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Standing on the dusty platform, Name listened to the engines kick on and the metal wheels grind in protest. He gazed up at that window, the third one down on the second car, shrink slowly into the distance. On the other side of that window was Someone. Someone could very well have changed Name's life forever, if Name had only the courage to mention the painfully obvious feeling they shared.

Whoever said everything happens for a reason is outta their fuckin skull, Name thought with a slight twinge of his left eyelid. The smoldering butt in his hand fell through time and space to the dusty platform, meeting its doom underneath the rubber sole of his cheap shoe. As the train, as Someone, grew smaller on the horizon and exited his life for an undetermined length of time, Name lit another cigarette and began the tedious trek to number sixteen Cheshire Road. An empty house. Restored to a cold, lonely dwelling in which the shades would always be drawn, the television continually on with no sound, and a capless handle of the liquor store's best sale of the day adorning the particle board coffee table. The old fan whined away, lifting and dissipating the fragrant stench of tobacco. Before Someone came, he would speak to objects in the house as if they were human. He would be critical of their function, interrogating the toaster in regards to why he shouldn't "just throw you through the fucking window."

"Damn," whispered Name as he slithered his way through the inky slime between sleep and consciousness, "I didn't spill my drink." There was a layer of water atop whatever flavor poison he had been guzzling where the ice had been only an hour or two before. All temperature aside he tipped the glass back and swallowed the harsh liquid.

Have you ever seen what happens when you mix chlorine with isopropyl alcohol? The bottle looks totally normal, belying the intense pressure building within. If the handler is fooled by this false calm he could lose a hand when the bottle finally explodes. When Name had Someone, the pressure ceased to build. The way it happened, though, was confusing to him. Although he could not feel the agony and the rage multiplying one another, he could almost sense his carefully constructed tact and self control edging themselves toward the ledge of some internal chasm.

Four hours later Name awoke in a pool of what from past experiences was a mixture of alcohol and blood. Miraculously there was not a scratch on him this time. Just a pile of mattresses, picture frames, furniture, and what must have been the contents of the entire apartment on the living room floor. The old fan whined away. "Weren't you going to stop me?" Name said incredulously to the plastic blades, " If you didn't keep the air moving in this place i would've so fired you last week, and now this? Yeah you just keep circulating like you have no idea every one of your friends lies soaked in gasoline beneath you." Name had gotten out lucky this time, the veil lifted itself before he could strike the match in his hand. Even though the place would smell like gas for a friggin month, it was still there. This wouldn't have been the first time he ran away from a burning building, and most definitely not the last. With a grim look on his face he began doing what he always did, he poured a drink and put shit back where it belonged.