- Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner

"I walk the streets alone. I scan my watch but 3:30 means nothing to me. The night is black and heavy and gives me the only sense of time that I need. It is dark, and that fact alone gives me courage to face the oncoming hours with any sense of pleasure. When the sun breaks, all these marvelous little thoughts of mine will shatter, and the huddled, shivering mass of rich mens' sons and daughters will issue out into these streets, my streets, and talk about money, sex, and football, the only things of importance. But I have the now, the current, and these cold empty hours walking alone in the dark are like heaven to me, compared to the horrid pale face of the sun beating upon my smoked-out, tired, sleepless skull. College can be such a lonely place."

"It seems that the last two years can be strung together as a series of regrets. Missing this party here, skipping that dinner there, not asking this girl or that girl out; these occurrences are the only ones that taint my memory. I'm sure that some joy was had by me during those months and years but the good times sure don't stick around like the bad. But even the bad memories served the purpose of telling me what was happening to me. Now, either because of alcohol or other intoxicants, even remembering the events of the past day can be a chore. I used to have ambition, but now it is gone. I used to feel like there was something special about me, but now I see this "special something" as a raging gap between me and the rest of the world. As privileged as I pretend to feel at being something apart from the generally happy, stuck-up, grown-up youth of this institution, there is something that separation cannot bring you and it is that thing that I long for more than anything. It is not the thing that I expected to find that cold November night, walking the vacant campus paths, but now I realize that it was a matter of it finding me and not the other way around."

"Some men are thrust into greatness and others have greatness thrust upon them. I don't know which truly happened to me that night, but my greatness can no longer be disputed. It almost feels like a dream, a nightmare, but it can only scare me if I wake up. As long as I stay trapped in this reality, this delusion, my separation from everything that I care for will never be fully apparent. All that scares me now is the thought that everything with a beginning undoubtedly has an end."

It's amazing what a pack a day can do to your lungs in two short months. I was an athlete in high school, a football player, but my current state is but a shadow of my former self. I wake up wheezing but relish that time around noon when I feel well and healthy once more, able to renew my body with toxins and make sure that healthy will never again define me at all. It is the night when I inflict the real damage. I get stoned quickly so I can savor every little piece of my sanity as it crumbles from me. How does one reach the point when life is no longer fun, unless seen through the eyes of someone not aware of even what he sees? When masturbation is not what it once was, what then can you turn to for solace? It was this question in particular that I pondered that cold November night, when she came into my life.

I had just settled onto a stone rock on campus, overlooking a small, nonfunctional, fountain and lit up a cigarette, when she stepped out of the shadows and into some more. I saw her frame move onto a rock across from mine and only the blood-red hue of her lips could be discerned from under her hood. I took a drag from my cigarette, wondering what the hell some little rich girl was doing out this late, when she first spoke to me.

"Pondering the intricacies of life?" she asked.

"What intricacies?" I replied. I had hoped that my somber tone would have moved her to leave, but instead I saw those red lips twist into a smile.

"What's come already, what comes next, why does it matter?" she said. I sucked in a deep breath of death while staring at those lips. Fine, I'll bite.

"That's the thing," I said, releasing the cloud of smoke, made even more pronounced by the chattering cold of deep winter, "It doesn't matter. None of it does. Fretting over the past is as equally useless as trying to predict the future. What happens happens, and that's that." As the words came out of my mouth, I became supremely aware of how depressed I sounded. The girl didn't move or speak but sat still and foreboding. There were no movements or reactions to read, but something told me that she was analyzing my words. I peered into that dark hood of hers trying to make out any identifiable "thing" but all I could see were those blood-red lips, emotionless and cold.

"Then what's worth living for?" she replied, her voice startling me. I took another quick puff. If she asked me during the day, I probably would have given here the proper Christian answer that my upbringing had brought me to believe but the dark had its icy grip on me and everything seemed to be black and dead.

"I don't know. Everything seems skewed at night, somehow different."

"Better or worse?" she asked.

"Different." I repeated, starting to become curious, "Who are you?" Then she gave me one last fleeting glance, a twist of her lips into a smile, and then she was gone. I saw her black coat come up over her face as she stood up and then there was nothing. I peered into the darkness, trying to find the girl, and even stood up, as if to follow the nothing I had to lead me, when the smoldering remains of my cigarette bit into my finger.

