Last Seen Blogs
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Chapter one rough
“Medic 17, you’ve code 3 traffic at 2765 N Locus Ave. 37 year-old male complaining of chest pain and anxiety. No further info.”
Drew looks across the cab of the ambulance at his partner and flashes him a grin. “That’s dinner, Junk.”
“Fucking Albert!” Junk yells, putting the rig in drive as Drew hits the lights and sirens. “He’s not due to call for at least two days. Maybe he’s actually dying, for once. Don’t you still owe dinner from Margaret’s last call?”
“Nope. I got Thai for that one.” Drew says proudly.
“Fuck. Yeah.” Junk responds, slamming the shifter into drive.
The ambulance heads out of the parking lot and Junk hits the lights and sirens. Rush hour just ended, traffic is still a bit heavy. The ambulance weaves it’s way slowly through drivers that seem to have never seen an ambulance in their rear-view mirror before.
“Fucking Albert.” Junk repeats, gesturing at the Toyota in front of them. “And this fucking guy! Don’t stop, shit-head! Move the fuck over!”
The car in front slams on it’s brakes, pulling one of the three textbook panicked driver moves: brake slam, pulling to the left or staying the course, crawling at a slow crawl.
“Asian and female.” Drew says, upping the bet, “and I get dessert, too”
“Just because your Asian female can’t drive doesn’t mean they’re all like that.” Junk says as the car finally figures out that the screaming sirens behind it aren’t going around and pulls off to the right, halfway through the crowded intersection of stopped vehicles.
As the rig kicks forward again, they both look out the passenger window, “what the fuck” expressions already loaded on their faces.
The driver waves apologetically, mouthing sorry over and over as they pass.
The ambulance screams ahead, clear roads for a few more blocks. Ten per over the limit is what they’re allowed per company policy. Apparently Junk missed that page in the handbook.
“Well that was a surprise.” Drew says, looking in the side view mirror.
“Cute little white girls ain’t exempt from bad driving” Junk admonishes.
“Very cute.” Drew corrects him.
Junk looked sideways at Drew. “That’s creepy, old man.”
“It’s only creepy if I say it first.” Drew says, putting on his best creep smile.
Junk gives him a disgusted look and says “No, it’s creepy when you have that look on your face when you say it.”
Drew feigns irritation, “It’s not a look, ok? It’s just my face, I can’t help the way I was born.”
“Exactly. Which is why everything you say is creepy.” Junk turns right onto Farley Ave. Quicker than he should, jerking the wheel back to the left to avoid a dog in the street.
Drew barely glances up from his electronic chart, already halfway finished with it. He and Junk have been partners for seven years, Drew knows that Junk is all-pro behind the wheel. Seven years of fun and blood and guts, life and death. Buffoonery and bullshit. Seven years of betting meals at the beginning of the week, based on which frequent-flyer is going to call first.
“Turn the fucking wheel, geezer!” Junk yells at the Buick ahead, the driver stopping halfway into the right lane.
“Shouldn’t assume they’re old. That’s profiling.” Drew says, chuckling.
“S’ a fucking Buick, man. Ain’t nobody under the age of sixty-five driving no Buick.” Junk says, waving out the window at nobody.
“Profiling.” Drew repeats
“Man, I am really not in the mood to smell Albert’s house today. Not at all.” Junk moans, thinking about what lies ahead;
Morbidly obese, 47 year-old diabetic, asthmatic, congestive heart failure, kidney failure, non-bathing rage-inducing EMS system-abusing Albert fucking Piffle.
As they pull up to Albert’s neighborhood, Junk kills the lights and sirens. The less people in this neighborhood that know an ambulance is sitting unguarded in the street, the better.
“Tonight’s the night. I can feel it” Junk says, pulling up in front of Albert’s trash-strewn lawn. “He ‘gon ride the lightning, we’re working him.”
“You keep saying it, and he keeps living. You’re jinxing us one way or another.” Drew grabs the computer off the dash as he gets out of the rig.
“Lock it, I’m not in the mood to go pawn-hopping on my day off.” Junk pushes his door lock down with his finger, the automatic locks long past working in this death-defying death trap of an ambulance.
They pull the gurney out, loaded with equipment they know they won’t need; Drug box, cardiac monitor, airway bag chock full of things they might use if this were a legitimate call. But it’s just Albert. He probably dropped his can of Spaghetti-O’s under the couch again. Or the TV remote is missing, stuck in a roll of back fat from the last time he managed to get moved from the couch and back under his own power. Or Albert’s just feeling extra bored and lonely. They bring the equipment even though they know they’ll be walking out of Albert’s shithole house, reeking of sweat and cat piss so bad they’ll change uniforms in the street before getting back in the rig.
They bring all that heavy, cumbersome equipment in because it’s got less chance of being ripped off in the house than out in the rig.
And the day they don’t lug all that shit in is the day they find Albert face-down in his own puke. Not so dead they can call it a night right there. They’ll find him just dead enough that they’ll have to actually work him. Roll his 400 lb carcass over and start compressions, cut his filthy clothes off and get him hooked up to the cardiac monitor, try to get at least one I.V. started, as well as call for assistance from another crew or two, just to get his ass on to the gurney in the event they actually get his ruined heart to start pumping blood again.
Junk leading the gurney, he doesn’t ring the bell or knock, doesn’t yell “EMS” into the house like he normally would. This is Albert. Junk just walks in, dragging the gurney with him as Drew pushes it from the rear, the wheels rolling across the stained carpet, a shade of some unnamable color distantly related to brown.
“Al!” Drew yells through his paper mask, donned by both of them automatically before reaching the porch. Not out of fear of catching anything, but from a lack of desire to smell the inside of Albert’s house. The masks barely do anything at all. Just enough to keep them from retching.
“Al!” He repeats, catching Junk’s quick glance back at him. It’s not like Albert to not answer.
Avoiding the piles of boxes and junk, they round the corner to the living room where they always find him; on the filthy couch surrounded by empty soda cans and chip bags and crusty food plates. Laptop opened on the snack tray, usually some Sci-Fi on the one large flat-screen tv, xbox or playstation on the other. He’d always yell “Here guys!” when they’d call for him and it would make them grin, ever since Junk compared him to Sloth from the Goonies.
Junk stops as the room enters his field of view and looks back at Drew with an unamused smirk. Albert is on the couch, Xbox controller in his hands and a brand-new set of expensive-looking headphones over his ears.
Drew stares at him for a moment, a similar smirk on his face.
“Albert!” he yells. It gets Al’s attention and he jumps, risks a glance away from the screen and then he’s back in sniper mode.
“Hey guys.” Albert mutters, focusing on the screen.
