Story:
Daniel Cortega is stuck in the past, and his shattered heart is unwilling to leave behind all it had ever loved. That is, until Jesse Gardner, an ex-detective trapped in an investigation long turned cold, turns up at his front door and confronts him about it. The more Dan reveals about his lost love-life, the more he realizes that the past is no longer a safe place to be. Genre: m m romance. monologue, one shot.
The zenith was little more than gray cloud. A single ray of sun shafted through a hole in the congested maelstrom, shining radiantly upon a mountain of red stone, but it was quickly snuffed out as a cloud shifted to hide it behind its greedy curtains. The world was draped in staid cold again. Walking between the fingers of the dead afternoon was a haggard man in his mid-thirties, a silent man neither young or old. Thin scars nicked the whole of his dark face, and the laziness of tired men made its mark in the form of thick stubble and messily cropped hair. His gait was little more than him dragging his feet across the dirt-ridden roads, hardly any better than a pocketless beggar, but many who happened to venture in his path knew better than to cross him.
This man, Dan, was searching for something in the mute world of Torrentes. Yet he searched in vain, for even he knew he had already found it long ago. Something told him there was still more to find, that something had been left behind. Perhaps hope, perhaps a ghost. He needed to find it to know.
Jeans turned muddy-red as the wind blew up swirls of miniature dust tornadoes. The smell of rain was sweet in the air. Dan had to walk past several boarded up houses and empty lots thick with weeds and stray cats before coming across a single human being. The remnant whispers of the dead littered itself upon every corner, poorly disguised as nostalgia, but they shattered apart in the winds to be whisked away into the mountains. Dan released a weak sigh.
He came before a crossroads. An elderly man dousing his gardenias with a green and snaking hose looked up at him with thick brows furrowed together. There were no words to be exchanged between them.
Eventually, Dan came to a stop before a van rusted beyond repair. The worn and leaning houses that pattered across Torrentes seemed to stop here, as if an invisible wall had held their invading boards back. Bent in fences that were reminiscent of car accidents and violent rebels lined the road beyond the eye could see, a small sign that read NO TRESPASSING--NO TRESPASAR posted every few feet. Dan felt an involuntary jitter in his hide, noticing the familiar bounce of faint rap music from a distance. The cursory lyrics came to a crescendo as a purple convertible rolled down the unpaved street towards him. Passengers with grim faces threw him irreverent stares, slowing down but still driving on. Dan himself gave them a weak smile that held no friendly greeting. When the car turned into the next street, utter silence once more settled like winter dust.
Dan wiped the dusty glass of the abandoned van with a fist. Peering inside with squinted eyes, he saw the van had been completely gutted; no steering wheel, no floors, and certainly no seats. Just the skeletal leftovers of a pack of starving wolves. Several teeth marks--that is, bullet holes--marred the driver’s car door and windshield.
Stand as still and silent as he might, Dan could not recall exactly all the events that had happened here. It was one of the few regrets in the world he refused to forget, yet only trickles of blood and smoky mirrors entered his mind at the sight of the abandoned truck. It was as if that singular, fatal day had become a black hole in his memory, taking what little he had left by the handful.
With a sigh and shake of his head, Dan looked up once more at the dreadful sky. He felt even moodier than before, the clouds foreboding as it was boring. Not a day of sunshine during the past week, yet from Torrentes he could easily see the downpour of rain and mist hailing the distant city-side. There had even been warnings of tropical storms in the past few days, but the town with its tired residents didn’t seem to care much what happened or didn’t happen. Either they were lucky, or some greater being was accumulating a dangerous amount of vile for one catastrophic blow, waiting for the right moment to strike. Dan himself did not want to think about it, though recently he had been forced to map evacuation plans for the whole of Torrentes.
With a defeated sigh, Dan slicked back his hair and closed his eyes. It was difficult to clear his mind. Thoughts were constantly clashing with one another, fighting to take precedence. The car, the rain, the poverty that marred Torrentes.
Finally, Dan turned for home and left the truck alone to its faded past. It was pointless to have come.
