You open your eyes and you exist.
Across from you, glowing like the fires of hell in the seemingly endless lack of light that was your room were four numbers: zero, six, three, zero. They greeted you as they always had, these numbers, silent. The next four - zero, six, three, one - brought the voice of a man named Todd. Todd always said the time and talked about whatever had happened in the world while you were gone.
You never listened.
"Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooood morning, everyone! This is Todd and it is exactly six thirty-one in the morning here in", he said the name of the current city you were located in and all you could think about was an anthropomorphic bumblebee that promised cereal, and a shower. Your feet carried you through the darkness completely off of their memory, leading you and the rest of your body onto a surface that felt colder than the warm fabric you had previously stood on.
Your hand, the left one, your favorite, swung out at a lazy angle and a room was around you. The room was solid white; it had one bathtub with a shower attachment, one toilet, a sink with various toiletries, and a mirror that displayed an image of the body your brain walked inside of every day staring right at you. A step forward, a few oscillations of your hands, and you're standing naked beneath a cascading shower of crystalline water. You didn't pay attention to the motions anymore, when you had first arrived in this place you had; however, in the same way it used to be, you got used to it. No home, house, or hovel was ever different in the end. There were always the same rituals.
Eat.
Sleep.
Defecate.
Shower. You liked to shower. Who doesn't?
This has always served to fascinate you, the way you take this action for granted. You turn a knob and "bam", water coming out of a steel erection. Your ancient ancestors would have called this "the shit", or the equivalent of such a statement in their language. However, that time was in the past; the world had moved on.
Steam roils off of the spray as it falls onto your body, filling the room and clouding the mirror. The temperature increases, and increases, and increases; soon it is a scorching burn against your skin. The heat digs into your flesh and you clench your teeth, waiting it out, conquering the pain. Soon enough, it is dull against you, the only sensation being the splatter of liquid against your crimson skin.
You turn off the shower after what you figured was ample time to purge your body of any filth. The room around you matches your temperature as you drag a towel across your back, the feeling is much more pleasant than the Autumn chill.
You carry yourself back into your room, lit now by the glow of the rising sun permeating your curtains, and grab a few garments to cover yourself with. "-speaking of which, we now go to our caller. How are you doing caller?!'
"I'm doing great, now I just want to point out that you are a worthless vestige o-"
"Whoa there, we do get some cra-"
Your fingers dance across the clock radio, effectively silencing Todd for another twelve hours. You wondered if Todd really was Todd, if he even cared whether or not you were listening. A bird chirped outside and you knew it didn't care whether or not you were there to listen, part of you envied that bird.
Your routine plays out the same as it always has; breakfast, survey of your supplies - wallet, knife, lighter - and departure. As you open the door, however, a contingency is applied. Catherine is coming up the steps of your apartment complex. She makes eye contact with you and, for a moment, you wonder just how far one could sink into the deep brown of her eyes.
She is taller than you by a good foot and her skin is a perfect mocha brown, almost like caramelized sugar. She's pretty plump, but that only ever seemed to make her more alluring. Her body was covered with the simple clothing she always wore when she works at Sampson's.
For the record, Sampson's is what you would call the greatest movie rental and novel selling establishment on the planet. They had every movie you could ever desire or, if it somehow wasn't in their collection, they would order any movie you desired if they didn't have it in their immediate stock.
And they had tapes, VHS, even Betamax! You had found laser disks were in stock and immediately regretted never buying a laser disc player, despite them being before your time.
It takes you a moment she's stopped and had begun to smile at you, then she starts talking. "Morning, Goerge. Heading to work?" She says all of this as she approaches you, punctuating work by stepping right in front of you.
You look up to her and smile. "Yes."
You are not Goerge. Catherine doesn't know, but she believes. She believes like so many others do. Why? Because you are Goerge to them. A name holds power, it's what marks a person. People always ask for your name, and you are obligated to give it to them.
You first gave someone Goerge in February of your last year of high school. She was a substitute teacher, Mrs. Johnson; she asked you all to call her Debbie. Your teacher had you sign an attendance slip along with your fellow students, the substitutes would call out the names signed to figure out what name was what face.
