22.1.09
"The Bren Livejournal Idol" writing contest
The following vignettes and poems were composed as entries for a Livejournal writing contest. Each week we were given a theme and pretty much free reign to write from there. From a field of about 50 initial competitors, after seventeen weekly eliminations by popular vote, I came in second.
"The Journey"
She stuffs necessary and unnecessary things into a brown leather backpack in the dark, while her father lies unconscious in the basement with his mistress, a woman he smoked at the strip-joint downtown and crushed out later in his bedsheets. Issa cries to herself as quietly as possible, grabbing another pair of panties, a book, and the chef's knife from the kitchen. This last memento she holds in her hand a moment, looking at the faint moonglow reflection, before replacing the plastic blade-guard and hiding the implement in her pack. As a final insult Issa stands on a kitchen chair to reach the old cigar box her father stows atop the cupboards, above the fridge. His primary stash of weed; she carefully empties the contents into the toilet tank; quietly puts the porcelain cover back on; places her acerbic note into the cigar box; returns the box to its hiding place. Issa never cracks a smile, but the tears have stopped. The decrepit porch creaks treacherously as she sneaks out the front door, but it's too late now. Here comes auburn Angela around the corner, her familiar green Passat purring, and she slows down while Issa jumps in, and then—they are away.
* * *
"I told my mother we're going to a midnight showing of Pulp Fiction," Angela explains, replying to an unasked question. "Where am I really taking you?"
"You know that you are the best friend I have ever had, right?" Issa says as she swipes at her reddened eyes. "You know that, right?"
"Aw, you know I love you, baby," the red-haired girl answers, giving her passenger a playful, mock-groping squeeze on the knee. "I've loved you since we were six. I would drive you to Arizona tonight if you asked me. Seriously, Issa. Anywhere. Now where are we going, should I turn left or—?"
"Right," Issa directs, a brief sound of laughter clearing out the remainder of her sadness. "Get on the bypass, head toward Waverton."
"Waver—oh my God, Issa, you're eloping with Jack, aren't you?"
Issa sinks down lower into the passenger seat, pulling her denim coat tightly closed. The spring night air is still chilly with the ghost of winter. She lowers her chin, and a mass of dark brown ringlets hides most of her pale face. She nods, then: "Yes," she says.
"I am completely jealous. Do you guys know where you're going yet?" Angela asks, reaching a hand out to turn up the thermostat. "You'd have to leave town pretty much forever—your dad will murder you if he sees you."
"I know," Issa replies flatly, nudging the overstuffed backpack at her feet with one sneaker-clad foot. "Especially when he goes to check his stash."
"Issa, you didn't..."
"Totally. He's lucky I didn't neuter him before I left."
They both laugh, but for Issa the mirth ends with her eyes.
* * *
Half-an-hour later Angela runs red fingernails through her short mop of auburn and checks the rearview mirror. Issa sits looking out the side window, her mood oddly grave for someone who has just tossed off the shackles of an abusive father, a mother who emotionally blackmails her in weekly telephone calls, and a duplicitous, conspiratorial social scene which rates her well below the acceptable limits of promiscuity (a reputation which, to be honest, she had resolutely begun to shed from the moment she met Jack). Angela herself is a casualty of that scene, and often fantasizes about burning their high school to the foundations, the way one might wish to plant a firecracker in a hornet's nest. But Angela is afraid of getting stung, whereas Issa seems to possess some secret leaden aegis. Which is, of course, why Angela has loved her since childhood, when the neighborhood bullies learned to cower before Issa's devil-may-care claws.
They have been off the highway for half an hour and now, as the Passat slinks through a lifeless district of abandoned houses and motionless industrial parks, Issa guides them to a sleeping rail yard where retired boxcars molder, dinosaur carcasses in the primeval dark.
"Here? Really?" Angela says, doubtful.
But Issa is already gathering up her backpack and looking anxiously out the windows. "He said he'd be here; go toward that big building ahead, there should be a little road that goes around back."
"You've been here before?" The string of Angela's incredulousness is unbroken.
"Once we—" Issa begins to answer, then stops short and changes directions. "Yes, I've been here before... Anyway. Wait—I think I see his car."
The tail of a cherry red Mustang is clearly visible where the driver has pulled into the black, dusty mouth of a disused service garage. As the Passat's headlights splash across it the brake lights flare and it backs out slowly, pulling up alongside them. With the motor idling, its driver climbs out and walks around to Issa's door.
Angela has seen Jack only three times since he began dating Issa three months ago. He is handsome, owner of a five o’clock shadow, and possesses the rumpled yet profoundly capable appearance of one who works on machines, has mastered their metal savagery; a sort of urban Greystoke just a month shy of his diploma. Issa had seemed to be madly taken with him immediately. It had been a foregone conclusion, in Angela's mind, that they would attend the senior prom together in a few weeks, despite Jack going to school in another county. Now it would be a different story: Issa and Jack will disappear, small waves will roll and die quickly on the tongues of the community, and then the whole thing will be forgotten by the end of the summer. The romance of what is about to occur suddenly starts to falter in Angela’s eyes.
"Issa," Angela begins, and feels her heart slam hard as it realizes the question on her lips can only have a painful answer. "Am I ever going to see you again? I mean… ever?"
And Issa freezes with her hand on the door handle, the backpack slung over one shoulder. Jack is leaning against his car, arms crossed, patiently looking into the distance. She turns back to Angela, her expression giving everything away. Then, in one swift movement, Issa leans and kisses her. The shock is immediate, and weepingly desperate. Angela's mind races to make sense of this, and at the same time her lips are responding; her tongue is responding. This is crazy. Why now, why this? If she feels...? But Jack...? Confusion and exultation twist Angela into a dizzying paralysis. Love (but what sort? All so fast!) raises Angela's hands and pulls Issa into an embrace, and they simply hold onto each other for a few moments, breathing hard, Issa's face buried in her neck, and Angela looking out the passenger window and seeing—but not registering—Jack's continued, ever-patient presence. This is too much understanding to be given at the end of things, Angela thinks, and astounding herself she speaks it aloud.
"This is too much understanding to be given at the end of things," Angela whispers; only needs to whisper, because Issa's ear is there, waiting.
And Issa pulls back, wiping fresh tears, smiling in such a tortured way that it causes Angela to grimace in sympathy.
"That's the thing," Issa whispers in reply. "You don't understand any of it. But you don't have to. It's not your journey."
For months, years after Issa is gone, Angela will replay those parting words in her sleep, in her daydreams, in moments at work as she stares off into space, suddenly returned to that kiss and the strange night which framed it. At first she will think of the words as cold, hurtful, insulting. She will hate Issa for a very long time, and then one day she will play it all over again and there, in Issa's tone, in the expression on her face, a hint of something else surfaces. Five years later, Angela will believe she knows this much: That Issa saved her from something that night, though she cannot explain how. And then, a few months after this epiphany, as Angela dwells alone in her New York City apartment, there arrives an October evening with an unexpected knock at the door.
* * *
“Hold on, I’m coming,” Angela calls, and opens the door with the expectation of finding a neighbor, or a friend. The moment she breaks the seal an odor sweeps in, foul like rotting meat. But the inertia of habit is too swift, and the aperture widens in greeting before she can change her mind.
Her first fleeting impression is that a homeless man has somehow gotten past the doorman and wandered onto her floor. In the instant before he attacks, other details assail her: the yellow tinge of his flesh, the viperous jaw, the small knots of horn or bone jutting from his temples, linking the thickened ridge of his brow like glass shards set into concrete; and behind that, a wild, oily chaos of black hair. Now the thing’s eyes flare, bright red (like the tail lights of a Mustang) as the fanged mouth unhinges and comes for her. Angela’s arms rise instinctively, presenting her wrists. She has not had time to cry out yet; the impossible details of the thing standing before her only barely registered on the subconscious level. What appeared to be threadbare, ragged clothes are some kind of patchwork armor, beaten and scarred by the trials of a horrible existence, and the wickedly familiar blade in his hand comes whistling forth, burying itself to the hilt in Angela’s side, robbing her of the breath to scream.
There is no time for a mind so shocked to register things like doubt or disbelief, yet there is no reference in Angela’s mind for this plateau of pain, or for the body of the thing now looming over her, slowing drawing its knife out of her flesh as it salivates and prepares to deal the next, fatal cut. She tries to scream. Only life comes burbling out.
