New Year's Eve, 2016 (Patreon)

Funny how the skies look. Dark. Overcast. Spattered with fire.

Good fire. Fireworks. Celebrations.

Your laugh hurts, but your ribs are better. Can take full breaths now without choking down a cry. Never thought you'd miss the pain-gate, but here you are. No longer numb.

Pain is a bit like fireworks. Loud and bright, commanding attention, leaving no room for anything else. And then, smoldering ashes, sticks falling from the skies, the afterimage still glowing on your retina.

So many people get maimed by fireworks every year, and yet people keep shooting them. Willful ignorance. Something bright and cheerful to help them ignore the world.

You can't do that anymore. No longer numb. No longer lost.

Or maybe more lost than ever.

Los Diablos never looked prettier than at night. More people sleeping. Calmer. Fewer thoughts. Are you really going back down there? Putting yourself through what you're going to feel? What you're going to remember?

Nothing. You lean against the roof of your stolen car, watching the fireworks below. You are going to feel nothing. You are going to remember nothing. It's a mantra you keep repeating, warding off the shadows, narrowing your focus to a pinprick.

Having a mission is a bit like drowning. Peripheral vision lost, everything unimportant forgotten, all in the service of one, single goal.

Can you do it?

The lights are pretty, but the background rattle still sounds like war. Gunfire. How many people are terrified down there? Flinching at every blast. Remembering things they'd rather not. You know the dogs hate it. You used to think it was magical.

You used to be an idiot.

You don't think you are one now.

If you were, you would be running the other way. Pretend you can hide. Pretend you can change. But you know the truth now. You've made your decision. For better or worse.

Probably worse.

You take a sip of the bottle, resting on the roof of the car. Lukewarm. Not champagne. Chocolate instead of lobster. You rub your forehead as you light up another cigarette. You ate lobster once. At New Years'. Five years ago? Four? Was it even you?

It feels fake, like a photograph left in the rain. Trying to work out the cutlery. Ortega laughing, trying to give hints. You never got them, but you were good at pretending.

Can't do that anymore. Can't be that anymore. Can't think about the past without your head hurting. Nothing fits together, not after...

Not Heartbreak. You suck down smoke as if it could heal your ribs. After. They. They. They.

They finally took you down there. To the Core.

Oh, those stupid, blind idiots, they really have no idea. None at all, like those idiots down there playing with fire heedless of what fingers will be lost by morning. Need to forget. Can't remember.

Don't think about it. Don't. Memories are dangerous and thoughts are poison. Smoke the cigarette. Focus on the pain. Focus on the anger. Bury yourself, breathe dirt, never mind the cough.

You're supposed to be dead, but you will live. Spite is stronger than desperation. You are stronger than your desperation. Strong enough to reinvent yourself. Strong enough to cut away and bury, your brain is as malleable as anybody else's, and it's your hand that holds the knife now.

Cut, you cowardly bastard, don't hesitate. Nothing gets better if you do. Nothing changes unless you force it to.

2017. The sky explodes in sponsored fireworks. A distraction. A celebration. 

The cigarette is a smaller light in the darkness. You focus on that. Soon it will be short enough to burn your fingers. It lasted longer than the year, but when it's gone, so will this moment.

A new beginning. Shed the past. Reinvent yourself. Forget what's not needed. Forget what would destroy you.

Focus on the light. On the smoke. On the future. 

On your goal.

You take another pull, listening to the distant war of the city below—a distance you need. A distance you will steal. Don't let it touch you. Slide it off like distant thunder. Only the lightning hurts; the rest is a distraction.

You can't afford that now. Distractions or lightning.

(now)

You swear loudly as the cigarette burns your fingers, too lost in thought to notice. Rubbing them together, you drain the last of the bottle. In an hour or two, Los Diablos will have quieted down. 

Time to go to the only place you've ever called home.

You've got work to do.