one man guy.

My entire body feels like lead.? When I wake up, I can't tell what time of day it is? because the sky is a heavy, sick spring gray.? The apartment still smells sugary and sticky from cake.? My hangover is a weighted feeling that starts in the middle of me and works outwards, and sprawling out makes me feel a little better.? Every limb is stiff.? I blame that more on the dancing I did and the positions I was twisted into when everyone left than the two glasses of wine and god knows how many of Liv's miracle concoction I drank.?

The bedroom door is open (because now, we refuse to close it unless there are people around, which there never are), and I can see the pile of presents that people bought me.? They're unconventional.? A baby doll, a pile of coloring books, a box of two-hundred something Crayola crayons, a plastic piano, a set of dress up princess clothes that I let Mia have the crown and shoes from and Emily got the boa and the wand.? A kite.? A set of watercolors.? Stuff you buy for kids.? In fact, the whole party was like that, save for the alcohol.? There was a rainbow of balloons and cake all written on in frosting, stupid games and crepe paper everywhere that we haven't taken down yet.? I don't remember ever having a birthday like this one.

With my mother, my birthday was observed, but modestly.? She'd make cake or cookies and buy me something small, but thoughtful.? After that, I hesitated to really pound into people that my birthday was coming up.? It's an odd celebration: the day that your mother brought you into the world, especially when your mother has gone missing.? Or is dead.? What is there to celebrate?? When I bounced from family to family, celebrations were pretty centric.? I didn't have outside friends to invite over until high school, and then I was living in a boarding-school situation, so the party was less of a party and more of a regular night of hanging around with a bit more alcohol.

At Brown, I never really announced my birthday.? We spent so much time just celebrating in general that it faded in with the rest of them.? I remember spending a birthday on a club floor, one at an end of classes last hurrah, one in the bedroom of a boy in my final composition course.? He played cello.

This birthday was spent in the apartment that I share with my first and last real boyfriend.? Everything was covered with crepe paper and color. The apartment was filled with people. Everyone danced. Lucy gave me twenty-six birthday punches in the arm and a pinch to grow on. Liv and I sang stupid old pop songs. Lani and I made up a dance. Even Asher and I had a decent moment over the balloon arrangements. Twenty-six. I waited twenty-six years for this.

Beside me, Michael stirs and I take the advantage handed me. When he moves, I slip back into positioning, dragging myself as close as possible. Still asleep, arms wrap around me. It's become instinct for both of us. The familiarity of tattoo patterns and bone structure seeps in and is an instant sedative. Along with my heavy alcohol, dancing and sex hangover, this feeling is begging me back to sleep.

Here is home. Here is how a birthday is supposed to be spent. Here is family. Here is now. Here is everything you have ever wanted and needed, all compiled into one burst of events. Here is a place to fall. Here is comfort. Here is security. Here is forever.

You are safe here.

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ May 01, 2005 04:36 AM: Message edited by: pretty things ]</font>

The waking world: present tense. Harlen is twenty-six.

I can't think straight. I can't separate this. I know I am laying here, in my bed, at twenty-six years old, but I feel fifteen. I feel a different sort of fifteen. I feel fifteen and undone, sprawled out over a couch, staring at the ceiling with shallow, ragged breath, with everything hurting and feeling explosive and kinetic. I feel like there is a knot in me that has been released. A discovery of things I had already known. I feel separate from myself, like I'm leering over the bed and staring at the two of us and asking what the fuck we think we're doing. This is all wrong. None of this ever happened. I want to slap myself and say no. No more. Your world ends with him, but it did not begin that way.

It did not happen this way. I was not twisted on a couch, wanting every minute of what was happening, tightening fingers over the cushion and nearly giving myself away with my lack of silence. I was not fumbling for a hand to hold. I did not rationalize the pain. I did not curl up beside, silent but okay, stunned but accepting, thinking that next time (because there would inevitably be hundreds of next times) would be better, and the time after that even moreso.

