SING.

My reflection in the car mirror looked at me askance, not recognizing the mimicking of its own flesh and blood. The eyes of a hard man, a broken man, bore into mine, sending tremors down the length of my spine, electrically charging the heart wrapped around the fierce Roman column to utter an inconsistent moaning, a skip in the endless thudding of elephant-footed beating. The dry depths that surrounded me with their impermeable darkness continued forging their hungry path to the sun, but instead feinted towards the moon, due to its distracting light, bounced opposite, refracted from the faraway star. I wished that lightning would simply fall from the sky and block my path, herd me back towards my family, or smote me as I lay, a fool. I was a fool for running, a fool for staying as long as I did.

I returned my unwilling, completely riled, and self-loathing thoughts to the unconscious moon, letting the pressure in my clenched fists dissipate with the release of my self-centric thoughts. I was not what was important here, the people I loved, however, were. Their safety, their well-being, it was the only thing that mattered. I had to stop thinking about it though; I couldn’t reevaluate myself in their presence, even if it was only their overwhelming psychic existence in my whirling mind. I had to place my focus outside of myself, outside of my small circle I called home. I had to retreat, fall back, make my backward way out of the shell shock of an oppressive bunker and feel my mustard gas blinded way back to the beginning.

The beginning.

It was not even a noble sentiment; it was just a word that had slipped, a clue, a scavenger hunt dream. No one could find me. No one could see the blood that littered my hands as did the scraps of effervescent death and carnage. This was what the mask had done. As soon as I started wearing that mask, as soon as the masquerade of the Draculoids made them uniforms, not people; that’s when the cracks appeared. Fault lines in my once-so-sanctimonious livelihood began to seek their fellows, creating larger gashes, lengthening, stretching on in the glass panel that was my visage. Then came a blow, Battery Monster in the desert, just as I was once; sending the smithereens flying everywhere, shrapnel hitting all that stood near. The clear glass vanished, fallen and gone as if it were never there, nothing but the particulate remnants of it, bleeding out of my friends.

I was broken, most certainly.

Now I had to follow the blood spatter, the trail I had left, footprints in the ever changing sand, skin cells on busted batteries and the lives I left cluttered behind me. I followed my nose a s a forensic investigative blood hound, dogging the path quite literally for my source, where the window, the useless flat plane of glass I was, was forged. Where crystalline sand was fused into smooth lack of discrepancy, was where I stood right now. Only a few miles, two zones, now molested by my friends' corpses, stood between me and the tender gates of Battery City. I should have left earlier. In a past life, I had always reevaluated myself periodically, taken solidary strolls, thought quite a lot. I had no center now; all Zen influences were beaten out by the raging fist of battlements and stratagem, the affectation of staying alive in such harsh world climates.

I had parked the car rather far away, now all I had to do was sit. I couldn’t even see the Trans Am, any remnant of what I was. Why? I had to return to the lost boy that I was: The wandering minstrel who found himself a murderer and thought it terrifying, not elating. The jubilation I felt when a Drac or an exterminator lay dead at my feet was not something I ever wanted to remember. Impossible things I thought I would never do. I had to rebel against that now.

I am not Party Poison.

Korse was right to name me, to send that flying dagger to my heart and call me by my given name, Gerard. Gerard cared, did he not? He was an innocent, simply turned down the wrong path. He never intentionally hurt his family, or that unwary man, force-fed pills and stuck in a suit.

Why did there have to be so much guilt involved in this? It was easier to be him, Party, he didn’t care, right? He was big tough Party Poison, he who made the party break down on its knees and beg for mercy, he who scared Better Living big-wigs enough to send a specialized team into the desert to hunt for him, dead or alive? He had it together there…

But it was a falsity. Someone else inhabiting his body, putting up with that disgusting kibble, asking his brother to come out to the wild blue yonder and kill things; force feeding rebellion to innocents. That was not Gerard. That couldn’t be. He had to be something bigger. This war with my other self was taxing, I couldn’t handle it. I had to have some physical gesticulation of removing this unwanted spirit from the shell of my body, killing the party that led me to such disparages.

