A fine car rolls slowly down an abandoned city street, one of the empty borders to the murderous world of the inner city. Stray cats slink in the hot shade, wondering what brought humans here on such a steaming day; their watery eyes blink in lazy ponderance. It would be obvious, to any human eyes, that the car's owners do not belong here. The Mercedes is too clean and respectable, despite its heavy tinting, to be the transportation of one of the criminal rich.
It stops. The doors open, letting out measly wisps of air-conditioned ether. The two who step out of the chilled interior appear to be two of the finest specimens of human. The woman is tall and slender, curved in the most perfect places, and clothed to accentuate it. Her long hair curls down her smooth back, and she hoods her bright eyes with a languid, aristocratic hand.
"I think this should do," Charles says, sighing.
The sun is a harsh, orange discus, sailing in the sky; the harsh orange sky. Cordelia pulls bits of her clothes away from her sweaty body. It doesn't help. There is no breeze to cool the sweat.
"We won't know until we look," she snaps. Impatient. Hating the heat.
"Please, Cordelia."
Repentantly, "I don't mean to, dear."
The brick warehouse before them is old. Only partially intact; a back corner weakened and fallen in. Shafts of molten gold sunlight run through it, swords through a box in a magic show that don't disturb the insides. If not so desolate, it would have looked happy.
"You first, Charles," Cordelia grins, a mischievous grin. Allowing Charles to suffer first whatever treacheries lie waiting inside; his footsteps to disturb the dust first.
"Should we bring in the things?" One of those ridiculous questions one asks, when one doesn't wish to go forward just yet. His frown, contemplation of his question. But also, unhappiness with being the leader. A most revolting building, with cobwebs to be caught by; termite-bitten boards on the upper floors to navigate.
Cordelia's restlessness resurfaces. "Why? When it may be necessary to carry them out again?" This man, such a fool sometimes! she thinks.
Stalling cannot withstand her pressure. His eyes scrunch in anger, squint in the brightness; watery with invasive sweat. He moves, into the shade of the decrepit edifice. Fixes his mouth so he will not swear at his companion.
No words. For now. Both discover details for themselves. Evaluate; calculate. Great scrawlings of graffiti, in unusually precise spraypaint. If the artists knew a better canvas, there might be cause for praise. But the delinquency of the words themselves are what is ugly to so many passers-by. 'Yvon loves Ben'. 'Franklin 33' by the gang who claims the street. And others, which make no logical sense to most people, but say volumes to their vandals. Boards on windows are loose; some of the spaces, filled with broken bottle pieces to kaleidoscope.
Charles puts his large, strong hands on the concrete block. Glances about to beware of glass shards. Empty paint cans, bricks, cigarette butts, used condoms. Reminding Charles of the new city streets; long ago, when the cobblestones were littered with garbage thrown from every window. Pulls himself up; the blue veins of his hands stretch. Dust is brushed off his slacks. There must be he thinks another way to get this done. His back to Cordelia, looks up to the imposing face of the ruined edifice. Next time, perhaps we'll have more time to think it over. Too many times; too many years in the past we've had to do this.
"Charles," slightly whined. "Help me up." The usually docile Cordelia suffers in the heat.
It is difficult and awkward, to pull Cordelia up. Her slim skirt strangles her knees; modesty -vain modesty- prevents her from forgetting that only she and Charles inhabit the inflamed, wavering street. At last, planting one of the small, spiky heels into the rough wall of concrete. Flimsy leverage, yet it works. She nearly slips; quick hands about her slender waist, holding her close to Charles.
Cordelia giggles. Heat is not just the weather. "Not now," because it is necessary. To wait. Pushes against muscles, which could easily hold her still if they chose to.
As if nothing happened, back to the business at hand. Charles' grin disappears.
Pulling the huge door aside to admit entrance, Charles takes lead again. Empowered by the attraction between him and the beautiful Cordelia.
