Triangle104/TQ2.5-14B-Sugarquill-v1-Q5_K_M-GGUF
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Jarrod, While I cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you're personally responsible for the large pile of dog shit found on the driver's seat of my dad's station wagon, my intuition senses your guilt. 1) **Your family has three dogs**: two Sharpei's and a Pit Bull. This means you're the only person in the neighborhood with access to that much dog crap. Sure, Mrs. Kringle has that impish lap dog Tinkle but we all know that its anus was sewn shut from lawn dart incident last summer. No way she squeezed Tinkle's colostomy bag out on a car seat. You are the prime suspect. 2) **You knew that my father never locked his car doors.** I'm almost certain that you overheard my mother yell to my father to "lock the doors" on several occasions. The first time she yelled because someone took her collection of Wheat Pennies from the coin tray (She had every year sans 1948 and 1949) and the second time because someone turned on all the switches so when Dad got in everything was supposed to go haywire. But all that really happened was that the wipers started going, the hazards started blinking, and NPR was really loud. More like Lakshmi _Scream_. Although my father's typical response to mom was that no person in their right mind would try to steal a 1984 Colt vista with a wooden bumper, it was mom's instincts that time has proven equitable. 3) **You were mad at my family** because my mother said you couldn't stay for dinner on Tuesday. We were having cornbread with ham & 1000 bean soup, but because there wasn't enough food for you my parents asked you to go home. Who wants that crap anyway? I remember it was funny that I thought that because you stormed out of our house saying, "Who wants that crap anyway?" and my mom yelling "LANGUAGE!" as the door closed. 4) **The shit had corn bits in it.** Everyone in the neighborhood knows that your family feed pets table scraps, and it's widely known that you're starch junkies. And I know that starch is basically polymerized sugars which explains why all the kids in your family are off-the-wall. I once saw your youngest sister scale a giant oak tree and start chewing acorns. While they were still attached to the tree. My father's reaction wasn't pleasant and his first order of business was to harangue me and my brother in to confessing who did it, as if one of us were somehow responsible. My father pisses me off sometimes but never to the point that I would build a pyramid of poo on his car seat. But he was convinced that if we didn't do it, we knew who _did_ and we were protecting their identity. I thought he was going to choke us. And to make matters worse, Mom, with a cynical smirk on her otherwise angelic face, shook her head at him and made the motion of a key being inserted in to a lock and turned. It was barbaric! Because we're too poor to keep a set of latex gloves readily available, my father resorted to turning plastic shopping bags inside-out to expunge the excrement. Dad is a salesman and because he doesn't have many material things (like latex gloves), he cherishes his business suits. He's the kind of guy who starches his shirts, keeps wooden shoe forms in his dress shoes, and refuses to fold his socks -- rather stacks them supine in the drawer "so they don't wrinkle." He refused to clean shit or drive the car while wearing his business slacks. This led me to explain to Mrs. Kringle that morning why my father was pantsless on the sidewalk beside a pile of shit. She's a godly old woman and it was hard to explain, so I made up a tale about Satan spiritually attacking our family with dog shit. This seemed like a reasonable explanation to her because she nodded her head almost as if to say, "Yes, I've seen such evil things." Dumb old bitch. Although it's been weeks since the incident, my father still drives while sitting atop phonebooks. The smell is awful, and to make matters worse, my mother rolls up the windows and locks the doors at night for fear of a repeat incident. Dad asked why she can't leave a crack in the windows so the car can aerate. "Not like they're going to squeeze dog shit through that little crevice!" he said. "LANGUAGE!" Every morning on the way to school the odor reminds me of a kennel and we leave a break of dog-dung aroma in our path. When I'm sitting in the back seat I can see other drivers faces contort and their heads swivel as they search for the culprit of this stench. "Are we near a treatment plant?" they must be asking. The smell is often too foul for me to stomach, so I'm forced to stick my head out the window. Like a dog. _Shitty irony_. I had a notion it was you, but I knew it for sure when you gave me a pine cone air freshener and pursed your lips. I'll be watching you. And I'll be watching your dogs take a shit. | 4,791 | 3 |
