Silly Girl

by Brandon Berntson

  “It is the continual Nile, so to speak,” he said.

  She must’ve said something. She knew the devil couldn’t read her thoughts.

  “You know it?” he said. “You must, or you wouldn’t have made it this far.”

  She had to admit he was quite the charmer, despite his slippery reputation.

  The flames towered higher. Why had she agreed to come on this ride anyway? Was she crazy? She had never—that she was aware—made any bargains with the devil.

  Amanda reached for the carriage door. Just as quickly, Lucifer’s scarlet hand engulfed hers.

  “Seen enough already?”

  “Mommy’s calling for dinner,” she said.

  “Amanda Dear, always so full of life,” he said. “Do give her my best, will you? I think about her a lot, you know? Many of whom you’ve acquainted yourself with as well.”

  Again, he mixed dementia with charm when he smiled. “In fact,” Satan said. “I’m supposed to be meeting her for tea in half an hour.” He looked down at his arm, and for some ridiculous reason, a cheap, digital wristwatch adorned his wrist.

  The carriage stopped, and Amanda opened the door. It surprised her he was willing to consent.

  “You run along now, Amanda Dear,” he said. “I have more fish to fry. We’ll see each other again, I have no doubt. I, too, can be equally patient.”

  “I’m sure you can,” she said.

  Amanda Dear stepped into the flames. They did not devour and consume her, of course, because she didn’t have flesh. She had a bit of merit here in the afterlife.

  Behind her, the pitch black of space consumed the carriage. Satan’s tail, trailing out the window, vanished in the dark.

  All she wanted was Wesley.

  Wesley, darling? Where art thou? My big, beautiful lion, my protective soldier? Where hast thou gone?

  They talked like Old English poets sometimes when they were together. Wesley had started it, like a game. Trying to sound like Shakespeare, she presumed. Wesley had always liked Shakespeare.

  Amanda didn’t realize how much security she needed. That was what Wesley provided. She thought it ironic, too, it was what he did for a living.

  *

  Wesley had been a security guard. They shared an apartment together in Boulder, Colorado. Whenever Amanda thought about Wesley, she was always close, either in his arms or about to be. Why did life with him feel so different? It was as if she had another existence besides Amanda Dear. Did she have a twin?

  Snowflakes, the size of silver dollars, fell outside the living room window, leaving a white canopy across every rooftop, lawn, tree, and automobile.

  Wesley was in the kitchen making cocoa. He’d just come home from work from Detail Oriented, a warehouse specializing in auto design, airplane decal, and other artwork for various forms of transportation. He was still wearing the uniform. Wesley looked like a police officer without the gun.

  “Hey, my big polar bear of a man,” Amanda said, smiling at Wesley from the couch. She was wearing the cashmere sweater Wesley had bought her for Christmas three days ago. White cotton panties were visible between her appreciable thighs. She was sitting with her legs up on the coach, feet tucked under her—also—appreciable bottom. “I’ve been a very bad girl. I think I need to be punished. If you lock me up, I’ll let you do what you want. Just be rough and savage. It’s the only way I can really get excited. That’s all I ask.”

  Wesley took two ceramic, baby blue coffee mugs into the living room. He handed one to Amanda Dear and set the other on the coffee table. He sat on the sofa next to her. His eyes sparkled when he smiled.

  “It’s not that kind of uniform,” Wesley said. “And I’ll do anything I want anyway. When you’re with me, sweetheart, you play by the only rulebook in the house. Mine.”

  Amanda laughed and shook her head. “You get so many bad guys,” she played along. “Wherever do you put them?”

  “I frisk them for devices that might later be useful to you. I take them anyway I can get them. I own them. I beat and destroy. I make sure they never forget with whom they’re dealing. I’m easy-going as long as you let me. If you cross the lines, though, you’d better understand one thing: I don’t take prisoners.”

  “I love a man who knows how to get what he wants,” she said.

  Wesley furrowed his brows. “I thought I was the polar bear?” he said, frowning.

  “You are a brutally savage polar bear with a big, beautiful badge, and I absolutely adore the way you condone authority. You make me quiver. I’m helpless. Please, take me!”

