Originally published October, 2007.
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Closing Time or The Fairy Tale of Areia and the Bouncer
Lyrics in italics come from Semisonic's "Closing Time" and "Gone to the Movies" from their album Feeling Strangely Fine
Closing time,
Open all the doors and
Let you out into the world.
Closing time,
Turn all of the lights on over
Every boy and every girl.
Closing time,
One last call for alcohol,
So finish your whiskey or beer.
Closing time,
You don't have to go home
But you can stay here...
The house lights are on now. The cigarettes have all been stubbed out and the smoke is slowly filtering out through the A/C.
The bartenders are counting tips. The band is flipping switches, casing their strings, boxing up the mics. Everyone is tired, already thinking of beds, and mates, and their own whiskeys and beer.
Only two people are still, the last two patrons in the club.
They sat opposite each other at their table. They never took their eyes or their attention away from each other.
This was it. A last date. A last assignation. A final meeting, a trick not in the contract, not planned, but not unexpected now that the end had come.
He was thinking, never saying a word.
I couldn't make it work. I just couldn't make it work. Not from the beginning, I couldn't make it work. I did everything right: the right words, the right touches, the right unspoken feelings, and just the right sex for this mustang that should have broken her, body and soul.
I had the power, I had the right friends in the highest of the lowly places, they called on all the power they had too. But I was never able to made it work. He stubbed out his last cigarette half-smoked and turned his head to glare into space in incandescent anger and intensifying fear.
She watched him think, with thoughts of her own.
He just wasn't God. He tried, but he just wasn't. He tried his damnedest, yes he did. He had his friend shoot me in the heart, he plied me with all the right things–comfort, affection, attention. He even sent his friend to do what he could not: break me with the firm hand of passion that I crave. But it didn't work. None of if worked. The craving for the firm hand is still with me–as it was, so is it still. He just wasn't God.
She downed the last swallow of her rum and coke, and rose to leave. She took two steps and he tackled her, screaming in terror.
"Stop, damn you, I still owe for you! You are the payment, you are the barter, stay-here-now!!" He screamed. He was astride her, his arms flailing. He managed only one good blow to yank something from her heart before the Bouncer descended.
"Break it up, buddy. You're leaving, and not with her," he said. The Bouncer picked him up by his shirt collar and belt, carried him to the door, and tossed him out still holding the ball of red laser energy of his hatred from her heart. He was still screaming, screaming in terror now of what waited in the darkness for him. He must either have payment, or provide payment. And they were waiting for him.
The Bouncer closed the door and locked it.
"Here's a hand," he said to her. He knelt beside her. She was shaking hysterically, hands pressed to her face to shield herself from the demonic terror she saw in that man's eyes. How had she blocked herself from ever seeing it before? Areia had told her she would eventually see it, yes she had.
Areia had told her what was happening. Areia was wise and she knew about these things. She had warned her all about beings like him, what they were really after. Not sex, not something so mundane as that. Not merely domination, although that was part of it. Not solely as a trophy either, although what a notch in any malefactor's staff she would have made indeed. To be a Christian woman turned to his will, that was to be her fate. A devout Christian woman at that, one with Property of the Almighty stamped on her. Areia had told her that he and his friend would be salivating at the thought.
Areia wasn't from around here. She was a spiritual being first and foremost, and hers was a land of soft speech, mystical ways and ways of old, long forgotten except by the Elders such as Areia. Areia knew the old manipulations to teach her, and she had been an obedient student. God must truly love me to send Areia to me, she thought. She was grateful, and she would never forget.
And she had done everything that Areia had taught her. She cut him off, and cut him off again, and again, and again. She built walls around herself, she burned his letters, practiced until she learned how to see through his disguises. She did everything Areia told her to do. And it all worked, worked to perfection.
They were not scheduled to meet. He had gotten distracted, was all. He had another plan, one that would work this time. Why didn't he know, with all the powers he had, that she would be there?
She had known he would be there. She knew his every movement. Her empathic mind had automatically rebuilt him inside of herself like it had rebuilt many and it would be there forever. She merely had to dial up his emotional construct to know where he was, what he was wearing, what he had eaten for supper, the taste of the sweat on his brow.
She had known he would there. The end was near.
"Miss?" The Bouncer was shaking her shoulder. "Come on, I'll help you up. He's gone now."
She dusted off her hands and looked at the Bouncer. She couldn't say a word, but he understood. He squeezed her shoulder and smiled.
Suddenly she realized something was missing from inside her. A space, where something was supposed to be, was open within her. She clutched her chest. It hurt!
The Bouncer took her by both her shoulders and turned her to face him. She couldn't change her face away from pained confusion before this handsome man, man of strong arms and authority.
"He's gone to the movies now, and he's not coming back," the Bouncer told her. She clutched her chest tighter as the space in her heart stretched.
The Bouncer touched the hand clutching her heart. Power and healing flowed through into her heart. The pain stopped and peacefulness flooded throughout her. She couldn't speak in the presence of such magnificent healing.
"Have a great night," the Bouncer said and turned her toward to the door. Outside, the stars were bright and the moon was nowhere to be seen.
It was not until she was driving home, back to her real life, her new life, that she became aware that the open space in her heart was no longer empty.
She sent her sentient self into her heart, to find out what new devilry had beset her now. But she found no more devil, no more evil, no hatred, no horror.
What she did find were Areia and the Bouncer, beautiful, perfect emotional constructs of them both that would make them hers forever. Two Angels with their own forms of flaming swords, who had saved her from certain death.
Two life-debts, she thought and her face was wreathed in smiles of childlike wonderment. Indeed, life-debts for squaring, for a lifetime of delightful repayments. Closing time at last.
She sang all the way home,"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end..."
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