The
time is around 11pm and the place is the same couch from before.
The long summer of 2001 has given way to a brisk evening in the
ninth year of our existence together. It will be the final autumn
anything will matter for a few autumns. All is silent as we try
to read Aeschylus for our class. A few lights shine down bright
from above. A security guard yawns as he passes by, tipping his
hat at us.
Drew sighs. Theresa announced a few
hours ago that there would be no funny stuff until they got their work
done. Drew just wanted to be set free from this painful
existence. Go out and spend, they proclaimed. That'll show
those fucking ay-rabs. The mall was its own special existence.
The sorority girl with the red, white, and blue acrylic nails
from their morning class, which they had stopped going to, passes this
hall.
Drew adjusts his position on the couch. He
props himself on his arms. By now he has memorized the order of
their existence. Everyday he saw Amber, dead over a month now, in
a face, or an arm, or a smell. Theresa is silent next to him, not
acknowledging Drew so he will focus. It's these waking moments
that are the hardest to bear. They used to be able to just wish
it all away, vanish into the woods, into other more non-existent
worlds.
Today, it is just Drew and Theresa. All the
good dreams and worlds that used to guard them are crumbling. The
original evil, that good old friend, is beginning to terrorize them.
Sometimes Drew wanted to fight his own War On Terror against
these evildoers.
Theresa cleared her throat. Time to go finish The Oresteia.