...i'm sorry...oh, Eric...i'm sorry...

Something strong, Eric thought again for what had to be the hundredth time. Something strong enough to kill the pain. Something powerful enough to stop the constant flicker of images on continual playback in his head.

He needed something, he knew, that could end his life.

A cruising car turned onto the rain-soaked street ahead of him. Eric held up his hand in the headlights' glare, and after a moment, the car passed him, covering his trench coat with a thick sheen of water. Eric only paid his dirtied coat the faintest notice. What do the dead care for such things?

...there was an accident...oh, Eric...

Oh, he already knew he was a dead man. At least in his mind. Now all that remained was to finish what God had begun. When had he died?, he wondered. The glaring whiteness of the overhead street light engulfed him as he stopped on the sidewalk. In the distance, a police siren was slowly fading away, and by Eric's feet, an old Wendy's cup make slow progress across the pavement in the cool wind.

Two hours ago, Eric finally calculated. That's when the call had come, the call that ended his life as surely and completely as anything could have. It was only God's cruel sense of humor that his body continued to function, his lungs continued to breathe in the misty yet stale air, that his eyes could still see the gloom and grime that shrouded the city, that his brain kept replaying the memories...

"Eric," the choked voice over the phone had said. He immediately recognized the voice as Amy's mother, Kathleen. He had waited for his future mother-in-law to continue, but all he had heard over the receiver was her quiet sobs. He remembered how the hollowness had formed in the pit of his stomach as he listened, knuckles whitening as he held the receiver in a death grip to his ear. He forced his own voice to stay calm and not crack as he spoke the question. But he knew the answer before the words came out. Somehow, he knew....

"Mrs. Russell," Eric breathed. "What is it?" The words echoed in his brain. And now two hours later, they mixed together with Kathleen's response to form a hideous soundtrack to the montage playing in his head.

"Amy...", she gurgled, "...she's...there was a car accident...oh, Eric....i'm sorry...."

Kathleen had broken into ragged sobs, sounding very tinny through the connection. Eric tried to say something, anything, to somehow reassure her, but all of the saliva in his mouth was gone. His tongue felt like a coarse piece of leather, held down by the weight of his stunned surprise. All he could muster was a faint breath of a whisper.

"...no..."

He had no idea if Mrs. Russell had even heard that because a mere moment later he heard the click of the connection going dead. The conversation, brutal as it was, was over. He remembered holding the receiver in his iron grip for a few more moments. And he remembered staring at the mouthpiece, wondering why he could not put the phone down. Wondering why he had even picked up the phone in the first place.

His Amy was dead.

...she's ...there was a car accident....

Eric looked up at the dark buildings around him, running a hand through his dark, curly hair as he did so. The misting rain had make his hair damp and cold to the touch. Like, his brain continued , the touch of the dead. Thrusting his hands deep into his coat pockets, Eric put his eye back down to the gray pavement and continued on his way. His boots seemed to make very loud clacks on the sidewalk, almost, he thought, like the tick-tocks of some enormous clock. Eric had never been to London, but his addled brain knew that this is what it must sound like to be in the room right behind Big Ben's face. Ticking away the last moments of his life.

...oh, Eric...i'm sorry....

After the phone call, Eric had just stood there in the dark of his apartment. That's when the memories started their continuous playback. The last time he had seen Amy, earlier that day. Their first kiss, gently and tenderly awkward in the front seat of his car. The time she had held his hand by the lake. The first time they made love. The last kiss, so fleeting and quick. Her mother's call, terrible and final. Each memory like a perfect reflection of what was. Polaroid snapshots of their life together, now gone.

All of their months together had gone together into a hazy jumble of half-remembered dreams. He saw over and over the moment when he had looked so deeply into Amy's eyes and told her he had loved her, that she would be the only woman he would ever love, that he was only complete with her. It had seemed like it would go on forever.

...oh, Eric....she's..there was a car accident...i'm sorry...

