Hollow Heart

This was it, he thought as we walked into the familiar parlor of his home, this is when life starts. He had been waiting for this moment almost his entire life. It had been a process, for everything has process, but he had been building up to this moment since the second she had said "I do." After trying for months, he knew there was something particularly special about this evening, he hoped it was the news he had been looking forward to for years.

There she was, sitting on the arm of her floral chair perched perfectly as if gravity did not affect her at all. Her pale blonde hair was stacked upon her head in ringlets, a few cascading down the side to gently whisper against her neck as the flames held in the grand fireplace flickered upon her ivory skin. She was, in fact, the most beautiful creature he had ever laid eyes on and the truth that she would be forever his still stole his breath away. He opened his mouth to greet her, but before he could make a sound she was already speaking.

"There is stack of paperwork for you on the desk." She said smoothly, her eyes still not turned onto him. He hesitated, but floated toward the cherry wood surface anyways, his hands rifling through the pages.

The man looked sourly down at the papers after a moment, his eyes flicking to the woman who sat at the other end of the room. She wasn't looking at him but instead staring into the crackling fire with eyes burning as brightly as the flames themselves, her beautiful face expressionless. He could tell she was blocking him out, however, by the way her jaw clenched a little too tightly to be comfortable. His heart slammed into his chest by the sight of her, and he looked nervously back down to the papers.

His gray eyes raked over the ink scrawl quickly, his hands flinching and gathering perspiration as the words raced through his clouded mind. "What is this?" he finally said out loud, his voice slicing through the silence of the room like a sharpened blade though he had no intention to sound angry.

"Divorce papers." She said flatly without looking at him, her own voice carrying through the room like a soft melody. She had a way with speaking that drew him in on every word, as if every sentence was carefully crafted to caress his very soul. He blinked, putting the papers down with a stiff hand and pursed lips. No, this wasn't right. She could not possibly be divorcing him. She had every thing she could ever want, a perfect life with lots of jewelry and hand sewn corsets in whatever color she desired. She was the envy of the town, the woman with the perfect life and a loving husband-how on earth could this be true?

"If this is a joke-" The man started, with a shake of his head though he could feel his heart pound inside his chest and his mouth go dry.

"It isn't." She reassured in the same empty tone, this time turning her burning orange eyes to stare into him. "You know what little tolerance I have for games."

"A divorce?" He choked out, suddenly feeling very weak in the knees. "But-but why?" He stuttered under her gaze, feeling small and insignificant though he was the most cunning man in the city. Instead of responding, she simply looked back into the flames. The man felt bile push into his throat and he swallowed it back fiercely, clenching his own jaw. "What about our vows? Our love? The baby? I thought that's what you wanted- what we both wanted."

Her breathing skipped a beat but otherwise looked unaffected, her eyes turning to him once again in the fiery inferno he had fallen in love with in the beginning. "Vows are words. Love is a lie. But the baby.." A small and mocking smirk feathered to her lips. "I forgot to tell you that I'm pregnant."

"Then why are you doing this?" The man yelled, his heart slamming against his ribs achingly with her words.

"Because it isn't yours."

The Hands that Quiver

The skin was pale as it stretched thin over the whitened knuckles, hands folded together tight enough that fingerprints were being indented onto the skin in red blotchy patches. The fingers themselves were carved to perfection, strong and perfectly spaced, though the skin itself was tattered with scars. Some were rough and old, others an angry pink with the long process of healing. Fingernails on a hand are never to be ignored, they tell much about a person and what their personality is like. These ones are unpainted and rugged, the edges of them look to be torn off or chewed on, but definitely not well manicured. There are white spots in the wide fingernails, their color standing out awkwardly against the fingers reddened with force. A sign of calcium deficiency, no doubt. Or maybe there's been serious trauma?

The hands move-separating- one moves to a sleeve made of red wool and yanks it down with a tremble that jerks the smooth motion ever so slightly. The fluorescent light that cascades down on the skin light up multiple marks, thin and shallow they look to heal quickly, but where did they come from? The hands open wide to their beholder, palms visible and unscathed besides the thin sheet of sweat that quickly gets wiped off onto the pair of dark blue jeans. The ten fingers on the hands twitch and spasm with their own life, the jittery landscape would make a terrible home for a pencil or even a paintbrush, but as they fold together again toned muscles seem to flex with the motion. Perhaps lack of skill is made up with strength. A long moment passes as the hands grip each other as if for dear life, the knuckles turning bone white with their one force turned against them as they rest against the blue denim.

