• A Chameleon’s Song.

    I sat in my chair, peering into the flames. I never really looked at fire. Just watch the flames dance, the sparks seaming to fallow their movements as if they were both controlled by the same consciousness. Two parts of the same being to put it in lames term.
    Then that fetched a new idea; who was the being the flames and sparks belonged to? It couldn’t have been the logs or the air. They’re both just fuel sources to both halves. What could they belong to then?
    Ding Dong.
    My eyes shot open, possibly knocking the dust off them. I slowly rose out of my rusty throne, making my way to the door. I shouldn’t move like this. At thirty, I should have a more of a bounce in my stride. I feel like if I sneeze just a tad too hard I’ll throw my back out.
    I opened the door and a breath of air left my lungs. I felt like I was just sucker punched. There was Maxine, looking more beautiful than she did yesterday. Her long curls of wheat hung off her head like a mane off a lion. Her deep green eyes seam to look right through you, but you didn’t seem to care. She was rather shorter than me, standing at a five ten from my six five. She was still just as pretty as far back as I can remember.
    Just standing around her seamed to give me the youth I missed out on. It felt like your warm shower suddenly turning to a clenching cold temperature, but in reverse. I couldn’t get enough of her.
    “Maxine, come on in.” I told her. She wasn’t much younger than me. I think by two or three years, depending on the time of year. She smiled and walked in, giving me a peck on the cheek and she did. She had a box that I had just noticed. It didn’t seem to have a whole lot in it, but it did seem to hide something under its brown skin.
    When she came in, I shut the door and locked the door. Out of habit, but I don’t remember when that habit started. I fallowed her to the dining room, which was a table off in the corner inside the kitchen. She had placed the box on top of the table as I sat down. I tried reaching for it, but she playfully slapped my hand away. She had stretched me with her ring, but I didn’t tell her.
    That quick and pearly smile she flashed across my eyes seamed to drown out the pain. “So Dack, what’s on the agenda today?” she asked me, walking to the fridge. She was going to make some tea, as she usually does every time she comes. I took my glasses off to clean them, thinking of what all we could do. There’s not much I can do on a cold day like this, at least, by myself. With her, there wasn’t much I couldn’t do. “Don’t know Maxxy. I was going to get started on another book, but that’s hardly a two person game. What were you hoping to do?” I asked her.
    She smiled as she started the tea pot. “I saw this cute hat in a window today at that small hat shop at the corner. It was called like, Dad’s something.” She said, sitting down at the table with me.
    “Oh, you mean Pop’s Tops?” I asked her. She snapped her fingers, pointing at me. “That’s it! I was thinking about going skiing with that. I found my old skis and you still have your old board-” She said, cutting herself off.
    That made both of us frown. She folded her hands into her lap, looked down at them, shamefully. I took my glasses off for good now, the frames bothering my face. “Maxxy, you know I don’t remember that sort of stuff. Now, I might if you would just fill me in on some facts.” I informed her. I said it coldly, but no more than it needed to. I’ve been trying to pry this information out of her for a while now, and I think I’ve finally going to get what I want.
    “Jack, you know I can’t do that. I’m not allowed, I’ve told you that before.” She said solemnly. I was so close, so close now. When she looked up at me, her eyes pleaded with me. I don’t know if they wanted me to just remember, or to keep pushing on. I just did what I could do at the moment.
    “Come on Maxxy. At least give me something. Let’s take it small steps, ok? Snowboarding, let’s start with that. Was I good? Was I bad?” I asked her. She laughed, covering her face loosely with soft, tender hand. “Good? Dack, you were the best I’ve ever seen. You could be bombing down a hill, and you could jump, ride across a tree with your board and keep on going. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was like you mother forgot to give you your board when you born.” She said, smiling, her eyes not in this time.
    They were way back. They were back in the nineties. I don’t know where they were, or what they were even doing. All I know is that she was gone. I had to bring her back. “Maxxy, when I look into your eyes when you start explaining those memories, I start to cry. You look so happy and peaceful. That’s all I want for you Maxxy. Please, let me share that feeling with you. I just want to know my own life, is that so wrong?” I asked her.
    That was it. That was the breaking point. I saw that force that was holding her back just dissolve. I had her. I had her and only me. “Fine. But you can’t get mad or do anything crazy to anyone. Promise?” she asked me. I nodded eager.
    But just as she was about to open her mouth, the tea pot began to shout. I sighed as she said hold on. Hold on? I’ve been holding on for almost four years now. I wonder what I was like. Judging my love of books and ligature, I had to be some sort of writer. Had to be. Maybe I was even a pet shop owner, considering that animals seem to love me.
