Swell Zine: Chase

Chase picks me up from the airport. I can't wait to see his silly eyes. He talks like a regular person about regular things. We both know when we're together we're superhuman. When he's in gear his papery hand covers mine and he stops talking. There's no reason we can't find other people, closer people. He's got his sunroof open and the sky opens up above our heads like a blue void. I can't remember all the nights I was alone in the last year, the nights I could have bent metal. They don't exist anymore. It's hot. We stare at the sun with our fly eyes and I wonder how it doesn't make noise. Maybe it's so loud we evolved to tune it out. There must be a trillion photons bouncing off my skin. He wears polos in the most amazing way. We don't have to work today.

A doorbell is ringing, a tiny gong, a cymbal, every half second or second. Every time my head hits the backboard I stop being able to think. My mind has blinders. My name doesn't matter. I'd like to be beaten. Chase has weird tan lines, but in the dark there's no difference. I bite his finger. He smells different than me. You're a waiter, you're a lover, you're a legend. You don't fit into any cup I try to pour you. Your hand starts to bleed. I drink it, we're elemental; you're the Earth and I'm Fire. I know there must be something here that isn't everywhere else. Somewhere far away a grandfather clock counts sheep. In my dreams I'm a shambolic fraud, desperate and faking it. He wakes me up in the morning, and with all the white around I start to forget. You're my crucible.

That weekend his friends take us out on their boat. All the boys and then me. It's been five days. Everyone can smell it on me now, and they smile. The sun is miraculous, the things it does. We wear sunglasses and scowl, we're a Prada ad. I sit on the prow and sunbathe. I sit up and let the wind blow in my hair. What if it was short and brown instead of long and blonde? He calls to me from the rail, he's holding a beer. I take my top off for him and don't care if his friends see. He smiles and his mouth opens and I can't see his eyes. I taste freedom. The air is humid and sweat gathers in strange patterns on my skin, mixes with spray and melts its way down my sides. Five years go by while we're on that boat, looking at each other. Between us are beaches and waves, the tide and caves.

When I fly home I laugh the whole way. I look like I have two black eyes. The plane chases the sun and the oxygen masks drop down. The new year chases the old one out and you feel a pulse, like something could really change this time.

I don't recognize my passport photo. In the air I think about it too hard and east and west are the same thing. Night and day happen at the same time. I'm here for three months on the company's dime. I don't know anything of work. Chase is late but I'm not. When he drives, my teeth are clenched. We argue about yield signs. He doesn't know where we are. Our sentences don't fit together. The weather's grey.

He tells me he wants to buy a motorcycle and I think of a tableau: a grey field with yellow and red stripes and splotches. My throat feels tight like I swallowed something whole. There are spiderweb-white lines in between my fingers. Did I want to have a child with you? I taste salt water and try to remember the summer. We fight but it's all a preamble. We listen to music at maximum volume and don't fight. Did I even know there was a volume knob? I could hold him from behind.

Call me Yoko. His friends turn their backs to me. It's loud and I can't hear them even when they speak right at me. When I drink I feel walls go up, not down. I've got a guy I started to see back home, but that's a bad joke. Chase says to me, I get to dance with you tonight, and it reaches back across time, it's deep and primal. It feels like a threat. He can't see what I see in their eyes, like velvet curtains descending. Get the hook. I had paradise for three months, and I wonder how long they had.

When I fly home I wear the eye mask but it doesn't work. A kid next to me whose parents aren't around vomits into the air sickness bag and smiles at me. He doesn't know where we are. I close the shade on the windows against the black. I wish the sun would take it away.

Kevin Standifer is a native Texan living in Chicago. When he's not writing, he works in the Loop, attends to his cat, sleeps on public transportation, and volunteers. His favorite places on the planet are Muir Woods and Tokyo.