Instead, in reality, I was face down in a bed with a hand at the back of my head and my mouth pressed against a pillow, gripping at the edges of a mattress and just waiting, waiting for it to be over. It was the next logical step, of course. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was too young. Maybe I'm still too young, in a lot of ways. Maybe I will never be old enough to do this the right way. Maybe my definition of the right way means with him, and there's no chance of that ever really happening. Dreams can seem as real as they want to seem, but they cannot ever be your reality. Because that's insanity. That's the world my mother lived in, imagining my father alive, dreaming him so real that she saw him at the dinner table with us. I don't ever want that. I don't ever want to go crazy. To live outside of reality. That's my hell. That's my biggest fear. When my mother was my age, she was still sane. Still healthy. I could take a dive just like her. I could turn into her. I could lose my sense of here and now, I could torture Michael until he threw me away, frustrated, tired. I could die, throw myself out of a window, or bleed myself empty, or drown open-eyed in my bath, staring, looking for a reality that was never there in the first place, and all because I am not appreciating what I have. Here. Now. With him.

Here is reality. We met in a bar. We kissed for the first time to O Fortuna, on his couch, not under a fort, with flashlights and teenage curiosity. I did not spend my formative years with him. I did not willingly surrender my virginity to him on my birthday. I did not traipse around New York City with him. I scraped in a hall for orphans, I was bounced between foster families, I lost my virginity to a man named Brian, I spent my high school years in a boarding school, I went to college at Brown University, I had an overdose there, I went to Paris and ran into every wall, leaped in every bed that I could. That is my reality. There is my life, every last piece of it, ugly, oil slick, black and hot, ugly, scarred, snapped open, screaming, pulsing, needing recognition. Here is reality. Here I am. There are always dark pieces. You cannot fill them in and slick them over. You cannot gloss past my ugliness. You cannot ignore that part of me. Please stop trying. Please stop.

I am twenty-six again, in body and in mind and in the beating of my ugly, cracked open heart, sitting up on my mattress, turning away and choking down the ugly sound of my erratic breath, wet and heavy, swollen and sobbing. You have to see. Now I have to show you. The missing pieces have to come back into place. The imperfections have to shine through and then you will know. Then you will see.

And then you will stop.

<center>http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...sontc/0066.jpg</center>

Love is not a profession
genteel or otherwise

sex is not dentistry
the slick filling of aches and cavities

you are not my doctor
you are not my cure,

nobody has that
power, you are merely a fellow/traveller

Give up this medical concern,
buttoned, attentive,

permit yourself anger
and permit me mine

which needs neither
your approval nor your surprise

which does not need to be made legal
which is not against a disease

but against you,
which does not need to be understood

or washed or cauterized,
which needs instead

to be said and said.
Permit me the present tense

Is/Not, Margaret Atwood

Once you had a dream
Of oceans, and sunken cities
Memories of things you've never known
REM, The Lifted

I sang and smoothed him out until he was asleep, and then after that as well. I slept in intervals, five minutes here, twenty there, interspersed with staring at the ceiling or trying to worm my way under his arm, over him, somehow. When he gets up for work, I trot after him like an obidient dog and bustle around in the kitchen. I make coffee and tea, explain that I'm not hungry, and watch as he wanders from shower, to kitchen, to bedroom for clothes, and then out the door. We kiss goodbye, I resist the urge to beg him to stay and I watch him leave.

When he disappears, I'm left in the hollowed out shell of our apartment. I never really notice the tiny, barely-there echo when he's around, but now that I'm awake, alert and alone, I can hear it. Each footstep resonates against walls and ceiling. Each step is made bigger, every sound magnified just a halfstep. We live sparingly. Sparse furniture, no decoration of any sort. It's a lived-in place, but not exceedingly. It's a far cry from my Paris apartment with its throw rugs and cabaret posters hanging framed on the walls. Happily ever after. Life goes on...

I have this knot in my stomach that makes me feel half nauseous and half miserable. It's some sort of guilt, I think. Guilt for not pulling my weight. Guilt for being ungrateful. He does everything. I do nothing. He does everything and I demand more. I criticize. I crush. I complain. I'm a bratty child. I am the source of anxiety and stress. I know I'm wanted, needed. I know that without me, he'd be as halved as I would be without him. I'm confident in that. I don't question it. What bothers me is that without me, he would have so much less to worry about. No phantom illnesses that mimic something terminal. No cat he doesn't want. No pressure to retire, to come to Paris, to entertain and care for. No responsibility to anyone but himself.

