another older short story. i'm currently working on revisions to it in the hopes of sending it out to get published, so critique would be really appreciated! let me know what you think~
content warning: some sexually explicit moments
I'M GLAD WE DID THIS
A tremble runs through the newscaster, evident only in the way her papers vibrate in her hands. She wears a wedding band and often looks beyond the camera, to the right. Somewhere off-screen, her wife must be watching, perhaps with an arm around her stomach and a fist to her lips. Beneath the newscaster a scrawl reads: STARS VANISHING FROM SKY, SCIENTISTS BAFFLED. Fourteen additional stars disappeared the previous night escalating the total to fifty-six. Dominik watches the news report with his fingers pressed against the storefront window. Stench of the Food Court mingles with the noise of too many lives. Thick glass exists between the television set and the rest of them in the Bay Centre like the subtle barriers between people. It surprised no one that the end of the world began on a Monday.
Across the mall from the Sony Store, a young couple shops for an engagement ring at Peoples. A seemingly permanent crook forms the man’s lips while he observes his to-be. She hovers over the glass case inspecting each ring with hesitant eyes. He rubs her back in methodical circles. Against the apparent end, a new beginning.
“…the stars…what if…I know but…you think….”
Dominik strains to hear but gives up and turns to leave. The doors of the centre are covered in the faint imprints and smudges of past lives, small traces of the humanity that had come and gone. Outside, the city hangs below a monochromatic grey. Were it night and the clouds permitting, the luminous pollution drowns the remaining stars anyway. Without a way to know if the discourse about the stars is true, the crowds become even more faceless. A strict code of avoidance enacts itself; greeting give way to mumbled telephone calls and brisk apologies. A breathing world never looked so dulled.
With his jacket clutched tight to his frame, Dominik glances to the sky as he walks block after block. The grey of the sky looks like dirty snow fallen and rested against the atmosphere — a simple blanket preventing further insight into the world’s state. Those on the street refrain from looking, from talking, from connecting, as if it will somehow keep their bubble pristine and infallible. Keep calm and carry on.
Tourists left when the lights did. The inner harbour once thrived, but now demonstrates and absence of perseverance. Only a few stragglers remain once its lucrative nature diminished. Descending the steps, everyone can been seen: small groups and individuals splattered against the landscape by humanity’s paintbrush and then forgotten. One of the groups near the stairs blast the mechanically manufactured Starscream’s “Gravity in Terms of Space-Time” on an endless loop from their iPod stereo. Occasionally, hollow laughter runs with the music. Farther down the harbour’s stretch, a suited young woman sits on one of the domed night-lights. She rests with her hands in her lap and traces the outline of sailboats with her eyes. Whenever the laughter reaches her, she flinches and tucks her hair behind her ear. Toward the end of the path, a young man stands with a sign in thick black letters: FREE HUGS. Curious. Dominik moves to rest on the inviting ledge near the man.
He wears a pair of purple low top Converse shoes with tidy ink inscriptions along the white bottoms. A maroon UVic Residency lanyard drapes from the pocket of his dark boot cut jeans; his crimson shirt bears a rainbow and hearts and the phrase I HATE MY SELF AND WANT TO DIE. A slight mocha shade to his skin, the man stares ahead. Carelessness takes refuge in his brown hair which he must’ve combed with his fingertips. His full-lipped mouth slightly ajar, he scans the harbour as if it’s full of people. Around his wrist is a precarious bracelet made of Starburst wrappers. Sharpie and cheap poster board make up the sign he holds above his head.
Those not suffocating in worry are too busy to care about some boy and some sign down the harbour.
It won’t work.
“What’d you say?” He turns and loosens his grip on the sign. His arms drop a little but the sign stays upright. Pressing the board against his forehead, he peers down with a marked inattentiveness. Dominik hesitates at first, but replies.
It won’t work.
He lets go of the sign with his left hand and scratches the back of his neck. The poster scrapes against the ground. Empty laughter from down the harbour filters through the air. “Do you go to school around here?”
UVic. Bio Chem.
“You any good?”
Unlikely. What about you?
“Writing.”
You any good?
He presses his tongue against the inside of his bottom lip and shakes his head before outstretching a hand. “Fidel.” His hand is warm.
Dominik.
Fidel drops onto the ledge beside Dominik. He rests his elbows on his knees, hunched forward as if about to whisper a secret. His fingers cut through his dark hair like sailboats on stormy waves. Slight stubble scatters across his face.
“I’ve been standing here for two hours, man. Not one person.” Curious warmth spreads through his expression. “That woman over there walked right past me.” The woman continues to fixate on the boats along the water. “You’d think the stars going out would bring people together.”
He actually believes the stars are disappearing.
Fidel leans back. “You don’t?” Whatever warmth that filled his features leaves. He narrows his eyes. Veins of gold circle an otherwise commonplace blend of browns and greens.
Stars are immense spheres of plasma held together by gravity. It’s not strange for them to collapse. Most of the stars we see from Earth already imploded a long time ago. Supernovas and all that.
“And all of this is just a coincidence then?”
People like to look too deeply into shit like this. They like attributing great cosmic significance to things that don’t deserve it. It doesn’t look like the would is ending out here because it isn’t.
“You’re not a religious man, eh?” He shifts in his spot, faint laughter forming against his lips. “Alright, Dominik. I guess that makes you the man of science.”
What does that make you?
The corner of his eyes scrunch. He gets off the ledge and picks up the sign once more. Over his shoulder he says, “I’m the man of faith.” Fidel takes his place back in the middle of the path.
It’s hard to imagine exactly what Fidel hopes to accomplish.
Even across the distance and through the mechanical electronic music blasting from the stereo down the harbour, he hears and responds clearly. “I figure, if I can hug just one person — one person who really needs it — then I’ve done enough. I’ve accomplished something, as you put it. Seemed like a better way to spend my time than keep to myself.”
Out here, with the way people are — keeping to themselves, living in their bubbles — it will always end the same. He’ll never get someone willing to hug him. Everyone is too busy being drained by their own problems, in their own social networks, in their own electronic fog. If people can’t even bother to look each other in the eye, how will he manage to get someone to actually hold him and be held? Pointless.
