Brake

"What the hell are you doing?!" I shouted at him. We were in a new car this time. Good and I were locked in the back seat; Bad was driving like a madman in the front. I could see nothing out the windows.

"Driving." Bad smiled in the rear-view mirror. "What does it look like I'm doing?"

"You're gonna kill us!" I yelled.

"That's not the intent." He replied calmly. But his eyes shifted from me to Good in the mirror. "At least not yet it isn't."

I looked over at Good, expecting him to be just as worried as I was. But he wasn't. He was sitting completely calm, his eyes closed.

"What are you going to do?" I asked Bad.

"It's not worth the breath if you're the one listening."

"I'm not going to let you fling us into a river or something cute."

"Don't worry," he laughed, "I get my driving skills from you!"

"Now you see why I'm worried?"

"Please, buddy, just let me drive; will you?" He flicked a switch, and a partition rose up and closed off the cab between us. I sat back, and sighed. The windows were covered, but everything was still white. Blinding white.

"I don't know why you even bother with him anymore." Good mumbled, eyes still closed.

"Why do you only ever bother talking after everything already hits the fan?"

"Because I don't feel like interrupting the two of you." He continued without breaking his meditation. "I'd rather the two of you figure it out without me stepping in any more than need be."

"You're helpful."

"You consider yourself to be the mediator," he stated, "do you nor?"

"Yes?"

"Then mediate. I will give my contribution when need be."

"Do you know where he's taking us?" I asked him. He sighed, and finally opened up his eyes to look at me.

"I don't know, but after last time I could imagine that it's nothing good."

"What did I do to make him so pissed?"

"Do you not remember?" He exclaimed. He looked shocked.

"I called him out on his crap." I said. "What about it?"

"You abandoned him."

"I told him to leave me alone..."

"To him, that's abandonment."

"Fine, can't he get over it?"

"You're trying to rationalize the irrational."

"I'm tired of this 'not being in control of what goes on in my own head' shit."

"Get over it." He said with a faint smile, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Aren't you supposed to be the helpful one?" I glared at him.

"Regardless, we'll figure out what he's planning when we get there. He's not that creative."

"What did you say about me?" Bad's voice squeaked as he cracked open the partition.

"Oh nothing," Good answered, "I was just calling you a highly intelligent and formidable brother in mentality."

There was a silence that hung in the air. I couldn't tell if Bad was ignoring us, or trying to formulate an insult.

"Where are you taking us?" I asked him once more.

"Why does it matter?"

"You're kidding, right?" Good snapped.

"I know a place out in the woods that I think you two will really like." His voice echoed. "It's nice and quiet, and isolated too!"

"What are you thinking Bad?" Good empathized. "If you want to tell us off about what happened last time, just say it for Christ's sake."

"No."

"Oh come on. Just tell—."

"I said 'no' God damn it!" Bad hissed, whipping the car to the right and flinging both of us towards the door. "I'm tired of you two. I'm tired of the way you treat me. I'm tired of the way that you two listen to the words that I say, and then twist and maim them so that they fit into the molds that only you want to hear! I'm through with it! I'm taking you two out here to teach you a God damned lesson!"

After he sharply inhaled, the partition raised back up and cut the silence in the car. 

"Should we be worried?" I asked Good.

"Well," he started, with a still look on his face, "I think so considering that he came out of your head."

"You're really not helping right now."

"This is my way of helping."

"I liked it better back when you were less of a dick."

"Well if I'm not enough of a dick, you listen to him!"

I breathed to retort, but I held my breath before releasing it.

"You keep trying to find a sound reason as to why Bad does the things that he does. I know that doing that makes all of this easier to understand, but sometimes you just can't." 

"If I could, I could know what he wants to do next before he even starts to speak."

"That would be pretty great, now wouldn't it?"

"So then why are you chastising me for trying in the first place?"

"Because I like to think that by now, you would have learned."

"Learned what?"

"Learned that there is no learning him." He assured me, placing a hand on my shoulder. "We can say who he is, and what he might do, but if he comes out of your head, he's going to be unpredictable."