I take and I give nothing back. Nothing tangible. My presence is not enough. My love, no matter how overwhelming, does not equate what he's giving. I've dragged him from one life and shoved him into another. I have all of this because I asked for it. For co-habitation. For a relationship. For love. For protection. I have to give something back, or I have to start somewhere, no matter how small.

I drag a bucket from beneath the sink and start the process of mixing putrid cleaning solutions with water. It bubbles and foams and I start with the kitchen first. Contrary to popular beliefs, I know what I'm doing. I scrub the stainless steel of our sinks, the appliances, the dishes. With sleeves rolled up and my pants cuffed, I wash my way out of the kitchen, down to the floor, and I leave it glimmering and slick to dry. I cover the apartment in what feels like it takes days rather than a few hours. I am a machine, paying anal retentive attention to every element, every last streak of dust. I clean out cabinets, cupboards and the refrigerator. I polish hardwood with something that smells like lemon. I bleach clean the stretch of our bath and the sink, I scrub the grout between tiles. I dust-mop the hardwood of our floors. I flip couch cushions and beat dust out of pillows. I mop the stairs, remove the dust from Michael's laptop screen, change the sheets on our bed and I make it neatly, folding hospital corners and turning back the covers and topsheet. I fluff pillows. I pick up every last item of clothing and separate it by color and fiber. I do load after load of laundry. I fold and sort. I organize closets and dressers, I sort out clutter and dust off essential items. When I'm done, it takes me mere moments to realize that it's nearly time for Michael to come home. I've only stopped for a bite of fruit here and there. Dinner.

From the closet, I gather up a folded white sheet and downstairs, I shake it out flat. Freshly washed flatware and wine glasses are set down. From the kitchen, I scare up a decent meal. My skills with an oven aren't astounding, but when I'm finished, there's rather well-made plates of salad and pasta to go set on my fake picnic. It's everything I've never believed in. It's giving. It's gratitude. It's domesticity. It's romance. I've never really believed in romance. I can't think of anything intentionally romantic that I've ever sat down and executed. I've never had the reasons or the resources. But here they are, so... here I am. Barefoot and hopeful, the same pet that trotted and followed him around in the morning, sitting quietly among prepared food, waiting for him to walk through the door.

It's strange to realize that you've thrown yourself into this. This is your life, a clean house and dinner laid out in front of you on a white sheet between glasses of red wine and plates of the only food you can make, hopeful, sparkling, apologetic and waiting.

Lani,

Viva la Espana, and all that sentimental crap. Right now, we're on a train from somewhere spanish-speaking all the way to Paris and I'm half-drunk on champagne because the people here are so nice and just keep fucking refilling it without me even having to ask them. Michael's asleep on my arm, but I suppose I owe him for how many times I've passed out on planes, mid-conversation with him, and had him all cranky and muscle-cramped once we woke up. I'm a terrible sleeper. I kick and punch and claw and steal all the blankets.

Anyway. Spain was beautiful, and it's all I can do to keep myself from insisting that as soon as we get home, we clear our schedules again and go back. I've got a record to make, and that needs to get done first, and then all the touring and blah blah blah. Don't let Michael fool you. He's coming with me on tour whether he wants to or not. The prospect of going weeks at a time without seeing any of you is rather daunting, but specifically Michael. Because you know how it goes. I think if he gets more than three miles away from me, my body will cease to function. Organs will shut down, I'll collapse wherever I stand and it'll be useless to try and revive me until he's back in the vicinity again. Very Snow White/Prince Charming-esque, minus all those creepy little mining dwarves. They gave me fucking nightmares.

