Post by Deleted on May 7, 2018 2:15:23 GMT -5
May 1st 2018
”Hit me again.”
A very drunk Joshua Samson, Esquire sits at the bar within the Renaissance Hotel. His cellphone and a row of four empty upside down shot glasses are lined up in front of the Anarchy General Manager Extraordinaire. The bartender obliges by pouring another shot and setting it in front of him.
”Of course I would find you here, Loverrrr.”
Catching himself from falling off the barstool, Joshua turns to peer through slanted eyes at Kelli, better known as Killjoy. His estranged wife, dressed in , slides onto the barstool next to him.
”K-K-Kelli?”
Joshua exhales as he spins back to face the bar and subsequently his shot of hard liquor.
“Leave me alone, woman. Now’s not the time.”
“No, now is the time, Joshua. What has become of you?”
Joshua drunkenly glares into the contents of the shot glass.
“What’s become of me, Kelli?! You really have the audacity to ask me some shit like that right now?”
Chuckingly, he looks over at her before looking back at the glass.
“Before you decided to ‘return,’ everything was going fine in my personal life. I found someone that embodies everything that I wanted...needed...in a woman. Now look at me…”
“Joshua Leslie Samson, that diatribe of feces would probably work on someone that didn’t know you. I’ve seen the tweets. The entire world has paid witness to the melodrama that is your life with that piglet.”
“Watch your mouth, Kelli.”
“Why? It’s not as if you really love her, Joshua.”
“What do you even know about love?!”
Joshua bangs back the shot of liquor before slamming the glass back down on the bar.
“I know that you don’t love that little girl. You just love the thought of loving her, Joshua. In every aspect where we failed, where you failed into making me into a Stepford Wife, you are looking to accomplish that with her. You are looking to mold her into this mode of a woman that only Colonel Leslie Samson has ever been able to attain in your mind’s eye.”
With fire in his eyes, he turns to look at her.
“Careful, Kelli. Be very, very careful.”
“Careful about what, Joshua? That you have a delusional perception of what a woman that you love is supposed to be? No one can ever measure up to your mother, Joshua. No one. And that is why I stopped trying in our marriage.”
“Ain’t that rich! You stopped trying because you were addicted, Kelli.”
“Have you really thought about why I was truly addicted? Of course, I was combating the chronic pain caused by the hellacious matches I was putting my body through. But have you really, really contemplated why?”
“Because you were weak. Because you didn’t want the help I was offering you. Because...”
“It’s because I was refusing to allow you to turn me into the happy homemaker you wanted. The more extreme the match offered to me the more I looked to push the envelope. I was ensuring that I would never become that lily white wife you so desperately feel you need. And if you really think on it, that little piglet Astrid is doing the same thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“She realizes that you’re trying to change her, Joshua. She might not know that metamorphosis will eventually be into your ‘saintly’ mother, but she knows deep in her core and she’s fighting against it. She’s fighting with everything she can muster and that is why you’re sitting here a drunken mess.”
Kelli places her hand gently on Joshua’s shoulder, her black painted nails lightly brushing his neck. Upon contact, Joshua’s body and emotions seem to surrender; his body going somewhat limp and is emotions streaming from his eyes with a torrid of tears.
“K-K-Kelli...I’m...I’m...so sorry.”
Hopping off her bar stool, Kelli quickly moves over to embrace the whimpering and sobering Joshua Samson.
“Shhhh…”
“All I wanted to do was love you...love Asti…that’s all I’m guilty of, Kelli…now I’ve lost both of you...all I wanted was the same love that I was giving out….”
“I know, Joshua, I know. Come on let’s get you out of here and up to your room.”
Kelli turns her gaze to the bystanding bartender.
“Joshua Samson, Esquire. Charge it to his room. I’ll make sure he gets to his room safely.”
The bartender silently nods. Kelli pulls Joshua up from his seat and drapes his left arm over her own shoulders to support him.
“Just lean on me, Loverrr. I’ll get you upstairs.”
“I just want to love her….just love her….”
Slowly but surely Kelli gets the stammering Joshua to walk while she supports him on their way toward the elevators.
“Why can’t you love me anymore, Joshua?”
It was a quiet plea because at this point Kelli was pretty much talking to herself as Joshua has been reduced to an intoxicated sobbing shell of himself. They didn’t have to wait long once they reach the elevators as the doors “dings” open. Stepping into the elevator, Kelli leans Joshua into the corner so that he somewhat supports himself. Turning, she presses the button to his room floor and shortly after the doors close. Turning back to Joshua, she sees that he has slid down in the corner, completely passed out. Kelli kneels down to be face-to-face with her estranged husband.
“We are forever, you and I. Our souls so intertwined that they will never become unraveled. We are the past, we are the now, we are everything that's down the road. No matter what that piglet says or does, she will never have all of you.”
Kelli kisses him upon his lips. The elevator comes to a halt causing the doors to slide open. She lifts the dead weight of Joshua up onto her shoulder like a big sack of potatoes and steps out.
“Tonight, if only just for tonight, I will have all of you.”