She isn’t who she says she is and that is how she manages to marry my father and become my stepmother. In the waking world she is actually the woman who gave birth to me but I am so far removed from that place. She has no name and a menacing shadow constantly obscuring half of her face. And she is a bitch.
The details of my actual mother’s death are never revealed to me and it doesn’t really matter because knowing probably, most likely, would not change what happens. All I know, all I remember is that this woman causes nothing but terror for my sister and me. We live on some costal town, probably somewhere in California because it’s sunny and temperate and wonderful. So probably San Diego.
The details are fuzzy. The four of us (Dad, Stepmom, Sister and I) are walking down a boardwalk, crowded with people and abuzz with noise and activity and excitement. Stepmom (remember, she is my real mom in the real world), is complaining to Dad that Sister and I are terrible children and we need to be sent to some strict, under-regulated, off the charts boarding prison school camp where they “straighten” children out. (Ironic note: they all undoubtedly sodomize their “students”). We are, naturally, vehemently against this option and insist that our stepmother “shut her fucking cracked-out mouth”. I don’t know about the choice of words there, but they were spoken.
This of course launches her into a fury. Flames seem to literally erupt from her hair and eyes and mouth. She screams and bellows and waves her hands in the air. My sister and I run. My Dad does nothing. We run past quaint little shops and bums and beaches. We run up streets with cute houses that are completely different from every other one. The palm trees are suddenly replaced with oaks and elms and spruces and there is grass and the sun is just a little colder. Behind us some yards away the beach and boardwalk remains, but we are now in Michigan.
Oliver Street. And we burst into our grandparents house (the home of our stepmother’s parents) and rush up the carpeted stairs to our grandmother’s room. And she is sitting on the edge of her bed, rubbing her eyes as if she has just woken up. Her face is aged and worn and covered with wrinkles that make her age almost impossible to accurately determine.
We fall to our knees, the two of us exhausted and crying. We beg and plead with our grandmother to protect us from the woman who has somehow tricked our father into marrying him and threatening to send us so far away. She speaks softly and assures us that we are going nowhere.
And then, as if on cue, the raging psycho burst into the room, the flames having died out. She points an accusatory finger at our faces and demands that we return to the boardwalk. The boat is ready and we are to be shipped off. Our grandmother stands and tells her daughter that, just because she failed her as a mother was no reason to take it out on her own children. And at this our stepmother slaps our grandmother and we scream because we know, at that moment, we are going to be loaded onto a boat and taken away to some horrible place and
I wake up. It’s 2-something in the morning. I really need to figure out how to sleep a whole night through.
In other news, I am pretty sure my mom’s conversation with that Cox rep last night is the cause for this dream. I’m almost pretty sure it’s almost impossible for my mom to actually be my stepmom and/or breathe fire. I hope.
30.6.10
i smell murder and drugs and bears.
It’s been a week, maybe, since my last posting. I think, because I never go back and read them, that I was droning on about what to write or where to start or why Dr. Seuss is such a fracking genius. Either way, today as I was carrying on conversations with insurance reps from United Healthcare, I was hit with an idea. While trying to translate the fellow’s broken Indian-English, I realized what it was that I need to write.
It is to be a story of love. A story of good decisions gone wrong. A story of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Of hot summer fun and cold winter nights. Of danger and intrigue. Of shallow and jaded youths with nothing but time and money. A story that will go absolutely no where, but end at a destination all the same. It will feature chapters titled: “Jenny Was a Friend of Mine”; “Midnight Show”; “Everything Will Be Alright”; and many, many more! (actually, like 8 more, but who is counting?)
Working Title: The Killers. See where this is going? I bet you do.
In other news, I had a horrible dream last night. I can’t remember much of it except for being in a locked classroom with a bunch of other random people. I was seated next to Ryan and my co-worker, Mary Beth (this time alive and well) was seated in front of me. I was all panic-stricken and hyperventilating about a serial killer who (for reasons unknown to me) was out to kill me. Like, he would stop at nothing to end my life.
Well, Mary Beth is telling me to calm down and not to worry. After all, we were afforded the protection of a locked, wooden door right? Clearly she had never heard of a little novel (or film) called “The Shining”. Anyhow, the woman who is in charge of the classroom lets us all know that she has a squad of police officers coming to show us what to do in the even we encounter “a dangerous, psychotic escapee mental patient”.
So the cops show up with a tall man. The chief fellow introduces himself and holds up this orange jumpsuit-type thing with two very thin, very long sleeves. He says something like: “All escapee patients will be wearing this. So don’t worry too much because they can’t move a lot with them on. So, you know, you’ll be okay.” Then he calls for a volunteer to help demonstrate his moves. Naturally, since this is my dream, I get called.
So I come to the front of the room and get positioned in front of the guy and, sure enough, when he looks down at me I start screaming: “OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD ITSHIMITSHIM!” And then his hands are on my throat and I can feel it crushing and I’m dying and-
I wake up.
PS: I was streaming KROQ (THE world famous) on my computer this morning and listening to the Kevin and Bean Show. Anyhow, one of the news reports coming out of LA was that like, some 100 people died the other night due to overdosing on Ecstasy. Which brings me to two things:
a) I do not want to die with a pacifier in my mouth
b) I am too freaked out to try that shit because I know if I did I would be one of those 100 people.
One other note. I spoke of my dream to a coworker and she stopped me midway through to tell me that she’s always had this creepy feeling that I will be murdered. She couldn’t explain why.
That’s all.
It is to be a story of love. A story of good decisions gone wrong. A story of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Of hot summer fun and cold winter nights. Of danger and intrigue. Of shallow and jaded youths with nothing but time and money. A story that will go absolutely no where, but end at a destination all the same. It will feature chapters titled: “Jenny Was a Friend of Mine”; “Midnight Show”; “Everything Will Be Alright”; and many, many more! (actually, like 8 more, but who is counting?)
Working Title: The Killers. See where this is going? I bet you do.
In other news, I had a horrible dream last night. I can’t remember much of it except for being in a locked classroom with a bunch of other random people. I was seated next to Ryan and my co-worker, Mary Beth (this time alive and well) was seated in front of me. I was all panic-stricken and hyperventilating about a serial killer who (for reasons unknown to me) was out to kill me. Like, he would stop at nothing to end my life.
Well, Mary Beth is telling me to calm down and not to worry. After all, we were afforded the protection of a locked, wooden door right? Clearly she had never heard of a little novel (or film) called “The Shining”. Anyhow, the woman who is in charge of the classroom lets us all know that she has a squad of police officers coming to show us what to do in the even we encounter “a dangerous, psychotic escapee mental patient”.
So the cops show up with a tall man. The chief fellow introduces himself and holds up this orange jumpsuit-type thing with two very thin, very long sleeves. He says something like: “All escapee patients will be wearing this. So don’t worry too much because they can’t move a lot with them on. So, you know, you’ll be okay.” Then he calls for a volunteer to help demonstrate his moves. Naturally, since this is my dream, I get called.
So I come to the front of the room and get positioned in front of the guy and, sure enough, when he looks down at me I start screaming: “OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD ITSHIMITSHIM!” And then his hands are on my throat and I can feel it crushing and I’m dying and-
I wake up.
PS: I was streaming KROQ (THE world famous) on my computer this morning and listening to the Kevin and Bean Show. Anyhow, one of the news reports coming out of LA was that like, some 100 people died the other night due to overdosing on Ecstasy. Which brings me to two things:
a) I do not want to die with a pacifier in my mouth
b) I am too freaked out to try that shit because I know if I did I would be one of those 100 people.
One other note. I spoke of my dream to a coworker and she stopped me midway through to tell me that she’s always had this creepy feeling that I will be murdered. She couldn’t explain why.