Eric had reached an intersection. Looking up, he realized he had nearly arrived at his destination: the Con-V Mart on 5th and Johnson. The small shop's powerful streetlights lit it and the surrounding area up like an airstrip. The brightness of the whole store caused Eric to raise a warding hand up once more. It hurt to look upon so much glorious brightness.

Eric remembered sitting on the old love seat in the dark. The wine bottle he had groped for following the phone call was over half empty then, cradled in a loose grip in his hand. He had stared over at the window, trying to blank it all out. But the snapshots kept coming, over and over and over, like some hideous slide show. Amy's eyes looking into his, souls locked, now locked in death. He had realized that he had suddenly and insidiously died earlier that day. Only the shell remained, and its time on Earth had passed. Eric had dropped the bottle on the floor, and he realized he must join Amy in death.

...there was an accident....

Eric looked up, more out of reflex than from anything else, at the traffic light. Its green light make the street below it glow eerily. Eric jammed his hand back into his pocket and trudged across the pedestrian walkway. Dimly, he hoped that a careening car would fly down the street in time to crush his shell and...resolve...his situation that much quicker. It was a vain hope, he knew. The streets were completely empty at this time of night. And only beggars and thieves were out now. And let's not forget, he thought, those of us wanting to die.

He made it across the street without incident, and it would be wrong to say that he was not at least a little disappointed by that fact. The Con-V Mart stood before him, glittering with light, like the Gates of Heaven. I suppose, he pondered, I'll be able to make that comparison soon enough.

....she's...oh, Eric....

He remembered thinking that the wine had not nearly deadened his senses enough. He could still feel the pain of loss cutting through his heart. He could still see images flicker through his head at that constant and maddening pace. He needed resolution, but how to do it? How to die? He began to run through the options available to him. He briefly considered downing the ammonia under the sink, but he knew that would more than likely be quite painful, and he had enough pain to deal with. The slashing-the-wrists idea followed the same suit. He needed something quick and painless, but what? He had no gun, and hanging himself may take too long. Then the idea hit him like a palpable fist: drug overdose. Of course, a drug overdose was the perfect idea. He quickly make his way over to his bathroom medicine cabinet. The adrenaline in his system at his impending reunion with Amy seemed to wash the alcohol out of his system, and he didn't even stumble once. Unfortunately to his plans, he only had a half box of Band-aids, a nearly empty container of aspirin, and half a bottle of Pepto-Bismol. He sighed deeply, thinking his suicide plan was going down the tubes, but then his fog-enshrouded brain recalled that the Con-V Mart at the corner two blocks away probably had all the aspirin and/or sleeping pills he could ever want. Fumbling slightly in the dark, Eric found his trench coat and put it on as he made his way out of the entombed apartment.

...there was a car accident...

Oh, yes, an accident. Flick-flick-flick went the snapshots.

The bell positioned at the door's top tinkled harshly as Eric entered the Con-V Mart, and the girl behind the counter looked up from her book to give him a suspicious and somewhat fearful look. Eric barely paid her any notice. Instead, he quickly surveyed the store and strode over past the drink machine and day-old hot dogs and to the aisles.

I must look like death warmed over, Eric thought to himself, almost bringing a small, grim smile to his face. That poor girl over there's got be thinking I'm going to try to rob her or something. As if she was reading Eric's own mind, the girl had closed her book and pushed it aside, devoting her full attention into acting like she wasn't giving her full attention to Eric.

Eric moved past the candy bars and toward the non-prescription medication, looking up at the girl to see that she had moved over several feet behind the counter. Most likely, Eric figured, toward some alarm button. The girl, herself, had apparently occupied herself with counting cigarette cartons beside the counter, making notations on a small slip of paper. Eric gazed at her over the Maalox.

Maybe I should turn a little bit, Eric half-thought, so she can jot down a better description of me. Just then the girl looked up to see Eric staring at her, and she quickly flashed a fearful smile and cleared her throat, now making more of her show of counting cartons. Eric simply shook his head slightly.