    “Ok, ok. You ready?” She asked me. I nodded, slowly. My whole system seemed to be racing. I don’t know if I wanted to run, or leap across the table and kiss Maxine for even giving me this gift.
    She breathed deep, staring into her cup. She seemed to be stalling, but rather than hurrying her up, I deiced not to push my luck. “Jack, I’ve always thought about this day, how I would tell you about your life, but I never thought it would be this hard. I went over and over of how to say it, gently, or just give it to you. Jack, I’m just going to tell you the truth.
    “Jack. You were almost executed.” She told me. I didn’t even know how to respond to that. I didn’t even know if I even heard that right. I blinked rapidly, matching my heart beat, asking “What”? My ears were pounding, like I had just been hit in in both ears with hammers. She seemed sadden, but you could see her trying to burry that.
    “Jack, you were almost executed. You were put on death row.”
    Death row? Why? What for? What could I have possibly done to deserve that?! I mean, I wouldn’t hurt another person if my life depended on it. “Maxine, why? What did I do?” i asked her.
    She shrugged. “What didn’t you do Jack? You did anything and everything that could get you arrested. First it was just stealing, then it was drugs, then it was assaults. By the end of it, you were wanted on almost twenty counts of murder. You were a monster Jack.” She said quietly.
    As she was saying everything, it was all flooding back in. I remembered the stuff I stole, I remember the high of the drugs, and I remember the taste of blood in those fights. Worst of all thought, I remember all the men I killed. They didn’t deserve it. None of those lives should have been stolen.
    I sat there, just staring off into space. Is this what she remembers? The terrifying looks in all those people’s eyes? Pleading to be spared or to stop me from the inner monster I was controlled by?
    “Ok, ok…not what I wanted, at all…can you at least tell me why I’m NOT dead from something as horrible as that?” I pleaded, fighting the array of tears only inches from the surface. She shook her head, looking down and away from me.
    “You were selected for a government project. They were only taking three people. Basically, it was a brainwashing thing. I don’t know the name or the name of the project, too long ago. I was a nurse there. It was horrible Jack. Electric shocks, injections made for you to stay up for days on end; they were trying to break you.
    “You were the fighter. It took three months to finally break you. You punched, you kicked, you tore, you cursed, and you resisted everything they tried for the longest time. I was your Trust agent.” She informed me.
    I wasn’t focusing on her for the time being. I was back in the Shocker. The electric chair they strapped you in and zapped you for hours upon hours. They’d do anything to break me. Show me a picture of something happy, zap. Something bad, zap. Smell something, zap. A light touch from an EXTREMELY (Candy I think her name was) sexy woman, zap.
    I didn’t know what to think or what to feel, but I knew one thing; don’t give in. I wanted to prove to those doctors I was more than a lab rat. I was the monster that everyone wanted dead and I wanted to let that side of me shine.
    I remember Jimmy. Jimmy was a machine that would stab you with a billion needles at once. It sucked, and it was meant to suck. It reminded me of some kid named Jimmy for some reason. I wish I knew why, but at the current moment I don’t.
    “Trust agent?” I asked, finally getting back to her. I don’t know how long it was silent. If could have been seconds or minutes or even an hour. “Yeah, someone you trusted. I never was in the room when anything bad happened to you. I was someone you were supposed to look forward to meeting and trust.” She said, smiling regret powered smile. “We talk, laughed for hours. At the first few days, you wouldn’t talk to me. Just say on you bed.
    “I tried, but after day two of nothing from you, the next day I brought in a book. I sat there and read, not even saying hi to you. That was the day you spoke. The first words I ever heard you utter were some of the best I ever heard. ‘I rather dislike this place’ you said with a grin on your face. You looked right into my eyes when you said that.
    “I knew right then and there you weren’t going to go down easy, but I didn’t care. At that moment Jack, I don’t know about you and nor will I ever know; but I think I fell for you.”
    I smiled, just like she did. That sound like something that I would do, the current me. Maybe that project wasn’t so bad, I mean, if it brought me and Maxxy together. Just thinking of her, here and now, just released all the anger and hate I had like a bus letting out the air in the brakes.
    I didn’t mind my last life now. I really didn’t. That’s not me and I know that, and that’s all that matters. Now, I just wanted to find out WHY I did those horrible acts and WHY I was chosen for this project of the government’s. “Sounds like a romantic’s dream. So, tell me, what was the purpose of the trust agent?” I asked her.