"Could he at least stop? And give us a break from him?"

"The car that he drives through life has no brakes."

The car finally came to a halt, and another small rack appeared at the top of the partition.

"We're here boys!" Bad shouted as he climbed out of his door and slammed it behind him. Good's face quickly twisted.

"What's wrong?" I asked him.

"I don't have a good feeling all of a sudden."

The door next to him swung open, and there was a blinding white light that grabbed him and pulled him out of the car. The light then came for me. But in the moments before the light drenched me, I could see a lake outside the door.

Whisper

"I can't hear you!" I screamed at Good. He was standing in front of me with his arms crossed over his chest. He mouthed his eloquent words, but they were silent.

"Don't screw with me!" I yelled at him, throwing my hands in the air. "What are you saying?!"

He was screaming now. His eyes shortened, and the veins in his forehead bulged. He bent over as the air left his lungs.

"It must not be important..." A voice spoke from behind me. I turned, and Bad was standing there, picking at his nails as he paced.

"I don't want to hear you." I hissed, breathing in and regaining my composure.

"That's odd," he smiled, "you usually do."

"You're doing this," I asked him, "aren't you?"

"Typical," he sighed, "blame the dude who wears red for being the bad guy."

"You are the bad guy."

"Well," he stopped, looking up in the air and hesitating before looking back at me, "yeah, you're right. But why blame me? I'm not doing anything."

"And I should trust your word, why?"

"Cuz," he said simply, "I'm not doing it."

"I have no reason to believe you."

"True, I'll admit that. But will you at least give me the courtesy to explain myself?"

"I really don't want to hear it."

"Aw, come on. You always give that asshole the chance to stand on his soapbox and deliver is articulated and thoroughly-practiced monologues..."

"I like hearing him speak." I mumbled. "He's right."

"Well, please;" he exasperated, "do tell me what he's going on about this time!"

I turned back, and Good was still driving himself into the ground, trying to scream. He was on his knees, and his face was as red as Bad's shirt.

"Fine," I murmured, "say what you want to say."

"It's really quite the simple answer as to why you can't hear him."

"Oh," I mocked, "I'm sure it is."

"You can't hear him because you're not listening.

"Really?" I sighed. "This is not the guidance I wanted."

"No," he doubled back, "not to him. To everything."

"I know Psychology professors who are less vague than you are."

"I want you to think about what you're doing in 'the real world' right now."

"Sleeping." I stated. "Or at least I hope so."

"What is going on in your current social life?"

"Heh," I laughed, "good one. What is this 'social life' you speak of?"

"Think about every person that you talk to on a normal basis. And think about everything that they say to you. You're only listening to their voices."

I stood there, and held my hands out. I coked my head over to one side, and opened my mouth a little.

"What the hell are you talking about?" I asked him. "I'm listening to every word they say, that's the one thing that I can do!"

"You're not hearing everything." He declared. "You're not hearing the whispers of this world."

I cocked my head over to one side once again.

"You're hearing the voices. They guide you in everything that you do. But the whispers tell you whether or not that that's a bad thing. The voices tell you to pursue a relationship. But the whispers tell you why she isn't supposed to be in it."

"Are you asking me to be paranoid and delirious again?"

"It depends on what you mean by that. If you mean to say that listening to the whispers that resonate from deep within your soul, or the whispers that bounce between the leaves and ripple through the clouds in the sky, then yes; I'm telling you to be paranoid and delirious."

"Whenever I listen to you, I just think I'm turning into a neurotic lunatic."

"Well you perceive your representations of your morality to be the good and bad versions of yourself, so I would call you a nut."

"Gee, thanks."

"No problem." He spouted. "But do you gather my meaning?"

"I guess. Listen to my gut feeling more?"

"Pretty much, yes."

I looked back over at Good, and he was on his knees, peering up at me. His eyes and face were bright red, and ears rolled down his cheeks. When we made eye-contact, he quickly shook his head back and forth.