Suddenly the hands move, splitting apart again only this time much more quickly as they slide rhythmically over the jean material. Wiping off the rest of the sweat, the hands are in motion, moving upward now with purpose and another tremble though it's a different kind. They move swiftly and gingerly as they caress what's handed to them, a blue blanket that feels softer than any material they've ever touched before, though it's not the blanket that causes the shiver to run a wave of goosebumps up the arms. No, it's the hand 6 times smaller than the ones that cradle the filled blanket that stirs the reaction, as it calmly falls onto the pale and scarred skin. It's what those worked hands had been waiting to hold their whole life.

Interrogation

Flickered intervals of black and vibrant colors were echoing through Iznora's mind as her head lolled to the side. At first it was just blurbs of blurry images, slowly shifting until they became violent memories pulsing like reality behind her eyes.

Iznora sucked in a ragged breath, the air hot and sticky with dirt as it coated the inside of her throat and scraped down her tongue. She couldn't remember the last time she had any water and could practically feel the hydration escaping through her pores as it dripped out in effort to cool her sun-burnt and blistered blue skin. Another hot breath. This time she tried to move, stretching her limbs curiously when white hot pain lashed up her side and her wrists twisted within the chains that held her arms spread wide. Iznora's crimson eyes flashed open, only to be vexed by the course fabric of a burlap sack scraping against her eyebrows. Her head whirled as she tried to remember what had happened, the corners of her thoughts smudged and slowed almost to a halt. Tatooine, she could feel that much. The fabric ripped off of her head with a hard pull, yanking some of her dark blue hair as her head was thrust roughly to the side. She gasped in surprise at the pain, her vision flashing and melting into something new as she blinked away the sudden movement.

The colors were opposite of the bright hot planet she could have sworn she was just in, consisting of a dull blue and fading purples that could be caught dragging across the floor. She blinked as she tried to focus, her vision wandering and hazy as she looked at the man that was smirking wildly at her. The world was spinning as Iznora's drugged mind tried to grasp reality, the man's Rattataki face flickering in and out with the face of the man who had captured her 6 years ago on Tatooine. She sucked in a breath, trying to steady her vision but the sudden intake of fresh air only made her head whirl, lolling it to the side again. The man grabbed Iznora by her jaw, focusing her brilliant red eyes on him with force. She felt the urge to spit on him, perhaps even say something clever but her body seemed to be unattached from her mind, trapped inside her groggy thoughts.

"They smoked you out good, didn't they beautiful?" The man said in a gruff voice, his smirk widening to expose his filthy crooked teeth. "You can hardly even keep your eyes open." Damn it, where were her muscles? She couldn't even focus on where she was, whether she was sitting or strung up somewhere. Her lip quivered as she tried to speak, her eyes rolling while her mind raced to try and remember why she was even here... The man let out a dry chuckle as he let her chin go, turning to the side and calling for water to someone that Iznora couldn't see. It seemed like an hour's worth of time before the man's tattooed face turned back to her, his grin even more devilish as he cast what was in his hand at her. She should have known it was water, but it didn't register until after the cloud of freezing cold needles pierced through the groggy fog and slapped her in the face.

Everything whirled for a moment, before reality bashed into the side of her skull like a brick, bringing back every memory in perfect clarity and dispersing the dream like state almost entirely. The man let out a rough laugh at her reaction, the pattern of his tattoos no longer a blur but a cruel and intricate pattern, his dull gray eyes licking with mild amusement. "What do you want?" Iznora spat, hiding her accent with ease. The Rattataki stood up straight, smirking as his large figure shadowed over her.

"We already have what we want, precious. But you seem to be carrying a bit more on your ship than we thought." He leaned down to where she was tied to a chair, his foul breath fanning over her face. "The spice we were after didn't seem to match all the other code blocked secrets you have hidden in that small little thing." Iznora stared at the man, unblinking.

