I stepped forward and took a short swing at him but I found only air. I threw a few more but I still failed to connect till finally he blocked one and planted a sharp punch in my stomach. As he delivered the blow I got my left arm around his shoulder, his second strike drove the air from my lungs but I held on and managed to start a grapple.
Things improved for me after that. As with our childhood scuffles I was still no match for him in a straight up punching match, but once we had closed I was the better wrestler. My longer legs and arms gave me better leverage and he lost the advantage his quick reflexes normally gave him. We stumbled about the room for several moments before he tried to drive me into the bed post. With a twist I took his momentum and he wound up getting the hard wooden corner in his back.
With a strangled cry he quit trying to break the grapple. That seemed like a good idea, so I let go and rolled off of him, panting to catch my breath. “Are you alright?” I asked.
“Hell no! It hurts like hell!” He had his hand against his lower back. “That was a shitty move.”
“You’re the one that tried to run me into it! You’re too damn strong for me to hold you down, so it was either you or me,” I bit back.
He scowled at me for a long minute while he rubbed at his aching backside. I glared back at him till finally neither of us could take the tension any longer and we broke into grins. A moment after that we started laughing and our anger drained away.
“Some things never change,” he said once our chuckling slowed down.
“I thought we had outgrown these little chats.”
“Me too,” he agreed ruefully.
“Desperate times require desperate measures,” I announced.
We were lying on our backs side by side now. The hard wooden floor wasn’t exactly comfortable but neither of us complained. Then Marc spoke again, “Desperate indeed my friend. I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but it isn’t going to be enough.”
With a sideways glance I could see him staring at the ceiling. “Why not?” I asked.
“Because it hurts Mort, it hurts far more than you can possibly realize.” He rolled his head over and caught my gaze. We had been friends for most of our lives and looking into his brown eyes I could see the pain behind them. I watched him for a long moment before he looked away. Tears had begun to well.
“I don’t understand,” I confessed.
“Nobody does. Even now, even knowing the truth, I want her so badly it feels as though someone is driving a stake through my heart. It’s painful Mort… excruciatingly painful.” He was referring, of course, to his goddess. Perhaps I should call her his ‘ex-goddess’, Millicenth, the Lady of the Evening Star.
“We all lose things, it’s a part of life,” I said softly.
“This isn’t like that Mort. Imagine living happily with Penny for years and years, having children, loving them and receiving their love. Imagine everything you ever wanted, love, respect, trust… all of it. Now imagine you wake up tomorrow and discover that it’s all gone. Not only is it gone, but it never existed. The woman you loved wasn’t real; she was a dream, created for the sole purpose of manipulating you. The children, your life, your happiness, all of it was a lie, fabricated by a being so foreign that it didn’t even hate you… you were merely a tool.” Marc paused for a moment.
“She made you think you had children?” I asked, puzzled.
“No… idiot! I was using that as an example, it was the closest thing I could think of to convey the sort of happiness she created within me. It wasn’t just happiness, it was… everything. While she was with me I had no doubts or fears. Death might threaten but she was holding my hand, and I believed she would be waiting for me beyond death’s doors. Every action had meaning, and every moment was full of importance, all part of her plan to better humankind. No… it wasn’t just that…” He stopped for a moment, a note of shame in his voice.
“What?” I asked. I wasn’t certain I wanted to know, but he wouldn’t have begun if he hadn’t needed to get it off his chest.
“It was like sex, only better. The entire time I was in her service I abstained from women… I had no desire for them. Whenever I healed someone…” I saw a shudder run through him as he remembered.
“You had an orgasm when you healed people?”
“No! But my shame is just the same, worse, the sensation was far better than an orgasm. It was like a drug, an exaltation of the mind and spirit, as well as an ecstatic sensation of physical pleasure. Why do you think I went looking for people in need?” The look in his eyes was one of abject despair and humiliation. “I ‘wanted’ to find sick people. I needed it… and when my craving became so bad that I had dreams of hurting people, just so I could heal them… she forgave me. She told me it was normal, a weakness of flesh forced to contain the divine.”
I couldn’t help the feeling of revulsion his words evoked, “That’s…,” I stopped myself before I finished with what I was thinking, ‘disgusting’.
“I knew it was wrong, but I had to believe her. I needed to believe her. I was like an addict… I am an addict. Even now I have dreams… I want to go back to her so badly.” He cradled his head in his hands.
“Yet you rejected her,” I said, hoping to remind him of his own inner strength.
“Even in that decision I cannot claim pure motives. Truly I was angry that she refused to aid Penny… that was the moment when I could no longer pretend she had our best interests at heart. I already knew… deep down… but in that moment I was sure. Even so, I would not have had the strength to reject her if I hadn’t been so angry.”
“Angry that she wouldn’t help Penny,” I added for him.
“No,” he answered in a voice devoid of hope, his face was red and his eyes were swollen with tears now. “I was angry that she wouldn’t give me what I wanted… what I needed. It was the anger of an addict who’s been told he can’t have more.”
I stared at my friend for long minutes. He had run out of words and I had none to give him. My only thought was that a man of noble spirit had been broken, and turned into this. The friend I had known so long was ruined, thoroughly, inside and out, more completely than anyone could be. Looking back I think that was the day that I realized anyone could be corrupted, that none of us were immune to evil. No matter how lofty our ideals, we are all susceptible to weakness and depravity. It was a final passage from innocence to adulthood.
Yet we still have choices. Perhaps not good ones, and sometimes they seem insignificant, but they are still choices. At the very least every morning holds the choice, sink into despair or get up and try to do something, no matter how meaningless.
Eventually my thoughts came together and I spoke, “So what are you going to do now?”
He laughed, “There’s nothing to do. Let me have that bottle and I’ll do the only thing I can to dull the pain.” There was no apology in his voice, merely numb acceptance.
“That’s just a slow death,” I replied.
“Suits me fine,” he said. “It isn’t as if I want to live anyway. What I have become… isn’t something that deserves to live.”
“Do you really want to die?” I asked without a hint of mockery.
“Yeah.”
“Then let’s do it.”
“What?” he asked with a note of surprise.
“Not me of course, I still have things to live for… but if you really are in that much pain you should let me help you,” I told him earnestly.
“That isn’t funny. I’m being serious here Mort.”
“I know. I love you Marc. You’ve been one of my best friends for as long as I can remember. If you’re hurting this badly I want to help you.” At that moment I was deadly serious, and he could see it on my face.
“Why?”
“Let’s look at the alternatives,” I explained. “You can drink yourself to death… over a period of months or years, hurting everyone that cares about you, forcing them to watch your slow decline. You could also end yourself in some spectacular manner, shocking everyone and hurting them even more. Or…,” I paused and held a finger up, “You could let me help you.”
“Help me how? You’ve lost me,” Marc said, but as he spoke I could tell curiosity had replaced his anger and despair at last.
“Help you die. Normally when someone commits suicide they do it alone, and the result usually winds up