Interior flaws are crucial. Not so much what is defective; more how much is. The worse, the better. Yet the building must be somewhat sound, to not be lost in rubble.
The sun in the windows is all the light they need. Huge holes in the ceiling display views of the higher floors. There is the same mess here. Greater indoors than out, but swept to the corners and along the walls by shuffled feet. A fine layer of fine dust. Abandoned crates and pallets, in various states of disrepair. Miles and miles of silken cobwebs; scampering rats, and rat carcasses, half-eaten. More graffiti, harder to read in the dimmer interior. Cordelia's sight adjusts to a green wash after the brightness of the sun.
The climate that beats down the world outside is trapped to roast in the broken pockets of these four floors. Yet Cordelia shivers. "We really must find some new way to do this, Charles." Announced, but her voice seems to barely penetrate the grime. "If at all possible," she adds, under her breath.
He smiles; recognizes his own thoughts.
Cordelia plucks an invisible web from her sweaty face. Pats at her hair; praying to feel no eight-legged crawlers there.
"Upstairs?" Charles suggests. A flight of iron stairs, in a corner to their left.
At its delicacy, Cordelia mutters, "That thing will be the death of us." And chuckles at such a silly idea.
Two intruders, they cross the room. Dust kicks up. They swipe at clinging webs. Cordelia sneezes: Achoo! A-achoo! Achoo! Sniffles.
"The upper levels will be more treacherous," she warns. Wipes at her nose with her handkerchief.
"I know," Charles replies, ignoring the obviousness of it.
Wobbling and creaking, the stairs permit the pair to ascend. Most of the fallen bricks of the corner having accumulated at the base, each floor is brighter than the one before, going up. The wooden floor is spotted with gaping holes. She knows her footing must be more cautious; Cordelia doesn't follow behind Charles though. Picks out her own direction, toward the middle.
Charles glances over. Lets her go her own way. She would only be stubborn, if he protested. He shrugs to himself. It is impossible to always protect a person you love and still allow her her freedom. Major groans rise from beneath their feet, but nothing serious. When he has lost interest in her testing of this thin ice, he pays more attention to his own footing. A softened snap, and the boards give way beneath her.
"Cordelia!" echoes his voice, angry rather than worried.
Light laughter floats up. She is only slightly shaken. Though he knows without her saying, "I'm okay."
He folds his arms, like a scolding parent. "Of course you're okay." He feels foolish, speaking to the floor. "Quit playing."
"I wasn't." Her head peeks above the floor and rises.
"You were," prepared to fight it out.
Indignant and final, she denies, "I wasn't. It was not my intention to fall through the floor." As if she would play, when the most dangerous part of their easy lives is descending upon them!
Her attention is directed at her right hand. Musically snapping and popping, as she flops it in ways it shouldn't be able to move.
Nasally, she holds out the hand toward Charles. "I broke myself."
"Does it hurt?" The inadequacy, the foolishness, of language sometimes! But it is his tone, emitting a bit of caring now. Even more unsure of the floor, he doesn't move. It would be inconvenient if they were both impaired.
She drags out the 's' with pain and irritation: "Yess." Yanks on the hand with her good one, but she has a bad angle. "Help me, Charles." She sounds as though she's only trying to figure out a difficult puzzle.
He places his feet carefully, making his way back to the staircase where Cordelia stands. Grasping the loose hand, he moves it to see what exactly needs to be done. Apparently, she landed on it, jamming the wrist bones into each other. A swift, sudden pull; the pops are amplified by the spacious acoustics.
"Better, darling?" pushing a string of her dark, chocolate-colored hair from the side of her face in a rare gesture of affection. She lifts her ice blue eyes, to show the pained tears, but blinks them away. They both know its true when she says, "It won't hurt long."
She tries the wrist. Winces, but its machinery is back in place. Without hesitation, the tendons and cartilage crawl back into their rightful positions.
"Anywhere else hurt?" Charles wants to know.