But who can really blame me, you know? Just months ago, I was living out of a suitcase in a hotel room at the Roosevelt, and now I've got an apartment. I'm cohabitating with a very attractive man who I intend on spending the rest of my life with. Now, I know the last thing you want to read me rambling on about is how much I love your twin brother, and this might just be the four or five or ten glasses of champagne talking, but I really would marry him tomorrow. In a heartbeat. Signed, sealed and delivered. Obviously, as we all know, this is not going to happen. Michael is four-square against ever joining in holy matrimony with something that isn't John Donne or his laptop, but whatever. I'd do it. I'd make gay marriage look good, bitches. Something screamingly vintage, but streamlined in a modern look. And the party. Fuck if I don't throw a fabulous party. It'd go down in fucking history. It would not be complete without a couple police visits, but whatever, you've got clout you can throw around. Use it.

And after the wedding, and the party, and the x-rated wedding night, and the jaw-droppingly expensive honeymoon in India, or South Africa or somewhere beautiful and old, we'd come back, throw ourselves into our lives again and nothing would have really changed. Save for legal papers, medical power of attorney and I'd have the security of knowing that if something happened to me, god forbid, my body wouldn't get handed over to the state system considering I have no next of kin.

Whatever. A wedding means a lot, I guess, but in essence, I'm trying to tell myself that it's just a reason to throw a party. And I'd throw a party to celebrate a new pair of shoes I bought if that's what I really wanted.

Maybe I just want an excuse to wear this awesome vest I found in a couture shop in Madrid. Shockingly beautiful. Fear not. I did buy you presents. Lots, in fact. Some in tiny baby sizes.

So, I hope all is going well back in the states and that I haven't missed out on any juicy gossip, or crazy disasters. Call the Paris flat when you get this and say hello. You can call collect, too, so Asher doesn't have a mini-stroke when he sees the phone bill. I'm going to wake up Michael for the sole purpose of having someone to talk to/make out with for the last hour of this train ride.

I love you and I miss you. Give kisses to everyone.

xoxo,
Harlen

The rain hammered down in a clattering thunder of noise, like a massive, neverending box of nails being dumped from some high roof over everyone's heads. The droplets were thick, unyielding and round, plunking down and bursting on the pavement beneath his feet, and still, Harlen Prior had no idea what direction he was going in. Unfamiliar dreams turned into labyrinths to plod through and discover.

In the waking world, Paris held a perpetual green haze for him, intoxicating and decadent. He spent days sprawled over the length of familiar floorboards, or plunking notes out at a favorite piano. He created melody and ruined his already weary lungs with cigarettes he couldn't pass up, he scrawled poetic lyrics across paper and skin alike, biting at writhing bone and sinew until the green fairy herself tapped a wand down on him and sent him into a dizzying spin of other people's dreams.

And for once, he left Michael's alone.

Pulling his coat tighter around him, he gripped the handle of his umbrella and marched along the sidewalk as traffic whooshed past in a hiss of tires and wet concrete. It was a strange part of an unfamiliar town, nearly empty of people -- or at least common pedestrians. Up ahead at a plexiglass bus-stop shelter, he spotted a wavery figure through the opaque wall. Hurrying steps quicker, he ducked underneath and shook out his black umbrella, pressing it to collapse back into a thinner, easier-to-handle construction.

Beside him, a shorter girl stood far more prepared for the weather than he was. Her yellow rain slicker came down to her knees, buttoned up primly and fanning out to reveal an endearing, spotted lining. Bare calves, pale and slender descended into plastic galoshes, white and covered in yellow rubber duckies, all facing forward, wide eyed and grinning. On her head, a glossy, wide-brimmed bucket hat sat, tied underneath her chin, a matching yellow. Black hair spilled over shoulders in two innocent pigtails, limply settled and seemingly untouched by rain. She was familiar, in an unconventional, unfavorable way.

Heads turned towards each other and a set of murky, multicolored hazel eyes met a pair of clean, clear blue ones. Realization set in with a dull thunk.

"Oh. You." He drawled lazily. Leaning over, his umbrella was rested against plexiglass and cold hands dug into his pockets.

"I know. You're thinking, 'What a shame. I could have picked someone far more interesting. And someone who didn't remind me of my lover's pesky bisexuality.' What are you doing in my dream anyway?" Her melodic voice trilled high above the sounds of city traffic and an underlying tone of impatience.