That’s all.
24.6.10
these things i do are not for you
I’m not sure where to begin. Ideas have never been that big of a problem. I guess for me, right now, my biggest obstacle is my own inability to formulate a proper starting point. I have been told, by more than one person that if starting at the beginning doesn’t work, to start somewhere else. After all, it’s not like I’m chiseling any of this in stone. As a matter of fact, the beautiful thing about computers is how easily information is manipulated. If I don’t like how one thing looks or if another doesn’t quite match up to something else further down the line, I can simply delete it and it’ll be as if it had never been at all.
So, we come back to my main dilemma. I don’t know what idea to focus on. I’ve always been the type of person, for as long as I can remember (which isn’t all that much because my memory sucks), to get bored easily. Or distracted. Or bounce from one thing to the next without the slightest bit of thought or consideration. I’m impulsive and prone to random acts of sheer randomness.
I have ideas floating in the cesspools of my imaginative brain, but I just don’t know which to try and cultivate. Previous attempts to keep my focus on more than one thing usually lead to finishing absolutely nothing. This then results in my writing folder on my hard drive to contain a million little word documents that contain small blurbs that ultimately mean nothing.
I feel I need to start with shorter stories. I feel that writing short stories takes a little more effort than writing full on novels or books. A writer of short stories has to learn control. They have to learn how to hone a plot with laser-like precision from start to finish. They have to be short, but contain near the same emotional impact that a novel might contain. They have to be entertaining and keep the reader engaged. They have to be nearly all that a novel is, but…shorter.
Then again, I have to wonder if the ideas I have could formulate into a full-length novel. I’d hate to be one of those writers who publish some 1,500 page book with 1/3 of it containing actual meat while the rest is just that steroid injected chemical attempting to boost the word count. The longest thing I’ve ever written amounted to exactly 91,470 words and it’s a StarCraft fanfic that I wrote back in high school. And, shocking I know, never finished. I actually skimmed through it not too long ago and, wow, it’s horrible in this “my words are all over the place helter skelter” sort of way.
Where was I? Where am I? And there goes my entire train of thought. I’ve been wading through my music library on iTunes. I find myself very connected to whatever creative mojo I have when a damn fine song is playing. I can’t write while the song is actually on, because I end up typing the lyrics (if there are lyrics. I know, music without lyrics nowadays is something most people can’t seem to grasp. Or if the lyrics are about melting popsicles. Really now. Did a five year old write that song)? It says something too, I think, about song writers who can, through the course of an album and with so few words, capture nearly every spectrum of human emotion and lay out the soul in a way a book or a story never really can.
Which is ultimately what I want to do, at some point. I just want to write something real and honest. I’ve been second guessing myself. I’ve been worried about the kind of response I’d get from people. Would my parents approve of this? Is so-and-so going to be mad that I’ve portrayed this like that? Would people think me a loser for writing such and such?
It’s funny, if I put half the amount of energy I put into debating with myself about how people perceive me, I think I might actually have had finished an entire writing project. Imagine that!
Sometimes I talk to myself, but not because I’m crazy or alone or because I like the sound of my own voice (though, come on, like, who doesn’t LOVE my voice); I talk to myself because sometimes vocalizing puts things into a greater focus than just thinking. And sometimes typing out words and posting them on a whim brings a certain sense of clarity. Even if, come the next morning, I find myself wishing I hadn’t.
There is a passage from “Oh The Places You Will Go” that always struck me as the most poignant. It’s the part where our intrepid traveler of life’s highways comes to The Waiting Place. As a kid the imagery sort of freaked me out because everything was so dark and damp and unpleasant. As a kid I never understood the message being conveyed, but now with adulthood and the various experiences that has, for better or worse, helped shape me into the person I am today and will, through the course of more experiences, shape me into the person I shall be tomorrow and the day after, etcetera, etcetera that passage gets to me.
So much so that, after having posted that passage in one of my various other blogs (now all long forgotten R.I.P.) a friend of mine asked me what I was waiting for. Perhaps because I’m impatient and impulsive and prone to flights of fancy, I was waiting for something to fall into place without really having to do much. I mean, come on, awesome things like that happen in movies and television and books. And then throw in the fact that all that kind of imagery is practically force-fed to us by society and wham! But seriously, Jacob, I still don’t have an answer for you.
So back to the beginning. Where to start? Maybe tonight, after I’ve tossed and turned and flipped my pillow end over end to keep it cool and wrapped myself all mummy-like to keep warm and that illusive beast we like to call “sleep” is just within my reach and I’m just shrugging off everything and slipping away it’ll come.
I mean, after all, if not now, when?
23.6.10
a dream in which mary beth dies.
I don’t know where the beginning starts, so I’ll simply share what I remember.
There is a house, Victorian perhaps, or maybe it isn’t a house at all. We’ll just leave it as a building, constructed of wood and aged to the point where most would consider it derelict and uninhabitable. I can say nothing of the surroundings outside, because from where I remember we were already inside.
The room is expansive and dusty. The floor is rotten, the walls seemingly wet. One wall is comprised of a series of large, angled windows that favor us there with a view to the courtyard. It isn’t noticed at first, but on the ceiling are a hodgepodge collection of wrought iron fences, nailed loosely and hanging precariously.
There are only four people in this room. Myself, Kitty Walker and her mother Nora and Mary Beth Richardson, a co-worker of mine. Kitty and Nora are characters on an ABC television program, Brothers & Sisters, but it doesn’t occur to me that it would be odd for them to be present.
An ominous voice-over states, with a touch of dramatic flair, “and by the end of the night, one of them would be gone forever.” And, almost on cue, the whole room starts to shake. Debris begins to fall. The wrought iron fences swing downward. Mary Beth is impaled. From her chest, four iron spikes protrude like the fangs of some ancient, evil beast. Circles of blood blossom around the spikes and she gasps.
I find myself shouting: “No! It can’t possibly be Mary Beth! She isn’t even on the show!”
Everything transitions seamlessly to another room. It’s a hospital room like any other generic hospital room around the country. White walls. A window. A curtain. A bed. Mary Beth lays there, seemingly asleep. I ask: “Are you awake?”
And her eyes flutter open. She sighs. “I feel like I’ve been asleep for so long,” she says. “I feel so rested.” I smile, thrilled to know that she was able to survive the horrible incident from before.
I turn to the door and call for everyone to come and see Mary Beth. No one comes. I find this odd, because I know they had all just been outside not but a moment before. I turn to face Mary Beth, words forming on my lips, but lost in an instance.
Everything has morphed to various shades of white, black and gray. Mary Beth is on the bed, circles of blood forming where the fence had impaled her. She is ashen and sickly. Her hair is stringy and lifeless.
I run from the room, terrified and in disbelief. As I move down the hallway, I see Diana, another coworker of mine, seated at a computer terminal, typing away. Quickly I reach her and ask:
“Diana! Have you seen Mary Beth? She’s awake!”
At this point, she looks up and gives me a blank stare. “Corey, that’s not funny.” She keeps typing. “Mary Beth died. You know this.”
I return her stare with a dumb one of my own. “But, she just woke up. I saw her in the backroom. She was sleeping.” I turn to look behind me. Mary Beth is standing there, a few feet from the two of us.
“See! She’s right there,” I say, pointing at Mary Beth. Diana looks past me and I can tell that she sees nothing. Her face remains unmoved.
“Maybe you should see someone,” she tells me. “Clearly this has affected you.”
Ellen walks up from behind Diana. “What’s going on here?”
I look to Ellen. “I’ve been trying to tell Diana that Mary Beth is alive, but she keeps telling me she isn’t. Which I don’t understand because she is standing right here behind me. Can’t you see her?”