"Tell me," Bad whispered from behind me, "what do the whispers say to you right now?"

"That you're being really creepy right now?"

"What do they tell you?" He pushed. I stopped and breathed. I looked down at Good, and I could feel my face twist in disgust.

"They say that he is not the voice to be listening to."

"And what else do they say?"

"They say to listen to the other voices. Not you, just the others."

"No." He stopped, drawing back away from me. "You should listen to me more."

"No." I retorted. "I'll keep your words in mind, but I'd rather listen to other voices than your own."

"Oh," he sighed, "you'll come back."

"I won't."

"You say that a lot."

"Well this time I mean it; I'm not coming back to you."

"We'll see." He started, walking into the distance. "We'll see what you do with the dark closes you in. We'll see what you do when the sweet tang of sin drips from your lips. We'll see what you do when the voices of this world scream to you in the night, tearing you from your slumber and throwing you down. We'll see..."

I watched him as he faded to white. His words echoed. I looked back at good after Bad had left.

"What have you done?" He dribbled. "What have you done?"

Sunset

How do I describe this feeling? We all have extraordinary power, yet all at the same time. Normally it's just one of us, holding all of the power, and all of the decisions. Bad cradles a small fire in his hands. I can see it reflecting in his eyes. But Good gently holds a white flower. He turns it slowly in his finger, and stares at the pedals as they revolve in front of him. They both look up at me at once, holding up their offerings. I reached for the flower, but the fire flickered to my right, and drew my attention.

"You know you want it." He begged, rolling it in his fingers. I started walking towards him, enticed by the flame.

"You want to ruin this now?" Good stated from behind me, halting my advance. "Not with what you have right now, you can't let him win this time."

"Sure you can." Bad added. "What's better to give as a gift? This beautiful little ember? Or that poor excuse for a weed that he's holding?"

"Fire burns." Good retorted.

"So does love." Bad counteracted with a smile on his face. Good stood there, slack-jawed.

"What?" Bad continued. "Surprised that I'm using your own words against you? You I'm actually listening when you speak, right?"

"I'm surprised that you remember back that far." Good said, astonished. 

"Just because I'm the 'bad' one here doesn't mean that I can't listen to anything. Just because—."

"But love burns well." Good interrupted. "It's a controlled burn. It burns so that it may provide life. Your fire isn't controlled; it will burn and consume."

"What you're doing right now," Bad stated, placing a heavy emphasis on every word, "is giving two definitions to the same thing!"

"No I'm not! I'm giving the right definition!"

"My fire gives life too. Everything that burns will come back to life. Think of a forest for God's sake! The forest burns down, but then it will grow back! That's just how nature works! A thing dies, and another thing comes in to fill in its place. And if it doesn't burn to a crisp, well then god damn; you know you found something worth keeping."

"Proof by fire?!" Good shouted. "That's not how this works!"

"Yes it does!" Bad screamed back. "Think about it for a second! I know that you're petrified by anything that could even so much as scrape you, but think about it! If something gets burnt, but still survives, you just proved that it could go through anything! C'mon Chris, you've done it before, haven't you?"

"Only because you were in charge for a few seconds;" Good answered for me, "and in that time you nearly burned everything down. Thankfully I was there to put out all of the fires."

"Did it work?" Bad ignored him. "Or didn't it? Did it survive the flame, or did it die?"

"It survived." I finally said after a few moments of silence, filled only by the brief crackling of the small fire.

"Don't listen to him God damn it!" Good shouted, still delicately holding the white rose.

"But he's right!"

"Perhaps," Good answered, "but I would rather test the flame retardancy after I do something good for it!"

"You mean to say that you're going to let him win," Bad mumbled, looking defeated, "and give her a flower?"

"Maybe," I said, seeing a figure off in the far distance, "but I'd rather do nothing and just go see who that is."

I tried to walk between the two of them, but they both put their arms up to block me.

"Not so fast," Bad said with a devilish grin, "you need to choose between the two of us first."

