III. Antiques
it wakes me in the middle of the night
Doctor Oliver Mark heard birds as he opened his eyes again. He was sitting among ruins, clinging to the lap of a particular wolf looking down at him with an expression of mixed bewilderment and relief. They were in some sort of amphitheater, their legs hanging off the stage. Marble columns stood behind them as rows of seats climbed to a deep pink sky above. Silhouettes of flowers permeated every crack and crevice in the ancient stone.
“You out of there now?”
“Faron? Is this place…”
“Real?”
“...Real?”
“In a weird sense, yes.”
Ollie’s eyes widened. “Does that mean you’re-”
“Nope, still dead. Sorry.”
His expression dropped. Those words clawed at his brain. He imagined the truck again, imagining Faron’s crumpled body as hospital staff tried to save what was left of him, the broken bones and full-body casts, that fucking horn, before they were all forcibly cast away back into the ether.
“Oliver, I’m going to have to ask that you stop fucking thinking about what happened. That already pulled you away once, I’m not keen on seeing you there again.”
Ollie felt the back of his neck. It was a gaping, bloodless wound. He could feel the exposed veins and muscles shift around the gap in his spinal cord as he stretched his neck, and as he breathed. He tried controlling his breaths, thinking about calm, thinking about the Faron he saw in front of him, alive and present. “Easy for you to say… where are we?”
Faron let out a deep sigh. “We’re somewhere between the afterlife, your brain, and heat death right now. This whole, like, thing I managed to put together doesn’t exactly have a solid foundation, so it’s already rather unstable, but it’s the you part that really seized up when you saw me. Again, trauma response, I get it, but you nearly put yourself in a loop I couldn’t pull you out of.”
“...Sorry. I’m sorry, Faron.”
“Don’t apologize. Please do not fucking apologize. It’s already happened. You wanna know what you can do, though?”
“What’s that?”
“I’ve been getting peeks at you, little glimpses beyond the veil. You’re always the very first person I try to find, just to see how you’re doing. Gotta say, man… you’re fucking yourself up.”
“...Oh. Well, I’m still-”
Faron moved his paw to Ollie’s shoulder. “Look, this is where I say it. I’m sorry. You’re the best person I’ve ever known. You’re able to reach into just about everyone, realize what’s mucking up their life, and bring them at least back up to par. But you can’t reach into yourself. When you try you just… well… end up like that. Hearing the horn over and over again. I’m sorry the way I left fucked you up so damn bad.”
“But I was the one driving the…”
“But you’re the one dealing with the consequences. I just get to sit here and watch you collapse through them. It’s been driving me nuts.”
“Oh.” Ollie fell silent. He leaned forward a touch, idly toying with a lily poking through the very corner of the stage. “So… what do you want me to do?”
“Please stop thinking about dying when you think of me. And quit thinking of me when you think of other men. I know, it’s hard, but it’s not helping either of us. Hell, I’m dead, I don’t need to care about anything anymore-- but you’ve got me worried sick. I arrive to you from beyond the grave because I need you to move on.”
“That’s… that’s a tall ask, Faron.” A column toppled behind them. A tree began to slowly warp around itself.
“Well, here. Maybe actually form a connection with another man. Maybe quit doing those hookups and mentally comparing them to me, and then ghosting them and actually just create a relationship with a guy.” Faron examined Ollie’s shattered frame. “All those broken connections, man. They stick out of you like glass.”
“But what about you? What happens when I’m here with you?”
“Oh, this place is gonna be long gone when you’re in my boat. Even then, though, any guy who you end up sticking to, I’m pretty sure I’m going to like him, too. So, I trust you. Surprise me. Find someone nice.”
Ollie couldn’t help but let a smile crack open on his face, even with the question brewing in his head.
“There we go! That’s the pretty goat I know.”
“Wait-- but, Faron! Why can’t I stay here with you?”
“Well, I don’t know, maybe it’s because you’ve got a life to live and this dump is about to collapse?” He pointed behind him, out to the treeline as it curled up and invaded the sky. Around them, cracks formed in marble, shooting out vines of corrupted flowers. “Listen-- when I said this place is founded in entropy, I meant it, and it’s really pining to go back into pure disorder. We don’t have long, hon, and I’m not sure if I can pull you back up again if you fall-- and if you fall fall, you’re really fucking stuck. I’m not going back with you, either, so… here. Have this.”
Faron promptly pressed his lips to Ollie’s mouth, startling the goat, before letting him melt into his embrace. Ollie tried leaning in further, but Faron eventually pushed him out at arm’s length. The ground cracked around them.
“Nuh uh. Not now. Listen, you have future hot guy to get back to. Make out with him all you want, I’ll be around later. I’ve gone on, I’m happy here, but we’ll see each other again. Oliver, I will be there.”
“I… okay. I’ll find you, Faron.”
“Good. Now get back to your hookup.”
“...How do you know I had a hookup?”
“Because you look like you got fucked, and you don’t wear argyle. Look down.”
Ollie looked down to see the powder blue sweater his hookup wore last night. Examining it, he felt his eyes refocus, and he receded from the ruins, from Faron, from the other world as it curled in on itself. He looked back up again, and saw he was back in his own kitchen, staring into the bathroom.