Venom

8: A World Not Of My Own

The thing I have come to realize about humans is that as reliable as they may be, they can not help but succumb to patterns that offer comfort to them when surrounded by forces beyond their control.

After a rather long and dull car ride with both of the confounding women in the car remaining silent, Viper pulled over into a gas station to refuel the car. Which, contrary to my belief, would not offer me a chance to speak to Mykela alone, even for a few moments. As soon as Vipers door slammed shut, her's slammed open and off she went right into the convenience store. I watched as she rummaged around. Her frame, slow moving, as if looking for something.

I had the inkling that she would not find what she truly wanted in a gas station.

Shaking my head I looked around the rushed place, the night was falling slower than ever and yet the humans in their own means of transportation paid no mind to the show mother nature granted them with a moon who slowed her descent to cast a glow to the life below her. Even the sun seemed to take in the beauty, a trail of rose and summer oranges trailing behind him like a cape made up of whispers of awed inspiration at the fading sight in the sky. They say no love is sadder than that of the moon and the sun. I am yet to know where I sand on that matter.

"She has no money you know." A hiss of the wind or the very wind itself, but the exasperated tone in her voice made the words very much her own. "Unless you plan on us being an accomplice to a gas store robbery, I suggest you take the opportunity to slither in there like some gallant white knight and pay for her merchandise, waving around your fierce shining black card and with a swipe of plastic be forever seen as her hero."

A heavy sigh left me as I got out of the car and passed Viper who seemed sufficiently pleased with her imaginative idiocy. With long strides and a quick pause, I stood before the front door, white gloves on and inside the cool air-conditioned shack. There were two employees working, one an older gentleman who eyed me with curious fascination and another who paid me no one for his eyes where on the phone he held close to his face.

She was in the very back, staring intensely at the beverages behind the cooled glass. My steps were slow and yet I was beside her faster then any other man could have moved, my presence quiet and still I knew by the tilt of her chin that I was acknowledged, silent yet heard. We stood there quietly, both she and I staring at the liquid behind the cold glass. I wondered, with her here now, would I enjoy the taste?

Electricity rushing through the lights, a quiet yet persistent buzzing. The false air rushing out of a cooling machine that released more particles then freshness. These places made me want to bare my teeth, but it was a long withheld instinct that I buried deep. Along with many other things. I was good at burying things.

"Is it sad that I don't remember what my favorite drink is?"

I did not move my body from its position, head down and hands clasped behind me, but my gaze flickered down to her like a moth catching the first glimpse of light.

But Mykela was not light.

Her tone was neither sad nor angry. Her voice did not tremble with repressed emotions or carry out with the force of a banshee. If anything it was unconcerned. As if it were a mere side comment. Something to brush off. Yet I knew, nothing that ever came out of her mouth lacked reason or motive.

"In this life or the other?" My tone mirrored hers. In some other world those words were ironic. I watched as she leaned forward, both arms outstretched in front of her until her open palms pushed against the glass, her warmth seeping through and melting the thin layer of cold mist.

"Someone, I'm not yet sure who once told me that the beverage someone likes says a lot about a person. The core values they hold dear to them. Surgery drinks for those who need to feel love on a tiring day, even if momentary and artificial to soothe the soul. Bitter and dark drinks for those who see and hear far more then they wish throughout the day and need help to withstand what's surely to come," There was a pause, brief, but enough for me to catch the way her fingers twitched on the glass. " but water is fundamental so I am yet to understand where that falls." She pushed away from the glass, leaving behind two hand prints that left water running down the glass. "My point is that I am missing a core value to myself."