"No!" I screamed at the both of them, making them jump. "I'm sick of this! This is my head! I control how this works, and I want to go see who that is! Forget you two!"

"We won't let you." Good told me, now holding up his hand to my chest. "You need to bring something."

"Why can I never control this?!" I exasperated. "This is all just going on in my head, why can I never control it?!"

"Because you're mental." Bad stated, clearly.

"I don't want to choose what either you two have." I continued, ignoring him. "I want a middle ground. Why can I never have anything so much as just that?! Just a middle ground. Something between good and ba—." 

But a warmth in my hands drew my attention. I was holding a sunset. The magnificent colors reflected that of the fire. It burned like the fire. But it held a peace. It retained the beauty and elegance.

"Oh that doesn't count..." Bad mumbled.

"It does." good said with his distant smirk. He turned away and let me pass. She became more defined as I came closer. Average height, and long shoulder-length hair. But she was still just a white mannequin. But color came to her face as I stepped closer. But then the wind started to blow, and everything began to fade away. I started to run, I needed to see who she was. But then it slipped away, just like always.

Power

"Oh come on," Bad whined from the back seat, "lemme drive for just a little?"

"No," Good replied for me, sitting in the passenger seat, "you've lost your privileges."

"Oh please," Bad retorted, "it was just one time."

"Yeah," I chimed in, "and that one time almost sent us off the deep end."

"It did send us off the deep end." Good corrected me.

"Yeah but it was fun." Bad commented.

I pulled over the car and put it in park. I turned around to face the back seat, but Good was sitting back there, fast asleep. Bad was now sitting in the passenger seat, glaring at me with a smile.

"You pulled over just for me?" He asked me, placing his hands over his chest. "Oh how sweet of you!"

"Out of the car, now." I demanded, taking the keys out of the ignition and shoving them into my pocket. I got out, and I was met by a white desert. The door from the other side of the car slammed shut.

"There is no way in hell that I'm letting you drive!" I shouted at him.

"Pretty please?" He begged. "With sugar on top?"

"Not after last time!" I yelled once again. I placed my hands on the top of my head, I was tired of him.

"It wasn't that bad last time!" He argued. "And besides. I only took the wheel because neither you nor Good bothered to show up!"

"I was there the entire time! You just ignored me and every time I questioned you, you just pushed me back down to shut me up!"

"Because you were trying to do stupid things, so naturally it was my duty to correct them."

"I did stupid things?" I questioned him. "I did stupid things?! You are the sole reason that we almost never made it past sunset that night!"

"I was trying to fix our mistakes!"

"Please, enlighten me. How it having us get up on a chair and try to choke the life out of myself any way to correct problems?"

"You fucked up massively?" He stated, sitting down on the hood of the car. "Big problems need big erasers..."

"This is why I'm not putting you in charge of driving." I hissed. "Because of that. If it wasn't for Good finally showing up at the last minute, we wouldn't be here!"

"That wasn't me." Good said from the open car door. "I never showed up that day."

I stopped and looked at him. I raised a brow, and he shrugged; Bad laughed.

"But what about that voice?" I asked him. "That voice was the reason I cut it. You mean to tell me that that wasn't you?"

"I had no hand in that. I showed up for the first time in quite a while once you started to turn yourself around."

"So I made up that voice? By myself?"

"This is comedy;" Bad whimpered, wiping a joyful tear away from his eye, "pure gold you two are."

I stopped, and quickly looked back and forth between the two of them. My eyes narrowed, and then finally settled on the one in red.

"You made the voice," I interrogated, "weren't you?"

"How in the hell does that make any sense?" I exclaimed. "I, the one driving the ship down to hell, made the voice that told you to stop? How does logic work in your head?"

"Then where did the voice come from?" I asked the both of them.

"You know," Good began, coming and leaning against the fender, "this may just be your representation of your own head, but this is our life. This is an entire world for us. Bad and I have seen figures around here; we can never see the faces, but we know that we aren't alone out here."

"So I wasn't alone that night?" I asked him.