But now, as sounds grow distant and vision blurs, another form shimmers into life before her, swims into reality behind the yellow-skinned horror and its claw full of hate. The thing spins on its heel suddenly, cloven toes splayed, screaming in a language that sounds absurdly like a garbage disposal. Then the newcomer utters one ringing note, sings it high and sweet as the apartment is engulfed by light. Angela sees her attacker in cameo, coming apart at the seams, fingers and forearms trailing like windblown sand. As the blinding glow fades, so does Angela, and from miles above, out of a dark internal sky, the echo of a familiar voice murmurs down to her.
“I was wrong… you were part of the journey…”
One final, thudding beat of sound registers in Angela’s brain, and the world recedes altogether.
* * *
It’s the sound nobody wants to hear upon waking. Machines. The steady, low rhythm of beeps that signal one is attached to a monitor, meaning one was recently pressing the bounds of mortality. “…treated for a stab wound,” someone says. “I think she’s waking up. Angela? Can you hear me?”
Mmm… hmm…
“Angela, I am Dr. Patel. You’re in the ER at St. Bethany’s Hospital. Do you remember what happened to you?”
No. Yes. Maybe.
“You were stabbed in the abdomen by an 8-inch chef’s knife. Your friends called the paramedics. They saved your life tonight. Corporal Eddings here is hoping you can tell him what the person who did this looked like.”
My... friends?
“Hey, baby,” says Issa quietly, as if words spoken too loudly could further the injuries.
Power words. Kill words. Blinding light.
“I’m sorry, what was that?” says another male voice, and Angela opens her eyes. Issa and Jack huddle together by her right shoulder, gravest concern marking their faces. An older police officer, uniformed, gun-belted, stands off to the left. His eyes look on kindly from above a thick mustache. At the foot of the bed a young Indian man in a white coat holds a clipboard beneath his arm; his other hand rests in his pocket. It was Jack who spoke.
Nothing. I don’t remember… what it looked like. He. It. Listen… can I go back to sleep?
Angela does not bother to wait for their reply.
* * *
Sunlight on a hospital bed; a tray of uneaten food in neat little compartments; a muted television showing “The Price Is Right” with Bob Barker. It’s only Issa this morning, and a private room. The medication is dampening the pain to a low banshee’s wail. Angela’s fingers twine with Issa’s. She is wearing several new rings, Angela notices. Some of them have gems. Her dark ringlets have been chopped back into short curlicues. Otherwise, it’s the same Issa who still haunts Angela’s lips whenever she kisses anybody else.
“It wasn’t human,” Angela is telling her, “but I can’t say that to them. But I saw it die, so it’s alright. It can’t get me now.”
Then she looks into Issa’s eyes.
“It’s not dead, is it?” she infers. “Issa, how do you know what it is? Where did you and Jack go when you left me?”
Beside the sunlit hospital bed, a young woman with curly brown hair and vibrant green eyes sits stroking the hand of the love of her life. There are volumes to explain, and no time, but she takes her time anyway. It’s a journey, she explains. Not everyone matters, as difficult as that is to hear. The few who do, the players, the dramatis personae… they can live forever. Jack has been on the journey for over a hundred years, and the moment he met Issa there was no doubt that she was written into its fateful weave. There is magic in the weave, Issa tells her love, and there are devils attempting to rip it apart, stealing pieces of the tale and twisting it upon itself; thus, the long knife. What neither Jack nor Issa understood until too late was that Angela truly belongs to the story. She is no shadow scenery, no vague pawn, but a wryghder like they are. A wryghder—a being who is like the thread of a seam, holding the worlds together. A traveler of stories. The burden of proof is voided, now that Angela has seen the face of an Adversary. Now that she has heard the word of banishment in her true love’s mouth. Now that she has seen the light.
“I left with Jack because he knew, because he could teach me,” Issa explains with tears in her eyes. “And I could never bear to tell you that you were merely a dream. But as the story unfolded we learned differently, I was wrong, Jack was wrong… sweet Goddess of the earth, we were both so blessedly wrong. And I will never leave your side again, Angela.”
The silence that follows carries the scent of tenuous realities; it verges on breaking, dallies with the precarious chance of failure. Belief crosses and meanders upon Angela’s face, and in the end it’s the gentle fingers woven into her own that heal the wounded faith.
“You’ll protect me?” Angela asks.
“I’ll protect you,” Issa whispers.
“You’ll stay with me?” Angela asks.
Issa leans over, and this time the soft kiss imparts no uncertainties.
“Until the end.”
* * *
"I told my mother we're going to a midnight showing of Pulp Fiction," Angela explains, replying to an unasked question. "Where am I really taking you?"
"You know that you are the best friend I have ever had, right?" Issa says as she swipes at her reddened eyes. "You know that, right?"
"Aw, you know I love you, baby," the red-haired girl answers, giving her passenger a playful, mock-groping squeeze on the knee. "I've loved you since we were six. I would drive you to Arizona tonight if you asked me. Seriously, Issa. Anywhere. Now where are we going, should I turn left or—?"
"Right," Issa directs, a brief sound of laughter clearing out the remainder of her sadness. "Get on the bypass, head toward Waverton."
"Waver—oh my God, Issa, you're eloping with Jack, aren't you?"
Issa sinks down lower into the passenger seat, pulling her denim coat tightly closed. The spring night air is still chilly with the ghost of winter. She lowers her chin, and a mass of dark brown ringlets hides most of her pale face. She nods, then: "Yes," she says.
"I am completely jealous. Do you guys know where you're going yet?" Angela asks, reaching a hand out to turn up the thermostat. "You'd have to leave town pretty much forever—your dad will murder you if he sees you."
"I know," Issa replies flatly, nudging the overstuffed backpack at her feet with one sneaker-clad foot. "Especially when he goes to check his stash."
"Issa, you didn't..."
"Totally. He's lucky I didn't neuter him before I left."
They both laugh, but for Issa the mirth ends with her eyes.
* * *
Half-an-hour later Angela runs red fingernails through her short mop of auburn and checks the rearview mirror. Issa sits looking out the side window, her mood oddly grave for someone who has just tossed off the shackles of an abusive father, a mother who emotionally blackmails her in weekly telephone calls, and a duplicitous, conspiratorial social scene which rates her well below the acceptable limits of promiscuity (a reputation which, to be honest, she had resolutely begun to shed from the moment she met Jack). Angela herself is a casualty of that scene, and often fantasizes about burning their high school to the foundations, the way one might wish to plant a firecracker in a hornet's nest. But Angela is afraid of getting stung, whereas Issa seems to possess some secret leaden aegis. Which is, of course, why Angela has loved her since childhood, when the neighborhood bullies learned to cower before Issa's devil-may-care claws.
They have been off the highway for half an hour and now, as the Passat slinks through a lifeless district of abandoned houses and motionless industrial parks, Issa guides them to a sleeping rail yard where retired boxcars molder, dinosaur carcasses in the primeval dark.
"Here? Really?" Angela says, doubtful.
But Issa is already gathering up her backpack and looking anxiously out the windows. "He said he'd be here; go toward that big building ahead, there should be a little road that goes around back."
"You've been here before?" The string of Angela's incredulousness is unbroken.
"Once we—" Issa begins to answer, then stops short and changes directions. "Yes, I've been here before... Anyway. Wait—I think I see his car."
The tail of a cherry red Mustang is clearly visible where the driver has pulled into the black, dusty mouth of a disused service garage. As the Passat's headlights splash across it the brake lights flare and it backs out slowly, pulling up alongside them. With the motor idling, its driver climbs out and walks around to Issa's door.
Angela has seen Jack only three times since he began dating Issa three months ago. He is handsome, owner of a five o’clock shadow, and possesses the rumpled yet profoundly capable appearance of one who works on machines, has mastered their metal savagery; a sort of urban Greystoke just a month shy of his diploma. Issa had seemed to be madly taken with him immediately. It had been a foregone conclusion, in Angela's mind, that they would attend the senior prom together in a few weeks, despite Jack going to school in another county. Now it would be a different story: Issa and Jack will disappear, small waves will roll and die quickly on the tongues of the community, and then the whole thing will be forgotten by the end of the summer. The romance of what is about to occur suddenly starts to falter in Angela’s eyes.
