Tales from the Night - A Fleeting Existence

May 2066. It's closing time at Les Fleurs du Mal. Lejl's shift is ending, as she reminisce about the circumstances of her unlikely existence. She's going to get home to her girlfriend and savor a good night of sleep. Except she can't. Every time she falls asleep, her mind wanders back to that place. The place where she almost lost herself, only one year prior.

(Proofread and edited by Kaleb O'Halloran)

I'm here. But, at the same time, I'm not. I’m alive, but I'm not sure I really exist. I love, but I don't know for how long I'll be able to. This is how it is, the daily life of an anomaly: no certainties, only endless questions. I sigh. I can’t stop myself from doing that sometimes. Yeah, I know what they say about working retail. “Smile for the customer, never look bored, hide your sadness,” yadda-yadda, but I just can’t help it. I simply, unavoidably sigh. My feelings, my mind, my brain, they care less about common sense than the average Hollywood movie director.

It's Sunday, should be almost closing time. I peek at the wall clock, and at the flowery decorations that encase it like a gem. The hands are covered by a living ivy, completely enveloped in the overgrowth. One day or another, that clock will stop working altogether, thanks to that nice, friendly, parasitic plant. I tried explaining that to Mr. Kissilmer once, but — guess what? He just laughed it off. Stopping a plant from growing is a cardinal sin! Besides, I want it to happen! I want to witness it! Enjoy it!

Yeah, Niamm Kissilmer sure is a weirdo. A big weirdo. I mean, let’s be real, someone who thought it was a good idea to take in a noctiphage as a pet surely can’t be totally sane, right? Well, you’d be correct! And yet, I work for him. Yup, that’s right, I work for a man who keeps a real, living nocti as a pet. Who's crazier, the madman, or the mad woman who sells the madman’s flowers in his old, decrepit shop? Sheesh, sometimes I wonder how the heck we manage to get by. Granted, I'm the only employee here, but between the decaying look of this place, the absurdly stupid location, and the fact that Mr. Kramers, the boss's noctiphage, always sleeps soundly just in front of the counter, for the whole day... I sigh. Again. I seriously don’t understand how he manages to pay my salary every month, without any delays. I mean, if our shop was placed — I dunno — near a graveyard, somewhere people would actually want to buy flowers, then it’d be super easy to sell every variety you can think of. Plus, people can get pretty careless with their money, when visiting a dear dead one. Yeah, I bet we’d have a much higher income if we were near a graveyard. But nope, we had to open this damn flower shop right near New Langdon's harbor. Like, seriously? Who the heck buys flowers at a harbor?!

The only real saving grace of Les Fleurs du Mal — original name, isn’t it? — is the fact that we’re open until late in the evening. I sometimes do short night shifts too, during which I get to feed Mr. Kramers with some freshly slaughtered rabbits. One thing I’ve learned is that, acid spit aside, noctis aren't much different from any other carrion, and they’re a lot more intelligent than an average dog. So, li’l Kramers quickly understood that it was in his best interest to play nice with me. With time, I ended up actually appreciating his company, during the endless, sleepless nights where I sell flowers to random sailors who happen to storm our shop because they need a last-second gift for their significant other.

Sailors are funny, though. Sometimes, they just need to talk. And, oh boy, do they ever talk. The hard part is making them stop, but it's okay. Their tales make my nights shorter and give me something funny to tell Cyphy when I get back home. It's always priceless to see her incredulous expression, when I tell her some old sea wolf story that completely transcends the realm of reality and common sense. Ah, Cyphy... I can't wait to come back to you, after my shift ends. Did you manage to cook dinner for me, or have you burned it like last weekend? Well, at least the takeout pizza we ordered that night was good. And the taste of your lips just afterward, your gentle breath on my skin...