Fidel lets out a laugh. The sign shakes from his body; FREE HUGS wavers in the air — cutting through the grey sheet of sky. He glances back through his narrow features and says, “It only ends once, Dominik.”
Boisterous sounds of panting, moaning and dirty talk fill Dominik’s living room that night. On the laptop balancing on his right knee, grainy images of people diddlying occupy the screen. His left hand curls around his dick. In the background, on the TV in the corner of the room, the news is set to mute. NINETEEN ADDITIONAL STARS VANISH WITHOUT EXPLANATION.
The newscaster’s shoulders slump and she gazes at the camera. She doesn’t seem to know how to tell the world, once more, that no one knows anything, that things can’t be explained. Her wedding ring, like the stars, has disappeared. A thin band of pale skin is all that remains of a missed connection.
A black cock ring is fastened to the male actor on the computer screen. Sweat pours from his pores as he imitates a beat much too fast with his hips. His face splotchy from the heat, he grips the female actor’s breasts. She gazes at the camera through haggard eyes. Do you like that?
Sporadically, the computer will glitch and video artefacts disrupt the scene. They paint the actors in sudden pixels of greens and blues and push flesh-tones out of frame. The action doesn’t cease and the groans march through the laptop speakers. Artefacts shift, covering the entire video with an impenetrable fallacy.
With a loud beep, the battery dies. The news ends.
Dominik sinks against the couch cushions. With a bitter exhale he shuts the laptop and tosses it beside him. A pervasive emptiness overwhelms as he tucks himself back into his pants and gets off the couch and heads outside.
A slight bite hides beneath the autumn air. The clouds clear, but only so many stars speckle the sky — tiny lanterns breaking through the haze. Light from the street lamps wash the sky, artificially drowning out the natural. No matter how hard he tries, Dominik can’t look past the photopollution to the sky that hides behind it. Across the street, the public school lays dead atop the small fenced hill. Dominik crosses the street, finds a gap int he fence and traverses the field until he reaches the school’s playground. Climbing onto one of the raised platforms, he lies down, eyes to the heavens. The sky has an orange tint to it from all of the city lights. He bites his lip as he pulls out a lighter and a pack of cigarillos from his pockets and lights up. The end glows orange like the sky. Smoke rises and mingles with what stars remain. It becomes difficult to remember how many there were before this moment, before they started to blink out, which makes it impossible to know for certain: was any of this for real, or not?
Dominik watches the smoke rise from his mouth and disperse in the harbour air. He sits on the same ledge as the day before, waiting. The harbour remains unchanged except for one thing: Fidel isn’t there. Aside from him, it looks as if time hasn’t passed at all, as if those nineteen stars hadn’t reportedly ‘disappeared’ between then and now. It didn’t matter; he didn’t come or them.
“Can’t get enough,” Fidel stands with a smirk and a sign behind Dominik. He seems to watch as the smoke trails from the end of Dominik’s cigarillo before stepping closer and raising the sign high above his head. His t-shirt is black with a white old-fashioned stylized font: ELVIS IS DEAD. SINATRA IS DEAD. AND ME I FEEL ALSO NOT SO GOOD. “Don’t you have school or something?”
How’s FREE HUGS going?
Fidel doesn’t look at him, instead peering over the landscape. He lowers his head only a fraction and tongue his bottom lip. “Is there something you want, Dom? I know you don’t believe in this stuff, so if you’re just here to—”
It’s not that.
He turns and raises an eyebrow. The sign blends in with the opaque sky above. From certain angles it seems as if the black words floated in the sky like a command from above. “What is it then?”
A sudden spike in nerves, Dominik takes a drag and releases the smoke as slowly as possible. Even from here, he can vaguely hear the mechanical song from down the harbour. He pulls in his lips.
Do you want to hang out sometime? Get a slushie or something.
The corners of Fidel’s mouth curl. He drops his arms, the sign falling by his waist. Hazel eyes stare into Dom’s. Fidel holds out a hand. “Can I?” Domini passes him the cigarillo. As he takes the smoke in, he glances around the harbour once more. “Okay.”
Okay?
“Saturday. We’ll get Slushies.”
Okay.
Fidel twists the handle on the Esso’s slushie machine and vibrant orange slush spills into his cup. There is a slight flick movement in his wrist as he fills his cup with Orange Crush and Cream Soda. He lingers and the icy concoction forms a miniature mountain. “Thank god for bubble lids,” he says. A lid and a green straw later, he is ready to seize the world — what’s left of it.
He’s wearing a pale yellow shirt with a giant pansy next to the word STRESS as he says, “Dude, who actually gets a pure Pepsi Slushie? You might as well’ve just bought a pop!”
The cashier watches with an expression that wavers between indignation and boredom. Fidel pays for both Slushies and heads for the typical Victoria conditions outside: muted.
“I’m glad we did this,” Fidel says. He perches on one of the stone ledges a small way from the gas station. His purple sneakers dangle over the edge. One line of the inscriptions running around the bottom of his shows is names. “My family,” he adds. After taking a sip of Slushie, he points to a particular name among the masses. “That’s my dad.” Following one more sip each, they trade Slushies. “Pepsi.” He says it like the choice is incontrovertible and snatches his own Slushie back. “When my mom walked out, he didn’t really know what to do. I mean, what do you tell a kid? That his mom didn’t love him anymore? That she had better things to do than be there for her family? I don’t blame him.”
Fidel’s Slushie hands loose in his hands. He pulls in his lips and studies the dirt on the toe of his shoes. With his free hand, he rubs the skin above his elbow on the opposite arm. His eyes search the surroundings.
“After it all… the only thing my dad knew how to do was act like nothing had happened. He drove me out to the nearest 7/11 and he got us both the biggest Slushies they had at the time. Pretty sure they have bigger now, but, I haven’t been to a 7/11 since.” He tires to smile, as if in attempt to convince himself, but it soon fades. “We couldn’t finish them. Did you now in America they call brain freeze ‘ice cream headaches’? Stupid.”
Funny to think a frozen drink could mean so much.
Fidel gives a half-hearted chuckle. “I like to think drinking Slushies in shitty weather is something distinctively Canadian.” He presses the straw against his lip in thought. “Let’s have a race. Who can drink theirs first. Go.”
Icebergs grow where their brains should be.
“Brain freeze!”
Ice-cream headache.