"Issa," Angela begins, and feels her heart slam hard as it realizes the question on her lips can only have a painful answer. "Am I ever going to see you again? I mean… ever?"
And Issa freezes with her hand on the door handle, the backpack slung over one shoulder. Jack is leaning against his car, arms crossed, patiently looking into the distance. She turns back to Angela, her expression giving everything away. Then, in one swift movement, Issa leans and kisses her. The shock is immediate, and weepingly desperate. Angela's mind races to make sense of this, and at the same time her lips are responding; her tongue is responding. This is crazy. Why now, why this? If she feels...? But Jack...? Confusion and exultation twist Angela into a dizzying paralysis. Love (but what sort? All so fast!) raises Angela's hands and pulls Issa into an embrace, and they simply hold onto each other for a few moments, breathing hard, Issa's face buried in her neck, and Angela looking out the passenger window and seeing—but not registering—Jack's continued, ever-patient presence. This is too much understanding to be given at the end of things, Angela thinks, and astounding herself she speaks it aloud.
"This is too much understanding to be given at the end of things," Angela whispers; only needs to whisper, because Issa's ear is there, waiting.
And Issa pulls back, wiping fresh tears, smiling in such a tortured way that it causes Angela to grimace in sympathy.
"That's the thing," Issa whispers in reply. "You don't understand any of it. But you don't have to. It's not your journey."
For months, years after Issa is gone, Angela will replay those parting words in her sleep, in her daydreams, in moments at work as she stares off into space, suddenly returned to that kiss and the strange night which framed it. At first she will think of the words as cold, hurtful, insulting. She will hate Issa for a very long time, and then one day she will play it all over again and there, in Issa's tone, in the expression on her face, a hint of something else surfaces. Five years later, Angela will believe she knows this much: That Issa saved her from something that night, though she cannot explain how. And then, a few months after this epiphany, as Angela dwells alone in her New York City apartment, there arrives an October evening with an unexpected knock at the door.
* * *
“Hold on, I’m coming,” Angela calls, and opens the door with the expectation of finding a neighbor, or a friend. The moment she breaks the seal an odor sweeps in, foul like rotting meat. But the inertia of habit is too swift, and the aperture widens in greeting before she can change her mind.
Her first fleeting impression is that a homeless man has somehow gotten past the doorman and wandered onto her floor. In the instant before he attacks, other details assail her: the yellow tinge of his flesh, the viperous jaw, the small knots of horn or bone jutting from his temples, linking the thickened ridge of his brow like glass shards set into concrete; and behind that, a wild, oily chaos of black hair. Now the thing’s eyes flare, bright red (like the tail lights of a Mustang) as the fanged mouth unhinges and comes for her. Angela’s arms rise instinctively, presenting her wrists. She has not had time to cry out yet; the impossible details of the thing standing before her only barely registered on the subconscious level. What appeared to be threadbare, ragged clothes are some kind of patchwork armor, beaten and scarred by the trials of a horrible existence, and the wickedly familiar blade in his hand comes whistling forth, burying itself to the hilt in Angela’s side, robbing her of the breath to scream.
There is no time for a mind so shocked to register things like doubt or disbelief, yet there is no reference in Angela’s mind for this plateau of pain, or for the body of the thing now looming over her, slowing drawing its knife out of her flesh as it salivates and prepares to deal the next, fatal cut. She tries to scream. Only life comes burbling out.
But now, as sounds grow distant and vision blurs, another form shimmers into life before her, swims into reality behind the yellow-skinned horror and its claw full of hate. The thing spins on its heel suddenly, cloven toes splayed, screaming in a language that sounds absurdly like a garbage disposal. Then the newcomer utters one ringing note, sings it high and sweet as the apartment is engulfed by light. Angela sees her attacker in cameo, coming apart at the seams, fingers and forearms trailing like windblown sand. As the blinding glow fades, so does Angela, and from miles above, out of a dark internal sky, the echo of a familiar voice murmurs down to her.
“I was wrong… you were part of the journey…”
One final, thudding beat of sound registers in Angela’s brain, and the world recedes altogether.
* * *
It’s the sound nobody wants to hear upon waking. Machines. The steady, low rhythm of beeps that signal one is attached to a monitor, meaning one was recently pressing the bounds of mortality. “…treated for a stab wound,” someone says. “I think she’s waking up. Angela? Can you hear me?”
Mmm… hmm…
“Angela, I am Dr. Patel. You’re in the ER at St. Bethany’s Hospital. Do you remember what happened to you?”
No. Yes. Maybe.
“You were stabbed in the abdomen by an 8-inch chef’s knife. Your friends called the paramedics. They saved your life tonight. Corporal Eddings here is hoping you can tell him what the person who did this looked like.”
My... friends?
“Hey, baby,” says Issa quietly, as if words spoken too loudly could further the injuries.
Power words. Kill words. Blinding light.
“I’m sorry, what was that?” says another male voice, and Angela opens her eyes. Issa and Jack huddle together by her right shoulder, gravest concern marking their faces. An older police officer, uniformed, gun-belted, stands off to the left. His eyes look on kindly from above a thick mustache. At the foot of the bed a young Indian man in a white coat holds a clipboard beneath his arm; his other hand rests in his pocket. It was Jack who spoke.
Nothing. I don’t remember… what it looked like. He. It. Listen… can I go back to sleep?
Angela does not bother to wait for their reply.
* * *
Sunlight on a hospital bed; a tray of uneaten food in neat little compartments; a muted television showing “The Price Is Right” with Bob Barker. It’s only Issa this morning, and a private room. The medication is dampening the pain to a low banshee’s wail. Angela’s fingers twine with Issa’s. She is wearing several new rings, Angela notices. Some of them have gems. Her dark ringlets have been chopped back into short curlicues. Otherwise, it’s the same Issa who still haunts Angela’s lips whenever she kisses anybody else.
“It wasn’t human,” Angela is telling her, “but I can’t say that to them. But I saw it die, so it’s alright. It can’t get me now.”
Then she looks into Issa’s eyes.
“It’s not dead, is it?” she infers. “Issa, how do you know what it is? Where did you and Jack go when you left me?”
Beside the sunlit hospital bed, a young woman with curly brown hair and vibrant green eyes sits stroking the hand of the love of her life. There are volumes to explain, and no time, but she takes her time anyway. It’s a journey, she explains. Not everyone matters, as difficult as that is to hear. The few who do, the players, the dramatis personae… they can live forever. Jack has been on the journey for over a hundred years, and the moment he met Issa there was no doubt that she was written into its fateful weave. There is magic in the weave, Issa tells her love, and there are devils attempting to rip it apart, stealing pieces of the tale and twisting it upon itself; thus, the long knife. What neither Jack nor Issa understood until too late was that Angela truly belongs to the story. She is no shadow scenery, no vague pawn, but a wryghder like they are. A wryghder—a being who is like the thread of a seam, holding the worlds together. A traveler of stories. The burden of proof is voided, now that Angela has seen the face of an Adversary. Now that she has heard the word of banishment in her true love’s mouth. Now that she has seen the light.
“I left with Jack because he knew, because he could teach me,” Issa explains with tears in her eyes. “And I could never bear to tell you that you were merely a dream. But as the story unfolded we learned differently, I was wrong, Jack was wrong… sweet Goddess of the earth, we were both so blessedly wrong. And I will never leave your side again, Angela.”
The silence that follows carries the scent of tenuous realities; it verges on breaking, dallies with the precarious chance of failure. Belief crosses and meanders upon Angela’s face, and in the end it’s the gentle fingers woven into her own that heal the wounded faith.
“You’ll protect me?” Angela asks.
“I’ll protect you,” Issa whispers.
“You’ll stay with me?” Angela asks.
Issa leans over, and this time the soft kiss imparts no uncertainties.
“Until the end.”
"The Chute"
But I have a white stone with a new name written on the stone, the word which no one knows except him who receives it.
– Hal Duncan, from his work “violent eRa”
I sit with Stephen on the beach, holding his stone in my hand, the white stone now bloodied and Stephen unconscious on the sand beside me. It feels as though I have been here a thousand times before, in a thousand different guises: a nude unconscious girl and her drugged drink in my class-ringed hand; an unconscious war veteran and in my hand the vintage grenade which made him cry in hoarse terror as vicious flashbacks cracked his whittled mind. A red-robed wizard on a field of death, staring up into a shaft of his God’s unwavering light, defending the choice to cut down His chosen ones. The “why” becomes the same for each of these seething visions—to assert the basest freedom by bucking the laws of a narrative world. To spit in the eye of my captor.