Ellen raises her brow and I know that she must think I’m crazy. I walk to a row of cupboards to Diana’s left. I point them. I look at Mary Beth.
“Mary Beth, please open one of these cupboards and prove to these two that you are still alive!”
Marty Beth steps forward and grips the hand. She pulls it open. I see the door swing. If she were dead and merely a ghost, it stands to reason that her hand would have simply passed through the material. Here she is, however, pulling open the cupboard.
Diana and Ellen stare, unmoved. I look at them, smiling. I look back to the cupboard. Its closed. “But,” I begin to stammer.
“Corey, I think you should see someone. Mary Beth is dead.”
I look back to them with my mouth hanging open. I look behind me again. Mary Beth is gone.
-END OF DREAM
There is a house, Victorian perhaps, or maybe it isn’t a house at all. We’ll just leave it as a building, constructed of wood and aged to the point where most would consider it derelict and uninhabitable. I can say nothing of the surroundings outside, because from where I remember we were already inside.
The room is expansive and dusty. The floor is rotten, the walls seemingly wet. One wall is comprised of a series of large, angled windows that favor us there with a view to the courtyard. It isn’t noticed at first, but on the ceiling are a hodgepodge collection of wrought iron fences, nailed loosely and hanging precariously.
There are only four people in this room. Myself, Kitty Walker and her mother Nora and Mary Beth Richardson, a co-worker of mine. Kitty and Nora are characters on an ABC television program, Brothers & Sisters, but it doesn’t occur to me that it would be odd for them to be present.
An ominous voice-over states, with a touch of dramatic flair, “and by the end of the night, one of them would be gone forever.” And, almost on cue, the whole room starts to shake. Debris begins to fall. The wrought iron fences swing downward. Mary Beth is impaled. From her chest, four iron spikes protrude like the fangs of some ancient, evil beast. Circles of blood blossom around the spikes and she gasps.
I find myself shouting: “No! It can’t possibly be Mary Beth! She isn’t even on the show!”
Everything transitions seamlessly to another room. It’s a hospital room like any other generic hospital room around the country. White walls. A window. A curtain. A bed. Mary Beth lays there, seemingly asleep. I ask: “Are you awake?”
And her eyes flutter open. She sighs. “I feel like I’ve been asleep for so long,” she says. “I feel so rested.” I smile, thrilled to know that she was able to survive the horrible incident from before.
I turn to the door and call for everyone to come and see Mary Beth. No one comes. I find this odd, because I know they had all just been outside not but a moment before. I turn to face Mary Beth, words forming on my lips, but lost in an instance.
Everything has morphed to various shades of white, black and gray. Mary Beth is on the bed, circles of blood forming where the fence had impaled her. She is ashen and sickly. Her hair is stringy and lifeless.
I run from the room, terrified and in disbelief. As I move down the hallway, I see Diana, another coworker of mine, seated at a computer terminal, typing away. Quickly I reach her and ask:
“Diana! Have you seen Mary Beth? She’s awake!”
At this point, she looks up and gives me a blank stare. “Corey, that’s not funny.” She keeps typing. “Mary Beth died. You know this.”
I return her stare with a dumb one of my own. “But, she just woke up. I saw her in the backroom. She was sleeping.” I turn to look behind me. Mary Beth is standing there, a few feet from the two of us.
“See! She’s right there,” I say, pointing at Mary Beth. Diana looks past me and I can tell that she sees nothing. Her face remains unmoved.
“Maybe you should see someone,” she tells me. “Clearly this has affected you.”
Ellen walks up from behind Diana. “What’s going on here?”
I look to Ellen. “I’ve been trying to tell Diana that Mary Beth is alive, but she keeps telling me she isn’t. Which I don’t understand because she is standing right here behind me. Can’t you see her?”
Ellen raises her brow and I know that she must think I’m crazy. I walk to a row of cupboards to Diana’s left. I point them. I look at Mary Beth.
“Mary Beth, please open one of these cupboards and prove to these two that you are still alive!”
Marty Beth steps forward and grips the hand. She pulls it open. I see the door swing. If she were dead and merely a ghost, it stands to reason that her hand would have simply passed through the material. Here she is, however, pulling open the cupboard.
Diana and Ellen stare, unmoved. I look at them, smiling. I look back to the cupboard. Its closed. “But,” I begin to stammer.
“Corey, I think you should see someone. Mary Beth is dead.”
I look back to them with my mouth hanging open. I look behind me again. Mary Beth is gone.
-END OF DREAM
11.4.10
2: the ink sea
there is a beach where a gold fish swims in constant circles
in the confines of a clear bowl while the tides come in,
and pull out.
a boy with no name, because his parents never bothered,
walks this beach, his toes being stained
from the ink of the sea
'little fish' he says when he happens upon the bowl
'what has you trapped in this bowl? Should you not be out with your family?
Swimming in the sea?;
the fish circles, wide-eyed and shimmering
in the ever present sun that never seems to set
on this beach by the sea
'no, no,' the fish tells the boy, not stopping for a moment.
'a little fish like me couldn't possibly make it in a sea so large,
so i'll stay here and be content to watch.'
the nameless boy ponders this for a moment, confused
that it would willingly choose to stay in this bowl
when it had so much before it.
'but fish,' says the boy, 'think of what is out there!
'other fish you've never seen, other waters you've never swam,
and world without edge or end!'
the sea laps against them both,
leaving its trace of orange, yellow, red and blue in its wake;
and all is quiet
'there is endless possibility out there fish
for this sea is the ink sea and it can be anything you desire
and dream.'
the fish slows in its pacing of circles 'round the glass.
'but I do not dream. Nor do I have desires.
I am but a fish.'
at this the boy frowns and sits beside the bowl,
wondering what it must be like to want nothing more
than what one has.
'if this sea is so truly wonderful and great as you have proclaimed,
and if desires and dreams are so valued, then why, oh why
are you still here?'
in the confines of a clear bowl while the tides come in,
and pull out.
a boy with no name, because his parents never bothered,
walks this beach, his toes being stained
from the ink of the sea
'little fish' he says when he happens upon the bowl
'what has you trapped in this bowl? Should you not be out with your family?
Swimming in the sea?;
the fish circles, wide-eyed and shimmering
in the ever present sun that never seems to set
on this beach by the sea
'no, no,' the fish tells the boy, not stopping for a moment.
'a little fish like me couldn't possibly make it in a sea so large,
so i'll stay here and be content to watch.'
the nameless boy ponders this for a moment, confused
that it would willingly choose to stay in this bowl
when it had so much before it.
'but fish,' says the boy, 'think of what is out there!
'other fish you've never seen, other waters you've never swam,
and world without edge or end!'
the sea laps against them both,
leaving its trace of orange, yellow, red and blue in its wake;
and all is quiet
'there is endless possibility out there fish
for this sea is the ink sea and it can be anything you desire
and dream.'
the fish slows in its pacing of circles 'round the glass.
'but I do not dream. Nor do I have desires.
I am but a fish.'
at this the boy frowns and sits beside the bowl,
wondering what it must be like to want nothing more
than what one has.
'if this sea is so truly wonderful and great as you have proclaimed,
and if desires and dreams are so valued, then why, oh why
are you still here?'
9.4.10
1: on almost any sunday morning
Outside it’s cloudy in New York City. Or it could just as easily be Chicago or Boston or Seattle, but not Los Angeles or Detroit. San Francisco is also an option, but it strikes me as too obvious a place to meet again for the hundredth or thousandth time. Either way, it is cloudy outside and the windows of the café are dotted with raindrops. If one were to stare out either broad window that faced the street outside, light foot traffic could be seen milling up and down either side of the road. Even on a cloudy day with rain freshly fallen; people still had places to be. It is a world in motion.
