"...You know, dude, you're really something else."

"Mmm. Thank you."

"No, like, Andre. I mean. Being with you is totally--"

"Rex, don't feel you have to talk."

"Yeah. Right."

It's all my dad's fault, too.

I mean, sure. BRILLIANT fucking idea, making a demon of Cool. It's a Word that just, you know, can't die, because as long as something's popular, there I am, right?

Totally brilliant, except that Dad is, like, the antithesis of cool. I mean, those glasses. And his laugh. I can't go anywhere with him, it's just too embarrassing. Just look at him. He's just a nerdy Vapulan who made it big and if you're uncool once, you're uncool forever. It's like a, you know. Stigma.

And, sure, yeah, it's his business to make other things cool, but it's like, I dunno, sex. Dad'll WATCH sex, or direct it and he'll definately get it all on film, but I bet he's never got laid in his life. Cool's like that, for Dad. He'll watch it and arrange it and film it but he can't actually, you know, grok it.

And so he fucked up, 'cause he seemed to think that only bad things were cool. And sure, they are. But other things are cool too. Ask any kid which is cooler, having a girlfriend you don't care about or one you love. And some of 'em might SAY that it's cooler not to care, but that's not what they actually feel.

Dad's mistake number one: Love is cool.

"Andre, I just want you to know that..."

"..."

"..."

"Yes?"

"S'nothing, yo."

"Mmm. Good. Your father requested that I help him direct some 'true discipline'. If you care to join me, you may carry the camera."

I could probably blame it on getting into Fleurity's secret stash -- I mean, you gotta have smoked some serious bad-idea crack to fall in love with Andrealphus. Seriously. 'Cause, like, loving him is like the worst insult you can deal him -- if you're lucky he'll just never forgive you.

I dunno if lovesick angst is cool, but it sure sucks, either way.

I had to get the fuck out of there. The noise was driving me crazy. I mean, I turned up my stereo but one of Dad's lackeys ended up knocking on my door and asking me to turn it down, they were recording in the next room. Couldn't even do what I want on my own time.

I wasn't in the mood to head to the Bordello -- Spending time with Andre was great, but it was hardly any quieter there, you know? And that place was half the problem, half the reason I was sitting there like some kind of totally uncool lump.

I knew just what I needed, or just what I thought I needed, anyway, and that was to spread the Word, yo. I figured, what could it hurt to go to someplace nice on Earth, like some kind of poetry reading coffee shop or shit like that, and see what I can convince people is rightfully Cool?

Y'know, the usual.

So I headed off to a hippie bar. I mean, dude, hippies are cool. Always have been. There's things I could do to make them cooler, my kind of cool, but they're always were all that.

Must have been that bad-idea crack again.

"Pot? No, you gotta be kidding. Pot's there, man, but it's not all there. No, no, listen. I got some of the better stuff, give it a shot. Hey, studies prove that once doesn't hurt you. S'good for you, gets your heart pumping. Trust me, it is all that."

"Dude. Yo. Excuse me. You with the low pants. Yeah, you, man."

"Yeah? You want some? Sure, no problem, man, I got plenty--"

"We don't like that kind of stuff round here. 'Kay? That's just not cool. Look, come sit with me. Have a coffee, man."

"I don't really--"

"You see that table over there? Malakim of Flowers. And one Malakite of the Sword; they appreciate poetry, y'know. Well, some of 'em. The cool ones. And that table? ...uh-huh, I see it dawning on you. And that table over there? Right, so. Sit down, have some coffee, chill. Enjoy the poetry."

I don't think I'd ever been so scared shitless in my life. It really didn't get better when my so-called companion introduced himself as 'Eli'.

I stayed, I drank the goddamned coffee. What else could I do? I figured he'd expose me as a demon any minute. And Word-bound or not, I can't take on a room full of angels and one Superior. Just not happening.

It was fucking insane. The room would quiet to a reverent hush as some would-be poet read their shit, and then everybody would snap their fingers.

Eventually I accepted a toke; I figured it'd all be easier to deal with a buzz. So I couldn't leave, because the Archangel of Creation hadn't given me the word to, and I wasn't about to cross him. I figured if I were lucky and just chilled, he might let me go. Didn't trust it, but didn't think there was anything else I could have done.

Really, it would have been easier to just spend another afternoon in the fucking Bordello.

"So, dude, what are you doing here? I mean, beside the corruption of innocent hippies and all."

