His friend in college once translated a rare French book for his senior thesis called ‘La Yeux of Avril Larmes de Mars’ or The Eyes of April the Tears of March. The book had no author and the language used and the style it was written in gave no definitive clues as to the date it was published. It was a short book and nothing great or original lay within its contents and yet for some reason at this moment it was all he could think of as he looked over at the bruises on her face seeking what he thought was approval. Whatever it was he wanted reflected back from her he saw only the king in yellow from his friend's book. From what he can remember from his friend's summary the king was a kind of oafish naive young boy when he inherited the crown from his father although the exact age of the child or any character for that matter is never given. One of the strangest parts about the text was its kind of idiosyncratic way of obscuring detail providing the reader with almost no specific information about the world or its characters choosing instead to obscure everything through this strangely detached narration. What we as the reader do know for certain about the boy though is that he is a child with vast ambition and eyes brimming with naivety and an insatiable lust for power of all kinds. Little is known about the former king or the new king's past but what is known is that the boy eventually hires a great wizard to advise him on how to go about satisfying and obtaining this desire for an unspecified and universal power. Many in the kingdom advised the boy against this since the time of magic had long since faded from this world leading all those around the newly minted king to assume the boy was being taken advantage of by a con artist with a taste for the theatrical. Unfortunately, although maybe fortunately for the boy he was raised by royalty and servants and the questioning of his judgment by those beneath him was ingrained in him from an early age to be seen as the gravest of all sins so any dissent cast his way was met swiftly with whatever punishment the magical and newly appointed right hand of the king decided was best. Little is known about what magic the supposed wizard possessed since no tales remain of his power but some rumors circulated in the kingdom likely stemming from the servants and distorted through either gossip or fantasy, but the most prominent rumor is that every night the magician would read to the boy from a book said to have been passed down from all the greatest living magicians in the kingdom. It is said that one servant even managed to read pieces of the book before she had her tongue cut from her mouth and her eyes burned in the public square. Supposedly this book is what fed the blood lust of the king who by now in the story was a man or at least a teenager. The King in Yellow had grown to be more warlord than aristocracy and more conqueror than ruler. Although not kind he displayed a sort of ambivalence towards his own subjects and the young man became the greatest conqueror the realm had ever seen. He led countless battles and conquests into neighboring kingdoms and even some to realms that were thought to have been lost in this great time of reason. Those who fought in the armies told tales about him leading the legion into battle. It was always his horse that led the way and his sword that drew first blood as his right hand, the magician watched from a safe hillside silently smiling at his young ruler. It was only after battles that the king let slip those remaining human thoughts or feelings that his subjects would never see and thought no longer existed if they ever did. In the great halls after victories, he sat alone separated from the men and even his magician. It was after the meal and celebrations of victory when the soldiers saw the man beneath the sword with many claiming to have seen the young king crying in the halls of his castles, the dark magician patting his back to comfort him and using and using her black cloak to cover the shame from any men who walked the halls after the feast in search of more wine or soft beds to sleep on. It is said that it was on these nights that the magician read the loudest to the boy as if she wanted everyone to hear as if she wanted to feed their curiosity and gossip. The prince was almost catatonic on these nights and simply repeated to his Hand the question, “Is it finished?” to which the mage always responded, “The ending can be known only by those who desire it. The end is built in to the beginning”. The king had no wife, and no rumor of concubines or maidens ever circulated during his rule. After all the kingdoms were conquered little gossip spread about the king with only a select few ever having the privilege to talk to the great monarch. It wasn’t until the eve of his death long after the magician had passed and all kingdoms had been brought down to a knee before the King of Yellow that a trusted servant is said to have confronted his archon about the contents of the book after watching his master obsessively reading from it in front of the fire for days on end. The king smiled which was so unexpected and surreal that the servant had to balance himself in fear that his question would be met with a violent retaliation. The king was pleased that someone who he almost considered a friend had finally gotten up the courage to speak to him. The king told the servant to fetch him a pen and that if he did that all would be explained. Upon returning with the instrument the servant found a man who he had never seen before forming words in a lost language against the walls of the great castle study. Terrified the servant quickly ran out of the room and returned moments later with a set of guards only to find the room abandoned with a thick black book resting where the man used to be. None of the guards or the servants knew where they were or why one thought of himself as a servant and the other as a guard since the time of monarchy and castles had passed long ago. Frantic with confusion and not knowing who or what they were they each rushed towards the book knowing it to be the only way out but there were no words in the parchment. Only a statement etched in flesh “The ending can be known only by those who desire it. The end is built in to the beginning” which echoed into their souls written in blood in some tongue none of them could understand for who can read the words of the story of which they themselves are characters.
