Phantasmaphilia - to love one who does not exist, or the creation of one's own mind

This story is dedicated to Zarla, who is not only the near single handed creator of the Nny/Edgar slashdom, but also is a literary GENIUS who should really have a book in print so I could recomend it to my non-nerdy friends. Where'd she dissapear off to anyways?

--

And I swear I know your face, I just don't know who you are.

Turn out the Lights in this place and

You shine like a star

...Like you're right in my ear,

Whispering that you want to own me,

Control me

-Closer

He woke up in the morning, rested and ready to go, for once. He vaguely wondered what dream had rolled through the dark labyrinth of his mind those last few hours--something interesting no doubt, because he could still feel a buzzing sense of excitement in his chest and almost a smile on his face.

A pleasant dream was unusual for him, a welcome change from the nightmares of starving children and red-eyed demons of his typical nights. Ten years, and still here they were.

The man slid out of bed and grabbed a non-descript shirt from his equally non-descript closet, and paused. He felt a strange need to dress with interest today. Heaven knew why, since he'd probably feel ridiculous after an hour of filing paperwork.

But still, his hand reached into the depths of that doomed closet and pulled out a purple shirt, resplendent in its silky, Chinese scripted glory. The little 'dream' symbol was subtly placed, but in his mind this was nothing short of a seventies disco.

What the hell, live a little.

Enjoying his rare moment of energy, the brown haired man slipped on his clothes and nearly skipped into his kitchen whistling the introduction to a Billy Joel song… something about masks…

A quick breakfast was whipped up, a bland if nutritious mixture of juice and buttered toaster waffles. For the first time in years, he wondered if maybe he should try something different for breakfast, maybe a cinnabun?

The man stopped beside a hall mirror, sparing a second of his scheduled morning to contemplate his own reflection. Muddy green eyes behind round, thin-rimmed glasses stared back at him over his just-too-long nose. The goatee looked nice though.

A girlfriend in college had once told him that he was handsome. Personally, he couldn't see it. Maybe he wasn't ugly, but 'handsome' wasn't something he'd been built for.

"Morning Edgar," he smiled faintly at himself. "Quite a mood I'm in this morning."

He started to turn away, but the shine of his glasses in the mirror made him pause, and Edgar glanced at the reflection from the corner of his eye. Something about his face from that angle sent his brain racing.

"Scri?" he whispered, not know what he'd said or even why he'd said it. Oh well. Carry on.

Mildly confused, the man went about his day no worse for its unusual start, save with a bit more bounce in his step. The agreeable mood lasted on until lunch, when he reached into the department freezer and found his lunch inexplicably not there.

"Who took my lunch?" he wondered aloud, feeling the happy disposition evaporate in seconds, replaced with his usual sense of resignation and unhappy acceptance.

"Wasn't me," answered a fat man at the nearby table, munching on a sandwich that looked suspiciously like his own.

"Oh really." Edgar sighed. "That looks an awful lot like mine."

"'S not," the obese loser insisted.

"…Fine."

--

The remainder of Edgar's day went no better. His boss berated him for some miniscule reason that apparently made a difference in the life of an unstable perfectionist; he was annoyed by a female coworker who made rude comments on his shirt ("What's that? Chinese for 'I'm stoooopid'?") and smacked her gum.

He was cut off in traffic at least three times by people with stickers from two elections past on their bumpers, and screamed at by a hobo ("YOU CAN'T HAVE MY TOE!").

"Another day, another headache," Edgar sighed, pulling the door to his apartment closed behind him. The wonderful dream of the morning was forgotten in his exhaustion. Why was he always exhausted? Was this what people called 'burn out'?

The brunette set his glasses down on the table and looked at his apartment through fuzzy vision. Too bad the whole world wasn't like this—soft around the edges, colors blended like one giant object with an impressionist paint job.

The specs were placed back on his nose and a bible was pulled from the bookshelf. Edgar flipped to a page at random, hoping for some sort of divine inspiration.

"'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, from words of my groaning?'" he read aloud, allowing his tension to ebb away, "'O my God, I cry by day, but thou dost not answer; and by night, but find no rest'…"

--

Edgar slept a fitful sleep, full of spinning lyrics and screaming children. He twisted in his sheets, wrapping covers around his legs and knocking pillows to the ground. With a start, the fevered man shot out of bed, clutching at his right wrist.

Inhale. Exhale. Nothing but a dream. Inhale. Exhale. No power over you. Inhale. Exhale. It's not you. Inhale. It was never you. Exhale.

"You don't really believe that." A voice from his left stated. What—Who the hell was in his room?

"Who are you?" Edgar reached for his glasses. No glasses! No table either. "Where are my glasses?!"

The voice snorted. "Figures that you ask for your spectacles before even trying to look around. They're in your pocket, my boy."

The strange form of address was the least of Edgar's worries at the moment, so he simply filed it under the growing 'Weirdness' file. He reached into his pocket (pocket? Wasn't he wearing pajamas?) and found, to his disbelief, glasses.

"How did you know?" the now fully awake man wondered, holding his glasses away from himself as if they might bite.

"Typical," the peculiar home-breaker groaned, "Why don't you put. Them. On. And then we'll see where the priority lies."

Hesitantly, Edgar slid his glasses onto his face, allowing the world of dark blurs to realign. He choked.

What he had believed to be his room was clearly not his room at all, but a pink forest under an amethyst sky, nighttime lit only by the alabaster moon. His bed was currently placed under a wide oak tree, little white dolls hanging from its branches like a flurry of lynched ghosts. A checkered marble floor faded in and out along the ground of the grassy clearing.

Beside him stood a man with shaggy brown hair, face partially concealed behind black eyeglasses over a just-too-long nose. The man shrugged his stripe-clad shoulders and looked expectantly at Edgar.

"What is this place?" he gasped, jumping out of his bed.

"You of all people should know." The opposite rolled his eyes.

"Well I don't!" Edgar cried, "Oh, god, this is insane! Who are you?"

"Me? I'm hurt, Edgar, really. And after all this time together..." the strange man lifted his brow behind the dark-tinted glasses.

"What the hell does that mean?" the confused man rubbed his temples. "I don't know you, I don't know this place, and I certainly don't know why I'm here! I just woke up in the middle of this godforsaken headtrip."

The shaggy-haired man only laughed and turned away. "Interesting word choice, my boy."

"Hey, wait!" Edgar called after his grudging companion, "At least tell me your name!"

"Hmm. My name, before anything else? Really, I'm flattered." The man turned back to face him, hands on hips. "I suppose you should call me 'Scriabin'. I wouldn't have picked it myself, but it does have a certain style."

"Right. Scriabin. Look, I don't know why I'm here, and I'm guessing you do. Where—What do I... How do I get back to my life?"

"It all depends," Scriabin answered smugly.

"...Depends on what?"

"On how far down the Rabbit Hole," he pointed at Edgar, "You want to go."

The visitor began to fade, the finger aimed at the perplexed man dissolving into air. First the white stripes on his arms turned transparent, and then his whole body from the limbs in. Finally, Edgar was left with a pair of shimmering black glasses and a floating smirk.

"What was it he told Alice?" The disembodied voice pondered, "Oh yeah. It doesn't matter which way you go, my dear. We're all mad down here."

And then there was nothing. Just one man, his goatee, and a pink forest full of striped trees.

"…But… where am I?"

—--

TBC

Comments? Critique?