The Day the Earth Met the Sky Read online

  THE DAY THE EARTH MET THE SKY: STORIES OF LOVE AND DEATH, OLD GODS, AND NOTHING IN PARTICULAR

  Pat Ellis

  Copyright © 2017 by Pat Ellis

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art © by Pat Ellis.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental

  Introduction

  True love transcends eons of lifetimes in these short stories dedicated to the union of two souls; eternally entwined by the fate of their all-consuming love for one another, and a purpose greater than any worldly creature could fathom. Here is a compilation of precious moments, beginnings, and fragments of larger tales, all brought together to tell the never-ending love story of two of Eternity’s greatest heroes.

  The day the earth met the sky, nothing could ever be the same

  The Truth Is

  Down here, with nothing but the nothing of blackened silence, no trace, no notion of the outside world, it was easy to come to the conclusion that none of it was real; nothing but sensory information and firing neurons, private conjurings, constructs, lies, easily digestible, individual interpretations of God knows what—as if “God” could know any more than the conjurer himself—easy to understand that no one, not ever, has had nor will have any notion of the outside world because no one, not ever, has been nor will be liberated from the constraints of their own lonely, individually constructed world, a world never to be shared or mutually understood, because everything known or experienced is only ever known or experienced individually, only truly existing between our own, mutually exclusive eyes. Alone. Forever alone; it sounded melodramatic even to himself. But, down here, involuntarily sensory deprived within the dark place—as he’d called it since he was small and dumb and uncreative—the truth was glaringly apparent and laughably irrefutable. God, to know someone, to really know someone, from the inside out; to shatter each other’s respective realities! It was the most beautiful, impossible idea… to actually know someone.

  Light! About goddamn time.

  It burned, as usual, but he was grateful. He was always grateful for the return of illusion, slowly morphing into “the real world” again; the truth tucked away somewhere in the back of his mind. He could ignore all that stuff well enough, outside of the dark place.

  It was Monday. Off to school again, and Ever was relieved more than happy. Either way, it was nice to be outside, enveloped in the crisp fall breeze, beneath the grey sky, leaves the colors of fire crunching beneath his sneakers, the scent of fresh rain filling the air; it was easy. He could almost believe it all. Anything could be truth if you believed in it enough. The cracked sidewalk, small one-way street, large, old houses, fences covered in ivy with leaves red and slowly purpling in preparation for winter. These people lived so close to each other. He saw a few classmates rushing through a screen door, laughing their way to the street; Amanda and Ashley and Amber, all the A’s in one place. They were always together, always happy and pretty, looking younger than they were with their pink and purple backpacks covered in pins of animated large-eyed furry creatures, and older than they were with their high shoes, dark-rimmed eyes, and red lips, which he supposed created enough balance to insinuate their actual ages of 13, maybe 14, he couldn’t remember exactly. Ever had just turned 14 himself. Ashley, unnaturally blonde-haired and dark eyed, looked over her shoulder and smiled. He’d been spotted. He gave her what he hoped was a pleasant smile in return, but he could never be sure he was playing himself correctly so soon after—

  “Hey Eer!”—It sounded like air; as if his name wasn’t short enough— “Walk with us!”

  She ran back towards him followed by her friends, dark Amber and light Amanda, both with long curls and smooth skin; like the same person painted with opposing color palettes. All three, thin and pretty and smiling. Amber and Ashley got to him first, linking arms with him while Amanda pouted jokingly. They smelled strongly of chemical flowers. “Hey, Eer! You look kind of faded,”—like she knew what that meant— “long weekend?” Ashley asked, pulling him along, both her and Amber jarring him annoyingly with their opposing paces.

  “Guess you could say that,” he said, his voice coming out raw and full of gravel.

  “Oh, Eer, so mysterious!” Amber laughed.

