masses are only laughing on their leap into the abyss, their certain death.
They are laughing when you ask them why it is an ethical act when politicians in their own countries, with their doors wide open, are imitating what disctators somewhere else are doing and for which they are judged by them.
"Don´t even start!" They say. "We don't have a dictatorship in our country, information is given to us openly. That proves that in our democratic state, everything is lawful and orderly. In our democracy only people who are actual enemies of the state are prosecuted terrorists."
They repeat what they hear on the news every day and believe it to be true, because they keep on having faith in a democratic process that no longer exists. As long as their democracy itself doesn't tell them that it no longer lives, they will stay blind to the dictatorship that it is replaced with.
Corey tried to tell them, and became a terrorist to them.
I'm surprised that I still have an entry on Wikipedia after my dismantling, he thinks.
But the information that you would find in it isn´t true in any case and has never been.
Candy is wrong, he realizes with relief. Today is not my birthday, after all. Jesus, I almost believed her!
Out of all people, she should have actually guessed it. She knows what Corey has exposed over the past years. Given her tense expression and her gaze that has dropped to the ground, she is thinking just that right now and almost seems ashamed of her naive research attempt, when she remembers the industry-changing research methods that he won awards for. The same ones that he officially lost again during his dismanteling.
He has had enough!
What´s online is bullshit, he expands his notepad scirbble. You out of all people should know it!
When, devotely, she looks at it and shrugs, he almost feels bad for her. Until she grabs the cold beer from his hands.
Well, that is just the way it is with good things in life, he thinks. It's better not to take them in the first place, because you can never keep them for long. Never having held them in your hands feels better than having them ripped from your fingers, knowing how pleasant they feel and how heartbreaking the sudden loss is. Those who don't take them even when they are in reach know nothing about it and can only guess.
Because they have never experienced them, they might sporadically feel a desire for them. But isn't that better than the agonizing pain of separation when you lose them and the grueling longing that infects you when you look at the empty spot that their vanished presence leaves behind?
"Why did I get you a beer then, huh, if it isn´t your birthday?" Candy interrups his thoughts. "It is a fany one, as well. Chilled and all, because you're always complaining that it's either lukewarm out here or as cold as ice, and then your teeth keep hurting, old man."
Yes, the chilled bottle of beer was nice of her. It's not her fault that he doesn´t like birthdays, and not much else either, except for things that nobody needs anymore these days. Except for chilled beer, he wants his back!
Give the beer back, he extends his notepad note. We can pretend it's my birthday if that makes you feel better.
Look at that! Now she's grinning and chewing her chewing gum again.
"Okay, relax! There you go, that´s your present back. I can order you something to eat, as well, are you hungry? You like that Chinese restaurant in the East, do you not? The one that is rumoured to serve overcooked rats? I will get you something there, my treat! I got a good tip yesterday."
Oh, really? From that kid? Seriously?
I hope you asked him for ID, Corey´s pen writes down, after which she starts giggling.
"Well, I hate to say it, but the little guy has fallen in love." A huge bubble grows out of her mouth. She almost looks like a toad, inflating itself when she goes on. "I´m telling you, with someone like me, you're just bound to fall in love a little at that age. And if he becomes a regular now, then all the better! Rich parents and such a redistribution of wealth cannot hurt in the final stages of capitalism, I´m sure you agree."
With her chewing gum, you wouldn't think so, but she's smart. From Corey´s own experience, that will only hurt her later on. But whydestroy her optimism now?
Keep your mouth shut, Corey, he starts telling himself, when his eyes catch a glimpse of something black. Suddenly the cat is back.
"Couldn't you have warned me?" Candy complains. "That almost gave me a heart attack. I didn't see that it was right behind me, and then it starts rubbing against me."
Well, you have to fall a little bit in love with someone like you, Corey scoffs to himself in silence, but doesn´t bother anymore to take a note.
It might not be his birthday, but maybe the day that his humor is born.
The cat is purring again.
It can't be about Candy, he thinks. There is no way, considering that she doesn't even pet her.
She's not a cat person, but likes dogs,. Loyal souls who do everything you ask. That wouldn´t be for Corey, he prefers the cat. It doesn't need anyone, doesn't hunger for validation, and, given the blood, not much else at the moment, either. It takes care of itself and doesn't depend on anyone. A bit like Corey has always done. His hand flies back to the notepad and the pen.
See that on her face, he writes. What do you think is the matted spot?
Having read the question, Candy shrugs. She wouldn't have spotted it at all, but when she takes a closer look, her nose almost touches the fu.
Resume?
"I don't know, looks like bodily fluids?! I hope you got nothing to do with it. Corey, just saying...That cat is scarily into you, how long have you known each other for? And, sure, you can snog her when you need affection, but that's only fun as long as neither of you throws up hairballs."
Damn it, the beer! She grabs it from his hand again and takes a sip, before going on.
"You know you can't keep ut, Corey, right? It's got a little heart on its collar, have you looked inside? There's probably an address in there."
The bottle clunks to the ground, and Candy gets up, reaching her hands out.#
"Come on already, let me see!"
Oh, are you kidding? She must have lost it! Did she really just snatch the black cat out from under Corey´s hands, just like she did with the beer? What is she even thinking, fiddling with the little heart?
Before he can stop her, it springs open. Curious, she pulls a folded piece of paper out of it, and carefully unfolds it. It takes her longer to read it than it would have taken him. First her eyes seem frozen to it, before her entire body is, and when she meets his looks again, she gives a sigh, waving the piece of paper in his face.
"Read this, Corey, no bullshit!" Her voice breaks.