"Shit," I muttered, tossing the fluorescent orange tip to the ground. I looked up one more time but there was as little there as there was before. How strange...

The next day in class, I could think of little else. While whoever spoke about whatever around me, I scribbled pictures in my notebook of the mysterious woman with crimson lips. I jotted down a little blurb about her even, thinking that she might make an interesting character in one of my many short stories, before class finally ended. Within a few hours, my business on campus was over and I left for home. The sky was overcast that day and I vividly remember the overcast feeling that enveloped me. Some people I knew stopped me for idle talk, but even they noticed that I was gloomier than usual. They kept asking me if I was "OK," trying to be nice, trying to make me think that they would actually remember what they were talking to me about ten minutes from now, but their formalities were wasted on me. I told them "yes," regardless, and continued on my way.

After a sandwich, I immediately felt a surge of weariness wash over me. Within minutes I was out cold, unconscious on my couch. It was a big thing for me, finally being able to sleep, and I slept like the dead. It was after dark before I even woke up. The faint glow of the moon gave my room an eerie luminescent pigment that made my pupils widen. I glanced out at the night before me and my heart started to beat harder. I thought of the poet Rilke that instant and his words that I had once read.

"Only the individual who is solitary is like a thing subject to profound laws, and if he goes out into the morning that is just beginning, or looks out into the evening that is full of things happening, and if he feels what is going on there, then his whole situation drops from him as from a dead man, although he stands in the very midst of life."

The truth of that paragraph had always astounded me but also made me realize yet another difference that I had with everyone else. I liked my solitary situation and felt uneasy without it. Whenever I went to class or walked among others, it's true that my situation fell from me, but walking about at 3AM, wandering the black empty streets, entertaining my endless search for nothing: these things helped me regain my solitude, and returned to me my unique view of things.

A quick dinner, a shower, and a cigarette later I was again stepping quietly through the night and within minutes, I found myself standing near the same broken fountain where I had met the mysterious woman the night before. I had not realized that I was walking there and was strangely surprised to find myself in the same situation as before, sucking on a cigarette, breathing silently in the cold lamplight. Psychology tells us that sometimes the unconscious can make us do things that are unexpected from time to time but looking back at it now, I realize that the reason that I had walked there had nothing to do with me at all.

The supreme silence of that place started to get to me, and the dim light, or lack thereof, was starting to persuade me to leave but just as my heels started twisting on the pavement, she appeared once more. Her appearance was as sudden as last night's disappearance and startled me so much that I almost tripped over my own feet. As before, she was wearing that hood and the subtle motion of her lips was the only thing I could see. "Didn't expect to see you again," she said, "maybe its fate?" I couldn't pinpoint, at that moment, exactly what it was, but something about her tone told me that she was lying.

"Same here," I replied, staring into her hood, growing more and more curious by the second. Neither of us sat, but stood there, several paces apart, studying each other. "You left last night pretty quickly; I never got your name." Her lips smiled, as they did the previous night and she started approaching me.

"My name is Angel," she said, "and you're Billy." She kept walking closer with slow deliberate steps, and her voice was so melodious that I almost felt entranced or drugged. I tried to make out her face, to check if I had seen her before but it was if the shadows deliberately followed her every move. The fact that she knew who I was made me a little uneasy.

"How did you..." I began, but just as I started my question, my mind became flooded with a thousand others as her face came into the light for the first time. As the shadows peeled away, I was shocked by the sheer splendor of her, and a gasp escaped my lips. Her skin was pale, with a flash of pink, and her crimson lips were accentuated as they slowly parted. Her eyes were blue and piercing, and I felt myself trembling as mine fell upon them. Her features were very finely chiseled, and a few loose locks of the most golden hair I had ever beheld seemed to fade into and out of view from behind her hood. She was both beautiful and terrifying at the same time. My heart began to race as she stood several feet away, staring at me intently. Her gaze was penetrating.

"Why did you come here Billy?" I swallowed hard and tried to formulate an answer but she spoke again before I could. "Why do you walk the streets every night trying to find something that can't be found?" My eyes must have been full of questions as she kept speaking but I couldn't think with those beautiful horrible eyes upon me. "Why do you shy away from the light?" As she spoke the word "light" she seemed to hiss and her brilliant white teeth came into view. For some reason, they frightened me immensely. She took one more step forward and laid her hands on my shoulders. While I stood tense and motionless, she brought her face alongside mine, my nostrils noticing a faint scent of lavender. As she whispered into my ear, I shivered involuntarily. "If you're as curious as I am, maybe we could talk some more." She slowly brought her face in front of mine, and again I felt naked against her cold merciless stare. "I may have some answers for you." I blinked once, hard, to break from her gaze, and when I reopened my eyes, she had vanished once again.