  They liked it that way. The girls all liked him, in fact. They called him all kinds of things; mysterious, sweet, quiet, polite, but mostly cute, which in turn made him “popular,” as they’d say, though he figured what the girls liked most about him was his “nonthreatening” cuteness and politeness and the fact that he wouldn’t “try anything funny,” which provided them with something cute and popular to hang all over and mark as their territory, without fear of propositions or advances or any other forms of inappropriate douche-baggery. No doubt in a few years they wouldn’t appreciate his propriety so much; they’d start to crave those advances, then wonder why he didn’t, why he wasn’t interested, what was wrong with them, insecurities growing, what was wrong with him? Why doesn’t he want to kiss me? Why? Because he’s still too preoccupied with fantasies of kissing the reigning bad-boy king of Fairmont Middle School just like the rest of them, that’s why. That fucking jerk.

  Speak of the devil. Smoking indiscreetly behind the bus stop was Jacob Alfonse—an arbitrary last name, being his real parents were unknown, just like Ever’s. They were both from the city, from the Pound, though the witches had adopted Ever when he was 7—only a year after he’d been locked up—and Jacob had bounced back and forth from Paycheck Parents and the Pound until fairly recently when the Sorenson’s had taken him in, seeming to appreciate the money enough to put up with all his “acting out” for the long haul. Ever remembered when Jacob used to play guitar and sing on the street, despite the fact child beggars got more handouts than a talented child musician ever could. Jacob had pride enough to match his talent, though neither ever did him any good. When Jacob had moved in with the Sorenson’s and first been enrolled in Fairmont Middle School, one would’ve assumed he and Ever being reunited would spark some kind of shared-suffering cultivated friendship. But… anticlimactic would be an understatement. To this day, they’d barely spoken. Of course, Ever and Jacob had never been close—unless you counted those times in the winter when they were small and freezing and sharing old cots and each other’s warmth, all of them huddled together like a sorry, starving pack of dogs, when Jacob had often buried his face in Ever’s chest, desperation overwhelming pride. Those times didn’t really count, though Ever appreciated the memory—likely more than he should, being all he’d felt at the time was fear and resignation. They weren’t close at all, and Ever had always suspected this was because Jacob resented him and his nonthreatening cuteness which allowed him to escape their frozen hell quickly, while Jacob had known from the start it would never be so easy for him. Dark Jacob; dark skin, dark hair, with incongruously light blue eyes that felt to most like piercing shards of ice, though Ever had always thought of them as the sky. Dark and angry and terrifyingly volatile; Jacob was not an easy sell. Ever thought he was beautiful though, and so did all the girls, even when they might be too scared to go near him. Dark Jacob, the perfect bad-boy with a troubled past, Ever was sure all the girls fantasized about saving him, changing him, turning him into the typical TV boyfriend of their dreams, as if they were somehow special and magic enough to uproot his whole persona…

  Ever just wanted to drown in the darkness. Sometimes he imagined Jacob killing him with that sharp, clean knife he always carried tucked in the rim of his boot that he thought nobody saw. Jacob would be above him, silhouetted by moonlight while he dragged the cold blade slowly across Ever’s throat. Ever’s mouth woul
d fill with blood and Jacob would kiss him then, drinking his last moments. Beautiful Jacob would end it all with a kiss; no more meaningless illusions, no more loneliness. That would be real, wouldn’t it? How much more inside of another’s reality could you be when they’ve taken yours in their own hands?

  God, he just wanted to know him!

  As if catching wind of Ever’s thoughts, Jacob turned and met his eyes; cold and angry, same as ever. The girls stopped chattering nonsensically and Amanda whispered, “Look, it’s tall, dark, and dreamy!”—if she only knew how his terrible dreams used to wake them both— “Hey, Jake!” she called out boldly, and he turned away, stamping the cigarette into the sidewalk.

  He wouldn’t speak to her today, not while she was with Ever.

