The Bargain part 3

Puppy whose face was now flush red with diamonds in his eyes, told Rabbit that he needed a seat and moved over to the far end of the deck, away from the doors. Each seat was taken by either a person or a body, rigor mortis really had a hold on these chairs, and so Puppy balanced himself. He looked over to Rabbit, smiled and said.

“Guess no one loves a puppy nowadays.”

“Puppy, people just forgot that love still matters. Yeah it’s all out the window, sure, but it matters. We have a week left. A WEEK! That’s an eternity… well until eternity. Whatever.” Max knew exactly what she meant. Still he said nothing and kept on balancing. “We could be doing good things for one another in the final days, meeting our end like a bunch of wilting roses rather than the bunch of drying ugly weeds like we are.”

Rabbit kept talking about something or another and Puppy had lost track of where she was going with the conversation so he just nodded his head to encourage her to stay where she was. He had become fixated on the topic of love, though not whether or not he was in love with her for he had already decided that he barely knew her. Yet, something in him made him desire to reach over and hold her for the entire last week; it was as if all the scotch he had sent into himself had not made his disposition to life more bearable but instead it was the conversation and the presence of this woman, Rabbit, that made it seem worthwhile.

Oh but was the point. Puppy was a goner sunken in to some miserable bizarre booze moment that he mistook for love. The evening would soon end as would this conversation and Puppy – Max – would wake up from this dream and then march home where he would waste another morning sleeping alone.

“What is love?” Puppy asked. “Is it not overrated – just some concoction of pheromones and hormones?” yes that must have been it Puppy, “giving us a euphoric feeling, but keeps us from concentrating on what truly matters?”

“You are so depressing,” said Rabbit who again tried to move away but was stymied by Puppy’s slender body.

“Well what is love to you?” asked Puppy.

Rabbit smiled and thought about it a minute. This was no silent moment as the bedlam continued on the deck.

“I’ve always wanted to see Paris. Not possible now. Bah, we are finally living in a free world and we can’t do anything but the same shit we did before. Am I being selfish?” Rabbit waited for Puppy to say something but Puppy just nodded his head in tacit agreement again and waited for her to continue. “I would love to say that I am surprised by all the chaos but that’s not true.”

“Is it any different now then before? What is there to whine about, Rabbit?”

“Who said I was whining? It’s an observation. We could be doing a lot more…”

“There is no point,” Puppy cut Rabbit off. “We have no right to build a damn thing. It’s all gonna be gone soon Rabbit; might as well hump our way in to hell.”

Rabbit’s eyes shrunk in disbelief.

“You don’t have a clue Puppy. The everything is ending, sure enough. But the ideals of humanity – of community and love – we built are crumbling to the ground and we have decided to be the ones to give those ideals a final push. For what did we build those ideals? I hope not only for convenience.”

“So?” Puppy said, his tone becoming confrontational again. “Was that what you were saying to the men on the dance floor when they were laughing their asses off? Or do you reserve that mumbo-jumbo for those who speak honestly to you?”

Rabbit began to walk off but Puppy grabbed her arm and pulled her in close. For one moment he had a feverous thought of doing something – anything – but the world rumbled a little under his feet and Rabbit bounced out of his arms and moved back, smiling, staring at the his chest and then pushing him back with a firm shove.

“I’m sorry,” Puppy said shocked that he moved so boldly.

There seemed to be something to the rumble under Puppy’s feet because screams began filling the deck and the revellers began running inside. Puppy took Rabbit’s hand and dragged her gently with the crowd who were moving in to the Pavilion like bees to a bee-hive.