Glass

just so you know i've never done this before so we're both going into this blind. unless you've done this before.

i have never hotwired a car before, no. but you're the career criminal here.

i wouldn't call myself a career criminal.

career terrorist.

perfect. that's me. do you have the links i sent you open?

yeah.

it is a valley of dying cars. an alleyway tucked between two concrete skyscrapers that is almost a hundred times as long as it is wide. it is one and a half cars wide and the ground is cracked pavement. if i look upwards i will feel like i am suffocating, so i do not. there are five, six, seven, maybe more abandoned cars in here, past owners whisked away into the infinite city. i hate this place. i do not like this place. out of the corners of my eyes are the silhouettes of men with three arms, melting eyes, hanging out of the windows, stalking, waiting. when i look at alex's face they disappear. people, real people, walk past the alley. they do not see us. i cannot see the sun from here.

he's carrying a black backpack, same size as mine. inside his is screwdrivers, different sizes, a black marker, pliers, wire splitter, water bottle, hammer (this one i'm not sure what for), roll of black electrical tape, scissors, spare lime hoodie. he's crouched down, rifling through all the stuff. he's set the bag down on the hood of one of the cars, a broken-down, silver animal at least 30 years of age, headlights like fierce square eyes. it's an ugly, mechanical thing. it's beautiful to me.

okay. let's get started i guess.

he picks up the hammer and swings it hard against the glass. it shatters into a thousand gray diamonds and he reaches through the broken window and opens the door from the inside.

shit. we already broke the first step.

what's step two?

it doesn't fit inside. damn.

did you bring another screwdriver? one that's a different size?

yeahhh. wait one moment. can you use the flashlight.

sure.

okay this one fits but it didn't work.

i'm standing outside the car and he's tooling, hacking away at it from the inside. he's swept the glass shards to the shotgun seat and the flashlight makes them glitter, he's hunched over feeling around for anything, something. the alleyway tightens. it's cold.

man i was never good at stuff like this.

let me try it?

we swap positions. there's something in the back seat. i take the screwdriver to the steering column, as outlined in step 3, take my mind off the thing in the back seat. it comes loose and out comes a tumble of colored wires down the hatch, six, seven, ten, all curled up on one another like pulsing nerves.

my fingers are too tiny for this shit. and i can't see anything. hand me the phone i'll read out the steps for you. and the light if you need it.

into the batteries. yeah. simple. i find it, take it in my hands and hold the bundle up to the flashlight. i don't think about the thing in the backseat or the thing staring at us further down in the alley.

i found it. what's next?

okay. do you have the pliers?

one sec.

the wires are too small and the pliers are too big and everything is too dark and too bright at the same time but i'm good, every second i spend concentrating on the wires i don't spend looking out the car window or in the backseat and the air inside the car is stale and dead and the glass on the shotgun seat has cut into the leather a little. he's holding the flashlight steady in the ever-constricting alleyway and it's getting hot and suffocating in the car but i strip the insulation off and the metal wiring reveals itself like a snake's tongue, forked and jagged and venomous to the touch.

it catches me by surprise, how easy it is. the lights turn on at once. the obsolete, sputtering roar of a vehicle that has been dead longer than it has been alive starts, and everything starts vibrating around, cold trapped air blasting out of the vents. i look at the backseat and there's nothing there. the alleyway widens.

fuck. shit. nice. nice nice. goddamn. you're sick with it.

that wasn't so hard actually.

look at you. natural.

so should we go?

he opens the passenger door and swipes the glass shards onto the ground, gets in. he tapes up the ends of the wires and i feel around for the gas pedal with my feet. awkward, not-yet-learned movements. he puts my bag and his in the backseat (the empty backseat where no one is), and out of the corner of my eyes he's got an excited, proud look on his face, look at you, you did it, my friend. the car moves as if it has long forgotten how to, and it is much struggle but i maneuver it out of the alleyway and into the wide empty road. it is not much, it is ugly and old and rusting and weak but it is ours. as we make our way out of the city he puts his elbows up on the dashboard and looks outside, excited, talking to me about something, anything, and i set everything aside for a few brief moments to listen. the sun is beautiful today.

---

ah. shit. ow. nathan.

what?

glass. i cut myself bad.

we stopped a few kilometres out past the city limits, in the same grass again. we stand outside the car and he's holding his bleeding wrist by the side as his other hand rifles through his bag looking for something.

i have bandages and some water in my bag.

really? can you help?

yeah. don't worry. sit down on the road?

i pull my bag out and set it down next to him. he's crouched down on the asphalt still nursing the wrist in his hands and the sun is beating down on the black tar of the road, stretching out far beyond the horizon. i take his bloodied wrist in my hands and i rinse it off with my water, and he sucks air in through his teeth, wincing at the sting. the wound is deep enough to worry about. it cuts aslant upwards, down his wrist to slightly above the base of his palm.

you have any spare clean clothes?

there's a jacket in my bag. god. i tried to reach through the window. i'm so dumb.

alright. it's okay. i'll get it and you have to press it against your wrist for ten minutes. stem the flow.

okay. thanks. sorry.

i'll wrap you up after.

you still wanna keep driving after?

i don't see why not.

