Heavy Future

“Jesus Christ man you need to stop fuckin passing out.”

Memories of my recent past started to trickle back. My head felt like someone had been playing soccer with it, and for some reason my mouth tasted like pennies. A quick internal diagnostic revealed that I had bit the inside of my mouth on the way down.

I opened my eyes to see Rain sitting next to me as I lay on the couch.

“Hi, yea sorry, you must think I am a real weakling.” I sat up slowly. She took that moment to stand and look at me sternly.

“Ok listen your not going to fuckin die, not on my watch, for some stupid reason I dragged your ass home, and now well, you owe me. You know like in those Chinese movies, I saved your life so now I am responsible for it.” She looked serious.

“Umm” I sputtered, talking made my brain vibrate painfully inside my skull.

“You need to eat and then sleep.” That was that.

Rain made us some pasta and steamed carrots. She made sure I was full, made me drink a glass of water, then she forced me to lie down.

It wasn’t like falling asleep it was like falling off a cliff. I slept like an inanimate object, simple matte blackness, no dreams, nothing. My body was in maintenance mode. Repairing, and recharging. I don’t know how long I slept but it felt like a long time. I awoke to find the one room apartment empty, Rain was gone and so was her bike. A note was attached to the apple crate in front of me.

“I left some more ramen noodles on the stove, had to go to work, be back at 4pm” It was signed “R.” Why was she being so nice to me? It seemed like part of my brain new the reason, but refused to spit it out. Something to do with her flying, no not flying falling. I was suddenly very frustrated with my brains inability to function and let it go.

I stood up, pleasantly surprised to find I could stand without falling over. I looked at the clock and saw that it was almost 4pm. Nothing like a 20 hour nap to revive you. I made myself a bowl of noodles and ate them quickly, enjoying the salty goodness. A man could get used to this eating and sleeping thing. I hadn’t felt this good in months. As I was finished I heard a rustling of keys and the door opened.

“Hey you woke up, good” She said as she placed her bike against one wall, and dropped a messenger bag off her shoulder. She was sweaty and dirty, dressed in a pair of black Capri jeans, and wearing a t-shirt with a picture of a guitar on it, her hair was still tucked up under that aviatrix cap. Her colorful tattoos, a myriad of flowers, demon women, and a million other things covered both arms like sleeves.

“Hi, thanks for letting me crash here last night.” I said not knowing how to thank someone for being so nice.

That strange glassy look returned to her eyes briefly, and she said “You need to stop fuckin thanking me for doing what anyone would do, now hold on a second I have to get out of my riding gear” This apparently meant that she was going to take a shower, I sat on the couch while she cleaned up and changed.

Her apartment was small, the walls were covered with posters for bands I had never heard of. A couch, a couple shelves and a small crate were all the furniture. A couple bike frames, wheels, and other random bike parts leaned up against one wall. Some tools, and a couple bike parts catalogs sat on the apple crate.

When she returned to the main room she was once again dressed like some catholic school girl/punk rocker hybrid. She still had that funny cap on the goggles on the top of her head. Her blond/brown fell out of the helmet on the sides and the back. The army boots were back, this time the fishnets were red instead of black.

She sat on the couch. We talked about her job. She worked as a messenger for Laser Ship. She was one those crazy people you see pushing packages all over town on bicycle. I always thought it must take some sort of brain defect to ride your bike around in city traffic. It seemed Laser Ship was one of the few companies doing alright in this economic shit storm. They did it by providing a service that didn’t need oil. Even though the stock market is plummeting people still needed to send packages.

I let her talk, choosing not to say much about myself. Mentioning only my mother in Ohio, and how I had only been living in Boston for a while. She told me she was from the city and had grown up here. She didn’t mention her family.

She made us some vegetable dish comprised of sweet potatoes and some sort of squash. It was hearty and filled me up. After the initial small talk was over, we sat awkwardly on her couch. The conversation had come to one of those pauses. She fidgeted with the couch. I looked down and I saw a small plane tattoo on her wrist.

Seeing that small plane seemed to knock something loose in my head. That feeling that I had to sneeze but just couldn’t went away. The memory of Rain falling, her hair and the straps of her helmet flying behind her as she soared through the air, exploded into my head.

“Rain, I know why you were on that bridge.” It flowed out of my mouth before I could think what I was saying, I just felt so relived that I had remembered.

She looked at me, her face suddenly grim. “What do you mean?”

“You were going to jump off that bridge, you were going to kill yourself.” I wanted to reassure her, tell her that I was there to do the same thing. I wanted to help her in the way she had helped me.

Before anyone could say anything the sound of someone kicking in a door filled the air. Then the apartment shook as a monstrous ear popping crash came from the apartment next door. Men could be heard screaming, bits of plaster fell off the wall. The apartment started to fill with the rotten egg small of sulfur. Something had exploded next door.

She shot up, grabbing her messenger bag and started running towards the back window.

“Shit! They found me! We have to get the fuck out of here now!”