He kept thinking back to that book even as he turned away from her bruises and towards his fist making contact with his rival's face. It did not comfort him to watch their fluids mix, the blood from the other's nose permanently contaminating him as it became indistinguishable from the gore on His knuckles. His opponent seemed to echo his sentiment with the involuntary wet gasp of breath that is all too common for the individual on the receiving end of a punch. It’s not like the movies, and it’s especially not like the movies where the character tells you “It’s not like the movies”. No high-pitched ringing, no world disappearing or blackout rage, no narration or inner dialogue to give the audience additional context. It didn’t happen fast and time didn’t slow down, it just happened with no cutaway after the audience got the point of the scene. Both He and the audience remained present far after the beating was no more than a formality. He felt every blow and each crack and vibration as He tried to cave the orbital bone of the other man in. He had never thrown a punch before, He didn’t even think of himself as a particularly tough individual and He would later when recounting the story to his friends chalk the whole victory up to luck, God, or narrative plot armor depending on which of the three terms he felt his audience would be most amenable to hearing. Eventually, she announced ‘that’s enough’, the director called Cut, and the other got in his car leaving the set, and He returned to her knowing they had to discuss the next scene whose lines he did not memorize.
He felt bad for him after the fight. Once the adrenaline and the rage faded away He was left not with the approval or a sense of victory but instead felt only shame at the humiliation He had just levied onto another. This doubled his shame as He knew that He should not feel bad for the man who had just beaten a woman and yet He kept finding reasons to pity the person who would likely not have returned the favor which again added another factor of shame for being unable to match his opponent's cruelty and being unable to imagine that the others mind might be similar to his own. She said words to him when they got inside which didn’t breach his inner monologue so they stood in the doorway in silence for a moment before climbing up the stairs into his apartment without further dialogue opting for a more cinematic show don’t tell style of storytelling. As they made their way up the stairs He couldn’t help but think about what she looked like without the bruises. He kept seeing the girl who was his only a few months ago. She was different now, not just because her face wore the black and blue of a battered housewife or because she was no longer wearing the long black dresses He was so accustomed to or the scapular He once had to drive an hour both ways to return to her after she took it off to go swimming and forgot it. When He met her she was a traditionalist goth as well as a traditional catholic. She scoffed at the performative black lipstick and the hot topic style of current goth culture and preferred the look of the joy division and Bauhaus variety. She was incredibly tall, especially for a woman, and had a naturally thicker build than most girls which she always desperately tried to hide. She was not fat she was just built like an indoor volleyball player and she carried most of her body weight in her legs which made her look like a Robert Crumb drawing whose face contained only innocence with no hint of the grotesque or distorted crudeness Crumb was so fond of. It was clear from looking at her that even now she was home-schooled as a young girl as her appearance and what some would call a vibe contained none of the telltale signs of initiates into the secret order of normal American Woman. She wore little makeup and was seemingly unable to cover up the appearance of makeup that all other girls her age were so adept at doing. She was largely friendless but that had started to change right before she left him. It helped that she changed her look from homesteader with attitude to a more natural blue jeans and leggings American girl next door look that made her more approachable. She even purchased a Stanley cup that she never drank from but carried around like the religious symbols she used to so proudly display in order to signal her newfound conversion into normalcy. Despite the change of appearance and the swelling of her left cheek He still was able to see the fantasy of her he had once crafted. He hated how cliche it all sounded and the reality of her swollen face, creaking stares, and heavy footsteps quickly brought him back to reality reminding him of how meaningless those thoughts were.
The two of them made it to the bedroom with no words spoken between them. There was no past context or media guidance on how to handle the situation. He felt He deserved at least a thank you but felt bad about feeling this way. The third metacarpal in his hand was most likely broken but the throbbing pain helped remove the running monologue in his head. It would be easier if she was crying or emotional but the unmoving lifeless expression on her face gave no clues or easy outs on how to handle the situation. He asked if she would feel safer if he slept in the bed with her or if He should grab a blanket and spend the night on the couch. Again, no easy answers were provided and even in her state, she fell back on both excessive politeness and deference to him in all matters of choice saying she did not want to put him out of his own bed just for little old her. She would also not accept the ice pack or the water which made him feel like a pussy for having the urge to go and get one for himself. No response was given by him when she deflected his question so he chose to read the lack of an answer as an invitation and took a place beside her.