  “I don’t have any authority,” Wesley said, not playing along.

  Amanda Dear was crestfallen. She pushed out her bottom lip and pouted. “But, darling angel? What on earth is your big, beautiful badge for?”

  All she could muster from Wesley was a crooked grin. Suddenly, however, Wesley seemed to go back in time, looking—it seemed—at something far away. Seriousness came over him even Wesley, Amanda thought, was not aware of.

  “Well,” Wesley started, “of course it’s for you. That’s a given. No one gets the privilege of the badge, the access, the information, the assets, and the contraband. No one, my sweet, my darling beauty, could gain more, knowing they were emotionally, monogamously crippled by knowing me. But you, my universal splendor, have found a treasure too far hidden for human eyes.” As if this jargon weren’t enough, he reverted to an Old English dialect: “The location, the circumstance of whence thou found me, procured a gateway for you too impeccable, impossible, and wonderful to ignore.

  “I can’t say I blame you.”

  Amanda’s jaw did everything but fall into her lap. Wesley continued:

  “When you came across the bridge in the light of harmony, I knew my isolation had come to an end. For nine-million-years I’ve put up with it now. In the light of obsession, I began to wander. Because of my immortal greed, I lusted over every obsession. Instead, thank God—who is invisible—found you. A miracle. Not a breath elapsed, not a second eclipsed my next wonder. I faded from desolation to purpose in a flash. Nothing in my future meant anything except time spent with you. Whoever you are, whatever you do. I saw meaning. You pulled me from questioning life. You proved to me God has a beautiful face, and He is always smiling. There is a reason to suffer, to be blind. I know that now. The torture was realizing I might never find you. Yet, in truth, I found myself standing on the sun. I became something I never imagined. Possible, quoth I?

  “Give me a break! It was perfection, nothing more.”

  Amanda laughed at his sudden change. He was talking in one dialect, then moving into another as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Amanda loved it.

  Still, however, Wesley pontificated:

  “I knew painful isolation was all that was left, some kind of mystical suicide. I understood purpose, but never realized He was trusting me with one of His most unmentionable priorities, the thing that meant most to Him. If I let Him down or disappointed Him, then only I was to blame. Nothing more. The truth still goes. To this day, I’m still aware of every second—precious to us both—I must turn into months. I have gone lifetimes, Amanda Dear—hundreds, and thousands of years—waiting for you. If the best thing came only every ten-thousand years, why not wait? No matter how many years went by, I knew I was closer to our meeting—when you eventually came across the bridge in the light of harmony. Yes, the time would come. And in that moment—even if it lasted the briefest second—it was enough to keep me living in perfect, celestial freedom as an immortal.”

  Wesley grabbed the cocoa, took a sip, and looked at her. He raised his dark eyebrows. The contrast between his blue eyes and the dark hair was hypnotic. “And let’s face it, my sweet, adoring Amanda. We’ve been given a lifetime of seconds, minutes toward the sun. Nothing can put a kink into the perfection we’ve created! The answers to our truths lie in each other. There is nothing left but to conquer that ever powerful, unfolding universe, that timid little runner always trying to
get away.”

  Wesley paused, shook his head, unable to believe what had spewed from his own mouth. He took a sip of cocoa. “Tell me if that too hot.”

  Amanda’s eyes were white with shock. She had never heard anybody talk that way, even in the movies.

  Wesley looked at her and smiled. “Sorry,” he said. “Sometimes, I do that. You didn’t want me to get serious, did you?”

  It was her turn to repay the compliment. She knew just what he deserved.

  Amanda Dear looked down at her cocoa, took a sip, and smiled, thinking of her reply. Looking at Wesley, her polar bear, she decided to play his game:

  “I see me in you. What more do I want? I’m more unafraid now than ever. You are beauty to me. Light, glimpsing memory, making melody and harmony’s sound. The reason the bridge was created in the first place. You are the definition of all things magical. And you love me! Me, that silly little girl who cannot imagine life any other way but with you. Dream! Love for you and love for me in return? Do you have any idea what it means to me to give you more than what I have, to reach deep inside me—when I feel I’ve given all I can—only to give you more?”