"No." Not sufficiently to warrant mention. The scrapes and bruises, healing as they speak. She can tell, though, how it takes a little more time than usual.
Charles swoops down, covering her wrist with tender, wanton kisses, that climb up her arm to the smooth, inviting flesh of her throat. He lingers there, hearing her breath deepen with each touch, each nibble or lick. He brings her mouth to his. Tastes the inside of her velvety, wet mouth, like spices. She is absorbed by his warm embrace. Holding him, and being held, with a kiss soft, yet insistent. Opens her mouth to his tantalizing tongue, teasing at her lips before taking a taste again. She gives in, enjoying thoroughly this physical rapture. He loves the way she fits so snugly into his arms and presses her thin body to him.
But she quits the encirclement of his arms soon. The desire is too demanding, and they can't give in yet. Charles doesn't like the turn away, but is grateful for Cordelia keeping them both in check.
Her voice would be easier, if she weren't still recovering slightly from the wrist and the lust: "I find everything wrong with it." The building, she means, and indicates this with a glance of her glimmering eyes.
"Yes. Yes indeed," her frustrated lover says. "Perfection, no?" Looking up through another vacant spot, feigning calm.
Cordelia grins, and walks toward him. When lusting, Charles tends to revert to the years when his accent was still thick. One of the many things that magnetizes Cordelia to him so. She pokes him in the chest to make him look at her. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pulls him to her, to kiss him more.
They carry in the bags. Only a few, which is all of them. Blankets, empty alcohol bottles, syringes, pills, partially-eaten food. Blankets for a bed, for a soft spot on the hard, cluttered floor. The rest is to add to the scene. To look like two lovers came here, to party and screw. As if Cordelia tried to drown yet unborn children in drink and drugs but inadvertently killed herself instead. This is the scenario they strive to create. The outside world, those unlike themselves, always want an explanation of the strange events Cordelia and Charles are subject to, but they are unable to beleive the truth.
Cordelia is relieved at the sight of other people using another antique building on the block, for whatever purpose of their own. Timing is significant. Again, she ponders Surely there is another way...
All done. They stand, looking at each other. Hot, sticky, and tired. The air, wavering in their half-shut eyes. Too uncomfortable to be vain, their clothes are in varying states of removal.
"Tonight then?" As if she didn't know; as if she had not been through it so many times before.
Charles' look is contemptuous. "Don't be silly, Cordelia. You know full well." Always more belligerent than she, but this unkindness springing from aching exhaustion.
She nods, accepting the scold. "Let's nap, then, beforehand. It'll be cooler when we wake, and we can start then." Cordelia's heart is pounding rapidly in her chest, though she doesn't want to admit it.
Charles agrees, "I'm always so worn by the whole ordeal."
Digging into bags, "But you wouldn't give it up," knowingly. She rolls out padded blankets, across some pallets pulled together.
"No," Charles admits. He pulls another bag of soft cloth over for Cordelia. "This world is much too beloved to me. And I fear what I might find if I were to ever leave."
"That's from what you are. You and I will never have to face death," Cordelia says. Used to his monologues, she likes to prod him on.
"No, I don't believe that. Avery is a bitter man because he knows he will never see heaven. Or hell. Or the afterlife at all, if there is one." Avery being a man like Charles and Cordelia, a man they have met again and again, despite every attempt to avoid him.
"I don't believe it," Cordelia says haughtily. "Why should some such powerful being care to have such an immense number of humans in one place, singing his praise constantly? How self-centered. And why -why in the world- would anyone want to go there in the first place?" While an ancient soul, Cordelia still simplified things to a childish view at times.
"That isn't the point and you know it." Not unaware that she was goading him to speak more, Charles wasn't displeased either. He became distant, saying, "It's a comfort. So that death has less fear to it. No one has ever returned, to explain death to the living, eh? Therefore, those who see the light of life disappear from their loved one's eyes must have some foolish fabrication. To believe that all will be well, that the valuable soul is not merely lost in a blank oblivion. Or sent to a world far worse."