It's warmer than it should be this time of year. I've opened the window in our bedroom, but it doesn't seem to help. I thumb the flint wheel of the cheap Bic in my pocket. I didn't tell you that I've started smoking again? The hokey picture of us posing on the boardwalk, me as a muscleman, you as a blonde in a bikini, sits on the nightstand. Quickly glancing at the clock, I notice its late, very late. But like bad habits, time is of little consequence now. Perhaps its boredom, or maybe I've found some sort of motivation to get it together, but I flip through the Ikea catalog sitting next to our picture. Ah, kitchen ideas. We never did do that, did we? Always put it off. "Maybe next weekend, we'll just finally make a decision, pick up the supplies and get this over with". Your voice in my head isn't helping the situation. We both know the next weekend won't be coming. Checking my phone now. I have one missed call from you. No unheard messages. Not surprising. Talking never was much of our thing anyway. Glancing at the clock again. 11:47. Too late to call back? Probably. I'll try again tomorrow. I send a quick text wishing you a good night. In my head you are having the best night of your life. Dreamless sleep finally passes over me, with the lamp on, phone in my hand, and a moth circling overhead. You look good, you feel good. This is my mantra. This is what has gotten me out of bed for the last 17 days. Shower, masturbate. Brush teeth. Mouthwash. Shave. Shave again against the grain. Pressed shirt, pressed slacks, hair combed. The office is dull, but it keeps me from looking at that picture. I go through my email archive, looking at our past email exchanges. The phone snaps me out of my trance. Another closed sale. It doesn't matter. Time is money, and we have determined that time doesn't matter. Spreadsheets. Zip codes and cities. Cities that we've stayed in. Zip codes we've visited. Hotels we've slept in, now clutter the screen in front of me. I tell myself to stop it. This is business, and home was left at home at 7:38 this morning, now focus, dammit!! Coffee at the burger joint across the street. Sure, there's a Starbuck's on the ground floor, but this mud fits better with my mood today. My phone vibrates. Pulling it from my pocket I suspect its you. Its my boss. "Where are you?". "On my way back now. Want a coffee?" I reply. "Low fat mocha, no whip..." Home. My keys and Bic make a satisfying amount of noise hitting the dresser as I vacantly stare at the "Always Kiss Me Goodnight" message adorning the space above our headboard. I sit with the phone in my right hand, a tumbler of Laphroaig in my left. The glass sweats, sending droplets of water onto the hardwood floor of what used to be our home office. The closet door is open, and inside, mocking me, is a box. I can't see the words, but I know that in thick, bold Sharpie marker, it is labeled "Baby Clothes". Underneath that, I can envision the shipping label, with the name of one of your cousin's, or perhaps an aunt. Pouring myself a second scotch, my phone vibrates again. Before I even look at the screen, I know its you. Answering the call with a casual "Hello" and am greeted with 10 seconds of silence. This is how all of our conversations have started over the last 17 (or is it 18?) days now. You - "I'm Sorry" Me - "I know. Its OK" "It wasn't supposed to be like this" "Its OK. Are you safe?" "Yes" "Come home" "I can't" "I know" "I'm sorry. I need to go" Sleep. Its Saturday. My mantra has gone to shit for this special occasion. They say it takes 21 days to break bad habits. I've determined it takes 18 (or is it 19?) to revert to living like a bachelor. They also say (who the fuck are these people anyhow?) that lack of physical activity and sunlight can lead to depression. I say that your lover leaving with no warning and without a trace might compound the situation. A quick run to the gym and a good 50 minutes on all the machines that I haven't used since high school. My jog back to the house quickens to a run, then a sprint for the last 100 feet. Finally. Home. Light up, vomit. Ah, the day has begun. Working the network. Friends, family, does anyone know where she might be? Jesus Christ people. Help me out here. I just need to know that she is OK. Fuck! You call again. The conversation is the same. I can hear a voice in the background, but make no mention of it. This would be like me telling you the sky is blue. We both know that, that line of conversation would quickly fizzle and die. I suppose I could go to church today. Neither one of us have done that for a while. Do we even belong to a church? Not knowing anything else I sit in the back pew of the church we were married in. You know the one. Built just 100 years ago, but with Gothic architecture and flying buttresses. Very Catholic, but from what I gather I think its Episcopalian. Like most things, this is merely a trivial fact at this point. I'm eating Spaghetti-Os straight from the can, cold, when you call again. "Hello?" "Hi. I'm on my way" "How