Fidel snickered. “diddly you, man.”
The only way to tell if Fidel is actually happy is if the corners of his eyes crimp up. Any other time he would be holding something back. More and more it becomes obvious how often that is.
Dominik places his Slushie between them on the ledge and a cigarillo between his lips. He pats his pockets for a missing lighter. Fidel holds out a lighter of his own. His fingertips kiss Dom’s cheek as he steadies the boy while lighting his cigarillo with his other hand. The brief warmth vanishes.
Back when I didn’t even know what cigarillos were, I had a dad, too. This was a long time ago, back when reality didn’t seem like a plague we had to bother with. We used to play in our backyard and imagined we were in a carnival — our carnival. I was the ring leader and dad was the lion tamer and together we put on the greatest show the world had ever seen. My dad would keep the lion in its place and to the unsuspecting audience it looked like they were enemies. As the ring leader, I had to keep them believing it. I tricked them into thinking something that wasn’t true, just like he tamed a beast that needed no taming. Sometimes, the animals would escape and we’d have to halt the show to catch them. This was when our talents shined the best, for we always knew just what to do.
“What happened?” Fidel’s features become more intense, focused, betraying the light-hearted shirt he wore. Above, another star dies.
One day, it was my dad who escaped.
Dominik blows a smoky breath and they watch as it twists and coils and disperses into the air. Silence digests them as their bones strain under the weight of the world they didn’t understand. The night sky shines fewer.
How’s FREE HUGS going?
Fidel rolls his eyes. “You ask me that a lot.”
More and more stars ‘disappear’.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with people. I’m there every day. Seems like the more stars gone, the more people distance themselves. Yesterday, no one even looked at me. Not even a diddlying glance. Do I look like a demon to everyone or something? I’m just a kid with a sign.”
He downs the remainder of his Slushie and jumps off the ledge. The trash can is next to the bus top further down the street. A coup;e sits as the bench with an arm around each other, waiting. They take turns kisses each other on the cheek. Fidel lingers on the sight of them before changing focus.
“What’s the star count now, anyway?”
One-hundred and eight.
“Right. Still believe it’s nothing?”
Dominik hesitates.
It’s not nothing. It’s just not something.
“Because that makes sense.” Fidel glances to his shoes and his lips quiver as if chewing on possible words. Streetlights reflect in his eyes. “Look, Dom, I’m sorry about your….” The bus pulls up. He shakes his head. “I have to go. Take it easy, okay? I’ll see you next week, right?” He gives a small wave and heads on. The bus stalls for a moment before jetting down McKenzie Avenue, exhaust creeping behind.
In the week that follows, another four-hundred and fifteen stars reportedly cease to be. When Fidel walks off the bus, it’s hard to recognize him. As if each star has left him personally, he takes on a more hollowed persona than customary. A faint weakness pervades the way he walks and talks. He still dresses the same — purple shoes, dark pants, hideously inappropriate t-shirt slogans — but the tiredness takes hold in the way the light no longer fills hi features. His eyes, with those prominent flecks of gold, now seem dulled and weary. Even the way he squeezes your shoulder now exists only as an empty gesture. Once voluminous lips now look starved. The corners of his eyes almost never scrunch. It had taken a month, but now it is clear what the end of the world looks like.
“diddly you, I’m just tired,” he says. “I thought you didn’t believe in that shit anyway, man of science. Why are you suddenly worried about the way I look?”
Fidel’s shirt is black with an orange skull and cross-bones and the text CONTINUED UNMEASURED ENDLESS DESPAIR HOWEVER ALIVE. Dominik starts to walk down the street.
Let’s just go. It’s starting to get cold.
The barren sky reflects the barren street. Families have long returned to the comfort of their homes and their beds and their nighttime stories. Streetlamps glare and the wind snakes by in a haunting calmness. Tonight, another forty-five predicted stars will leave the skies.
Last I checked the star-count was at five-hundred and twenty-three. Still no hugs, eh?
“I’m not going to give up, if that’s what you’re suggesting. I’ve gone to the harbour every day. Just gotta have faith.”
You go every day and no one even looks at you. What difference would a day make? Who would notice?
“If nothing matters, there’s nothing to save.”
What’s that supposed to mean?
“Well, you’re a vegan, right? You could eat meat any day and no one would be able to know. No one would know a damn thing unless you wanted them to. But you don’t. You don’t because if those rules don’t matter — if you let yourself break them whenever you want — then there would be no point in following them in the first place.”
Dominik scrapes his feet against the gravel.
What are you trying to save?
Fidel’s hand is warm as he leads them to the swing-set outside the community park. The chains force dirt into his palm, onto his fingers. A few weak lights shine through murky skies like treasures in deep waters. The swing-set rasps under their weight. Scent of musty over-rained grass disperses through the air. With each successful pumping of the swing, the wind embraces them like a forgotten kiss. A hint of momentary happiness rests against Fidel’s lips, a quick curve to their form. Paper laughter sometimes escapes, contorting into the cold autumn.
“How do you know the stars are just balls of plasma or whatever?” Fidel asks. Gaze pointed toward the heavens, he continues to swing.
It’s science. Everyone knows that. What else would they be?”
“I mean, have you seen the stars? Can you personally vouch for them being what everyone says they are? Maybe that isn’t what a star is. Maybe we’ve all been tricked to believe something that isn’t true.” He stops swinging. His expression hardens. “You can’t think that all of these stars are simply what’s left of decaying lights, can you? There’s no way to account for it. Over five hundred stars have been vanquished. The fault in our stars has to be something more than that.”
Fidel. Fidel. Fidel.
He rubs his cheek with his palm, a stroke of dirt left in its wake. Despite the crystallization of their breath, it all felt so thermal. Fidel’s features soften and he rests his head against the chain, eyes focused on Dom. Those familiar eyes have become the most comforting of things in their simplicity. They didn’t look on with judgment or remorse. Fidel has always been seeing, not merely looking. Dominik leans forward the tiniest bit as he studies his friend.
“Feeling like you should, Dom?” A slight tilt to his head, the chains smear grease along his cheek.
Dominik tells himself to breathe as he turns and pretends to count the stars when actually counting heartbeats.
What are the stars?
It takes a moment for an answer.