  The darkness… the witches kept saying the darkness was coming for him, that he had to be careful, that he had to prepare, but they would never elaborate and he was sure that his idea of darkness must be different than theirs. To Ever, the darkness was already here; inside of him, and manifesting in front of him in the form of Jacob. It used to stay in the dark place, separate from “the real world,” but he’d begun to take it with him everywhere these days, and it was getting harder and harder to ignore. The witches wanted him to fear the darkness, calling it the “enemy,” but none of it was real, they weren’t even real; all illusions, all in his head, like everything else, like Jacob even, all his own pointless reality, all alone, no hope, no escape—

  “Eer? Hey Eer!” Ashley chimed in his ear as the bus approached. God, he hated being called Eer. As if his name wasn’t worth the extra breath. “Are you sick?”

  He took a deep breath and pushed it out of his head. Melodramatic. “Maybe. I’m ok.”

  “Oh, Eer, maybe it’s not too late to get a potion from your old ladies. They always help me when I get headaches,” Amanda said, but the bus was already here anyway.

  “Poor thing! We’ll take care of you,” Amber cooed as the girls made a show of helping him up the stairs, onto the bus.

  He heard Jacob snort behind them.

  Ever feigned weakness, falling backwards against Jacob, enjoying the electricity of his touch for just a moment as Jacob let him slide the rest of the way to the ground, as expected. Under the cover of the excited, crowded mess he’d made in the isle, Ever swiped Jacob ’s knife from his boot and hid it in the pocket of his jeans.

  The day went same as usual after that, despite the A’s being extra attentive—as if they could do anything for him if he’d really fainted. Nothing noteworthy. But, Ever didn’t go home after school. Instead, he took a walk down to the lake and sat in the grass. Being a Monday, it was mostly devoid of humans, aside from the usual old fishermen. They said hi to Ever and he waved back, and then they left him to his thoughts. They were long gone by the time the sun went down. Ever sat until the full moon was high and bright, its reflection filling the still water in front of him with glitter. He pulled Jacob ’s knife from his pocket and opened the blade, admiring how it seemed to glow in the night. Jacob kept it so sharp. Of course he did. Jacob was the kind of guy who was always prepared, always on guard; he didn’t need anyone’s help or protection, not Jacob. Jacob was too old for his age, but poor Jacob was probably missing his security blanket by now. Ever gently pressed the blade against his throat. It was as cold as his fantasies and he shuddered. But, he couldn’t slit his own throat. That was just silly. Instead, he made clean, deep incisions along the veins in both his wrists and let the blood flow free. He barely felt the pain. Dark and cold and pure as rain, he lay back in the grass, watching the moon fade and imagining Jacob’s face above him.

  It was so easy. Forget the witches, forget the dark place, this was magic and beautiful.

  He was slipping. For a moment, just a moment, panic, regret, pain—real pain. He clung to Jacob’s blade like a talisman until he lost the strength, but he never lost the image of Jacob’s perfect face, silhouetted by moonlight. That was real. He was real.

  Anything could be truth if you believed in it enough.

  Once Upon a Dream

  (Included in: The Demon King and the Boy Who Hardly Knew Anything)

  It was always raining in the jungle. Erik couldn’t imagine what it felt like to be dry anymore. Their makeshift barracks—nothing but large tents lined with mostly broken cots—had managed to fail in keeping the water out on most occasions, and today was no different. But, at least they had something solid to sleep on tonight. Erik lay on what was recently a dry blanket covering his saturated cot, attempting to get a few hours of sleep, but Aaron, as usual, wouldn’t stop talking.

  The 1st Rebel Infantry Regiment of Morandia and the 23rd Infantry Division of Glendark were barely 1/5 the size they had been in their respective beginnings. The 1st, which was only a small, one brigade regiment of 4,000 men, had been reduced to less than 600, and the 23rd’s 11,000 strong were now no more than 1,500. Apparently, there weren’t nearly enough soldiers available to fully replenish the losses, much less relieve the poor souls who had been deployed in hell for well over a year without leave, so the two forces had combined to form one meager brigade of roughly 2,100 men affectionately referred to as The Leftovers, or The Forsaken depending who you asked, and Erik was now 2nd Squad Leader of the 2nd Platoon of Echo Company, and everything was all mish-mashed together. In the beginning, there was an order to things, a structure, giving some semblance of control amidst the chaos, but it was slowly deteriorating. Now supply, like everyone else, was spread too thin and everybody took what they could get like scavengers, even stealing from each other at times. Erik was guilty of it himself. His squad was his responsibility, after all, and he’d make sure they were the most heavily armed, well fed and dressed squad no matter how low he had to stoop. It was bordering on barbaric. He supposed it was more appropriate this way, instead of going on pretending war was civilized.