"I don't think so." He said. "I was gone, and while you were fading and Bad was turned the other way, going mad with power, she must have slipped in and told you to stop."

"So literally none of us know who it was then?" I asked.

"No," Good replied, "but whoever it was, may be right for you. Whoever would think about is like that, enough so that they would keep you from doing that, they might just be the one for you."

"Please," Bad finally chimed in, "spare us with the poetic, internal monologues about butterflies, or whatever the hell you two talk about."

"Zip it," I told him, "and get in the back."

"But I still want to drive!"

"I don't think he was listening to a single word you just said." Good laughed, getting in the passenger seat.

"No," I replied, "he never does."

"Please?"

"I swear," I turned around to tell him, "there is no way in hell that you are ever taking control again. We can't afford for that to happen. I won't let it happen again."

"You are such a buzzkill." Bad sighed, throwing himself back into the seat.

As everything faded to white, I could see Good out of the corner of my eye, smiling.

Burn

It was peaceful again. The woods held a stiff silence, but at the same time cradled the sounds of its life. The birds humming their tune bounced between the trees. The breeze blew and rustled the grass. I could hear the brook nearby, the water rolling off of the rocks and then colliding with itself.

"It's beautiful," the one in Red stated, walking out from behind a tree, "isn't it?"

"No!—." I tried to shout, but it was gone. The serenity and the peace was gone. The forest was still there, but the color had been drained, the noises muted.

"It's a bit too beautiful if you ask me."

"Why?" I asked him. "Why do you always have to show up and ruin all of this?!"

"It's my job." He replied simply. "You see, Good and I are like Ying and Yang. He brings the beauty, and I silence it; it's the love hate relationship that you love so much."

"No thanks to you two assholes."

"So come on," he said with a wide grin, walking behind me, "why're ya out here?"

"Just leave me alone."

"C'mon sport, what's on your mind?"

"Leave me alone!" I turned around and pushed him away. He fell to the ground, and looked at me with an astonished glare.

"That's not what you're supposed to do." He growled. He was back on his feet within a moment, and he tackled me onto my back. He straddled my chest, grasping his hands onto my throat. "You're the mediator..."

"What are you doing?" I gasped, trying to throw him off, but his knees where pinning down my arms.

"Showing you who you really are." The harder he grasped onto my neck, I could smell smoke. The faint remnants of the bleached forest began to burn. It turned red, and began to bleed around us. I could see the inferno in his eyes.

"Why?!" I hissed. It was agonizing to breathe now. Any breath that I could take was poisoned by the embers.

"You need to realize that all of this," he barked, motioning to the fire, "is because of you."

*   *   *   *   *

My neck ached when I woke up. The seamless forest was back, but it was smoking, and scorched black. My head throbbed as I tried to sit up. I saw Good in front of me, examining the damage.

"Where did he go?" I mumbled. He turned around quickly, and then sighed. He seemed disappointed to see me.

"Home." He uttered, turning back towards the forest.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I questioned.

"You were already angry before he showed up," he inquired, "weren't you?"

"Angry?"

"That's why you came out here in the first place," he continued, holding his hands out the smoke plumes, "you needed to calm down."

"Yeah," I mumbled, "so?"

"What have I told you about doing this?"

"It's not my fault, okay?!" I yelled. "If you want me to be angry less, you should show up more!"

"That's not how this works..."

"Yes it does! None of this is real! I control this!"

"You don't control your own dreams. You just wish you could."

"Then why don't you show up more then?! I'd do less bad shit if you were here more often!"

"Whichever fire you feed will be bigger."

"Please," I begged him, sighing, "don't be poetic, just tell me why."

"I just told you." He replied simply, beginning to pace in front of me. "If you act good more often, I'll show up more."

"But I'm an asshole of a person..."

"Correct;" he said, holding up his finger, "so guess who shows up more?"

"Look," I told him, "I'm only acting this way because I know it’s the right thing to do. If I had the slightest feeling that it wasn't the right thing to do, I'd be better."

