All this glass

She's got all this glass laying around. There's still a damp spot on the couch from Alan's sweat. She's the only one left in the apartment and her mark is as dark as ever. Plus she's got all this glass laying around. What would you do?

I reckon you'd go home to your daddy.

So there's all this glass laying around, and some sand, and she's spilling saltwater everywhere as she repeats a mantra into meaninglessness.

I'm not one of them not me I'm not one...

But Alan is gone and she's pretty sure he's one of them, which weakens her own case considerably. And she's got a mark on her hand, and all this glass laying around.

Things go on in this vein long past sunset, when the street lamps turn on outside her window and make all that glass glitter and sing. And she keeps bringing her heavy eyes back to her wrists and studying the spiderwebs there and contemplating all the rushing fluid in that river.

So she picks up a piece of glass. There is so much of it just laying around and singing.

Nica is not religious. She's not sure if Judas killed himself, or if perhaps he invested his silver in Google stock and lived a long and prosperous life. This is what runs through her head, though, as she takes the glass to the spiderwebs and pours the river out onto the carpet.

Not me not me I guess we'll see...

So there is all this glass laying around, and sand, and saltwater, and all these beautiful rubies, and a woman lying on top of it all whispering something about bad timing.

What did Daddy say? That you can only run out of breath. Right.

And she does.

 

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Going for a walk

"You're free, Kemp. I'm taking the glass from your hand."

He's not sure if he should feel relief. How unfair is that? How cruel is it to get a stay of execution, while Alan is led out of the apartment by the strange and crippled Albert?

But he does feel relief, a flood of it, drowning everything else. He can't even bring himself to curse and spit at Nica. Instead, he waits until the men's backs are far down the street, then walks out wordlessly.

Then there is only Nica, with a hand full of glass and a bowl full of sand.

 

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Drink of it

Nica imagines herself making an omelet. Breaking a few eggs and all that.

She taps an hourglass against the side of her bowl until it cracks. She reaches her fingertips into the glass, pulling it open, pouring sand into the Tupperware. Take this and eat of it, this is my body.

The splinters dig into her skin. Drops of red on the sand. Take this and drink of it, this is my blood.

Whose blood? No, not hers.

She opens her eyes, walks to Alan, and quiets him. "You go with Albert now, baby. Everything's gonna be OK."

Judas and Pilate take communion together. No one else could possibly understand.

 

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Papery and pale

The continuing tale of Nica & the Timers

Over the last few hours, Alan's skin has gone papery and pale. He's coughing so loudly they can barely hear the small, polite knock on the door. It doesn't need much force behind it. Our heroes freeze.

Albert lets himself in. "You can't even open the door for a crippled old man?"

Alan stifles a cough.

"Sweetheart," says Albert. Nica looks him in the eye. "You have two choices."

"One. You can let Alan keep deteriorating. I don't give a bloody hell if he dies, I have nothing to do with it. I only help decide what it accomplishes."

"Two. You can end his suffering. Do some good with it."

"You can't run, Nica. You will only run out of breath."

She briefly considers arguing. Alan begins a new coughing fit.

 

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Less today than yesterday

The continuing tale of Nica & the Timers

They've decided to wait at Nica and Kemp's apartment for Albert. Alan is coughing. There's a little blood drying around the corners of his mouth. When did this start? Did he get hurt in the alley? Nica doesn't think so.

She washes dishes while she waits. If she's going to die tonight, she wants to leave behind a clean kitchen. She wishes she could wash the tattoo off her hand. It looks darker and malevolent with the steaming water running over it.

Nica was wrong. They do not have a plan. She's hoping she can talk their way out of it, appeal to her father's... humanity. And how human is she? Less today than yesterday.

They only know they will run out of breath. What did they accomplish last time? Widening the circle of wanted and buying time for a drink.

Nica closes her eyes. The running water sounds like sand cascading over her head and filling her ears.

 

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You will run out of breath

The continuing tale of Nica & the Timers

The tumblers have been drained and the bar abandoned. There's nowhere to hide - you can't hide. Albert, gimp leg and all, knows exactly what you're doing. He can smell the whiskey on your breath from twenty-six hundred miles away. And he's a bit jealous of that, which does nothing for his mood.