  “It’s for you,” Wesley said.

  “Me?”

  “Yeah,” Wesley said, catering to her kittenish side. “The badge. It lets you know—because I am the one in charge of your destiny—that you must submit to everything I say. You’re a little stubborn sometimes, so I have to wear it everyday, so you, Amanda Dear, are constantly reminded.”

  She giggled. “The way you talk. You are in charge of me!”

  “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  “Brutish, authoritative polar bear.”

  “One for the apprentice,” Wesley said. “That’s you, the sheepish little girl who must do all the polar bear says. I am the polar bear. That’s this cup here,” he said, pointing to his mug. “It signifies my dominance and authority, my unruly position. It defines me as the polar bear.”

  “And a few other things I could name,” she said, taking a sip of cocoa.

  Wesley looked at her for a long time, almost wounded. It was simply part of the act.

  “Oh!” she said. “Did I just hurt the big, terrible, polar bear’s feelings?”

  “Not a breath of it,” he said. “I still have authority.”

  “Ah, you’re just a penniless security guard. You don’t even carry a gun.” Amanda leaned back, cradling the mug in both hands.

  “I might now,” Wesley said. “After today, I might carry a gun and a really big stick. But I won’t use them on the job. If you know what I mean.”

  Amanda looked at him, surprised and a trifle stimulated. “You wouldn’t!”

  “I would,” he said, confidently sipping cocoa.

  “Polar bears don’t even know how to use guns!”

  “This polar bear catches on faster than you give him credit for. He’s one of the smartest polar bears you’ll ever run across.”

  It was Wesley’s turn to lean back and enjoy the victory. When Amanda didn’t say anything, he turned toward her. “Have I hurt the little polar bear cub?”

  Amanda stuck out her bottom lip, pretending to pout.

  “When I was talking about the big stick, do you want me to tell you what I really meant?” Wesley said.

  Amanda’s eyes went wide. Her mouth dropped. “Oh my goodness!” she said. “I like the way you talk!”

  “That’s what the polar bear said.”

  Amanda laughed. They put their mugs on the coffee table. In seconds, they were laughing, frisky, rolling around on the floor.

  Outside, snow continued to blanket the town of Boulder.

  *

  If she could find a way to stay with her polar bear, she could endure anything, especially this nightmare of death. Obviously, things weren’t that simple. What the hell was next, she wondered? Redemption was a permanent holiday in the arms of Wesley. Why did she deserve such perfection? And God still had yet to show His putrid face!

  The snow was gone, a salacious moment drenched in cocoa, lost in the databanks of memory.

  *

  Still sailing through the afterlife, another horrifying memory assaulted her:

  Her arms were bound, tied together, mummified by a straightjacket. Amanda Dear was a giant knot. A chain connected her to the floor, hooked to the middle of her back. She could only move so far because of the chain.

  Her thoughts, however, were enormous. She was too good for them, the people in life, the everyday, average citizen. That’s why she was here. She had visions, plans, and all of them were perfect. She was about to shape the world, build a new revolution. She had grand designs, and, of course, no one understood her.

  The medication made her hallucinate. Black beetles the size of skyscrapers moved over stars and space.

  For a second, she was back in death. Her dead body in the alley flashed before her eyes. Partially nude, she felt humiliation thinking about it.

  The world had seen her that way! Good God! What was the point of living?

  People, she thought. Where was the humanity? What about helping your fellow man—or woman in need? What the hell is wrong with people?

  For some unexplainable reason, she thought about death while in the asylum, as if given a glimpse into the future of her demise. Maybe that’s why she was here.

  “I’m really getting sick of this!” she screamed into the padded room.

  Her eyes stretched to insane lengths, horizons of their own, trapping the beetles behind her lids. She couldn’t see the padded cell. Amanda’s eyes were limitless lines of blood, an interminable razor’s edge.

  They had taken her vision, the staff in the lunatic ward. Blood poured down her cheeks, making a pool in her lap. Surrounding her—in the padded cell—blood spread sluggishly to the padded walls.