long?" "A few hours, maybe? I don't know. I might need to stop a few times on the way" "What can I do?" "Don't wait up. Its late." Restless sleep. I'm awoken by your key hitting the front door. I turn on the lamp and sit up, waiting. "I told you not to wait up" "I've been waiting up for weeks" "You shouldn't have" "I know. We have some things to talk about" "Can it wait?" "Yes. Come to bed" It's been 12 days. I'm assembling cabinets in the dining room. We've talked, but we haven't talked about 'that'. I've told you about my days when you were gone. Told you about how I would jerk off in the shower while thinking about the time we were visiting your parents and you pulled your pajama bottoms and thong (god, I love how you only ever wear thongs) around your knees and mounted me while facing my feet. Reverse cowgirl they call it. Your feet planted on the floor by my hips, bouncing your white-ass up and down on my pelvis. No foreplay. No checking to make sure everyone else was asleep first. Just carnal fucking for the sole sake of your orgasm. Me lying on my back on your parent's rug, still as can be, relegating myself to the role of your fuck toy. I tell you this is the memory that I masturbated to. I don't tell you about images of Mr. X reaming your lips, leaving you gaped, gasping and begging for more with a wet sheen on your inner thighs are what would flash in my mind just before my legs would quiver and my cum would hit the floor of the bathtub. I don't tell you about my google searches for "cheating bride video". We are OK now, right? All-American family? Mortgage, 2 car payments, a house in a safe neighborhood with a school on the corner. We wave to the neighbors in the mornings and evenings and chit chat about our gardens and the weather. Its getting hotter still. We are fine. Its July, but the humidity feels like August. We are lying in bed, the comforter has been retired to the linen closet. The four post Queen, 600 thread count sheets and heat have us both in the mood. This will be our first time in months. You are doing laundry. "How was it?" I ask "Just as a remember" "Is that good or bad?" "Good, I think. I don't know" "Better" "Than?" "You know. Its OK to be honest with me." "Yes, its better." The summer swelter has finally passed. Its cool enough to start working in the garden again, but no so cold that our efforts will be futile. I'm taking out ads. Casual encounters. Couple for male. C4M. I'm learning the terminology and the code words. Why can't I get this out of my head? Why do I need to see my bride getting fucked while she looks me in the eye and moans, fighting for breath? I'm at the fabric shop. $3.99 for a fabric tape measure. I'm sitting in our bathroom, my ass pressed against the cold granite countertop as a stroke myself. I just need to be hard. I don't need to finish. I'm 6 and 1/4" long with 4 and 1/2" of girth. How I made it to 29 without knowing this is beyond me, but I guess it has never crossed my mind. Most of the girls I've been with tell me I'm bigger than average, but the internet forum says I'm below. This is my one screening factor. I'm looking for something huge. My Moby Dick if you will. I haven't told about this, of course, but I'm sure I will someday soon. Just slip it in during a casual conversation. "So I was thinking. How would you feel about bringing another guy into our bedroom?" I'll ask. And you will say "If that's something you would like to try, I would too." End of story. Its quick and to the point. "We are looking for a straight, STD-Free, good looking male to fuck my wife while I watch. There will only be straight sex, and the husband will not be joining in at all, masturbating at most. Must have a larger than average penis and be willing to break off all contact afterwards. Please submit cock shot and full naked torso shot upon reply." I haven't told you yet. I'll get around to it. For now, I wait, screening photos and looking at hotels. | 9,155 | 2 |
The dust of seventy years of silence and decay lay thick on the floor, so thick that when Oleg pushed open the ancient iron blast door into the corridor it barely shifted in the momentary breeze. Clutching his pistol and penlight in hands that were sweaty despite the cool of the underground, the young man stepped over the threshold and held up his light. The narrow beam completely failed to pierce the darkness that began ten meters from Oleg's face. The air was different down here. It didn't seem to want to move. Taking a deep breath despite the musty odor of damp concrete and peeling paint, Oleg began to move down the doorless corridor with short, careful steps. Roughly thirty meters in, Oleg came to a junction. A blank wall was before him, the lettering that once directed unknown personnel to the left or right nearly gone. Faced with the oppressive darkness of the subterranean complex, Oleg once again silently cursed his miniscule light. He had long since holstered his pistol, giving up hope of finding even a single rat in these stygian depths. Looking to his right, he could see that the same corridor continued for at least another fifteen meters. Beyond that, his light could tell him nothing. Turning to his left, Oleg froze. Something was wrong with this darkness. He felt an immediate sense of vertigo, which took some time to reconcile with what his eyes could just barely percieve. As far as he could tell, after a few meters, the corridor *ended.