GARRON'S INTERVIEW

It's 2 a.m. Where are you likely to be?

Probably asleep, unless I'm in the middle of some book where the people are all about to die unless they catch the insane monster about to kill them. That, or I just finished a horror comic, and I'm afraid to go to sleep.

I read this one once where a kid slept with his arm over the edge of the bed, and a monster grabbed him and dragged him down into this hellish parallel universe, where he ended up gutted every night for eternity, never dying or being shown mercy. I was ten when I read that, and took years to get to where I didn't have to have the blankets tucked up all around me before I could sleep.

Depends. One of my favorites in my old school Nintendo Gameboy Pocket. I bet I've beaten every game I have more than three times over, and some I've borrowed off friends a couple of times.

And, don't tell anyone I told you this, not even Alex knows, but… I still have this stuffed Ninja Turtle from when I was six. I keep Raphael in a box under my bed all the way in the back, just in case my brother decides to be a dick and snoop in my shit.

I'm normally a pacifist--do anything to avoid a fight with someone, really--but… if it came down to it, I wouldn't feel right with guns or knives. I guess I'd be the type to wrap string or wire about someone's neck from behind.

Makes me a coward, doesn't it?

No. Never even really thought about killing anyone in particular, but I have had thoughts about killing some faceless person. Kinda cold calculation, like. What would I do? How would I do it? What would I do with the body when I was done with it? That kinda thing. Comes from reading serial murder nonfiction.

I have this thing where I like to watch people as they sleep. I used to watch Alex sometimes, only that had the edge of fear that he'd wake up and beat the crap outta me… kinda made it exciting. Sometimes, I watch Wyatt when he's sleeping, because it's really rare for me that I'm up when he isn't. He never sleeps.

That, and it's ok for me to touch him when he's sleeping. Not that I can't when he's awake, but I can touch him then and not have him have to respond. Selfish of me, yeah.

People who do drugs scare me more than the thought of monsters dragging me down into a hellish underverse. Had an uncle who did cocaine a lot and he overdosed when I was eight and Alex was just about ten. I liked him a lot. Everyone knew he did drugs, and nobody ever talked about it, but I asked him once why he did.

I've forgotten now what he said, and that's depressing.

I'm seventeen, and a sophomore. I was supposed to be a junior this year, but like I said when I met Wyatt, I'd been held back fourth grade because I skipped a lot of school. There was this kid who used to… well, he used to call me a lot of things, and it got the other kids doing the same thing, and I used to skive off a lot after the bus dropped me and Alex off.

Mom thrashed me with her snake belt when she found out they were holding me back, but I never told her why I left so much. Just said I got bored at school. It was easier being with another set of kids, although I got shit all the time for being 'a stupid retard', having to repeat a grade.

I'm shorter than either Wyatt or Alex. Last time I had a physical, I was 5'4. I really don't think I've gotten much taller since then. Dad is really short though, so it's probably his fault.

I'm a big personal fan of chocolate, or any variation of that. Things like sherbet can be good too, sometimes, although I meet a lot of people who don't believe me about that sort of thing. Dunno why, really.

Well, I can't say anything for believing that there's an afterlife, but it's something I'd like to believe in. a lot of people say that--I think it's because we're scared of dying and not existing anymore. I'm not so sure I care about that… I mean, if I don't exist anymore, how can I be offended? I just like to think that this life here is worth something later. Like stock that doesn't go anywhere NOW but that in fifty or a hundred years will be worth millions.

As for aliens… well, there's a lot of fucking space out there, how can there not be something?!

When I finally realized that Wyatt made money by selling drugs, I really lost it. I destroyed our friendship, our relationship, because I was scared and angry. Both for him and against him.

How could he sell drugs?! They're evil, they mess people up and everyone around them. If he sells them, what's to say he wouldn't ever take them. He could be arrested, he could kill somebody, he could be killed--by himself, or a deal gone bad, or whatever.

I said and did a lot of things I'm no longer proud of, and it took us ages to get back to a level of trust we had before then.

My favorite place was, and always will be, the library. I love small ones, and those huge ones found on university campuses. I'd like to go to D.C. and go to the Library Of Congress and just gawp at it. I wouldn't even have to touch or read anything, just look.

I used to go to the small one in my hometown, and that's where I made my two closest friends before my family moved and I met Wyatt. Bo and Carlton were… are… the best people ever. They understood things about me without having to say them, and for someone as shy and backwards as me, that's the hugest relief. And when I brought Wyatt to visit them, for less than half an hour even, they understood what he meant to me, and they didn't say anything. They didn't have to.

Ok, maybe my favorite place is influenced more by the people than the location. But still….

THE COLLAR

The cat collar--abandoned on pavement already warm beneath the deceptively gentle hue of eight in the morning in July. Vibrant, red--a sore in mourning, a faded vitality of what owned it last.

A bell on.

A cat collar and my ankle, every step--right foot clutch--a stride, existing. Chime, jingle, jingle. I step harder, more clearly, proud of the jingling announcement of my arrival--as if a small dog thinking itself five feet tall.