You had signed Goerge, but you kept you surname; you really had no idea why you signed with a false name, or why you spelled it wrong. Debbie called your name and you responded with a raised hand that shook like the teeth of a naked man in a blizzard. A few kids chuckled.
She moved on and you were Goerge to her. You were Goerge to a lot of people after that. Your parents still knew who you were, as did your boss and Aensland.
Catherine didn't know though. You really wanted to tell her. You wanted to tell her and cry for a while. You felt like Catherine could make it all better, you just knew she could make all the problems you couldn't make out go away.
You don't tell her, but you keep talking nonetheless. "Every day, I'm not nocturnal like you." Catherine chuckled at your joke, it made you smile a little. She really had infectious moods.
"Yeah, yeah, rub it in", she said, striding slowly to the door of her apartment. She turned back to you just as you were about to walk away with a knowing smile on her face. "Will you be coming to shove trivia at me again tonight?"
Your foot hovered over the step down towards the parking lot. You had plenty of movies, but you still wanted to go, you always wanted to go to Sampson's. Catherine was waiting for a response so you smiled and shrugged. She gave you a wave and stepped into her home.
Just what was communicated between the two of you? You knew you were going to end up going, but how did she?
A honk pulls you from your introspection. You follow the sound and see Aensland leaning on his old Dodge Ram, Jane. Jane was gray and older than the both of you, she was named after Aensland's grandmother. Aensland was a little taller than you, but shorter than Catherine. He had long blonde hair that curled down past his shoulders and beard stubble that never seemed to disappear, an old plaid shirt hid his body type, but you knew what was beneath it; Aensland had the figure of a lumberjack or the Brawny paper towels guy, at least that's how he described it when you first noticed the hair that covered his body.
You walked down the stairs, ready to go to work. He raised his hand and called out to you. "Hey, Goergie, you finish Cuckoo's Nest yet?"
Aensland knew who you were when you first introduced yourself to him, it scared you, considering you had never met him before. He smiled at you so long ago and told you that he wouldn't "blow your cover". You could never get an explanation, a truthful one, he had told you so many that were or weren't possible.
I stole your wallet.
I caught a glimpse of your I.D.
I like to snoop in company records.
I'm clearly a psychic.
There are subtle cues in the movements of your facial muscles representing a lie, and the twitches of your lower lip allow me to construe the intended syllables of your real name.
Maybe you and I do know each other, Goergie.
I know everything.
Wild guess, man.
It never mattered how many times you asked, there was always a different explanation waiting for you. He made up for it by telling you his first name, David. You never asked for it, or wanted an apology, but he told you anyway.
"No", you say, smiling towards your friend. You pull a small book out of your coat and hand it to him, which he takes gladly. "It was really weird to read everything from Chief's point of view, especially his hallucinations."
Aensland lets out this chuckle that you've gotten accustomed to hearing, it sounds big.
Great, now you're thinking like Chief, this always happens when Aensland gives you a book.
"Goerge, man, I could barely handle the movie. Every scene just hurt some soft part of me, you know? Hell, I cried like a baby at the end of that flick."
Aensland fakes a sniffle and you laugh. He thrusts himself off the side of Jane and opens her door for you. You hop in and roll the window down as Aensland hops into his seat and cranks Jane to life. She rumbles beneath the two of you and for just a moment you feel a brief hint of nostalgia.
You start to think about a dog.
It's gone as quick as it came, and Aensland has turned up the radio. It starts to sing, you think it's Pink Floyd.
Aensland pulls onto the main drag, the little strip of highway that runs through your so called city, and starts "burning". Burning is a tradition he told you about when he first started driving you to the warehouse the two of you work at. Burning is driving with the windows down and music turned up louder than the wind the blurs past your ears and tosses your hair to and fro.
You sink back into the leather seat.
You close your eyes and nothing exists.
Somewhere, a moon rises.
You open your eyes and you exist. Aensland hits the brakes and the two of you jolt forward as Jane comes to a stop. The two of you step out, you yawning and Aensland muttering curses under his breath.