Drew walks over as Junk heads back outside, pushing the gurney and cursing the whole way. He pulls the headphones off Albert’s head and sighs loudly.
“What’s the deal, Al?” Drew asks, looming over Albert.
“I kept reading online about how much better it is if you have headphones, you know? Like to hear guys’ footsteps and stuff when they sneak up? So I ordered these, they’re really good, Drew!” Albert says, grinning like a great big man-child with too few teeth and too many comorbidities.
“No, Al,” Drew exhales “why did you call for us? Dispatch said chest pain. I don’t give two shits about your headphones or electronic addiction.”
“Oh yeah sorry. Fucker! Fucking campers.” Albert yells, distracted by Call of Duty again as his character on screen dies.
Drew steps between Al and the T.V. and for a second Al looks like he’s going to object, but Drew’s eyebrow raise squashes his momentary outrage.
“I’m sorry, Drew. I had some chest pain, but I think it was just some anxiety. The internet was out for like an hour and I was starting to lose it a little. I forgot to call back. I’m good now, though.” Albert says, simultaneously giving an apologetic look and trying to see around Drew, who shifts his weight and keeps his vision blocked.
“One of these days, I’m going to come in here and take all your controllers and leave. I’ll show you some anxiety.” Drew says, making hard eye contact for a moment.
Albert’s eyes go a little wide, unsure how serious the threat is. He fidgets and reaches down next to the couch, grabbing a fresh battery off the charger and starts changing batteries on his controller.
Seriously? That’s not even funny, man. I said sorry.” Albert apologizes almost sincerely, putting his controller down on the arm of the filthy couch.
The voice in Drew’s head is telling him to let it alone, to just get on with his shift. But he can’t. No matter how burnt out he is, he has to try every time. Even just a little “Samantha still your case worker?” he asks, knowing full well that she is.
Albert’s eyes light up at the mention of the pretty girl that comes to his house once every other month to dot the I’s and cross the T’s on his paperwork so his handout money keeps coming in.
“Oh yeah, Sam was here last week. She looked hot.” Albert grins like a lovesick child.
“Sure. Right now,” Drew says “her Grandmother is dying on the kitchen floor, just three blocks away. I could be over there helping, but I’m here babysitting you. Maybe I’ll get out of here and catch that call. Have enough time to save her. Or maybe next time you see Sam, she’s a little less bubbly because she’s mourning the death of her beloved Grammy because it took the next available crew twenty minutes to get to her.”
“Her Grandmother’s dying? Right now?” Albert asks, almost panicked.
“Jesus!” Drew yells. He grabs the controller out of Albert’s hands and gets down low, points at his face.
“Stop abusing the fucking system, Albert. I’m not coming next time, I mean it.” Drew exclaims, holding eye contact before turning away and heading towards the door.
“Come on, man! Give me back that controller! Please? I won’t call again!” Albert pleads.
“If I don’t see you for a month, I’ll bring it back.” Drew yells as the door slams behind him.
“Oh C’mon!” Albert yells to the empty house.
He sits for a moment, wondering if Drew was serious about Sam’s Grandmother. He reaches down next to the couch and grabs another controller, mumbling “Whatever, sucker. You’ll be back.”
Junk’s already changed into a fresh uniform and packed the gear back up, taking a drag off his vape and says “Did you kill him? Please tell me you killed him.”
“My name’s not diabetes.” Drew mutters, still irritated as he kicks off his boots and drops trou on the sidewalk, then pulls off his shirt and grabs his backpack from one of the outside compartments, pulls out clean clothes.
Junk takes another pull and offers it to Drew. “Want some? Helps get the smell out of your nose.”
“No” Drew refuses “ But you do look damn sexy sucking that robot dick. I see a future for you in robo-porn. You could be a pioneer.”
“You’re about to become famous, yourself.” Junk replies, motioning up the street. A group of young clowns two doors down have their phones out and are snapping pics of Drew in his skivvies.
Drew looks back at them and waves. “I’d better not see those on Ebay!” he yells, pulling his pants on.
A combination of laughs and catcalls come back, as well as “Chicken legs.”
Drew mocks surprise, turns to Junk. “Do I have chicken legs?”
Junk blows raspberry-scented vapor at him and laughs. “Yep. Chicken from neck to nuts, too. Speaking of, it’s taco time.”
Junk gets in the rig and starts it up, starts to pull away as Drew jogs to catch up and hop in before he gets left in this shitty neighborhood.
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Early signs of damage
You first experience gunfire at the age of six. The sound of a large caliber handgun being fired in the next room rips you out of that blissful sleep that only the very young are capable of. You were sleeping in Faye’s bed. Mom’s crazy friend Faye who you adore because she’s fun and crazy and every time she sees you she picks you up and bites your ass as you giggle uncontrollably. Faye, your first crush who, years later you’ll run into as she leaves the news stand at the bus terminal at the foot of Danforth Avenue with a brown paper bag just like the one’s your mom sent you to pick up. Eddie, the guy behind the counter always gives you free candy whenever you go on a run to pick up the brown paper bag you’re not supposed to open. You never have to ask Eddie for anything, he just hands it to you with a shaky hand while smiling with too many teeth, his Steve Buscemi eyes practically rolling out of his head. Faye looks as strung out and emaciated as Eddie does but there’s enough of her left hanging from the skeleton she’s piloting that you recognize her. She’s the first in a long list of people that you run into as you age that you consider the people that used to be.
But that’s years away, and tonight Faye is still young and pretty and firey. You can hear her screaming at someone in the other room as your mom bolts into the bedroom and picks up your terrified and crying form and heads for the door. She’s assuring you that everything is ok as she carries you through the smoky kitchen and the familiar stink of shitty weed is overpowered by the scent of something new and metallic; gunpowder. You recognize it as smelling a little like the metal railing that leads down the stairs to your apartment door, especially in the summer when the metal gets good and hot.
As you’re being carried through the kitchen, I’ve Seen That Movie Too by Elton John is playing on the turntable. Forever bound to this memory as you catch a glimpse of Mountain and Skipper, two friends of your mom’s that always scared you. Mountain was aptly named, a behemoth biker-dude blessed with a beard that would make the most jaded hipster jealous today. Skipper was smaller, a ‘70’s polyester playboy with a typical, skeevy mustache that all the cocaine-fueled party boys were wearing. They’re both yelling and holding Faye back as she screams and flails at someone being held down by a pile of more yelling people. The image of some skinny, shirtless guy, high as fuck and pointing in awe at one of the bullet holes in the wall is another image you’ll carry with you always, as well as the linoleum floor tile, streaked with what might be blood but you can’t tell because it’s 1977 and nearly every house you go to is a dimly-lit, wanna-be love shack adorned with plastic bead doorway curtains and blacklight posters.
