Shine, Baby. Shine
by Cricket
1st Place Winner 2005 Fireside Stories
Her pale blue eyes shone like the purest of diamonds, even in the night, the moonlight bouncing off teary pools, reflecting so much, none of which I was ready for. Why had she come all the way here? My eye twitched for a moment, and I had to will the tears back, myself. What was so important that she had to risk her health walking here in the dead of night?
“I’ve sort of had this crush on you…back when we first met. But I knew almost right off the bat that you didn’t see me the way that I saw you. But still I hoped…I tried, I believed that there was an inkling of a chance…just even a particle of a chance that maybe…lunch or dinner could end the way I imagined it happening in my head. With a hug…a kiss as you saw me to my door. A lingering look. That the future I’d dreamt about could possibly someday come true. But it didn’t take me long to realize that it would never happen.”
She paused, choking on her words, gasping for breath, and I just sat…like a stump, shocked into silence and wide-eyed.
“It’s like…physically painful, Fish….it’s almost as if I’m looking at the most beautiful thing in the world…something that I’ve wanted all my life, and it’s there…right there…so close that I feel like I could reach out and touch it. But it’s behind a wall of glass. And no matter how hard I try, I just can’t get to it. Can’t break the glass, y’know. To just be near you is all I ever really wanted, to lean against the glass and see you, know you’re there. And I’m glad to have you as a friend…I appreciate you, Fish.”
I was still silent. This, I did not know. I mean, the possibility of someone being able to love me was just so far beyond my reach until that searing moment in time, when her words stabbed into me like a red-hot poker. Right then, I felt tears well up in my eyes because this was my friend. My best friend, Switch. One of the few people in this world that I’d do anything for. And if I had it in me, felt like I could do it and mean it, I’d give her the future she wanted. The lingering look, the kiss, the hug, the house with a bedroom and a bathroom, a little dog, breakfast in bed and a ring on her finger. But those feelings just weren’t within me. I didn’t and probably never would see her the way she saw me because there are two kinds of people in this world: people who are meant to be with other people, and then there’s me…who doesn’t fit anyplace…is a loner and content with it. I just don’t carry the capacity to love. And I’m used to it by now. I loved Switch…but I could never be in love with her. I felt one tear drop beneath my eye patch, the saline fluid running down and rimming the bottom edge of the black fabric.
“I’m sorry…” was all I could say. Lame yet again. Someone had poured their heart out to me, and all I could afford was a minute response. A generic, pre-recorded playback of my choice phrases in life. “That’s too bad.” “I’m sorry.” “Wow.” “Heh…that’s funny.” How boring was I that I didn’t even know how to talk to people. I truly was sorry this time around, though, unlike the rest of the times in my life where I’d uttered those words because it seemed like the thing to do: the way to smooth things over. I was sorry, and she looked even more hurt right then.
“No…you don’t have to be sorry. I mean, I’m the one who came over here and busted up your perfectly good life. I did this, and I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable or whatever. I just felt like I needed you to know, so even if I were to die tomorrow, you’d know that you meant the world to someone. You seem sad sometimes….like no one ever told you that you matter, that they appreciate you for who you are. If you want me to go now, I can. I’ll understand.” I wiped away one tear, turning to her.
“You’re not dying, are you?” I asked. Kind of a stupid question, but I felt like I needed to ask. Why now. Why spill all of this over on me now. She only smiled and propped her head up on her fist.
“It doesn’t matter. We’re always dying, Fish. Every day lived is one closer to the end. So why not live every day like it’s the day before the end?”