* There was no dead end, no long-forgotten storeroom or office. There were no walls at all. It was as if all of it, walls, ceiling, and floor, had been torn away. The blackness simply opened, like a mouth. Making no small effort to steady himself, slow his beating heart, Oleg once again drew his pistol. For what reason exactly he couldn't possibly say--simply feeling the smooth grip against his palm was a comfort. He kept his eyes, and the penlight they relied on, trained on the opening in front of him. After a moment, he took a step. Then another. After a few moments, which Oleg's furious heart spun into hours, he stood before the opening. The blackness was like a wall--impenetrable, indestructable, ageless. It took all his nerve not to step back when all his senses screamed that he was walking into something solid. Oleg turned the narrow beam of his light downwards, and this time could not help but quickly step back from the edge--for he now knew he had been standing on a precipice--of a pit. It had been no illusion that drew him in this direction. The walls, ceiling, and floor had been severed--torn away--by some monstrous force. Jagged concrete and rusted, sawtoothed pipes, interspersed with rebar like severed tendons from a limb jutted out over the edge. Oleg slowly knelt, pointing his light further downward. After a moment, he could make out a sloped dirt surface, which had eroded away from the ruined floor over the decades, resulting in the drop he saw before him. With this new information, Oleg calculated that it was only a drop of about three-quarters of a meter. His previous fear almost forgotten, Oleg re-holstered his pistol, clutched his sweaty penlight between his teeth, and lowered himself over the precipice, taking care not to cut his hands or legs on the jagged sections of pipe that jutted here and there. He landed on the dirt, his weight causing the slope to crumble further. He slid for a moment before planting his feet and retrieving his light from his mouth. Not wanting to move any further before seeing what lay before him, he played the beam up and down, pointing it away from him. His search revealed a sloped dirt wall about ten meters in front of him, evidently some kind of cave-in blocking him from reaching where the amputated corridor continued. Thus satisfied, Oleg turned to further explore this new area and froze for the third time. Once again, his light disappeared into an impenetrable darkness. Spinning to his left, he had the same result. Clearly, this was some kind of cave, the formation of which had been caused by the same event that shattered the concrete and rebar of the corridor. Pointing his light straight up, Oleg could barely make out a ceiling. It comforted him to have some idea of the dimensions of this cave, even if he had no idea how far it stretched to his left or his right. Picking a direction at random--his left--Oleg began to walk the length of the cave, moving his light from wall to wall to ensure he stayed in the center. It was several minutes before he realized that his boots were making an entirely different sound as they impacted the dirt than when he had first entered the cave. Where the cave floor had been slightly softened with loose dust and dirt, it was now packed extremely hard, almost solid. Oleg pointed his light straight down as he pressed his boot into the floor of the cave, noticing that it left hardly any print at all in the thin layer of loose, dry dirt coating the hard-packed earth underneath. This was entirely odd. The cave showed every sign of having been created recently, as the result of the same seismic activity that had severely damaged the complex far behind him. However, this kind of packed strata suggested immense pressure, some great weight bearing down. Oleg stopped in his tracks, stomping down hard on the packed earth from time to time and noting the echo it produced. Trying to determine what kind of layering was present in the walls of the cave, Oleg turned his light to the wall and moving it upwards in a straight line, watching carefully for a change in its color, which would signify changed in its geological makeup. What he saw made him reach for his gun. The walls weren't slanted. They curved. There was a single, smooth curve that made the entire wall into a concave depression that met the ceiling and curved down the other side and met on the floor of the cave, where Oleg stood--he saw, now--in a similar shallow depression. This was no cave, then. *It was a tunnel.