As you’re carried across the threshold of the patio door and into the cool, fall air you see more people making a run for it. Some getting into cars while others leave across the train tracks behind the house on foot. Mom makes it to the car without ever turning around to answer the voice that’s been yelling her name ever since you made it outside. She opens the door and pushes you into the car, across a front seat the size of a small couch and gets in after you. She’s still trying to calm you down as she starts the engine and peels away from the curb, pulling you close and making you lie down on the seat with your head on her lap as you hear more gunfire go off back the way you came. She’s gently brushing your hair and reassuring you that everything is ok and you’re safe even though seat belts and car seats are optional at best because it’s the 70’s and everyone drives a tank anyway. Never mind the fact that she’s already bounced off at least one parked car, a habit you’ll become well acquainted with as you get older, never being able to keep from flinching as she takes off the side-view mirrors from most of the cars parked on West Side Avenue on more than one DUI outing.
You both make it home in one piece, asleep on the front seat of the Chrysler that’s covered in fresh dents and scratches that blend into the old. Your mom carries you inside and puts you to bed but you wake to some unfamiliar sounds in the apartment so you get up and peek, watching as she pulls little brown bags from her purse and hides them all over, in cupboards and shoes and one even inside the phone. There’s a knock at the front door and you sneak back into your bed. You lay there pretending to be asleep, watching her go to the door and ask without opening it who’s there. You can’t make out the reply but she opens the door and you watch two police officers enter the apartment, friendly and familiar. They call her Maggie, which is a name that few refer to her by. The same two cops that, a few years from now, will be sitting on your couch drinking coffee at two in the morning while she beats the shit out of you out of frustration and relief, the missing persons’ report forgotten the moment you walked in the door. Because back then the cops in the neighborhood all lived in and many grew up in the neighborhood and more often than not things got resolved off the books. The same two cops that coach her like corner men in a boxing match as she whoops your ass are now asking her questions about earlier tonight. About the party. It’s a casual conversation, they’re not even writing anything down. Mentioning names and laughing at jokes you don’t understand. You fall asleep while they’re talking, the exhaustion finally catching up with you.
The next day is quiet, no mention of the previous night’s excitement is made. Mom sleeps late like she always does on her days off and you’ve learned to be quiet so you get as much cartoon and cereal time as possible. The day passes and that night she takes you down to the carnival on route 440, just the two of you. You have a great time riding the kiddie rides and playing games, the previous night’s craziness all but forgotten until you get close to the bumper cars and the ozone smell coming off the contact points that make the cars go flashes your memory. The smell is similar enough to the gunpowder from last night and it comes rushing back for a moment but everything is alright because it’s just you and mom and none of her scary friends until later when she squeals as she’s grabbed from behind and lifted into the air by some man you’ve never seen before. It’s a scary moment until she sees who’s grabbed her and she laughs and you realize it’s someone she knows. The night becomes less fun then as she spends more time and attention on this new guy and you’re riding rides and playing carnival games on your own while she laughs and enjoys herself.
It’s time to go and she says you’re going to go over to this guy’s house now and you pitch a fit because you’re just tired of these shady, disposable people and because you’re six but mostly because last night is still a raw memory and you’re thinking about the smell of gunpowder.
#amwriting
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Abandon
Where did you put the last red giraffe? The one who's color outgrew his lines He lived on pink grass, beneath a square purple sun. You loved that giraffe, crooked on the paper just like the green dog with orange wings you drew the day before. And then a short-sighted grown-up with a mis-matched career told you it was wrong. Giraffes aren't red and grass isn't pink and the sun isn't square and that's when you began to fall in line. Your first step on the road to becoming a well-adjusted citizen is made the moment you fold up that red giraffe and throw it away. Draw them a nice yellow one, one who's colors stay inside his lines and match the image of a proper giraffe for these proper, miserable people who don't understand the beauty of a real giraffe, let alone one as unique as the one conjured by your clumsy little fingers awkwardly holding a crayon but don't worry they'll fix your crayon-holding technique soon enough now isn't that better? Good little cog. And now you're a model employee with the skills to get it done to company standards while toeing the company line and earning that yearly bonus so you can lease that new car smell while texting and conference calling at 6 miles per hour in a sea of other disillusioned consumers crawling their way to the top while looking to buy the next-gen wireless anesthesia device at $300 per month. And we know you gave us 100% last year but you understand volatility and fluctuations in the market and this is just a growth process and we're a start-up with billions in assets nice tie by the way, you're not getting that bonus this year but hey it's not you it's an internal issue or a CQI issue or it's because none of your betters have a red giraffe on their fridge at home. I know you didn't throw that red giraffe in the trash. You hid him away while coloring yellow giraffe after yellow giraffe until you forgot that giraffes can be red and dogs can be green and the sun can be a purple square if you want. You need to find that red giraffe and take him for a walk. Let him graze on pink grass and talk with your friends' multi-colored zoo and play on their polka-dotted lawns because the further away you get from the way the world should be the closer you get to the way it is and nobody survives that.
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Almost none of the video games from the early 80's made a lick of sense. They were colorful, near-hallucinatory panic simulators.
And they were magical. The first time I saw a Pac-Man cabinet I was hypnotized by the colors, the cute cartoon ghosts and the pulsing sound of pellets being eaten. It was bizarre nonsense and we loved it. There was some semblance of real life, or at least a facsimile of possibility in some games. But 90% of them were batshit fucking crazy. There were serious drugs involved in the creation of these gems:
Donkey Kong
Burger Time
Dig Dug
Mr Do
Make Trax
Centipede
Tempest
And dozens more. Vampires of time and loose quarters, these machines drained us daily and we loved them for it. But that was before Nancy Reagan and the "war on drugs".
Now all that once innovative industry gives us is the same three games repackaged every year or two: First person shooters, Madden and zombies, zombies, zombies. There's no magic, no wonder. Because modern day game designers are off drugs.
Drugs are good, kids. Do drugs. Make magic.
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To be Haunted
The neighborhood was old, wrapped in cracked streets and covered in tightly packed crooked houses. Houses that moaned when the wind blew and creaked when their boards expanded in the heat.
These were houses that had been lived in, loved by and imprinted on by the people that had once occupied them. Old families that had been born, and some that had died in these homes.
This was a neighborhood heavy with history. Not the history of great import, told of in history books and handed down from generation to generation. But the history of faded memory, of simple lives and basic, purest loves. History of families and neighbors, the kind that took care of one another. Simple stories of barbecues and Christmas lights. Stick ball games and sewing circles. Men drinking around the hood of a car on a weekend night.