I shake my head, slapping my cheeks with open palms. I rub my eyelids, shake my head again. Jeez, my mind is wild, and the flesh is weak. Every time I'm deep in thought and Cyphy enters my brain, I start daydreaming about — uh, maybe we should cut it here and keep this safe-for-work. I mean, I’m still at work, after all. Not that anyone else is around…

Mr. Kramers's sudden yawn takes me back to the here, the now. To this decrepit, decaying flower shop at the outskirts of the city, which barely any living soul steps into willingly. Considering what I am, I can’t confidently say I'm an exception to that rule. But that's why I try to savor every moment, when I'm around my girlfriend: because I don't know how long it will last, how long I’ll be able to be with her, to kiss her, to love her. Don’t get me wrong, our relationship is rock solid! But there's something... something about me, that could be our undoing.

I'm afraid of sleeping.

I'm afraid of closing my eyes, to fall into Morpheus's arms.

The reason is all too simple. Every time I fall asleep, I don’t usually dream, like a normal person. Instead, I just end up back there. On the sand, that red, lifeless sand, under a sad, crimson sky. I’m naked. Tired. I can’t breathe. I’m thirsty. I’m hungry. But there's no water, no food. Just an endless wasteland, with pools of black ooze. And the creatures, those eerie, hissing tentacles, which shake like trees in the wind. But there are no trees, nor is there wind. Just a thin, suffocating atmosphere, with the bare minimum amount of oxygen to survive.

For many months, too many months, every night, I woke up in that place. Every. Fucking. Night. I wanted to dream, but I couldn’t. I wanted to just black out and wake up the next morning, but I couldn’t. I… there was nothing I could do. Every single damn night, since I got a real body, my mind was sucked back into the Shadow Gallery and just wandered, wandered, wandered aimlessly in that unchanging scarlet desert. Sometimes seconds, most times minutes, occasionally hours, spent walking endlessly on that dreadful sand, finding ruins of what could have once been a civilization similar to ours. I saw collapsed buildings, remnants of roads, a radio tower, even a nearly-intact train carriage — but no signs of life. Only those dark filaments, waving like antennae, resonating with each other. Once, only once, did I ever actually meet someone. He was massive, incredibly tall and imposing. He was no human, but, at the same time, he was one. He stared at me for a long while, towering over my defenseless body, his four piercing eyes blinking through the thick veil of darkness. Then, I woke up. Cyphy woke me up. I never saw that man again, but I’ll never forget his harrowing gaze. It was filled with despair, with a deep, unknowable sadness. Yet, I could also discern a spark of determination, the will to never give up. A spark that couldn't be quenched.

Truth be told, I'm scared. I'm scared that one day, one fateful day, my mind will just lose itself in the Gallery, and I won't be able to wake up again. I’ll wander forever in that timeless place, never to see Cyphy again.

I feel a shiver go down my spine.

I'm an anomaly. A freak. Something that wasn't supposed to exist. My body is almost an exact copy of some other girl, while — fortunately — my mind is my own. I am me. I am nobody else. Yet, despite everything, I’m always on the brink of non-existence.

I shiver again.

I want to live. I don't want to fade away. I’ve suffered enough, why can't I enjoy life? Why can’t I just be happy? Why is the world so cruel, goddammit?!

Mr. Kramers groans again, pulling my attention away from my existential fears. I casually glance at the wall clock. Almost half-past nine — that checks out. It’s about the right time for him to finally wake up. I gently pat his head, slowly sitting down next to him. The nocti starts purring like a house cat — yes, they actually purr. He can’t see me, since noctis have no eyes, but he can recognize my smell, my voice. In a way, Mr. Kramers is an anomaly, much like me. Apparently, my boss found him alone and wounded in the Dead Zone, when he was still living near Northern Algol, and decided to raise him. I would bet my whole salary that he did it just for the excitement of “witnessing a new story unfold” as he would put it. He seems to value his own personal entertainment above pretty much everything else. And don't get me started on his tastes in TV shows. Whenever he's in the shop, the TV in the back room is always, constantly tuned in to a channel broadcasting reruns of Eliphya. And I kid you not, the madman knows every friggin' line in the show, and repeats them, without any mistakes, while he sits there leering at the actress on-screen. Kissilmer is such a slimy bastard, he must be like forty-something, but he gets excited watching a seventeen-year-old gal performing in a magical girl show? Ugh, can you even be more gross? Dammit, I wish I could shove the remote right down his throat and smash the screen with his head. But, uh… then I’d be out of a job…