ten minutes pass and he pulls the jacket from his wrist, the lime now stained a rusting brown. the layer of skin below the outermost layer, the dermis, is pale white before the blood runs it red. bleeding does not stop after ten minutes, but it is slowed significantly, and the blood comes down not in a steady, collecting stream but in spots on the surface of the white, like stars coming alive. i rip the roll of bandages with my teeth, holding his forearm in my left hand, and i am too focused to notice the softness of his skin, or how he looks at me when i wrap his wrist up, it's a look i would not have recognized or deciphered regardless but it's a look that would have stopped me dead in my tracks, sent me running. i do not notice it. maybe that is for the best. i let go of his wrist when i'm done, say let's go, if you're okay to, and he says yes, i am okay to. we start the car up again and we go.

and as the sun sets, as the odometer ticks, as the fuel empties, the blood in his hands slowly creeps upwards, out of the ruptures in the vessels of his wrists, through capillaries, arteries, veins, up, spotting into his flesh, and the bandage wrapped around his wrist saturates and saturates with a sluggish but unstoppable supply of fresh blood. it soaks into the fabric, sticks, fills all the space it can fill. it seeps out of him. it's red and it's infinite and it's inside him and it's ugly and it is making itself known, insisting upon its presence - i am here, it whispers, and i am part of you now, and you feel something and you are not sure what. it is only going to continue, the bandage is only going to get bloodier and bloodier. when he cuts the cloth loose and replaces it, or when your hands touch as you reach for the same drink, or when he looks at you in that way he never has before, you will feel the same way you feel now. you are powerless to stop it, it says to him.

so he doesn't try.

---

can i do something?

sure. we still have a while to go though.

he's got a black marker in his hand and he uncaps it with his teeth. he rolls up one of my sleeves until my arm shows and he starts drawing something on my arm, the marker feels funny against my arm, a little rough. i am focused on the road.

what are you doing?

giving you a little tattoo. i've always wanted one.

what would you get?

big sleeve. like a huge one. i've been drawing one up in my free time.

left or right arm?

left. obviously.

he works quietly, one hand to stabilize my arm and the other to draw it. it feels nice, the touch against my skin. feels good. he is close to me, knees on the seat, hunched over slightly so he can look at my arm better. i keep driving. the sun has long set and the moon is a perfect yellow crescent in the cloudless sky. the air conditioning buzzes overhead. his grip tightens, loosens on my arm as he needs it.

are your parents around much?

never knew them. my aunt raised me and then i moved out.

mm. i never knew my mother either. that's just how it goes.

how it goes.

wanna hear about how my dad died?

huh. sure.

i woke up, i was ten. he wasn't there, left a note on the table. told me he was going to destroy the birds.

the birds. did he mean the birds birds? those birds?

those birds. i ran there, too. when i saw the note. didn't see him obviously.

he might be in there still.

his fingernails dig into me.

definitely is.

so. are you going to finish what he started?

yeah.

we can do it together. me and you. carry on your dad's torch.

it'd take a lot of work. and a lot of stuff.

we're young. we got time. time to stockpile, time to buy. maybe even time to recruit.

hmm. no recruiting. just us.

no converts?

converts are fine. just no more prophets.

we're prophets?

what else are we? i'm done, by the way.

what is it?

a fire.

---

i just wanted to show you something. come walk with me.

i'm taking the flashlight. it's gotta be around midnight now.

scared?

a little, man. you're not?

we're out here. there's nothing bad out here.

i heard reports of a few criminals out here.

oh?

yeah. it was two boys. teenaged. reported carrying some illegal stuff.

mm. wonder who that could be.

if he hasn't recognized the path yet he sure must now. the flashlight turns, casts the beam of light down. five carparks, or what used to be carparks before we were here the first time around. out here at night is a strange feeling. like a kinder, softer hell. it is like everything that isn't in the flashlight's circular path just stops being here, gets eaten by the moon.

ahh. good times. what are we back here for though?

look in the center.

he pans around, sees it. on the ground, in the middle of the rubble, someone's been here. taken pieces of concrete and dug a circle in the ground, filled it with water, lined it with debris. put a statue in the middle. it's of a bird on a sphere, wings outstretched in flight. it is almost pathetically small, half our size, and the sculpture is crude and brutal, but it's there. despite everything it's there. the flashlight bathes it in a pale yellow and alex stands there, quiet. i don't see what he is seeing. he stands unevenly on torn rock and gravel and he is seeing something greater than himself now. some god is making himself known to him and not to me. he is still for 3 minutes, looking. i stare at the back of his head. watching the way the yellow light falls around him like snow, the subtle shakes as his arm jerks slightly, his brown hair against the black nothing. he breaks the silence, finally.

shit.

you did this?

no. just saw it sometime earlier.

you know who did it?

not a clue.

shit. i. we have converts.

we do.

---

he doesn't talk as we walk back to the car. something is different in his gait. he is stiff, like walking on tall stilts, scared. we sleep there that night, me in the front him in the back. he lies down in the backseat and falls asleep curled like a fetus. the car light is weak and orange and shrouds him in a tired warmth, like the sunset on dying trees. i look at him. his eyes are closed, and he's breathing steady, and he's in the back seat of our car. and i look at him.

i'm in love with you. i'm in love with doing this with you, the long roads, the rivers. i can't say it yet. i can't even think it yet. but everything goes away when we are together, everything bad. i wish i could think of you without feeling sick and disgusting.

i stop looking. before i sleep i hold my arm up to the car light and look at what he's drawn in marker. it's a black fire, half the size of my shoulder, feeding on feathers for fuel. the lines are delicate, small, unbroken. it's beautiful. i rub half of it off before i stop myself, turn the car light off, and go to sleep.

Insecticide