And like all neighborhoods with the weight of everyday history, this one was haunted. Every house occupied by any number of ghosts. Some had one or two, many had quite a few more. One even had fifteen, all from different time periods which led to some very odd-looking parties after dark. These weren't the ghosts of fiction and fantasy that spook the living. These were the real ghosts, the ones that had little interest in the material world and spent their time living ghost lives in ghost houses, blissfully unconcerned with the living.
And like their living counterparts, the ghosts would throw block parties and visit one another for coffee. They'd gossip and garden and grocery shop.
But this isn't a story of ghosts. It's a story of houses. One house in particular, which we'll get to. A house that lived and breathed, just like these houses. When a house is built, it's built of wood and stone. Of copper, iron and steel. But more importantly, it's built of possibilities. Possibilities of being occupied, and thus loved and lived in. And when a house is full of possibilities, it's alive. And these houses were very much alive, living simple lives with the fulfillment that comes from purpose. The purpose of providing shelter and community. And while not every single person who ever lived in a house haunts it after they've passed over, they do leave imprints; Scents of meals long since cooked, echoes of laughs in hallways and afterimages of dances in dining rooms. Remnants of the life that went on under the eaves and behind the doors. These things are a part of what gives life to a house.
Those things take time to accumulate, building slowly like a great reef. It's why, if you've ever stepped foot in a brand-new home, you feel like you're standing in a storage container. A hollow vessel.
Nothing has been left behind, yet.
Like the house this story is actually about.
The lot had been empty for as long as anyone had known, and even further back than that. Nobody had known why, it just always had been. Talk of issues with the bank and missing deeds was occasionally heard, but for the most part the neighborhood never paid it much thought. Just an empty lot nearly dead-center of town, between packed houses on a street full of life in both realms. A dirt lot with nothing but patches of weeds that would occasionally serve as ballpark for the local kids.
Until one day the trucks showed up and began all the work that entails building a new house. Leveling and pouring and laying pipe and framing walls until a house stood in the spot, shiny and new and waiting to be occupied. The stirrings of a new house waiting to become a home. The neighborhood welcomed the new house, people excited with the prospect of new neighbors. Ghostly visits were paid to it as well, spirits eager to watch history shape itself. And of course the other houses watched on in great delight at the promise of first possibilities, something none of them had seen for ages.
The house had it's own excitement to attend to, after all it was about to begin it's story, waiting the fulfillment of every house's dream:
To be haunted.
And so the house waited.
And waited.
And still it waited.
It waited through months of occasional visits by potential owners, none of whom ever returned; Singles and newlyweds, families with three kids and one on the way. Single parents with grubby kids that left boogers on the doors with their grubby hands. Snooty people who felt the house wasn't up to their standards and gracious people who couldn't believe how charming the place seemed. And most promising, one elderly couple teasing the house with the promise of a haunting sooner rather than later.
Some said it was the bank again, though nobody really knew why. The house stood empty for years, silent and longing, collecting only dust and sunlight while hoping for echoes and vibrations. Life and afterlife went on around the house, block parties and spectral revelries echoing through the years, building the history of the neighborhood as the house could only watch and wait. Falling into disrepair until it looked less out of place on that old street. The other houses looking on with pity at the empty shell until it became a thing mostly ignored, except by the neighborhood kids who swore it was haunted, who would not go near it.
Until...
The sound of keys unlocking the front door broke the silence of abandoned years as the new owner of the house entered it for the first time. The house knew immediately that it had finally become occupied by the sound. Keys in a door, if you listen very carefully, make a very different sound when wielded by a stranger than they do when used by the owner of said key and door. The house stirred as she entered, an explosion of hope and potential for the first time in decades. As she went room by room, taking a quick inventory of the place, opening curtains and letting in the day, the house shuddered and creaked in wonder. Windows opened and lights lit for the first time in ages, the house began to beam with pride at the neighborhood. It's long slumber shattered by the promise of possibility. The pulse of her footsteps on the floor bounced against the walls, igniting the heartbeat of the house, bringing it to life once again.
She would move her things in, sleep beneath its roof and dance upon its floors. She would read in it's corners and sit at it's windows. She would use it's space to make warm, everyday memories. She would occupy it, and she was perfect.
Nobody really knew where she had come from or how or why the house had suddenly been sold. People stated the bank as culprit again, and that she had just taken a chance on something on a whim, purchased sight unseen. The house didn't care, it was occupied and whole for the first time. The houses on either side and across the street saw the change that came over the once abandoned place and watched with elation as it again became hopeful with purpose.
Days and weeks and months passed, and the woman began to make it her own; painting and fixing and decorating, doing much of the work herself. She was a very busy person and rarely home, which made the house that much more grateful when she was, or when she had the occasional get-together with friends whom the house saw very little of.
The house absorbed her every chance it could; the smells from her cooking, the sounds of her laughter, the image of her shape passing through a doorway. Hand prints on walls and scuff marks on floors. It began to build it's history and for the first time, felt purpose. Felt occupied. It waited patiently for the numbers beneath it's roof to multiply, for it's memories to expand rapidly.
And it waited.
For reasons her own, after only a few years the woman decided it was time to move on. Anyone who asked , she could never say exactly why it was time. Just that it was. She'd extol the myriad virtues of the house; it was nice enough, spacious but cozy. Cool in summer, warm in winter. She'd explain her fondness for it's lines and it's geometry, how it never made odd noises at night and that she always slept deeply. That she felt safe behind it's sturdy doors. She would tell them the house was, overall, amazing. And yet she did not feel at home. She admitted that perhaps if she had spent more time there it might be different but she had so much to do and that's just life, isn't it?
The house could only watch as she packed up her things and moved out. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, she was gone. The house was no longer occupied, though the echoes of her footsteps could be heard if the moment was just right. Or her laugh. Or a scent of something she had cooked in it's kitchen. A glimpse of her face would blink in the mirror if the light was just so.
And there the house stood for years on end again, as it had before. Unoccupied and empty, missing the one thing vital to making a house a home. Over time, the dust settled as the silence thickened between the walls and the echoes faded.
Eventually the house took small consolation in the fact that it had gotten it's wish.
It was finally haunted.
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It’s Only Falling in Love Because You Hit the Ground
"I think I remember reading a comparison of falling in love to being in a car wreck." He said to me, our conversation going on much longer than I should have allowed.
"That’s only if you both feel the same way." I replied.