"I don't know what you're talking about." she said flatly, her breathing even and jaw set. The man let out a humorless laugh, snatching up her jaw in one of his rough hands once again only to squeeze more fiercely than the time before.

"This would be a lot easier with your cooperation, sweetheart." he growled with a vicious smile. "But we have ways of making you talk if you don't." Iznora flinched, speeding up her breathing and blinking rapidly to show signs of fear.

"Okay, okay!" she said quickly, squirming in his grasp, "I'll tell you what I know- just, you can't hurt me." The man simply smirked without letting go of his grasp. "Okay so, the spice..That's the only reason I was on the ship. I'm a smuggler- a new one. The Syndicate picked me out because I didn't have anyone tracking me. They thought I was a clean slate. I don't know anything else about the ship.." The man seemed to ponder that for a moment, until his smirk got wider, his head shaking in mock disappointment.

"Wrong answer." he whispered, cutting the sentence off with a cackle as he grabbed the back of her chair, tipping it over to drag it behind him.

"No! No! I'm telling the truth!" she screamed, her eyes darting around the empty room for anything at all. The walls were made out of concrete and scrap metal, the only thing that seemed to gnaw at her memory were the dancing lights that flickered through the crack between the walls and floor. Iznora would have recognized those lights anywhere, along with the hum of speeders as they passed quietly outside. Nar Shaddaa. "Please, in the name of the Hutts don't hurt me!" she screamed, tears running down her face.

"It's actually in the name of the Hutts that I'm going to." He said with a chuckle, "Besides, your little Twi'lek friend told me everything."

The Hijack

Iznora ground her teeth together in decision as she looked between the two men on her ship, one of her blue hands roughly wrapped around the Twi'lek's wrists as she thrusted him into a seat. The ship's dashboard beeped desperately in warning, getting shriller as the danger seemed to get more and more real. She ignored it easily, her mind working in it's usual mechanical matter, she had been trained for situations like this, it would not get the best of her. Anger licked at the base of her thoughts, hot and violent, but it only sped up the thought process. Warning: Impact Imminent. Warning: Communications have been tapped, the robotic voice of the woman crowed over the speaker as the danger lights danced across the metallic paint inside of the cockpit.

This was the instant where Iznora's two very different lives would mingle for the last time, the heartbeat of the Syndicate would not be stifled and tangled with the mess that was Imperial Intelligence once again. Her bright crimson eyes flicked to the front window where she could see the Hutt Cartel's ships advancing more quickly than what any sane person could be comfortable with. Of course they were the Hutt's ships, identifiable simply because of the work she had done inside the slimy species' immoral industry, but they weren't after her precious cargo. They were after the few crates of special production spice she had hidden in the back for the Tretarkii Syndicate, not the Twi'lek she wouldn't mind choking to death at this very instant. Iznora looked to Baldarek, the Chiss she had grown more than fond of, and knew that he would understand what she was doing as soon as she executed it.

Lies, it would all be lies, of course. The Hutts were ignorant and obtuse to say the least, they would take whatever lead she would feed them, and that would buy her time. All she needed was some time.."Baldarek, do you hear that? We've got company." she said loudly, her feminine voice dominant and clear, ringing against the mechanical beeping and shrilling like a bell in the night. "You better take the escape pod and get the hell out of here before they find out that you're Intelligence. We both know the slimy bastards wouldn't know what to do with your information if they found it." Baldarek paused for only half a moment as the words ran through his thoughts, blinking once before nodding sharply and rising hastily from his seat. A single look was exchanged between the two before he disappeared into the back of the 'Aphelion', the kind of glance that was heavy and swollen with promise. The promise that the two would meet again, no doubt. Iznora would be damned to lose the only thing she had grown close to in the last 8 years of her life, she simply wouldn't allow it. No matter what happened, they would embrace again.

"There's an escape pod for me too, right?" the Twi'lek's voice was raw with emotion, and even though the man had been through a lot in the last few hours, Iznora found it pathetic. She ignored the man's alarm, grinding her teeth together in animosity as she reached to the dashboard, smashing her fist into the controls violently. With a slight electric rush, the control lights went dark, leaving only the shrill warning sirens to scream of the danger that was approaching even more rapidly now. At least now the Hutt's wouldn't be able to hear them.

