Hide and Hide

It's not fair to assume that I knew what would happen had I not done what it was that I did.   Not to say that I thought everything would go on as it should but only that it would be altered in some other minor way.   That is a long way of saying I didn't know what the hell was going to happen to any degree.   We seldom expect the extremes.   We don't often believe in the extreme danger or the extreme peace.   That sort of peace where the crickets chirp and you sigh softly rather than that extreme danger where you are gasping for air and drowning in your own self-fulfilling self-loathing prophecy.  It tends to we worse when you end up in the middle of those extremes.  When you are neither gasping nor sighing but struggling not to hyperventilate.   That irregular heartbeat that comes with not knowing what extreme you are closest to.  Not expecting death but pain not expecting harmony but dissonance.  Its like that violin string that reverberates to an infinity chord.   That sort of piercing pitch that escalates to the point that you want to rip your hair out.  That's what I got.  That middle ground.  Then again I'd never hurt anyone like I had that night.
When I was sitting at home pondering on life's questions my wife asked me a simple question, probably something about dinner being later, or that my brother had called.    She didn't notice the beads of sweat, that thick coat of perspiration that forbid me hearing the outside world.   There was a film over the noises outside my ear.  Not physically, I have no such ailments, but something otherworldly.   Something more psychological to be honest.  She must have asked me several times because she stepped over and shook my shoulder and asked me if I was okay.   I lied to her, nodding a little too much and she gave me knowing stare which I returned and she knew then not to press the matter.
We could speak to each other through our eyes.   Have conversations with vague smiles, our lips really seldom move except when they connected.  It wasn't that we lacked common grounds to converse over it was that we both had a mutual respect for silence and subtleties.  I had always been a subtle man.   Been being the appropriate word.
I of course watch her night gown reveal images of the pink panties she's wearing as she takes cartoon leaps back to the bedroom but I don't find myself aroused.   I find myself missing that idea of sensual tension.   I find myself nervous that it'll be lost forever.  I check the clock that hangs on the wall over my left shoulder and its very nearly nine at night and I stand up.   I turn my attention to the direction my wife had just vanished around, and I want to follow.  I want to believe that its okay, that if I go with her I'll be safe.  That my lips will touch hers, and her hands would undress me while mine caressed her.    And we would fall like feathers into our sheets and explore the vast universe that is only us.   And stars would twinkle through our eyes, and choirs of angels would accompany a trio of doves as the heavenly harps played over sticky sweet chords of our love making.  Then it would be silent, then it would be our breathing.  Then would be our slumber.
But I can't.
I pick up my truck keys and do my best to be quick to the door.   The less she has to see me the easier it'll be to think of myself as something else.  I'm not a man right now.  I am the meta tron, I am the voice of god now.    Doing the work, good or ill that is required of me by my lord and master.   It may be a bit extreme but that's what it feels like.  I'm some pawn in a mythical game of chess controlled by divine overlords.   I'm a means to an end.   A piece more likely to be sacrificed than to succeed.  
The drive is quiet.  I don't turn on the radio.   I don't want to hear music or talk radio.  There's something sickening about not contemplating your current path.   To so easily distract yourself with pop songs and political ramblings.    Letting yourself forget where your headed so you can sing the lyrics to a tune about thug life or heartache.   I fool with the idea though.  The buttons are ever present as the digital display reads in green numbers that its nearly quarter to ten.   I'm very nearly there, as mysterious headlights illuminate my face.  I'm sure one of the beings out beyond my truck knows me, knows my mind, can see it in the high beams.
When I finally park I am taken aback by the stillness.   When I switch off the engine my trunk goes quiet.   A small hiss is all that existed but it slowly evaporates its sound to the open air.   I'm alone now.   Just me and that hideous quiet that sends shivers down spines, and back up to the neck again.   I even twitch a little.  For me this isn't just a figment this is something deep inside.   A demonic pull under my skin.  That feeling that if you were to open up my shirt a hand would be trying to escape as if from a plastic bag.  That feeling that with just enough force it would succeed.   I'm bringing something hellish onto this plain, and I've never thought it possible.
The headlights pass over me, and my company has arrived.   Not sure how long I waited, my heart is beating faster than a bullet, so much so that I'm not even sure that its beating.  My heart is that violin string, that held note, that monster tone.   My heart is in my throat my mind is pouring out of my ears.   My bowels nearly vacated all over my leather seats.   The seats that stick to my t-shirt as my nervous sweat coats my clothes.   I open the door and step out.   I fucked up, and I know it.   That's the worst part.
It can never be that easy.   You can never steal from villains and expect a slap on the wrist.  That's just what the heroes do.   That peaceful extreme, that placid ideal is not available.   The devils cleaned it out, threw it on clearance and disposed of the signage.   There's nothing left.   Death is possible, but not likely.  They'll hurt me first.   To what extent, I'm not sure.   Probably to the point that I wish I'll be dead.   That deadly extreme, its too good for me, to calming to know that its done.   This isn't done, this is prolonged suffering, this is torture.
I was the one who came up with the plan to take the money from the people that you don't take from.  But the man whose underneath the barrel of the gun that I'm holding, he's the one they believed did it.  Because I said it was so.  Because I turned on my tears and said it was so.   I was only following his lead, I was only too dumb to know better.   So they make me do it.   They make me hold that cold steel to his forehead and they make me stare into his eyes, that already are swollen and bloodied with little rivers of red tainting the whole.   I played the fool and they bought it and now here I am about to murder.   This is the extreme for him, but somewhere in the middle for me, and when I pull the trigger his troubles are over.   As the sand beneath our feet darkens with moisture I can't help but tear up.  After all he was my friend.  
I am his extreme.  I stare down at the gun in my hand and I look around at the devil faces around me.  The minions of hell smile on at me.   They claim that my balls are massive steel contraptions that no man could squash.  That I'm a man.   But I know like them I am but a machination.  A device, a tool.   A wind up automaton marching to the tune of my inner parts.  To the infinity chord.  That screaming baby.
Everyone goes silent when I look down the barrel of the piece.   There's a whole vision in there, as a tremble under the weight.   Not of the gun but of the consequences.   I see my wife, I see her eyes, I see those knowing conversations from lip teeth and eyes.  Those facial twitches that are impossible to hide.  I see those disapproving looks, those knowing frowns.   She's miserable in my visions, because I cannot hide my rusted parts.  I see my wife in the metals, and then I see no more.