Savage Tales

"This will do. My name's Ralph."
    "I'm sure I don't care what your name is," said Phil. "I'm waiting for Joaquin. He will be my roommate."
    "They told me this room's still open, and there aren't any other spots left. Face it – I'm in."
    Ralph entered and threw his bag on the empty bed.
    "This is not how it should be," said Phil.
    "Nevertheless."
    Phil eventually located Joaquin in the dining hall, but since they appeared to be from different circles and Phil didn't have the social skills to initiate conversation with Joaquin (even though his inner soul told him they were old chums), they never went beyond casual acquaintances in this reality.

    The same emptiness that faced those early years faced also the situation fifty years deeper into the thing. In the intervening years his life had taken on the taint of success. Esteemed, ensconced, et cetera. Lacquered and bedecked with honors, laden with money, wived twice, each marriage a sham, Phil found a mental crippling on par with his other life's physical handicap. And he never lost sight of that other life, his ghostly doppelgänger existence lurking in the shade and haunting him all the more as his life drifted further and further from anything like that one. It hung in his mind like a coat hanger, this madness. All that kept him going and stacked him on in this narrative progression was the girl at the end of time, this inkling he had that someone awaited him. He had been fooled by those other women, limply hoping they might be the one, knowing in his heart that they weren't, couldn't be her, that the hour was not yet here. But with each year came the certainty that he was drawing closer. Her face a blurry image coming more into focus every time he thought of her (yet still not quite clear). He kept his eyes peeled ever on the lookout for just such a face.
    Until one day the face blazed in his mind. He could read every pore on her face. It could not be clearer. Today was the day . Today he would find her.
    He did not know where to begin, so he went about his regular activities with an unsteady nervousness, knowing that any instant she would present herself to him, and things would snap into place.
    He went jogging, a light skip in his step.
    He had lunch at his favorite sushi restaurant, but he did not find her there.
    He took in a film at the theater. The film was good, but she was not there.
    Nervous that he might be forcing himself away from his truly regular activities – sifting chemicals in his lab, for instance – he decided to do just that, knowing that fate would find a way to connect them.
    As the sun set he grew frantic. Her face was still there, hovering, and he had a sight of the background behind her. It looked like a beach. Yes! He would go to the beach, and there they would meet.
    He put his pedal to the floor, the sky a reddish-purple as evening came on. No, no, no, just wait. Evening, wait a little bit.
    When he came to the small beach, he saw no other cars. He shuddered. Had he missed her? Was that even possible? And yes, it was now remembered those days in college when he felt so sure he would become best friends with Joaquin, and he didn't, couldn't, didn't know how, and if that could slip away (Joaquin's face a fading memory) then who's to say that this woman had not also been missed, that the path he had followed had taken him too far gone to go back now, and her face – it went, was going. In his mind light fed through it so that every detail pixelated more and more, and he knew then that wherever he was supposed to be, he was not there, and their storylines, his and hers, would never cross.
    He sat on the beach for several hours until his throat was scratched with thirst and the stars above were strong and clear.

    A few years later his cleaning lady arrived at his house on a Saturday morning and entered Phil's laboratory, usually vacant in awareness of the need for vacancy to expedite cleaning, therefore imagine the shock on the woman's face when she realized it was not a vacant place ripe for the cleaning but in fact a room with person, but not a member of the living. Hunched dead on the table was the man himself, Phil.
    Esmeralda (the cleaning woman) looked Phil's form over well enough to confirm his death, and noticed that instead of pursuing experiments scientifical at the moment of death, Phil had apparently been drawing on a notepad. The sketch was clearly the face of a woman, but because Phil had not practiced drawing since the