Iznora turned to the Twi'lek, her red eyes burning with fury as she violently grabbed each one of the man's lekku, letting her blue fingers curl with force. The blue skinned alien let out a cry of pain, wincing as he looked into her dangerously resentful eyes. "Now you listen to me, Republic scum," she growled, her face only inches from the one called Jaaht'o, "You are going to do every little thing I say without a flaw. Do you know why?" The Twi'lek shook his head gingerly in her grasp, careful not to increase the pressure on the long appendages that extended out of his head. "Because if you don't, and you decide to tell those glutinous fat slugs about the information I need, I'm going to kill you. I will take these cute little lekku of yours," she squeezed a little harder at these words, "and cut them off tiny piece by piece until you're in such pain, you're begging for it. Do you understand?" Jaaht'o swallowed, nodding through his wince. "That's what I thought." she said with a nod almost to herself as she let go of him and stepped back. "Don't think for half a second that I won't, because as soon as I get out of this mess, I will track you down and see to it that you have never been in so much agony in your whole miserable life. And that's only if the Hutt's don't do it themselves."

"What happens if I don't tell the Hutts? You hand me over to Intelligence and then the same thing happens after I tell them?" the Twi'lek asked after a moment of reassurance that his tentacles were still intact and not damaged. Iznora let out a small sigh of comfort as she heard the escape pod dislodge from it's holding place on the ship, at least Baldarek had made it out. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a section of the Cartel's ships fly after it, the others continuing to rush at her head on.

"Tell you what, Jaaht'o," Iznora's voice was much more alluring now, though it still had the undertones of hatred and chagrin, "If you don't tell the Hutts, I will personally see to it that you are not harmed or disturbed by Imperial Intelligence ever again. And I'll get you out of the Hutt's grubby mitts. Fair enough?" As she spoke she fished a small shiv out from her pocket and cut through the bindings on the man's wrists in one smooth motion. At the exact moment that the female Chiss finished her words, one of the Hutt's ships crashed into the side of the Aphelion with a loud and raking thud. Iznora clenched her teeth once again, removing her blaster rifle from where it rested on her hip.

Ashing the Rebuild

We could fight
We could fight
And rebuild up the world

Or we could light
We could light
And watch it burn to the ground

Either way is just dandy,
In a mind such as mine

But this limbo
We're stuck in
It will not suffice  

It's tiring and gray
Disturbing and lame
We crawl around,
Wait around

Counting
       the
           days.

So give me a torch
Or a hammer
Or faith

Today is the day
There's no time for delay.

Schizophrenia

"Sir, he's asking for that box again." The man sighed sharply, looking up from the papers he had been immersed in.

"Fine, bring him in here. It's about time we talk to figure why he's in here." he replied, putting the papers back on his desk. The officer hesitated, his hand on the molding of the door as his body turned to exit.

"If you don't mind me asking..what is in the box?" The chief shrugged indifferently.

"Dirt."

The police chief exited his office to the interrogation room just down the concrete hall, not soon enough to avoid the incoherent yelling from the mysterious visitor, though. He sat down in the familiar cool metal seat, it was uncomfortable to say the least, but he liked it. Because this was his favorite part of the job, finding the missing pieces of the complicated puzzles criminals hid behind.

"The box-where-? I need to kill her! To bury her wicked heart-god her lovely face. I miss her-the box! Let go-I need the box." The man screamed as he entered the room in between the two officers holding him fast by the wrists. The chief looked onto the man with a stern expression, trying to ignore the pain of pity that stung just beneath the right side of his rib cage, pity affected his job.

"Liar, liar!" the man barked as his eyes spun around the room blindly, the officers struggling to put him in the chair across the table. "You know you can't kill her, you love her too much." The man sat very still suddenly, his eyes staring straight into that of the chief's, his mouth hanging open ever so slightly. And after a heartbeat of silence a terrible grin spread across the man's un-kept face. He looked rather goofy, with the dirty bandage across his forehead slightly pressing down on his left eyebrow and his missing right eyetooth.

"Hello, my name is Chief Banes," the head of the police department said dryly," who are you?"

