Lovers Through All Eternity And Forevermore
by Anthony Neil Smith
I wanted to plan the coolest funeral ever for my girlfriend. I told her parents not to worry, that I’d handle it. After all, Hannah’s stepdad was the latest in a long line of her mom’s husbands, only been around half a year, and her mom was spaced — zoned — out cold. Blame the painkillers, the mango sours, or having to deal with yet another child’s death. Hannah’s younger brother was stillborn. Now it was down to Ford, Hannah’s twin.
Hannah was nineteen and drunk when she jumped off the balcony of my apartment building. Not that it was a long jump, but she flipped in mid-air and landed on her head. Suicide? Okay, we can go with that.
Hannah’s mother was looking at girly caskets with pink lining and metal roses along the trim. I said absolutely not.
“She hated pink. She would hate this.”
The stepdad stepped back, crossed his arms, and browsed other caskets as if for his own. The funeral director/saleswoman was confused, I could tell. Wondering why I was telling Hannah’s mother what to do. I’m a sight — black spiky hair and jeans I’ve worn for nine days straight, my T-shirt covered with anime characters. I’m pale like a vampire, or try to be. Hard to do that sort of shit in Biloxi. But I am who I am, and Hannah was who she was, and she wasn’t pink.
Her mother said, quietly, “It’s not for her. It’s for us, for people like her grandparents.”
“They wouldn’t want her spirit to look down on a lie,” I said, waving my hands at the pink tomb. “Bury little girls in this, but not someone like Hannah. She was into Wicca. She believed in the spirit world, in darker things. She’s gone onto another plane.”
She shushed me, the fake smile on the saleslady fading some.
“This,” I said, pointing to a steel casket with a bronze finish, the ornamentation a little goth, the lining frilly but not girly. This was more eighteenth-century. “She’d want something like this.”
“Twenty gauge steel, with Eterna-seal construction and Ever-rest bedding,” the saleswoman said. She was blonde, in a smart business suit and short skirt. Why would she want a wear a skirt that short to help families who are in pain? I didn’t like it. I’d be sure to have a chat with the woman about it later.
The stepdad was examining a set-up for someone who loved fishing. That certainly didn’t describe the stepdad, who loved crystal meth, leering at his stepdaughter and her friends, and treating Ford like dogshit he’d smeared on the rug. I deserved to be here more than him.
I rested my arm on Hannah’s mom’s shoulder, leaned close to her ear and said, “Trust me. You know I’m right.”
She nodded. She reached for my fingers and gave them a little squeeze.
I knew Ford before Hannah. He was a quiet bastard, kinda doughy. Probably a closet gay, but I couldn’t prove that. He hung around the same used CD shop as me, which was run by a guy in a band I wanted to join. All they had to do was lose their sucky guitarist — this guy knew I was so much better, but it had to be loyalty. Every time I mentioned it he changed the subject. I understood, though. Anyway, Ford was there trading in his teenage bullshit for German industrial bands and heavy electronica, nu-metal. Some of it crossed into my world — like NIN or Ministry or Korn, so we’d talk about that a little. His sister came with him once. She didn’t look much like him except around the eyes. Hannah had dyed her already red hair even redder, summer sun hot. She wore flowing skirts and black work boots, a black mesh shirt that showed off her small perfect tits. I bullied Ford into introducing me.
We were one of those instant spiritual bonds that you just knew only came along once in a lifetime. Romeo and Juliet. Jesus and the Magdalen. Kurt and Courtney. We were destined to cause each other the highest highs and deepest pains.
The first thing I said to her was, “I’ll never be the same after meeting you.”
She looked me over and said, “What’s your problem?
I eventually won her. It only took a couple of weeks of being Ford’s best buddy. I hated to use him like that, but love gets into your blood like an infection and it’s out of your hands. You’d do anything for the fix.
Then she was mine. We tortured each other for almost a year, on and off, the fights only making it more obvious that fate had led us to be the fire in each others’ furnaces. We clawed. We seethed. We broke prized possessions, childhood keepsakes, priceless. The cops came once and the stepdad tried to threaten me.
I wrote lyrics when we’d break up, read them to her over the phone, or make Ford do it when she wouldn’t speak to me:
Forget me not like a bad memory,
but remember me like your captor,
the kidnapper who held you
by force
only because the world of lies hid
the truth from your mind’s eye
I showed that one and some others to the singer at the CD shop, and he was pretty impressed. I got my audition. I didn’t get in, but that was because they expected me to play their originals without giving me any input, and they wanted to split credit with my lyrics if they put music to them. Fuck that. But I understood.