"Occupational hazard. One too many glasses of absinthe may impair one's ability to keep dream-wandering in check. I've been having very weird dreams lately anyway, maybe this is a fucking relief." Strong-lunged, he found himself digging into his pocket to retrieve a pack of cigarettes and a pack of hopefully dry matches. One plugged itself between lips and a match snapped from the pack, thankfully dry and potent. In one swift motion, he had lit up and dragged in. Fluid, velvet smoke filled lungs and he sighed out again. "Fuck, it's like riding a bike, y'know? You never forget how to smoke, even if you've gone months without it."

"What kind have dreams have you been having?" The girl asked, tapping fingers on her arms as they crossed in front of her.

"You don't want to know. Weird ones." Pausing, he eyed her for a long, suspicious moment and then waved his hand at her in a dramatic, sweeping gesture. Ash billowed to the ground in a regal spill. "Oh whatever, you won't remember any of this in the morning. Comforting dreams. Scary ones. I can't say they're scary though, it'd break his heart. You should see him, he can barely talk about -- no, he can't. He just can't talk about any of it. About her. He loses it, he cracks, he completely deconstructs and it scares the holy hell out of me. You go on for so long thinking a person is one way, resigned to certain indelible truths and virtues and vices and all of these things, and somewhere along the way you forget that people grow. You forget that they will one day wake up and maybe decide that broccoli isn't so bad after all, or that other things, bigger things.. are what they really want." Another drag was taken and the cigarette was handed over to the actress, who merely narrowed eyes at it and waved it off again. Harlen's shoulders shrugged and he took it back for himself.

"And still.." She prompted hopefully.

Harlen took the bait easily, as if he had been waiting for someone, anyone unexpected to unleash on. "And still there is no sign of it ever really happening. I don't know what's scarier. Living that life, or dreaming about it and never living it at all. He won't marry me. He won't even talk about that anymore either. I've been barred. Banned. Shut down like I'm North Korea and he's the UN."

"But you never know if--"

"And even if he does, it'll be because I want it. Not because he wants it. Sometimes I want to take him by the shoulders and just shake him, you know? What does he want? He wanted me healthy and I screwed that up. He wanted to teach and I bullied him out of it. He wanted Spain and I dragged him to Paris. And now I want more, and I'm just throwing another fit, just kicking and screaming and crying in my playpen. I'm not a boyfriend, or a husband, I'm a baby, a big baby for him to watch over and care for." Angrily, the cigarette was plunged towards the ground to shatter in a shower of sparks. His heel crushed down on it and mashed it into dull oblivion.

"One day he'll want something, Harlen. And it will be big and scary, but maybe you'll look at him and realize that this is his one big thing that amounts to all the little things that you've asked of him over the years. Fair trade. And then out of nowhere, there will be like, a surge, or a jolt or something and suddenly you'll want it too. Just wait for it. You guys have so much time ahead of you. Not everything can happen in your first year together." Blue eyes were distracted easily as someone on a bike whizzed by, spokes twisting and basket clattering. "Hey wait!" She called out after the biker, but on he went. "Oh whatever, he'll be by again."

"So what about you, what's going on with you?" He asked, folding arms. One might as well make conversation while waiting to wake.

"Oh, not much. My brother is a mess, and therefore, I am a mess. That thing about being twins is true, I guess. You move in crests and valleys with each other. Or maybe he moves in crests and valleys and just drags me along for the ride. I threw myself at a boy I'm seeing and he panicked a little."

"Virgin. He'll get over it the second you wear something remotely revealing, don't worry." Cautiously, a hand reached out and patted on her yellow shoulder. "Don't expect fireworks, darling. Men are bloody ignorant apes."

"Voltaire?"

"Beckett." He corrected, with a fingertip ticking in her direction. "Did you love Michael?"

"Oh God, Harlen, really." She sighed. "Is this going to make you feel better? Really. Before you start all of it, is this really going to help you get over everything?"

"I don't know, I figured it was worth a shot."

