All manner of cyborgs and humans, aliens and robots walked the streets. The sky was dark above, but it didn't matter. The neon lighting from every building in sight seemed to give off light enough to rival the sun. The music blasted out of every shop, casino, dancing hall and nightclub. A hundred, a thousand, a million different parties all happening in tandem.

A man who was older but by no standards elderly, and weary of the world, walked the streets. A few coins jingled in his hand, more than enough for admission to a nightclub or a casino or a dancing hall. But he was after none of those that night. He'd had enough, and really too many, parties, dances, and gambling for a lifetime.

Instead, he stopped at one of the dusty, old beer machines, the kind that never gets used anymore. After all, why pay money for a beer can, nothing more than a relic of times past and not even laced with Nova?

Nova was meant to make the alcohol hit faster, harder, but differently. It also glowed like the neon signs when dissolved into drinks, and was the ultimate in addictive drugs. The vast majority of people were hooked. It wasn't found to be deadly in small amounts in laboratory testing, although credible science was an extinct creature nowadays. Nova was in every nightclub and dance hall's drinks, and even some diners put it in their meals.

He wiped the dust off of the glass window, peered inside for a moment, and decided on what he wanted. His shaky hand placed the money in, and punched the correct button. The machine used such old technology—not even a machine to get the beer directly into your hand. You had to grab it! Imagine that, youth nowadays would say. Grabbing your own can, not even a drop of Nova in it!

The man smiled the sort of smile that can only appear on the lips of someone who remembers when modern inconveniences were trivial and normal. Imagine that, indeed, he thought, shaking his head, partly in disgust with their laziness, partly in distaste with himself for becoming the sort of adult that talked about 'the old days,' but mostly in amusement that he couldn't quite explain.

The beer tipped forward in the machine, slowly, slowly, and landed in the bottom with a ka-chunk! It was a satisfying noise, one from the old man's childhood. He grabbed it. Sapporo, read the label in faded red lettering, printed onto a yellow background. With a smile, he popped it open.

Just then, three identical-looking alien girls passed by. They were laughing, green-skinned, with white-painted faces and black wigs. Their eyelids had three black triangles underneath them, made of some kind of ink. They had big eyes, like the anime from his childhood, and they all stared at him as they passed. The girls quickly resumed their laughter, however, the old man already forgotten.

He watched them walk into the nearest nightclub, and remembered for a moment when he'd possessed that youthful joy, and how, when the nightclubs and dance halls had started to appear around him, he had gone all night, every night, and stayed awake with EnergyTabs® during the day. Those girls were probably doing the same. For a moment, in a foolish fit of fancy, he wished to be one of them, with no cares to speak of and no burdens yet on his shoulders.

Katy had been like that, he reflected sadly. Up until she wasn't anything at all. He'd loved Katy in a way he'd never loved anyone before, or after, knowing her. She'd had blond-brown hair and very distinctly green eyes. But she fell prey to bad luck.

The nightclubs could be deadly in the presence of misfortune. They were nothing more than a whirling dance atop a cushion made of love, drugs, and champagne.

Letting your guard down, as the old man thought of it now. That, combined with the social norm of picking up a drink from a Server's tray any time they got near you, even if you already had one in hand, meant that you drank anything, no questions asked. And a careless or malignant bartender could mean a little too much Nova in a glass, enough to kill whoever was unlucky enough to pick it up.

The horror of the scene was still sharp in his memory and would be, he suspected, forever: Katy, smoothly replacing her empty glass for a full one, and downing it in one sip. Katy, widening her oddly green eyes in surprise and making a choking sound. Katy, grabbing her throat, then her chest, then her throat again. Katy, falling to the ground. Katy, convulsing in a seizure-like manner. Katy, going still and not moving again.

He shuddered at the memory, and tried to drive it out of his mind by focusing on the delicious sound of the beer opening, as the air that had been trapped inside rushed out. Slowly, he took a sip, then another. It burned going down his throat, but it was a good burn, the kind that distracted him from undeniable fact that was his own existence. He sat down next to the machine and stared out into the distance, thinking, as he drank his beer.

He thought of Katy's face, pale and lifeless, the spark gone from her green eye. He thought of the dull, emotion-lessness that had haunted him through his early adulthood, back when he'd been so hooked on Nova that he'd needed five or six glasses laced with the stuff just to feel awake. He thought of the emptiness that had been so quick to fill the hole in his heart Katy used to occupy. He thought of seeing his best friend from college, Max, get sucked into the nightclub life even deeper than he had been. So deep that he passed the "point of no return," homeless and starving because he spent all his money on alcohol and Nova, when the stuff that nightclubs served was no longer enough. Eventually, Max needed a high so bad he downed it pure and OD'd shortly after.

The old man thought of all this and realized something. If he didn't act fast, he'd get sucked back into the nightclub lifestyle to keep his demons at bay. He'd end up ending his life either like Katy and many others, or like Max and so many more. And so decided to do something.