“The stars are us. They’re our lights.” Fidel jumps off the swing and falls to the ground in front of it. He rolls onto his back and watches what few stars manage to glint across the darkness. “I’ve been thinking about it more and more since we met, but what if that’s it? What if the stars never were some floating balls of gas that no one has ever really seen? What if they were use? If we all have a light inside us — a soul or whatever — then maybe the stars are vanishing because everyone is becoming so disconnected. The lights fade. How bright can a light really be if there is no one around to see it?”
Dominik jumps from the swing. Dampness infiltrates the ground. Whenever Fidel speaks, the scent of his breath wafts through the air. Slushies. He smells of cream soda and Febreeze. Sometimes his voice betrays him and a heightened word permeates reality — an emphasis that reveals too much. If one connects the words and emphases there’ll be no need for secrets.
“You don’t talk much about yourself. I want you to.”
Up until now, the end of the world seemed like the greatest thing to happen. We breathe all of this technological shit as if we can’t exist without it. Cellphones. Facebook. Texting. Internet. Somehow becoming more connected comes at the cost of being connected. All these barriers people put up. Was it really that scary to say what you mean, to be honest about someone, to look them in the face when you tell them they matter?
“Who matters to you, Dom?”
The scent of Captain Black’s Red cigarillos percolates. Dominik presses the filter against Fidel’s lips and he draws it in. When the smoke escapes, it takes the form of a lion racing across the cold night sky.
It’s late. The buses stopped running a long time ago. If you want, you can stay over.
Fidel closes his eyes. The swings move with the ghost of their time. Chains rustle and the swingset creaks. He breathes in careful, methodical breaths. All it will take is one brave gesture, and the distance between them will diminish. Skin on skin. Heart to heart.
“Sure.” He doesn’t open his eyes, but leans towards Dom’s presence. “How far is your place from here?” Moonlight paints his skin soft beige and washes away the earlier sense of fatigue. The wind has ceased. The stars have departed. Alone.
It’s down the street.
Vintage anatomical charts and maps plaster the bedroom walls. From the computer, the song “Be Calm” by Fun overcomes the room. Fidel nods in time with the beat while opening the blinds. The bed lies just beneath the window. After freeing the windows from their cover, Fidel rests his arms along the windowsill and peers out. Under his breath, he counts the number of stars he can still see. Two. He drops his head and shoulders and shuts his eyes. The smell of Old Spice peeks through the music. In a quick movement, he jumps off the bed and pulls off his shirt. It cascades to the hardwood lifelessly. As he continues to bop his head to the music, he undoes his belt and tosses his pants aside next to his shirt on the floor. Houndstooth boxers.
“Dude, Marvel Comics boxers? That’s awesome.”
A quiet heat rises. Fidel doesn’t seem to notice and gets under the covers. He keeps his arms on top of the blanket, crossed along his chest. Above, the night sky projects into the room. The fabric feels foreign. His chest rhythmically elevates and descends. Reflections of the outside world play back against his eyes. Expression abandons his face leaving no musings as to what he is thinking. Some sort of serenity, repose. Without his identity markers, all that remains is his purest form. This is the kind of person he is. All that makes up someone’s appearance deemed useless by nightfall. What’s left isn’t the person, but the being. Fidel doesn’t have anything to hide behind, to pretend with. He is raw, real, and clear.
The battery dies and so does the music. Near silence fills the room; the only exceptions are the distant sounds of city life and the exponential breathing side by side. Fidel closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath releasing it ever so patiently. He murmurs something about stars and about faith and about them.
Us.
“You never told me,” he whispers. His lips end into a thin smile. “Who matters to you.”
The distance closes; his lips are chapped.
“Dominik,” he breathes.
Fidel presses his hand against Dom’s shoulder and squeezes. His eyes betray him as the corners perk up and he returns the kiss. Fingertips cut through hair and down necks. Tongues rub against each other. Stubble tickles lips.
Fidel lets out a sharp gaps as Dom’s hands slip beneath his waistband. “Your hands are so diddlying cold, man.” Laughter’s evident in his voice as he pulls off the remaining piece of fabric that separates them. He shivers as Dom’s fingers wrap around him. Small goosebumps spread along his skin like Braille — messages to be decoded.
He grabs Dominik’s hands and holds them to his lips. His warm breath rushes over them. Fidel kisses each palm before leaning up and kissing Dom’s lips. With a quick move, Fidel rolls him onto his back, hands pinned above his head. For a moment he simply sits there, one leg on either side of the boy’s hips, the thin cotton of Dominik’s boxers the only thing between them. The grip on his hands loosens as he gives an unconvincing performance.
What’s wrong?
“One of us is just going to leave as soon as the night does.”
Is that all there is?
He bows his head, and runs his hands down Dominik’s arms and against his shoulder blades. Fidel’s lips unite with his and linger and then he rolls onto his side. “Do… do you think we could just sleep together?” A fragility prevails in his voice, but betrays no one. Fidel rests his head against Dominik’s chest, arm around his stomach and there is the feeling that what he needs is something different from sleep. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I just….”
It’s fine. We’ll sleep and wake up and meet the daylight. The stars don’t have to fall from the sky and we don’t have to tumble with them and if more beyond this exists we’ll know for sure.
So they slept and dreamt.
It’s Monday. It should come as no surprise to wake up alone on a Monday. Sunlight forces into the otherwise empty room, warming lonely skin. Fidel has left and their stars already began to fade. In the end, it wouldn’t take much to become another number on the news — another number that goes misunderstood. Giving up seems the resolute answer. Everyone else did. They saw the difficulties in connecting during an electronic plague. Imagine a world where no one becomes vulnerable, a world where superficiality is the key to survival. Each star, each light, dies to make this new world more real. We don’t need anybody.
And yet, you can never love someone as much as you can miss them.
Sky blankets the harbour in commonplace grey. From the ledge overlooking the walkway, it appears that no one populates this side of Victoria. A single figure farther down the line, however, stands tall with a sign high above his head. FREE HUGS. Free of music, the atmosphere radiates loneliness. There are no people walking about aimlessly, or staring out at the ocean, or taking in the scenery, the life. All that has vanished, too.