" But professing your love towards someone who doesn’t feel remotely the same? That’s more like falling down the stairs at a crowded party that you’re the guest of honor at, and she’s on your arm as you make your entrance from the second floor; man of the hour, cock of the walk, everybody loves you and we’re all gonna have a good fucking time tonight."
"You’re in jeans and your socks, flying casual because, hey, it’s what you do, and what you so erroneously think she likes about you. It’s your moment, you got this, easy. Arms up, triumphant, you make your entrance just like you imagined you should."
I describe it a little because he’s looking at me the way most people do before I start rolling.
" You know, one hand on her face, as you say what you think is going to cause her to melt, just like you practiced a hundred times before. She flinches, looks away for a second, unsure how to react, which is a kindness on her part."
"Those stupid socks, a physical manifestation of that fake ease you carry around, fail you. You slip coming around the landing, your big moment exploding before it’s ten feet off the launch pad.. A nervous laugh sprays from your face as you attempt to blow it off like this is a recoverable moment. Not happening. It doesn’t matter how much time slows down, there isn’t a witty quip or a heartfelt look that’s going to turn this around."
The kid’s not even looking at me, doesn’t know how to react. Kid has no agency. Most of these little shits don’t, these days.
"It was her gravity that pulled you to this point, and as your knee cracks against that first step, it’s gravity that’s going to fuck your ego right in the ass, no dinner, no phone call the next morning.
As your feet take over for your head with that first somersault you know in the back of your mind that this won’t hurt until much later, after the rush is long gone and the bruises a deep shade of I told you so.
The rest of the tumble will be remembered in the one glance of her face you caught, as she stood at the top of the stairs, watching you crash. That glance, for a split second you mistook for a smile, only to realize it was a grimace, the one she makes as she flinches again and again with every bounce your skull takes.
The sound of the air whooshing past your ears and the horrified gasps of the onlookers not even close to as loud as the FUCK! echoing in your head.
You manage to grab the railing, wrenching your shoulder until it pops and the arm goes numb, but it’s enough to slow you down so you land on wobbling feet, to the roar of applause. Fist bumps and hugs and you take a pull at one of the half dozen beers offered you in a toast to your greatness.
Everyone is cheering, and for a second you don’t feel the throbbing where your head met the stairs, the tearing where you wrenched your joints, or the numbness in your arm from whatever compressed in your neck.
Everyone but her.
She’s still at the top of the stairs, mouth open, shaking her head slightly. And the ache starts, you feel the flush in your face as the throb in your bones and the knot in your guts compete for your attention.
The next day you can barely stand upright, feeling like you’re made of broken branches. Your ankle is twisted, eye swollen and your hurt from neck to nuts. You must’ve cracked a few ribs because you can’t take a full breath without wincing.
You feel like an utter twat, the walking douche. That look she gave you now burned into your brain.
But deep down, in that dark place nobody ever sees, you can’t fucking wait to do it again.”
The kid finishes his beer with a thanks and heads off. Nobody ever knows how to react once they realize you’re getting personal.
I hate people that can’t sit comfortably silent next to a stranger
*with thanks to QOTSA for the title inspiration.
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Basement apartment dreams
I don't normally sleep well in the ambulance, but I went deep enough to dream last night. The radio woke me up, confused as to why the dispatcher was telling me I had "Such a hard edge, there's so much anger in you." I don't remember the dream but I remember my mother telling me the same thing. I was twelve or thirteen years old and she was in the middle of one of her benders. One of the bad ones. The kind that makes the air throb with dread and an undercurrent of menace that I could sense before entering the house when I got home from school. I remember the outrage I felt from being told I had a lot of anger in me from one of the people who shoveled it into my furnace regularly. I remember the pills I had thrown across the kitchen and the bottle of vodka I had dumped down the sink, still at that stage where I thought such actions could make a difference. I remember the throbbing in my knuckles and the dents in the side of the refrigerator. I remember the heat in my face from the shame of having this secret, regular chore witnessed by my friends. At the time that was the worst part of it. Why couldn't she keep it together until I got my friends out of the house? Now I just wonder why she couldn't at least be a proper Irish woman and drink whiskey. Fucking vodka? Christ. She drank that shit straight, too. Must be some Russian further down the family tree. Could be my subconscious was trying to get me out of this writing slump. Or maybe it was her, slapping me from the great unknown. Thanks mom, I'm writing now. I still have that anger but I take it out on the keyboard. My fridge is dent-free.
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Night bells
My doorbell rang at 2:30 this morning. I looked through the peephole, couldn't see anything. I opened the door and was greeted by the sight of a kid in an old-school, homemade ghost costume: a white bed sheet with eye holes cut out. The sheet was grimy, like he'd been wearing it for weeks. The eye holes were unevenly spaced, jaggedly cut and positioned where his neck should be. "What do you want?" I asked, my heart pounding and my hair standing on end. He held up a burlap sack, dirtier than his sheet. It was hanging heavy, full of something that was obviously soaking the bottom of the sack. "Trick treat." He whispered, his voice like that of a man drowning in something viscous. I'm not ashamed to say that voice made me glance at the pistol on the shelf next to the door. "You're early." I stammered out, failing at a friendly smile. The bells from the nearby church began to ring, soon followed by what sounded like every bell in every church in the city. The kid..the thing, it tilted it's head at the sound and whispered again. "The bells toll. He comes." The bells ended all at once as my porch light flickered off, just for a second. I heard another "Trick treat" come from the darkness, closer this time. The light flickered back on and I was alone again. I turned on every light in the place and did not go back to sleep, just sat in bed, away from the window and watched and listened until sunrise. I will not be home this Halloween.
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Sisyphus 2.0
What ho, you modern day crusaders, you defenders of the righteous flocks to which you belong.
You, the daring intellectual who rages impotently on message boards against your mortal enemies, thier faces as anonymous as yours.
You, who threaten to take up arms against our oppressors, if they dare to cross this line.
Or was it this line?
THIS line! We mean it!
You, who every day take to social media to evangelize to the legion of like-minded beings under the guise of “educating” “them”.
You, who sagely nod as you type “TRUTH” while linking an article to your profile, believing it a shield as you enter the arena. Battles of politics, sociology, religion, science.
Here’s to you, never realizing that you will change neither hearts nor minds, until you realize it is the youth that requires your attention. The ingrained habits and beliefs of the old guard cannot be changed. Only diluted by time and the education of the young until the next level of evolution locks in to place.
Your daily Sisyphian efforts have not gone unnoticed, and I humbly request that you continue. For I’d rather know you are safely locked within your home righteously raging at the internet, than wandering the streets. Or worse, reproducing.