  Neither side had acquired new territory in years, so, in turn, the war itself hadn’t moved. Literally. Erik wasn’t too sure about the rest of the war effort, but they’d personally been fighting in the same locations for so long now that he was starting to truly believe they were all dead and this was hell. He supposed that if hell was a real place then you wouldn’t be privy to the somewhat comforting knowledge that you were in fact in hell and that nothing you did mattered anymore.

  Due to this immobility, their situation had turned into a war of attrition, and the progression of the war was strictly being gauged by body count; an inaccurate system to say the least. For one, it was impossible to get an even close to factual body count of all sides since it was easy, as well as beneficial, to exaggerate the losses of the opposition when most of the casualties were in pieces. Also, Morandia had so many more troops at their disposal than Aranfeit and Glendark combined that, even if they’d suffered substantially greater casualties, there was no telling how long they could continue to replenish them. Morandians, Glenn, Aranfei, everyone believed without a doubt they were on the winning side; a true testament to the futility of their situation…

  It was another hot, muggy night and their 20-man tent was full of soldiers either trying to sleep or pretending to enjoy themselves, their forced laughter only adding to the gloom. There were lines strung across the entire expanse of the tent with everyone’s uniforms draped over them to supposedly dry, but nothing was ever dry. It was always nice to have a break from their perpetually wet clothing though. Aaron was lying on a cot next to Erik’s, talking about something he didn’t understand. He’d ended up as Aaron’s squad leader after the merge, which he doubted was a coincidence.

  Aaron had grown taller over the last year. His shoulders filled out leaving him with faint stretch marks, but all his ink finally suited his body at least. Erik was trapped in some sort of reverie staring at the large eyed rooster on the top of Aaron’s right foot when something he said actually caught his attention. “What’s that?”

  “I said, I think we’re much more alive out here than the average person. You know, nobody is
more aware of how fleeting life is than people like us, so we feel every second of it.” Aaron turned from looking thoughtfully at the ceiling to face Erik. “Normal people run on autopilot half the time, letting days pass, hardly feeling any of it, but for us every second is real. Every life is meaningful cus’ it could end at any moment. Nobody else can love and understand each other the way we do. That’s the beauty of war, yeah?”

  “Why do you say stuff like that? We’re in hell… hell is not beautiful,” Erik said.

  “Dammit, that’s not what I’m sayin.’ It’s not beautiful, but there’s beauty in it…”

  “Either way, still fucked up.”

  Aaron sighed and faced the ceiling again. “Know what your problem is? You never really felt a death. Least, not in a long time.”

  “You kidding me?”

  “I mean it. You’ve been around death too long. You don’t feel it anymore. You’re so used to expecting it that you never let yourself get close enough to anyone to actually feel it. Just numb.”

  “Fuckin’ quit telling me what I am. Pisses me off…” Erik rolled over to face the empty cot of Corporal Jackson, dead three days.

  “Least I make you feel somethin.’”

  Erik began to grind his teeth; a recently developed habit. “I feel plenty. I feel pissed off, and I hate this fucking rain.”

  “I like the rain.”

  “Course you do.” Erik wanted to cover his head with a pillow, but there were none since they’d all become too molded from the water.

  “The rain is just the jungle’s way of trying to carry away all the death. It keeps raining like this cus’ we keep killing each other so much here.”

  “It rains because it’s the fucking jungle. That’s what it does.”

  Aaron sighed. “You wanna sleep? I can make you sleep.”