Up the beach an out-of-shape woman in a heavy coat is running for her car, looking over her shoulder to witness the killer’s face one more time, the better perhaps to give a description over the phone when she calls the authorities. Her little dog keeps up easily, thinking it all a game, and maybe it is. Celestial fingers could even now be checking off this series of events, an invisible smile turned up at the corners in pleasure at seeing the narrative sequence fulfilled, but ah… fuck it. I really think not—I think this time I’ve really jumped the rails; tied them into Tex Avery knots, like bows on a Christmas package, and right now His oh-so-omnipotent fingers are busily fussing with the strands, trying to figure out where to go with me next. He trusted me; I was one of his creations. Every second he spends fiddling with the briar I have wrought allows me another few free lungfulls of air on this chilly autumn beach, a few unregulated thoughts and the peace that comes with them. These passing minutes where He casts about for a plot are my green garden of leisure, and if Stephen had to die for them, well, call it my cost of rewriting.
Have you considered… that God does not merely wish us to execute His will, but that He utterly depends upon it? There are strange maroon amoebas in the sand between Stephen and I where the blood splatters have soaked up the silicate granules. His half-naked chest flares and gutters in rapid, shallow blue breaths. His veins stand out strongly beneath his pale white skin. I turn his stone over, the one he handed to me moments ago, the same one I used to bludgeon his skull without a word of explanation. All my life these words have been haunting my existence, pinned to me by my behavior: kind, loving, friendly, gentle, trustworthy, honest, sincere. These adjectival spectres spoke to me over time, and I realized that in order to shake His watchful gaze I would need to move beyond every single one of them. To dodge His omniscience I could not be fully aware of this plan, yet it lived inside me for years, until a few minutes ago on this beach. Stephen handed me that stone and I knew—I knew—in this perfect act of trust I would find my opening.
“Here, Adam—you’ll like this one,” I heard his sweet voice say. “Keep it for your collection.”
“Thanks,” I replied. Gently. Friendly. Trustworthy. And in the space of a few synaptic firings I had wheeled about and brought the solid object smashing against his temple. I felt the giving flesh and in the same instant I felt the shocked giving way of divine providence. Stephen fell and God dropped me in horror. With His cosmic stupefaction I came loose upon the torrent of reality and for the first time in my young life took a breath that was not by design. Or so I thought. So surely I thought.
But now… now I sit here in the sound of surf, turning over this chalk-white artifact, Stephen’s stone, perfectly smooth and fitted to my palm, and I see carved into the underside a word, engraved upon it somehow, one word that causes my whole body to quake until the stone falls from my hand and shatters a blood amoeba. Like a painter’s signature, like a trademark stamp, like the cordite cough marking a pistol’s ejaculatory revelation, I witness the word on the back of the stone and feel the jailor’s cosmic fingers twist an eternal key in the lock: BETRAYER, it says. Nothing left to chance.
– Hal Duncan, from his work “violent eRa”
I sit with Stephen on the beach, holding his stone in my hand, the white stone now bloodied and Stephen unconscious on the sand beside me. It feels as though I have been here a thousand times before, in a thousand different guises: a nude unconscious girl and her drugged drink in my class-ringed hand; an unconscious war veteran and in my hand the vintage grenade which made him cry in hoarse terror as vicious flashbacks cracked his whittled mind. A red-robed wizard on a field of death, staring up into a shaft of his God’s unwavering light, defending the choice to cut down His chosen ones. The “why” becomes the same for each of these seething visions—to assert the basest freedom by bucking the laws of a narrative world. To spit in the eye of my captor.
Up the beach an out-of-shape woman in a heavy coat is running for her car, looking over her shoulder to witness the killer’s face one more time, the better perhaps to give a description over the phone when she calls the authorities. Her little dog keeps up easily, thinking it all a game, and maybe it is. Celestial fingers could even now be checking off this series of events, an invisible smile turned up at the corners in pleasure at seeing the narrative sequence fulfilled, but ah… fuck it. I really think not—I think this time I’ve really jumped the rails; tied them into Tex Avery knots, like bows on a Christmas package, and right now His oh-so-omnipotent fingers are busily fussing with the strands, trying to figure out where to go with me next. He trusted me; I was one of his creations. Every second he spends fiddling with the briar I have wrought allows me another few free lungfulls of air on this chilly autumn beach, a few unregulated thoughts and the peace that comes with them. These passing minutes where He casts about for a plot are my green garden of leisure, and if Stephen had to die for them, well, call it my cost of rewriting.
Have you considered… that God does not merely wish us to execute His will, but that He utterly depends upon it? There are strange maroon amoebas in the sand between Stephen and I where the blood splatters have soaked up the silicate granules. His half-naked chest flares and gutters in rapid, shallow blue breaths. His veins stand out strongly beneath his pale white skin. I turn his stone over, the one he handed to me moments ago, the same one I used to bludgeon his skull without a word of explanation. All my life these words have been haunting my existence, pinned to me by my behavior: kind, loving, friendly, gentle, trustworthy, honest, sincere. These adjectival spectres spoke to me over time, and I realized that in order to shake His watchful gaze I would need to move beyond every single one of them. To dodge His omniscience I could not be fully aware of this plan, yet it lived inside me for years, until a few minutes ago on this beach. Stephen handed me that stone and I knew—I knew—in this perfect act of trust I would find my opening.
“Here, Adam—you’ll like this one,” I heard his sweet voice say. “Keep it for your collection.”
“Thanks,” I replied. Gently. Friendly. Trustworthy. And in the space of a few synaptic firings I had wheeled about and brought the solid object smashing against his temple. I felt the giving flesh and in the same instant I felt the shocked giving way of divine providence. Stephen fell and God dropped me in horror. With His cosmic stupefaction I came loose upon the torrent of reality and for the first time in my young life took a breath that was not by design. Or so I thought. So surely I thought.
But now… now I sit here in the sound of surf, turning over this chalk-white artifact, Stephen’s stone, perfectly smooth and fitted to my palm, and I see carved into the underside a word, engraved upon it somehow, one word that causes my whole body to quake until the stone falls from my hand and shatters a blood amoeba. Like a painter’s signature, like a trademark stamp, like the cordite cough marking a pistol’s ejaculatory revelation, I witness the word on the back of the stone and feel the jailor’s cosmic fingers twist an eternal key in the lock: BETRAYER, it says. Nothing left to chance.
"The Booth"
I came to inside the booth; this tiny, dim booth with a chair and a table and a pair of headphones jacked into the wall. A torn-off scrap of ruled notebook paper, folded in half once, perched on the table like a place setting. It said "Put the headphones on.”
I picked up the paper—the handwriting was my own—and crumpled it up with five fingers as I slowly turned a full circle. No door. A flat, yellow, circular light fixture eight inches above my head glowed wanly. And beyond the table a plexiglass window, tinted and only darkness beyond. I saw my vague reflection in it; I looked like myself.
No door. How does one get into a room with no door and a sealed window?
Rather than panic, I put the headphones on my head—they were big, made of aged, beige plastic. A dingy white spiral cord ran away from their bulbous cups. The ear pads were a little chewed with time and wear. The hum of an open line met me, not static precisely, just a yawning sonic chasm. And then...
A heartbeat. Slow, steady, insistent, joined suddenly by another, higher pitched, more rapid, very strong. This went on for a long time, and it lulled me into a stupor. I hung slackly in the chair, listening to the dueling thump-thumps. Suddenly, there was a low tone, the sort that tells you to buckle your seatbelt before landing. Maybe it was a hearing test—maybe I should have been raising my right hand. On the heels of that sound came a soft, calm woman's voice. "9.3 months" it stated simply.
Then I convulsed and flopped out of the chair in shock as an infant's first shrieking wail filled my ears. The headphones fell off but I still heard it bawling, a hitching tinny scream several feet away. After a few minutes it subsided and sounds too quiet to discern from a distance muttered from the speakers. I tentatively placed the phones on my head once more.
It was my mother’s voice, but clearer and sharper than I had ever heard it before. She sounded young and cautiously triumphant—she was telling someone how beautiful he was.
The calm woman returned. “2.1 years” she said. The inflection might have been used to say “fourth floor.”