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Class Fades Into History
Just picked up a patient from an assisted living facility. Outside of each resident's quarters, ( all female in that section from what I could tell) next to the door was a plaque with a little history about the person, and an 8X10 photo from when they were younger adults. All the photos shared several elements; ballgowns, makeup, pearls and old Hollywood class.
All very Garbo and Bacall.
I want to live long enough to see that place when the selfie generation is living there.
"Gramma, what are you doing in that picture?"
"That's called a kegstand, sweetie."
"Gramma, why are your lips all pushed out like that?"
"That's how we posed back then, dear."
"Gramma, what's 420 mean?
"Ask your mom."
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Enough
I will never know
The endorphin high from the roar of the crowd
The reductive sight of an Earthrise
The sweet sound of my newborn’s wail
The bitter tears as her hand is taken by another man
The hellish roar of the winds of Venus
The comatose pressures in the Mariana Trench
I will never know what you really thought
Or who I really should have been
But I’ve known the weight of mercurial love
And the subsonic pulse of unearthly lust
I have drunk myself to clarity
And run myself to empty
And laughed myself towards agony
In hours of wordless conversation with my brothers
Maybe that'll suffice
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The Rarest She
You’re walking through the woods. Alone with your thoughts, enjoying the relative silence, the sound of your footsteps on the undergrowth. The wind in the trees, the birds talking to each other. You look up, and somehow your clumsy, clambering footsteps have gone unnoticed. The deer is so close, it’s unfathomable how she didn’t hear you. You stand there, staring for what feels like an hour. She’s beautiful. You don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don’t blink, for fear of startling her. Heart pounding in your chest, you’re afraid she’ll hear it and bolt.
I walked into the room, focused on the job. Until I saw her. Time slowed for just a moment, that felt like an hour.
That’s what it was like when I first saw her.
She looked up, then away, and I felt my heart speed up. For a second I forgot how to walk. . The only good thing about her not even noticing me was that she missed that part. She was beautiful, and I had to mentally shake my head, clear the daze she had put me in.
Ok, stop acting like a child. First impression time. Get her attention. Be funny. Be interesting. Be sexy. Be…not me.
“Hey”.
It falls out of my mouth like a bird that died mid-flight. If words have colors, this one is puce. Feldgrau. Caput mortuum.
Hey? HEY? That’s your opener? For fucks’ sake, Charlie Brown could raise more pulses.
"Hi" she replies. God, she’s stunning. Hypnotic eyes, unreal jaw line, cheekbones. Her smile, slightly uneven. Wry, like she knows something embarrassing about you.
Small talk, mostly work-related. I’m fascinated, she’s come across as smart, funny and a little hard to read.
Then, suddenly, I’m back in the woods. “…my boyfriend…” she says. The buck charges, twelve-points and three hundred pounds, smelling of blood and dust and revelations. It knocks me out of my shoes, and I roll until physics says otherwise. It hurts to breathe and can taste blood. By the time I’m vertical again, she’s gone. Back in to the woods.
The night goes on, and I can’t shake her voice. Her eyes. Her smile. I’ll see her again, glimpses here and there. And I’m always looking.
Almost a year passes, I catch the occasional glimpse of her. The occasional dream. It’s a bad, slow year. But the thought of her will bring me out of it for a while. Then it happens. A chance encounter that brings her close. She’s alone in the hall. The woods. More small talk, I can use my words this time. I ask, she concedes. We go to dinner, and I’m wrapped around her every word. I have a lovely time with her. I blink and she disappears again, I can hear her crashing through the green.
More time passes.
Almost two years since I first laid eyes on her, since she trapped me in the woods. Tonight I finally have her in my arms. She smells like the forest. Like life. Looking into her green eyes, inches from mine. No, I’m looking into a pond, still and green, reflecting the leaves above. I don’t hear the T.V. now, I hear the forest. My own breathing, rapid and shallow. I’m nervous, heart pounding and I need. I need her. I need to taste her lips, so I pull her towards me. She moves to me, pushes her body against mine. We’re in the forest again, and it starts to downpour. Our lips touch and we sink into the mud. Her lips are so soft, warm. It feels like they’re surrounding me. I hear a hundred birds explode into flight from the trees above us. The sound is distant, the mud muffles all sound as it envelops us. . All I feel are her lips. When she opens them and pulls my tongue in to her mouth, lighting strikes all around, through us. I taste and smell ozone, it’s intoxicating. Metallic. Primal. My legs weaken from the jolt and suddenly I’m miles above, plummeting to the forest below. Her arms reach down to my hips and my descent slows, I land gently.
She pulls away and I stand there agape, shell-shocked. She must know it, for she’s giving me that look, that sly smile that puts me off guard. I want to hold on, keep her against me, taste her again. But she walks across the room and I can’t move. Paralyzed with awe, desire. I think hear a distant tree crash to the ground.
We spend the night together. Even if I wanted to share the details with you, I couldn’t. Sometimes language fails us, and this is one of those times. Cosmic. Magical. Wonderful. Erotic. Blissful. All meaningless here.
Again and again, all through the night, more revelations of the forest. When I first sat down to write this, I thought I was just inspired. The deer metaphor was the most appropriate description. But now, as I put pen to paper, as I reminisce, details rush back. Things I was made to forget. She has a power.
And I remember the next morning. Lying awake, studying her face, listening to her breathe, she opened her eyes and looked into mine. Smiled. Only when I kissed her good morning, did I notice the leaf tangled in her hair, the dirt smudge on her cheek. And as I pulled her to me, resting her head upon my chest, I buried my face in her hair. Breathed her in.
And then more than ever, she smelled like home
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They don't come natural.
Yes, I vomited the first time I killed someone and no, it wasn't some guilt-induced spew. I had tracked the guy for two days, he had just killed his eighth kid in six months and I was heated. He was hiding in the middle of the Sonoran desert and I caught him taking a piss outside the R.V. I came up over the ridge at almost two hundred miles an hour, about six feet off the ground. The punch was ugly, but at that speed the only qualifier it needed was accuracy. More or less. I'd gotten into the habit of keeping my mouth shut while flying after learning that locust swarm tastes like pickles and I fucking hate pickles. But my adrenaline was redlined and I felt like a warrior-god at that point. Like Zeus had chained Conan to Rambo and thrown them at an opposing army. So naturally I let out my best Green Beret-barbarian yodel at the moment of truth. Something you might not know about flying is that it takes a bit of concentration. Not the level of concentration it takes to hit a moving target at two thousand yards. More like the concentration it takes to stop pissing mid-stream until the need to go subsides. It took a second to realize the blob that had just landed in the back of my throat was a chunk of dead pedophile brain. I hit the ground vomiting, skidding and rolling through brush and cactus for maybe eighty yards. I sat up, covered in blood and dirt and vomit and cactus spines, my goggles missing a lens and my mouth missing a tooth. The only other thing missing was the Road Runner screeching to a halt and giving be a "Beep Beep!" before taking off again. Not my finest moment. But I've learned quite a bit of finesse since then. #fiction
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Strange, strange dreams when you fall asleep in a church basement
What I remember-
Sitting at a table in a room that looked like it hadn’t been occupied since it was bombed during WWI. Across from me was a man in a dirty wife-beater, he looked like Stacy Keach, the room both acrid and aromatic from the cigar he was puffing.