The man laughed, and even his teeth looked dirty next to the white of his mangy beard. "Why, I'm George Markham." he said matter-of-factly, though his voice sounded much too young for his appearance. Banes wondered if it had anything to do with that damned bandage they had had to put on him when they found him bleeding and shouting in the desert a day and a half ago.

"George Markham. Well, it seems we don't have you on file, George, your fingerprints say your somebody else." George laughed at that, slamming one of his dirty hands on the table with a hoot.

"And who do my fingerprints say I am? Also, when did my fingerprints start speaking? I haven't heard them say anything!" He laughed again, and it was a hearty sound that in other circumstances might have made Banes smile a little.

"Oh they do," Banes played along, that was the trick with these kind of people, crazy people, you had to feed in to their lies a little to get a bit of truth in return. It was baby steps, give them too much information at one time, or press them too hard and they'd plunge head first into the deep end. Not that he had that much experience with people like that, not this crazy, "and they told me your name is Oliver Wilken."

"Wilken?" George muttered, sobering up instantly and meeting eyes with the chief. The dusty blue irises inside of his skull were wide with pleading, "No, no, Banes you gotta believe me. That guy is bad news. I have nothing to do with him, he's crazy. Absolutely bonkers, insane, and not the good kind either."

"Really?" Banes mused, folding his hands together as he watched.

"Yeah, take it from me, buddy. I don't know what you're looking for, but he ain't got the answers." Markham said, throwing his hands in the air.

"What makes you think I'm looking for something?" The chief asked with one of his eyebrows raised, grateful that there was a tape recorder under the table that he could listen to later. This was definitely going to be the most interesting interrogation he would ever be a part of.

"Well we're in an interrogation room, ain't we?" George asked with a small smile. "I might look stupid, chief, but I ain't." The chief smiled a little back, but what he really thought was that if the man used proper English his point might be better proven.

"So, George, what can you tell me about this box?" Banes asked, hoping his digging a little deeper wouldn't send the man back into his spiraling blabber of confusion.

"Box? I don't have no box." He said a little defensively, moving his eyes from the chief's.

"I know. But do you know about it?" Banes pressed a little, his voice still as placid as an untouched lake.

"I don't know about the damn box!" George yelled, his hands gripping his tangled white hair as he shook his head fiercely.

"George-"

"No! Listen," he shouted, pointing at Banes with one hand as the other gripped his hair tighter, "you don't know what you're getting yourself into-what you're bringing on. The man, he's crazy! Get rid of the box. Kill the man, and then live. Forget we ever came around, you'll be better off."

"We?" Banes asked, knowing that George was leaving fast by the looks of the way his eyes were rolling. With a grunt the man's elbows fell back to the table and his head slumped down to where Banes couldn't see his eyes. "Dammit," he sighed and leaned back into his chair.

"Oliver? Oliver Wilken can you hear me?" Banes asked loudly. Why was he talking like that? The man was in front of him, it's not like he would hear him any better if he increased the volume, that didn't change mental illness.

"She's gone," the man moaned, clenching his fists until the knuckles were white.

"Who's gone?" the chief asked, starting to become a little haggard with the routine of this.

"My love, she's gone." he wailed again, his shoulders starting to shake with small gasps.

"What was her name?" Chief Banes asked, wondering who these women were. One was dead, and one was going to be. One was an evil bitch from the likes of it and the other a perfect lover, or maybe there were none at all. But he had to know, because there was a reason this man wandered into their town and he would be damned if anyone got hurt because of him.

"Does it matter? She's gone now!" the man blubbered, still refusing to look up.

"Where did she go?" Banes asked patiently though he felt like screaming.

"She left--left me. I watched her- she left. Threw out the ring I gave her--and the bouquet."  he gasped in between heaves of his shoulders while his tears dripped onto the metal table.

"Why did she leave?" he asked slowly, trying to weave together the characters that seemed to share this one man.

"I'm alone now, all alone." he sighed.

"You're not alone, Oliver." Banes reassured, feeling the need to reach out and touch the man's forearm like he would do to his son.

"Oliver?!" The man hissed, bringing his tear stained eyes to the light. "I am not that bastard."

"Why do you dislike him so much?" Banes wondered aloud, letting his eyebrows knit together in confusion.