So did Hannah. She always came back, always with a melancholy that told me she knew in her heart our love wasn’t about making each other feel cozy and sweet, but about the necessity of our souls intertwining. Oh my lover Hannah. She was good in bed. Often at climax, she’d scream, “I hate you!”
I really believe she couldn’t take it anymore, knowing that after me she’d be tempted by so many disappointing lesser men. That’s the sad fucking truth of it all. She loved me too much.
I wanted the service in a Catholic church, even though Hannah’s mother said they were Methodists. Not really. It was just a church her own parents had occasionally gone to and she with them until she was sixteen. That’s when she had Hannah and Ford.
She didn’t marry the boy who had gotten her pregnant. She ended up living at home until she was nineteen, when she moved into an apartment with a girl from her school who was living with a navy man. Hannah’s mother ended up sleeping with the navy man, getting the other girl kicked out. Then she moved the kids in, became pregnant again, was married in a big ceremony on the beach, and had a dead baby seven months later.
The navy man, who had loved those twins and talked about moving them all to Virginia before the stillborn, was suddenly shipped out to South Korea. After a few phone calls they never heard from him again.
After that it was man after man, pill after pill, booze on top of more booze. Hannah’s grandparent’s did most of the parenting for the twins, but her father had a small stroke at fifty-two and retired early. He played the stock market, did pretty well, and held the money back from Hannah’s mom. He said she’d have to straighten up her life first.
Look, I’m just saying that Hannah was a goddess born into a redneck family. She really belonged in the heart of mystical New Orleans, or in a French castle, or as a revered writer of what they call “horror”, even though that’s really our deepest desires clothed in shame. I loved her stories, full of reckless romantics, compassionate vampires, and witches who overstepped their boundaries and were punished by the spirits of the underworld. I told her those witches should overcome the oppressors. She’d only smile and say, “I don’t believe they can. Otherwise, why believe in it?”
About the church, I told Hannah’s mother, “Hannah probably never set foot in a Methodist church past age six, but she was in love with Catholic art, the idea of saints, all the ancient rituals. Let that be where she faces us all for the last time.”
The stepdad, in the kitchen of their manufactured home, spit out a laugh.
“You got a problem?” I said.
He shook his head, stared at his beer, and said, “The way you talk sometimes. Like a faggot. I want you out of this house.”
“He’s trying to help.”
“Help? He’s argued with every choice you’ve made, and you’ve caved to everything he wants. What the hell’s going on here anyway? You trust this little fruit more than me?”
I was off the couch and by his chair in the kitchen in five steps. Balled fists. “You want to say that again?”
He glanced up at me. “I’m not going to beat you up.”
“You can’t.”
He shrugged. “You’d probably sue me. Not that you can afford to, still working at Subway part-time after three years. All your talk adds up to nothing. Now you’d better leave before I get pissed.”
Hannah’s mother said, “Please, both of you, stop it right now.” She was shivering, hugging a couch pillow.
On the way to the front door I gave her a hug and said, “Be strong. Do what Hannah would’ve wanted.”
Outside, Ford was sitting on the grass Indian-style staring at a weed he’d picked. I sat beside him and said, “How are you holding up?”
He didn’t look at me, squirmed, said, “I don’t know. Okay. I don’t feel complete anymore.”
“Well, your sister was amazing. A deity. I worshipped her.”
He shot out a breath. “She was my twin. That’s deeper than any bullshit you can pile on.”
It stung. “I loved her more than anyone, so don’t you dare — ”
He shoved me. I wasn’t expecting it or I would’ve thrown up a good block, taught him to respect that which he did not understand. If I wasn’t so understanding, then my reaction might’ve been to break his nose, or to come back late that night and sacrifice him — after all, his soul had been torn and would never be at peace until reunited with his other half.
But that made me think, am I not her soulmate? Isn’t she already promised to me on the other side? If so, then what was Ford? A doppelganger? Were they really as close as two people who weren’t lovers could be? Was Hannah alive in Ford?
I leaned towards Ford, wanted to see into his pupils, behind them, and I said,
“Hannah?”
