Love

Hailstone only loved strangers. The more he got to know about someone, the less he began to love them. He’d approach women on the street and profess his love. He’d tip homeless women at the price of a kiss. All of his love was pent up and released cathartically to the unsuspecting victim, who in turn, would view him as a creep. His love was genuine. He maintained his estrangement from everyone he knew so that he could remain in love with everyone. He would spew monologues to strangers, as if they were talking back to him; if they did, he’d scowl, repulsed.
Unfortunately, he knew himself and therefore hated himself, which, according to proverb, rendered him unable to love anyone at all. Nonetheless, he persevered, sharing his love with anyone he encountered. He’d take a gander at every woman, and generating pick-up lines and novel ways to profess his unrequited love.
The only woman who actually loved him was named Sandra, who knew him all too well. Before she fell in love with him, she’d exposed herself to him, rambling like a drunk pedagogue. They were at a masquerade party. Neither of them were invited to it. Sandra attempted to estrange herself from Hailstone to gain his attention but he believed that people don’t change. Sandra had cerulean blue eyes that sparkled because she wore tinted contact lenses. She pleaded with Hailstone that he didn’t know anything about her, that he never would; she tried feigning amnesia but then realized she only wouldn’t know anything about him. Though Hailstone didn’t love Sandra because he knew her too well, he found her strikingly odd.
Sandra slept with strangers to attempt to incite jealousy in Hailstone. Sandra followed Hailstone around their apartment; they lived together.
Sandra was Hailstone’s sister. She wore fishnet stockings and red-white polka dot skirts. She had debilitating insomnia where she’d spend entire nights fantasizing about Hailstone. She would stay up for so long that she’d begin to hallucinate and sleep with men she mistook for Hailstone.
Hailstone had a pet panda. He read his monthly horoscope—it always became a self-fulfilling prophecy; he studied divinity and astronomy. His pet panda’s name was Cami, who happened to be a nymphomaniac. Sandra would hang a digital camera around Cami’s neck because it made her laugh hysterically. Cami would nuzzle against Sandra’s crotch and when no one was looking—
Hailstone and Sandra slept in separate rooms, though sometimes Sandra would creep into Hailstone’s bed and cuddle with him while he was asleep. She loved to listen to him snore.
“I love you while I’m awake and you’re asleep,” she whispered. She’d press herself up against his back, running her hands through his hair while kissing the nape of his neck. She’d kick her leg into the air and prop her knee up, positioning to masturbate.
Hailstone prowls Time Square, bumping into strangers and instead of immediately professing his love, tried striking small talk. This proved more effective until he leaned forwards with his lips puckered. He practiced kissing Cami, who tackled him onto the ground and humped him before he could remove the bamboo from Cami’s mouth. He crawled out from beneath the impassioned panda, but couldn’t help but think about how stranger’s reactions were becoming predictable. They were no longer strange and therefore no longer desirable. He began to recognize archetypes as he honed his astuteness. He knew exactly who he had better chances with upon approaching.
Sandra anguished over her insomnia, taping her eyelids shut. Her senses seemed heightened. She could hear the tap water dripping, drop by drop. She’d wobble over to Cami and cuddle with her, chewing on bamboo while the panda mounted her left leg. The one with the blemish on it that Hailstone referred to as a beauty mark. She swooned over him, raunchily chewing her bamboo, drifting in and out of conscious.
Hailstone ruminated about how everything in life, including life itself, was temporary. Love, friendship, drugs, emotions. The impermanence depressed him. He stooped on the stairways of brownstones, gloomy and sulking. Strangers no longer stimulated him. He struggled with defining precisely how to know someone. Was everyone, rapidly fluctuating during each fleeting moment, a stranger? Was their consistency in all being strange actually ordinary? If everyone was strange, then only the people he knew would remain strange. Oh, Valium…
“I want to fuck you. I want to fuck you because I love you.” Sandra mouthed to the bathroom mirror. “I. Want. To. Fuck. You.” Sandra had been up for four days. Her eyes were so bloodshot they appeared to begin bleeding at any second. The sleeping pills never worked. Fucking conservative female psychiatrists and their non-pharmaceutical approach to therapy. She slammed her forehead against the mirror, shattering it and knocking herself out.
Cami broke out of her cage, having ravished the gate until the lock snapped open. She immediately began to immerse herself in humping every piece of furniture in the house until she stumbled upon Sandra, passed out, her gashed head lolled against the toilet. Cami, mistaking Sandra as dead, proceeded to exploit her body, badgering her with sexuality.
Hailstone, swaggering into the apartment, recklessly besotted, yelled out for Sandra. When he received no response he hauled himself around the apartment until he found Cami humping Sandra; blood was smeared throughout the entire bathroom—Sandra was soaked in it. Hailstone immediately charged at Cami, puncturing her innocuous eyes with his thumbs until the panda was blind, lashing out futilely. Hailstone hunched into the room outside the bathroom, yanked a lamp from being plugged into the wall, and once again charged at the blind panda, smashing it over her head and cracking open her skull. Hailstone rushed to pick up Sandra in his arms and lugged her off to his bedroom, lying her down on his bed, tending to her wounds. Suddenly, enraged with sexual deprivation, he rolled her onto her back and unbuckled his pants, slipping out of his clothing and stuffing his cock into her corpse.