Inside everything comes together almost instantly. A wide-spaced area for little wooden chairs and tables, some occupied at random with faceless strangers I don’t even care to notice. These people eat and drink from cups while filling the air above and around them with a hum of chatter and muffled conversation. I don’t make out words because what they are saying is just about as important as the faces they don’t have. Which is to say I only care for the ambiance they seem to exude just by being there, sitting and making the kind of noises and sounds one would expect to hear in a café like this one. In a café that could be in New York or Boston or Chicago, but most definitely not Los Angeles or even, and I dare chuckle at the thought, a place like Phoenix.
Inside this café there are a couple of well upholstered chairs and couches, all of which remain unoccupied at present. A large bookcase, lined with titles that call back to a time when literature was paramount in entertaining and keeping a culture well versed and rounded, rests against a wall. Then of course there is the bar where the faceless baristas toil over imposing espresso machines and fashion beverages after names equally rotund and boisterous.
I’d like a venti triple layered, non-fat caramel macchiato deluxe suprema grava with no foam but extra whipped cream. In a world bent on keeping the events of our lives down to a one hundred and forty-four character blurb minimum, this kind of ordering and structuring of our daily activities fits perfectly.
I am sitting at the bar on a high-legged stool, my back to the door and hunched over a piping cappuccino and scanning the headlines of a newspaper. PRESIDENT TO SIGN BILL AUTHORIZING MASS EUTHANIZATION OF COWS! Or: SUICIDE BOMBER BLOWS UP BURGER JOINT, MARKET FEARS BACKLASH. Better still: COW UNION STAMPEDES HALLS OF CONGRESS. On and on these headlines pour down the pages and I have to wonder, for the briefest of moments, why society has become so hostile to the bovine community. I pause and wonder if there even is such a thing as a “bovine community”. Some would argue that if Jews, Gays, Blacks and fur-fetishists have a community, then why not our black and white-spotted, milk producing friends?
I continue to flip through the paper and realize, again, that the world is most assuredly coming to shit. Between financial meltdowns, global pandemic, wars, famine, homicide, patricide, suicide, embezzlements, entitlements, healthcare costs, terrorism, religious fanaticism, religious persecution, civil rights, animal rights, tsunamis, earthquakes, flood; a voice cuts through the background buzz of those faceless individuals.
I turn and look. I see the whole place as if viewed through glazed glass; all ripples and waves and indentations. Everything appears to have the vaguest of shape and form, but nothing stands out. The effect is rather haunting, but I’m not put off by this. It only serves to bring the most important thing to direct focus.
He stands now that he’s noticed I’ve noticed him. His lips form a cautious smile, waiting no doubt, to see if my reaction to his presence will be something of joy, happiness, even giddy enthusiasm or bitter rage, anger, or despair. Or maybe all three. His smile widens into something more confident because I’ve obviously given him some indication that his calling out to me was appropriate and well-received. I can’t tell if I’m actually smiling or not.
He looks the same, but older. His black hair, thin back then, is almost the same though cropped closer to his skull. He has forsaken the contact lenses of his youth for an older, more sophisticated pair of black framed glasses. His nose is thin and prominent, though now with a pair of glasses resting on its bridge seems to add more character to his face. True, his eyes are now obscured by the lenses, but they were dull brown to begin with. No pools to be lost swimming in for hours. He wears a white Oxford-style shirt, a blue-brown Burberry tie, neutral slacks and a fine blue vest. The perfect caricature of an academic.
He calls out my name again and draws closer; brushing past a fellow patron whose shoulder he casually touches and goes unnoticed. A hundred years ago, it seems, I would have killed to have been that nameless body he touched. A hundred years ago, I amend, I was. A hundred years ago we swapped more than mere glances and idle passing touches. A hundred years ago we-
I open my mouth and greet him warmly; the greeting of two old souls entertaining a chance encounter in a café on a crowded street on a cloudy day in a city somewhere on the edge of time. His name feels almost foreign to my tongue when it rolls out, like a traveler returning home after being months abroad in a nation far, far away. I extend my hand to his. He grins and instead engulfs me in a hug. I teeter on my stool as he says something to me my ears don’t quite catch. Most likely it is something rudimentary and polite. Something like: “you look great” or “imagine seeing you here!”
At the same instance I catch a whiff of his cologne and find it suited to the person he is now. Much like the change in his attire, this fragrance matches his professorial image. It is subtle, mildly spiced and earthy. A hundred years ago he wore graphic t-shirts with dead trees and birds and splattered ink blots. A hundred years ago he smelled of the summer sun, menthol and sugar.
We pull out of the quick embrace, our eyes meeting. I wonder if the smile on my face looks as weak as it feels. It must not because he continues smiling between his words, in his eyes and with the movements of his hands. His paper, I noticed, remains where he had been seated moments before, still crisp and folded. The bombardment of questions continues to come and I find myself giving answers as if on autopilot.
“It’s been so long! How have you been?”
(Fine, you know, just living life. I mean, it’s only been a hundred years. What could possibly happen between then and now?)
I tell him I’ve been well. Finally finished school.
“Degree?”
(PhD in Time and Energy, emphasis on Wasting)
English.
“Congratulations! Are you teaching or writing or what?”
(What’s the point of all this really?)
I shift nervously, trying to get him to break contact with my eyes but fail. He’s still grinning. I tell him the truth. I’m in town for a meeting with my publisher. Finally finished that novel I’d been talking about writing for a hundred years.
“Amazing! That definitely calls for some celebrating! When is it getting published?”
(Why? Are you going to read it? I doubt you’d even find interest in it. It would probably all be quite foreign to you anyway. A time long removed and best forgotten)
Two months.
He continues his inquisition, though never digging too far beneath the surface. It’s all small talk and polite exchanges. Little, insignificant morsels of words that tell only an eighth of what has really transpired over the course of a hundred years.
“Are you still in Phoenix?”
(Like you don’t know the answer to that)
Yeah, unfortunately.
“How long are you in town?”
(Not long enough to cause you any trouble if that’s what you mean)
Just today.
He manages a look that might pass for regret if I were stupid enough to believe he’d actually feel that way. Since I know better it just looks like relief. He doesn’t have to worry about extending himself any further than this. A casual, brief meeting that will most likely be forgotten about the moment he walks back to his waiting paper and coffee. A meeting that will leave my stomach in knots for the next
(hundred years)
He asks a few more general questions that make me feel like I’m talking to some stranger about the weather outside. It’s all inconsequential and amounts to nothing, just a way to pass time and keep from being too bored.
I see then time unfold before me. Hours from now, when the sun is sinking into the horizon and these skyscrapers of metal and glass are illuminated in hues of oranges, reds and purples; he will enter his high rise apartment and be greeted by his lover, probably calling out from the kitchen where the smells of some exotic meal is being prepared wafts out. He’ll remove his jacket, hang it on the rack next to the door. He’ll remove his designer shoes and set them neatly aside. He’ll look up and from the vantage point of the wall-sized windows see the world awash in the colors of the coming night. He’ll smile and know that life is practically perfect. He’ll start toward the kitchen and make it about halfway before his lover rounds the corner, a glass of fine aged red wine in hand. Their lips will smack in a kiss that belies the passion they truly have for another. He’ll sip red wine and talk about all sorts of things. The class that just couldn’t get enough of Mahler; the lunch with a colleague; the news that the college had to cut another scholarship program. All the while they’ll shift through the motions of a couple preparing for twilight. They'll dine. They’ll retire to a couch. He’ll sink into his papers and his lover will become engrossed with the television.