I think I said hello to him.
He smiled at me like he knew my darkest secret, bit his lower lip and muttered “Uh-huh”.
“Know me?“ He asked
“Nope.”
“The Big Man. Numero Uno. Big Cheese. The Man Upstairs. You know me.”
“Oh? How’s that going?”
“Tiring. Not what I went to school for.” He says while grinding his stogie out on the floor.
I look around the room, at the charred walls, demolished furnishings. Wall-to-wall cockroach husks glowing in the sick-yellow light coming through the filth-covered windows.
“Nice place. Just move in?”
“Not mine, buckaroo. This is all you.” He replies with an arch in his brow
“My place isn’t the nicest, but this? Not it.”
“Your dream, your soul. This is yours, shithead. Work it out later. Got an offer for you.”
“You don’t look like I’d have expected. That part of me too?”
“Made in my own image, remember?” He winks. "Kidding. If you saw what I really looked like, were to actually hear my voice, you’d melt into a pool of madness and your molecules would distend into infinity. Not pleasant.“
I wonder if I can sell this story to the Vatican.
” Those clowns and I have nothing to do with one another. You want to hear my offer or no? I have things to get to.”
Did he just read my mind?
“Yep. Perks.”
“I’m sitting in a room that doesn’t exist, talking to a man I don’t believe in who’s making me an offer and reading my mind. Sure, this will be a hoot. Let me guess, kill my first born? Build a boat and fill it with two of each snack-cake? Got two stone tablets with your rules 2.0 on them for me to roll out?”
“You’re a dick. You’ve always been a dick. Now shut up. I told you, Me and the Vatican have nothing to do with each other. Or any other group on this planet. They’re all wrong. Except the part about an afterlife, that’s true unfortunately. ‘Cause this job is tiring. I need a break, so I’m going on walkabout.”
“Walkabout? That’s mighty Australian sounding, mate.” He doesn’t mirror my grin.
“ I love Australia. Know why there’s so much dangerous shit there? ‘Cause you fucks were supposed to stay out. Way too many secrets buried there. But as you evolved, you spooked less and less. Became more tenacious, and it didn’t help that the first people you sent were the hardest of the hard. We underestimated you.”
“What about the Aborigines?”
“What?”
“The Aborigines.
The indigenous people. Dark skin, bare feet, Dreamtime. All that shit.”
He stares at me for a second “Huh. You at least believe you’re telling the truth. But we never put anybody there. It’s news to me. I’ll look into it when I get back.”
“They’re all over Australia, have you even been there, all-seeing, all-knowing one?”
“Yes, wiseass. I’m there right now, I see every inch of it. And I don’t see any evidence of the people you see in your mind. If I had to guess, I’d say they exist on a frequency I can’t see, but you can. it’s happened once before. A mystery for later.” He dismisses any more conversation on the matter with a wave of the back of his hand.
“So, I’m headed out, yeah? But if I’m not there, I can’t keep track of the numbers coming in. When I’m gone I’m not allowed to look in the windows of my own house. Bum deal. And the landlord’s real specific about population allowances. So I need someone to take care of that. That’s where you come in.”
“So…you need a doorman?” I laugh sarcastically in his alcoholic face.
“Old man, you are a trip. Mind if I try to get this published after I wake up? This is fun.”
His face hardens, and it feels like he’s staring into the back of my skull.
“I’m already tired of your attitude, asshole. If I’m not who I say, how do I know about that time Frankie was over, when you were kids. Remember? Your Mom was sleeping off another bender on the couch, and Frankie started feeling her up. But he was bigger and mean and you didn’t have the stones to do anything about it. Ever tell anyone about that?”
My stomach hits my feet and I feel like puking. No, I never told anyone, and I had all but forgotten about it.
“How about that teacher in the sixth grade? The one with the belt, and the grabby hands…”
I’m over the table and throwing him on the floor before I know what I’m doing. I pull my hand back, ready to pound on his skull until it’s a puddle, but he just looks at me calmly and says
“Stop”.
I don’t know if he actually said it, I don’t remember his mouth moving. But I heard it. Felt it, like an M-80 going off behind me. I couldn’t move, couldn’t blink. Don’t think I was breathing even though I should have been huffing by then.
“Now get off me, and go sit down.”
I do as I’m told, like I can’t possibly disobey. I sit and look up, he’s already seated, smiling like a grandfather that just gave his grandson a good ribbing.
He’s looking at me quizzically, mutters something that sounds like “surprised me” under his breath.
Back to the hard stare. “Do we understand each other yet?” He asks, pulling on another cigar that I swear he didn’t have a second ago.
“Yeah, got it. You’re God, I get it.”
I don’t really, but fuck. Whatever this guy is, he has me freaked now, so I go with it.
He scowls a little. “No, you don’t still. But you’re not stupid, you’ll get there. And don’t call me God, you talking monkey. Now, about my offer.”
“Doorman.”
“Not a doorman. Tried that once. The guy that ultimately became the legend of Saint Peter? Heard of him, right?
He was fine at first, but what does every doorman eventually do once they’ve got the lay of the club? They start letting in only the hot girls in hopes of going home with one of them. No, what I need, is someone who doesn’t get that close. We’ll use sniper, for lack of a better term.”
I have the most preposterous image in my head then, and laugh sardonically at this. It helps break my newfound fear of this man, and I’m able to think again.
“Sniper at the gates of Heaven” I’m grinning so hard it’s uncomfortable.
“Pretty much.”
What about Hell? I thought-
“Everyone gets to ring the doorbell, kid. That was part of the deal . A little extra suffering for them that aren’t making the cut.” His face goes taut again, like he’s eating crow by telling me that.
“So, we-they were right about Hell too?”
“That’s what you people named it. Again, none of you have a clue.”
“The Devil? Satan?”
“Like I said, she’s a fuck of a landlord. And she doesn’t go by those names either.” He crushes the last of his cigar in his fist, opening it to release a moth that flies to the dirty window.
Fuck it, I’m going with it now. I bought the ticket, might as well see the show
“You lost Heaven to the devil, but she lets you rent. And you want a vacation, so you came here to interview me for a temp spot.
