His Fairytale Wedding 

Rome wasn’t into Shakespeare. He studied English for the sole thrill of contemporary post-modern theory; his forte was apocalyptic endings  and zombie slaying. Post modern theory delved into the whole psyche of the nightmare behind the phantom. He could relate to the whole neglected inner child for a while until he found his true calling; he became an EMT. He saved lives. He breathed life into the defibrillator when a cardiac went into remission; his heart regained a natural rhythm at the tips of his fingers. 

Rome found Julie that way. She was beautiful behind pale features and charcoal dark hair. She penciled her eyes in black and wore a corset. The woman behind the mascara and the exquisite red lips flatlined. He could not feel a pulse. He put the oxygen to her moist lips and shocked her heart. Her mother stood near by… 

“She’s using that stuff again.” She said with a face as morose as a renaissance portrait. 

Julie coughed. Her voice returned to her almost dead ambition: She used crystal meth to get high off toxins. She said she used to get by; to get off other things that were displeasing like abusive fathers and mothers. 

Rome didn’t leave her side in the hospital. He was off the clock and stood by her side; she melted like chocolate to a candle stick when she saw him. Rome was muscular, tan, cut and reminded her of a golden bronze statue. A real Roman God. 

“We almost lost you.” He said aside a mother who cried.

“I’m sorry darling.” Her mother Marietta said, “I’m sorry for all we’ve done to you.”

“She used to hit the pipe.” Julie confided to Rome. 

They left the hospital together holding hands and the horizon was like a pink cloud against a purple sky. Around Julie the earth was incandescent like walking among the clouds. 

He finally told her, “I used heroin.” He was sincere. 

“How did you get off?”

“He found me dead. Like I found you.”

“Who?” 

“My father.” 

Rome was from a dirty and sinister past of users.

“It runs in the family. My uncle was a user.”

They had their entire life in common. 

Beneath the early dawn of a rising sun they walked into another horizon of indigo and fuchsia. 

That was when they were becoming golden like emanating something celestial within the light.  

He said his farewell to her and explained, “if our lives were a fairytale I wouldn’t need to convince you that you needed saving…”

His words became a silence like a truce - she then knew it was her - it was she who needed to save herself. 

All he could do was point the way and she knew; she kissed him and entered the golden gates of recovery where she found herself a therapist and a bit of candy like licorice to take the edge off. 

Together again, they fantasized, consummating in marriage beneath the turquoise sun and rain that fell like lemons.