The sounds now were strange. Clacking, rattling noises. Hollow plastic thuds. Small pieces of wood thunking into each other. Something like broken glass that caught my attention immediately and slammed a memory association into place: Legos, the fat ones made for children still young enough to see with their mouths. More of these noises followed, including the various burblings of a small child. Then abruptly there came a louder crash, and the child began screaming. I was somewhat ready for it that time, so although I jerked in my seat I did not fall down again. Pounding footsteps grew near and I heard my father’s voice sag from angry to sympathetic in the course of a few syllables. I touched the scar on my chin.
That is when I took the headphones off and set them down on the table; slowly pushed myself away until the back of the chair met the back of the booth, eliciting an involuntary yelp from me. My body shook. No one could possess these sounds, for they had only been recorded in a single place, by a singular listener. They were only in my head. Hearing them replicated and played back this way created an exhilarating harmony the likes of which I thought should be impossible. It scared me. And yet… I went back to them.
The calm woman returned several times, bringing me through my childhood, my pre-adolescence. I heard myself terrified the first time I watched “Jaws.” I heard the rapid breaths that accompanied my first foray into masturbation. I heard old cartoons, dead relatives of whom I had no recollection until that moment; school lessons; school buses; and snippets of popular radio caught in passing. I heard myself talking to myself, in private, telling myself truths and mistruths and the inexperienced rationalizations only children can conjure for themselves. All of it began to hurt, but I kept listening.
“16.9 years” the calm woman said eventually, and I heard Opal’s long lost voice in my ear. She told me it was alright, and I heard her sigh. Our first time together; my suppressed groan as I turned away from her, pulled out because the heat was too intense and we were innocently unprotected. The music that filled the next few hours was an elixir of the most potent recollections—whole albums played through my mind not once or twice but a dozen times each, every time a different situation. Sometimes the sound of a car engine rumbled under the melody, sometimes just the wind buffeting curtains in an open window. Opal and I were singing together through many of them. I cried.
Time seemed to have lost meaning. I neither ate nor slept, nor felt any bodily urges except the intense curiosity and desire to keep listening. The gaps between episodes grew smaller and smaller until the headphones were playing a continuous stream of auditory memories, lapsing only during those times when I must have been asleep. I heard relationships begun and ended, heard myself in yelling contests, heard myself laughing in a room full of family. I drifted forward through my late teens, my early twenties—my marriage, all of its trials and passions, its stupid arguments and agonizing reconciliations—until finally the calm woman said “30.00183 years.”
Then I heard the train’s horn blare, the horrible roar of the engine, and the sound of my tires screeching across rain-soaked asphalt. The sound of collision was mercifully brief, and the crunch at the end I did not recognize immediately: it was my skull caving in. I stared at my white-knuckled fists on the table, unmarked and unbroken. I bent my hearing down into a new aural abyss that was now filling up the headphones’ soundscape. Thoughts coalesced for me—I was dead, and all that remained was dead tape. But then, before my stunned hands could remove the whispering static, a fresh set of voices began to fill the space.
It was not hard to grasp; I was listening to my funeral. A priest was speaking the name of my brother. And I paused with my hands resting on the phones, the mystic monkey’s hear-no-evil pose. And I asked myself, as my brother cleared his throat at the pulpit: Was this mine to hear? Should I listen?
Would you?
I picked up the paper—the handwriting was my own—and crumpled it up with five fingers as I slowly turned a full circle. No door. A flat, yellow, circular light fixture eight inches above my head glowed wanly. And beyond the table a plexiglass window, tinted and only darkness beyond. I saw my vague reflection in it; I looked like myself.
No door. How does one get into a room with no door and a sealed window?
Rather than panic, I put the headphones on my head—they were big, made of aged, beige plastic. A dingy white spiral cord ran away from their bulbous cups. The ear pads were a little chewed with time and wear. The hum of an open line met me, not static precisely, just a yawning sonic chasm. And then...
A heartbeat. Slow, steady, insistent, joined suddenly by another, higher pitched, more rapid, very strong. This went on for a long time, and it lulled me into a stupor. I hung slackly in the chair, listening to the dueling thump-thumps. Suddenly, there was a low tone, the sort that tells you to buckle your seatbelt before landing. Maybe it was a hearing test—maybe I should have been raising my right hand. On the heels of that sound came a soft, calm woman's voice. "9.3 months" it stated simply.
Then I convulsed and flopped out of the chair in shock as an infant's first shrieking wail filled my ears. The headphones fell off but I still heard it bawling, a hitching tinny scream several feet away. After a few minutes it subsided and sounds too quiet to discern from a distance muttered from the speakers. I tentatively placed the phones on my head once more.
It was my mother’s voice, but clearer and sharper than I had ever heard it before. She sounded young and cautiously triumphant—she was telling someone how beautiful he was.
The calm woman returned. “2.1 years” she said. The inflection might have been used to say “fourth floor.”
The sounds now were strange. Clacking, rattling noises. Hollow plastic thuds. Small pieces of wood thunking into each other. Something like broken glass that caught my attention immediately and slammed a memory association into place: Legos, the fat ones made for children still young enough to see with their mouths. More of these noises followed, including the various burblings of a small child. Then abruptly there came a louder crash, and the child began screaming. I was somewhat ready for it that time, so although I jerked in my seat I did not fall down again. Pounding footsteps grew near and I heard my father’s voice sag from angry to sympathetic in the course of a few syllables. I touched the scar on my chin.
That is when I took the headphones off and set them down on the table; slowly pushed myself away until the back of the chair met the back of the booth, eliciting an involuntary yelp from me. My body shook. No one could possess these sounds, for they had only been recorded in a single place, by a singular listener. They were only in my head. Hearing them replicated and played back this way created an exhilarating harmony the likes of which I thought should be impossible. It scared me. And yet… I went back to them.
The calm woman returned several times, bringing me through my childhood, my pre-adolescence. I heard myself terrified the first time I watched “Jaws.” I heard the rapid breaths that accompanied my first foray into masturbation. I heard old cartoons, dead relatives of whom I had no recollection until that moment; school lessons; school buses; and snippets of popular radio caught in passing. I heard myself talking to myself, in private, telling myself truths and mistruths and the inexperienced rationalizations only children can conjure for themselves. All of it began to hurt, but I kept listening.
“16.9 years” the calm woman said eventually, and I heard Opal’s long lost voice in my ear. She told me it was alright, and I heard her sigh. Our first time together; my suppressed groan as I turned away from her, pulled out because the heat was too intense and we were innocently unprotected. The music that filled the next few hours was an elixir of the most potent recollections—whole albums played through my mind not once or twice but a dozen times each, every time a different situation. Sometimes the sound of a car engine rumbled under the melody, sometimes just the wind buffeting curtains in an open window. Opal and I were singing together through many of them. I cried.
Time seemed to have lost meaning. I neither ate nor slept, nor felt any bodily urges except the intense curiosity and desire to keep listening. The gaps between episodes grew smaller and smaller until the headphones were playing a continuous stream of auditory memories, lapsing only during those times when I must have been asleep. I heard relationships begun and ended, heard myself in yelling contests, heard myself laughing in a room full of family. I drifted forward through my late teens, my early twenties—my marriage, all of its trials and passions, its stupid arguments and agonizing reconciliations—until finally the calm woman said “30.00183 years.”
Then I heard the train’s horn blare, the horrible roar of the engine, and the sound of my tires screeching across rain-soaked asphalt. The sound of collision was mercifully brief, and the crunch at the end I did not recognize immediately: it was my skull caving in. I stared at my white-knuckled fists on the table, unmarked and unbroken. I bent my hearing down into a new aural abyss that was now filling up the headphones’ soundscape. Thoughts coalesced for me—I was dead, and all that remained was dead tape. But then, before my stunned hands could remove the whispering static, a fresh set of voices began to fill the space.
It was not hard to grasp; I was listening to my funeral. A priest was speaking the name of my brother. And I paused with my hands resting on the phones, the mystic monkey’s hear-no-evil pose. And I asked myself, as my brother cleared his throat at the pulpit: Was this mine to hear? Should I listen?
Would you?
"The Eighth Wonder of the World"
Twilight, the auditorium after the audience
shuffled out to stark cold cars.
Chill as those cars—dim as that stage
that turned over and took the red covers with it.
The frozen yard became the apron
where unmasked players sat in smoked breath.
