Six Minutes To Dawn

It is recommended you listen to Pay and Display by Lovejoy while reading.

Constellation always thought her name was appropriate. As a kid, she would beg her father to let her pull out his telescope on the small patch of grass they called a front yard so that she could see the stars. Heavy smoke always blocked her view, but it was fun to pretend she could almost see the glimmer of what was called stars.

They said stars glowed like the sun, but the sun was a dim ball of flame that again, she could barely make out through the blanket of ashy gray that hugged tight to the sky. Sometimes she tried to look at that, too. Someone once told her that could hurt her eyes, but she was six now, so surely her eyes were strong enough?

It’s not like it did much anyway. Most light came from streetlamps and houses and the flickering holograms that portrayed ads for skin care and propaganda that was a decade out of date. This part of the city was generally ignored. So was everyone in it. Even then, the people that lived there were far too busy living their lives to care to meet their neighbors. Community was a far gone concept. There was only you and the ground in front of your feet.

Standing outside of what was once her home, Constellation hummed a tune she’d forgotten the lyrics to. Her hands were clasped behind her back as she rocked back and forth on her heels. To someone watching, she might’ve been anyone from a previous resident to a singer, humming a song she’d made up, because certainly no one else would recognize the melody. To the more watchful eye, she was insane.

Constellation didn’t… feel insane.

A few months ago, she’d stumbled across the old ruins of what was called a library, apparently. There had been a book. The Tell-Tale Heart. It spoke of a man who was desperately trying to convince the reader he couldn’t possibly be mad because he killed an old man with such method, with such absolute patience and cunning. He had seemed off his rocker to the teenager reading it.

Perhaps she had become that man.

She didn’t want to think about that, so she pulled a box of ciggies out of her trench coat’s deep pockets and flicked on her lighter, watching the flame dance for a moment. It was so mesmerizing every time she saw that spark leap with such life, such hope. She managed to tear her eyes away and, with shaky hands, light one end of the cigarette. She stuffed the box and the lighter back down into one of her many pockets and took a good long drag of it. She exhaled happily, hot acrid smoke spilling from her lips like flame from a dragon, like blood from a wound. Oh, she knew it was bad for her, her lack of an education hadn’t stopped her knowing that. She had been completely aware of what she was getting into when she ransacked a gas station and found the darts. But she only had one life, and she was the only one with a life anymore, so why not indulge? Try a few things.

“You only live once,” she rasped to the wind, then threw her head back and laughed hysterically. If someone watching couldn’t have told before, now they could have. She was insane. It was the only reason. No one would ever want to believe something like that was in complete control of their mind, completely grasping everything around them.

But there was no one watching. There was no one to watch in the first place.

Constellation had to keep moving. She knew she had to keep moving. She only had one life, and she needed to see everything, feel everything, do everything. All of it. This world was hers. This world was hers. Hers.

She took one step forward. Then another. Then another. She blinked and she was somewhere new. A radio hummed under her hand.

Passed away, I heard that heaven’s got a pay and display~

This happened. She would walk and walk and zone out and she would be somewhere new. She should worry about it, but life wasn’t long enough to worry. She took a deep breath of the cigarette held between two fingers. She grinned. This was life.

She looked around. She was in a room and it was dark outside. Cyan holograms depicted ads from years and years ago. Things that didn’t matter. All that mattered was the ground in front of her feet, the smoke filling her lungs, and the sights she had yet to see, the things she had yet to experience.

The blessed always get their way~

She leaned on the sill where glass had once stood. Perhaps this had belonged to a young adult, a boy who had just moved out and was excited to live his own life. Was she that different? Maybe, if she closed her eyes, she could pretend he was her, and she was him, and there weren’t two but one. A roommate shouted around the corner and they laughed. A fridge opened and someone called to ask if they should go to the store. Then Constellation opened her eyes and the faint illusion and smell of home vanished into vacant walls with ripped wallpaper and wood scattered across the floor.

On a subscription basis, selling salvation~

Constellation slammed the radio into the floor and watched as it cracked. Anger thrummed through her. Sure, she had the world, it was hers, but there was no one to share it with. Not a soul that was human left. Just her. Becoming less and less human everyday.

It was time to get moving again.

˙✧˖

Constellation kicked her legs, staring down at the fall below. She had ventured into one of the Old Cities. She had a list of things she needed to do (a bucket list, it was called once, before all this) and this was one. Feel the terror of standing on the edge in the clouds. She was on a skyscraper, and she was starting to think she should’ve learned how to actually use a parachute. She’d brought one. She just didn’t know how they worked.

“I have one life, and I won’t waste it being careful!” she called to someone who wasn’t there, laughing and laughing and laughing. She pulled out a syringe, still just laughing. There was a tar-like substance inside. Heroin. This would be her first time on it. She was excited. She was so excited. She hadn’t been this excited in quite a while.

She stabbed the needle into her arm. After a moment her mouth started to dry and the rush hit. Her laughing turned higher, so close to screaming with joy but not quite. Almost. Almost.

Over the horizon, she thought she could see the dim burning glow of the sun reaching up, but the star itself hadn’t yet appeared. It was about six minutes to dawn, and she would begin the day with defying Death Herself.

She stumbled over to the parachute and hoisted it onto her shoulders, then ran back to the edge, excitement sparking like fire from her lighter in her chest, and she dove like diving into water.

The wind cut into her face and she embraced it, shrieking with delight even though she couldn’t hear it as the wind whipped away all noise. She waited. She waited. The ground came towards her, approaching at an unfathomably fast pace. She waited. She waited.

She pulled the string.

Nothing happened.

She frowned, grabbing at it again.

Nothing.

Sudden terror stabbed through her, and she screamed. She screamed and she screamed and she screamed, and in that moment, she could’ve sworn someone was singing to her.

Passed away, I heard that Heaven’s got a pay and display

The blessed always gets their way,

On a subscription basis, selling salvation.

Just last week, I took the pills they sold to me,

An island’s hiding up my sleeve.

I’m your creation, buy me salvation.

Buy me salvation.

Buy me salvation.

And there was the sound of a lighter clicking. And then there was nothing.