"I know," I replied, sitting down and crossing his legs in front of me, "I never said I disagreed."

"Wait, what?!"

"Well," he sputtered, "I mean to say that I think that your objective, and overall mood is justified. While I do think that there are adjustments that could be made, I know that you're right."

"I'm doing it for him. Not Bad, forget him. For someone I actually care about."

"I'm fully aware."

"He must think I'm a total asshole."

"I would hope he does."

"Gee," I laughed, "thanks."

"Put yourself in his shoes and then look at what you've been doing; aren't you the bad guy?"

"Yeah," I replied, "I never disagreed either. It's just, sometimes the bad guys are actually right, right?"

"On occasion."

There was another silence that drove itself between us. He fiddled with the dirt that had just appeared between his feet. I am the bad guy declared a voice in my head. Those words kept echoing in my skull. I am the bad guy. It became louder with every reverberation I am the bad guy.

"I've noticed something." I declared, desperate to get the words out of my head.

"What's that?" He said without looking up at me.

"Whenever Bad talks, he keeps saying 'us,' and 'we.' Every time you talk, you usually just talk about 'me.'"

"Strange," he said, looking up at me with a grin, "isn't it?"

"I just want to say I'm sorry to him." I spoke aloud. "But I can't."

"To Bad?"

"No," I exasperated, "to him. I both do and don't want to apologize to him. What do you think I should do?"

"You shouldn't have to apologize for the fire in your eyes." He answered. "We all have it, we can't help it."

"Then should I at least wrangle the fire a little better next time?"

"You know," he began, picking up his hand to let the sand fall, "one would think that you should. You, me, maybe even Bad. But if we actually think about it for a second, I think you know how to wield your own fire. It may seem like too much during the act, and immediately thereafter, but you know that you didn't really burn anyone..."

"It's just that the fire is too dangerous to play with, so why do we even bother?"

"It's just like with love."

"Oh please don't get sappy..."

"Let me put it into a metaphor that you'll understand."

"Thank you."

"Life is this giant labyrinth. At the very beginning, you get a fire, and you can find torches throughout the maze. You don't have a choice in whether or not you have the fire. It will be there until you reach the end. But what you do have a choice in is whether or not to light the torches. Sure, you can go around this maze without a torch, but it'll be pretty dark. And yes, you're going to end up burning a few hedges if you do light them. But really, which would you rather choose?"

The wind was coming, it blew the smoke in the other direction. I motioned over towards one of the ember piles. He turned to see, and looked back at me, smiling.

Ink

"I'm scared." Good said. He was sitting in the corner, with his back to the wall and his knees hugged to his chest.

"You and me both pal." Bad added, pacing at the other end of the room. The room as blank. It was just four walls and a passage that led to an infinite sky. The only things in the room were the three of us.

"Are you two actually agreeing on something for once?" I asked the both of them, leaning against the adjacent wall to address them.

"I think we are." Bad answered, looking between Good and I. Good didn't respond. He dug his face into his knees. His back shivered and began to quickly rise and fall. He was sobbing. Bad quickened his pace. He wiped the sweat away from his brow with his sleeve.

"I don't even know what you two are afraid of," I voiced, neither turning to face me, "shouldn't I be the one who's scared here? I'm the one in charge."

"I don't get how you're not afraid!" Bad shouted, gritting his teeth.

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about!"

"We're talking about everything!" He yelled, finally collapsing onto the floor into tears. "You thought of it today! Now we can't stop thinking about it!"

I exasperated and glared at him. What the hell is he talking about?

 "I mean reality," he pleaded, looking far into my eyes, "everything that exists out there. I know we have all of those lofty dreams."

"Everyone does," I assured him, "what's your point?"

"They're nothing more than dreams." His face buckled. His tears stopped, and he glowered at me. "You of all people should know that."

"All of this is just a dream," I declared, motioning to the room around us, "but it's still real."

"This is just some twisted, convoluted way that you rationalize morality in your own head. Of course it's a damn dream, it’s the literal definition of a dream! I mean the dreams that could change your life, forever, for the better!"