"Loving Michael is an impossible feat. He doesn't stay still long enough for you to get a hold. At least, not for anyone but you. So stop. Questions are useless. There's nothing about our pseudo-relationship that you really want to know. The important thing is that he didn't love me. At least not in the big Hollywood way that he loves you." Smiling wide, a pale hand reached over and fingers smudged at the pianist's cheek, wandering over the grainy feel of his cheek. And this, somehow, managed to make him feel better.

"Don't hate me." She requested flatly.

"I don't hate you."

"Don't hate the past."

"Now that's a completely different request, and I can't make any promises." As words left his mouth, the clunky squeak and rumble of a bus approaching overpowered him. Staring up, the gusts of air brakes releasing sounded doors opening. He stared at it curiously.

"Go on, it's your ride. Mine'll be back in a few. This time I'll jump in front of him and wave my arms, he'll get the point." She advised, nudging Harlen towards the doors. Without question, he snagged his umbrella and bowed towards the bus, lifting feet and slipping inside, avoidant of the rain. From the sidewalk, Althea stood, an arm waving exuberantly, her face stretched into a wide smile, palm pressing to her mouth to blow kisses.

An excerpt from Vinyl, June, 2005.


Following her departure from Jill Lockhart's ever metamorphosing Traffic soon after the release of their latest chart-topping album, it was reported that keyboardist Liv Liddell was snagged by Satellite for her own project. According to a Vinyl insider, the New Orleans born-and-raised Liddell is actually Olivia Berge. If that name doesn't strike a bell, perhaps the names of her parents might: Sam Stevens and Gabe Berge. It has long been suspected that Steven's youngest daughter was the product of a brief reunion between her and her early Seventies collaborative partner, the guitar legend Berge. All reports have continually been met with silence from either the Stevens' or now reclusive Berge's parties. While other famous rock celeb-offspring's albums have been met with lukewarm praise, buzz and speculation continues to mount for the young Miss Liddell.

Also from Satellite is their own personal, and affectionately dubbed, Brat Prince, Harlen Prior, whose album has already stirred a bit of musical media buzz. His Royal Highness' album is not only rumored to be a mishmash of opera, pop and classical influences, but inside sources tell us that the singer's intensely personal lyrics are -- yes, we're saying it -- about men. In an industry used to having plenty of gay icons, homosexuality is no shocker, but when was the last time you heard Elton John croon a ballad directly to David Furnish? We didn't think so. Though Prior isn't rumored to hail from any musical monarchy, his rags-to-hopefully-riches story promises to mold us one damn well-dressed media darling.

(co-written with Landfill sky)

As the lasting effects of colored pills wore off, Harlen drifted down the rabbit hole and into sleep across the sprawl of pillows, sheets and lazy limbs. Here, he was no misguided Alice, wandering her way through a colored wonderland, but in turn, had tripped the boundary into another dream. Accidentally, Harlen touched feet down on crisp green grass and stared out along a flat, checkered garden. Animal topiaries arched around him, a tiger swiping a green claw at the air, a roaring lion, a leaping gazelle, a rearing horse on its hind legs. Among them, clusters of rosebushes twined and looped around lattices, displaying bright blossoms proudly. Only, instead of the common red that roses were so commonly associated with, the white blossoms stuck out among green leaves.

Staring down at the heavy weight in his hand, he spied the can of paint he dangled - a dangerous crimson. Fingers wrapped around a slender brush as well, and he held it up to the sun, staring at clean bristles in contemplation.

"Oh, fuck it." He mumbled. In situations like these, sometimes it was best to play along. Dress shoes crunched against grass as he marched over, a smear of purple linen on an otherwise green and white canvas. The suit was familiar, at least. Royal colors, a dangling pocketwatch and a fitted vest. His tie was secured firmly at the neck, a full knot that refused to budge. Tails twittered behind him, and he clunked a paint can down to submerge brush and smear white petals with glossy red paint.

The work was easy and fulfilling. Never wasting a drop, the precise art of painting petals came naturally to him, and soon an entire rosebush had been finished, sticking out among the rest. Removing the crooked hat from his head, Harlen stepped back to survey his work, arms folding across his chest.

