The world is ending.
It didn't come with fire and brimstone like the Bible suggested; nor was it cold like Ragnarok. The scientist big-wigs say that the Earth's core is slowing down, that we are loosing our spin. One side of the world will burn while the other freezes. I guess my similes were a bit premature. It was to be a slow death, but we were finally coming to the end of it.
Fuck it. I'm not worried about whether I become a roast or a popsicle. All I want is to see Angie, the only person I've really cared about.
Angie and I met and became friends in high school. I'd known since I first met her that she was THE person that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Apparently not much has changed.
I've been driving for two days now. The only things I've stopped for are food, gas, and to use the bathroom. The floor of my pick-up is littered with redbull cans and fast food wrappers. This is a one way trip and I'm going hell for leather the entire way. I should probably pull over and sleep for a bit, but I know that I won't.
Too bad too; my mind seems to be slipping a little. I'm nostalgic.
The first time I kissed Angie, she actually kissed me. She had gotten me a job a some childrens' theatre that operated out of a small amusement park. We stayed in a leaky 'castle' with nothing but books, a small tv, and each other for company.
We were watching 'Stardust', her lying on top of me and me on top of an old much beaten couch, when she rolled over and kissed me. There was no warning, no prelude. She acted singlemindedly and without remorse. I was helpless, at the mercy of my angel's passion. Even if help would have been offered, there's no way I would have accepted.
The speedometer says that I'm going an insane 110mph. This is the hardest I've ever pushed my truck and it's begging me to slow down. Signs whip by before I get a chance to try to read them. Other cars are just streaks of color in my periphery, not that there are many on the road to begin with. For all I care, there could be a legion of police chasing after me. It still isn't fast enough.
After that kiss, we dated for a few weeks. I was held in rapture the entire time. Every night I would go to sleep right next to her and her scent would creep into my dreams. Every morning i would wake up to her smile.
Sometimes I would wake up before her. On these rare occasions, I would just stare at her. Watch her breathe. Watch her grind her teeth. She was almost as beautiful as when she was awake. And eventually she would wake up. I could always tell when because she would arch her back and snuggle in real close, we fit together like complementing jigsaw pieces, before opening her eyes.
Then Angie would turn her head and smile at me. This was my personal smile. I've never seen her give it to anyone or anything else. It was nothing ostentatious, just a quirk of the lips really, but it could melt chocolate, cure cancer, and stop war before it really got rolling. She had a scar on her upper lip that gave her smile the tiniest of moues and that moue was even more powerful than the smile itself.
Somebody seems to have turned off the lights. And when did all these stars come out? It would seem that I've been roaming memories halls longer than I thought. I always did get lost in her smile. This isn't safe. I really should pull over and take a nap. I really should, but I need to get to North Carolina. I need to see Angie.
I don't have a plan for when I get there, just an address. The course of action is simply get there, park, and ring the doorbell. With my luck, her newest boyfriend will be the one to answer the door. When asked who I am I'll probably stutter out some nonsense along the lines of "I'm Sean and I'm here to spend the rest of my life with the woman I love." I wonder how he'll take it. Maybe he'll take a swing or maybe he'll just shut the door in my face. It doesn't matter. I know what I want and nothing, not even the end of the world, is going to get in my way.
She broke up with me at the beginning of October. She said it was because I was "irresponsible' and that "I still didn't know who I was" and "how could I love her if I didn't love myself?" She said she was sorry. She said a lot of things and each one tore my heart into smaller and smaller pieces. All the king's horses and all the king's men didn't stand a chance against this puzzle.
Angie moved on with her life while I crawled into a hole darker than even the infinite reaches of space could conjure.
I stayed in that hole for a long time. Days and weeks went by without notice. I didn't talk to anybody and I didn't do anything except for mope. An entire month went by where I didn't leave my room. My friends and family began to worry about suicide, but they shouldn't have. Suicide is a cowards way out and I was never a coward.
