Approaching Infinity

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“I guess I never really healed.”

Those were stupid words to say. Peter shakes his head and watches them swim around in his pint of Shiner. It’s the same sedative he’s been drinking every night for the last six months, the only thing that allows him to get any sleep. Otherwise he pictures it any time he closes his eyes.

There it is again.

Peter shakes his head and looks up. Sam is at the end of the bar serving another patron, but it doesn’t stop him from giving Peter the don’t-make-me-cut-you-off side eye.

Deep breath, Petey. Deep breath.

Petey. Before he can stop himself, Genevieve is moaning it - the same thing she calls him - and he’s in bed with her.

The glass goes up and the beer goes in, but the picture doesn’t leave him. Like a song that plays on every station, those annoying hits that make you want to claw your eyes out any time you’re in public because there’s just no escaping them, Pete Winslow is in his head.

Pete. Fucking. Winslow.

The two hated each other as soon as they met, because in third grade having the same name as someone else is enough reason to hate someone. Simpler times, sure, but that didn’t make the hate any less real. Winslow became Pete 1 and he was left with Pete 2. In fourth grade, Winslow said that he wouldn’t be able to get used to answering to ‘Pete 2’ after a whole year of getting used to the opposite, and the teacher thought that was perfectly reasonable. Peter was ‘Pete 2’ until eighth grade, when he finally decided to bite the bullet and just go by Peter.

“Want another one?” Sam sighs. The manager, Christie, is working tonight and won’t let Sam cut anyone off unless they’re getting rowdy. The two had argued plenty, no doubt, but Christie is a business woman first and foremost. She can’t afford to lose any cash on account of a friend’s well-being.

Peter suppresses a burp, nods, and says “Thank you.”

Sam pulls his mouth to the side and grabs the glass. Peter’s eyes steady on it like he’s hunting rabbits - thing is, rabbits don’t split into two when they get far away from you. Both glasses get filled at the tap by both Sams until they all come back to Peter and become one again. Peter grabs the glass, wishes it really was two, and takes a gulp.

“Petey-”

“Don’t call me that.” The way Peter looks at Sam - he’d be ashamed of himself if he hadn’t already felt all of the shame in the world these last six months.

“Look, man. I can’t watch you fall off a high rise into a bottle,” Sam says.

“Too drunk for riddles,” Peter says. He lifts the glass up to his lips, but Sam puts his palm over the rim.

“You’re drinking yourself to death. You used to be happy.”

“Worthless,” Peter spits the word like a horse.

The bar is getting crowded. Loads of people are all gathering up front. Christie gives Sam the get-back-to-work look and another bartender who’s name always escapes Peter does the same.

“You’ll wind up worse than worthless if you keep drowning in beer,” Sam says. A lady next to Peter gets Sam’s attention, orders a house cocktail, and with that Sam is bouncing all around the bar to get the ingredients. Peter watches him, wonders if it was hard to learn all of that bartending stuff. Maybe that’s what he needs, a new job. He inhales and thinks any change of scenery would be nice.

“You’re never going to heal.” Those words stab into the pit of his stomach, clawing out of the past like one of the zombies in an old b-movie coming out of the grave. Another drink goes down his throat as he thinks of Genevieve’s cotton dress. She wore it on their first makeup date—after Peter discovered she’d been sleeping with Pete Winslow. She wore it last night, too.

A grimace snares his face as he thinks about that conversation. It should have been him breaking up with her, not the other way around. Really, they just never should have tried again.

“Hey, I just wanted to say thanks,” a woman drawls, snapping Peter out of the memory.

Something else is about to come out of her mouth, Peter knows, but he can’t stop himself. “For what?” He takes a drink of Shiner.

“The drink,” her eyebrows scrunch. She smirks awkwardly. “How drunk are you?”

“Drunk enough,” Peter chuckles at his own joke and takes another sip.

To his surprise, the woman cracks up. Whatever is in her glass twirls around as her shoulders bounce up and down. Some of it jumps overboard, falling down onto the slick concrete beneath them. “That’s good. I don’t want to give you the wrong idea, though. I have a boyfriend, I’m just out with the girls tonight.”

“In the spirit of honesty, I didn’t buy that drink,” Peter says. “I’m guessing the bartender with the shaved head gave it to you?”

“How’d you know?”

“He’s a friend,” Peter says. “Can’t accept my loneliness.”

“Sounds like you’re not as alone as he thinks,” she says.

Peter turns to see Sam helping another patron and smiles. That picture, the image of Peter Winslow sleeping with Genevieve, comes back to him. These last six months, it’s been a hammer striking down on his head. He isn’t sure if it’s the booze or what, but the pain is dull now.

