You know what's weird.

(censored)

That's what's weird.

I like it, though.

Na-na-na-na-na-na!

Na-na-na-na-na-na!

Spiderwoman!

---

That is all.

It's kinda like I might be holding a winning lottery ticket for a gazillion dollars.

Except that there's a slight catch. I have to walk across the country to find out if I've won.

No big deal, I think. Totally worth it if I win.

Except then there's another slight catch. The prize could expire at any minute, without warning, before I get there.

Oh, and it might end up being Monopoly money, too.

Oh yeah, and I've already been walking for a very long time.

I think that what really gets me is that nobody gets me.

I mean, I know exactly what I'm trying to say, and I usually manage to blurt out the correct words, but nobody really understands. Being an eternal optimist, I choose to believe that people don't want to understand, instead of that they're all just idiots.

Remember this dude?

You know what's worse than screams?

He stays down there almost all of the time lately. Down in the dungeon of my mind. The doors are not locked. He's free to come and go as he pleases. But he seems to prefer it down there. Or, at least, he prefers the darkness to the light.

His screams were so loud. They cut straight through me.

I feel for him. I really do. After all, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for him. Faced with that which neither of us could survive alone, the two of us together somehow pulled through. An unbeatable team bound, for a while at least, by parallel goals.

To endure. To live. To persevere. To exist.

To wait.

His screams were so piercing, but at least they showed strength. A will to keep trying, to keep fighting. His screams reminded me of those long-ago days and nights when we screamed together in horrible harmony.

You know what's worse than screams?

All I hear now is soft sobbing. And it keeps getting softer.

Well, that asshole grew himself a pair of balls or something. He started venturing into the open, becoming more and more bold. Rambling on and on and on about his damn feelings and desires and hopes and expectations.

He damn near ruined everything, the fucker. For both of us.

Fuck that.

I had to do something. So, the other night after he got drunk, I dragged his sorry ass down to the dungeon. I threw him into his cell, and then I locked the fucking door.

Maybe I should have just shot him in the head, put him out of our misery, but I didn't. Some weird sense of loyalty overcame me at the last minute. Some leftover feeling of brotherhood, perhaps, or maybe just plain old pity.

That poor wretched stupid asshole.

He'll probably rot in that cell.

Better him than me, though.

It was supposed to snow last night. They said it was supposed to snow.

Damn no-snow-having waste of cold weather.

We talked about it a little, the other day. How effortless it had all been. Our hands exploring bodies that we seemed to already know. Our mouths tasting flavors that seemed oh so familiar. Always just the right pressure. Always just the right balance of passion and intimacy. It really was like we were made for each other.

And then, in stark contrast, our minds fumbled. They refused to interlock the way our bodies did. Soon enough we found that our only comfort was in silence, because anything more would say too much.

It ended, eventually, as these things often do. Age differences and education differences and lifestyle differences were the excuses that we used to soften the truth. The truth that there simply was no real future between us. The truth that she was too wild for me, that I was too stable for her. And, of course, the awful truth that my heart already belonged to another.

She didn't understand that last truth. But how could she? I barely understood it myself. Sometimes you just know.

So we decided to end it with a bang, so to speak, as these things often end. One last night doing the things at which we excelled together.

In silence, of course.

More words would have ruined it.

I suppose that I'm pretty good at waiting. As I should be, what with all the practice I've had.

But still, I'd like to be better at it. I know that I can be better at it, and I'm not really sure why I suck so much sometimes. Probably something to do with the difference between impatience and anticipation. It's a thin line there, I think. Like the proverbial you-know-what hair.

Anyway, now I find myself waiting. Maybe for nothing, maybe for something. I asked, and now I wait for a response. I do that a lot, it seems.

Worth the wait?

Certainly, as long is this newfound pseudo-patience of mine pays off.

And if it doesn't?

Well, then maybe tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that.

It's not like I've got anything better to do.

I was going to say please stand by, but that would be mean if I end up never writing here again.

How do I write about the end of something, if I never really wrote about the thing itself?

Somehow, that's all, folks just doesn't seem appropriate.

How do I write about the end of a life, if that life turned out to have been meaningless?

Somehow, ta-da! just doesn't seem to cut it.

I need to stop writing now. I've got too much to say.

RockGirl's boyfriend can be so sweet to her sometimes.