The facts are this:
1. You can't beat a Timer.
2. You can kill a Timer, but he'll resurrect himself like Zombie Jesus.
3. You can't hide from a Timer. You can only hope to outrun him for a while.
4. You will run out of breath eventually.
5. You can't beat a Timer.

Albert has learned to walk again. He even fashioned three replacement toes out of rotten meat and paraffin. He may have a crippled human's center of balance, but he has an animal's instinct and the inevitability of the Universe.

Albert's coming for you, sugar.

 

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In which Nica spells it out

The continuing tale of Nica & the Timers

She's a bourbon drinker, and the boys don't have anything on her. And she's drinking like it's a Catholic funeral.

Which it sort of is.

She would look so pretty with a gloss of blood on her lips.

"There's a whole world of people who would call what we have to live with a gift," she spat. "Fucking morons. Fucking civilians."

"It saved my life," said Alan.

"For now."

Glasses are raised to lips and dropped back down to the table. Alan stares into the amber liquid; can't meet anyone's eyes. These could be our last drinks together. We should toast something.

"So why?" asked Kemp.

"How can we not? That's the beauty of our situation. You can see the marks, you can see the Timers, you know exactly when death is coming. And this gives you the opportunity to do something about it. Gives you the imperative. But it's all a lie. There's not really anything you can do. You kill them, and they'll come back. You save someone, and you just kill them more slowly. You interfere, and they mark you. You run, and they catch you."

When you want to see how deep the ocean is, you can't worry about consequence. We're swimming now, we'll wait to see who drowns.

Kemp motioned for another round. "Do we have a plan?"

Nica does.

"I'll deal with Daddy myself."

 

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Every Bell & Tick

Last night I got on the train looking for Nica. I looked all through the elementary school and the orphanage, but she wasn't there. I tripped over saw palmettos running through pine trees. I knew she was just ahead of me. Last night the clouds shook with every bell and tick. She couldn't wait for me. Nica's out there somewhere. Tick tick tick. Her footprints are deep, and that means she's running.

 

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We'll Need Coffee

1: Beating the Timer
2: Learning to Walk
3: Flores para los muertos

4: We'll Need Coffee

Nica lit a Camel, took two drags, and threw it on the decomposing body, already losing its glammer. It flashed like gunpowder, reflecting in her eyes. Light green eyes, almost yellow, Kemp thought. Then she turned away from him and marched toward the front of the alley.

"We'll need coffee," she says.

Right into Shoney's. As though that wasn't the first place they'd come. But the fugitives would be gone by then. Nica'd bought some time.

Time. Don't trust that word.

But of course they're delaying the inevitable. You can't become immortal.

"All-day breakfast buffet. Don't you love it?"

They didn't love it. But they were hungry. So all three filled plates.

And got a table by the window. Just in case.

Nica lifted a heaping fork of dirty rice into her mouth and glared at Alan. "Hacky wha na fuh oo cotton uh inu?"

"That's gross, Nica, swallow your food before you start swearing at me."

The bacon is burnt just the way he likes it. But the salt shaker makes him think of slugs. Albert dissolving like a slug.

"Seriously, Alan, you've got us in some deep shit here."

"Well," says Kemp, sarcasm dripping down his chin, "please tell me all about it, dollface, because I just helped you kill something out there. And you're fucking welcome, Alan."

"And who the hell else would I have called?" Alan spat back. "What exactly was I supposed to do?"

"Shut up, boys, everyone's staring at us."

The waitress finally filled their coffee cups, eyeing them suspiciously. They smiled and waited.

"You were supposed to die," Said Nica. "But I guess if I believed that, I wouldn't have come running in like fucking double-O-seven, eh?"

"And now," said Kemp, "I'd like to know why we went running in there like fucking double-O-seven."

"Kemp." Quietly. Nica'd been robotic efficiency. Which was scary as hell. But the desperation, the pity in Nica right now? Kemp thought that was scarier.