She called him only an hour before the incident. They had not spoken since they broke up. He waited until the last ring to pick up the phone. He didn’t know what to expect when he picked up the phone, a weird sort of clarity and coldness was in her voice that told him plainly that she wanted to come over. She didn’t explain everything and although she never used the words ‘help’, ‘I need you’, or ‘boyfriend bad’ these were the only words He heard, and for the lovesick recently dumped obsessive these phrases even if imaginary or implied are like telling a junky they need to get rid of some extra drugs and they need your help to smoke all this extra crack. The rest of the story was boring, He paced in his room waiting for her, playing out conversations, romantic confessions of love, passionate get-back together sex, and even the rare smug ‘sorry toots I’m over you’ fantasy that was dismissed almost immediately as being too unrealistic even for Him. Then she showed up and moments later so did her boyfriend who was following her. When the boyfriend or what He assumed to be her now Ex exited the car He placed her behind him shielding her from him after seeing her face and then fists, broken metacarpals and a young kid on the sidewalk shouting Worldstar happened.
It had been four months since they last spoke after she left him a text saying that their lives were going in different directions and that even though he was a great guy and cliche, cliche, cliche… we need to break up. The signs were there for at least a month when she began to change but He chose not to see them. The typical story of a girl wanting to be defined by a man only to find a boy wanting to be defined by a woman only to find a girl. Apparently for her the appeal of “I can fix him” and the novelty of potential futures that would likely never be eventually gave way to lukewarm feelings of entrapment and settling. He had grown accustomed to this word, to the comfort of settling and its kind of absence of feeling kind of feeling. This feeling He learned the hard way was not mutual.
He put his hand on the creases of her back almost expecting a shudder but none came. He had only thought He loved her a couple of weeks ago, months after the initial breakup after she posted a picture of her new boyfriend. The thought had never crossed his mind before that and if He was honest during the relationship He was constantly dreading reciprocating the words that He felt were just a day away from coming out of her mouth, “I love you”. He was proud of the way he had handled the breakup in its immediate recess feeling little to no sadness or rage and was plagued with the occasional random thought of, “you fucking bitch” and a shallow sunken feeling in his stomach as he tried to sleep for only about a week. The picture changed everything though and suddenly all He could see was that trad goth in the passenger seat of his car, her long black hair turning to individual strands as it blew back in the wind coming from the open window and the seat belt pressed tightly against her breasts. He knew that love like this, love of the moment, of nostalgia and fantasy was not real love, and yet this knowing changed nothing inside him. True love if true love exists, He knew was not momentary or even composed of moments or something akin to a flashback or montage but a single decision made and then acted on in each moment. He knew now although maybe He always knew that love is the realization that “you complete me” is not a cheap phrase said by lovers entwined in passion but a threat that another gets to define you, if only part of you, the only part you care about. He could not define her and He was only comfortable in having her definition of him being of that of an image He saw in himself. He was not mad that she changed even if He didn’t believe it was authentic, what made him mad and what triggered the retroactive love was her faith and and possibly proof that change itself was possible. The original proof given by Aristotle and then refined by Aquinas to demonstrate the existence of God was in the beginning an attempt to prove motion and change. God was only a happy accident the real proof is an answer to Zeno and his paradoxes and claims about the impossibility of motion. He had taken a few computer science courses in college and was familiar with recursion, the evil brother of infinite regress. He knew to fear the stack overflow that occurs when a function is defined by itself without a base case. This same fear is what led Zeno to his famous riddle of change. He took solace in knowing that at least he could recognize the irony that even if she no longer wore her cross or scapular this decision was probably her most religious act, at least He thought Aquinas would see it that way. He resigned himself to always being a skeptic, He didn’t really have a choice.
She whispered if he was coming to bed, the high-pitched Alvin and the chipmunks put on affect in her voice mysteriously gone for the first time since He had known her. This strange but almost cute quirk was the first thing that stuck out to him on their first date. This strange voice is what initially attracted him to her, not the voice itself but the curiosity as to its origins. The bible thumping and all black life is pain I hate my dad fashion sense is one thing but the voice is what really stood out to Him. It was not an attempt at seduction or something she read in a BuzzFeed article about how men like uwu voices but some strange attempt to signal damsel in distress when everything about her pointed to the contrary. This desire in her was even less subtle when she drank which was rare but when it happened it was never in moderation or for fun but always with a purposeful excess to more easily assume the role of the ditsy little girl free to be led around and told what to do. Sometimes against the best attempts by his psychological defenses, the thought even broke through that maybe she was doing it for him. Maybe not him but HIM with a capital H, not god but the one or some prince charming who could not hear from all the way below her tower as if the voice acted as a sort of high-pitched dog whistle for someone she thought could save her from the prison she built herself. He thought that maybe she knew this would be the only situation he could take care of her and be the man she wanted him to be for her. All these memories and pointless and probably incorrect characterization and pop psychoanalysis went through his mind as He watched her breathe unsure of what to do. He wondered if the lack of the affected tone was just another change she had made or was a sign that she no longer believed him capable of filling this role she tried so hard for him to embrace. He asked if she was okay mostly to double-check the tone and she responded with her back towards him with a yes muffled by the pillow obstructing the sound waves and depriving him of the real answer He was looking for. He hated her in that moment, not just for leaving him, or for posting a picture she knew He would see, or for driving him insane with anger and lust but for in this moment after fulfilling the role of knight or protagonist in the story of beating up the unworthy lover and having her back in his bed that she seemed so passive and that all those feelings and promises He made to himself if she ever returned were gone.