They’ll retire to their bedroom. They’ll undress one another and make love. And only after all this, and the two are in their afterglow, limbs entwined will he be asked one more time if anything else interesting happened. He’ll pause for a moment, eyes resting on the circling ceiling fan. He’ll take a couple breathes as if truly contemplating. It’ll feel like a span of hours, but in reality five seconds has ticked off the clock. He’ll shake his head. He’ll speak two words that indicate he had nothing further to add to the timeline of today and they’ll both wander hand-in-hand to peaceful dreams.
I’ll be on a return plane to Phoenix, lulled into near unconsciousness by alcohol and Valium. I’ll stare blankly out the small window at the darkened sky and the ground below. The city will start to sink away. He’ll start to sink away. And for another hundred years I’ll be grasping at an encounter that might not have actually happened at all.
“So it was really nice seeing you again.”
I hope my smile is strong enough. I agree with him.
He offers to exchange numbers.
(Translation: I know you’ll never call)
I take his. He takes mine.
“If you’re ever on this side of town again we should get together”
(I won’t ever be coming back)
I nod.
“Listen, I’ve got to run. Classes starting and I just stopped in to grab a latte before heading off.”
(Translation: You’re not worth my time. Though, really now, is that a surprise?)
I nod again, finding it the easiest way to deal with his words. His cheap and easy words. At this exact moment, when he hugs me again, I want to spit razors at him. I want to shake him. I want to smack him. I want to kiss him. I want to hold him tightly. I want to drive a pencil into his left eye. I want to ask-
He breaks from the hug and smiles. Repeats his enthusiasm for having seen me again. Turns. Walks toward the door, his paper and latte abandoned. The door chimes jingle.
(do you remember a hundred years ago? When you’re lying in bed at night and just falling into sleep’s embrace, do you ever think back a hundred years ago? Do you feel the same lament I do?)
Outside he’s lost to the traffic of moving feet.
I have had this meeting with him a hundred times. A hundred times a hundred. I sigh, disappointed with the events. I withdraw and the world around me starts to melt and run like a painted canvas dipped in thinner. It becomes streams of color until they all bleed into each other. And then it is simply black. And I am left alone, save for the singular ticking of a clock.
Inside everything comes together almost instantly. A wide-spaced area for little wooden chairs and tables, some occupied at random with faceless strangers I don’t even care to notice. These people eat and drink from cups while filling the air above and around them with a hum of chatter and muffled conversation. I don’t make out words because what they are saying is just about as important as the faces they don’t have. Which is to say I only care for the ambiance they seem to exude just by being there, sitting and making the kind of noises and sounds one would expect to hear in a café like this one. In a café that could be in New York or Boston or Chicago, but most definitely not Los Angeles or even, and I dare chuckle at the thought, a place like Phoenix.
Inside this café there are a couple of well upholstered chairs and couches, all of which remain unoccupied at present. A large bookcase, lined with titles that call back to a time when literature was paramount in entertaining and keeping a culture well versed and rounded, rests against a wall. Then of course there is the bar where the faceless baristas toil over imposing espresso machines and fashion beverages after names equally rotund and boisterous.
I’d like a venti triple layered, non-fat caramel macchiato deluxe suprema grava with no foam but extra whipped cream. In a world bent on keeping the events of our lives down to a one hundred and forty-four character blurb minimum, this kind of ordering and structuring of our daily activities fits perfectly.
I am sitting at the bar on a high-legged stool, my back to the door and hunched over a piping cappuccino and scanning the headlines of a newspaper. PRESIDENT TO SIGN BILL AUTHORIZING MASS EUTHANIZATION OF COWS! Or: SUICIDE BOMBER BLOWS UP BURGER JOINT, MARKET FEARS BACKLASH. Better still: COW UNION STAMPEDES HALLS OF CONGRESS. On and on these headlines pour down the pages and I have to wonder, for the briefest of moments, why society has become so hostile to the bovine community. I pause and wonder if there even is such a thing as a “bovine community”. Some would argue that if Jews, Gays, Blacks and fur-fetishists have a community, then why not our black and white-spotted, milk producing friends?
I continue to flip through the paper and realize, again, that the world is most assuredly coming to shit. Between financial meltdowns, global pandemic, wars, famine, homicide, patricide, suicide, embezzlements, entitlements, healthcare costs, terrorism, religious fanaticism, religious persecution, civil rights, animal rights, tsunamis, earthquakes, flood; a voice cuts through the background buzz of those faceless individuals.
I turn and look. I see the whole place as if viewed through glazed glass; all ripples and waves and indentations. Everything appears to have the vaguest of shape and form, but nothing stands out. The effect is rather haunting, but I’m not put off by this. It only serves to bring the most important thing to direct focus.
He stands now that he’s noticed I’ve noticed him. His lips form a cautious smile, waiting no doubt, to see if my reaction to his presence will be something of joy, happiness, even giddy enthusiasm or bitter rage, anger, or despair. Or maybe all three. His smile widens into something more confident because I’ve obviously given him some indication that his calling out to me was appropriate and well-received. I can’t tell if I’m actually smiling or not.
He looks the same, but older. His black hair, thin back then, is almost the same though cropped closer to his skull. He has forsaken the contact lenses of his youth for an older, more sophisticated pair of black framed glasses. His nose is thin and prominent, though now with a pair of glasses resting on its bridge seems to add more character to his face. True, his eyes are now obscured by the lenses, but they were dull brown to begin with. No pools to be lost swimming in for hours. He wears a white Oxford-style shirt, a blue-brown Burberry tie, neutral slacks and a fine blue vest. The perfect caricature of an academic.
He calls out my name again and draws closer; brushing past a fellow patron whose shoulder he casually touches and goes unnoticed. A hundred years ago, it seems, I would have killed to have been that nameless body he touched. A hundred years ago, I amend, I was. A hundred years ago we swapped more than mere glances and idle passing touches. A hundred years ago we-
I open my mouth and greet him warmly; the greeting of two old souls entertaining a chance encounter in a café on a crowded street on a cloudy day in a city somewhere on the edge of time. His name feels almost foreign to my tongue when it rolls out, like a traveler returning home after being months abroad in a nation far, far away. I extend my hand to his. He grins and instead engulfs me in a hug. I teeter on my stool as he says something to me my ears don’t quite catch. Most likely it is something rudimentary and polite. Something like: “you look great” or “imagine seeing you here!”
At the same instance I catch a whiff of his cologne and find it suited to the person he is now. Much like the change in his attire, this fragrance matches his professorial image. It is subtle, mildly spiced and earthy. A hundred years ago he wore graphic t-shirts with dead trees and birds and splattered ink blots. A hundred years ago he smelled of the summer sun, menthol and sugar.
We pull out of the quick embrace, our eyes meeting. I wonder if the smile on my face looks as weak as it feels. It must not because he continues smiling between his words, in his eyes and with the movements of his hands. His paper, I noticed, remains where he had been seated moments before, still crisp and folded. The bombardment of questions continues to come and I find myself giving answers as if on autopilot.
“It’s been so long! How have you been?”
(Fine, you know, just living life. I mean, it’s only been a hundred years. What could possibly happen between then and now?)
I tell him I’ve been well. Finally finished school.
“Degree?”
(PhD in Time and Energy, emphasis on Wasting)
English.
“Congratulations! Are you teaching or writing or what?”
(What’s the point of all this really?)
I shift nervously, trying to get him to break contact with my eyes but fail. He’s still grinning. I tell him the truth. I’m in town for a meeting with my publisher. Finally finished that novel I’d been talking about writing for a hundred years.
“Amazing! That definitely calls for some celebrating! When is it getting published?”
(Why? Are you going to read it? I doubt you’d even find interest in it. It would probably all be quite foreign to you anyway. A time long removed and best forgotten)
Two months.