Fidel continues to hold the sign high. It has become tattered and faded but desire holds strong. At first, he avoids meeting Dominik’s gaze, avoids letting the light of their eyes meet. He looks around the harbour, the world, and lets the sign fall from his hands. “Everyone has gone away, haven’t they?” His head lowers. Whatever distance that remained between them disappears; the barriers recede. The nook of his neck smells like him, smells like more than just a simple scent, but of the combination of their journey. His body is tepid, arms wrapped around each other, as Dominik clings to the being known as Fidel.
content warning: some sexually explicit moments
I'M GLAD WE DID THIS
Across the mall from the Sony Store, a young couple shops for an engagement ring at Peoples. A seemingly permanent crook forms the man’s lips while he observes his to-be. She hovers over the glass case inspecting each ring with hesitant eyes. He rubs her back in methodical circles. Against the apparent end, a new beginning.
“…the stars…what if…I know but…you think….”
Dominik strains to hear but gives up and turns to leave. The doors of the centre are covered in the faint imprints and smudges of past lives, small traces of the humanity that had come and gone. Outside, the city hangs below a monochromatic grey. Were it night and the clouds permitting, the luminous pollution drowns the remaining stars anyway. Without a way to know if the discourse about the stars is true, the crowds become even more faceless. A strict code of avoidance enacts itself; greeting give way to mumbled telephone calls and brisk apologies. A breathing world never looked so dulled.
With his jacket clutched tight to his frame, Dominik glances to the sky as he walks block after block. The grey of the sky looks like dirty snow fallen and rested against the atmosphere — a simple blanket preventing further insight into the world’s state. Those on the street refrain from looking, from talking, from connecting, as if it will somehow keep their bubble pristine and infallible. Keep calm and carry on.
Tourists left when the lights did. The inner harbour once thrived, but now demonstrates and absence of perseverance. Only a few stragglers remain once its lucrative nature diminished. Descending the steps, everyone can been seen: small groups and individuals splattered against the landscape by humanity’s paintbrush and then forgotten. One of the groups near the stairs blast the mechanically manufactured Starscream’s “Gravity in Terms of Space-Time” on an endless loop from their iPod stereo. Occasionally, hollow laughter runs with the music. Farther down the harbour’s stretch, a suited young woman sits on one of the domed night-lights. She rests with her hands in her lap and traces the outline of sailboats with her eyes. Whenever the laughter reaches her, she flinches and tucks her hair behind her ear. Toward the end of the path, a young man stands with a sign in thick black letters: FREE HUGS. Curious. Dominik moves to rest on the inviting ledge near the man.
He wears a pair of purple low top Converse shoes with tidy ink inscriptions along the white bottoms. A maroon UVic Residency lanyard drapes from the pocket of his dark boot cut jeans; his crimson shirt bears a rainbow and hearts and the phrase I HATE MY SELF AND WANT TO DIE. A slight mocha shade to his skin, the man stares ahead. Carelessness takes refuge in his brown hair which he must’ve combed with his fingertips. His full-lipped mouth slightly ajar, he scans the harbour as if it’s full of people. Around his wrist is a precarious bracelet made of Starburst wrappers. Sharpie and cheap poster board make up the sign he holds above his head.
Those not suffocating in worry are too busy to care about some boy and some sign down the harbour.
It won’t work.
“What’d you say?” He turns and loosens his grip on the sign. His arms drop a little but the sign stays upright. Pressing the board against his forehead, he peers down with a marked inattentiveness. Dominik hesitates at first, but replies.
It won’t work.
He lets go of the sign with his left hand and scratches the back of his neck. The poster scrapes against the ground. Empty laughter from down the harbour filters through the air. “Do you go to school around here?”
UVic. Bio Chem.
“You any good?”
Unlikely. What about you?
“Writing.”
You any good?
He presses his tongue against the inside of his bottom lip and shakes his head before outstretching a hand. “Fidel.” His hand is warm.
Dominik.
Fidel drops onto the ledge beside Dominik. He rests his elbows on his knees, hunched forward as if about to whisper a secret. His fingers cut through his dark hair like sailboats on stormy waves. Slight stubble scatters across his face.
“I’ve been standing here for two hours, man. Not one person.” Curious warmth spreads through his expression. “That woman over there walked right past me.” The woman continues to fixate on the boats along the water. “You’d think the stars going out would bring people together.”
He actually believes the stars are disappearing.
Fidel leans back. “You don’t?” Whatever warmth that filled his features leaves. He narrows his eyes. Veins of gold circle an otherwise commonplace blend of browns and greens.
Stars are immense spheres of plasma held together by gravity. It’s not strange for them to collapse. Most of the stars we see from Earth already imploded a long time ago. Supernovas and all that.
“And all of this is just a coincidence then?”
People like to look too deeply into shit like this. They like attributing great cosmic significance to things that don’t deserve it. It doesn’t look like the would is ending out here because it isn’t.
“You’re not a religious man, eh?” He shifts in his spot, faint laughter forming against his lips. “Alright, Dominik. I guess that makes you the man of science.”
What does that make you?
The corner of his eyes scrunch. He gets off the ledge and picks up the sign once more. Over his shoulder he says, “I’m the man of faith.” Fidel takes his place back in the middle of the path.
It’s hard to imagine exactly what Fidel hopes to accomplish.
Even across the distance and through the mechanical electronic music blasting from the stereo down the harbour, he hears and responds clearly. “I figure, if I can hug just one person — one person who really needs it — then I’ve done enough. I’ve accomplished something, as you put it. Seemed like a better way to spend my time than keep to myself.”
Out here, with the way people are — keeping to themselves, living in their bubbles — it will always end the same. He’ll never get someone willing to hug him. Everyone is too busy being drained by their own problems, in their own social networks, in their own electronic fog. If people can’t even bother to look each other in the eye, how will he manage to get someone to actually hold him and be held? Pointless.
Fidel lets out a laugh. The sign shakes from his body; FREE HUGS wavers in the air — cutting through the grey sheet of sky. He glances back through his narrow features and says, “It only ends once, Dominik.”
Boisterous sounds of panting, moaning and dirty talk fill Dominik’s living room that night. On the laptop balancing on his right knee, grainy images of people diddlying occupy the screen. His left hand curls around his dick. In the background, on the TV in the corner of the room, the news is set to mute. NINETEEN ADDITIONAL STARS VANISH WITHOUT EXPLANATION.
