Still Falling

It was in the cross hairs of my most concentrated subconscious, during a bout of fitful and drunken sleep that I happened upon her. A fair maiden. She licked her lips and I pulled on my armor, releasing the Velcro straps and it crashed to the bottom of the bathtub. She kicked the armor aside, cutting her big toe. I bent down and cleaned the blood off her toe with my silk handkerchief and then I poured Diet Coke on it to cleanse the wound.

She pulled her toe away from me. “You are the most fucked up knight I’ve ever seen.”

“That I am mam but my heart is in the right place,” I said rising.

“And where is that?”

“If you must know it is just below my ideology and a hair above my constitution. Now, what is your name fair maiden?”

She blushed, and turned slightly as if avoiding a harsh light. “It is Cindy Lou.”

I took a Sharpie out of my tube sock and on the white tiled wall of the bathtub wrote: Cindy Lou plays marbles with shellacked angle eyes.

“That’s uh, very interesting,” she said.

“You haven’t seen anything yet my dear.”

I turned on the shower and warm coffee streamed down on us. “I’m sure I haven’t.” She opened her mouth and drank and I pulled her close to me.

“Aren’t you glad I rescued you?” I asked.

She choked on the coffee and spit it in my face. “You didn’t save me. I saved you.”

“Right,” I said. From behind the tiled wall I heard a strange rustling sound. “Stand back.”

With great concentrated effort I heaved against the wall with my shoulder and it crumbled away. There amongst the fiberglass insulation and wiring was a politician with a Gucci bag filled with stock certificates.

He pulled nervously at his collar, the pink flesh of his fat neck engulfing his finger. “Please don’t hurt me.”

“Hurt is what I do best,” I cried.

Cindy Lou grabbed me around the waist, I turned and the politician fled through a rat hole.

She put her finger to my lips. “Forget about him,” she said.

I put my arms around her waist and we both tumbled backwards. We fell but strangely never hit bottom. We’re still falling as I write this on my laptop which I was wearing on a chain around my neck. Maybe someday we will find our way back but until then I beg of you to remember to polish my armor regularly for it is still sitting in the bottom of that bathtub.