He continues his inquisition, though never digging too far beneath the surface. It’s all small talk and polite exchanges. Little, insignificant morsels of words that tell only an eighth of what has really transpired over the course of a hundred years.
“Are you still in Phoenix?”
(Like you don’t know the answer to that)
Yeah, unfortunately.
“How long are you in town?”
(Not long enough to cause you any trouble if that’s what you mean)
Just today.
He manages a look that might pass for regret if I were stupid enough to believe he’d actually feel that way. Since I know better it just looks like relief. He doesn’t have to worry about extending himself any further than this. A casual, brief meeting that will most likely be forgotten about the moment he walks back to his waiting paper and coffee. A meeting that will leave my stomach in knots for the next
(hundred years)
He asks a few more general questions that make me feel like I’m talking to some stranger about the weather outside. It’s all inconsequential and amounts to nothing, just a way to pass time and keep from being too bored.
I see then time unfold before me. Hours from now, when the sun is sinking into the horizon and these skyscrapers of metal and glass are illuminated in hues of oranges, reds and purples; he will enter his high rise apartment and be greeted by his lover, probably calling out from the kitchen where the smells of some exotic meal is being prepared wafts out. He’ll remove his jacket, hang it on the rack next to the door. He’ll remove his designer shoes and set them neatly aside. He’ll look up and from the vantage point of the wall-sized windows see the world awash in the colors of the coming night. He’ll smile and know that life is practically perfect. He’ll start toward the kitchen and make it about halfway before his lover rounds the corner, a glass of fine aged red wine in hand. Their lips will smack in a kiss that belies the passion they truly have for another. He’ll sip red wine and talk about all sorts of things. The class that just couldn’t get enough of Mahler; the lunch with a colleague; the news that the college had to cut another scholarship program. All the while they’ll shift through the motions of a couple preparing for twilight. They'll dine. They’ll retire to a couch. He’ll sink into his papers and his lover will become engrossed with the television.
They’ll retire to their bedroom. They’ll undress one another and make love. And only after all this, and the two are in their afterglow, limbs entwined will he be asked one more time if anything else interesting happened. He’ll pause for a moment, eyes resting on the circling ceiling fan. He’ll take a couple breathes as if truly contemplating. It’ll feel like a span of hours, but in reality five seconds has ticked off the clock. He’ll shake his head. He’ll speak two words that indicate he had nothing further to add to the timeline of today and they’ll both wander hand-in-hand to peaceful dreams.
I’ll be on a return plane to Phoenix, lulled into near unconsciousness by alcohol and Valium. I’ll stare blankly out the small window at the darkened sky and the ground below. The city will start to sink away. He’ll start to sink away. And for another hundred years I’ll be grasping at an encounter that might not have actually happened at all.
“So it was really nice seeing you again.”
I hope my smile is strong enough. I agree with him.
He offers to exchange numbers.
(Translation: I know you’ll never call)
I take his. He takes mine.
“If you’re ever on this side of town again we should get together”
(I won’t ever be coming back)
I nod.
“Listen, I’ve got to run. Classes starting and I just stopped in to grab a latte before heading off.”
(Translation: You’re not worth my time. Though, really now, is that a surprise?)
I nod again, finding it the easiest way to deal with his words. His cheap and easy words. At this exact moment, when he hugs me again, I want to spit razors at him. I want to shake him. I want to smack him. I want to kiss him. I want to hold him tightly. I want to drive a pencil into his left eye. I want to ask-
He breaks from the hug and smiles. Repeats his enthusiasm for having seen me again. Turns. Walks toward the door, his paper and latte abandoned. The door chimes jingle.
(do you remember a hundred years ago? When you’re lying in bed at night and just falling into sleep’s embrace, do you ever think back a hundred years ago? Do you feel the same lament I do?)
Outside he’s lost to the traffic of moving feet.
I have had this meeting with him a hundred times. A hundred times a hundred. I sigh, disappointed with the events. I withdraw and the world around me starts to melt and run like a painted canvas dipped in thinner. It becomes streams of color until they all bleed into each other. And then it is simply black. And I am left alone, save for the singular ticking of a clock.
16.11.09
i am the walrus: a start of sorts (WIP)
The following is merely a thought process I have for the start of a possible novel. I have a lot of it plotted out in my head already, save for title (though that should come last). Of course, I'm open to the idea of the path changing, as life so often does. This is a story that has worked it's way into my mind in one form or another these past few years.
What I am looking for now are serious people who wouldn't mind reading over drafts of chapters as they come and giving me honest to god feedback. This prologue piece will be the only portion (probably) I will post to the public. All other written pieces will remain typed (or hand-written should I find the nerve) until the whole thing is complete. A book can't write itself and, more often than not, it is not written soley by one person. While the author's is the name on the book, everyone knows more comes into play than just the words he (or she, since I hear some women can actually write...) has written on the page.
And hey, who doesn't want their name published in the book on that "I'd like to thank page" that most everyone seeminly skips over anyhow? (That is, of course, if I even have the talent and the drive to actually FINISH a project......)
On with the actual story. Oh. One more side note. Facebook will more likely than not completely re-format my work. I think it is best read in its normal state with all breaks, spacing and font (courier new, italicized) formats. Oh well though. Just pretend! Oh! Another note. I have never really written in present tense. Therefore, I may have slid into that old past-tense mode here and there. Feel free to let me know where. Not that this entire story is written like this....
----
i am the walrus : a start of sorts (wip--work in progress)
and whether pigs have wings. It flutters into his thoughts as he rounds the corner, casually strolling toward his destination. His hand pulls his cell phone out of a pocket. His fingers move over the screen. He dials. It rings. He is still moving, down a picturesque lane lined with tall maple trees (or are they elm? He is not an expert on trees), leaves giving up their green for the autumn gold. Each house looks identical in their non-descriptiveness; all seemingly rolled out of the same “And You Can Live the American Dream Too” assembly line. All of it bullshit. Still ringing. He thinks, I wonder whatever happened to
An answer. He greets the voice on the other line. “Hey. Yeah, I know. It's been a long time.” Talking. “I'm good. I'm good.” More talking. “I've been-- Hey, what's for dinner?” His lips break into an honest grin. He hasn't used that line in a long time. It works. “I can go with you guys, unless, you know it's a private thing.” He knows it is private, but knows at once the voice on the other end is going to insist he go, no matter what. “No” would be off the table.
“You could say I'm in the neighborhood.” He is, in fact, at the front door now. As he expects, the lawn is perfectly manicured, the hedges trimmed and the porch stoop swept of all debris. Ah, Suburbia. He pulls out his key, never surrendered, (never asked for) and unlocks the door. Steps in. Pauses. Eyes closed.
He inhales. He takes in the scent of home. Images flash over his closed eyelids in the haphazard shapes and colors most often found in kaleidoscopes. All at once he is five again, bolting around on amazing adventures with fantastic creatures conjured from the infinite depths that is the child's imagination. Imagination gives way to reality and he is older, though not as old as he is now, sneaking up the stairs from a night spent on adventures of less childish nature. And still things barrel on and on, all in the span of seconds.
“What? Sorry.” The voice on the other end of the line cannot wait for this sense memory play to run out its act. “An hour? Sure, not a problem. Should be perfect in fact.”
He kicks off his shoes, not bothering with the laces. What is the point, as long as the shoes are off? “You don't have to do that, I can just as easily call a cab.” More insistence. He peels his socks off. Barefooted he walks out of the foyer, onto the hardwood floor. Starts exploring.
“Fine, fine.” He runs his hands over the smooth surface of the large, sterile dining table. His eyes scan the room quickly. Everything is untouched. Every chair. Every piece of china on display. Even the light switch. “You sure he won't mind?”
