Anne Charlotte Had It Coming

I.

The first thing Anne Charlotte said to me was this: “Check me out. You’re mine.” Mind you, I was not in an intelligent mood to decipher her pink riddle; I was only listening to the flowery notes from her nectar lips, the cool blossom gift of whatever she was trying to say. Cute little thing, she was. As I kept my dumb eyes glued on her, I tried to think of something cool to say, but the thunder in my mind only repeated: You’re mine. You’re mine. She must have noticed my rejected and boring brain which held no cool conversations, so she left.

Usually, the nights were always the worst for me. My circadian rhythm was set for the insomniac hours of the doomed. I kept thinking about her in the deep center of my juggernaut mind as I tried to beat one out. Just her glowing pink imagination. Just her eyes. I laid in bed for hours, endlessly roaming the empyrean mind that was filled with her cool ghost images. What an anagogic thing, she was! Yet, I couldn’t get off. The nights were long.

It was hard to wake up. My eyes opened in glory or bedazzlement, and I was shot to life again. I got out of bed too fast, stretched, and blacked out. Luckily, I must have fallen on my bed, because I woke up again with a sense of déjà vu.

“She’s ready to go again,” I spoke first breath. Now, why did I utter such a thing? I will telltale:

After I had shaken off my old bones, replaced my face, and brushed off my indolent eyes, I reached over my bed and checked my cell phone for any cool updates in my virtual media digitalis. I had one cool update: from Anne Charlotte!

“Come on. I need you,” the message went.

That was when I said, “She’s ready to go again.”

Oh, and just so you know, she never mentioned hell about her crimes! I’m telling you this now for whatever reason, in case you want to make a special note of it. She did not tell me any of it! As if I even counted as anybody! Cunning little thing, she was.

Come on. I need you.

You are mine, and I am yours.

II.

Anne Charlotte loved to do her make-up. For as long as I could remember, I would always sit on her bed and watch her, sitting in front of her pink fluorescent vanity mirror for hours on end, putting on her autumn gossamer beauty. Then, she would turn and look at me with her dark smoky eyes, her lascivious lips, full of cool neon glitter. She would smile.

She’s just wasting time, I thought to myself. Today in particular because we were about to do something quite significant (as she had mentioned over the phone). Suddenly, I knew she was about to bring me into her deep cloak of mystery. She was magic, I tell you. Alakazam! Blast my fiery heart into dust!

“This won’t hurt one bit,” she had mentioned over the phone.

I didn’t trust her because there was a ghost in my head that made this hard to forget, or believe in. (I’ll explain later).

“I trust you,” I did not say. “Probably,” I said out loud.

“What?”

Instead of answering her, I laughed. There was glitter all over her face. Even after seven months, I still could not get rid of the glitter. I swear, there would be glitter long after I was dead and buried (in glitter, most likely). But it was fucking cute, at the time.

“Hey mister, are you laughing at me?”

“Why would I do that?”

She made a funny face that told me she did not understand my retort. (Most nights, I have been practicing my rebuts in front of the mirror, high as a kite, mind you). I wish I was high right now. Instead, I just looked down at my feet, in defeat.

“Okay, I’ll let this one slide this one time. Come on! We gotta go!” And in one fell swoop, she was out the window.

Fuck me, I never did learn how to fly properly.

III.

Next scene, here we go. I will describe everything that happened, so pay attention. Also, this all happened very fast, so excuse me if I left out some minor details. Remember Henry? Mother fucker stunk. Never took a shower a day in his life. Anne Charlotte did not seem the least bit bothered by this. Not that it mattered because after Henry died, I figured he would continue to stink for just a little bit longer, and all the worms and bugs would not be bothered by the smell. I got a lot to learn about decay. I was too weak, and I was embarrassing her, standing stupidly in the corner of Henry’s disgusting room. I could not force myself to move, much less say anything because, to be honest, I was in awe. I beseeched nothing but the cool grisly gore before my eyes. “This reminds me of a painting,” I thought to say, but I did not want to distract her. I will say: Anne Charlotte could handle a knife like a savvy abstract Freudian engine, all red and steam! “Will you fucking be careful!” she cried, looking down at the blood trail made by my boots because I thought it was a good idea to wander around the room, collect clues, or something. “I’m nowhere near him!” I yelled, confused as all get out. I wiped my boots on Henry’s filthy bed, but in doing so, I had mustered up a treacherous stench that made me puke all over the fucking place. Blood and vomit and dead bodies did not make for an attractive look. “I AM WEAK!” I bellowed. “Okay, you’re sounding real dumb now,” Anne Charlotte said with a smirk. I gathered myself and chuckled at my silly renditions. “You’re dumb,” she said again. “Hey, I like you. Come here.” But I did not have to move because she was fast upon me, capturing me and pushing me up against the wall. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this here? Like, with Henry all dead and shit?” I pulled away from her, embarrassed, looking down at my blood-shit-vomit-boots. Anne Charlotte rolled her dark eyes and smiled and looked at me and said, “We need to get you a new pair of boots, sir.” Way to go.

IV.