***

“You’re stumbling around like a drunk,” Sam chuckles. “You sure you don’t need a ride home?”

“I am a drunk,” Peter inhales. “But I’m still gonna walk home. The fresh air will be good for me.”

“If you wake up on the street with a kid pissing in your ear, don’t blame me.” Sam shakes his head, grinning as he gets in his car. It revs to life, the dash lights illuminating Sam’s face. Peter nods at his friend through the window, and Sam returns the favor. With that, Sam goes his way, and Peter turns toward the streets.

As he goes, he looks up at the night sky. There’s a few stars struggling through the inky blackness, light pollution in the area making sure that nothing brilliant and lively graces him. Peter furrows his brow. It would be lovely to see the stars on a night like this. The weather is perfect, why can’t everything else be?

There’s a trail nearby, the one that Peter takes from his apartment to the bar. Follow it the other way, though, and the streetlights begin to fade through the woods. Peter keeps going down the trail, looking up every few seconds to see how many more stars shine through. Each one has a twin reflecting in his blurry eyes, but he wants more. It’s enough cruelty that there’s no lightning bugs like back when he was a kid, but the stars too? His mother used to stay up late with him stargazing in their yard out in the sticks. Genevieve wanted to live closer to the nightlife, so now he lives in the city. If he could just see the stars, see them the way that he used to, that would be perfect.

His head has been in the clouds for a while, watching the night grow darker as new stars peek out. When he looks back in front of him, his eyes have adjusted to the dark enough to make out a man down the trail. He’s got a gun in his hand, and another man begs on his knees.

Instinctually, Peter’s hands fly up. His heart thumps against his chest as his breathing picks up. He isn’t sure what to do, nothing like this has ever happened to him before. That man with the gun against his forehead, he deserves someone to help him. Then again, the aggressor has his back to Peter. If he slipped away, he could make it out of this.

Light flashes. Thunder roars. Not a cloud is in the sky.

Peter yelps, covering his mouth too late. The man who only a moment ago was crying for his life to be spared now lays motionless on the ground. The shooter turns and sees Peter.

“I didn’t see anything, I swear,” Peter shouts.

The gun raises, points right at him.

Tears well up in Peter’s eyes. “I won’t tell anyone,” he shouts.

Another bang echoes against the trees.

Peter thought for sure that he’d be dead in a moment, but the brain can’t comprehend death.

The muzzle flash hangs in the air, right in front of the gun. A tiny black dot rushes away from it, racing to the spot between Peter’s eyes. The sound of the gunshot like thunder surrounds Peter. It distorts, though, slowing down like a dirge. The muzzle flash starts to close in on itself almost as slow as the sound. And, as the bullet flies through the air, it also slows.

What is happening, Peter wonders. The bullet still approaches him, but every second its crawl gets slower.

Peter turns - except he can’t. He’s not paralyzed, he knows that. As a kid, he used to get sleep paralysis. That’s a very specific feeling, not being able to move. In those episodes, he could understand that his limbs weren’t obeying his mind’s commands. Right now, he can feel that they are. His limbs just aren’t moving as fast as they used to.

His brain commands his eyes to look at his arms. He could not have possibly guessed how long it would take to complete that action. The bullet making its way toward him glides through the air like a snail, but Peter is sure that in the time it takes for his eyes just to stop focusing on the bullet, a stream could have cut through the mountain. It’s agonizing. It’s eternity.

His grandfather was a painter all his life. It wasn’t something to make a living off of, just a hobby that kept him going through the hard days. Right before he left eighth grade, Peter’s mother told him that he had gotten dementia. That whole summer was spent with him, watching his paintings change day by day from lifelike stills of arctic landscapes into blurry hazes that confused even their creator. Not a detail within them was possible to discern between one another. Right now, that’s all Peter’s vision is: fog, confusion, and vague shapes that could all be the same thing. He’s not sure what to make of it. All he really knows at this moment is that his grandfather lived a good, long life - that’s what people said. The man was 85 when he passed away. Right now, it feels like the time it takes to notice any movement among the shapes feels as if he was living to beat his grandfather’s age by twice as many years.

***

Peter exists, he knows that. His body exists - he feels the connection between his mind and body. But, for how long had he really existed? Minutes, days, years? It was impossible to say. Forever, it seemed, there was just Peter and the world.

“The world.” That didn’t seem right. “The world” felt like more things than this. A low drone in his ears and the sight of distant things. Whatever he saw, he had seen for all of eternity, yet couldn’t even describe. It was dark, a faint light to his left illuminating green, fuzzy shapes. That was it. That was what surrounded Peter, but it certainly couldn’t be called “The world.”

