The impermanence of Alyssa's glossy chocolate hair curls, her emerald green eyes, and her supple and soft porcelain skin left a lasting mark on Nico's volatile psyche. How can one love someone so deeply when it can all vanish in the blink of an eye? No answer could satiate his thirst for an intangible truth that could neither be explained nor understood. All he knew was that he loved the way she smelled, even after spending the night her clothes and skin smelled of freshly cut grass with a hint of pine. They would often open the breakfast nook's blinds letting the radiant beams of sun light pierce through the window pane hitting the beech wood floors just enough to give them a comforting warmth as they walked barefoot toward the kitchen. She wasn't high-maintenance. Her breakfast consisted of freshly cut fruit, oatmeal with chia seeds, and a cup of black coffee.



Every afternoon after getting home from band practice he would talk to her over the phone, listening to how her day went at the photography studio she worked at as a portrait photographer. She was attentive and had an eye for composition. An imaginative and engaging raconteur, her life was fodder for the fastidious boors that attended the studio's monthly gallery openings. The openings were meant for local artists to showcase their work at no cost to them. What would end up happening would be a flurry of business cards being thrown at patrons from every which way. It was merely a peanut gallery full of pretentious oafs, tortured artists, and trust fund babies.

Nico would comfort her by attending all the openings even if he wasn't the biggest art fan. He was a romantic. Always wanted to live the ideal fantasy in his head. Realism wasn't his cup of tea. He despised any negative representation of the human spirit. To him, art should reflect the ideal. There were times when he wondered why people kept on living their unfulfilled lives when there was so much beauty to witness. He had grown attached to Alyssa's warmth, sympathy, and kindness, letting his flurry of emotions transport him to an oasis of unbridled love and uninhibited pleasure. It all affected him so much that he had left his job at KWCL as their midnight radio producer a year ago to pursue his writing career full-time. Actually, the first novella he ever published as an e-book was a small-time success, gaining a quiet following and earning him decent literary cache, although he published under a pseudonym.

His novella detailed his and Alyssa's first encounter at a downtown rooftop party where they mingled with the wannabe intelligentsia which was an array of 20-something self-proclaimed auteurs hoping to document the demise of American capitalism and society. He hated how derivative their work was but since he moved to the city a year ago, he hadn't made many new friends, that is, until he met Alyssa. She loved to take pictures, even as a kid, using her polaroid camera to document her transition from spunky toddler to mature and refined portrait photographer. They would try to spend every moment together reveling in their impeccable chemistry, that is until Nico's girlfriend came back from her year-long humanitarian trip to the Congo.

An imperceptible force had awakened his deadened spirit. Like an inaudible siren's call beckoning him toward this sordid arranged affair. The night sky was murky, blanketed by a mauve hue as the marine layer thickened with every passing second. He kept looking at his rugged diver's watch, unaware of his shallow breathing only pausing for a second as the shining bright lights approached his parked Ford LTD. The man in the other car and he stepped out at the same time never losing eye contact.

It would be his fourth and final book for a series titled The Anatomy of a Suicide. He had begun working on the first of the series when he was completing his MFA at the University of Southern California, when he was just a starry-eyed writer hoping to become the next Oscar Wilde. At the time, he couldn't begin to imagine that his celebrity would come at a cutthroat price. His first inklings came when the girl he was dating at the time managed to pass the creative writing workshop when everyone else had failed. Let's just say that there were more uncharted territories in her deadened mind than in outer space. She was dim-witted, snarky, but had an impeccable beauty that, apparently, the professor couldn't ignore either. Every single instructor on campus was a zombified boor listlessly going through the motions until it was their turn to take their year-long sabbatical.

Anger fueled his relentless drive to speedily complete the final three chapters. This anger, which stemmed from years of being around an uninspired student body and the misguided teachings of the so-called scholars, was a relentless rally to give them all the middle finger. He had developed a callus on his soul. A fortress with armed guards protected what he valued most, or so he thought. Sometimes he would torture himself by wondering why he hadn't just gone to law school. Exorcizing the red-hot anger was more important to him than a sense of security and comfort. It was almost as if he enjoyed feeding off of himself like a suicidal cannibal. Not one of his publishers would be the wiser since he was always so amiable and genial when he was around them. He always asked about their families, their recent trip to Martha's vineyard, he would often go out for drinks with them to celebrate another successful best-selling book, all the while harboring a secret indifference to their well-being.

His books wouldn't be considered canon by any means. At least, not for another hundred years. They weren't sold at any brick and mortar locations because they were considered rude and crude depictions of the human spirit. Satirical modes of thought weren't tolerated if they contained grotesque and gothic descriptions of sinister and complex villains doing heinous things. Even without the support of the Barnes and Nobles of the world, The Anatomy of a Suicide series flourished through a concentrated push through word of mouth and discussions on literature forums. He hadn't even given a single television interview. He was blacklisted by the romantics who wished that every story ended with a happy ending. During the times he wasn't writing, he had the luxury of roaming the streets without anyone recognizing him because he never included a picture of himself on any book he ever published. He reveled in the fact that he could play two different parts in this wonderful play called life. The only question is for how long.