In the split second before Ford untangled his legs, kicked me, and ran away, I swear I heard her voice and his together saying, “We know what you did.”
The time I slept with Hannah’s mom was unplanned, not something I set out to do. I had gone over after another big argument, one that ended with Hannah swearing she’d never see me again even though we’d taken a blood oath that the universe would never force us apart. I didn’t know Hannah had gone out with another friend — I found out later it was a dude. He couldn’t compare to me. I wasn’t worried.
The stepdad was gone, too. It was just me and Hannah’s mom, in her bathrobe, chain smoking, watching Dr. Phil. I was pacing. On the verge of tears. Now, Hannah’s mother was so different from Hannah. Laugh lines were etched by her lips. She was blond, thin, implants, and curly-haired. She had a nice shape, but she wasn’t exactly the type of person I could fall in love with. She was drinking mango sours.
Me, I stick to red wine, so much more European. Or gin, because that stuff is the closest thing there is to pure fuck-up. I wish absinthe were legal.
The mango sours were on her breath as I settled beside her on the couch and bowed over, agonizing, head in my hands. She patted my back and leaned towards my ear and said, “There, there. You kids are so young to be so obsessed. There’s more to life than soulmates.”
“No, you’re so wrong.”
The patting turned to rubbing. “Listen to me. I’ve lived it. Hannah’s got some growing up to do. Getting tied down too young is a big no-no. Besides,” she said as her other hand found my lap. “Don’t you want to fuck other women?”
I guess my complaining about her daughter being a bitch (but a bitch I couldn’t live without) turned her on somehow. That and the pain pills she’d chased with mango sour.
I was angry. I was depressed, devastated. Hannah’s mom was hot, coming on to me. So I fucked her on the couch while Dr. Phil kept saying, “How’s that working for you?” I rode her hard for a good five minutes. She coached me along, taught me so much so quickly. I didn’t see it as cheating. More like help — Here are the keys to my daughter’s heart. Like a magic spell.
She let me finish and then wiped herself with her robe. I was exhausted next to her. She wiped me off with her robe, too, then lifted my jeans with her toes, flicked them on top of me, and said, “That never happened. Understand? Never a word to Hannah or Ford or their dad.”
“Stepdad.”
“Yes, he is, and he’s a good man. He’s been good to these kids. We had a moment of weakness, that was all. It’s what people do. It’s not always ‘lovers for all eternity’ or ‘forevermore’ or moping around all consumed. Getting some pussy makes you feel better, doesn’t it?”
She smiled, farted, spread her legs and fanned the fumes away.
I felt worse, actually. I was being tricked. It was a scheme. Her mother would reveal everything, that I was a no good cheat. I should have confessed to Hannah.
I never did. We got back together. Hannah was still miserable. Our time alone, it was like kissing a corpse. The fire was gone. So why did she stay? Why?
“The music needs to be on cello. We need a cellist.” The mood would’ve been perfect. It didn’t look like I’d get my wish, though. Plus the Catholic church idea fell through when the grandparents threatened to bar me from the funeral altogether. I didn’t want to create anymore chaos. I understood.
The stepdad put his hands on his hips and mumbled, “Son of a bitch.”
The funeral director focused all her attention on Hannah’s mom. “We can accommodate singers, but prefer that there not be live music unless played on our organ.”
“A pipe organ?” I saw some room for compromise.
“No,” barely a glance at me. “Just an organ. Most families provide backing tracks, and we have a collection here as well, or we could play CDs of songs Hannah enjoyed.
Hannah’s mother looked pained. That’s because she knew Hannah liked Disturbed and Evanescence and Saliva. Heavy bands like that don’t go over well with the grandparents. Even I knew that, which was why the cellist playing Russian chamber music would’ve been sweet. Who could be offended by a cello?
The stepdad. He mumbled more, and I caught, “Probably all his fault anyway…”
Hannah’s mom said, “I wanted to play ‘Angel’ by Sarah McLaughlin.”
“Such a nice choice, yes, we have that.”
“Are you kidding?” I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. “Hannah hated that song. She loathed that bullshit sentimentality.” They flinched at my language, the funeral director preparing to scold me, but I kept on. “It’s all just a show for the relatives with you. Can’t you see that all I’ve tried to do is give her the funeral she would’ve wanted. Why dishonor her this way?”
The stepdad stomped out of the office and slammed the door.