I sigh yet again, patting Mr. Kramers's head. Enough negativity for today. Despite all that sleep stuff, I am starting to get better. The trips to the Gallery are becoming less and less frequent, and more recently I actually started dreaming again — for real. But the dread, the dread is still there. It never goes away. Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night, screaming, drenched in sweat. It's at times like those that I run to the living room, plug in my electric bass and start playing it at full volume. I need it. I need to feel alive. I need to feel here. Obviously, my neighbors are less than happy about it — and so is Cyphy. The first time it happened, she walked over and suddenly kicked me, while still half asleep, and swearing in German, causing me to crash-land on the parquet. I couldn't sit for a day or so, but at least I got to have a good look at her in her disheveled, penguin-print pajamas. It was very cute, but hardly worth a concussion.

Cyphy...

I know this sounds pathetic, but I never told her about any of this. The last thing I need is to have her worrying about me, especially now that it’s finally, slowly getting better. She has her own troubles to take care of. Her overprotective wannabe-father, her very demanding furry boss, her furry boss's wife (who also happens to be my body double), trying to get accustomed to her new artificial arms… And of course, all while having to tolerate me for twenty-four hours straight every single day. I seriously wonder how she can be so short tempered, yet — at the same time — so patient with me. She didn't kick me out of the house even when I accidentally caused one of her tactical grenades to detonate in the courtyard. She just... laughed it off, while covered in ash, dust and ceramic debris from what was once a horrible set of garden gnomes shaped like shoigas — reptilian aliens that came to Earth alongside those other lizards that look like Mr. Daevka. They were a gift from the old bastard himself, apparently, in order to convince Cyphy to accept his job offer at Le Coq Heureux. I doubt those gnomes were really a big loss. I mean, surely that old, cranky reptile could’ve chosen a more tasteful gift, right? To be honest, I'm so glad he totally screwed up. I don't want anyone to get to watch my babe stripping or pole-dancing in his shoddy night club. Ugh, fuck that scaly, old geezer and his so-called business proposals! Maybe next time I drop by his club, I’ll bring li’l Kramers with me, just to help drive the point in better. Hmm, I wonder if daevkas would make a good meal for a hungry noctiphage…

Well, anyway, the point is that I can't let Cyphy get worried about me. It’s fine not to tell her, I can cope with it. Probably. I mean, if she knew I hid this from her, she would start shouting angrily at me, yelling something like “you dumb blockhead, why didn't you tell me before?!” while blushing a deep red, as usual. We've been living together for less than a year, but I already know her pretty damn well. When I think back to how it all started… Ugh. I was such a moron, during our first meeting at Le Coq. “Those mechanical arms are too rough, they don't suit you! You deserve something more delicate, refined. Also, I love you.” It was such a stupid, stupid excuse for a pick-up line that made me want to immediately dive head-first into the English Channel, never to emerge again. Although, uhm, that night did end with us sleeping together in a rental room on the first floor... and me getting to feel firsthand the joys of having a real, physical body. I have literally zero clue as to how or why that worked. But it sure did. And, for that one night, I felt like the luckiest girl in the world.

Mr. Kramers yawns again. I look at the wall clock, once more. It's nine-thirty, sharp. Finally time to close shop and go home. I stand up and stretch my legs, secure the (empty) cash register, switch off the lights, and put li’l Kramers on his leash. Last thing we need to wake up to tomorrow are news headlines about a nocti roaming free in New Langdon's harbor and eating random passersby... even if I'm pretty sure Mr. Kissilmer would find it disturbingly amusing. I give the dangerous-yet-endearing creature one last headpat, then slowly make my way out of the building, closing the creaking door behind me. There's nobody around, only the placid, sleepy boats docked at the piers. A gentle evening breeze greets me as I step outside, together with the deep humming of the sea. Nobody around; guess the night is mine.

Without further ado, I start walking, slowly, enjoying the sounds of distant waves rocking me, the warm darkness embracing me like a mother. If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that I’m gonna savor this fleeting existence of mine. One breath, one step at a time.

And I will always, always, wake up to see the sunrise, day by day.

No matter the cost, I want to keep living.

This is my resolution.