Can't Kiss Yourself at Midnight

A girl with a smeared red lipstick chemically dyed concentrated nest of dead cell’s growing from her scalp wipes a sticky hand down my shirt front in one fluid drunken attempt to seductively grab my belt as we wait. Not in silence, no-no. We wait in a fog bank of obnoxious jeering and cigarette smoke; ping-pong balls soar into plastic cups and quarters leave behind minuscule but numerous nicks in a dinning room table; sorority girls at the ready to cheer on their man in a chug competition and college Bros emitting an over abundance of testosterone, quietly saying to one another, “THIS HOLE IS MINE.”
         The giant atomic clock in the center of Earth is nearing the annual point of RESET. TWOTHOUSANDandNINE is nearing it’s evolution to A Thing of the Past.
         People surrounding us in the center stage of our lives make pretty eyes at whatever is to their immediate right as they suck down another Jell-o shot. It matters not if you’re pretty on the inside or ugly on the outside- It’s New Years Eve, and you can’t kiss yourself at midnight.
         I try to look beyond clay eyes staring back at mine without success. My optical field lowers to the orange slug trail leading to the leather belt holding another cheap attempt at escaping my gauche personality together. She tightens her grip. White knuckles dig into my pubes.
         Her mouth opens and the esophagus in her throat fluctuates as if she were going to say something, but the owner of this kitchen, this house, let’s out a teeth busting shrill. Holding the rooms complete and undivided attention, she and millions of others initiate the countdown.
TEN… NINE…
My mind goes away-
What was she going to say?
Ask my name?
ADAM.
My age?
TWENTY-ONE IN JULY.
Am I comfortable with my life?
COMFORT LEADS TO STASIS LEADS TO DECAY.
There are too many things I will never know, and here is a fresh one for the list.
EIGHT… SEVEN…
         Subtract a year and one hour from my time elapsed. A similar scene took place. I leaned against a washer peppered with rust. A glass of Cognac emptied down my throat chased by a long drag off a cigarette while a girl admitted she was designed in accordance with Marla Singer. She was right. A short black hair-doo sprouted out in a fashionable mess. Scars scattered like fissures from her pink mouth, another ran the length of her neck. My fingers twitched at the sight of her clavicle. Bony, jagged and defined, transforming me into a being of sexuality. I wanted to know it. Too bad SMOOTH is one personality deception I’ve yet to master.
         Hennessy poured from a pair of double shot glasses lubed the gears of conversation and even got the cranks in our jaws operating in the red.
         Before I knew her name she informed me she’s going to die in three to five years from HEP-C. A shirt sleeve pulled up, unveiling a ballet routine of purple knotted bumps dancing across dead tree branch veins. Music pumped through the garage, but her voice was unavoidable to only myself. She spoke of a heroine O.D. after a lengthy addiction. That was the second time she was pronounced dead.
         The first time:
         “When I was little girl my dad would have me on the weekends. We used to go to the Y during the Winter and swim since they have an indoor pool. One day he got out and noticed the color of the water looked a little funny.” Her voice rang clear and light hearted. “Dad was in the NAVY so he could tell someone added way too much chlorine. During all of this I was already face down in the deep end.
         “The doctors called the time of death at ONE:THIRTY-NINE PM, but I eventually woke up without any brain damage. Which I guess is supposed to be some kind of miracle or something.”
         Of course my vocal cords vibrated on impulse a query of death and what it brings.
         “Death for me,” hot breath characterized with the smell of cognac hit me in calm spurts, “was like a big white room. It was warm and swirls of blue, gold, pink, silver and all kinds of colors began moving throughout. It was so peaceful, but then I woke up.”
         Her words flowed like the psilocybin astroplane of scenic hot pink and aqua blue colors drafted by hundreds of tiny beings dancing with one another into my soft ears.
         Focus a bit harder on the tiny Lindy-Hop dancers in death, and you’ll see their molecular structure is made up of uncountable English letters. Read them to yourself and you’ll spell words like
S-E-X
L-U-C-K
B-E-A-U-T-Y
D-O-O-M
L-O-V-E
         She said that after her first death-isode, she knew there wasn’t a God.
         I stood there in awe of her existence for several moments, pondering how a being of such frailty and rigid experience at a young age could hold her life in such disregard that she contracted a serious illness and now only has a short time to dream.
         My concentration was interrupted by her voice. She asked if I had dreams.
         I told her she had to tell me her name first.
         She told me, so I told her.
         Her name is unique. I had never heard it before and have not heard it to this day, but I would know it if it would only chime. It started with an A. Apricot comes to mind, but I’m certain that’s not it.
         There are too many things I’ll never know, and one is her real name.
         The garage door separating us from the rest of the world opened and we could hear the party cheering, “TEN… NINE…”
         I moved close to Apricot and whispered my dream into her ear. I understood at that moment she knew life was but an illusion, and in death we will witness real serenity and peace that can not be found in a guided tour of Yellowstone. At that moment I fell apart. Not a mental breakdown. More of an epiphany.
         Once everyone in the central time zone shouted, “ZERO- HAPPY NEW YEAR!.” I leaned in to kiss Apricot. My face burnt red short hand cook hot. As the awkwardness took over and my body went on auto pilot, eyes shut, neck craned, she let out a giggle and dodged me.
         Drunk driving incoming stop sign fast, I slammed the breaks. Her smile melted me in a below freezing garage.
         “I only go for med students and architectural design majors.”


Here and now, New Years Eve: Out with the Oh- Nine, in with the Oh- Ten, a girl with Ronald McDonald red hair just wiped orange Jell-o down my shirt front and grabbed my belt buckle. Before the countdown, she didn’t even notice me. Before then I was nothing but an extra. A sprite. A nuclear blasted silhouette etched into a party.
         The crowd calls, “ZERO- HAPPY NEW YEAR!” and I unlock a lost door in my psyche. The name I've been longing to rediscover finally reveals itself:
        ALARIC.
         Everyone simultaneously wraps a Jell-o sticky mouth around the lips to their right, creating violent slurping and sucking noises with thick tongues.
        There are many things I'll never know in this world, and I just took one off the list.
         I look past the clay eyes staring back at mine, and see swirls of pink and blue dancers floating across a field of gold. I close my eyes and I see someone living like they are dying. My mouth collides with the faux red’s and I give her all I’ve got: A kiss boiling over with wondering passion. The whole time thinking of you, Alaric. DEAD OR ALIVE.