She is, he believed, very pretty. The girl's tank top and 501's did little to conceal her firm, teenage figure. And the girl's dark, nearly auburn hair blended gently with her tanned skin. At his distance, Eric couldn't read what the name tag pinned to her tank top said. Maybe, Eric thought, if this were another life. This girl reminds me so much of Amy, but she really doesn't even look remotely like her. Maybe it's just the fact that this girl's female, too. I don't know...

Flick-flick-flick. ....oh, Eric...i'm sorry....

Eric broke his gaze at the counter girl and bent over, examining the supply of sleeping products. As he knelt down to one knee, out of the girl's line of sight, he heard the tinkle of the door bell accompanied by the gasp of the teenage girl.

"YOU! BITCH! Gimme your god-damned money NOW!"

Eric let out an exasperated breath. Now what? Placing several boxes of sleep-aids back onto a shelf, he stood up to look back over at the counter. A man dressed in black leather and waving a .44 at the girl stomped over to the counter. The girl jumped back into the rack of girlie magazines and held her shaking hands up. Eric could see at this distance that the girl's big green eyes had teared up. One tear already tracked down her tanned cheek.

Flick-flick-flick.

"Hey! You fuckin' deaf, BITCH?" The gunman's free fist slammed down onto the top of the cash register. "Open the god-damned register 'fore I blow yer god-damned head off!"

Eric saw the gunman jam the .44's barrel into the girl's cheek, and the girl's head snapped back against the wall. With the girl's choked sob, Eric made his way over to the counter to come up nonchalantly behind the robber. The manic man didn't even seem to notice Eric at all. In his red-rimmed vision, he apparently only saw the girl, holding a hand to her bleeding cheek, flinching before him. He slammed another fist onto the top of the cash register as he brought his other hand up to pistol-butt the poor girl into submission.

"Ya god-damned whore, why don't you fuckin' move?! I-"

With both hands, Eric simply and easily yanked the large gun out of the gunman's grip, effectively cutting off the man's speech. The robber spun on a heel to face Eric, noticing him for the first time. The girl raised up slightly, still tending her cheek with her palm, to stare at her apparent savior. Blood oozed out from between her fingers. Eric shifted the gun to his right hand at his right side and pulled the hammer back with his thumb.

Flick-flick-flick. ....there was a car accident...

"Who the FUCK are-"

...oh, Eric...she's....

"Shut up." And with those words, Eric raised the barrel up into the gunman's midsection and pulled the trigger twice. The teenage girl screamed shrilly, but the explosive shots echoed like cannon blasts. The powerful force of both slugs sent most of the man's innards back up against the glass front doors as the man lurched backwards. As the potential robber finally fell backwards, Eric could see the life leave the shocked, wide eyes. The leather clad man fell into a lifeless clump on the tile floor.

Silence fell over the store. The teenage girl alternated stunned glances between Eric, the smoking gun, and the dead thug. Eric looked over at her saw that the Con-V Mart name tag read "Marissa". Even then, the memories did not die, the voices did not quiet, the slide show continued on as if nothing at all had happened. A Polaroid of Amy, hair flowing in the breeze by the lake. Another of her beautifully naked form atop him in the dimness of his bedroom. Yet another of her waving good-bye for what would be the last time.

Flick-flick-flick.

....she's...there was a car accident...oh, Eric...i'm sorry....

After what seemed like an eternity, the clerk looked up at Eric as his gaze drifted back to her.

"You...you saved my life. You saved my life...." She reached out a hand to Eric, but he took a step backwards away from her.

"But I couldn't save hers, could I? I never got the chance."

Flick-flick-flick.

"Huh? I don't understand, Mister."

Eric simply raised the gun to the side of his head and pulled the hammer back with his bloodied thumb. Only one snapshot remained. He clutched the trigger, but he kept his eyes wide open, seeing Marissa's shocked expression as he pulled his forefinger back.

Flick-

....... . . .