* Oleg's heart, already racing by this time, began to pound painfully. His brow felt cold and hot in turns. If this was a tunnel, then who...what had made it? How was such a thing even possible? Oleg's legs began to tremble, but as he tried to calm himself (a vain effort) he realized that it was not his body trembling, but a growing tremor in the earth itself; a vibrating that was becoming more and more pronounced. Oleg spun wildly, in a panic, casting his light jerkily along tunnels walls that now showed signs of trembling, a slight crumbling. Then there was the sound. It was the unrelenting, hellish groan of the planet. It was like a million diesel trains, moving along massive tracks and sounding their pressurized whistles in unison. A growing **HOWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM** roared up through the tunnel, shaking Oleg to the smallest cells in his body. His very mind seemed to disintegrate under the force of that rumbling howl of what he was sure had once bored these tunnels. How? How? he thought feverishly, as if to echo that loathsome sound. How could this be? How could this be? An orange glow lit the depths of the tunnel before him, as if the roar of this creature, this monstrous worm had set the stale tunnel air ablaze. The earth shook as if pounded by hammers the size of galaxies. For a moment, Oleg was utterly paralyzed, simply staring into its dozens of fiery eyes. His penlight dropped, useless, to the ground. Then it was upon him, and *THE TEETH... | 7,524 | 4 |
grifting as a digital gangster will insure that you never become poor, so long as you lower your moral standards. you will need: a stolen paypal account that doesn't belong to me or a fellow dg (stolen paypal accounts are fairly easy to come by - a lot of people use the same password for their email and their bank and their porn site, you fill in the blank on that one) balls sunglasses and a hat first, find a thing you want on ebay being sold in a general locality you find yourself in that ends in a few days or is set buy it now by a private seller. contact the seller and tell them that your brother's/sister's/cousin's/pastor's birthday is TOMORROW, and the thing that they have for sale is exactly what your brother/sister/cousin/pastor has been raving about and you can't find it anywhere. tell them you want to come over and check it out, and you will buy it immediately if they end the auction early for 20% above what the current bid is at (what do you care, it isn't your money) or if it is buy it now, just say you want to roll over and peep that lil whodi before you commit. roll over to their crib in your "disguise" and check out the item. tell them you don't have the cash on you, but you have plenty of simoleans in your paypal account. ask to use their computer. sign on to the stolen paypal from their computer and pay the seller some stolen money from their computer, giving them a firm handshake as you exit the premises. ride off into the sunset like a boss. optional: if you bought a go-kart, ride off in that. when the seller finally catches wind that he/she has been scammed, they will tell the police that some guy came over to their house, used their computer, and paid for their item using a stolen paypal. likely story. the officers take this statement from the seller but they aren't exactly buying the story. one policeman turns to his partner and gives him a slight nod, and the seller (let's assume the seller is male) gets arrested and rides in the squad car to the county jail. in county, he has a couple visitors from family and friends, but no one wants to bail him out. you see, he had a history of alcoholism and generally treated his kids like shit, and most everyone in the neighborhood knew it. his wife is glad she is finally away from his verbal and physical abuse, and while she secretly believes his story is genuine, welcomes the fact that finally, some karmic balance has been restored to the world. while awaiting trial, his wife (with the help of a local attorney) files divorce papers to dissolve their marriage of six years. he paces his jail cell and the common area, clutching his divorce papers, weeping softly, wondering if he had just been a slightly more attentive husband and went to his AA meetings regularly, if this whole mess ever would have happened. at his trial, the judge reads aloud what he has been charged with, and if he has anything to say for himself. "NO," he exclaims to the judge. "I AM NOT GUILTY!" fighting back tears, he scans the courtroom - his friends and family are nowhere to be seen. the jury continues staring the defendant down with obvious contempt as the prosecution mounts their case. the prosecutor, a young, handsome hotshot, makes eye contact with the dumbfounded ebay seller. if there is one thing he learned in law school, it is that the face of this seller in particular is clearly showing no remorse for his actions. following the