"Isn't that, like, a, you know? Oxymoron?"

"Naw. Seriously, though. A poetry-reading?"

"I guess, just... getting away. Y'know?"

"Oh, totally. I mean, look at me."

"Yeah, like. What if your Judgment guy finds out you were here?"

"I breeze on, right? Just keep going wherever my feet take me."

"Smooth."

"Totally."

And at the end, when all the poets had finished and people had gone their separate ways and it was just Eli and me, we passed the toke back and forth until it was finished, and then he just let me go.

He just fucking let me go.

He said we should do that again sometime.

I went home. Stumbled in and whatever. Most bizarre day of my life, really.

I spent the next day in the Bordello, hanging with Andre and at one point when I rolled over, sleepy, still buzzing with lingering touches, I caught the gleam of light off a lens.

I recognized it, of course I recognized it. Half my life was spent on the lens side of a fucking video camera.

I was suspicious before I was pleased; the suspicions seemed just too extreme, too out there, so I let 'em drown in delight. "Andre, you taping us for later?"

His face was blank for a moment, then amused, and he ran a hand over my short, bottle-blond hair. "Just can't get enough of you, I suppose."

The amusement brought my suspicions back full force.

I didn't say nothing. I wanted to know if I was right, but I also didn't. I fucking hate not being able to make up my mind.

I got home and Dad was personally overseeing another shoot -- Cast of Lilim Thousands apparently needs a good professional eye and so it's up to "the Man" to get things right.

SO easy to get into his office and open up his personal stash. They were labelled, of course; the thought of NOT labelling his thousands of tapes would probably be enough to give Dad a hernia. Most of it was computer printout labels, others were in the crabby handwriting of various lackies, and a few were labelled in my dad's small, precise handwriting.

There were three tapes labelled simply 'Andre, Rex'.

I popped 'em into the VCR, put the headphones on, and pressed play.

"Rex, kiddo, chum, best bud! ... yeah, it's pretty late, eh? Ah, you know those Lilim -- they are the best actresses, but MAN, just so moody! Still, we had THE best day, we're going to hit the top of the charts with this one!"

"Dad. We need to talk."

"... Well, make it snappy, kiddo. I've only got a twenty minute break before I've got to get back to set -- busybusybusy, you know how it is..."

"Look what I found."

"...Mmmhmm?"

"Aren't you going to say something?"

"Rex, drop me a line here. Something the matter with the tapes?"

"Dad, you taped me and Andre fucking."

"Ye-heess? It's good footage; don't worry, I won't release it publically without giving you a contract that'll get you SCADS of moolah--"

"It was in your private collection."

"Of course it was. No contract, no public release. YOU know that, babe. Now, if you'll--"

"Did you watch it? Do you jerk off to it, Dad?"

"Rex, baby, you injure me! Would I ever-"

"I can't believe you!"

"Rex --! Where are you ... Okay, people, nothing to see here, back to work, snap-snap. Kids these days, you know how it is..."

It was suicidal, it was stupid; I guess I just didn't know who else to go to. And hell, right then soul-death wasn't too bad an idea. I mean, yeah, a horrible idea, but it appealed.

So I went back to the hippie-club. I looked around and couldn't see him, so I went up to the barkeep and asked for Eli. Didn't really have anything to lose, right? Though I kinda started to rethink that one when someone gave a signal and a few people closed in around me, all tall and muscular and probably Malakim. Thought I was gonna die after all. Just closed my eyes.

Just closed my eyes, man.

A guy stood up elsewhere, pushed through with smiles and "It's okay, he's with me" and that type of shit. Didn't look anything like Eli's last Vessel - this one was tall and coffee-coloured with long hair that had beads in 'em. Everytime he moved, clack clack clack. But the eyes were the same.

So he sat me down and ordered me something hard and mixed and I drank it and he sat with me.

"You ever been in love, Eli?"

"Oh, yeah. Lots, man. S'a good feeling."

"Not that kind of love, dude. Like the kind where it hurts and wells up and just - s'like having your Forces ripped apart slowly. Like your Vessel's got a big fucking hole in its chest. That kind of love."

"No, but I knew this guy."

"Eli, dude, I don't care about 'this guy'."