He thought about sex with her or about the lack of sex with her. As a traditional goth/cath sex was a rare occurrence. She wanted to save herself for marriage but on special nights that came at random, she would roll over on her side after he incessantly poked at her as if by typing in Morse code with his dick against her back “Please fuck me” enough times she would get the hint which apparently she did on some night where she would whisper in his ear “I know you have needs” and with the cold efficiency of a surgeon at the operating table take him insider her and perform what she saw as girlfriendly duties. Despite this, she seemed to enjoy these acts more than all the other women He had been with. It’s possible that she was faking but he gave little weight to this not just to protect himself and maintain his fantasy as some god-like lover or because she was less experienced but because she seemed to desire the kind of power that came from being used as an object for someone else’s satisfaction. As a young man raised on porn, He thought this was what sex was about, this giving pleasure to someone who gave themselves up completely to you in an act that was transgressive or heightened because both parties knew what they were doing was ‘wrong’ and yet despite this, it was only He who seemed to perform the act as a duty and it was only her who was able to lose herself in it and transcend from the purely mechanical base acts. More shame ensued from these thoughts as He began to question if He resented her for this but he could not keep the erotic thoughts away as he pressed into her in the bed. Her high-pitched voice returned and she whispered that it was okay. She grabbed him and for the first time turned to face him and told him that she wanted to. He did not how to respond as she reached down to grab him. Again with the high-pitched voice mixed with a whisper, she told him not to worry. It felt wrong and this time it was He who turned his back on her. Silence ensued for a brief moment before she began to spoon his back before whispering another apology. She said they didn’t have to, that it was okay and that she understood if He hated her. She said she did not deserve him and that if anyone deserved to be mad at her it was him. The apologizing turned to deranged pleading as she begged him to hit her. She had been abused before, she told Him that every boyfriend before him had hit her in some way. When she first left him one of the first copes to cross his mind was that she enjoyed it, that this is why she left, that she took some sick pleasure not in being the victim or by giving up her own agency to be a form of catharsis for another even if that meant being a punching bag. It was too much for him and he thought whatever he did would be falling victim to her plan so He did the only thing he knew how to do which was not to act. He threw the covers off himself and began to head to the doorway. She didn’t move or react to the sudden flurry of motion and instead remained still as he closed the door behind him.
The book was there in the family room but he could not bring himself to read it. He sat on the couch consumed with the past his stomach churning turning old dread and lost feelings into something he could not name. He thought about knights and witches, about great battles and castles, and about princesses locked away in towers guarded by fire-breathing dragons. He did not hear her as she slouched into the room beside him. She took a seat next to him as he buried himself in his hands. She stoked his hair lovingly and said nothing as she began to spoon his body resting her head on top of his slouched shoulders. Moments passed like this and now time really was distorted and He was unsure of how long he had been crying. She made motherly noises and shooshing sounds with her mouth and tried to move the hands from his face and even though she pressed on his broken hand He was adamant about remaining here and hiding his face from her. Another voice in the room began to whisper something and He began to cry harder. Her mouth moved to his neck, or maybe it was always there and her teeth punctured skin and blood began to run out from him and into her. More voices in the room, they grew louder as with each drop of blood that spilled from his neck. Her hands remained on his hair moving back and forth calming him as she savored the red liquid in her mouth. Tears stuck to his fingers and his face and the sounds of her voice was drowned out by the thunderous voices, millions of them calling out to him. He did not care, there was nothing He could give to her but she was adamant on continuing to drink. The voices called out in words he could not understand that the end was built into the beginning. The room was dark, hours had passed maybe days and he was dizzy from blood loss and probably dehydration. He was unsure if this was the beginning or the end.