Cordelia is bending over the beds, attempting to lay the blankets right. She looks up. "What about reincarnation?" she says quietly. Charles meets her eye for one long moment. He breaks the gaze when he bends to help.
With the two, it takes less time to arrange the bedding. They remove all of their garments, stinky with sweat. Then, they lay down on top of all the blankets, and fall asleep side by side, not touching.
Stomps. Cracks. The clatter of broken wood falling on wood; broken wood falling on concrete. Pieces of floor rain down intermittently, from fourth floor to third and down, stirring up clouds of dust, splinters, and wood shards. Outside the air is fuzzy, grey, and cooling quickly. The sky has become the color of exotic flowers.
"Charles!" Cordelia roars, in attempt to be heard over the racket he's creating. Several more screams and the disturbance stops. Dust begins to settle as Charles' footsteps descend.
"You called?" All smiles; already, the fire of this exceptional night dances crazily in his sparkling, green eyes.
Holding her head to complain, she says, "The noise! Please! What a rude way to awaken me!"
Kneeling, he throws his arms around her, savoring the feeling of flesh against foreign flesh. His accent is heavy in his throat, "Let us begin. We've waited enough." He kisses her precious eyelids, her flushed cheeks and forehead, her round nose. Until she is reduced to more giggles. He pulls her to standing.
Together, they gather the floorboards that Charles has been kicking down. The splinters dig under their skin, to no effect. Charles' lighter flashes smartly in the fading light, produced from the pocket of his well-cut slacks. Cordelia supplies lighter fluid, copious amounts, over the pile. The flame of the lighter bursts forth, blue and yellow, and white at the tip. Charles holds it to the boards. The blistering fire is temporary pain; the reparations are abnormally slow, but no longer matter much. It leaps, bounds across the invisible trail of fuel Cordelia has set for it, slowly digging down into the wood beneath.
"Primitive," Charles observes, "but a source of warmth as well as light." Satisfied, he is no longer cross and irritable.
"As well as romantic." Her smile is full of meaning. Looking around the field of shimmering air at her companion, something in her eyes holds fire of its own.
Charles grins back, devilishly. "The faster we muss the place, the faster we can..." -His voice catches in his throat at the thought. It seems he'll soon be reduced to his Dutch, but he handles language well.
They hurry. Toss about bottles, to looke like a great deal of drinking has been set to. Both emit chuckles. Unavoidable, the giddiness is Jack's beanstalk, growing with the pale lunar light.
A semi-deliberate collision makes them laugh. Their hands grope, hasty but purposeful, across their partially naked bodies. It is so simple, to undo a bra, to push down underwear. But they don't quite yet, because the naughtiness is in the suspense.
At last, clothing is removed. Charles' hands reach down from her hips. She moans softly, deep in her throat. Before he can stop her, she is on her knees. And what sweet things Cordelia can achieve with her agile mouth!
This moment, awaited through a lifetime. They never dared much more than kisses before, not wanting to tempt themselves. Sex, for them, brings strange consequences, so they are excellent at foreplay.
Eventually, she pushes Charles away. He stumbles, falls back upon the bed. Looks hurt, as if rejected. But it is soon settled; she wastes no time, burying him deep in her dark red folds.
Repeatedly, for hours, they allow their animalistic desire to consume them. Few words are necessary; they've spoken to each other for years, but never tasted the bliss of clinging to each other's bodies in a final embrace. The pain that looms is inevitable, so they forget it. Concentrate on the pleasures of the present moment.
Exhausted, laying back on the bed, they can already feel the drain. Side by side, they hold hands this time.
"A few minutes more," Charles says, sadness heavy in his voice.
"Perhaps a half hour altogether?" she speculates in reply. Looks at his sharp, handsome profile, which she loves so much. "I never remember."
He sits up. The fire needs to be stoked. "Yes, perhaps. Where is the gun? Would you get it?" He pokes at the licking flames, and adds boards while thinking of other things.