"You might, man. Wait it out. This guy loved everybody. He was brilliant like that. Couldn't go anywhere without a smile 'cause he loved people and he saw love wherever he go. Then two of his friends broke up, right? And there was lots of screaming and yelling and pain on both sides. And this guy, like, couldn't make any sense of it 'cause those friends had loved each other so much. And then this other guy tells him, 'Nah, if those two could break up, then they weren't in love. They felt that way about each other all along.' So the guy I knew looked at his friends and the big well of pain and imagined the years and years and years of that pain and the sex they'd have with just that pain between them. And he went 'whoa'. And everywhere he went, that's all he could see between people after that. S'tragic."

"...Oh, fuck, Eli, fuck fuck fuck."

"Another drink?"

"Fuck yes. Fuck."

"Hey, Joe, I'll have a Slow Comfortable Screw Up Against the Wall, dude."

"However you want it, Eli."

"I dunno what to do, man. Eli, come on, you gotta know what I can do. I don't know what to do."

"Here, drink this, man. S'good. Yeah, there you go. Now, the question is: 'What do you want to do?'"

The weird thing? The weird thing is that I don't think anybody ever asked me that before. I always knew what I was doing. It wasn't that I wanted to do any of that shit, just that it's what I did. I didn't want to star in Dad's films or start trends or anything, it's just what I did.

I didn't know what I wanted. How the fuck could I? I'd never thought about it. Just about what I did. The reason I was made.

I was getting pretty fucking strong ideas about what I didn't want, tho'.

"I'm sick of this, Eli."

"The drink? whoa."

"No, not the drink. Not the fucking drink. I'm sick of. This."

"There's a lot of different 'this'es in the room, man."

"I just can't lie about this anymore. Any day now, I'm gonna turn to Andre and just tell him I love him, and then I'm gonna be in so many different shades of shit it isn't funny. I don't want to love him. And, like, the easy answer for me is 'so don't'. But I don't want to not love him either, like. I'm stuck between two things I want. And I'm getting the feeling it's not gonna matter if I end up picking one, I'm gonna love him anyway. And that isn't cool. That's just so not cool. My life is my oyster, man. I'm happy however I am. I'm not supposed to feel like this. It sucks. It sucks so fucking much. It hurts, Eli."

"Like, you mean, whatever you try to tell yourself, your true feelings show through anyway, right?"

"Yeah, well, don't rub it in, dude."

"Ever thought of just sticking with the truth, then? That you, like, love him?"

"I can't do that. I can't. It doesn't work like that. Not where I come from."

"Yeah, well, I come from a place where there's love for all. Wanna join me?"

"You're kidding, right? I don't wanna die, you dipshit. I'm Word-bound. If I Redeem, I'm gonna die. I don't want that."

"Well, I dunno, kid. Is that your only reason?"

"...I don't want to leave him, yo."

"Hey, I'm cool with whatever. It's your choice. It always has to be your choice. But just tell me, Rex. You happy?"

I'd told him I was unhappy. How many other ways could I say it? I dunno what I said. I think I mumbled something about thinking about it, maybe. I remember he told me that he was only in town for another day. Afterwards, he was breezing on. 'Cause he was the Wanderer, had a reputation to uphold. Some kind of shit like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I said I'd think about it, I said.

It's four AM here, two hours later than that in the little Torontonian hippie-club. I locked myself in my room when I got back, though Dad knocked and asked to talk to me. I don't want to hear from him, not now.

It's not going to go away. I knew that when I talked to Eli, I know it now. I know it's true. I can't stop it; the truth keeps chasing itself around in my head. I love Andre. It's not going to go away. Round and round.

I know I'm gonna try; I can't seem to lie to myself about that either. I keep telling myself, nah, I've got it easy down here, I'm Cool, I rock, and then I know I'm gonna try for Redemption. It doesn't want to gloss itself over. I dunno if I want it to anymore. It hurts, but there's something relaxing in knowing it. Just knowing that I love someone and it's not going to go away. Knowing that even if I die, I'll have tried. Done something for once. Decided what I wanted and stuck with it.

But I can't go yet. Not without saying something to him. Not in person, I can't let him see me like this. A letter'll do. When my Heart's broken and they find a letter addressed to him, it'll get there. It'll probably also get published in all the major mags, but hell. It'll get to him. He probably won't hear what I'm saying.

I scrawl the note - it's not a big one, it doesn't have to be.

He'll hate me for it. But it's all the confession I can manage. The only truth I can give him about me.

And so it's time to go up to Earth.

If I'm lucky, all the way up.