More words. “I know, I know. I just,you know?” He pauses between the archway connecting the dining room with the kitchen. More untouched crockery and counter space. No dust, but untouched just the same. “I'm not being ridiculous. Just realistic.”
He runs his fingers over the surface of the counter. Solid and sleek. Everything in the place speaks of taste and refinement. Paneled appliances that integrate seemlessly with the walls and cupboards. Not a stray glass, fork or plate to speak of.
“Alright, alright. Fine. An hour.” Conversation wrapping up. “I know. I love you too.” He clicks the end button, sparing only a momentary glance at the phone before he deposits it onto the counter, quickly forgotten. Footsteps carry him up the carpeted stairs, cloud-like under foot.
The stairs open up to a long hallway that stretches in either direction. He goes left. As he walks down the hall, his fingers trace over the bare spaces between hanging photographs. A vacation to Maui. Fourth of July on the lake. Cider mills. Family poses for Christmas. Perfect smiles. Neatly manufactured visages of a life that anyone outside these walls would beg for.
Somewhere amongst these pictures, sometime down the foggy path of time, something had been lost. These empty spaces of white between frames. From pleasant moment to pleasant moment. On and on and
His fingers grip the knob to his bedroom door. His childhood bedroom door, he mentally corrects. A slow turn. He pushes it open. The single window has blinds drawn and the room is covered in a pre-dusk haze. Light struggles vainly to sneak between the cracks, but is ultimately unsuccessful in its attempt to give natural glow to the room. He closes his eyes. He breathes.
So much has happened in this room, he thinks. It all washes over him as he stands in the threshold. Every waking memory. The air, stale with the sealing of the room, assails his senses. The crypt has been opened.
He imagines himself as he was some years back. Completely oblivious and unaware. Content to be malcontented with a snooping parent. To space out for hours on end, window cracked just the slightest, joint lit and some hazy, mellow Radiohead tune lilting from the speakers. To spend countless hours immersed in the seemingly endless button mashings it took to save a pixelated princess from some virtual tragic fate. To spend even more hours with mind locked in a world created within pages of a novel most would call trash or garbage, but to you it was the escape from everything that was wrong with everything else.
His eyes blink open, adjust to the dimness and he is on his bed. Old, childhood bed, he corrects again. He stares up at the ceiling. The ceiling fan does not spin. The light remains off. He reminds himself he has less than an hour. He reminds himself to breathe. He realizes he has stopped since coming into the room.
Steam now covers the mirror. Hot water streams out of both faucets in his bathroom. Old bathroom, he tells himself. Old everything. Water rapidly fills the sinks. It starts to cover the surface of his counters in a sheen of water. It spills over the edge and ointo the tile floor.
He pulls himself up onto the surface, poised on his knees, now wet, as he traces his left index-finger over the steam covered mirror. His tongue protrudes from his mouth, squeezed by his lips in a look of extreme concentration. He tilts his head as he writes four words.
Seemingly satisfied, he pulls back and is standing erect on the floor once more. He doesn't spare the mirror a second glance. He leaves the water running as he moves to the bathtub.
It too, like the sink, is overflowing with hot water. Steam rises above the rippling surface, vaporous and comforting. He doesn't hesitate at the searing heat. He steadies himself with a hand on the wall opposite himself. He plunges a foot. Weight is put on it. Steady. He pulls his other foot in. The skin of his ankles almost immediately turn red, though he does not see. He's not looking down at his feet to notice. He feels it.
A turn. He's facing the faucet and he brings himself into the water. A submarine submerging. More ripples and even more water sent splashing outside of the tub and onto the floor. His beige floor mats are, by now, soaked through. The carpet outside the bathroom door is probably wet, he thinks. Don't sweat the small stuff.
The heat almost overwhelms his senses, almost threatens to expel him from the tub altogether. Like some rickety boat on some raging ocean he is almost capsized, but somehow manages to rise above the crest. His eyes close and he lets the scalding water take a turn at his flesh.
He has read somewhere that it is best to shave when the razor is hot. When the hair follicles have been loosened by the heat of the water. Massaged by a brush applying shaving cream. Of course, that could all be Wikepedia trash. Another empty mind spewing forth more tidbits of misinformation and calling it wisdom. Or is this something his father told him? He cannot at this moment put a finger on it. And a thought sneaks like a thief into his mind:
'The time was come,” the Walrus said, 'to talk of many things: Of shoes--of ships--of sealing-wax—-of cabbages—-and kings—-and why the sea is boiling hot-'
The first cut is quick and steady. And vertical. The warm skin splits without resistance. The blade, thin and sharp, is also hot and this is its raison d'être. At first he doesn't open his eyes. He just feels the sensation of his warm blood mixing with the hot water. He cannot see it, but he can imagine it just gushing out.
And it is. Blood is pumping out into the tub with such rapidity that his head is already starting to go hazy. He switches the blade into his hand with the slit wrist. A sharp pain soon finds its way to those wonderful nerve endings in his brain. He pays it no mind, however, as he brings his fingers around the hilt of the X-Acto knife. With a another slice, he thinks, it will be done.
Shaking when it's finished, breath quick and shallow, his arms fall helplessly beneath the water. His head lolls back onto the wall behind him. His eyes wander downward over his naked, submerged body and settle on the two distinct cuts. Blood is oozing out in speeds he couldn't imagine. Such an odd thing, he thinks to himself, that this red liquid, this oil, keeps this fleshy machine running. Amazing still, he thinks on, that in each drop contains his soul. If such a thing even exists. Odder still, he muses, that it's supposed to be blue. Another farce of Wikipedia?
There is no music playing, but as he rolls his eyes back up to the ceiling, he distinctly hears singing. A familiar tune, though he can't quite place it. He wants to move his lips in sync with the words, but strength has left him. His breathing slows.
Subway is no way for a good man to go down, he sings somewhere within the deep recesses of his mind still clinging to life. Rich man can ride and the hobo, he can drown...
His eyes start to flutter close. The room fades to an infinite blackness. A faint voice, his own almost seemingly now disembodied whispers, “I wonder whatever happened to
---
and that's that.
What I am looking for now are serious people who wouldn't mind reading over drafts of chapters as they come and giving me honest to god feedback. This prologue piece will be the only portion (probably) I will post to the public. All other written pieces will remain typed (or hand-written should I find the nerve) until the whole thing is complete. A book can't write itself and, more often than not, it is not written soley by one person. While the author's is the name on the book, everyone knows more comes into play than just the words he (or she, since I hear some women can actually write...) has written on the page.
And hey, who doesn't want their name published in the book on that "I'd like to thank page" that most everyone seeminly skips over anyhow? (That is, of course, if I even have the talent and the drive to actually FINISH a project......)
On with the actual story. Oh. One more side note. Facebook will more likely than not completely re-format my work. I think it is best read in its normal state with all breaks, spacing and font (courier new, italicized) formats. Oh well though. Just pretend! Oh! Another note. I have never really written in present tense. Therefore, I may have slid into that old past-tense mode here and there. Feel free to let me know where. Not that this entire story is written like this....
----
i am the walrus : a start of sorts (wip--work in progress)
and whether pigs have wings. It flutters into his thoughts as he rounds the corner, casually strolling toward his destination. His hand pulls his cell phone out of a pocket. His fingers move over the screen. He dials. It rings. He is still moving, down a picturesque lane lined with tall maple trees (or are they elm? He is not an expert on trees), leaves giving up their green for the autumn gold. Each house looks identical in their non-descriptiveness; all seemingly rolled out of the same “And You Can Live the American Dream Too” assembly line. All of it bullshit. Still ringing. He thinks, I wonder whatever happened to
An answer. He greets the voice on the other line. “Hey. Yeah, I know. It's been a long time.” Talking. “I'm good. I'm good.” More talking. “I've been-- Hey, what's for dinner?” His lips break into an honest grin. He hasn't used that line in a long time. It works. “I can go with you guys, unless, you know it's a private thing.” He knows it is private, but knows at once the voice on the other end is going to insist he go, no matter what. “No” would be off the table.
