Neurosis

Him

"Take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic." - Marty McConnell

· · ·

I remember the first black string I saw, but not many after.

When I was younger, at Christmas time, my family always drove around the city for hours on end, looking at Christmas lights. That was before my mom got her job at the new laboratory in the city, and before my father found himself, or whatever he found, in alcohol. Every year we went, as soon as the sun had set, until the early hours of in the morning. It got so cold and the car's heater would never work; it must've been the snow but none of us ever thought to get it fixed. Alena and I packed the back seats with every blanket in the house, and she would always steal the blankets on my side of the car. I could never get her to give them back, so I would push up to her seat and we would sit together, half under blankets, and she would get annoyed but by the end of the night, we were too cold to care. My father would always stop at a servo to by chips and chocolate and my mom would grill him about not spending too much money but he would always come back out with the most expensive flower bouquet they sold. My mom would dry and press one of the flowers and put it in a frame above her bedside table, one for each year we were together. These days, there aren't any new flowers, and I think that I the only reason they're still above her bedside table is because no one has bothered to take them down yet.

It would get so dark. The first black string I saw reminded me so much of the cold, dark Christmas nights.

I don't remember the other black strings I saw in the days following, but the first one stayed with me, sticking into my spine, threatening to break me. There are some things in life that possess that kind of power; not many, but they are there. I found out what the strings meant two weeks after seeing the first. I was determined to not let the strings bother me, and so each day I went out into the main street next to my house and sat by the edge of the road, watching the red threads swim amongst the cars and busy people, color crimson laced between unknowing souls. Most, I observed, had the red string wrapped around their wrist, and only every few people were connected. Only a few were with who they were destined for, I realised. Some had strings running far off into the distance, through trees and houses, but many had not be matched yet, and I wondered if it was something to do with how guarded they were. I wondered if you could hide who you were paired with, or if you could change who you were destined for. It was only until the second day after I saw the black string that I noticed a red string wrapped around my wrist. I had tried to brush it off, but my hand passed through the string seamlessly.

I had so uneventfully found out what the black strings meant, I missed it at first. I was sitting next to the main road, watching the people, my chest feeling heavy. I had been sitting there for hours, thinking about the red and black but more than anything, thinking about Alex. Where he touched my arm my skin itched and burned, a dull quiet feeling. I ran my fingers along the part of my arm he had laid his hand on, over and over, mindlessly scratching the tingling feeling on my skin. The electronic billboard across the main road showed all the news, but I rarely watched. I didn't have interest in what was happening in other parts of the world. Why should I? But around mid day, after a few hours sitting in the dust, I saw the small girl who had been connected with the black string on the big screen. Cars drove past, unaware, but I stood up immediately, my eyes glued to her flashing picture.

As it turns out, she had been murdered by a man of about forty earlier in the morning. I remember feeling sorry, but I didn't think that it was a coincidence that she should be the one that was murdered, and I didn't recognize the man either. Thinking back, I wonder how I didn't recognize him. Sitting on the side of the road, I always took a writing book, and I drew. I drew everything that I could remember, from Jennifer at the end of the jetty to Alex standing in the streets in front of me, glowing and beautiful. I drew the black string connecting the girl and the man, I drew every moment I could remember, until my fingers were raw and red. I lost my phone out there one day, although I can't remember caring. Ever since that night I met Alex, it was useless.