Now, who doesn’t like a good ol’ fashion sex scene? But let me tell you: this girl was like a desolated carnival ride, with a heaping jigger of horror and excitement! She turned my vision into kaleidoscopes, and I lost myself in her mirror skin funhouse. Crawlingly, I felt her hot ephemeral touch as we rollicked to the gravity of our bodies. At some point, I must have blacked out. When I finally regained consciousness, I noticed that my nose was bleeding. Then, I felt an enigmatic burst of pseudo-fire. I tried not to think too much about the pain. Then, it was all over. Anne Charlotte must have seen some sort of vision in my ghost because she inched herself very close to my ear and whispered: “You can be my lover ghost now.” Wow, what an enervated riot! “You’re cheesing,” she laughed. Honestly, this was probably the most impeccable, absolute moment I had ever experienced. Now the climax: Anne Charlotte (being Anne Charlotte) said, “Cut me! Cut me!” “What? No. Are you pillow talking right now?” Then, she hit me. Hard. Once she was on top of me, she reached under her pillow and pulled out the—

“Take the gun,” she said. “Let’s have some real fun.”

V.

Maybe we took this way too far. I remembered feeling so wrong, yet alive at the same time—destined!—as we spun off of each other’s radical trails, splitting levels and heads! Anne Charlotte was becoming more and more impressed by me: I obeyed the rotten core of mankind, welcoming whomever she dubbed fit into the underworld. I welcomed the concept of eternal death, and I think I played a pretty good part in it. Lately, I would talk hopelessly to her, full of endless, catastrophic devotion. No, this was not romanticizing—this was a tragedy of blood drugs to the max! I swear, we were turning into real animals. Roaming, I spoke, “Anne, what have we done?”

“Don’t fucking ask dumb-ass questions like that! Ever!” Boy, she loved to scream (I got used to the constant ringing in my ears).

Gravely—and with grace—it was getting noticeably hard to recognize even myself. I felt an unresolved power ascending from deep in my system. I lost touch. So, I touched her instead. Instantly, she backed away in disgust.

“Who the fuck are we even trying to fool, Anne!?” I yelled at her with heavy possession. This was the first time she had ever heard me yell like this, and I saw that she did not know what to do. With that same heavy momentum, I backed her tightly into a corner, immobilizing her. She did not show disgust anymore. I looked possessively into her eyes, and in return, her eyes exploded like a great collapse of constellations. “Fuck me,” she whispered harshly. Remember, this was just an act. My ears kept ringing for the rest of the night.

VI.

After we broke up, I walked home with my one forlorn bag of clothes (I had left everything else at Anne Charlotte’s house, including my soul). Surprisingly, I did not feel anything. In the time that I had known Anne Charlotte, she had finally taught me how to master the decay of one’s own mind, and I secretly hated her for that.

It was around midnight now and incredibly dark (even with the full moon out). I felt like I was walking through some wizardry void of rejection, and with each step I took, the earth grew darker and darker.

Unknowingly, my ghost mind started to conjure up disturbing energy. I felt increasingly paranoid, so I ran the rest of the way until I made it to my small house in the safety of the hidden forest. Hastily, I locked the door and took a deep breath. As I turned on the lights, I saw two fluorescent figures dancing on my tabletop. Wow, was I already damned to the rotten core of my own failure?

“Finally, so this must be the underground,” I spoke softly to the obsequious apparitions before they disappeared. This was what she had meant. This was what Anne Charlotte was trying to tell me all along. We’re down till we’re underground.

Outside, I could hear the gales growing stronger; the trees scratched and clawed at my windows. (The nights were always the worst).

I felt the worsening cold in my body, dreadful and suffocating. All I fucking wanted to do was hold her in my arms again. “Anne? Hey, Anne, are you there?” I knew she wasn’t listening.

Instantly, my wicked cogitation blasted my body with heavy anticipation, so I ran outside, running deeper and deeper into the tempest of the night. I screamed high into the canopies.

“Anne! Anne Charlotte! Anne, Anne!”

During the proclamation of my confession, the trees answered me. A defying cry, a level of empyrean neon! Instantly, I could see everything under the cloak of night. I found her, and thus, she gave me some of her magic. The trees cried in the form of a million cicadas!

“You’re amongst the cicadas!” Tremblingly, I fell to my knees, crying and laughing like a mad man, exhuming my spirit from the worms and dirt, forgetting it all. I did not remember much more about that night. I must have blacked out due to exhaustion, or some other demonic level of lover sedation…

I am dreaming. Feels right. I am not afraid. I am clairvoyant enough to write this down. Here son: I am set high in glory! I am the Glory Boy!

“ Time feels so wrong.” I am talking to her. “I can still feel the past.” A dumb and tired creation. We know. She just looks at me. “You took me in! You said I was yours!” We are a consequence of the stars. So stupid. I remember how she had said to me, “Do nothing else.” A sick fucking joke. I wake the fuck up.

“Jesus.”

“Do nothing else,” spoke the final cicadas in the dark canopy.

I fell unto the earth to be swallowed in the dirt, maybe even becoming a cool crystal because if I was a crystal, I would have meant something. I would have been the riches. I would never have let her kill herself. We never broke up. I said this not to anyone. No one was listening. Like I wasn’t even there…

VII.

This was what I liked to remember about Anne Charlotte: Anne Charlotte was too real. Even for me. Her cool pink esoteric mind was made for much greater things beyond the stupid wake of myself or the world. She did not dream. She was too exposed. She could forget anything. Once, she said, “Burn yourself only on the best moments of your life! DO NOTHING ELSE!” She was too empirical. Sometimes, she remembered her promises. Once, I said to her, “I can’t forget you, Anne Charlotte.”

Do nothing else.

Way to go.