That sum it up? How many more applicants do you have? What kind of benefits do you offer? I need dental, and I’m due for an eye exam.
How the fuck did you lose Heaven to the Devil? And He’s a She?”
“Oops,” He says, spreading his hands in an ‘Oh well’ gesture
“I do enjoy a good wager. I have a Gamblers Anonymous meeting to get to, as a matter of fact. Told you I have things to get to. So if we could speed this up?”
This couldn’t get any more preposterous, and I’m loving it.
“You go to Gamblers Anonymous. Here? Earth? Or is there some special charter in the afterlife?”
“Nope. Here. They work. For a while. Plus, it’s helpful to see beings more miserable than Myself. I walk out of there with a spring in my step. Like how you go to Wal-Mart when you’re trying to get out ofthat self-loathing mode.”
Fuck, what doesn’t his guy know about me?
He winks at me. “Nothing.”
“Why me?” I ask, suddenly feeling special.
“Luck of the draw. You’re the shit I took this morning. Winner, winner, chicken dinner. You want the job or no? I got a thing…”
“For how long? Like, I temp in Heaven for a few months and then come back here?”
He laughs. “Not too long. Half of eternity maybe, depending on how I’m feeling. I’m the boss, get to make my vacation time as long as I want.”
“What the hell is a half of eternity?”
He looks at his watch.“You wouldn’t understand. Yes or no?”
“What happens to my life here? My stuff? Family? Friends? They just file a missing persons report that never gets solved?”
“If it’s easier on you, I can wipe their memories of you, you’ll have never existed. I’d like to do that to you as well, makes it easier on you when they start showing up at The Ranch.”
“What? No! Why wouldn’t I want to recognize my family when they get there? You call it the ranch?”
“No, The Ranch. And yes, You might not want to know these people. Everyone who shows up, you cast your eye upon, and their entire life is yours to know. Then you make your judgment, thumbs up
or down. Really want to do that to your Mom? Your Dad? Best friends? All the women you’ve ever been with?”
“You really think I’d send a family member to He-whatever you call it? The fuck kind of monster do you think I am? You got the wrong guy here, I think.”
“Everyone has secrets, and you’ll know them all. So no, I don’t
think. I Know you’d send loved ones packing. You don’t want to know some of those secrets when it’s personal. One last question and make your decision”
“What could possibly be in it for me?”
He tells me
And I give him my answer.
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Our poor future
I don’t have kids, but if I did, I’d hate to watch them exist in this current state of youth gone bland.
I’d want my kids to know the bliss of leaving the house in the morning on a summer day, only returning for lunch, a drink, a bandage. Or because the streetlights came on.
I’d want them to know the crazy homeless wanderers by name, and be on a first-name basis with the ice cream guy.
Which empty houses in the neighborhood were haunted, and how to get inside.
I’d want them to experience manhunt games that stretch for blocks. Bike ramps that look like they’re made out of pure menace and tetanus.
Football in the street, someone yelling “Car!” and causing a delay of game.
Stickball where first base is the left front tire of the car that belongs to the crazy lady across the street and you’d better damn well not get too close to it or she’ll come a runnin’.
Roof-hopping at dusk, throwing snowballs at buses and itchy-balls at the kids that live on a different block.
I’d want them to know the fear of knocking someone’s laundry off the clothesline while yard-hopping and hearing the screen door bang open.
The uncontrollable laughter of watching a friend’s mom slap him silly all the way home for disappearing all day.
To know the daily joy of going to the corner store for cold-cuts and milk and a pack of smokes for Mom, Hoping there’s enough change to buy some candy.
I’d want them to know the heartbreak of your last ball going down the sewer, and the sense of accomplishment when they manage to fish it out with the coat-hangers they stole from the closet.
I’d want them to have memories of these things, not selfies and reality shows and sitting in front of a screen all day.
But that’s just me, and I don’t have kids.
#childhood #backinmyday #kids
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The fault was mine, and the guilt will haunt me to the end of my days. It was 1979, Christmas eve. The night of what I now know to be a fell celebration of the darkest lord the pits of hell have ever spawned.
I was eight years old, unable to sleep from the anticipation of that jolly bastard’s nocturnal leavings. I was hungry. There were cookies on the table. I should have known better, but forgiveness was one of the things the adults had taught was part of Santa’s virtues. They were wrong.
For as the last cookie went down my greedy gullet, I heard a noise behind me. As I turned, I first saw the treasure pile he had left below the tree. The tree, I’ve come to learn, is just the initial sacrifice to this selfish, malevolent saint of secrets and trespassing.
The second sacrifice is the plate of earthly sweet treats left upon every table for him to devour. And I had just finished them off, while he watched. And seethed.
He began to swell, his rosy complexion darkening, smoke pouring from his eyes and ears and mouth. He grew to ten times his size, destroying half the house, killing my parents in the carnage as the inferno inside him was unleashed, igniting the remains of my home as I ran out the front door.
I fled, hearing the destruction of my childhood neighborhood behind me. I made it to the church, unsure if I was safe. Until morning, as i watched the carnage on the news, huddled around the T.V. with the priests that had given me shelter the night before.
Oh I most certainly believe in Santa, kids. And you should too.
And never, EVER eat those cookies.
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Musings in the waiting room.
Sitting in the waiting room for our patient. Oncology and radiation. The room is full of patients and their family members. Waiting for their daily dose of poison, hoping it does the trick. Some of the family members look more tired than the patients do. Illness takes it’s toll from whomever it can. The coffee maker in the corner randomly makes vibrating noises, like a Geiger-counter. I catch the irony, wonder if anyone else does.
My partner and I make small talk with some of the people. They’re friendly, speaking in hushed tones. The waiting room is a temple of sorts. Clusters of people that have gone through the stages of grief together, separately. I assume most are in the acceptance stage. The talk dies down and I stick my nose back in my book, all others turn their eyes to the vibrant, young, vapid brunette prattling on about some story of fabricated importance.
There’s a small twinge of guilt, sitting here. Guilt at being healthy, at walking out without a high dose of radiation throbbing in my cells. No super powers for me tonight. No weakness or nausea, either. Guilt is the most useless emotion. I have nothing to feel guilty for. My time’s coming, too. Might have already struck the hour and I just don’t know it yet. I’m one of you, you’re just ahead of the curve but I’m gaining. We’re all gaining.
I wonder when I wind up here, waiting for my cosmic blast, if there will be another crew in the waiting room. A crew I know. Have worked with. Joked with. Drank with. I wonder if they’ll feel guilty. I wonder if I’ll feel envious when they walk out.
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