"How can I explain? It's a gift which, if you'd never watched someone die, you'd never know you had. I've known about the Timers a long time. I've known death a long time."

"Alan, not until he was 20. And you, Kemp, that's what you've seen. Seen. But you still don't know shit. And thanks to Alan, you've gotta learn quick."

the windows we haven't been watching the windows

"Everyone done with their coffee? Because I think we'll need something stronger."

She slammed enough cash on the table to pay for everyone and apologize to the waitress. Maybe bribe the waitress, in case she'd recognized the crimson flowers on their hands and shirts and shoes. Slammed it down hard enough to rattle a vase of wilted roses and baby's breath pushed behind the napkins and salt and ketchup.

"Wilted," said Alan.

"Yes, flowers wilt, things die, how poetic and observant of you, Alan," said Kemp.

"No. No they wilted when the Timer came near. Or maybe they wilted for us."

He held out his hand. Held out his mark. His hourglass, his timer.

Nica wasn't quite ignoring them. But her only response was, "flores para los muertos."

"Nica!" Kemp was close to panic. And it didn't help that no one else seemed to be. "Does this mean we're Timers? Are we Timers now?"

"No. I figure it means we've got pickups scheduled."

She lifted the dead flowers from their vase and walked out of the restaurant, not even waiting for Alan and Kemp to finish eating.

Outside the door she... stopped... walked back into the alley. Laid her flores on ashy residue that called itself Albert.

"Red Room Lounge okay?"

"Aren't we on a schedule?"

"We're on their schedule. May as well work with that."

 

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Flores para los muertos

Illustrations for the continuing "Nica & the Timers" tale.

1: Beating the Timer
2: Learning to Walk

 

 

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Learning to Walk

1: Beating the Timer

 

Edited as of 5/17/05

Nica set the body on fire before she and her friends nonchalantly walked into Shoney's for a breakfast buffet.

This did slow Albert down a touch. It's hard to adjust to a new body. Walking's always a bitch.

Humans could never have been intended to walk. They certainly aren't designed for it. The center of balance is up in the chest, close to their ridiculously heavy skulls. The feet are too narrow, the inner ear too dull, the ankles impossibly fragile. Albert felt a tickle in his human nose, tried to brace himself, then sneezed and fell over on his ass.

Losing the old body was just an inconvenience. But a hell of an inconvenience nonetheless.

Reattaching neurons and learning to walk was hard enough in a human body - and why they had to insist on inefficient human bodies, Albert couldn't comprehend - but it was even harder when you inherited one with more obvious injuries. This one had a grand total of seven toes and a malfunctioning artificial knee.

"I am the great and mighty monster come to take your soul!" he bellowed. What a joke.

He started laughing, and fell over again.

 

3: Flores para los muertos

 

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Beating the Timer

Edited as of 5/17/05
It began as a dream...

This one called himself Albert. He'd cornered Alan in the alley behind Shoney's.

But he'd also cornered himself.

Nica thought it was the lead pipe in the Conservatory. Kemp bet on the glass bottle in the alley.

Nica saw the relief in Alan's face when he caught sight of her and Kemp silently marching in, putting the Timer between Alan and themselves.

"Albert!!"

The Timer turned, black eyes flashing.

"Nica. You have to let me do my job"

"I ain't gotta do shit."

She swung the pipe into his temple.

She heard a cracking noise. But first, during the slow-motion sling, even as the splashing connection traveled through her arm, she heard a melodic sound. Like a windchime as it danced with the air.

Thick black blood leaked into his eye.

"Last warning, daughter-"

But Alan's foot in his neck knocked the words loose.

Kemp took out the eyes with broken glass.

There is no feeling, no thought, no relief in this silent moment.

"Are you okay, Alan?" asked Nica.

"Yeah."

"Savor it," gurgled the shrinking Timer. "You know I'll have to come after you now, love?"

"I know." Nica can look him in the eyes. Or in what was once the eyes.

The regret in his face slackened. She saw the tattoo on the Timer's hand, then the entire hand, begin to fade.

And watched the hourglass take shape on her own hand, between her thumb and index finger.

I know.

 

2: Learning to Walk

 

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