"Who's been painting my roses red!?" A voice squawked from behind him. Wheeling on heel, he gripped the brim of his hat and squinted out along the garden. A smear of angry red was weaving through the bushes and topiaries, staggering heels stabbing the ground and tearing up chunks of earth with each step.

"Oh God.." He mumbled in an awkward surge of irrational dream-panic.

"Who dares to taint with vulgar paint the royal flower bed!?" The woman was nearing, and he fumbled back a step or two.

"It serves them right, they planted white, but roses should be red!" He protested in strange, new rhyme. Tongue tripped over the words and he watched as the woman came into focus. Blonde hair had been tightly wrapped into a regal twist behind her head, and the shimmer of familiar diamonds decorated a tiara and necklace strung around her neck. The high, wrapping collar of her dress lifted up, red against snow white pale skin, and green, jealous eyes narrowed in on the seeming stranger.

"Idiot." She mumbled. "What's your name, child?"

Harlen simply tipped his head and refused to play along. Recognition was readable on his face from top to bototm.

"Never mind." She insisted with a wave of her hand. "I know you. You're the Cheshire. What have you been doing here? Besides painting my roses."

"Oh, just looking." He returned, nudging the paint can into hiding behind the bush. "I've had hallucinations before, but never like this. I think it's the drugs. And the absinthe."

"Oh, this is no brain fever, Cheshire." The Queen drawled, propping hands on her hips. "Can you play croquet?"

Brows creased together and he tried to remember. "I don't think so. I've never played. Nothing seems real here, I don't know if I could even hold the mallet."

"Nothing is real here, Cheshire-dear. Everything conjures from the imagination, and the imagination has no limits, no boundaries, no--"

"That's not true." He interjected. The Queen of Hearts gasped.

"Off with his head!" A stern finger swept in his direction and Harlen held hands up in defense.

"Wait, wait wait! Hear me out on this one. The imagination can only reassemble and rearrange information that we plug into it. Nothing unknown can be known, nothing you've never seen before can be seen, we cannot create, we can only.. rediscover, reimagine, reformulate the old into a semblance of the new."

The Queen tipped her head casually and tapped fingers against a pale forearm. "I suppose."

"Indeed. So the reliable becomes unreliable. The foundation of the imagination is formed in reality. Reality becomes your imagination. Even the unreal, this garden, you, me, my suit, your dress, these roses. Just a fabrication of real story and real memory. Little else."

"Depressing." Her voice drooped in a low murmur. "Though, sometimes the things you think are real, are nothing more than a dream. A hazy hope amidst confusion and chaos. A diamond glimmering that turns out to be nothing more than a trick of your eye when exposed to far too much darkness."

In Harlen, a chord struck somewhere low, beneath his ribcage, among the fluttering beat of his sleeping heart. "Oh."

"Indeed. I suppose it's best for us to hold onto what we know, hm? Roses aren't meant to be red, Cheshire, unless they grow that way." Fingers lifted, snapped together in a click of sound, and instantly all his work was undone. "You can't paint over the reality of things. You can't dress them up. Did you ever think that perhaps I wanted a change? The Queen of Hearts is sick of red. I planted white roses to mark a change. A transition. Croquet, however, always remains the same. I've a game soon, are you coming to watch? I always win."

"No.." He lulled, shoulders sinking. "No no. I should get back. The lines are blurring. I'm scared. Terrified of what's coming."

"No need to be." She remarked carelessly, her hand flitting in the air, adopting a regal sweep. "Fear is useless. It only makes you run. There are no lightning bolts here, you see." Staring up, she motioned again to the stretch of blue sky, marked with one white glimmer of glaring light. The sun. "Forever is forever, marked or not. And it awaits. Wake up."

In a rush of air and a jolting open of eyes, that was exactly what Harlen did.

<center>Nothing is as it appears
In the funhouse mirror of your fears
On the rollercoaster of all these years
With your hands above your head

Cause the finish line is a shifty thing
And what is life but reckoning
And you know you are still the song I sing
To myself when I'm alone</center>

"I don't think this is what I should be doing." Harlen spouted out of nowhere. Hunched in the vinyl booth of the Moondance diner, Althea sat across from him, her head canted curiously in one hand, watching as the pianist mulled over a sufficient breakfast that he hadn't touched once.