conclusion of the defense's unconvincing, public-defender-esque argument, the judge bangs his gavel and the jury convenes to deliberate the case. no character witness has come forward to attest that deep down, our seller truly is a nice person, just misguided and damaged. his youth was marked with abuse, and he knew no better than to follow the same example in adulthood. in no less than fifteen minutes, the jury returns. slowly, the dejected seller rises to his feet, fidgeting nervously. "...we find the defendant guilty, " the jury foreman states with a hint of disdain in his voice. sentenced to one year in prison, the seller begins writing a memoir detailing his experience as a child and the subsequent problems that followed. collect call after collect call, letter after letter, he continues to profess his innocence to his estranged ex-wife and children. after going through a series of substandard boyfriends, his ex-wife finally realizes that perhaps the seller is not such a bad guy after all, and the experience of jail has changed him for the better; she decides to contact a better lawyer and begin to mount an appeal to set her ex-husband free. one day in the common area, a fight breaks out between the seller and a former gang member (who was incarcerated for a drug distribution charge) over a pair of stolen slippers. amidst the confusion, the seller accidentally stabs a correctional officer, severely wounding him. this effectively erased ALL of the good time the seller had accumulated (3 months) and he was sent to administrative segregation for his crime. a judge finds the seller guilty of assault with a deadly weapon against a correctional officer and extends his prison sentence seven years. it would have been longer but his ex-wife, in a show of newfound love and respect, asked the judge for leniency in his case. she truly believed her former lover had turned over a new leaf, and had begun marking a calendar, counting the days until she could be with her husband again. after fulfilling his debt to society (which actually began as your debt to society), the seller is released from prison, his memoirs now 800 pages thick. his children, once bright-eyed elementary school students, were now in high school. even though their father was in jail, it seems they turned out to be responsible young adults, making the honor roll and abstaining from drugs and alcohol use. watching the news on a lazy sunday afternoon, you recognize your victim's mugshot as they tell his story and discuss his memoirs. realizing the error of your ways, you drive to his house in your stolen go-kart and ring the doorbell. the seller answers the door. "hello seller," you quietly mumble. "you probably don't remember me, but i am the reason you went to jail many years ago." after a few seconds of uneasy silence, the man replies. "yes, i remember. for the longest time, i thought about nothing but getting revenge on you. you took my family away from me. you took my youth. you took my go-kart..." a lump forms in your throat as his eyes well up with tears. he continues: "if it wasn't for you, though, i never would have faced my past demons. since i've been out of jail, i have a boundless appreciation for life, my kids and my wife love me unconditionally, and i have been clean and sober for a long time. i owe it all to you." "come on, " you say, putting your hand on the man's shoulder. "let's take a ride." turn to page 127 if you drive the man to the bar and get him piss drunk, breaking his pledge of sobriety. turn to page 120 if you email oprah to consider making him into a best-selling author with his memoirs. | 7,126 | 0 |
So I checked my mail today. A single lonely envelope this time, and by the handwritten address on the front I knew immediately who it was from. Two nights ago my father sat down and wrote me a letter. This isn't normally how my dad and I correspond. The occasional phone call is far more likely, and since my son was born almost three years ago the calls have gotten far more frequent. For a period of time when I was in my teens it wasn't unlikely to get a call from the man maybe once a year, usually around my birthday, and usually when he'd been drinking. My parents had divorced when I was about 10 years old and my dad simply thought it was best to take a backseat to my life at that point. At the time, I suppose I can't say I cared much. These days I'm at least somewhat happier to get a call from the man. When my father calls it's usually to ask the same three questions: "How's life treatin' ya? "How's my grandson?" "How's yer mother been?" And when the conversation's over he always ends with the same three words: "Hook yer seatbelt." When the phone rings and I see the name DAD on the caller ID I immediately do a quick review in my mind over the answers to those three questions so I can get the call over and done with hastily. My dad has a way of going on tangents you see, anything I say that sparks a hazy