The newscaster’s shoulders slump and she gazes at the camera. She doesn’t seem to know how to tell the world, once more, that no one knows anything, that things can’t be explained. Her wedding ring, like the stars, has disappeared. A thin band of pale skin is all that remains of a missed connection.
A black cock ring is fastened to the male actor on the computer screen. Sweat pours from his pores as he imitates a beat much too fast with his hips. His face splotchy from the heat, he grips the female actor’s breasts. She gazes at the camera through haggard eyes. Do you like that?
Sporadically, the computer will glitch and video artefacts disrupt the scene. They paint the actors in sudden pixels of greens and blues and push flesh-tones out of frame. The action doesn’t cease and the groans march through the laptop speakers. Artefacts shift, covering the entire video with an impenetrable fallacy.
With a loud beep, the battery dies. The news ends.
Dominik sinks against the couch cushions. With a bitter exhale he shuts the laptop and tosses it beside him. A pervasive emptiness overwhelms as he tucks himself back into his pants and gets off the couch and heads outside.
A slight bite hides beneath the autumn air. The clouds clear, but only so many stars speckle the sky — tiny lanterns breaking through the haze. Light from the street lamps wash the sky, artificially drowning out the natural. No matter how hard he tries, Dominik can’t look past the photopollution to the sky that hides behind it. Across the street, the public school lays dead atop the small fenced hill. Dominik crosses the street, finds a gap int he fence and traverses the field until he reaches the school’s playground. Climbing onto one of the raised platforms, he lies down, eyes to the heavens. The sky has an orange tint to it from all of the city lights. He bites his lip as he pulls out a lighter and a pack of cigarillos from his pockets and lights up. The end glows orange like the sky. Smoke rises and mingles with what stars remain. It becomes difficult to remember how many there were before this moment, before they started to blink out, which makes it impossible to know for certain: was any of this for real, or not?
Dominik watches the smoke rise from his mouth and disperse in the harbour air. He sits on the same ledge as the day before, waiting. The harbour remains unchanged except for one thing: Fidel isn’t there. Aside from him, it looks as if time hasn’t passed at all, as if those nineteen stars hadn’t reportedly ‘disappeared’ between then and now. It didn’t matter; he didn’t come or them.
“Can’t get enough,” Fidel stands with a smirk and a sign behind Dominik. He seems to watch as the smoke trails from the end of Dominik’s cigarillo before stepping closer and raising the sign high above his head. His t-shirt is black with a white old-fashioned stylized font: ELVIS IS DEAD. SINATRA IS DEAD. AND ME I FEEL ALSO NOT SO GOOD. “Don’t you have school or something?”
How’s FREE HUGS going?
Fidel doesn’t look at him, instead peering over the landscape. He lowers his head only a fraction and tongue his bottom lip. “Is there something you want, Dom? I know you don’t believe in this stuff, so if you’re just here to—”
It’s not that.
He turns and raises an eyebrow. The sign blends in with the opaque sky above. From certain angles it seems as if the black words floated in the sky like a command from above. “What is it then?”
A sudden spike in nerves, Dominik takes a drag and releases the smoke as slowly as possible. Even from here, he can vaguely hear the mechanical song from down the harbour. He pulls in his lips.
Do you want to hang out sometime? Get a slushie or something.
The corners of Fidel’s mouth curl. He drops his arms, the sign falling by his waist. Hazel eyes stare into Dom’s. Fidel holds out a hand. “Can I?” Domini passes him the cigarillo. As he takes the smoke in, he glances around the harbour once more. “Okay.”
Okay?
“Saturday. We’ll get Slushies.”
Okay.
Fidel twists the handle on the Esso’s slushie machine and vibrant orange slush spills into his cup. There is a slight flick movement in his wrist as he fills his cup with Orange Crush and Cream Soda. He lingers and the icy concoction forms a miniature mountain. “Thank god for bubble lids,” he says. A lid and a green straw later, he is ready to seize the world — what’s left of it.
He’s wearing a pale yellow shirt with a giant pansy next to the word STRESS as he says, “Dude, who actually gets a pure Pepsi Slushie? You might as well’ve just bought a pop!”
The cashier watches with an expression that wavers between indignation and boredom. Fidel pays for both Slushies and heads for the typical Victoria conditions outside: muted.
“I’m glad we did this,” Fidel says. He perches on one of the stone ledges a small way from the gas station. His purple sneakers dangle over the edge. One line of the inscriptions running around the bottom of his shows is names. “My family,” he adds. After taking a sip of Slushie, he points to a particular name among the masses. “That’s my dad.” Following one more sip each, they trade Slushies. “Pepsi.” He says it like the choice is incontrovertible and snatches his own Slushie back. “When my mom walked out, he didn’t really know what to do. I mean, what do you tell a kid? That his mom didn’t love him anymore? That she had better things to do than be there for her family? I don’t blame him.”
Fidel’s Slushie hands loose in his hands. He pulls in his lips and studies the dirt on the toe of his shoes. With his free hand, he rubs the skin above his elbow on the opposite arm. His eyes search the surroundings.
“After it all… the only thing my dad knew how to do was act like nothing had happened. He drove me out to the nearest 7/11 and he got us both the biggest Slushies they had at the time. Pretty sure they have bigger now, but, I haven’t been to a 7/11 since.” He tires to smile, as if in attempt to convince himself, but it soon fades. “We couldn’t finish them. Did you now in America they call brain freeze ‘ice cream headaches’? Stupid.”
Funny to think a frozen drink could mean so much.
Fidel gives a half-hearted chuckle. “I like to think drinking Slushies in shitty weather is something distinctively Canadian.” He presses the straw against his lip in thought. “Let’s have a race. Who can drink theirs first. Go.”
Icebergs grow where their brains should be.
“Brain freeze!”
Ice-cream headache.
Fidel snickered. “diddly you, man.”
The only way to tell if Fidel is actually happy is if the corners of his eyes crimp up. Any other time he would be holding something back. More and more it becomes obvious how often that is.
Dominik places his Slushie between them on the ledge and a cigarillo between his lips. He pats his pockets for a missing lighter. Fidel holds out a lighter of his own. His fingertips kiss Dom’s cheek as he steadies the boy while lighting his cigarillo with his other hand. The brief warmth vanishes.