"Jesus Christ!" I muttered, "What the fuck." I breathed out hard and started making love to my cigarette as I realized that something was in my other hand. I brought the object to my face, a white card, and made out only one word on the front. "Angel." I flipped it over and there on the back was scribbled an address along with "midnight." She must have slipped it into my palm at some instant. A mingled sense of fear and excitement pumped through my body and despite myself, I started to smile. "Angel," I muttered to myself, turning the card in my hand over and over. I felt like I should ponder the situation and compare the pros and cons of what could happen, but it was useless, my mind was already set.

The next day was a blur. The quick glimpse that I had of Angel was enough to occupy my mind for the entire day. She was more beautiful than anything I had ever beheld in nature and yet still terrified me to the bone. I think it was this combination of two incredibly opposite emotions that I felt for her that interested me the most, and it was this intrigue that propelled me to see her again. She was sublimely fascinating, and, admittedly, that was something that I had begun to think was impossible to find in a college girl. And also, despite my penchant for brunettes, her golden hair was dazzling.

I didn't sleep at all the previous night, and sure enough, by noon I was exhausted. I skipped my last class and went directly home to bed and, yet again, I slept like I hadn't for a long time. However, this sleep was haunted by visions from the past and things I would have liked to forget. I dreamt of my family and that horrible fire, years ago, that claimed them. I dreamt of my sister and my endless screams upon finding her broken body lying dead upon the floor. Visions of my foster father flooded my mind and the pain he beat into me I felt anew like it was the first time. I tossed and turned all night long until finally I saw her in my dreams. She was dressed similarly, as I had seen her before, but the place where she stood was unfamiliar to me. She beckoned to me with an outstretched hand but as I approached her I felt that same fear that I had felt when I had seen her face. This time however, when she laid her hands upon me, I felt the fear suddenly melt away. It was not as if she became less terrifying, but instead, I felt as if I was wizening, and in my understanding, I knew that nothing could do me harm, not anymore. It was this feeling that gripped me as I woke up sweating, panting, and yet rested, at about ten.

The images in my head slowly faded into memory after a shower and two cups of coffee. I glanced at my watch and noticed my hand was visibly shaking. A growing sense of anticipation was playing itself out upon my body and, to be honest, I was frightened at the uncertainty surrounding that night. I had no idea what to expect. I drained the last of the cup and placed it on top of the mound of dishes gathered in the sink. I had wished the dishes, as well as my other responsibilities, would deal with themselves, but life never cuts you breaks like that. I wished that I could drop out of this damn college, but I realized that I would never be satisfied with a high-school graduate's existence. I wished that I enjoyed the social scene of my peers, and could happily live day-to-day like normal people, but, unfortunately, night-to-night seemed to suite me better for some reason. I just felt doomed, whatever choices I made. "Fuck it," I said aloud. Grabbing my coat, I headed for the door.

I must have stood standing there across the street from that old house for an hour before finally summoning up the courage to knock on the door. It was a very old house, Victorian in styling, and painted various shades of black and gray. It was a grim sight to behold but seemed to fit my current mood perfectly. As I walked closer I had initially expected something archaic, like an old-fashioned doorknocker, but, in betrayal to the rest of the exterior, a small gaudy-looking doorbell was mounted on the doorframe. I pushed it, heart racing, and waited. I didn't know what to feel so instead I felt a bit of everything. Anticipation, fear, happiness, loneliness, and even despair danced together inside me to create a most unusual sensation. I still remember it vividly like it was yesterday.

When she finally opened the door, it was like entering a dream. I don't recall what was said, if anything, but I remember being ushered through the hallways into a central parlor and bade to sit in a plush red leather chair, cracking with age. She left for something, I don't recall what, but she soon returned with a steaming cup of tea. After placing it before me on the coffee table, I seemed to become aware of my surroundings for the first time and I let it all sink in.