I wandered without a cue, no mark
watching dark-fingered trees pull down pillows.
In the twilight, proof against the nocturnes
and pill against the dawn. Empty chains.
The velvet seats folded up like our knees,
losing heat rapidly, waiting for the gels to die.
The dust roosted, the janitorial staff
rose in the manner of streetlamps coming on.
‘Twas November twilight that killed the beast.
We struck the set at midnight.
Called time of death.
Went home.
shuffled out to stark cold cars.
Chill as those cars—dim as that stage
that turned over and took the red covers with it.
The frozen yard became the apron
where unmasked players sat in smoked breath.
I wandered without a cue, no mark
watching dark-fingered trees pull down pillows.
In the twilight, proof against the nocturnes
and pill against the dawn. Empty chains.
The velvet seats folded up like our knees,
losing heat rapidly, waiting for the gels to die.
The dust roosted, the janitorial staff
rose in the manner of streetlamps coming on.
‘Twas November twilight that killed the beast.
We struck the set at midnight.
Called time of death.
Went home.
"Utopia"
The horizon is pink. There… wasn’t a horizon before.
With maybe, maybe, maybe ten minutes left I find myself in a place of utter perfection. Listen—there are no other voices, no traffic, no wild birds spinning irregular songs all over the goddamn evening trees. There are no trees, either, only the wood of the box.
I am Law, unto myself. Anything I wish to do, I do it, and there is no outcry. If I want to move my ankle four inches to the left, the electric pulse splashes down my nervous net and there, see, it has moved. Nobody has a war about it, nobody screams the injustice of it to the stone face of a city hall. If I want to blink, I blink with impunity. That I won’t be able to breathe soon is no injustice; it is a fact of the world.
I swear there was no horizon before, but it gets brighter with each passing second, and I think there are silhouettes against it, walking.
Would you like to expand your lungs and take in the stiff cloud of carbon dioxide yes—yes, I would, and I will. Certainly I will accept the erection; it presses painfully against the lid, but all remains peaceful. No woman comments upon it, no man sneers lewd. They cannot cuff me any longer, not in this country.
I am isolated by a vast ocean of soil, on all sides, and my stratosphere is lined with grass I imagine. Pink grass, maybe, caught in the pink of sunset. The smell of blood is mine, a free thing, unrestricted by amendments or court orders. Yes the broken fingernails hang loosely; they are as free as children crossing a deserted street, utterly unaware of the roaring milk trucks just… over… the horizon…
Not even Farneman can wreck his dictatorship upon me now. This is my valley of lilies, and in my valley of lilies there is one single law: peace. Whatever you choose to do, God is with you in that choice, and the only government that runs runs silently from behind a silken curtain. If I want to flail my limbs wildly against the confines of the box, snap a toe, or
beat!
my!
forehead!
bloody! then I am free to commit such silly exertions without the faintest fear of persecution. There are no Jesus Christ’s here, and all the wood (world) wood is on the outside, so nobody could make a cross anyhow.
It seems really silly, now, that I let Farneman’s decision bother me at all. That was back in a place full of rules and consequences, and oxygen; the rule was easy, SHE IS HIS, NO YOU MAY NOT LOVE HER, and the consequences burn in my gut right now. Maybe, maybe five minutes tops.
But wonder of wonders, signs and portents! Look at me now. Fucking-A, my friend. Here comes the pink horizon, and those are not screaming horses or a clash of ballistae or clarion trumpets brassily in the light but only, only, only my people. Serenity. If I want to look at the glowing face of my watch, and ignore the hot spears in my chest, I may do so without passing a motion or lobbying for the majority vote. We don’t need that kind of thing here on the horizon.
I will sew a flag, lastly. The colors will be of blood, and shit, and radium. I’ll raise it to the stillness, the eye-popping stillness, the throat-squelching silence. The pink nether-sun light shall stream through it, make it glow with calm, something to watch through the night, through the bombs bursting in flight, the… rocket-red hair… the… something… still there… proof…
Oh Silvia. I love you. Please dig me up.
With maybe, maybe, maybe ten minutes left I find myself in a place of utter perfection. Listen—there are no other voices, no traffic, no wild birds spinning irregular songs all over the goddamn evening trees. There are no trees, either, only the wood of the box.
I am Law, unto myself. Anything I wish to do, I do it, and there is no outcry. If I want to move my ankle four inches to the left, the electric pulse splashes down my nervous net and there, see, it has moved. Nobody has a war about it, nobody screams the injustice of it to the stone face of a city hall. If I want to blink, I blink with impunity. That I won’t be able to breathe soon is no injustice; it is a fact of the world.
I swear there was no horizon before, but it gets brighter with each passing second, and I think there are silhouettes against it, walking.
Would you like to expand your lungs and take in the stiff cloud of carbon dioxide yes—yes, I would, and I will. Certainly I will accept the erection; it presses painfully against the lid, but all remains peaceful. No woman comments upon it, no man sneers lewd. They cannot cuff me any longer, not in this country.
I am isolated by a vast ocean of soil, on all sides, and my stratosphere is lined with grass I imagine. Pink grass, maybe, caught in the pink of sunset. The smell of blood is mine, a free thing, unrestricted by amendments or court orders. Yes the broken fingernails hang loosely; they are as free as children crossing a deserted street, utterly unaware of the roaring milk trucks just… over… the horizon…
Not even Farneman can wreck his dictatorship upon me now. This is my valley of lilies, and in my valley of lilies there is one single law: peace. Whatever you choose to do, God is with you in that choice, and the only government that runs runs silently from behind a silken curtain. If I want to flail my limbs wildly against the confines of the box, snap a toe, or
beat!
my!
forehead!
bloody! then I am free to commit such silly exertions without the faintest fear of persecution. There are no Jesus Christ’s here, and all the wood (world) wood is on the outside, so nobody could make a cross anyhow.
It seems really silly, now, that I let Farneman’s decision bother me at all. That was back in a place full of rules and consequences, and oxygen; the rule was easy, SHE IS HIS, NO YOU MAY NOT LOVE HER, and the consequences burn in my gut right now. Maybe, maybe five minutes tops.
But wonder of wonders, signs and portents! Look at me now. Fucking-A, my friend. Here comes the pink horizon, and those are not screaming horses or a clash of ballistae or clarion trumpets brassily in the light but only, only, only my people. Serenity. If I want to look at the glowing face of my watch, and ignore the hot spears in my chest, I may do so without passing a motion or lobbying for the majority vote. We don’t need that kind of thing here on the horizon.
I will sew a flag, lastly. The colors will be of blood, and shit, and radium. I’ll raise it to the stillness, the eye-popping stillness, the throat-squelching silence. The pink nether-sun light shall stream through it, make it glow with calm, something to watch through the night, through the bombs bursting in flight, the… rocket-red hair… the… something… still there… proof…
Oh Silvia. I love you. Please dig me up.
"Spirits"
She mixes a good drink. I line the bottles up on the bar, tallest to shortest, like I did that very first night in this apartment. The glass gets five ice cubes--consistency, ritual. Are witch doctors so precise? I have to be, because unlike a shaman shaking rattles around a fire, I lack the soul to run by feeling alone. I have no tradition of this. Just the remembrance of that first night, and all its recreations thereafter.
I pull off my tie; cross the room; touch the needle to the record; recline on the sofa with a week-weary arm tossed over my eyes. Sure, I have an iPod, but she doesn't like that. I tried it, on the third week, and she stayed away. Or stayed quiet. I suspect she never actually leaves.
My eyes close under the spell of Nina Simone singing "Wild Is The Wind." Halfway through the song I smell a now-familiar perfume, faintly, almost a timid scent. I keep my eyes covered, a game of hide and seek. When the song reaches its climax I open my eyes and the glass is full, the bottles slightly emptier than before. On the second week, I had peeked early, peering through laced eyelashes, and the bottles never moved. The glass simply filled, slow like honey.
The song ends. Her perfume grows stronger, and then more—an accompaniment rises, notes of real human flesh, suggestions of breath. An invisible hand on my cheek. I go to the bar, stand there and drink, and feel the kisses along my jaw, the nape of my neck. A warm arm snakes around my waist, holds me upright. She tips the glass higher, coaxes every last drop, and briefly the ice clinks to rest on my lips.