"Just because it's a dream doesn't mean it's not possible." I whispered, kneeling down to him.

"You're trying to tell the catastrophist that anything's possible, with just some hard work and dedication?" He mumbled.

"Well," I started, shrugging my shoulders, "it is."

"You and I are the same person you moron," he empathized, "how are you not at all in the slightest bit concerned about this?

"Because I'm more concerned with the 'right now' than I am with the future."

"Wow," he enamored, "you really are an idiot, aren't you?"

"I know that that's the wrong way around."

"Yeah, no shit."

"Is it really wrong? Or is it just wrong to us?"

"No, it's wrong to literally everyone!"

"How do you know?" I promised him. "You and I are the same person, remember? And with that knowledge, we have about the same, total worldly knowledge as a sequoia tree."

He sighed, and got back up to his feet to continue pacing.

"Why aren't you scared about this?" He pleaded me once more. "We graduate from college in a year. Yet we've never held a job, we're going to graduate with a degree in fucking English, we don’t want to educate, and rather we want to make a living from writing fiction! Does none of this concern you?!"

"Eh," I shrugged, "a little."

"Do you ever want to have a job?!" He shouted, edging closer towards me. "Let alone a career?!"

"Yeah, that's why I'm trying to do the whole 'writing' thing."

"Let's think realistically here for a minute. You're going to 'finish' the book this summer, amongst other things, right?"

"Yes?"

"So you're going to finish revising the book, write a query letter all that jazz, and then send it off with the intent of getting a literary agent?"

"Yeah but I don't see where this is—."

"And then from that point you're going to try to submit it to a few publishers and then hope you can allure one?"

"Dude I don't know what you're trying to—."

"None of this is going to work!" He shouted, leaning into my face. "You and I both know this! You know that that God damn Word file on that thumb drive is nothing but a waste of a megabyte!"

"It's alright." I told him, gently pushing him back. "It's not comparable to anything like Dickens, or Hemingway, or Tolkien, but it's alright."

"Christ alive you've lost it..."

"When I write, I don't know how the words will come out. I don't know if they'll be crude or eloquent.  I don't know if they'll be in Arial or Comic Sans. And I sure as hell don't know whether I will become the next 'best author of all time,' or if this will just be some phony dream that eventually burns to a crisp, and lands in the ash tray like so many others' before me."

Bad sighed once more, and turned back around to lean his head into the far wall. Good still sat in the corner, in the fetal position he had held this entire time.

"But that's the beauty of writing," I continued, "isn't it? The sheer marvel of writing is that you have no idea what the words will look like until you actually write them! You can make them appeal to just you, to a friend or lover, or to the masses. Writing is an art of improvisation!"

"What's your point?" Bad said from the far wall, grumbling into the wall.

"Life is the same thing as writing." I told him. "The only thing that matters is the page that you're on right now. Sure, you can try to plan for what will sit on the pages ahead, but it's a waste of time. We don't know, and we will never know, how the ink will stick to the pages of the Story of Our Life."

There was a pause, and the air shuddered around us. It was all going to end again shortly. Good finally lifted his head up and looked at me. His forehead was wrinkled and red, and dried tears ran down his cheeks.

"But what if we don't like how the ink sticks?" Bad mumbled once more. "Just change the font, or copy and paste."

"No," Good finished for me, "in the traditional sense. All that matters is the page you're on right now, or the exact word or letter. Once the ink has stained the page, it can't be fixed. It cannot be redone. You just have to fix it with whatever pages you have left."

Bad turned around and inhaled, probably to make a rebuttal. But he stopped, and let the air out. He knew it was time. We all knew. He turned back around to face away from us as the white encapsulated us.

Butterflies

Bad always held himself high. He always stood the tallest between Good and I. He never held any other light up to himself. But today, he was in the backseat of the car, staring out the window into the void; his expression empty. Good was in the passenger seat, looking straight forward. And I was driving, forward into nothing. I looked into the rear-view mirror at Bad. He didn't look back.