"Because he killed her! He stole her away from me!" the man yelled, slamming his fists on the table.

"Who?"

"Oliver!" he shrieked.

"No, who did Oliver take from you?" Banes clarified curtly.

"Her. Don't you get it? He killed the only girl I'll ever love, she had my heart and he killed her. I hate him." his voice broke in the middle of the scream as the tears came down faster.

"But aren't you Oliver-?" Banes started to ask, but was interrupted by the angry screeching of the man.

"Stop! Stop saying his name, you're going to bring him back, and no one can stand him!" and the same desperate look was in his eyes as the man, George Markham, before him.

"Bring him back from where?"Banes inquired, starting to wonder if the man was not only sick but possessed as well.

"Sleep-ugh!" he squeezed his eyes shut tightly then after a moment reopened them with a sigh. The change had occurred, Banes could see a whole new demeanor to the man by the way his eyes looked around the room, almost as if he understood why he was there.

"Who are you?" Banes asked flatly, feeling the circles starting to form under his eyes. This was exhausting, he doubted he would get any where this man.

"You know who I am," the man said as he stroked his chin, grimacing at the feel of it, "why else would you have me in here?"

"Actually," Banes corrected smartly, "I don't know who you are, because it seems to change every few seconds."

The man chuckled at that, and the youth in his eyes seemed to match the age of his voice. An early 30 year old, maybe even a late twenty year old.

"Now, I'm not that good of an actor. Surely I don't have you fooled to make you think I really am different people, do I?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"So you're just acting? Playing a little joke on us?" Banes asked with narrowed eyes, he was inclined to hit the man if it were the truth.

"Not necessarily," the man said with a sophisticated shrug. He looked like he belonged more in a suit in the middle of a court room than in torn clothes at a police station. "I mean, it's not on purpose, I assure you, but my problems aren't yours, right?" The smile that followed resembled that of a sales person.

"Depends, because it seems you're bringing your problems into my town." Banes growled, taking the intimidating approach, betting on the fact that this character could handle it.

"My problems and I are just walking through, if you let us go, we'd be on our way." The man said with a charismatic smile, looking even more goofy than before.

"And why exactly are you walking through?" the chief pressed.

"We've got business," he said with a shrug, " isn't that why anyone passes through here? Or do you have some secret sight seeing I didn't know about?"

"Why were you bleeding and yelling when we picked you up?" Banes asked, ignoring the jab.

"There was a fight, but you should see the other guy," he said with a wink, and Banes felt the urge to choke him halfway to death.

"Between who?" the chief asked in a strained voice, trying to keep his frustration at a disguised level.

"Listen, bud," Banes flinched a little at the endearment, "you don't need to know about me. Besides, what am I even doing in this dump?"

"You were causing a disturbance with your yelling as well as making death threats," Banes said coldly, letting his glare burn into the man who just shook his head with a chuckle in return.

"I formally apologize for the disturbance, as for the death threats who were they made to?" he asked, trying to hold back a smile.

"That's what we're trying to figure out." the chief answered, trying to read the guy.

He smiled wickedly, "I don't think you have much to hold me on, sir, with all due respect. If there's a fine I'll pay it, as for the death threat, it's just nonsense. I'm crazy, remember?" Banes wanted to kill the guy, or at least for the other versions to come back. The ones he could treat like children and strangle information out of.

"That's the thing, Oliver," the man clenched his teeth at the name, "I don't see anything in your records that says you are. No registered mental hospitals or even diagnoses of mental illness."

He leaned forward so that his face was only inches from the chief's when he said, "Well that's the thing that's scary about crazy people, Banes, is that they can blend in with everyone else for as long as they want without anyone knowing until one day, they just snap."

"And what made you snap, Wilken?" Banes whispered in a voice that sent goosebumps down his own back.

"Love. Love's the death of all things, Chief." he said with half of a smirk.

"And the box?" Banes asked, realizing that he had to let the man wander off at the end of the day. He had too much work to do, and he looked like the only real problem he was was to himself.

"What about it?" he said, leaning back into his chair.

"It's full of dirt, why's it so important?" he wondered, trying to feed his personal curiosities more than interrogate the man now.