“You could say I'm in the neighborhood.” He is, in fact, at the front door now. As he expects, the lawn is perfectly manicured, the hedges trimmed and the porch stoop swept of all debris. Ah, Suburbia. He pulls out his key, never surrendered, (never asked for) and unlocks the door. Steps in. Pauses. Eyes closed.
He inhales. He takes in the scent of home. Images flash over his closed eyelids in the haphazard shapes and colors most often found in kaleidoscopes. All at once he is five again, bolting around on amazing adventures with fantastic creatures conjured from the infinite depths that is the child's imagination. Imagination gives way to reality and he is older, though not as old as he is now, sneaking up the stairs from a night spent on adventures of less childish nature. And still things barrel on and on, all in the span of seconds.
“What? Sorry.” The voice on the other end of the line cannot wait for this sense memory play to run out its act. “An hour? Sure, not a problem. Should be perfect in fact.”
He kicks off his shoes, not bothering with the laces. What is the point, as long as the shoes are off? “You don't have to do that, I can just as easily call a cab.” More insistence. He peels his socks off. Barefooted he walks out of the foyer, onto the hardwood floor. Starts exploring.
“Fine, fine.” He runs his hands over the smooth surface of the large, sterile dining table. His eyes scan the room quickly. Everything is untouched. Every chair. Every piece of china on display. Even the light switch. “You sure he won't mind?”
More words. “I know, I know. I just,you know?” He pauses between the archway connecting the dining room with the kitchen. More untouched crockery and counter space. No dust, but untouched just the same. “I'm not being ridiculous. Just realistic.”
He runs his fingers over the surface of the counter. Solid and sleek. Everything in the place speaks of taste and refinement. Paneled appliances that integrate seemlessly with the walls and cupboards. Not a stray glass, fork or plate to speak of.
“Alright, alright. Fine. An hour.” Conversation wrapping up. “I know. I love you too.” He clicks the end button, sparing only a momentary glance at the phone before he deposits it onto the counter, quickly forgotten. Footsteps carry him up the carpeted stairs, cloud-like under foot.
The stairs open up to a long hallway that stretches in either direction. He goes left. As he walks down the hall, his fingers trace over the bare spaces between hanging photographs. A vacation to Maui. Fourth of July on the lake. Cider mills. Family poses for Christmas. Perfect smiles. Neatly manufactured visages of a life that anyone outside these walls would beg for.
Somewhere amongst these pictures, sometime down the foggy path of time, something had been lost. These empty spaces of white between frames. From pleasant moment to pleasant moment. On and on and
His fingers grip the knob to his bedroom door. His childhood bedroom door, he mentally corrects. A slow turn. He pushes it open. The single window has blinds drawn and the room is covered in a pre-dusk haze. Light struggles vainly to sneak between the cracks, but is ultimately unsuccessful in its attempt to give natural glow to the room. He closes his eyes. He breathes.
So much has happened in this room, he thinks. It all washes over him as he stands in the threshold. Every waking memory. The air, stale with the sealing of the room, assails his senses. The crypt has been opened.
He imagines himself as he was some years back. Completely oblivious and unaware. Content to be malcontented with a snooping parent. To space out for hours on end, window cracked just the slightest, joint lit and some hazy, mellow Radiohead tune lilting from the speakers. To spend countless hours immersed in the seemingly endless button mashings it took to save a pixelated princess from some virtual tragic fate. To spend even more hours with mind locked in a world created within pages of a novel most would call trash or garbage, but to you it was the escape from everything that was wrong with everything else.
His eyes blink open, adjust to the dimness and he is on his bed. Old, childhood bed, he corrects again. He stares up at the ceiling. The ceiling fan does not spin. The light remains off. He reminds himself he has less than an hour. He reminds himself to breathe. He realizes he has stopped since coming into the room.
Steam now covers the mirror. Hot water streams out of both faucets in his bathroom. Old bathroom, he tells himself. Old everything. Water rapidly fills the sinks. It starts to cover the surface of his counters in a sheen of water. It spills over the edge and ointo the tile floor.
He pulls himself up onto the surface, poised on his knees, now wet, as he traces his left index-finger over the steam covered mirror. His tongue protrudes from his mouth, squeezed by his lips in a look of extreme concentration. He tilts his head as he writes four words.
Seemingly satisfied, he pulls back and is standing erect on the floor once more. He doesn't spare the mirror a second glance. He leaves the water running as he moves to the bathtub.
It too, like the sink, is overflowing with hot water. Steam rises above the rippling surface, vaporous and comforting. He doesn't hesitate at the searing heat. He steadies himself with a hand on the wall opposite himself. He plunges a foot. Weight is put on it. Steady. He pulls his other foot in. The skin of his ankles almost immediately turn red, though he does not see. He's not looking down at his feet to notice. He feels it.
A turn. He's facing the faucet and he brings himself into the water. A submarine submerging. More ripples and even more water sent splashing outside of the tub and onto the floor. His beige floor mats are, by now, soaked through. The carpet outside the bathroom door is probably wet, he thinks. Don't sweat the small stuff.
The heat almost overwhelms his senses, almost threatens to expel him from the tub altogether. Like some rickety boat on some raging ocean he is almost capsized, but somehow manages to rise above the crest. His eyes close and he lets the scalding water take a turn at his flesh.
He has read somewhere that it is best to shave when the razor is hot. When the hair follicles have been loosened by the heat of the water. Massaged by a brush applying shaving cream. Of course, that could all be Wikepedia trash. Another empty mind spewing forth more tidbits of misinformation and calling it wisdom. Or is this something his father told him? He cannot at this moment put a finger on it. And a thought sneaks like a thief into his mind:
'The time was come,” the Walrus said, 'to talk of many things: Of shoes--of ships--of sealing-wax—-of cabbages—-and kings—-and why the sea is boiling hot-'
The first cut is quick and steady. And vertical. The warm skin splits without resistance. The blade, thin and sharp, is also hot and this is its raison d'être. At first he doesn't open his eyes. He just feels the sensation of his warm blood mixing with the hot water. He cannot see it, but he can imagine it just gushing out.
And it is. Blood is pumping out into the tub with such rapidity that his head is already starting to go hazy. He switches the blade into his hand with the slit wrist. A sharp pain soon finds its way to those wonderful nerve endings in his brain. He pays it no mind, however, as he brings his fingers around the hilt of the X-Acto knife. With a another slice, he thinks, it will be done.
Shaking when it's finished, breath quick and shallow, his arms fall helplessly beneath the water. His head lolls back onto the wall behind him. His eyes wander downward over his naked, submerged body and settle on the two distinct cuts. Blood is oozing out in speeds he couldn't imagine. Such an odd thing, he thinks to himself, that this red liquid, this oil, keeps this fleshy machine running. Amazing still, he thinks on, that in each drop contains his soul. If such a thing even exists. Odder still, he muses, that it's supposed to be blue. Another farce of Wikipedia?
There is no music playing, but as he rolls his eyes back up to the ceiling, he distinctly hears singing. A familiar tune, though he can't quite place it. He wants to move his lips in sync with the words, but strength has left him. His breathing slows.
Subway is no way for a good man to go down, he sings somewhere within the deep recesses of his mind still clinging to life. Rich man can ride and the hobo, he can drown...
His eyes start to flutter close. The room fades to an infinite blackness. A faint voice, his own almost seemingly now disembodied whispers, “I wonder whatever happened to
---
and that's that.
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