I laughed at the beguiled bag behind the counter as she fell into Magpie’s frayed fantasy, playing the role of a fabricated twin.

“Oh, she’s doing fine. It’s her first year in college. It’s amazing how you can tell us apart.”

“I get to know my customers quite well,” the old lady replied.  “You guys each have your own unique style and personality. You’re more laid back that your sister.”

Magpie played that lady like a cruel joke running into a brick of empty heads.  It was difficult to contain the laughter I felt tearing out of me as I ran out of that liquor store in tears.

Magpie walked out with a smooth smile like a casual casanova.  “What was that all about?”, I asked, although I already knew.

“Nothing much,” she laughed. “Just a joke I like to play.”

A joke.  Played.  Once in a while in forever.

We packed our pack of cigarettes and headed back up the steep hill of Paradise Valley Lost, onwards towards Magpie’s humble abode draped in pink stucco.

Cars flew by us like trains, and we tried not to fall into the shadows of the tracks and cement cracks.  I thought I heard whispers behind the walls of the houses we passed on the way.  I felt eyes of families preparing for dinner hit me from behind the barricades of bricks.  Their unseen stare of disdain hid great envy for the wild freedom ride Magpie and I were on.

Magpie and I walked hand in hand, telling stories of an imagined stalker trailing our footsteps.  We grew tired of him and left him and the story behind us, half naked on the streets.

We smoked the minutes away when we finally reached the porch, killing the air, our avioli, our brain cells, in a care-free manner.  She was careful not to light the cigarette from the wrong end again.

Later we resolved into retiring the day in her room, staring at curtains morphing into statues. Shadows on the ceiling cracks conveyed stories of dynamic dragons devouring each other in hues of dark magenta, green, blue, purple, dancing to a rhythm melting into the walls.

In the net of self-induced insanity we found ourselves unable to stop the tick tick ticking of the perpetual clock.  I sank into the mattress unable to cease the shapes and melting crayon dreams inside my weary nightmare’s wake.  I sank into my blanket of madness, waiting for the colors to subside, waiting for sleep, lamenting over my self-dementia.

Maybe we shouldn’t have done it, I thought.

“Goodnight,” Magpie whispered as she fought to sleep.

“Good morning,” I replied.