I had never thought about it like that, and my finger moved to clear the moisture from around the bottom of my patch. Live every day like it was your last…the words had been uttered before, and I’d heard them, but this was the first time I’d ever really taken them for what they were, bothered to worry about what they meant. True enough, one did not have to be old or sick in order to die…it could happen in a mishap on these very stairs, the result of some bad food….that night at the club. It would have been so easy for me to lose my life right then, and I let the moment play back in my head. What did my stupid ass do? I went downstairs, right by the people with the gun. I thought I was doing the right thing, but I was just being reckless because….because I thought I might be invincible? Because things like that didn’t happen to people like me? Bullshit. I managed to muster up a smile, my very best ever just for her, and there was nothing pre-rehearsed about it, nothing fake or shrouded.
“For what it’s worth…” I managed to choke out as casually as possible, but it came out horribly strained. “I mean…you’re my best friend. And…I….love you. I can’t…I can’t be what you want me to be. But I can be there for you.”
I smiled again, and her ill, exhausted features seemed bright, new for a moment, shining with a certain sort of innocence, like a child whose parents just told them they were taking a trip to Disney World. “I mean, you’ll always have me.”
She smiled, moving in for one of those sudden hugs that I always told myself I’d be prepared for, and still three years later still caught me off-guard.
“You’ll always have me, too, Fish. Couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.”
And right that moment, with her bleach-blonde hair tied back with a pink bandana and plastered to her forehead with sweat, her powder-blue eyes dulled and tinged red with exhaustion, my God she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
That memory was always so fresh in my mind, as if it happened yesterday. One year later, as I kneel in front of her grave, I swear I can still hear her voice, still see the light from the porch lamp illuminating her like some kind of an ethereal angel too good for this world. And I cling to that memory because it’s all I have. Trace my fingers along the name printed on the headstone: Sadie Raaskazov. And those last words of hers replay over and over like a skipping record on a shelf too high for me to reach.
You’ll always have me, too, Fish. Couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.
Cystic fibrosis stole my best friend from me only a few days later, thrusting her into a life unconscious that very next morning to leave her lingering on the fringes of existence before releasing her to Heaven. That’s where I’m sure she went, even though she never quite made it to church, or never really grasped the concept of saying “bless you” when someone sneezed, bless her Russian heart. She was a good person. God would be right to want her close to Him. One year later, and I still couldn’t hold back the tears, still couldn’t keep from shutting down completely, couldn’t help being mad at her. She knew. She had to know, otherwise she wouldn’t have said anything. We would have just continued as usual, she at the upper bar and me at the lower, and we’d talk between sets, have a couple of shots. But it wasn’t that way anymore. Someone else worked the upper bar. I haven’t even been up there since then. I haven’t done a shot in months. It’s just not the same. Switch lied to me, as much as I knew in my heart (or liked to believe) that she didn’t want to. She said that I would have her, that she’d never go away, and surely enough, my only friend in the world was far from me now, so beyond my reach. That was when I started praying again. I prayed for some kind of a sign. A way to make amends. Perhaps a street lamp to come on in the dead of day, anything out of the ordinary like that. But a year had gone by. And I got nothing. I was alone in the world, with nothing but a headstone to keep me company.
“I miss you.” I said, as always, every week when I visited with that one lonely lily to put on her mound. “Of course, that’s nothing new. I bet you get sick of hearing that. Nothing new. Work sucks, as usual.”
I ran my fingers through my stiff black hair, momentarily stripping off my eye patch to wipe away a tear. I hated crying. With every fiber of my being, I hated it because I was not the type to cry often, and so when I did, it was almost like a confirmation. A confirmation of everything that was bad and horrible in my mind, of every dread I’d ever felt deep down. Crying illuminated my fears, called attention to them like striking Technicolor in a world of black and white. And I didn’t want Sadie to see me cry. Sure, I knew she was dead, and it made it feel almost like I had to be twice as strong now, for the both of us. When I would go home tonight, I would go, sit down on my comfy couch and drink some lemonade while I watched TV. But Sadie didn’t have a couch or a TV. All she had was a solitary little underground box all to her lonesome. And only I knew that she was afraid of being alone in the dark. And of small spaces. Because she always told me, even though I remembered it from the first time she said it.
