fredag 28 Sep 2007, 12:28

The sky is purple and pink, the kind of sky that looks like chunks of cotton candy waiting to be eaten. It was dark when Justin and I stumbled to this spot along the lake, but now the rising sun behind us has created my perfect eggplant soup sky. His breathe smells rich with vodka and corn chips. I'm 100% sober and he's exactly the opposite. Whenever I talk to him, trying to keep him awake, he looks at me with one eye closed, trying to focus on my face. I can't believe such a clear and innocent looking substance turned this meek boy into someone with enough courage to begin confessing his undying love for me, his ex-girlfriend's best friend. We are the taboo of unspoken friend code: you never hook up with a best friend's ex. But we have been, in secret, for over a month. I press my fingers into the smooth flatness of his skin beneath the zipper of his jeans, beneath the elastic in his boxers. He leans his head against mine, deeply sniffing the scent of my scalp. I can feel that he is getting to the point where he might make sense if he tried to talk. I know he probably needs to puke or sleep but if I allow that to happen my opportunities to take advantage of his inebriation will slip farther and farther away.

On my next breath in, I'm surprised by the gooey smell of fresh smores, the melted dark chocolate mixing into the fluffiness of liquefied marshmallows. I poke Justin in the side, underneath his ribcage, that spot that digs in so deep you feel the finger intruding hours after the initial jab, but he doesn't yelp his usual pitiful cry. His posture is stiff and tense, his body twisted and his head looking behind. I follow his gaze.

Behind us, the skyline is on fire. The blaze is that of a blowtorch: crystallized blue and white masses lighting up the metal, glass, and cement. The rising sun drips caramel gold as it begins to peak around the edged of the blue flames and it is so beautiful I want to suffocate, freezing myself and Justin, never ever breathing in another moment.

"Do you hear that?" Justin's words are slurred but clearly urgent.

"What?" I wonder and then I realize.

Nothing.

The slight gush of waves from Lake Michigan, the crinkle of gravel beneath the grass under our body weight, and nothing else.

No screaming, no crying, no gnashing of teeth. But between us, there is no doubt what is happening: The Apocalypse.

I shut my eyes, squeezing them and pressing hard, hoping to shut out the photo negatives of the fire images, praying for black and white sight.

"It's not how I thought it would be." Justin says, breaking the grinding silence.

And I know, without replying. And I know he knows.

We decide to go shopping, deciding on the outfits we will wear to the end of the world. H&M, Urban Outfitters, Forever 21. Trendy, young, and cheap is how we chose to go out—the same way we lived. The stores are empty, but we decide to give our karma a boost and we slide our credit cards, signing and entering in pin codes without being asked. Its not like we need the money any more.

On Michigan Avenue, I want to tell Justin how much I love him, how I've always adored his shyness, his unassuming nature, his puppy dog sensibility, but green-blue golf sized pieces begin to fall. I cannot tell if they are buildings or the sky. Justin picks up a chunk and I expect him to cry out in his usual masochistic enjoyment of pain but instead the particle crumbles to dust in his hand. He takes the charcoal and paints football player lines beneath my eyes.

"You've always been a fighter," He tells me in the most genuine of voices.

I draw in the wrinkles that his baby face always needed, telling him he has always been much wiser than his years.

The emptiness of the city feels like a warm hug from my grandmother—safe, comforting, mine. I inhale colors. The smurf-blue grass covering Millennium park tastes like raspberry snow cone in my nostrils.

"I never wanted to let go. I'm so sorry" Justin tells me, and I see tears streaming down his face turning his charcoal winkles into long spider leg streaks, like thick runny mascara mixed with snot.

I begin to laugh and laugh hysterically, crazy loud Jack Nicholson laughing. Justin left me, gave me an ultimatum, to change, to be better, to fix myself, to stop using him or he'd leave. And now here he is, begging at my feet at the end of the world, sobbing through a coal miner's face asking for my forgiveness as if I'm Jesus, as if I can save him. His tears fall, hitting his favorite faded black David Bowie shirt and burning through it, his black tears becoming acid rain turning his clothes into rags.

There's an angel on his shoulder and a devil on mine. I rip the remains of his shirt off of his pale body. I have an intense urge to cradle him, hold him. Instead I begin to lick the charcoal tears on his cheeks. They taste like pixie sticks.

"Did you ever try to snort pixie sticks when you were a kid?" I ask him, wanting to know that he was as weird as I was, imagining a smaller version of himself picking out only the blue pixie sticks because that was his favorite color. Early indications of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

"No," Justin says, "but I did put peanut butter on my penis and have my dog lick it off."

And in this confession, I know that he is the one. The one who I'm supposed to share my last day on earth with.

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