A gray building looms before you, Anderson Warehouse. Within its bowels are crates, and within the crates are enigmas; Aensland told you that. He had told you that instead of five-thousand paper clips there could be the Ark of the Covenant. It struck you as a possible truth, and the two of you had a new inside joke; Schrodinger's Crate.
For the next four hours Aensland lifts crates while you jot down their supposed information on a clipboard.
You ask Aensland if he has another book for you, he grins and demands a new stack of movies. This was the second tradition the two of you had formed; you would loan him seven movies and he would loan you a book. Aensland called it "The Merging of Universes". Before you met him, Aensland didn't watch too many movies and you didn't read too many books.
He asks if you're up for The Lord of the Rings an you grin.
You think about Catherine and the curve of her hips
The lunch bell rings and you can feel your cheeks burning.
A sound almost like the breaking of bone erupts from an apple unlucky enough to find its way into Aensland's grasp. You grind your teeth into a sandwich and lean back into a wall of the Batcave. Two months ago the two of you created a little fort out of forgotten crates of sex toys on the top level of the warehouse shelves. Aensland named it the Batcave and you happily agreed. On the day of your forts' christening Aensland had stolen a crate from "Moore BDSM Supply", when you asked him about the obvious theft he simply told you that he really needed to do something with his basement.
"So have you ever heard of Solipsism?"
You grunt a bit and look up from your meal, curious as to what your friend has to say. He gives you a patient stare and you shake your head, no.
He leans forward a bit and says, "Basically, it's the belief that the self is the only 'real' thing in the universe. Like, everything exists solely because you do, kind of like it's all just a figment of your imagination or something."
"Oh", you say, nodding your head a bit. "Like sleep, I guess." Aensland stares at you dumbfounded. "You know", you say, extending your hands for emphasis, "there's really nothing when you sleep. You close your eyes and then there's black, you might open your eyes and you might not. Nothing says you'll wake up, or even if anything exists."
"That's like turning off the senses and saying the world is gone, or asking if the light in the 'fridge exists when the door's shut. If nothing exists, what are dreams?"
You lightly smack your own forehead, forgetting that dreams do exist for some. "Well, I don't have any and I can only speak for myself." You look up and see Aensland giving you an incredulous stare and remember that other people actually do have dreams. You give him a grin and he shrugs, easily accepting another thing about you.
"So you ever hear of the multiverse theory?"
After work, Aensland dropped you off at Sampson's before he went home.
Catherine smiled at you and called you a hobbit when you brought the trilogy up to her counter. Something about the joke made you smile and brought heat to your cheeks. It stayed until you found your way home.
You pass through your door and drop the movies onto your coffee table. There are no lights on, they don't really need to be on anyway. A yawn escapes your lips and you let your feet carry you towards your bedroom. Your clothes fall off your body, another article gone with each step.
Once you're completely bare you let your body fall like a crumbling tower into the waiting embrace of cool fabric and soft cushions.
You close your eyes.
You're on a balcony, completely naked. The wind chills you to the bone and floods your skin with goosebumps. You look around and freeze when you see something looking back.
Whatever it is, its impossible. It's blue, deep blue, and its hair looks like it's made from the night sky.
For a moment you think it's a horse, then you notice the protrusion on its head. A horn, long and deadly, beneath is what looks like jewelry; a crown maybe.
It's wings flare out- and oh dear God it has wings. It starts to approach you and it says something, says something, and you scream.
You wave your arms frantically and stumble backwards, desperate to get away from the horse-thing. There's a cold strip pressed against your waist, and then you can feel gravity.
The ground is rushing up to meet you faster than you've ever seen it before.
You open your eyes and there is darkness; you are screaming, flailing, and weeping. You stop and place a hand on your chest, calming slightly to the feel of the pounding beneath your flesh and bone.
Outside your window, the moon shines brighter than anything in the sky.
Beneath her moon, the princess of the night leans her head over the railing of her towers' balcony. A hoof was pressed to her chest, and even through the steel hoof plate, she could feel her everlasting heart beat like the drums of war.
She looked up and stared at her moon, wondering if it held any answers.