A chime, a bell, movement chanced. Exotic, sinuous; a belly dancer. Lithe and curved, an Indian sensation, smoky in taste but half as bitter. Rolling katana, balanced on head, hip, wrist--never moves, like an upright Victorian spine. Straight and never faltering.

Movement slight, grand in proportion. Jingle dress dancer; male fancydancer. Regalia--calf bands. Clink, clank, clink clink clink. A high pitch to a low drum, melodious drone--not still but soaring, carrying me along.

Dance, bell, company.

Faded, vibrant, on my ankle; measuring step, one, step.

A cat collar with bell on.

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I've always been hypersensitive to staring, and that fluttering uneasy feeling was what woke me up from deep sleep, my eyes blearing open to see that it wasn't even total sunrise yet. Confused, I unfurled from the tight curl I'd pulled into during the few hours of sleep, and rubbed rough fingers over my sensitive and puffy eyelids.

I blinked, turned, and fucking jumped as I saw someone standing against the wall next to the bed.

Scrambling back and upright, I barely registered the fact that the figure was male and relatively young; what I could not mistake was a nearly tangible radiating anger being directed towards myself.

Managing to sit up further, my fingers clenched tightly within my blanket, and my eyes grew wide and round; words failed me in ways they never have before.

As the seconds passed and neither of us spoke, I finally forced my lips to part to spill out the burning question in my head, "Who are you?"

His mouth tightened, and I saw his clenched fists grow white with added tension; he was really only about nineteen or twenty, and the black hair as dark as his eyes and expression was in utter disarray over his scalp, looking as if it'd not seen a comb or brush in days.

He was also extremely thin, almost emaciated even, and his clothes were old and vaguely dirty with dust and several days' worth of wear.

"I hate you."

The words were mere whispers, but they sent fear shuttling throughout my body, my nervous system pinging with the sudden chill of impending death. The man looked furious enough to kill me, and I was hit with the mental images of my being found chopped into little pieces, or my throat slit, or my head bashed into a bloody pulp, or the thousands of other gruesome deaths I've ever seen in movies.

"W-who are you? What have I ever--?"

With ferocious suddenness, he rushed the bed, pressing me down to the mattress beneath his weight in the time I had to give a swallowed shriek of terror.

His face lowered down within inches of mine as his fingers fisted up in my t-shirt, his breath heavy and oppressive against my skin; "Shut the fuck up, I'm going to kill you!"

Fear still snapped with icy clarity in my body and mind, but anger began to swell up, my eyes hardening as I ground out, "Why?"

"Don't recognize me, David? Don't remember the image in your own head?"

His words slid out, oily and slick, but he only read confusion on my face, and his colorless lips pressed together; "What if I said my name is William? I'm William, David, the one you replaced with that fucking crapshit fucker, Billy."

"No…."

My whisper was one of sheer horror, my mind flashing sudden possibilities that couldn't have been right, it didn't make any sense! William, Billy….it didn't make sense!!!

"No, that can't be…."

He snarled, his acne-scarred face twisting up in murderous rage as his hands pressed down against my chest, choking the air from me even as his face lowered down even more, his breath mildly unpleasant as it invaded my senses.

"You made me; you breathed life into me only to dump me for another character!!!"

Tears stung my eyes as I squirmed against his hold, experiencing an unconscious instinct to save myself but failing to free myself from his grip.

"No, you're not real, none of you are real, I didn't even…."

He jerked me up and slammed me back down, his voice growling, "You made my life shit and then decided that I was fucking psycho, so you replaced me with him, that fucking pansy ass Billy! And he didn't have a mom shoot him up with heroin, she didn't beat him and send him next door to be raped by an old man when he was fucking six! He just had a mom who drank and hit him and told him he was worthless, he never had to stay with her because she kept him full of dope so he wouldn't leave!

"You replaced me with the diet cola version of me!!!"

I must be dreaming, it's all a dream.

Therefore, I managed to calmly state, "Readers don't want to read a cliché character like you. Someone so abused as to become hard and pathetic and unable to fall in love. They want someone only slightly emo, not some hardcore sociopath. You aren't capable of loving or being loved. Your story was pointless!"

The anger swept clear from his face, only to be replaced by coldness harsh enough to make me flinch away; there had been an emptiness in his eyes that stabbed at my heart. The hold on my shirt slid away and he pulled up, moving from my body and removing himself from the bed altogether, staring at me with that same cold emptiness. It was almost unbelievable to connect this new person with the murderous fellow just seconds earlier.

Shaky, I sat back up and rubbed at my chest, wincing at the angry bruises already beginning to form beneath the skin. A blush began to flare up on my face beneath that stare, and I turned from it and stumbled from bed, consciously tugging my boxers into order.

"I'm going to kill you."

I started backwards at the levelly-stated words, but he only turned and left the room, as if none of the morning's events had occurred. My legs gave out and I had to sink back down onto the bed, my hands coming up to my mouth, unsteady and frail.

I'm not dreaming.