A BETTER END

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Chapter Two: The Fool
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Two Weeks Earlier
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“People never change...”


   Those were the words Anon repeated to himself as he walked down the streets of one of Volcadera Bluffs’ less savory districts. The box of pizza in his hand trembled as his mind and his soul dueled over what emotion the human should have been feeling at that moment.

   While intellect and soul dueled over what to feel, a part of Anon’s mind raced as a hundred different thoughts accosted his consciousness, making his journey down to the smoke shop all the more arduous. As he neared the shitty and worn-down smoke shop, all his thoughts began to coalesce into a single focus. Instead of easing his mental anguish though, it only began to give him a throbbing and splitting headache. He turned away from the shop and instead found the nearest bench on which to sit, as he did, his mind started to focus on a single stream of consciousness that wouldn’t leave him in peace no matter how hard he tried to force it back down into the depths of his mind…

   Anon hadn’t planned on running into her that day…


Far as Anon had planned, his only mission was to get greasy, gooey pizza and some smokes; preferably the same brand Reed used to inhale like a chimney all the times they had hung out in their guy’s nights. Yet, as he sat alone in a corner seat inside a super seedy restaurant near Skin row and placed his to-go order, the music caught his attention.

   Music that sounded so very familiar…

   Foolishly, Anon followed the music to its source.

   The music originated from a tiny shitty stage tucked near the back of the restaurant, just barely in sight of the patrons, almost as if the point was for as few eyes to fall on it. There, on top of a platform big enough to hold three people stood a small-time band playing. Normally, Anon wouldn’t have cared about some nobody band doing such a tiny gig, but for reasons beyond his comprehension, his attention fell to the trio of performers, in particular, their lead, who still had her back turned away from where crowds would have sat.

   Anon’s eyes were first drawn towards the drummer. He was some kind of meg-like dino, his body on the muscled side, his arms and chest sporting tribal tattoos that made his already large muscles pop even further. Had he not been playing drums competently—perhaps even better than Reed ever did, and the guy had been pretty good at it—he would have sworn the land shark was some kind of bodybuilder that got lost on the way to the beach.

   Next to the shark stood a small faint magenta-toned triceratops playing a very competent guitar solo. From her strumming speed and penchant for showy movement, she was the band’s lead guitarist. Unlike her companions, she sported no tattoos nor piercings. She was squeaky clean and super young-looking, almost like she was still attending high school. Her size and general body shape reminded Anon of another triceratops he used to know by the name of Trish. Unlike his memories of Reed, which were on the more pleasant side, his recollection of Trish only brought about discomfort. As he studied the trig girl more, he found other comparisons to Trish, like short curly hair and an abnormally large bosom to body ratio.

   Anon scoffed at the sour reminder of Trish. He still hadn’t forgiven that bitchy little purple bundle of *joy* for doxing him, which had ensured that his last months of high school were as socially agonizing as possible. He half wondered what the tiny terror was up to these days, but he dropped the question just as quickly as it had popped into his head. It didn’t matter. It had been almost four years, so she had either gone to college or found herself some sucker to settle down with and terrorize.

   Anon’s eyes then fell on the last member of the band, a ptero chick with her back turned to the world. Her coloration did remind her of someone he used to know, but with her not bothering to face the world, he couldn’t tell who that was. Not that he cared anyway. Her bass strumming was pretty harsh, even if melodic and well constructed. The coloration of her plumage and skin reminded him of someone he used to know. Without seeing her face though, he would never know more of the chick aside from her backside. In that regard though, she had it going on.

   Anon tore his eyes away from the band and brought out his phone. He turned on the device and began scrolling through a few gun nut forums. For a second, he got the urge to do a bit of shitposting, for old time’s sake. Ultimately, he decided against it. It wasn’t that he wasn’t up for it. More than he couldn’t bother to at that moment in time.

   As Anon considered putting on some earphones he had brought with him from home, the band’s bassist began to sing. Her voice was dulcet for being in a shitty three-man band. But more than the surprise of hearing a decent voice coming from what otherwise looked like a garage band, it was the voice itself that made the human’s entire world stop at that second.

   No matter how hard Anon had tried to suppress it, no matter how many times he had forced his mind to erase the memory of it, he could never forget that voice and those lyrics…

   Anon again gazed up at the band. As he did, the bassist, at last, turned to face what few patrons were in the restaurant.

   As Anon’s eyes focused on the lead singer, he saw her, standing there, singing a song he had thought all but repressed in the deepest darkest pits of his memory; his soul…

   ...Fang…

   Anon barely recognized his ex. A part of him even tried to deny that the pterosaur on that stage was even her. Yet the more he observed, the more his rational mind clarified it. Yes, the woman standing on that platform singing a song that he knew by heart was, in fact, Fang.

   ‘The years haven’t been kind to you,’ was the first thing that crossed Anon’s mind as he saw his ex’s physical appearance. With a shaved head, gaudy and painful-looking tattoos down both arms, thick black eyeliner that made her once bright and lively ember eyes look like dull and lifeless, and black-painted lips twisted into a scowl of desolation—the kind that only having one’s soul crushed beyond any hope of repair—he could hardly believe that the woman before him was the same girl he had dated almost four years earlier. It would have been easier to say that she was some twisted doppelganger or parody of the girl he remembered, but the more he looked, the more he realized that his eyes were not playing some kind of trick on him.