Hannah’s mom said, “You need to think about how we’re feeling, not just you. We knew her longer than you did. I raised her, after all.”
“Sure, occasionally, when her grandparents weren’t available.”
She slapped me. The truth hurt. I understood, though. I didn’t retaliate. Instead, I said, “If that’s the way you felt all along, then why have you let me come along this far?”
The look in her eyes, I’m telling you, possessed. “You know why.”
I sure did. Not that I had come right out and said it, but it was enough to hint that maybe I knew enough about the stepdad’s meth business to get him sent away for a long time. And how Hannah had once spoken about how he’d made passes at her, once even touching her down there for a little too long, and it so happened that I was videotaping her at the time. But not in those words, it wasn’t a threat or anything. I wasn’t about threats. My point was that we were as close as husband and wife, completely intimate, and that I should help decide how Hannah left this Earth.
So I turned to the funeral director and said, “I’ll bring the CDs. She can have the ‘Angel’ song, but the rest comes from me.” I put my hand on Hannah’s mom’s knee. “That seems fair.”
The police grilled me, asking the same questions two, three, four times. Playing to my ego, my “tendency to control” others, my past record when the cops were called once to settle a yelling match between Hannah and me. The neighbors, trying to sleep, that was all. Look, since most murders are committed by the husband or boyfriend, I understood, so I didn’t hold it against them. In the end, the police let me go and said they might have further questions, but that I was otherwise free as long as I didn’t leave the state. I promised them I wouldn’t even leave Biloxi.
It helped that Hannah’s family was supporting my version of things. Told the cops I wouldn’t hurt a fly, that I was all talk. I appreciated that. At first the stepdad was skeptical, but after convincing him that it was in his best interest to be on my good side, he mellowed.
I would’ve never suspected if I hadn’t stumbled across some of his stash — some pot, pills, and crystal meth. He kept it in the breadmaker that Hannah’s mom had gotten one Christmas and never used. I asked him if he would mind selling me some weed. I don’t think he wanted to. We didn’t get along from day one, both of us from different worlds, but a sale is a sale. Better to make me an accomplice than be totally blameless.
We smoked a couple of joints together, him growing more talkative with every toke. He wasn’t the same man who’d pretty much ignored me except when I came over at two in the morning or called thirty times on a row. Called me names. Threatened to stomp my ass but never tried — not that he could.
Certainly not the same guy when he was high. He was telling me all about rock and roll when he was a teenager, the real heavy metal — Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Motorhead. Saying that I was on the right path, but all this barbed-wire and witchcraft shit was for the birds. I let him say it. Kind of like listening to my grandfather, even though the stepdad wasn’t even forty yet.
“You kids, it’s like you’re all drama queens. It’s not real.”
“You think Iron Maiden was real?”
“Eh,” then he shrugged. “You knew they were putting you on. A joke. Everybody was in on the joke.”
He drifted off into talking about Hannah. You could tell he had a thing for her, like he wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d conquered both mother and daughter. I had a leg up on him there. I didn’t blame him — how could any man resist Hannah?
Still, she was mine. I felt sick at my stomach, him talking about how I’d “somehow landed such a wonderful piece of ass” even though she “deserved better.”
I wanted a kitchen knife. I wanted to slit his throat.
He pointed a finger at me. “You’d better treat her like an angel, stop all this teen angst junk and enjoy your time together. You guys are too young.”
“So I heard.”
“You don’t want to pin your whole happiness on one chick. Let me tell you about women.” He looked around the kitchen, checking for spies. We both knew Hannah and her mom were folding laundry, not like they could hear. Then he said, this low rumbling voice, “Women don’t play fair. She’s already had a few dates when you guys were on the rocks. They weren’t to make you jealous, either. No. She’s checking out the other models on the lot. She’s thinking about upgrading. I’m saying if you don’t get yourself customized, you’ll be out of style and out the door.”
“Won’t happen.”
He smirked, toked, gave me an eye that said, I tried. “Maybe you’re right. What do I know?”
According to Hannah, he knew what she looked like when she was sleeping. He knew what she looked like when taking a shower. He knew what she felt like down there, knew her favorite style of panties. She knew he was a pervert. Confiding it all to me on the same night she died. Confiding it to me because she said she needed a change, and that meant everything — new place to live, distance from her family, and breaking up with me.
