Love and Lies and Masks and God

Gosh, where to start.

I like to think of myself as a good person. I mean, I go to church, I try to be kind to everyone, I have lot's of really great friends... I'm doing good. People see me as a good person.

But it's fake. It all is.

I lie awake at night, and the only thing I can think about is how maybe I'm not a good person after all. My empathy and sympathy? What if it's just a subconscious manipulation of others? Am I a sociopath? Come to think about it, I don't care about anyone. When I'm alone, at least.

Maybe I've been wearing the Mask so long I've become it. I've faked being a gentleman, and so I became one. I hope to God that's true. I don't want to be a scoundrel. I don't want my friends to leave me. I don't want to be just another stereotypical, attitude-driven, lying, cussing, body-obsessed boy. I am more than a bloody boy. Or, at least, the mask is.

Girls have been attracted to me, I know that. But were they attracted to me? Or the mask? There was this one girl. I wore the mask for her. I danced the tune, I walked the walk, I talked the talk, because honestly, she was just too good for me, and there was no other way I would've convinced her I actually cared about her. She was beautiful. She was kind. She was... Amazing.

Except that the Mask left me. Be it God or luck or fate, I lost the Mask and all of it's perfect attributes. The girl and I fought and argued, because our personalities were no longer compatible. I was a fraud. I was a liar, and there was no way this amazing girl would want to spend time with someone who she found she no longer enjoyed the company of. When the Mask had made me interesting and kind and almost mysterious, I became abrasive, awkward, and really just not great. So she did what was best; she said a relationship wasn't best, and we parted ways.

The Mask never came back. God showed me that I would have to become the Mask I had once worn, and leave this life of lies and deceit and lust and evil. I had to become the gentleman, or I knew without doubt that holy fire or heavenly holiness would strike me down immediately. So, out of fear or desire or a strange combination of the two, I did.

As I look back, I realize that the girl will always have a place in my heart. If we ever meet again, I think I could show that this is my true self and that I've grown up. I think that maybe, just maybe, she might feel something for me, too. Love, or whatever it was then, never leaves the heart. It merely weighs it down until someone else can help you hold it up.

Lovely 42, Please

The night air drifted in through the archway on the balcony, into the green-lit club of Samskeyti’s. On the balcony, a young man and woman looked out over Midnight City, at the bustling traffic hundreds of stories below and the hazy lights of neon signs everywhere else. At the bar, a middle-aged man sat on a stool, staring into the depths of his warped cup filled with a opaque red substance. In a booth in the balcony-side corner, a young woman sat with her arms around two younger men, with both her hands holding tipping glasses of wine. She turned to both, laughing and chatting about the goings-on of the world, as the two men stared back and smiled, laughing at the appropriate times.

The double doors on the street-side entrance were pushed open by a pair of giggling teenagers, male and female. Arms around each other, they stumbled over to the bar, falling into a pair of green-seated stools. The bartender, an old Dweller, set down the glass he was drying and walked quickly across the bar to the couple. His rubbery ears and long nose bobbed with his gait.

“Now, my friends, what can I get you?” said the Dweller in an oddly deep voice. He peered at them through violet eyes. The boy’s laughter died down to a small chuckle as he searched the menu displayed on the wall behind the bar.

“I think I’ll have... A 23, please.” The boy lapsed back into a fit of giggles. “I’m sorry, we just came from the Red Lights down the street and had a few 16’s. Just... Just ignore us.” The laughter increased.

The bartender smiled and giggled a bit himself, an odd gurgling in his rubbery throat. “Well, a 23 for the gentleman... And what about you, m’lady?”

The girl ceased her laughter, leaving only a smile. “I’ll have the Lovely 42, please.”

The boy’s giggles lowered to only a few sporadic hacks. “Wha.. What, Delilah?” The girl turned to the boy and let out a few chuckles.

“The Lovely 42. Didn’t you hear me?” The boy stopped laughing, though the smile was still there.

“You can’t, though. Lovely 42’s are for age twenty-ones. You can’t-”

“Hell, bars are for age eighteens, but here we are, aren’t we?” There was no more laughter between the couple, only strange artificial smiles. The girl turned towards the bartender again. “The Lovely 42, please.”

The Dweller gave an ornate bow. “Lovely 42 on it’s way, dearest.” As he walked over to the drink fountain, he added, “Who cares about them age restrictions? You two seem responsible enough.” A few moments later, he came back with a curved cup. A cloudy blue liquid sloshed inside. He set the cup in front of the boy. “There you go, friend.” He pointed at the girl with a stubby, clawed finger. “I’ll have yours in a moment.” The bartender rushed back to the fountains. While he poured the drinks, the couple muttered to each other in low voices.

Reds, blues, greens, and golds poured from the taps into the beaker-like cup, reacting with each other like oil and water: not mixing into one substance, but rather into several individual swirling together. As the liquids reached the top, the bartender flipped the taps off and carried the drink back to the girl. As she set it down on the glass bar, the girl stared at it with excitement and anticipation. The Dweller gave another bow and stepped back, watching the girl with a toothy smile. The girl took a deep breath, picked the beaker up, and poured its contents down her throat.