Back when I didn’t even know what cigarillos were, I had a dad, too. This was a long time ago, back when reality didn’t seem like a plague we had to bother with. We used to play in our backyard and imagined we were in a carnival — our carnival. I was the ring leader and dad was the lion tamer and together we put on the greatest show the world had ever seen. My dad would keep the lion in its place and to the unsuspecting audience it looked like they were enemies. As the ring leader, I had to keep them believing it. I tricked them into thinking something that wasn’t true, just like he tamed a beast that needed no taming. Sometimes, the animals would escape and we’d have to halt the show to catch them. This was when our talents shined the best, for we always knew just what to do.
“What happened?” Fidel’s features become more intense, focused, betraying the light-hearted shirt he wore. Above, another star dies.
One day, it was my dad who escaped.
Dominik blows a smoky breath and they watch as it twists and coils and disperses into the air. Silence digests them as their bones strain under the weight of the world they didn’t understand. The night sky shines fewer.
How’s FREE HUGS going?
Fidel rolls his eyes. “You ask me that a lot.”
More and more stars ‘disappear’.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with people. I’m there every day. Seems like the more stars gone, the more people distance themselves. Yesterday, no one even looked at me. Not even a diddlying glance. Do I look like a demon to everyone or something? I’m just a kid with a sign.”
He downs the remainder of his Slushie and jumps off the ledge. The trash can is next to the bus top further down the street. A coup;e sits as the bench with an arm around each other, waiting. They take turns kisses each other on the cheek. Fidel lingers on the sight of them before changing focus.
“What’s the star count now, anyway?”
One-hundred and eight.
“Right. Still believe it’s nothing?”
Dominik hesitates.
It’s not nothing. It’s just not something.
“Because that makes sense.” Fidel glances to his shoes and his lips quiver as if chewing on possible words. Streetlights reflect in his eyes. “Look, Dom, I’m sorry about your….” The bus pulls up. He shakes his head. “I have to go. Take it easy, okay? I’ll see you next week, right?” He gives a small wave and heads on. The bus stalls for a moment before jetting down McKenzie Avenue, exhaust creeping behind.
In the week that follows, another four-hundred and fifteen stars reportedly cease to be. When Fidel walks off the bus, it’s hard to recognize him. As if each star has left him personally, he takes on a more hollowed persona than customary. A faint weakness pervades the way he walks and talks. He still dresses the same — purple shoes, dark pants, hideously inappropriate t-shirt slogans — but the tiredness takes hold in the way the light no longer fills hi features. His eyes, with those prominent flecks of gold, now seem dulled and weary. Even the way he squeezes your shoulder now exists only as an empty gesture. Once voluminous lips now look starved. The corners of his eyes almost never scrunch. It had taken a month, but now it is clear what the end of the world looks like.
“diddly you, I’m just tired,” he says. “I thought you didn’t believe in that shit anyway, man of science. Why are you suddenly worried about the way I look?”
Fidel’s shirt is black with an orange skull and cross-bones and the text CONTINUED UNMEASURED ENDLESS DESPAIR HOWEVER ALIVE. Dominik starts to walk down the street.
Let’s just go. It’s starting to get cold.
The barren sky reflects the barren street. Families have long returned to the comfort of their homes and their beds and their nighttime stories. Streetlamps glare and the wind snakes by in a haunting calmness. Tonight, another forty-five predicted stars will leave the skies.
Last I checked the star-count was at five-hundred and twenty-three. Still no hugs, eh?
“I’m not going to give up, if that’s what you’re suggesting. I’ve gone to the harbour every day. Just gotta have faith.”
You go every day and no one even looks at you. What difference would a day make? Who would notice?
“If nothing matters, there’s nothing to save.”
What’s that supposed to mean?
“Well, you’re a vegan, right? You could eat meat any day and no one would be able to know. No one would know a damn thing unless you wanted them to. But you don’t. You don’t because if those rules don’t matter — if you let yourself break them whenever you want — then there would be no point in following them in the first place.”
Dominik scrapes his feet against the gravel.
What are you trying to save?
Fidel’s hand is warm as he leads them to the swing-set outside the community park. The chains force dirt into his palm, onto his fingers. A few weak lights shine through murky skies like treasures in deep waters. The swing-set rasps under their weight. Scent of musty over-rained grass disperses through the air. With each successful pumping of the swing, the wind embraces them like a forgotten kiss. A hint of momentary happiness rests against Fidel’s lips, a quick curve to their form. Paper laughter sometimes escapes, contorting into the cold autumn.
“How do you know the stars are just balls of plasma or whatever?” Fidel asks. Gaze pointed toward the heavens, he continues to swing.
It’s science. Everyone knows that. What else would they be?”
“I mean, have you seen the stars? Can you personally vouch for them being what everyone says they are? Maybe that isn’t what a star is. Maybe we’ve all been tricked to believe something that isn’t true.” He stops swinging. His expression hardens. “You can’t think that all of these stars are simply what’s left of decaying lights, can you? There’s no way to account for it. Over five hundred stars have been vanquished. The fault in our stars has to be something more than that.”
Fidel. Fidel. Fidel.
He rubs his cheek with his palm, a stroke of dirt left in its wake. Despite the crystallization of their breath, it all felt so thermal. Fidel’s features soften and he rests his head against the chain, eyes focused on Dom. Those familiar eyes have become the most comforting of things in their simplicity. They didn’t look on with judgment or remorse. Fidel has always been seeing, not merely looking. Dominik leans forward the tiniest bit as he studies his friend.
“Feeling like you should, Dom?” A slight tilt to his head, the chains smear grease along his cheek.
Dominik tells himself to breathe as he turns and pretends to count the stars when actually counting heartbeats.
What are the stars?
It takes a moment for an answer.
“The stars are us. They’re our lights.” Fidel jumps off the swing and falls to the ground in front of it. He rolls onto his back and watches what few stars manage to glint across the darkness. “I’ve been thinking about it more and more since we met, but what if that’s it? What if the stars never were some floating balls of gas that no one has ever really seen? What if they were use? If we all have a light inside us — a soul or whatever — then maybe the stars are vanishing because everyone is becoming so disconnected. The lights fade. How bright can a light really be if there is no one around to see it?”