   Anon almost didn’t notice the waitress handing him the order he had put minutes ago. After giving the waitress his money for the food, he stood and dared to walk a bit closer to the stage. As he did, a part of him hoped that Fang would look his way. That she would recognize him and realize that he was the only one that cared enough to watch and listen to her and her band playing their music. But as she scanned the restaurant robotically, her eyes passed by the human, their dull gaze ignorant to the fact that there was someone looking back who had once cared for her.

   Anon, with a sigh, turned away from the stage. ‘It’s actually sobering,’ he mused as he made his way out of the restaurant. A part of him had hoped it to not be so, but the more he rationalized it, the more it made sense to him. It was fun to pretend that it might go somewhere. That Fang would have recognized him, dropped her instrument, raced towards his arms, and put all the pain and anguish from the last four years behind her. That they would forgive each other for all those hurtful shitty things they said to each other that horrible night and start over from square one.

   Anon paused in his tracks and spared one last glance back. ‘She’s right there,’ he conceived with all the bravery his foolish heart could muster. ‘I can take everything back. Everything that went to shit because of that fight. If I try talking to her, she might forgive me. Things could go back to the way they were, back before…’

   Anon’s mind once again went blank. Another memory supplanted what thoughts he had as the voice of the woman now singing shouted those painful words:

   *"Trish was right about you!” *

   Anon let out a long sigh, turned his eyes to the floor, and walked out of the restaurant altogether, his mind now set only on finding cigarettes. With every step away from the eatery, his mind further cemented that he was doing the right thing. Though he tried to erase the last few minutes from his mind, he knew the memory would stay with him for the rest of his life…


Anon lit his last cig, took a long and deep drag of smoke that would have even impressed his old high school buddy Reed, and stood up from the bench. The sudden intake of nicotine helped dull his headache as he forced some semblance of order on his thoughts. With a still shaky hand, the human then reached into his pizza box and took out a slice of the still-warm pie.

   As Anon took a sizeable bite of the cardboard-tasting pizza he had spent about ten dollars on, he tried to force himself to feel some semblance of joy. ‘I have not one fucking care in the world now,’ he mused, albeit half-heartedly. ‘No school to stress about, no navy to return to short of a major war. Most importantly, not one person to tell me how to use my pension!’ He took another drag of his cigarette and forced a smile on his lips, the muscles on his cheek screaming in soreness from years of atrophy. He was right on the money. He had no care left in the world except himself. He was free from all accountability.

   It was reassuring, in a twisted, awful sort of way, but that was how Anon liked it. He wasn’t sure if it was because he had grown numb or if he had given up trying to feel, but the apathetic cynicism was a welcome escape from the hell that had been his life up to that point.

   Or at least that’s what he told himself…

   As Anon continued his way to the smoke shop, there was something that nagged at his soul. A feeling that he couldn’t get rid of no matter how hard he tried to. Before he could even reach the smoke shop, the feeling had evolved into a pain in his heart that made every step absolute agony. It wasn’t physical distress, but to him it sure as hell felt like it, the tendrils of despondency spreading all throughout his being, running deep into his presence, wholly metaphysical and nearly impossible to describe without some kind of degree in psychology.

   As Anon stepped into the shop and focused on his current goal, his discomfort continued to evolve. Now even his eyes felt heavy and laden with moisture seeking an escape. As he picked up some weed-based cigarettes from the shop, his discomfort continued to evolve, eventually feeling like some kind of thorn stuck to his being that he couldn’t reach and pluck out. In a desperate bid, Anon stormed towards the liquor aisle and scanned for the highest proof drink he could find. It was only seconds later that he spotted a bottle of imported vodka from one of the former Soviet block countries. The label said that it was 96% proof, a number that to most dinos meant a good night and a wild party.

   ‘This ought to get me nice and wasted,’ Anon thought as he put his two purchases together. Sure, the drink was far more expensive than anything he would have gotten, but if he couldn’t force the pain in his soul down with willpower, then he was going to drown it out with booze strong enough to almost be a type of vehicle fuel.

   Anon paid with his government-issued debit card rather than cash and left the store as fast as his legs could carry him. Without any other delay, he began his trek back to Skin Row. On the way, he once again passed by the same restaurant where Fang was playing her music. Though he told himself not to, some subconscious instinct forced his head to once more look towards the back of the eatery. There, he saw that Fang, still playing her set, still strumming away at her bass—an instrument that she no doubt hated playing—and still looking miserable… if not somehow more distressed looking than he remembered seeing her only minutes ago.

   Anon forced his head to turn away as he set his pace to a brisk powerwalk. Though his mind was still abuzz with thoughts and ideas that he couldn’t—or rather didn’t—want to act on, the thought of returning to his apartment alone with a pizza, smokes, and booze to watch a movie and enjoy his life undisturbed—with no judgment for his appearance or the place he lived in—filled him with relief… even if that relief felt hollow and artificial.

   ‘It’s all I’ve ever wanted,’ Anon reasoned to himself, even though a part of him—he wasn’t sure if it was his mind or his soul—screamed in refutation. “It’s all I’ve ever needed…” he added, this time in a mumble only he himself could hear.

   As the restaurant got even farther away from his view, Anon raised his one free hand and half-heartedly waved. “Goodbye, Fang. It was nice seeing you again... I suppose...” He said, this time out loud and clear. “...Because I haven’t changed,” he added, the words in his mouth overpowering the taste of cigarette with what felt like bile.


“...Because people never change…”