It got really cold

No use taking it back. It won't bring anyone back and nobody can judge me anyway. Everybody's journey comes to an end.

Getting rid of this one was harder than Doy because I wasn't really alone. And because no one really knew Doy either.

The laughing started as soon as he realized what had happened with me. 

-You killed him, he taunted me. Stabbed your friend right in the back.

He grabbed the knife to pull it out but it was too late. 

I stabbed him in the back but I didn't betray him. I thought it was Skull. 

But I couldn't tell him that. 

-He's not my friend and neither are you. Why are you still here? 

I didn't want him there and I didn't want to be there either.  Are you my friend? 

But that didn't mean he was going to leave. 

-You know what to do, he told me. 

I told him I wanted him out of my head if he wouldn't get out of my house. I didn't want to be there either. 

ReadyI'm collapsed face down when Skull let go. He kept the knife. 

I turned the body around to look at him one last time. This is too much. 

-Check his pocket for cigarettes, Skull laughed at me. Does he smoke? He might have some. 

I don't know who smokes anymore. The poison is everywhere. 

I wasn't going to do this. Disposing of the body is a trope of its own. Disposing of the mind is more difficult. Hold on to yours for sure. 

I told Skull he had to take ReadyI'm with him. 

-That's who you came for right? 

-I didn't know he was here, Skull lied to me, I knew. I came for the meeting. He pointed at the door.

-There's no one at the door.

-But I was. 

-You have to take him with you. He's not my friend, I repeated.

He wouldn't be dead if he were my friend. Maybe he had been once. 

Skull refused. 

-I'm staying. 

That's fine. I could leave, but he brandished the knife when I looked at the door. 

-Don't look there, Skull said to me. No one is coming. No one is ready. 

-I'm ready. 

I realized how cold it was. 

I don't want to tell this story. It's not a story. It's not anything. 

Why was Skull in my apartment? 

-Go away. Nobody wants you here.

I didn't know who he was talking about but I did notice an open window. It was probably why I was cold.

I could throw him out of it, or the other one, or both. I could lunge through it and walk on the air, step by step like hopping from one chair to the next in an auditorium, floating over the seats, except everything is below you. 

I'm not going to do that. I'm not ever going to do that. 

I left instead. If Skull didn't want to go I didn't have to stay. I don't know what ReadyI'm was ready for but it didn't matter to me. 

I already felt a relief never having to try to avoid him or keep him from getting himself killed again. But it was still cold.

The seasons spurt back and forth in false starts and last hurrahs before a final transition. They're like us in that way. 

But I know that day was hot because there were so many people outside.

I went to the statue at the park. The police would be at my house any minute. I could imagine them. I hadn't called emergency services but I know they were coming, like I called them with my mind, not just in my mind. 

In front of the camera I had an alibi. They knew me by now. Anyone can come to my house, there's nothing there worth taking except when someone comes. 

Kairos kind of disappeared. I didn't know where he went. I tried to ask him but he didn't say anything.

I wanted Stive to show up, even fucking Gary, but it was Moe who finally sat down next to me.

-You've decided that the camera is impossible? Moe asked. I could tell he was hopeful. Or that you have nothing to hide? 

Neither were true. Both were true.

-Are you fasting? I asked him. 

He fasted a lot for his religious practice but he never really tried to convert me even though everything he said always sounded true. 

I never pretended to fast in front of him. I was just hungry. I know it's not the same thing, and so does he. 

-No, Moe said. You know this.

I did. I asked for you.

-I know. It's cold. 

Moe looked at me then squinted his eyes to point up at the sun with them. 

-Are you sure?

I didn't remember the sun, it wasn't there yet. It was cold but I was sweating. 

It wasn't a cold sweat. I could smell it. I know Moe could too.

-Have you seen ReadyI'm? I asked him. I thought it was clever. 

-Yes, Moe said, but it sounded like he was somewhere else. He was going to your place. But he didn't make it.

-How do you know?

-Because you asked if I had seen him. Where else would he be going?

-Where do you think he is now? Somewhere better?

-Anywhere might be for him. 

Moe often said what I wanted to hear before I knew it was what I wanted to hear. It made me suspicious of him at first. But he doesn't mean anything by it.

I wanted to go back to my place, to wait outside the apartment building and watch. It's not really lurking because I live there. 

I thought the paramedic might be there. I liked her and she could give me a ride. It was getting colder and I think a few days at the hospital would be a good idea. 

But there was still too much to do before that.

She wouldn't remember me anyway. I wouldn't remember me if I were her. I shouldn't even remember her. 

Everybody lives in our head. It's the only place we can engage with them. In the world they're just part of it. 

I want to get this right.

Ok.

There's a world out there that we all live in. But it has to be in our mind to do anything about it. 

It doesn't make it not real.

This is as real as anything else. 

The important thing is that all these people in our mind have to match the people that are really there. 

Sometimes they start drifting, not deeper into the mind, just what's in the mind of them for us drifts away from what they are that they do in the world that doesn't care what happens in our mind. 

The dead stay in our mind a different way. They're just memories. Then there's ghost stories. 

That's just when the people don't die in your mind when they die out there in the world. 

I could feel ReadyI'm dying in my mind already. He wouldn't be haunting me anymore.