"I told you, the waffles were good."

"I don't mean the food." He answered with a lift of eyes in her direction. Althea leaned back and tapped at the edge of his plate with a blue-chipped fingernail.

"Eat something or you're going to be dragging ass all day. I used to skip breakfast and it was the worst thing, I was a total lazy slob all day. What do you mean this isn't what you should be doing? You don't mean.." Eyes canted curiously to the ring that Harlen had shown off rather extravagantly the moment she sat across from him.

"No. No no, not that. I just mean.. I mean making an album. Being a musician. It's a good idea in theory, and there are a thousand people out there who'd give their left arms to be in my position, but I'm not one of them. I could take this or leave it, and more often than not I feel more like I should leave it."

Althea, who struggled and shifted for fame whenever she could, didn't quite understand the expression on Harlen's face. It showed no spark of interest at the idea of being up on a stage somewhere, adored by fans and fawned over by music critics. "Why?"

"I didn't grow up wanting this. I just go in there everyday and get irritated because the album isn't turning out to be anything like I want it to." Lifting a fork, he carefully cut through the waffles, scooping the fruit topping into the grooves. "I hate having to be in that studio at some godawful hour, I hate having to get out of bed in the morning when I don't want to. I hate coming home late because I have to finish a take. I hate having to do things. I swore I'd never put myself in a situation where I had to do anything for anyone else that I didn't want to. I hate the paperwork. I hate the business aspect of all of it. I hate that I'm going to have to go on some tour of places I don't want to be, or see, and play the same fifteen songs night after night until I'm completely sick of them."

"Oh.." Althea answered dumbly, her lungs filling with air, palms placed carefully on the table. "Well.. then drop it. I mean, if you don't want to do it, why are you still doing it? There has to be some reason."

"I signed a contract. It's do it or.. pay Lani the rest of my fucking trust fund in fees. Not like she needs the money anyway." He scoffed, swallowing down a gulp of orange juice. "And Liv would kill me for backing out on the tour with her. Do you know Liv?"

"No, not really. She's Lucy's friend, right?"

"Right. But, if you knew her, you'd be scared of telling her no too." Slouching forward, he tapped fingers along the cracked formica and shook his head. "I'm sorry, I'm terrible company today. I had an awful night last night, and I'm.. overtired and everything is just.." He didn't make much mention to a series of dreams that were wriggling their way under his skin, a sick and angry Michael, dreams where death loomed over his head like approaching storm clouds. It was just a matter of time before they hit. In spite of himself, a palm swept over his face in an attempt to disguise the fact that, for what felt like the hundredth time this week, his throat was closing up and tear ducts were brimming with overflow. His head canted away and he stared glossy-eyed out the window.

"Harlen.." Althea attempted, leaning forward to examine.

"This is all I do lately. This is all I did last night, too. I hate it. I'm supposed to be irrepressibly happy and all I do is cry. I shouldn't be crying. I should be planning, and calling all my friends and telling them everything and.." Pausing, he rolled eyes and slumped back in his seat. "I don't want to be here."

"This is the center of the universe, Harlen, where would you rather be?"

Harlen scoffed, a wet, sad sort of sound, and edged knuckles at the slants of his eyes. The answer, to him, was an obvious one.

"Paris."

<center>http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ontc/info1.jpg

How sick of me
Must you be
By now
While you're standing just outside
Of what your pride will allow
Always reaching into yourself
To find a new way to understand me
When I'm sure that there's no one else
In the world
Who could withstand me

I took to the stage
With my outrage
When you were the make-me-mad guy
But the songs
They come out more slowly
Now that I am the bad guy
And I say, I'm sorry I'm so crazy
I am astounded by your patience
And you say, believe it or not, baby
The joy you bring me
Still outweighs it

And you're standing firm
And you're staying close
And you're seeing clear

How sick of me
Must you be
By now</center>