The sky was getting dark now. We had been getting hurricane advisory warnings on our coast for a good long while, and I think tonight is going to be the payoff. The sky was pitch black with malice, even though it was only around 3pm, and I had the sneaking suspicion that the bar would be closed tonight, though I wouldn’t be surprised if I was wrong. Massacre of our fair Bayou would be a prime reason for people to come out and get sloshed out of their minds. Bracing a hand against the cold soil (I wondered if Sadie was cold down there. I wondered if they perhaps covered her up before sending her down there), I pushed myself into a stand and started off home. “I’ll see you tomorrow, as always.” I said, casting a look back over my shoulder before taking off at a jog home.
It was like being caught in the city dump’s wind tunnel. I ran against the wind, tearing through it like a knife, litter spiraling through the air, pelting me like so many angry birds dive-bombing from the air. Something lightly slammed me in the back of the neck, and I reached back as I covered my head with my other hand. A tattered piece of pink fabric. Probably some discarded, useless remnant from someone’s creation. I thoughtlessly tossed it back into the wind as I half expected a dog or perhaps a small child to slam me in the back of the head next and totally take me out, so I tried to run faster, stumbling from time to time in my thong sandals.
I turned down my street, still running, veering over to the sidewalk and still covering my head. I could see my house in the distance, so beautiful, like the only house in existence in a vast, fiery wasteland. It shone like a beacon, and it just made me want to run that much faster. I clopped up the stairs, turning around momentarily to gaze upon what just could have been the end of existence as we knew it. The street was like a refuse graveyard: fast food bags, cups, garbage bags, and clothes torn from clotheslines lining the sidewalks and lawns as far as I could see. Another torrent of wind ripped through, causing the street signs to creak and sway very unsettlingly. I felt something brush against the bare top of my foot and looked down. That pink fabric. It had somehow made its way to my porch, and as I bent down to pick it up, a little blonde paw reached out from my bushes, pinning it down.
“Hey there, little one.” I said, stooping down and peering into the hollows of the bush, clear-blue eyes looking back out at me, little mouth opening in a slightly pitiful meow. A little kitten, pale yellow-orange with long fur. I reached in with cautious hands, gently lifting it out, smoothing out tousled fur. I looked her over…no collar. It didn’t surprise me. Stray cats were roughly half the population around here. Her large, sparkling eyes stayed trained to the pink fabric in my other hand.
“Is this what you want?” I said playfully, whispering playful Punjabi into her large, half-folded ear. I sat down on the step for a moment, carefully folding the fabric and rolling it, tying it around the kitten’s neck, just like a little bandana. “Ah, perfect.” I said gently. The perfect look for the perfect kitten. Another wind kicked up, this time sending a large garbage can barreling down the road. That was more than the sign I needed that it was time to go inside. As I turned and prepared to open the door, out of the corner of my eye, I could see an illumination. I turned, and a single street light was on, flickering before burning steadily. I chalked it up to being dark on account of the storm. Until I realized none of the other lights were on. It was the only one, shining down on my house through the darkness. And I couldn’t help but feel warm and smile. I supposed this was the part where I say something cheesy to the embodiment of my dead friend, flickering and shining and shedding light on my home in the heart of impending destruction. This was the part where I was supposed to say something like “You’ve got me forever” or “I’ll always be there for you”, say this to a street lamp and a kitten who only barely in a sense resembles her, but that would make me crazy, wouldn’t it? This would be the kind of thing we’d laugh about when we saw someone do it on TV, mock them for the next three weeks and make fun because it was so utterly absurd. No, Sadie knew how I felt, it went without saying. So instead, I just cast a nod to the street lamp, still holding the fuzzy little bandana-ed kitten before opening the door and going inside. But just because I didn’t say it didn’t mean I wasn’t thinking it. And I felt just as guilty of being one of those sentimentally cheesy people thinking it . But I thought it proudly, still.
Shine, baby. Shine.