"Maybe to someone who wasn't looking," the man said with a shrug as he rested his palms on the top of his head and tilted his chair back. And in the change of light Banes could see scars running across the man's tanned skin in all different directions on his arms and face.

"What happened to you?" he muttered in astonishment and the man clenched his teeth and closed his eyes for a moment.

"Bad things," he said lowly, "I got my heart stolen and I have yet to get it back, doubt I ever will."

"You too?" Banes asked, realizing that maybe he was closer to the answers than he thought.

"Who else?" he asked with his eyes still closed.

"The one before you, he was crying about his lover being gone, his heart being taken." Banes explained and realized that he was starting to sound crazy himself for feeding into it.

"Peter? Yeah, he's a crybaby. But his heart is mine too if that makes any more sense to you." he said quietly and it sounded almost like he was drifting to sleep.

"Oliver?" Banes asked, afraid that's what he was doing.

"I am heaven sent, don't you dare forget." the man mumbled and Banes could feel his hair on the back of his neck raise.

"What?" he asked, leaning forward so he could hear him better.

"I hope you come down with something they can't diagnose, something they can't find the cure for," he muttered as if it were playing off a recording in his head. A moment passed then he was scowling, his hands shaking with fury. "The bitch put a curse on me I swear it."

"What girl?" Banes inquired lowly.

"I think about you every day, and now I'm all alone." he whispered to himself. Banes couldn't ignore the electricity in the room, he was on the verge of understanding this man's story.

"You're not alone, Oliver. I promise that I'm right here." and again Banes wanted to comfort the man, less like his son now but more like he wanted to comfort himself. Like these problems were suddenly his now too.

"My friends, they're at the bottom of that lake. They don't swim because they're all dead." and realization slammed into Banes like a bullet. Right into the temple like a shot to the brain. Something hot leaked down his face and he touched it curiously, drawing his hand back red.

"Get it, Banes?" The man asked, his eyes open and burning now, "I'm not Oliver Wilken, you are." And suddenly those blue eyes were familiar, and the beard was no longer white but a grungy blonde. The missing tooth was one he had accidentally knocked out when he played football in high school and the gash in his forehead was from the car accident. The accident that killed her. Killed her and all his friends. The one that had sent them off the side of the cliff and into the lake they had been planning to spend the week at.


The car accident that killed his fiancee a week before their wedding day. The one that was 3 days after the worst fight they had ever had. The one where she told him that she wished he came down with something they couldn't diagnose, because he drove her as crazy as she drove him. 


"No, no, no!" Banes screamed as he realized it was just a mirror in front of him. It shattered then, plunging him into darkness.


"No!" Oliver screeched, waking to sweat covered sheets that entangled him like a snake. 


"Vera?!" He yelled, in the hardly lit apartment when he realized her side of the bed was cold. Tears streaked down his face when he realized it wasn't a dream but a waking nightmare, a view into himself and how crazy he'd become. He walked to the dresser across the room slowly, afraid of what rested on it. 


He traced the wooden lid lightly, like he used to trace Vera's thighs. He picked up the box gingerly, letting a sob break from his chest as he opened it. 


"When I die, you'll carry my ashes to where we first met, right? On the side of that highway in New Mexico where you saved me from dehydration and countless other things." He remembered her saying only a few months after they had started dating. 


"What other things did I save you from?" He had asked. 


"Well," she said, looking at him with those big green eyes, "you saved me from myself." 


"I promise." he muttered as he gazed into the box of gray ashes. And as he looked inside of that box he realized that that was the end of his road too. Because he hated the pain she'd left him with, and the world didn't make sense without her. And maybe when he layed that box in it's proper place she'd finally let her rest. 


Maybe he'd rest too. 

Letters

I look through those letters
The ones you gave me
Only a short time ago

I look at the writing
And the way your hand
Must have caressed the page

I look at the ink
And the spots where
You crossed out the words
That didn't fit just right

I look at the letters
And how each one was
Fashioned by the ends
Of your fingertips

And I realize
As I look through those letters
That they are
The language of love itself

That you are my Prince Charming
Even if you don't believe it

That you are a poet
Even if you don't like your handwriting

That you are my everything
And I am thrilled
To call you mine.