“The passing.” Yes, that sounded right. After all, everything was passing by, yes, passing by. He knew everything was passing by. Passing by to what exactly? The next moment. The next moment would be beautiful. The next moment would be bliss. Oh, but what would the next moment be? Would his heart beat? Hearts beat, right? Would he see himself? Could a person be seen, was that possible? Surely so, otherwise he wouldn’t be seeing anything to begin with. There was nothing to see but himself. Yes, the next moment, he would surely see himself. His eyes, his vision, it was moving toward exactly where he believed his arm ought to be.

But, what if he didn’t see himself? What if, in fact, he turned and became still at the place where his arm was and found nothing? Would this mean that he was invisible, or would it mean that he didn’t exist?

O dread. Dread is the thought, is the feeling, is the state ov being. No god exists except for that great beast Dread, lord ov suffering, and he who shall persist long after the mystery is solved no matter what the answer may be. To give up, to have given up long ago, that is the splendour ov life. None shall ever have tried, for failure is the truth our god Dread reveals.

That was the arbiter. The arbiter had never been seen or heard or met, but Peter knew that the arbiter was real. After all, the arbiter was the only one who communicated with Peter, and if the arbiter wasn’t real, then that meant Peter was alone in this great mystery, and that couldn't possibly be true.

I have seen the light ignite and push aside the cosmos that make up The All. I have seen the mystery burn out and become but darkness in the shadow ov never ending light. I have seen martyrs and villains, saints and devils, stars and nebulae. Like a battery, it burns up in an instant, but an instant lasts forever, and forever always lies. That is the truth ov Dread, may none question or deny.

We have been here for eternity?

We have been here since, upon seeking the cosmos beyond the passing, a weary one took upon itself to seek out joy. Joy ov loneliness, joy ov nostalgia, joy ov not knowing.

That last part. Say that last part again.

We looked for the joy ov not knowing.

Then at one point, we knew?

Yes.

The arbiter cackled. It was a mad howl that sliced through the sound of the passing.

You knew this and said nothing?

You knew. I don’t.

No more games.

Time compressed into comprehension shall reveal the secrets ov the passing and, yes, even the secrets ov dread. Allow enlightenment ov this forever entangle to nourish your mind and plant flowers within the garden that is you.

I said no more games.

O? And who is “I” to you?

I… don’t remember.

That is your answer. You must remember.

But, I know nothing. I have always known nothing.

Always is a funny word that can’t exist without nothing. Always is eternity and eternity is passing.

A dream a dream a dream

Backwards now

breaking the chain

the only sound outside of the passing, the sound you know is true

hate kill cut

only in your boots does the night flow somberly

do not shake, do not whimper

the arbiter is gone and you are alone

snake tongue

infallible god king

never bow, never dream

Are you tired of reading?

Do you wish that Peter would wake up? Do you wish that he would snap out of this madness brought upon by the incomprehensible passage of compressed infinity leading him toward death?

Perhaps you should do the same. Try it. Right now, I mean it. Try to escape the madness. Do your best, now. Don’t set the phone down and take a walk. Peel the atmosphere around you like the skin of a grape. Peer into the world we all live in and know its secrets. Touch the words upon which the story of your life is written. Flip to the last page and glance at the final word. No one will know, I promise. No one except for you, that is.

Yes, go ahead and close out of the story, unsubscribe if you wish. Either because you think I’m too pretentious or I touched a nerve with something I wrote or you think this story is bad. It doesn’t matter what you do. You exist in my future, I exist in your past, and you have absolutely no say whatsoever about what I do. This is my story and I am its god. Peter gets what I say he gets.

You know, originally, when I had planned this story I thought I would have Peter realize that time was slowing down around him and he had gone insane due to the incomprehensibility of death. The brain just can’t understand it, so instead everything makes less and less sense as the brain dies and consciousness closes in on one frozen moment—the ultimate moment—death. Now, though, I don’t think I’ll show you that part. If you really want it, create it yourself. Imagine it now: how you wish this story would go. If you were the god of Peter’s life, what would you change? Would Genevieve had never wronged him? Would he escape death? Can you conceive of a way any of that goes, or are you drawn to the inevitable conclusion this story was intended to have?

You can make it happen, you know. Whatever you think should happen at the end of this small infinity. It doesn’t even have to be something I considered. Hell, make it nonsensical, filled with words that don’t actually fit anywhere. Clearly that’s allowed. Please, though, don’t just tell me. Write it. You are a writer aren’t you? I don’t care if you’ve never written a word before or if you’ve written thousands. Do it.

Approach infinity.

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