I setup a different assortment of bottles, place a fresh tumbler on a dry paper napkin. Lie down again. We do this all evening, all Friday night. "Wild Is The Wind" over and over and over. As each drink settles into me the room gets dimmer; the light from the lamps turns softer; objects once solid grow more malleable. I begin to see the outline of her, the long hair, the slink of a dress; and through it, beneath it, loose limbs that move like honey.
Every weekend I go another shade further. I believe tonight I will stumble into the bedroom after three easy, holding onto the nearly-tangible. There will be eyes of colorless glass searching my own. My sheets will conform to the curves of her hard thighs, will resist her small breasts, will belie the whole sweet volume of her. I will wonder, as always, why the lottery of fates has placed me on this floor, in this apartment, at this time. I will be ready for her to love me—or at least whisper a name. I will play this drowning game.
And then I will blackout.
I pull off my tie; cross the room; touch the needle to the record; recline on the sofa with a week-weary arm tossed over my eyes. Sure, I have an iPod, but she doesn't like that. I tried it, on the third week, and she stayed away. Or stayed quiet. I suspect she never actually leaves.
My eyes close under the spell of Nina Simone singing "Wild Is The Wind." Halfway through the song I smell a now-familiar perfume, faintly, almost a timid scent. I keep my eyes covered, a game of hide and seek. When the song reaches its climax I open my eyes and the glass is full, the bottles slightly emptier than before. On the second week, I had peeked early, peering through laced eyelashes, and the bottles never moved. The glass simply filled, slow like honey.
The song ends. Her perfume grows stronger, and then more—an accompaniment rises, notes of real human flesh, suggestions of breath. An invisible hand on my cheek. I go to the bar, stand there and drink, and feel the kisses along my jaw, the nape of my neck. A warm arm snakes around my waist, holds me upright. She tips the glass higher, coaxes every last drop, and briefly the ice clinks to rest on my lips.
I setup a different assortment of bottles, place a fresh tumbler on a dry paper napkin. Lie down again. We do this all evening, all Friday night. "Wild Is The Wind" over and over and over. As each drink settles into me the room gets dimmer; the light from the lamps turns softer; objects once solid grow more malleable. I begin to see the outline of her, the long hair, the slink of a dress; and through it, beneath it, loose limbs that move like honey.
Every weekend I go another shade further. I believe tonight I will stumble into the bedroom after three easy, holding onto the nearly-tangible. There will be eyes of colorless glass searching my own. My sheets will conform to the curves of her hard thighs, will resist her small breasts, will belie the whole sweet volume of her. I will wonder, as always, why the lottery of fates has placed me on this floor, in this apartment, at this time. I will be ready for her to love me—or at least whisper a name. I will play this drowning game.
And then I will blackout.
"The Golden Rule"
There were three lines handwritten into the front of the little Bible, in pencil:
dew hon 2 udders
asp yew wood half
Dem due hunter U
Susan smiled to herself—she knew he thought himself clever. That did nothing for her faith, however, and she pulled off her choir robe lost in the thought. The bedroom's sanctuary breathed around her without a soul.
Weeks ago, she and Bryan had escaped the eyes of the world long enough to answer a year's worth of questioning; and in that small, dark window Susan found what the book in her hands had never offered: an identity entirely her own.
"Dah-da, dah-da, dah-da... crimson and clover..." she whispered tunefully as she folded the robe, remembering the song that greeted them when the car started again. Bryan had passed trembling fingers through her long, red hair, and crowned her beautiful.
But that was afterward. Half an hour before, he had been tentative and tacit. Her face had been aglow with the eldritch light of the moon, and he spoke of his disbeliefs: that they were here, now, in such intimate circumstances, in such violation of the laws of their lives.
"You're lucky," she'd replied, striking a tone that had never before left her lips. It took him aback, she remembered, and a sudden doubt had crossed his eyes.
Susan closed the dresser drawer, completely forgetting to stow the robe inside; the satiny garment lay folded atop it, careless as an abandoned water glass, leaving its own sort of ring in the surface of the day. She sighed, leaning against the wall, and stared into the thick, vague images of her memory.
Vague, but volatile.
Vague, but vital--things one dares not let go.
"You are not taking me home until I'm good and ready," she had breathed into his ear, and already condensation had blotted the moonlight. Bryan had started to move away from her then, but Susan would have none of it, grappling with him instead, long enough for resistance to weaken, for resolve to fade. Long enough, she thought, to falter and fall.
Just then, a knock at the door pulled her out of her reverie; Susan's mother stuck her head into the room. The small crucifix hanging above the door rattled slightly, as it always did.
"Honey? Are you not dressed yet? We're having supper in about five minutes. Do you want some?"
"Um, sure. I'll be down in a few."
"I think your jeans are in the dryer, do you need me to bring you a pair?"
"No, I'm just going to wear these," she replied, grabbing a rumpled pair of flannel pants from the bedside.
"Okay.”
The door clicked shut, and the new sense of self—wary as a kitten—crept back into Susan’s room. It carried in its mouth the words once wicked to her, now spoken so easily and without any genuine shame. It rubbed against her, the first inklings of instinct saying this is my territory, this body is mine. She thought of Bryan’s skin, and the unseen muscles moving beneath it all.
“…as I would have you do unto me,” she whispered, drifting to earth, and prayed her mother would not look in a second time.
dew hon 2 udders
asp yew wood half
Dem due hunter U
Susan smiled to herself—she knew he thought himself clever. That did nothing for her faith, however, and she pulled off her choir robe lost in the thought. The bedroom's sanctuary breathed around her without a soul.
Weeks ago, she and Bryan had escaped the eyes of the world long enough to answer a year's worth of questioning; and in that small, dark window Susan found what the book in her hands had never offered: an identity entirely her own.
"Dah-da, dah-da, dah-da... crimson and clover..." she whispered tunefully as she folded the robe, remembering the song that greeted them when the car started again. Bryan had passed trembling fingers through her long, red hair, and crowned her beautiful.
But that was afterward. Half an hour before, he had been tentative and tacit. Her face had been aglow with the eldritch light of the moon, and he spoke of his disbeliefs: that they were here, now, in such intimate circumstances, in such violation of the laws of their lives.
"You're lucky," she'd replied, striking a tone that had never before left her lips. It took him aback, she remembered, and a sudden doubt had crossed his eyes.
Susan closed the dresser drawer, completely forgetting to stow the robe inside; the satiny garment lay folded atop it, careless as an abandoned water glass, leaving its own sort of ring in the surface of the day. She sighed, leaning against the wall, and stared into the thick, vague images of her memory.
Vague, but volatile.
Vague, but vital--things one dares not let go.
"You are not taking me home until I'm good and ready," she had breathed into his ear, and already condensation had blotted the moonlight. Bryan had started to move away from her then, but Susan would have none of it, grappling with him instead, long enough for resistance to weaken, for resolve to fade. Long enough, she thought, to falter and fall.
Just then, a knock at the door pulled her out of her reverie; Susan's mother stuck her head into the room. The small crucifix hanging above the door rattled slightly, as it always did.
"Honey? Are you not dressed yet? We're having supper in about five minutes. Do you want some?"
"Um, sure. I'll be down in a few."
"I think your jeans are in the dryer, do you need me to bring you a pair?"
"No, I'm just going to wear these," she replied, grabbing a rumpled pair of flannel pants from the bedside.
"Okay.”
The door clicked shut, and the new sense of self—wary as a kitten—crept back into Susan’s room. It carried in its mouth the words once wicked to her, now spoken so easily and without any genuine shame. It rubbed against her, the first inklings of instinct saying this is my territory, this body is mine. She thought of Bryan’s skin, and the unseen muscles moving beneath it all.
“…as I would have you do unto me,” she whispered, drifting to earth, and prayed her mother would not look in a second time.
"We don't see Things--we see where Things are."
Two ancient atoms of the sun
by chance, by law, crushed into one:
thus was my lover’s face begun.
A sea of waves of light
that rolled millions of miles last night,
that reached us, always reaching us
on the run:
bathing all and saving none.
And when that sun-tide struck her cheek
it turned to leave, ricocheted, it spun:
honey-colored lengths of light
like braided hair undone.
They fled her cheek and came to me,
weightless strands invisibly,
until my widened iris took them
in as refugees:
caught them in the cones and keys,
deciphered all their beauty.