Cordelia takes the gun from the sack, the carved silver revolver, an antique from California's territorial days. She can recall the very day that she purchased it, drawn by the elegance of its deadly design. So many decades ago; three lifetimes at least. Tenderly, she kisses it.
Her tone is fearful: "I don't want to. Not yet."
"No, of course not." With his eyes, he sends her kisses of assurance across the small space that divides them.
Beneath his gaze, she basks. They are so used to each other, know each other so well, that affection between them is rare, yet all the more precious. And this, this is post-coital affection, which conveys his enjoyment of her body and the mind that rules it.
But suddenly, there is a sharp, stabbing pain across her abdomen. Uneven pain, that neither eases nor ceases. Like a thousand tiny holes are being ripped through her skin. "Why did I have to be the woman?" she groans, doubling over. She tells herself You knew. You knew it had to come. So degrading and disgusting and difficult. But so necessary...
Charles rushes over and lays her back. The silver revolver clatters doen next to her head, where she can reach it. "Talk to me," she gasps, afraid -as she is always afraid at this point, when her body becomes traitor. His words will give her some confidence, some assurance. Suppose something goes wrong...?
But prompting is not needed; already he has formulated words to create a distraction. It is all he can do. He rests his palms on her stomach as if to draw the pain out through them. He can feel the motion, the earthquakes of molecules dividing at high speed.
"Nostalgia is our comfort. Just as the idea of heaven will comfort a mortal," he begins.
Cordelia's hands rest on either side of his. Her stomach inflates like a balloon, but slowly and inconsistently. Pain-forced whimpers wrench from her cupid's bow lips. Charles grasps for a hand and gets fingernails embedded in his new delicate flesh.
Flinching but not letting go, he continues, "Think of it. If you didn't suffer through this pain now and then, you would have lived an average life. It would have been short and difficult, and then you would have closed your eyes one final time to find what everyone is so afraid of -a dark, cool, calm oblivion."
Oh, oblivion! Now, it would be so nice! To feel that nothingness! "We are...," through clenched teeth, "unable... t-to die." She shrieks like a banshee, high and mournful, sending chills down Charles' spine. Red stripes appear, from ribs to hips, as if her stomach will stretch too far and snap.
There are two fetuses, not yet distinguishable from all the other animal species, made of flimsy cartilage and flesh. The division of cells within the clear fluid of their early lives is traumatically fast. Synapses bud; thoughts begin to form. The vague beings begin to distinguish. Webbed fingers curl in. The muscle of a foot twitches.
Charles continues his speech and keeps the fire warm for those seeds expanding within Cordelia, who listens but no longer hears. The pain, the worry are overwhelming, tumbling through her mind. There is no time for joy. The quickening process is too quick. These are the perils of a human body with an infallible soul.
Inside her womb, the noise is smooth and comfortable. Two minds form, stealing bits of concsiousness from their parents, slowly sapping thought. Their pure black, unformed eyes have seen before. Rubbery bones have known breaks with rapid mends. Formless genitalia, still deciding, have known the physical pleasures of sex. They are not innocent. At first, guided by instinct, they will seem no different. As time goes by, and awareness alters with age, they will begin to remember the lifetimes before. Secret lifetimes, that have taught them what other little children are too new to know. The coyness and cuteness are practiced and displayed easily, but in their private selves is a precociousness that dates back hundreds of years from their present incarnation.
Cordelia can feel them there, so similar to herself and Charles. The two children begin to make movements.
“NO!” a terrified scream. “I don’t want them! Not again!” She wails. This is the only time she ever feels the cold shadow of death overtaking her. The world wilts and closes in, becomes fuzzy and uncertain. Her own ears fill more and more with her own heartbeat muffled in the amniotic fluid. Her eyes see the world more red, as light seen through skin.