The room was surreal. It looked like it jumped out of an Alfred Hitchcock film. A large stone fireplace burned brightly against one wall and the picture above it of some dreary old woman made my blood chill. Candles were set up about the room and no outward sign of modern technology could be seen. Two crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling on opposite sides of the room and two doors lead out into the adjoining hallway. About the walls were placed old bookshelves and dressers and above them hung all sorts of paintings and photos of various people and places. Most were depressing and many were quite frightening. A large musty sofa sat in the middle of the room and another chair like the one where I sat was placed on the opposite side of the meticulously carven oak table before me. It is that chair that she walked to and sat down in, sensuously crossing her legs, never taking her eyes off of me.

I was no longer afraid, being not as surprised this time at her brilliant appearance, but stood even more dumbfounded than before at the immense beauty that seemed to radiate from her. She wore no hood tonight and her golden locks cascaded like a waterfall down to her shoulders. Her pale face shown bright and flickered in the firelight while her eyes, steely and blue, almost translucent in the light, never shuddered as they seemed to peer into my soul. Her full red lips shown out as majestically as they had before and in the slight place between her smiling lips, I could almost make out gleaming white teeth. She was dressed very differently that night, much to my surprise and good fortune. Instead of the heavy black cloak, she wore only a very thin white robe, presumably silk, that seemed to show off, in garish detail, every subtle contour of her body. As she sat with her legs crossed, the hem pulled up very high on her left thigh, revealing the most beautiful legs I had ever seen. The strap holding the gown together was tied loosely around her waist and the neck hung very low down her chest, revealing the cleft between her large breasts. Her chest strained against the fabric and her nipples were apparent, even under the thin silk, obviously aroused from rubbing against the material. How I longed to pull away that robe and see her body, as only a glimpse of her face almost reduced me to tears. Beside myself, I felt a slight tingling underneath my jeans.

"I'd imagine you'd have a lot of questions." She said. Her voice was like music and it sent a shiver down my spine. I should have had a lot of questions, but as I gazed upon her, my mind went blank. She raised one eyebrow after a short pause. "Or perhaps, none at all." She leaned forward in her chair, causing her breasts to hang against the firm fabric. "How about we start like this." She said, her cleavage tantalizing me. "Some time ago you realized that you were not like anyone else that you have ever met." She paused briefly looking for some sign of recognition from me. I merely nodded slightly and leaned forward, interested. But doesn't everyone feel that way from time to time?

"You're not sure what it is, but you just can't seem to fit in, no matter how hard you try." She licked her lips before continuing. "You're prone to sleeping in the day and walking the streets at night. You feel like you have to but have no idea why." I had kept my life isolated from others for the past 4 years but she seemed to know all about me. She smiled. "What are you looking for Billy?" My face must have been a mess of confusion.

"I ... I don't know." I stammered. "To be honest, I was hoping you could tell me." She looked away for the first time onto the cup that she had placed in front of me.

"Perhaps. But for now, relax. Drink your tea." I picked up my mug and glanced around for hers.

"Not having any, yourself?" I asked.

"No," she said, "I don't drink tea."

"Then why do have it then?"

"Because you like it." My hand started shaking involuntarily and some of the fear that I had previously felt started creeping back under my skin. I took a sip of the drink and put it back on the table.

"How do you know so much about me?" Her smile dissipated as she heard me ask, and I felt that she was reluctant to answer.

"It's not important Billy," she said, "I'm just going to have to ask you to trust me." Her eyes held mine once more and I felt that, even had I not wanted to, I had to trust her. She didn't wait for an answer before continuing.

"You know Billy; you're not the first person to feel that way."

"I had hoped as much," I said, taking another sip of the tea.

"I felt that way once, and still do in a sense." Her eyes narrowed upon me. "And so did your father." The cup shook in my hand, spilling tea over the sides. I put in down quickly, half in shock, half in anger.

"What do you know of my father?" I yelled, suddenly angry for some reason. I had barely known the man but the subject had always been unusually sensitive.

"What did they tell you about his death, Billy? It was an accident, right?" She again leaned back in her chair, her robe pulling even further up her thigh. Her eyes narrowed and her face went a blank. "That fire was set for a reason, Billy. Your father was murdered."

I stood up suddenly but immediately felt a little dizzy. "How do you know anything about my fatherrr?" The last word sounded slightly skewed and I started to see spots in front of me. "What ... did you... ?" I collapsed on the chair involuntarily, completely exhausted, glancing over towards the cup of tea that she had given me.