Hollow.

It had been a few hours since finding the body at this point. Police, medical investigators, reporters, and God knows who else had already arrived and yet Darcy sat off to the side, her arms crossed around her legs as her body hugged itself, propped upon the most comfortable rock available. Every muscle clenched, in an unending tenseness as her gaze settled upon the Colorado. The water passed by, as turbulent as she was static, the only moving thing that felt real since the image of the blonde-haired man was burnt upon her retinas. The image carved a pit inside her, the emptiness paradoxically filling Darcy with each thought dwelling upon that point in time. The hole in his head as a point of focus, beginning to rot and discolor like the rest of his flesh.

Hollow. Insects scuttering inside. Her hand gripped her upper arm, her handprint temporarily tattoo’d in a crimson shade on her skin.

Ned had put a ton of focus into attempting to help keep things coordinated and calm. It was an admirable trait, but frustrating at a time like this. Ellis wondered why he was required to try and focus on doing the right thing all of the time instead of just taking a breath and being with her when she needed it. Being present for the present moment. It seemed Ned almost existed in the moment after. The “what next?” Perhaps, she considered, she just wanted time to go a bit faster. For this present to be past sooner. She didn’t even hear Ned when he stepped to her side, his footprints loud against the rusty sand underneath, puffs of desert dust uplifted with each step he took. He sat beside her, frowning at her current, near-catatonic state.

“Hey,” he said, not expecting a response. Ned reached out his hand, letting her tight grip transfer to him.

Darcy didn’t answer. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to, but even speaking made the moment more real. Forced it to sustain, lingering like an unpleasant specter. Thankfully, she didn’t have to. Ned wrapped his arms around her, comforting her as she began to breathe heavily, tearing up a bit just from the emotion of it all hitting her. Ned was clumsy in many regards, but his embrace was anything but. When she finally could speak, three words left her, voice dry and ragged from inhaling the Mojave’s dust for a day.

“That was someone.”

“Yeah,” Ned spoke quietly. It wasn’t his first time seeing death, let alone in such a crude discovery. That fact did nothing to make the situation feel any better. He kept his voice quiet and made sure to leave space for her to speak.

“You know…I didn’t even see my Mom’s body. When she passed, I thought about it, but then… that was going to be the last memory I had of my mother. I already saw her suffer through cancer, watched it eat away for months. And then someone wanted me to look at the aftermath? I couldn’t do that to her. And I imagine every single day, my Mother as she was breathing for the final times she ever would… wondering where I was. Wondering where her other daughter was.”

“Darcy,” Ned did his best to console her, keeping close as he pat the back of her head, “you can’t blame yourself for that.”

“Try and fucking stop me,” she responded, fighting some long overdo tears as her mind drifted to the situation at hand, “but… I just realize that whoever that was, no matter who they were, that’s somebody’s final look at them. That is how they’ll be remembered.”

“That was someone."

The cold breath of the Colorado swept past them, Ned’s embrace loosening so he could more properly support her weight and keep her near, noticing the gentle fog on the lenses of her glasses. Thinking carefully, he provided a story of his own.

“I was there for my dad until the end. It’s not easy and I understand the regret, but what made it easier was knowing that I had made his time here brighter. Obviously, there’s not a day goes by that I don't miss him, but the death that shook me in a moral was Steven Cooper. I treated him horribly, wrapped him up in my petty crusade, and left him and others with the remnants. And despite all that, he was a true friend. Showed me kindness in the ways he could manage. I never apologized. I never was the helping hand he needed. I just got to live and… know where I failed and when I should’ve done more. And I guess how to live with the knowledge.”

“How?” Darcy asked, desperate for a definitive answer. For something that made sense in this uneasy void.

“...You just do,” Ned replied. It was an unsatisfactory answer, but an honest one. He half expected a nudge from Darcy or a demand to give a proper response, but he was instead met with a melancholy, silent agreeance, her hair dancing against her cheek as the wind tugged on it. For a few minutes, they just held each other. No talk of bodies and ghosts. The hollowness evaporated as they filled the arms of one another, focused on the warm skin and heartbeat near them that they could count on for just this moment.

This moment would have to do.

---

Elsewhere

A telephone rang upon a desk at The Boston Tribune. It was a newer model of work phone, but still largely unnecessary given the abundance of telecommunications available. The man at the desk ran his fingers over his forehead, wrinkled beyond his years. Reporting was a stressful job. When you weren’t being bombarded by the people claiming you were a reptilian spreading disinfo, you were knee-deep in scandal, controversy, and the mundanity of local news. It left little opportunity to pursue white whales. The man glared at a particular folder buried underneath a pile of other, more pressing matters. Sighing, he wiped the sweat from his brow and answered the phone, coiled wire of the receiver dangling nearby.

