Steven always had his way to telling the truth if not with slight embellishments and positivie additions to make the people he talked to feel better about themselves and the oftten desperate situations they found themselves in.
He once sat on a train and spent the entire trip talking to an elderlry Woman whose son had died in an awful car accident while inebriated taking the lives of three of his friends. Although the death was a cause of over indulgence and impatiences Steven tried to steer clear of letting the woman concentrate on that painful revelation that her son has essentially increased his chance of death exponentially the moment he turned the keys and started the ignition. He imagined the cold icy street must have made the bodies more easy to look at for the Police Officers on the seen, frozen and not rotting as if they had been driving through the woods of the bayou. Steven hated to indulge those what ifs and realized that geograhphic location did not make up for losses. He like everyone else on the planet had felt the awful hunger pangs of loneliness and betrayal. Steven though rarely ever tried to tell massive lies and was usually quite good and treating his fellow man with kindness.Several days into the new year something unusual happened to Steven as he rode on another train and came close to his destination. It was up north and snow lay atop of the other greys and hazy blues that tended to float up in the frigid winter sky and lightless buildings that were only but a few as we went towards his car.
It had barely even registered on instinct how he had gotten off the train and walked up on set of stairs crossed 10 meters above the track and then down another set of concrete stairs only to find himself just a few steps away from his vehicle when his heart stopped in a panic, in a fear of which he was not accustomed to often.
From the other side of the parking lot he saw a person naked, cold and by themselves sitting on the asphalt which must have clung to the skin like fly paper. An icicle dropped and the form across the way did not even move his head. Steven noticed because his fear had paralyzed him. He stumbled to get the car open and raced out of the parking lot. He blasted the heat and then dialed the police explaining to them that he was worried that someone with serious dissability seemed to be nude in the parking lot.
On this night a lot of other events that were occuring were taking the attention of the police and rightly so because they usualyy involved a victim and some for of violence whether self inflicted or provoked or un provoked.
Steven drove in circles, the thump of his heart pushing against the adam's apple. He knew the Police in this area would heed the call and check out the situation that lay back in the parking lot. Stevens plan was to make a few circles down a state road and then watch from afar how the police would handle the situation. He parked his car far rom view and took a look and watched as the police stepped outside of the car and approached the pale and nude figure. One Policeman seemed to be a bit trigger happy and had his gun drawn and he could see the police officers talking with the individual. It was hard to guage just exactly what the gender of the person was but oddly they all got back in the car and began to drive away, with their lights off, incuding their headlights. His car parked in a lot by a small bodega was next to several others which drew attention away from the car he had turned off and then ducked resting his head on the warm fabric of the passenger seat of the car as one of the Policecars stopped. The officer got out and walked straight up to his window.
Panic was an understatetment as the policeman opened the door and leaned down one knee and tapped Steven lightly on the thigh. When he looked up two police officers one a man and the other woman were both looking at him with an ambiguous stare that ran cold waters into the bloodstream of the boy who made the call.
He asked if he could help the officers and they both shook their heads. He asked them if the young person in the parking lot was okay, they both shook their heads again. "Is there something I did wrong officers?", The two uniformed individuals shook their once again. One of the officers, the man Steven thought as his fear continued to grow opened his mouth and from his left hand produced a small glass. Like a black tar or molasses it slid down his cheek and began to accumuate in the empty space of the cup which should have belonged in someones house. He would expect police officers to have something more like paper cups, in lieu of the fact that glass could be used as a weapon. The black syrup finally reached a point were you could say when and they held it out to Steven. In shock he could do very little and made no movement to take the substance from them.
"This is not going to hurt you, but you need to accept this, so please take the glass," the Female officer said in a voice that reminded him of a warm fireplace and not the eerie situation that was occuring before his very eyes. The officers then stood up and a hand was placed on his shoulder as they both walked away.
When the Police officers neared there car they did not get back inside but continued to walk down the drark street, he immediately shut the car door and and fumbled to start the car and was thinking about breaking the speed limit by triple. His keys were gone and now staring at the hood of his car was the individual. It looked like him, nearly exactly like him only it was bleeding at the forehead and had no genitals as in a lapse from the fear because of the oddity of its nature he took his eyes off the form standing before him. It was clearly sentient, obviously intelligent, but abovce all, extremely powerful as it had convinced Police Officers that a sexless nude human like shape was of no concern to the general public in the late hours of the evening. Steven wanted to lock himself inside the car but with only his frightened emotions he did not think anything he could do would help him escapse from this nightmare. He resigned to his fate and asked the creature, "What do you want?" It looked as him and then opened a car door and sat down on the Passenger seat, clearly unused to the decaying warmth of the fabric, but not put off by it. When Steven closed his door, the creature had taken the glass and looked at the glass and allowed it to circumnavigate itself in a cyclical motion that made Steven rife with fear, panic, and hate because he had called only to help this thing and now it was causing him a great deal of anguish.
"What the fuck do you want?" Steven finally said abrasively, thinking that aggression might evoke more than chilling indifference. The creature then slowly turned his head, Steven glanced at it's face as the skin ruptured slightly into an open cut and blood began to trickle down his cheek and quietly landed on the nude thight of the creature.
"Did I do that?" The creature nodded and Steven felt strange, "I am sorry, it is just I am scared, I didn't mean to hurt you." The creature spoke for the second time, "There is no reason for you to apologize to me, you could not have known how our relation to one another," The creature said matter of factly but with a slight kindness that made the words more palatable. "What are you?" Steven asked.
"I am essentially you Steven, and it is I that is in far more trouble," He continued, " You see I like the snow very much and I know that I should not have been there like that in the parking lot, I could have frightened not only you but many other people, I should have hid in the woods, I just have waited so long for this moment that when you came off the train in my excitement I felt like I was at the Cinemas, I truly do love the train when it stops, the light is intoxicatingly beautiful and the sound of the horn beckons in the arrival of people to a destination unknown, I do not even know where you are going Steven."
Steven now thought this creature was childlike and clearly some anomally and allowed himself to be calm by searching for a subject other than the creatures origin or why it was sitting in his car that had now started and was idling as warmth began to slowly seep trough the fans that were dotted around the dash.
"What is inside that glass?"
The creautre picked it up, and looked at it, and then answered with a smile, a rare smile that was genuine and infectious , "It is ink." The form in front of Steven then giggled and and the top of it was then too sealed in glass,
"Why do you have ink?"
"I do not have Ink. This ink belongs to you Steven and when you choose to use it the glass on the top will remain sealed so it will not spill, I hope you find it useful as it has helped me so often in the past. Steven you must excuse nad I must apologize as this all seems a little out of the ordinary but I fancy a swim and you must be exhausted."
The creature then held his hand out and Steven gave his as well. The individuals hand was ar warm as Florida and felt strong.
"What do I do with this, ink?"
The being got out of the car and began walking away,
Steven looked up again, "Please!" he stammered on, "What do I do with this ink?"
"Steven, my heart, that is not for me to decide nor would it be right to give you any suggestions, it is yours."
With that the form who had drastically changed Steven's life in a matter of only moments dissapeared in the direction of the resevoir and Steven found his keys and drove home. When he unlocked his door and walked into his Warm apartment and looked at the glass, he felt compelled and as this sensation began to take roost inside him he drank the ink.
It was ice cold but extremely delicious and as he sat down in his kitchen to wrap his head around the evening he could have sworn he heared someone turn the page of a book.