"You doin' okay back there Red?" Good asked him, turning his head to the right. Bad didn't respond. He didn't so much as turn to look at either of us.

"You've been like this all day." Good continued, turning back to look out the windscreen. "You want to tell us what's going on?"

"It's just going to be us forever," Bad mumbled, "isn't it?"

"What do you mean?" Good replied with a confused look.

"There's never going to be any one else in our lives." He started, finally readjusting himself to address us. "There will never be that someone special, will there?"

I waited for Good to respond with an answer. But after a few moments of silence, I looked to see that they had changed spots. Good was now in the back seat leaning over in rest, and Bad now sat next to me, looking hopelessly forward into the void for the destination that would never come.

"It's just," he began, folding his hands, "I don't picture someone ever ending up with us."

"The others are happy." I told him, patting him on the knee. "Our friends are with who they want to be with. And if they aren't they'll figure it out."

"I know." He hissed, narrowing his eyes. "It's not them I'm worried about. It's us."

 "We'll just figure it out as it comes, just like we have been doing."

"What? You mean like how we've been 'figuring it out' for the past three years? Where absolutely nothing had changed?!"

I sat in silence. I didn't turn to face him.

"I know I'm not the only one who thinks like this." He continued, his tone lowering and becoming more somber. "It's just, I don't see the 'one' ever entering our lives. I've never had the inclination that someone has ever had a crush on us. I can't picture anyone that thinks about us in their last moments of consciousness before falling to sleep. I don't see anyone thinking about us in their dreams either."

"You're wrong." I told him.

"I've never thought that that anyone gets the butterflies when we talk to them," he carried on, ignoring me, "or even so much as smile at them. I can't imagine someone waiting in anticipation in front of their computer or phone screen for a response to their message. I don't expect that anyone will ever dream about us holding them in our arms, talking for hours on end into the early morning, where they happily fall asleep wrapped in our embrace. That won't happen. It never will."

I began to think about these two brothers that I had been blessed with. The Good one, who talked quietly, but correctly; my angel. And then the one who spoke eloquently, and louder that the other; my demon. Why did I have to get paired with them? Why can't, at least, the Good one talk louder?

"Do you ever see that happening?" Bad asked me. "I know that you fantasize about it happening; that's where I'm getting all of this from. But really. Will it?"

"I don't know." I stuttered, shrugging my shoulders. "Maybe?"

Bad stopped and looked into my eyes. He narrowed them, and then cocked his head over to one side. He sighed, and then threw himself back in his seat.

"What?!" I shouted, whipping my head in his direction.

"I can see what you're thinking." He mumbled. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he had slumped down into the chair. With his head pointed out the side window, he looked like a child.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I told him.

"That fire." He began. "I told you about that damn fire!"

"What fire?!"

"Her! I know that you're thinking about her! I know that when you think about 'the one,' you think of her! The one that you know for a fact that you have absolutely no chance with, but you hold onto that last shred of desire, hoping that its dying light will be enough to get you through the night unscathed!"

"I—." I tried to say.

"I know what you're gonna shoot back with." He cut me off, sitting up and folding his hands in front of him and looking upwards. "I have a shot with her. Just because you don't think so, doesn't mean that it can't happen. Or some shit like that."

"I don't know," Good finally chimed in from behind, "I kinda like her."

"God damn it." Bad growled. "I was really hoping you had died, or slipped into a coma."

"I don't think that I would say that we love her," Good continued, "but she has potential. And we certainly like her. What's the problem with that brother?"

"Please do us all a favor and jump out the door right now please?" Bad muttered.

"But I have a reason as to why I say this." Good declared.

"What's that?" I asked him. The road was coming to an end. I knew that it was all about to end.

"It's pretty simple," he sighed, relaxing in the seat as the sheets of white fell onto us, "when you look as her and how she treats us."

"What?" I questioned, my voice fading.

"We not only like her for the way that she dances with our angels, but also for the way that just saying her name can silence our demons."