O reticent and mirrored mores
revealed in windows of the soul:
my heart sends forth its softest soldiers
there to guide you home.
* * *
If ever I speak dark of love
only moonshine knows whereof.
by chance, by law, crushed into one:
thus was my lover’s face begun.
A sea of waves of light
that rolled millions of miles last night,
that reached us, always reaching us
on the run:
bathing all and saving none.
And when that sun-tide struck her cheek
it turned to leave, ricocheted, it spun:
honey-colored lengths of light
like braided hair undone.
They fled her cheek and came to me,
weightless strands invisibly,
until my widened iris took them
in as refugees:
caught them in the cones and keys,
deciphered all their beauty.
O reticent and mirrored mores
revealed in windows of the soul:
my heart sends forth its softest soldiers
there to guide you home.
* * *
If ever I speak dark of love
only moonshine knows whereof.
"9-5"
There exists a time of night—in unassuming cities, in high suites—when the glass windows are black, and the cool fluorescent light from fifteen feet above takes away all sense of time passing, and everything aches with the glow. It gets deeply silent. You realize you are in a pocket of something… not so warm as eternity, not so grand as forever. Maybe just the opposite; maybe there is a set of hands on the back of the clock. That time of night, there might never be another morning. There might never have even been a dusk. The world becomes fully contained in the vast subway car of the room, with its green velvet couch and flat surfaces, and squares. You find yourself reminded of semi-formed childhood memories, incidents when you were still tiny enough to be carted around on your mother’s shoulder, maybe some random night—there was a telephone call, she had to pick him up, she couldn’t leave you alone. And so she popped the cotton cap over your soft head, grabbed her keys and drove to some office where your father had been working overtime plus. Car dealership lights; that’s what these are, fifteen feet over my head. And it must be nearing two-ay-em, but it feels like this night is never, ever going to cease.
The hangover is not a hangover. It is not the coke sputtering out, either; I rode that particular wave down before midnight. Maybe it’s the blood loss? Oh, you think? A lagoon has formed on the tiles, which are off-white and black. And red all over. But no, no… He made damned sure I was active before he left, or at least tracking toward transformation.
I had a wife, once. How many losers and psychopaths have milked that little factoid about their lives? There is no life to this town—we are all morticians, and the floor-to-ceiling windows let you look the corpse over. There are so few lights to see…
Nothing bad happened to my wife, by the way; she packed the dog when the drug moved in, and left when the entourage arrived. That was the crowning achievement of my 1986, and one year later I am essentially dead. Hold the lilies and luncheons, though. This is only my first step to recovery.
The v—the devil who bandaged my canary’s wing goes by the name of Tobias Lofton, president and founder of SolTech Industries. He has a Spanish air about him, by which I mean he hails from Madrid. My corporation officially sold itself into his loving, tender care four months ago; my corporation, which he proceeded to suck dry of all its former identity, used to manufacture mirrors for General Motors. Anytime you looked behind you, we were there, closer than we appeared. Ha.
Then Lofton swooped down in that ghost-white Learjet, with his hypnotizing accent and Shakespearean goatee. He partied with us, brought his entourage along, sharing the spoils of his international war on Other People’s Profits. Papers were signed, strippers were paid, and mid-grade cabernet flowed like tokens from the loosest slots in Vegas.
Right now, as I gaze across myself sprawled on the counter here, sitting awkwardly, half-in the kitchenette sink, it still makes the same sort of perfect sense that earned my CEO’s signature on the death warrant. Did we know we were cattle? Do you think cattle know that they’re cattle? And this… tick… on our ear, this tick that turned out to be a monster from the underworld, how long did he stalk us? How much due diligence would have satisfied him, this being who leaves nothing up to chance, who has nothing left to fear and no watch to wind any longer? I wish he had at least explained that to me. My corporation was probably just a midnight snack, but hey—he set me up for life, so maybe I should quit my crying.
My shredded chest and splintered sternum are putting themselves back together again. I wish I could videotape this; give a copy to my doctor as a farewell present. My health insurer, too. They’ll never see another dime of mine. In about… oh, another hour… my eyeteeth will fall out, and the new ones will grow in, the retractable ones. Lofton said to prepare myself for the first time I use the bathroom—what I see in the mirror won’t be what everyone else is seeing. He emphasized that I should keep a photograph of myself somewhere secure, like in a safe deposit box. Many copies, he said, in many different boxes. Then he said, with the most haunted facial expression I have ever seen, that he wishes someone had invented cameras when he was young. From the way he spoke, I guess I reminded him of himself, or at least of what he can remember.
Despite my earlier ruminations, there are no hands on the back of the clock. Lofton said swaddling myself in enough blankets and sheets ought to hold me until sundown, until I can make better arrangements. Then he will return, with his entourage, and we will speak of the future in the language of sharks.
I wish my ex-wife could see me now. She will, soon, probably on television. I never imagined I would have a “rise to fame”, but he swears it will come, and not just as a face. Real power. I am climbing the Jacob’s ladder—or at least walking the rungs of its shadow. They are leading me toward seven figures. Do you hear me? Seven figures! And I am going to make partner, baby, if it’s the last thing I do.
The hangover is not a hangover. It is not the coke sputtering out, either; I rode that particular wave down before midnight. Maybe it’s the blood loss? Oh, you think? A lagoon has formed on the tiles, which are off-white and black. And red all over. But no, no… He made damned sure I was active before he left, or at least tracking toward transformation.
I had a wife, once. How many losers and psychopaths have milked that little factoid about their lives? There is no life to this town—we are all morticians, and the floor-to-ceiling windows let you look the corpse over. There are so few lights to see…
Nothing bad happened to my wife, by the way; she packed the dog when the drug moved in, and left when the entourage arrived. That was the crowning achievement of my 1986, and one year later I am essentially dead. Hold the lilies and luncheons, though. This is only my first step to recovery.
The v—the devil who bandaged my canary’s wing goes by the name of Tobias Lofton, president and founder of SolTech Industries. He has a Spanish air about him, by which I mean he hails from Madrid. My corporation officially sold itself into his loving, tender care four months ago; my corporation, which he proceeded to suck dry of all its former identity, used to manufacture mirrors for General Motors. Anytime you looked behind you, we were there, closer than we appeared. Ha.
Then Lofton swooped down in that ghost-white Learjet, with his hypnotizing accent and Shakespearean goatee. He partied with us, brought his entourage along, sharing the spoils of his international war on Other People’s Profits. Papers were signed, strippers were paid, and mid-grade cabernet flowed like tokens from the loosest slots in Vegas.
Right now, as I gaze across myself sprawled on the counter here, sitting awkwardly, half-in the kitchenette sink, it still makes the same sort of perfect sense that earned my CEO’s signature on the death warrant. Did we know we were cattle? Do you think cattle know that they’re cattle? And this… tick… on our ear, this tick that turned out to be a monster from the underworld, how long did he stalk us? How much due diligence would have satisfied him, this being who leaves nothing up to chance, who has nothing left to fear and no watch to wind any longer? I wish he had at least explained that to me. My corporation was probably just a midnight snack, but hey—he set me up for life, so maybe I should quit my crying.
My shredded chest and splintered sternum are putting themselves back together again. I wish I could videotape this; give a copy to my doctor as a farewell present. My health insurer, too. They’ll never see another dime of mine. In about… oh, another hour… my eyeteeth will fall out, and the new ones will grow in, the retractable ones. Lofton said to prepare myself for the first time I use the bathroom—what I see in the mirror won’t be what everyone else is seeing. He emphasized that I should keep a photograph of myself somewhere secure, like in a safe deposit box. Many copies, he said, in many different boxes. Then he said, with the most haunted facial expression I have ever seen, that he wishes someone had invented cameras when he was young. From the way he spoke, I guess I reminded him of himself, or at least of what he can remember.
Despite my earlier ruminations, there are no hands on the back of the clock. Lofton said swaddling myself in enough blankets and sheets ought to hold me until sundown, until I can make better arrangements. Then he will return, with his entourage, and we will speak of the future in the language of sharks.
I wish my ex-wife could see me now. She will, soon, probably on television. I never imagined I would have a “rise to fame”, but he swears it will come, and not just as a face. Real power. I am climbing the Jacob’s ladder—or at least walking the rungs of its shadow. They are leading me toward seven figures. Do you hear me? Seven figures! And I am going to make partner, baby, if it’s the last thing I do.
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