Dominik jumps from the swing. Dampness infiltrates the ground. Whenever Fidel speaks, the scent of his breath wafts through the air. Slushies. He smells of cream soda and Febreeze. Sometimes his voice betrays him and a heightened word permeates reality — an emphasis that reveals too much. If one connects the words and emphases there’ll be no need for secrets.
“You don’t talk much about yourself. I want you to.”
Up until now, the end of the world seemed like the greatest thing to happen. We breathe all of this technological shit as if we can’t exist without it. Cellphones. Facebook. Texting. Internet. Somehow becoming more connected comes at the cost of being connected. All these barriers people put up. Was it really that scary to say what you mean, to be honest about someone, to look them in the face when you tell them they matter?
“Who matters to you, Dom?”
The scent of Captain Black’s Red cigarillos percolates. Dominik presses the filter against Fidel’s lips and he draws it in. When the smoke escapes, it takes the form of a lion racing across the cold night sky.
It’s late. The buses stopped running a long time ago. If you want, you can stay over.
Fidel closes his eyes. The swings move with the ghost of their time. Chains rustle and the swingset creaks. He breathes in careful, methodical breaths. All it will take is one brave gesture, and the distance between them will diminish. Skin on skin. Heart to heart.
“Sure.” He doesn’t open his eyes, but leans towards Dom’s presence. “How far is your place from here?” Moonlight paints his skin soft beige and washes away the earlier sense of fatigue. The wind has ceased. The stars have departed. Alone.
It’s down the street.
Vintage anatomical charts and maps plaster the bedroom walls. From the computer, the song “Be Calm” by Fun overcomes the room. Fidel nods in time with the beat while opening the blinds. The bed lies just beneath the window. After freeing the windows from their cover, Fidel rests his arms along the windowsill and peers out. Under his breath, he counts the number of stars he can still see. Two. He drops his head and shoulders and shuts his eyes. The smell of Old Spice peeks through the music. In a quick movement, he jumps off the bed and pulls off his shirt. It cascades to the hardwood lifelessly. As he continues to bop his head to the music, he undoes his belt and tosses his pants aside next to his shirt on the floor. Houndstooth boxers.
“Dude, Marvel Comics boxers? That’s awesome.”
A quiet heat rises. Fidel doesn’t seem to notice and gets under the covers. He keeps his arms on top of the blanket, crossed along his chest. Above, the night sky projects into the room. The fabric feels foreign. His chest rhythmically elevates and descends. Reflections of the outside world play back against his eyes. Expression abandons his face leaving no musings as to what he is thinking. Some sort of serenity, repose. Without his identity markers, all that remains is his purest form. This is the kind of person he is. All that makes up someone’s appearance deemed useless by nightfall. What’s left isn’t the person, but the being. Fidel doesn’t have anything to hide behind, to pretend with. He is raw, real, and clear.
The battery dies and so does the music. Near silence fills the room; the only exceptions are the distant sounds of city life and the exponential breathing side by side. Fidel closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath releasing it ever so patiently. He murmurs something about stars and about faith and about them.
Us.
“You never told me,” he whispers. His lips end into a thin smile. “Who matters to you.”
The distance closes; his lips are chapped.
“Dominik,” he breathes.
Fidel presses his hand against Dom’s shoulder and squeezes. His eyes betray him as the corners perk up and he returns the kiss. Fingertips cut through hair and down necks. Tongues rub against each other. Stubble tickles lips.
Fidel lets out a sharp gaps as Dom’s hands slip beneath his waistband. “Your hands are so diddlying cold, man.” Laughter’s evident in his voice as he pulls off the remaining piece of fabric that separates them. He shivers as Dom’s fingers wrap around him. Small goosebumps spread along his skin like Braille — messages to be decoded.
He grabs Dominik’s hands and holds them to his lips. His warm breath rushes over them. Fidel kisses each palm before leaning up and kissing Dom’s lips. With a quick move, Fidel rolls him onto his back, hands pinned above his head. For a moment he simply sits there, one leg on either side of the boy’s hips, the thin cotton of Dominik’s boxers the only thing between them. The grip on his hands loosens as he gives an unconvincing performance.
What’s wrong?
“One of us is just going to leave as soon as the night does.”
Is that all there is?
He bows his head, and runs his hands down Dominik’s arms and against his shoulder blades. Fidel’s lips unite with his and linger and then he rolls onto his side. “Do… do you think we could just sleep together?” A fragility prevails in his voice, but betrays no one. Fidel rests his head against Dominik’s chest, arm around his stomach and there is the feeling that what he needs is something different from sleep. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I just….”
It’s fine. We’ll sleep and wake up and meet the daylight. The stars don’t have to fall from the sky and we don’t have to tumble with them and if more beyond this exists we’ll know for sure.
So they slept and dreamt.
It’s Monday. It should come as no surprise to wake up alone on a Monday. Sunlight forces into the otherwise empty room, warming lonely skin. Fidel has left and their stars already began to fade. In the end, it wouldn’t take much to become another number on the news — another number that goes misunderstood. Giving up seems the resolute answer. Everyone else did. They saw the difficulties in connecting during an electronic plague. Imagine a world where no one becomes vulnerable, a world where superficiality is the key to survival. Each star, each light, dies to make this new world more real. We don’t need anybody.
And yet, you can never love someone as much as you can miss them.
Sky blankets the harbour in commonplace grey. From the ledge overlooking the walkway, it appears that no one populates this side of Victoria. A single figure farther down the line, however, stands tall with a sign high above his head. FREE HUGS. Free of music, the atmosphere radiates loneliness. There are no people walking about aimlessly, or staring out at the ocean, or taking in the scenery, the life. All that has vanished, too.
Fidel continues to hold the sign high. It has become tattered and faded but desire holds strong. At first, he avoids meeting Dominik’s gaze, avoids letting the light of their eyes meet. He looks around the harbour, the world, and lets the sign fall from his hands. “Everyone has gone away, haven’t they?” His head lowers. Whatever distance that remained between them disappears; the barriers recede. The nook of his neck smells like him, smells like more than just a simple scent, but of the combination of their journey. His body is tepid, arms wrapped around each other, as Dominik clings to the being known as Fidel.
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