The reaction was almost instantaneous. The girl’s eyes scrunched shut and she set the beaker onto the bar again, coughing a bit. Breathing heavily, she looked up at the boy next to her. “It’s... It’s so hot. My throat is on fire. My whole... My whole body is on fire.” She slid out of her seat and tottered on the checkerboard-pattern floor. “I need to get out of here.”

The boy jumped out of her seat and grabbed onto her. “Delilah, let’s just go back to the car, and get you home, okay?” The girl shook her head and began tottering towards the balcony.

“Can’t go home, Mark. Not like this... Car isn’t fast enough anyways. Gotta fly home with my wings.” She pushed against the boy’s arms and started again at the balcony. The boy tugged on her arms, but she spun around and slapped him. The middle-aged man looked up from his drink and watched the girl staggering around the bar with mild interest, as did the young party sitting in the booth. The boy fell backwards, holding his red cheek with a pale hand and looking at his breathless friend in shock.

The bartender watched everything with his violet eyes and a small smirk.

The girl stopped tottering for a moment and looked around the room. “Why is everything spinning?” she asked in a dry, raspy voice. She reached out for something to hold onto, then collapsed onto the smooth floor, staring with flickering eyes at the green ceiling. The boy crouched down next to her and grabbed her hand.

“Delilah, I told you not to, I told you...” he whispered next to the girl. Suddenly, he whirled around towards the bartender. “Why’d you give her this? She’s dying! Do something!” Tears marked their passage along his pale face.

The Dweller bartender shrugged and went back to cleaning his glasses. “I’m the bartender. I get people the drinks they want. Ain’t up to me on what they drink; it’s the customer’s choice.” He gestured downwards at girl. “If people like her choose a drink that’s too strong for them, not my problem. She knew the rules of drinking, and she decided to break them.”

“She... She thought she could take it... She handled a Splendid 39 amazingly, so she thought... She thought...” The boy trailed off into a raspy breathing. Suddenly, the middle-aged man slid off his bar stool and walked over to the couple lying on the ground.

“Get me a 13 and a small rag,” said the man as he crouched next to the boy, staring into the girl’s contorted face, “If you have can hold down her arms and legs as well, that’d be nice.” The boy nodded, then looked up expectantly at the bartender. The Dweller pointed at himself, seeming surprised, then nodded and tossed the boy a rag, which was handed to the man. When the boy turned again, the Dweller was filling a twisting glass cup with a fluorescent yellow substance. The man turned around as well to watch the bartender carry the drink around the bar and deposit it into the man’s hands with a low bow. The man nodded, then turned back to the girl. “Hold her arms now,” he said to the boy, who complied and did so. The man grabbed the girls face and squeezed, so her lips were forced open into a thin circle. Once it did, the man tipped the cup into her mouth, and a mouthful of the yellow liquid rushed inside.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then, her tossing and turning began to lessen slightly, and her rolling eyes were slowly covered by mascara-covered eyelids. Finally, the only movements came from her chest, which rose and fell with each gentle breath. Here eyes were still slightly visible, gazing upwards, though they no longer seemed frightened and frantic like before. The man wiped his brow with a dirty palm and sighed. Then he nodded to the boy and the bartender and returned to his stool, where he contented himself with the depths of the red drink again. The bartender wrung his hands and smiled around the room.

“Well, that was exciting. Now, you two had best get home now, and I hope this taught you a thing or two about drinking. Don’t do it til you’re old enough, yes? Now, off you go!” The Dweller made shooing motions with his hands and went back to the cleaning of his glasses. The boy lifted the girl up so that she was in a long slouch onto his shoulder and dragged her out the door. As the two vanished into the night and the tinted glass double doors swung shut behind them, the bartender filled the cubic glass he had been cleaning with more red liquid and set it in front of the man, next to the first drink.

“That one’s on the house, my friend,” said the bartender, then pulled a stool from behind the bar and set it across from the man. As he sat down, he pulled a two-liter glass bottle filled with a clear liquid and set it on the bar. “Where’s that rabbit you always came here with? He seemed like a good man.” The man shook his head and looked out towards the balcony, where the couple was in the midst of a deep kiss. He watched them with mild interest for a few moments before looking back at his drink. He sighed.

“We had a case. He didn’t make it.” The bartender nodded, a sympathetic expression on his trunked face. He took a swig from the bottle and closed his eyes in pleasure as smoke drifted out from the corners of his mouth and nostrils.

“Implementation is certainly a dangerous job,” the Dweller said, smoke pouring out of his rubber-lipped mouth as he spoke, “Tell me about him, though. You guys never said me much about yourselves, other than that you were partners in Implementation and the cases you two worked on. Who was he, my friend?”

The man didn't answer for a few moments. Finally, after drinking the rest of his drink, he slid out of his stool. "Maybe some other time," he said as he pushed open the doors of the pub into the cold night of the city streets.