I knew she didn’t mean it. Hannah had been brainwashed, so confused by her stepdad and her mother, who didn’t believe the accusations. I told her to live with me, give it a month. I’d sleep on the couch, I’d be hands off. I’d be a shoulder to cry on. I’d help her take it to the authorities, or if not that, then help her get rid of the problem on my own.
She was making irrational decisions, in no state of mind to plan her life while drunk on the wine I’d given her, mixed with muscle relaxers to help calm her nerves. She was saying the whole Wicca thing, you know, not as appealing to her anymore. She was thinking about attending community college, maybe becoming a nurse. Telling me that she’d met some people who took classes there — said the name “Jeremy” several times — and that it was better than floating around like she’d been doing since graduation.
See? She was so confused.
What I should’ve done was left her alone, let her sleep it off on the floor. But I was heartbroken, too. My soulmate had just disavowed our union. She had defied destiny. She had cut me off.
I wanted to kiss her again, somehow let my love supply the energy to get her thoughts together, see that I wasn’t part of the problem. But she struggled. She didn’t part her lips for me. It wasn’t her, though. I understood. So I tried harder. Wanted our bare flesh to transfer that positive energy. I lifted her T-shirt.
“Stop it. Don’t. Get away.”
“Please, you’ll understand once you’ve come. You’ll break free of the fog. Trust me, lover, trust me!”
She lifted the remote control and slammed it into my eye. Hurt so bad. Again, into the bridge of my nose. I fell back. Hannah shoved me off and stood. It took her a few minutes, too dizzy and drunk. Through my good eye I watched her spin like a whirling dervish, and I wanted to worship her all over again. Angel. Devil. Lover. Enemy. Soulmate. All My Fears. My Kindred Spirit.
Hannah was crying. “What have you done to me?” Slurred through drink and strained vocal cords. “What have you done?”
Towards the front door. My other eye still throbbing, I was able to see through it, somewhat cloudy. I saw two Hannahs, two doors. They were melting. I stepped over to help.
“Stay away from me…you tried to…you FREAK I hate you…” She was delirious. Fumbling with the doorknob.
To let her leave like that would have been irresponsible. Any man who says he loves a women can’t let her risk her life and health in such a terrible state. I wanted to protect her. Outside on the balcony, she gripped the railing. I was behind her. I reached around her waist, squeezed. She crushed my toes with her boots. I held on. She thrashed. Crushed my toes over and over until I knew they were bruised. So I let her go.
And she climbed over the railing and tumbled heels over head into the concrete. It was one loud smack. Her skull. Her life.
If it weren’t up to me to plan her funeral the way she would have wanted, I might have followed her down. All I know is that I had reached to save her. That’s why my arms were stretched out. The neighbor who saw it was wrong. After I explained my point of view to the fragile old woman, she told the police she had been mistaken. It’s a crazy thought, me pushing her off. It doesn’t make any sense.
I was madly in love. I knew that Jeremy or anybody else was only a distraction that she would soon tire of.
She knew it, too. That’s why she jumped.
That’s why she jumped.
I told the funeral director that Hannah preferred not to be slathered with make-up in order to look “natural”. It was more cruel to make her look like she was sleeping than it was to show a pale princess in repose. More classical, that’s what she wanted.
The funeral director dragged me aside, away from Hannah’s mother, and whispered, “Look, that’s not the way we do things. This isn’t some music video or horror film. If you really loved her, give her parents what they want.”
“You don’t understand a goddamned thing about love.”
“Maybe not the same as you, but I do know about intimidation. Honestly, since you’re not family, I could have you removed from the premises if this keeps up.”
It was a business decision. I understood.
“But I deliver the eulogy.”
She deflated. Stepped back. “You really don’t care about Hannah’s feelings at all, do you? This is about you.”
I smiled. “By the way, have you picked out your casket already? You never know when it might come in handy. I’d love to see which one suits you most.”
The funeral was fine. Boring. Not the grand opera I had hoped it to be. That’s what she — we — deserved. Relatives kept away from me. I kept close to the casket. They weren’t able to fix Hannah’s face completely, since the fractures crushed her forehead. Her face was too tight, puffy. Her hair was a wig, and very Loretta Lynish, not my Hannah at all. I made sure there were plenty of red roses with the tips of the petals dipped in black. I made sure my drawings of her were prominently placed around the chapel. I played mournful Norwegian music. Tried to burn incense, but they told me to put it out.
