Those needful things. They age, wear out, become cheap, redundant. Only the thought remains, their illusion, a rusty nail in memory.

Hammers, stones, knives, wires, bottles--

The vodka bottle disappeared in the river without a sound. The sky overhead was dark and empty apart from a fingernail moon. Lex rested his elbows on the railing, looking down at the river. The black waters glimmered in the night, as if strewn with shards of glass that sparkled in wavering flashes. It was quiet all around, nothing but the echo of the water hissing and splashing and flowing away from everything.

The sound of the river surrounded him, deep, endless, uncontrollable. Perhaps in water he could be like that too, changing, uncontrollable, almost free in the cold transparency. He felt good. Powerful. Lex shouted and the voice echoed in his ears as if it came from a distance, as if it belonged to somebody else. Stranger in those lands, stranger to himself.

Nights, streets, cars, lights, faces--

All those faces looking at him, eager, expectant. The faces of the nurses hovering over his head when he opened his eyes, the pain on the skin of his skull like red-hot needles, the scent of antiseptic clogging his lungs.

The faces of his guests at the graduation party, when he ODed at the bathroom and collapsed on the floor, smashing the mirror over the sink with his elbow. He woke up lying on the cold tiles, shards of glass biting into his shoulders, blood and saliva drying on his jaw, tears drying on his cheeks.

The boy's face at the riverbank, panting over his open mouth. Hie eyelids were sore. Mud oozed against his back and Clark's dark hair rained muddy river water on his face. His ears were still buzzing with the memory of flight.

Sometimes he wondered what the faces expected so eagerly, his life or his death. Perhaps death would have been better, a dazzling sparkling death like that; the fireworks of the final act in an otherwise unremarkable play. Survival felt like a failure of sorts, the disappointed audience abandoning the theatre, spilling funeral popcorn on the seats.

He shook his head, banishing the thought. If life didn't suit him, neither did self-pity, even when drunk.

Dictionaries, pencils, aspirins, pins, photographs --

A month after his mother died he built a fire with her photographs. He gathered every old album in the house, cut the photographs neatly in square pieces and fed them to the fireplace. Watched the tongues of flame licking her sepia colored treacherous smiles.

If she had cared enough she wouldn't have left him. If she had really loved him, she wouldn't have died. If the dead were allowed to forget then they should be forgotten too.

The senseless rage of a lonely child but it worked. Now he couldn't build her again in memory. Torn pieces of her face, the shape of her cheekbones, the curls of her hair, the color of her eyes. But when he tried to put the pieces together she became a blur, a spectre glimpsed through dreaming eyes. Other times she looked like Martha Kent. Interesting.

Signs, wheels, maps, lamps, keys-

He had lost his car keys. He carefully examined every one of his pockets, retraced the footsteps from his Porsche to the bridge railing but he couldn't find them. He walked back and forth; his eyes wide open, kicking the ground with the heels of his shoes, listening for inaudible sounds, the clang of metal against the tar. But he saw only darkness, heard only the hiss of the river.

He'd have to walk home. He sat down, his back resting against the locked car door, the cold seeping through his thin jacket. Weariness rose up in him. He was drunk and tired, so tired. He was aging faster these days.

His head swayed. Something frozen and grainy pressed against his cheek: the ground. Just another moment now and he'd get up. Just one more moment.

He opened his eyes, immediately breaking into a compulsive fit of coughing. A marvelous watercolor sky was pooling blue overhead and Clark Kent was bending over him, knapsack over his shoulder, his palm spread over Lex's chest. It felt appropriate.

The avenging angel, he thought grimly.

"Lex?" Clark said, chewing his bottom lip, looking worried. "What the hell are you doing here, sleeping on the bridge?"

Forks, trays, vases, glasses, cups--

He leaned against the hood of the car, waiting for Clark. His limbs felt heavy like lead, his thoughts dehydrated under the butter-gold morning sunshine. The door of the Talon creaked as Clark walked out, two Styrofoam cups of coffee in his hands.

"Here," he smiled. "I should be getting to school now. And you need some rest, Lex, take the day off."

He stepped closer, closer still, but Clark didn't move, didn't flinch, only made a small sound at the back of his throat. Clark didn't react when he kissed him; right there in the middle of the street, in the middle of everything, just raised his arms in a loose circle around Lex. He was still holding the coffee cups and Lex didn't know if he meant to pull him closer or shove him away.

The skin at the back of Clark's neck felt alien under his fingertips, smooth and cold like cling-film. They stumbled, the top of their bodies swaying backwards and forwards, Clark whispering muffled and helpless somethings inside his mouth. Then they opened their eyes at the same time, blinking blindly into the bright morning.

Lex took a deep breath and a step backwards. "Clark," he said. "I'm sorry, I didn't think-"

Clark touched his mouth.

A splash. The brown liquid ran in long narrow paths across the pavement before mixing with the muddy waters of the gutter. Through the cracks in the cement seeped the steam of the coffee they had not drunk.

The bread, the knife, the skin, the flesh, the endless possibilities, those needful things--