  They’d cut her eyes in half, expanding her vision over a limitless universe. Her eyes turned into infinite lines of red thread. The only problem was she couldn’t see.

  Amanda Dear knew it wasn’t only her eyes. Every pour of her body oozed. Somehow, they’d gotten inside her, stretched every part of her until she snapped like a rubber-band.

  Into the bloody view, determined to tear away the constraints, she wailed into the red thread:

  “YOU THINK I GOT IT BAD? YOU JUST WAIT, YOU UNMERCIFUL BASTARDS! NOT ’TIL I GET TO THE LAST ONE OF YOU! I WON’T STOP! YOU’LL BE SORRY YOU EVER FUCKED WITH ME! DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU’RE DEALING WITH?”

  No one was listening. What was she doing in a place like this anyway? She had never been committed to an asylum that she was aware, at least not on Earth.

  That was okay, Amanda Dear thought, smiling through her blood-soaked face. She could scream all day!

  Suddenly, the black wind of death swept her out of the asylum. Her cries echoed down the hallways of a foreign institution. She prayed the end was somewhere up ahead. Amanda was growing tired of this phantasmagoria without a single question answered.

  Death had ripped her from the asylum and put her back into the void of space. Stars and cold air surrounded her once more.

  To her horror, Jon the Doctor, the giant bug with glasses, stood waiting for her. He was exactly how she remembered: tall, thin, dark hair, wearing glasses, the smug smile telling her who was in charge. He was wearing his long, white doctor’s coat.

  What was he doing in her death? Had he perished along the way, sometime after her? She hadn’t heard about his violent rape in prison.

  I hope it was slow for you, you miserable sonofabitch, Amanda thought.

  Were the others here as well? How much more suffering did she have to undergo?

  Jon the Doctor smiled and sauntered casually toward her. He had some unfinished business, his smile seemed to say.

  “You forgot, Amanda Dear,” he said, “who the real polar bear is.”

  Amanda Dear closed her eyes. Jon the Doctor had just uttered blasphemy! She wanted to throw up.

  “You don’t have the balls to be the polar bea
r,” she said. “Ask Manny. You make me sick.”

  Jon the Doctor chuckled, but he didn’t get much farther. He’d waited too long, savoring his arrogance.

  From the darkness, dozens of giant forms emerged, strange beasts composed of discharge, disease, and decaying innards. They encircled Jon the Doctor now. The stench governing the air was atrocious. Amanda—if she had hands—would’ve put them to her nose.

  They lurched toward Jon, issuing incoherent grumbles. Trails of waste and blood disappeared into the dark.

  Jon the Doctor, suddenly, was no longer smiling.

  Despite the abominable scene, Amanda Dear anticipated the outcome with relish. It was her turn to smile!

  Maybe death is kind of cool after all, she thought.

  Something, however, was strangely eerie about the moment. For reasons she couldn’t grasp, Amanda had an inkling Jon’s death had been similar. These monsters had invaded the prison corridors to claim him, leaving him to rot in their lingering offal. For Amanda, it made watching his second death that much sweeter.

  I hope it is painful, you monster, she thought, smiling as she watched. I hope your death lasts a fucking lifetime.

  Amanda Dear had no patience for sympathy, not here, not with Jon. He deserved all the punishment death could muster.

  If this was the guise of her redeemers, her angels of salvation, she’d gotten it all wrong. She smiled at the irony.

  To add further insult to Jon’s second death, the monsters held bleeding phalluses between diseased thighs. Jon the Violating Love Doctor was about to experience the perfect punishment. In what little light Amanda Dear saw, Jon opened his mouth, eyes going impossibly wide. He broke the silence of space with a violent scream. It echoed through the stars. Within seconds, Jon the Doctor was not a man at all. He was a living mound of flesh, a slave of crevices and folds. Even Amanda couldn’t help but gape in disbelief. Jon’s mouth had been recreated into a quivering labium. His mouth and feet shifted into similar folds. Amanda’s redeemers were showering Jon the Doctor with discharge and kisses.

  She was shocked to witness his soul’s end, satisfied she was able to learn something about the consequences of life and death. Maybe God was showing His unpredictable face after all.