I saw Jeremy. He was a preppie-type. Dressed in a suit, even. The two girls he was with must’ve been those other friends from the CC Hannah mentioned. All a part of the harem he tried to bring Hannah into. He was a player. Hannah would’ve been destroyed, maybe so much that I wouldn’t have been able to put the pieces back together. The path she chose instead was, strangely enough, the more logical one.
I even let them have their lame Methodist preacher, a guy who didn’t even know Hannah. Most of what he said was stuff the grandparents told him, all stuff from when she was six, eight, twelve. Nothing about her new beliefs, or how much she could love, or how she sacrificed herself rather than give in to the temptation of the in-crowd. The Methodist’s version of her was rated PG. An accident victim. A girl who adored her family.
Then he said, “And now a friend of Hannah’s would like to say a few words.” He gestured at me, and I took the pulpit. Looking down at a disgusting Hannah and her stone-faced family, feeling the room ice up. Me in my leather pants and an old Slayer T-shirt, just to shove the point home even deeper. Take that. Take it and fuck it. I was tired of their shit.
“None of you understand,” I said. “You didn’t even know her.”
The stepdad wanted to tackle me. It was in his eyes. The grandfather, too. Whatever he was, some sort of dentist, I think. Hannah had nice teeth.
I kept on. “All I wanted was to let her have one last celebration before we bury her. To surround her with the things she loved, the sounds and smells she loved. But you people wanted to pretend Hannah was a little doll. Goody-two shoes, no deeper than a puddle. I won’t let you get away with it.”
“Shut up and sit down!” The grandfather yelled. “You killed her! Why don’t you admit it?”
“I didn’t!” What was he thinking, interrupting me? “I didn’t — ”
I almost said I didn’t kill her for this!
Sometimes in those few days it did feel that way, like I was responsible. I wanted her dead rather than for her to leave me. But it didn’t make any sense. I would never do such a thing. Without her, I was a mess, a shadow of what I used to be. I was vacant.
I said to that crowd, finally crying for the first time in days, “I’d kill myself right now if I thought it would bring her back, or if I thought for one second that she wanted me to join her in the underworld. Don’t you get it? She wanted me to give her this funeral, and you all fucked it up! She wanted so much more from each of you — no one except me would listen. I wash my hands of it. I only hope you can live with yourselves. She’ll haunt you, not me.”
I kicked a flower arrangement on my way down the steps, sent it flying into the third pew, all the mourners gasping. The funeral finally getting the drama it needed. Everyone staring at me. Ford was the first one up, coming over to shake my hand.
He knew, because a part of her lived in him, I was certain of that as I saw him come towards me, able to forgive my behavior because he knew. He understood what I was trying to do.
Well, at least I thought so.
His hand was shiny. No, it wasn’t his hand, but what he was holding — a long thin knife. He passed over my outstretched offer to shake and slashed my thigh. The artery. Knew what he was doing. I went down. He stabbed again, this time with precision, at the back of my neck. Right between vertebrae. He severed my spinal cord.
I lost all feeling. I could barely breath, cheek to the floor. The incense still hanging in my nostrils now flooded with the heat of blood. Right before I passed out, I thought I heard Hannah’s voice from Ford’s lips: “You can’t get away with it.”
Ford must’ve researched to find out how he could do the most possible damage without killing me. By cutting the artery I lost more blood than if he’d sliced elsewhere. And the spinal cord thing was pure genius. Paralyzed for life. Brain-damaged from loss of blood. On the outside I’m a blithering idiot, more like an infant than a man. I can hear and understand. My thoughts are clear, but I can’t communicate them — nothing comes out of my mouth but grunts and drool. Eyesight is like seeing through cracked glass. It’s like being in chains.
I don’t know why Ford/Hannah blamed me. I really thought he/she of all people understood how much I cared, and how perfect we were together. Their punishment was the most severe — depriving me of life without killing me, so my soul is trapped inside my wrecked body, unable to rise and meet Hannah’s. But when I finally die, I’ll find her and drag her down to hell with me. Just what we deserve.
It’s a shame, really, because learning to hate her as much as I loved her has given me some of my best lyrics, and I can’t do a goddamned thing about it.
Anthony Neil Smith is the former editor of webzine Plots With Guns. He resides in Minnesota, surrounded by many loving friends.