A scream tore its unannounced way out of my throat. Tears battled hungry paths from my eyes, but soon after changed their weary nano-minds, willing against gravity’s hearty force to stay upon my cheeks for brief intoxicating moments longer. Alas, they evaporated without even my notice, as I began to dig in the vehement sand, willing it to be pavement, water, anything but unending desert lies and desolation. I ignored even the scorpions, as they scurried away from me in fear, not even striking in such fright as it was too great for even their venom to handle. There had to be something here. Some absurd left-over essence of what I was, some shining light in the tumult and turmoil, a savior from a far-off land to chase away the doting darkness that forced me to this inhumane sand and that forced me to having nothing else left but excavating like a dog for myself.

If I could not even find myself how was I supposed to save people, to be tangible, to touch and feel and save the people from the bad guys? How was I supposed to fight a corporation I so avidly sought against if I were in their same grey area? I no longer had finite conviction of what surrounded me; even the sand seemed to melt evenly into glass, plains of shining beauty, like warped clear glaciers surrounded me with their stand-still lack of effort.

The key was suddenly there, within my reach. I had to be the grey area in order to be healthy and not harm my family.

I was stuck with another glass panel. Everything was glass. Thicker, stronger, unsure and stead-fast in that lack of assurance, that ability to lie in the grey area and make objective decisions within its bounds. I wasn’t Gerard either. I was too scared to be Gerard, I was something newfangled, rediscovered missing links falling into place just as the thought ran across my mind like a free runner.

Now my only companion was the question of finding out whom this unburdened persona was. My peace did not last long though, as day had broken its sovereign virginity from the rumbling depths of the night. With the day came a light and the smell of diesel. My Party Poison’s car took unleaded, so it was not being stolen. There was only one vehicle I had ever known to take diesel and chase after me in the desert.

Dr. D’s van.

“Gerard! Gerard!” Battery Monster began racketeering screaming, though I found it wasn’t the best screaming in retrospect, but she ran towards me anyways, dripping with anxiousness.

“Girl’s been kidnapped.” Fight or flight instinct did not even flash in my mind, and all my soul searching was well worth it, though incomplete in process. I stood up, knowing that I looked like I was about to barf, queasy with unease, though my insides were riled with anger.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” She asked, curious as I made a determined path towards the vintage art piece/ vehicle. I had to think of my answer; I believed that thinking before speaking or acting would come in handy as I learned to readjust to this new youthful phoenix I seemed to inhabit.

“I found something else…” I felt I had been unreasonable in the past, and though I did not yet trust this girl, I did regret my harshness, she needed something back: “You know I didn’t talk the first week I was with the Doctor. I killed a Drac, right here, and I didn’t talk because I was reliving that one moment, over and over again. A quick knife when someone tries to drug you and make you join the cause and it’s over. A human life extinguished in the blink of an eye. Of course, he took… so long to die. I had disarmed him, so I took of his mask and he was a normal guy… and I held him as he died. I couldn’t let him die unappreciated, the victim in my careless slaughter. You’re another victim. I can’t forget what I’ve done to you. I can’t forgive myself.” I stopped there, unable to contain anything else, though my guts were clearly already bestowed upon the ground.

Therein laid the grey area. Gerard would tell her absolutely everything, life story. Party Poison would remain a closed book, sealed with much duct tape and chains. Now I could moderate my speech, grey area blending black and white in order to fray the insoluble conviction I had once possessed. I continued walking to my car though, knowing that there was always time for confessions, but never enough time to save lives.

There was never enough time, so now I made time to appreciate everything and remain open minded, tastes not judgmental. I saluted BM with a start of my car and made more time for myself; for everyone.

It was time to save the Girl.