He took the leftover change, which was just barely enough to get into the cheap nightclub across the street, paid his admission fees, and pushed through the crowds of dancers. He saw the three girls from earlier, all dancing in a "friendship circle," as they were dubbed, passing drinks around as they swayed with the music. He saw deep addicts like Max, and people who seemed new to Nova. This last group, he wanted to reach out to and say, "Don't! Don't get caught in the nightclub trap!" It would've been no use, a waste of energy. And anyways, he was on a mission and couldn't afford to be distracted, lest he change his mind.

He went to the bar and asked for a chunk of pure Nova. The bartender looked surprised, but had to give it to him. Legally, all drinks were free and bartenders were required to fulfill all requests. She did, however, warn him of its potential to be lethal. He nodded quietly and popped the entire thing into his mouth, barely chewing.

Almost instantly, the entire world seemed to dissolve into rainbow colored shapes, and the music painted extra splatters across the sky. He felt as if he was floating. It was the most intense high of his life. Then he fell to the ground, his muscles spasming out of control. Colorful blobs surrounded him, then splattered to the ground, covering him in paint. On one level, he knew that they were simply people crowding around, but on a more shallow level, he felt giddy that he'd die with his clothes dyed. Neon lights flickered in the background. His life flashed before his eyes, then ended abruptly.

EPILOGUE:

Alicia watched from behind the bar, shaking her head sadly, as a man died on the dance floor from something she'd given him at his request. She'd seen an overdose on Nova before, except that time, the blame had fallen squarely on Alicia's shoulders. It had been a youngish girl, with blond-brown hair and strikingly green eyes. The girl had been with a man who seemed stricken with grief. Alicia hadn't seen his face, because he'd covered it with his hands as he sobbed, but he had looked similar to the corpse on the dance floor. Though this man was a world away from that youthful, muscular, prime specimen of a human. The clients, who had been briefly interested by him, ignored the body and began dancing again. The cleanup crews would be by in the morning to dispose of the cadaver. It was hard to care for more than a few seconds about anything anymore, even death. Alicia shook her head sadly, wondering who the man had been and what his story was.

Then a Server distracted her with an empty tray and a request for "extra big glasses this time, please, I'm being paid by how much drink I get to the clients." Alicia complied, and soon the man was gone from her memory, and certainly forgotten by the partiers, who walked over the body as they danced.

Mission Statement:

We believe that trust is an essential part of human social interactions, and is key to maintaining healthy relationships. However, trusting someone "just because" can be difficult to do. After all, they could be lying to you at any moment. That's why we at Stalkers, Inc. do what we do.

Our Service:

Do you have someone you don’t trust? A friend, an ex, a nemesis, or someone simply in your way? We will keep tabs on them, both in person and over social media, internet searches, texts, and phone calls. Not a single action of theirs or event they take part in will go unnoticed by us or unreported to you, so that you can know what everyone in your life is saying and doing at all times. This encourages healthy relationships, because you'll never worry if someone's lying to you or fear that your SO is a cheater.

Our Promise:

Stalkers, Inc. understands that the important things in life just can’t always be explained to friends and family. That’s why we have a strict confidentiality and no-questions-asked policy with all of our clients, period. Some people just don't get it, and they might hate you if they found out what we do. The best way to avoid that is to bury the truth deep within you, even if it tears you up inside for the rest of your life, ending with you dying unhappy and unfulfilled, never giving away your secret to healthy relationships.

CONTACT INFO:

Don't worry about this. If you want to do business, we can find you.

(All payments must be made in cash only. No exceptions.)

(TRIGGER WARNING: Self-harm)

Two hearts, beating as one

One soul, two bodies

Friend

/frend/

noun

1. a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection

2. a person who is not an enemy or who is on the same side

“Friend”

Barely scratches the surface of it

Summer was

...seeing each other

...playing together

...CONNECTION.

Then,

s

l

o

w

l

y

.

.

.

we d r i f t e d

drift:

/ˈdrift/

verb

something driven, propelled, or urged along or drawn together in a clump by or

as if by a natural agent

noun

a general underlying design or tendency

No.

We didn’t drift apart.

You.

Left.

Me.

You cut

me and you

apart like you cut

your skin

And told me I was imagining it

Was I imagining it when

...you went to the hospital?

...you avoided me?

...you acted like nothing was wrong?

loneliness:

/ˈlōnlēnəs/

Noun

1. sadness because one has no friends or company.

2. the fact of being without companions; solitariness.

3. (of a place) the quality of being unfrequented and remote; isolation.

And now, a brief interlude of paradoxes

I miss you

and never want to see you again.

I care about you

and hate you.

I will always be there

but dread talking to you.

This concludes the interlude.

CONNECTION.

Did I imagine that, too?

“all in your head”:

/ôl in yôr hed/

noun

1. A truth or state of being that exists only in one’s own mind

2. A phrase told to people suffering from depression

Who is that, walking around in your body?

That’s not the girl I knew

I want that girl back.

Is she lost forever?

And, more importantly, if she came back...

if you came back...

could I ever really trust that?

I think we might be

s p l i t

forever.

Goodbye:

/ɡo͝odˈbī/

Noun

1. A parting statement

2. A profound loss