“Stromback speaking,” he answered unexpectedly, “if you have a recommended story, please go through-”

“Guess who just got a new lead,” the voice interrupted prompting the man to dig under the papers, finding the folder on his mind. The story’s name plastered atop.

The white whale, beached at last.

The Chameleon

---

---

---

“It’s easy to lose sight of the humanity of others. We see the worst parts of people and slowly they transform into something other than just our fellow man. They become a symbol for something we condemn. They occupy the places in our minds where we keep mascots and advertising jingles. To some, this appears to be transcendence. They salivate at the opportunity to become less than human in the eyes of others.”

“Bobby Bourbon is one such human being.”

“And the fact is that I pity you, Bobby. I truly, honestly do. You will never know the joy of being held by a person you love on a cool Spring evening. You’ll never comprehend looking into another’s eyes and seeing a part of yourself in them. You will never witness the pain of another human being and feel your heart squeeze in your chest. You sold your soul piece by piece for years, Bobby, and the contract only gives you one fucking match. In your eyes, that is your worth. What a sad existence that must be.”

“I used to look at you and see someone who turned towards wanting to be a symbol out of purely selfish reasons, but the more I watch you- the way you speak, the clearer it becomes. Sans the braggadocious bravado that you use to bury every bit of earnest humanity under, you’ve got nothing but spite and two fists. You’re not the boogeyman, you’re the audience for Pitbull. And what a bleak picture that paints.”

“Bobby thinks he’s so clever and sharp because he comes up here, calls people weak, and throws together a freestyle that wouldn't make the cut on a teenager’s debut mixtape. He thinks he’s a butcher’s knife, but he’s a rice cooker: redundant and full of hot air. When TK took a hiatus, so did Bobby's career. And everyday, his career pushes closer to only ever being a footnote. Say what you will about me or Isaiah or Mark, but the only time you act like failure is weak is when you have a week separating you and one of your repeated meetings with the interior of your own ass. You'll ignore what's inconvenient to you because it means the world doesn’t have to peer under the surface. Because you aren’t trying to be more than a man, Bobby. You embraced the distance between your humanity because you’re less than a human being and paved this path yourself. You go to these interviews and act like you’re so simple and straightforward, but then you try to achieve these schemes with BoB like you’re a master planner and it all reveals that you’re just doing random shit for the sake of doing it. And it’s not even interesting shit. Galavant all you want, but there’s only so many film homages you can commit to until everyone realizes you’re just the XWF equivalent to Demo Reel.”


“When you step into this ring, you make certain sacrifices. You pay time, energy, money, and so much more. You strain your relationships, your body, your very spirit. See, everyone looks to me and they assume hope is just this easy coat to wear. As if waking up and seeing the potential in others is this easy, joyous activity that doesn’t eat away at you. I’ve seen so many people lose themselves, in part if not wholly, to what we do. An incalculable amount of potential squandered and I do the little I can to try and keep that alive because hope is not a hat you toss on to walk outside. Hope is the armor you forge to keep yourself whole when the ugliness of the world looks to pierce and scar you. Bobby doesn’t have real friends or loved ones. He would rather live a safe, empty, unfulfilling existence than be brave enough to care. To hope.”

“So, Bourbon, you might have a shiny metal briefcase and pecs the size of my head and lackies ready to lap up the briefest moment of your approval, but you are starved of spirit. Lacking in love. A bitter man, not the better man. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry that’s the person you chose to be. I’m sorry for the people around you that you fail without the slightest hint of guilt! I’m sorry for the person you could be, forced to watch as you do little more than a lousy Chris Page impression from the top of an organization that was overexposed the first time it saw light! I’m sorry that you think you have to be this way.”

“But remorse is not inaction, nor weakness as you assume. I beat you, Bourbon, I fought you through a hell of your own design and walked out charred, but unscated by the cynicism you bring with you. Somewhere, there is a universe out there where strength is exemplified by the Bobby Bourbons of the world and not the Mark Flynns or Raion Kidos or Ned Kayes. A bleak world defined only by the capacity for pain. Only hurting others, not what you can show them or do to improve their lives. A world where you win every time.”

“You don’t live in that world, Bobby. You have my sympathies.”

"You can't run from yourself."