Maybe it's time I slow down. The caffeine and trucker meds mean my reaction times are extrordinary, but my brain can't keep track of what's happening that I need to react to. Hallucinations are starting to manifest. A friendly blue sign hops into the car and softly assures me that there's a rest stop in 15 miles.
Angie came to visit for a few days while i was slumming it in my abyss. We enjoyed ourselves, acted almost as if nothing had happened. We were best friends again and we didn't give a damn about the rest of the world. Unfortunately, she saw some sort of pain or longing or something behind my eyes and ran away again. I didn't think it could happen, but my hole managed to get darker.
"10 miles, hun." the sign croons.
After far too long, I found a lantern to light my way out of the abyss. I saw that the world kept turning and the sun kept shining even though Angie had excommunicated me from her life. She would slip every so often, send me joke or innocuous question through text.
I think she was just checking up on me, making sure i was still alive.
I started writing stories. Lots of stories. Some were scifi, others fantasy. Some had lessons to teach while others were wacky adventures that belonged in children's cartoon. I liked what I wrote and so did many other people. They liked them enough that I even got published in some small magazines and periodicals.
I was happy with what I'd written, but, if i was honest with myself, I knew that they were all written for Angie. I wrote them to show her the lessons I'd learned and to draw her back to me. They were bait. Once I realized this, I didn't like my stories so terribly much.
So I moved. I moved to Oregon and Montana. I moved to Florida and to Ontario. I moved to England, to France, to Germany, Russia, China, Egypt, and Australia. All of it was a vain attempt to rid my mind of the person I loved most with distance and darkness.
"5 miles" said the sign, brushing my ear with her lips.
I eventually settled in Seattle, like so many other lost and depressed artists. There, I met up with an old friend of mine. Matt and I had been like brothers back in the day, and we resumed our exploits with reckless abandon. I made enough money selling my stories to keep an apartment and smoke myself silly. Angie was always in the back of my mind, but I began using her as a muse instead of a goal.
Things were going swimmingly until the science types put a date to the apocalypse. One month. That's all that was left before Earth would be entirely unable to support life. Tides became erratic, as well as seasons and even days. What had once been fields of grass were now wastelands. Forests turned to kindling and lakes into deserts. Mother Earth was on her last legs and we could all feel it.
Angie was constantly on my mind. Waking, sleeping. It didn't matter. She was like an old addiction come back to haunt my ravaged mind. Nothing got published, let alone written. I was sinking back into my void.
It was Matt that finally kicked my ass into gear. He told me to "Go find her before it really is too late." With that I sold or pawned absolutely everything that I owned except my truck and the clothes on my back, and then I hit the road to find the object of my adoration.
"Twinklebear, pull off here. This is your stop."
The rest stop isn't anything new or exciting. It's just a vast parking lot surrounding a set of restrooms and some poorly stocked vending machines.The sodium lights are, to a one, either broken or flickering violently. Their jumping shadows hide as much as they reveal.
The vending machines are old and worn. It looks like somebody tried to pry open the door at some point in the past. I can't decide whether to get a Snickers or some peanut M&M's. One has all the convenience of being a bar while the other has so many pretty colors. Decisions, decisions.
"Get the Reeses. You know they're your favorite." the sign chuckles in a voice that Disney princess everywhere would kill to have.
That's the last straw. First the sign presumes on telling me where to go, then it uses Angie's petname for me. Imitating her voice is something that I'm not willing to take even from my own mind. Some jokes are just too cruel.
I turn around and am about to give the sign the full brunt of my pain and desperation when the words get caught in my throat. Behind me is none other than Angie! Real as life!
She's still 5 foot nothing. Her hair still refuses to take orders, even from obvious use of a straightener. She's wearing yet another amalgamation of clothing that would give gypsies pause. She's even more radiantly stunning than I remembered.
Words are fighting for priority use of my tongue. Some are cheesy. Others feign indifference while still others are whooping and hollering and screaming in ecstasy. In the end, I only bluster "Wha.... What are you doing here?!"
Before she answers, she nestles into her nook between my arms and looks at me with her big melted chocolate-chip eyes.
"I came to find you, of course."
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