This is the last part. I reckon I'll scribble out an epilogue since the flaming thing had a prologue, and there's a further finish I'd like to put on it other than this one.
If you didn't catch part 8, then you have to scroll past this one to read that first - that is a must.
Otherwise, please let me know what you think. How was it for you?
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Fred worked it out pretty fast. Angie told me all about it in great detail. She sat on my sofa about two weeks after it all, shaking a little, but controlling her voice in soft whispers and long pauses. She didn't look at me at all, not even a glance during telling me though. I guess looking at me reminded her of us all having a good time - having a laugh pissing on anything from television to philosophy, down the pub as we always did.
Fred found an answer of sorts. I can only guess it was an answer anyway. I've never heard it wasn't and I've never heard it was. Those kind of answers sit bang in the middle - owning the whole story. That's what Fred's answer was - the owner of this story, this whole damn love story.
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He'd explained it all to Angie.
'I don't need my body any more. I'm dragging it around like a ball and chain. I have no connection to it, or need for it. It's just a fleshy rag with some bones stuffed in it, dangling off a murdered soul. Look at me - I can barely move my muscles. I hate even speaking, using an organ that used to smile. I have arms that cuddled her, a tongue which flicked around a throat movement, spilling out 'I love you Alice' which travelled to her ears. Useless, this sack I'm stuck in is fucking futile, redundant without her.'
I can't say it was odd for Fred to say this. How can I know what 'odd' is when your child dies? What the hell do I know? He was on the highest tip of honesty - not somewhere I've ever really been. All that stuff he said sounds like metaphor, but it wasn't. He spoke in words made of stone and wood - his way of speaking was a substance you could build reality with.
'I love you Angie, you've always grounded me, kept me to Earth - a place I've loved being with you. But, not here anymore. I'm going to Alice. She taught me to fly, to turn everything inside out, to forget about myself, to multiply infinity.'
Angie shuddered and stared at a patch on my carpet. She wasn't looking at the carpet of course. Nor was I, but it did go through my head at the time that I wished she'd say something about it - 'it's a nice design Ruk. Where'd you buy it?' Just so we'd both know we were still in the same lives. We weren't.
After perhaps a couple of minutes Angie continued telling me what Fred had said.
'You see Angie, I'm dead already. Most of me has evaporated. I'm just ending what's left to be with her, so she's not alone. What little is left of me here can't bear to know she's over there, lost, not knowing what to do. No one to hold her, to help her. I have to do this. It's like this Angie, I can picture Alice, our poor little Alice, not knowing she's dead. She could be wandering around on the other side, looking for us, lost. There is no one there to meet her. No grandparents. Nobody. And, I'm done, so I'm going to her. I'm taking myself to her. To find her, just in case. Just in case. And, when I find her, I'll let you know, somehow, somehow, I'll let you know she's fine and with her father.'
So, that same afternoon, he caught a cab to the tallest building in town and threw himself off it. Angie hadn't stopped him. He was going to do it somehow - as you know, he wasn't lying - he didn't know how. It wasn't a cry for help, or whatever they call it. This was the help, he was already crying. I suppose you could say death wiped his tears. And I prefer to imagine him smiling one more time when he did it. I like to think he saw his daughter, his precious Alice, at that destination. The only place he could honestly go for the love of Alice and Angie.