Charles falls silent. Not as distinctly, he feels it also: the utter fear of finality, so hard for these immortals to cope with honestly. It looms so large and hideous, a grinning, rotting beast. He gets the pain first, the screaming wound from the silver revolver, the bullet piercing newly-susceptible flesh. And then a sudden lurch into a padded, pressed-in, amnesiac world, like falling into icy winter water.
His eyes rest on the pretty revolver still lying on the concrete floor.
Cordelia thrashes as if possessed, spouting the languages she has known, obscenities and obscurities and absurdities. Her breasts swell with milk. The dome of her belly simmers with the occasional kicks of the fully formed beings within. Her birth canal yawns wide, prepared. Waves of labor start in her spine. She calms, but she is only half alive now. She is soaked in sweat.
“Darling,” Charles says quietly to Cordelia. She is too numb to feel the pain that seared her before; she is too far to know reason, but not too far to achieve the end Charles seeks. “It is my turn now.”
She looks into his eyes; he has to look away. Whose fate is worse? He wonders. Then he kisses her clammy forehead and sits back, with his eyes toward the lonely stars that have always stared down on him at night.
There is no time to react at the sharp report. The bullet enters through muscle and into muscle, chewing through meat and bone, unforgiving. It stills the heart it intrudes upon; adds two more holes to the heart, but no veins to catch the blood that spills red across the floor, a carpet unrolling in every direction.
The tiny human male gains the released soul. All the past of Charles’ extreme longevity is absorbed within the tiny body, confined within the cells of a new creature. A new creature pressured by its home to quit the claustrophobic space and bring the companion who shares it with.
Another bullet is accidentally fired. It ricochets across the room to embed itself in time-softened mortar. The revolver slips back to the floor.
Cordelia’s innards burst, the noise muffled by the cushion of her epidermis, unable to bear any longer the sudden, strong pressures. Blood leaks between rib and lung, between bladder and womb, where it shouldn’t be. The pitiful heart struggles until it can pull no more and discovers itself useless. The perfect female within the ruptured womb consumes awareness, just as her brother did.
After Cordelia’s screams and the gun blasts, the silence is as heavy as death. The movement within Cordelia’s bloated body grows stronger; suffocation threatens.
A tiny hand appears, five perfect miniature fingers slimy with the fluids of the womb and the released wastes of Cordelia’s old body. It grasps the lip of the birth canal, causing the dead leg to twitch. A second hand struggles against the tight space. They push outwards. Preceeded by a small wave of more fluid, the cranium of a pink head pushes out of the narrow opening. It is topped with the first wisps of hair. The eyes, still black, peek out, unseeing. The bodily juices are lubrication for the determined baby. It doesn’t cry out, knowing there is no reason to. It coughs up the phlegmy plugs that allowed it to swim in its mother. Black, depthless eyes explore.
It writhes until its sloped shoulders are released from the innards. Tautness allows the rest of the child easy escape. Landing softly on the blankets, it is soaked with blood and urine and amniotic fluid. The eyes, shifting, find shades of blue swirled within. It shivers. The kick of the foot that remains within seems automatic, but it’s not.
For there, another tiny hand grasps. The first babe’s foot is the rope of salvation from a dead womb. The umbilical cord of the first is dried and brittle enough to break free of with perfect ease.

Another kick comes from the already born. The second child follows the example of its sister, intuitively.

They lie by each other, within the circle of the dead legs. They test their functions, reaching for nothing. Slowly, the movements find purpose. The eyes lose their odd, black sheaths. There are blue eyes that were blue before, and brown eyes that were green before. There is always some alteration in each lifetime, no matter how slight. It is a mechanism of survival.

With effort, flailing fish-like, they drag these awkward new forms up over the corpse of Cordelia. Hungry, they work their mouths to feed from the still-gorged breasts.

Through their minds, occasional fleeting memories flash, nothing solid to hold onto. They can’t yet realize what, exactly, the pictures are. The smells, feelings, and thoughts are confused, not understandable. They are still working by instinct.

In the distance, sirens ring.