memory in his mind can quickly become a long winded story about how many years ago there was an instance oh so similar to mine that he had to deal with. And I get to hear about the people involved and the colorful locations where these happenings took place. Something as simple as telling him my check engine light came on the other day can suddenly be spun into a story about the time he was in New Mexico as a teenager with a couple of friends he hasn't talked to in decades, getting stuck in some out of the way little town and my god son you should should see the countryside out in that area, if I was still with your mother I'd buy a Winnebago and just drive her around the west... I've gotten to hear stories about a lot of people and a lot of places over the years, most of which I've rolled my eyes through, flipped through the channels or just nodded along with patiently. I'm fairly certain by now I've had to sit through the life stories of every man woman and child my dad has ever met, the short versions and the long, and not a single one of these names would still register in my brain if I came upon them in a phone book today. All but one that is. Maybe it's the nickname this one had, which always made me chuckle. Maybe it's the stories he's told about this person and the elaborate build-up he'd begin with, setting the stage for some of the most ridiculous endings to any of the tales my dad's had the pleasure of telling. Maybe it's the number of times he's told these particular stories. A good story is like a pair of jeans, the more worn they are the more likely they are to be worn, and they eventually become your favorites. My dad has worn these stories so many times I can almost picture the holes ripped in the knees, and the tattered fray ends of the legs. I can't begin to describe what the stories are about, or the person they center around. I wasn't born when they took place and I've never met the key player. I can tell you they involved my father's back and forth relationship with this single person. The times he went to jail for this person. The adventures they went on together. The people who my dad has almost beat almost to death because of something this person's done. I've never met the subject of these stories, but I feel like I've known the person my entire life. Her name is Helen. My father calls her Helen From Hell. In equals measures my dad once loved and hated her, and to hear him tell the tales you can pick up on both of those things by the emotion in his voice. Now...I can't remember the last time I saw my parents in the same room together. I know he talks with my mom on occasion still, mostly to keep up with the news on me that I don't share with the both of them. I know my mother will always have a place in his heart. After 21 years of being divorced the man still talks about her fondly. But my mom was the last person my dad ever loved. After the split he gravitated pretty heavily towards the booze. Women walked into his life and ran out twice as quickly. He swore my mom was going to be the last person to break his heart, and true to his word he's never let another woman have it. My mom was the last person to break his heart, but to have had a last there must always be a first, and that first was Helen. The last time I know for sure that she and my dad ever got together was probably when he was in his mid to late twenties. By that point she'd done more to make his life miserable than any man should have to put up with, so I gather from the way my father tells it at least. By that point they had already dated and broken up two or three times, each one followed by a spit on the ground and a curse towards the other. By that point my dad had sworn to god he was through with the woman who had rightfully earned herself the nickname she's been branded with by my dad and perhaps many others like him. She was the first girl my father ever loved and the first person he ever wanted to kill. Up until the second or third time they called it quits my dad had always found reason, if reason had anything to do with it, to take her back and and put aside the hatred she'd left him with the time before. To say they had a rocky relationship is putting it almost laughably. But the man loved her, and if he hadn't met my mom I'm sure the cycle would have continued until they were either married or one of them was in prison for the murder of the other. I opened my dad's letter today with confusion in my mind. He hadn't mentioned a letter being on the way recently, he wasn't sending me any money that I was aware of. By the thickness of the envelope I could tell there was more than just a hello how are you inside. What was inside however, were three handwritten pages in my father's unmistakable scrawl. If there's one word to describe my dad, it's Storyteller. I've saved many of his letters over the years as prime examples of my dad's way with words. He tells his stories to strangers to make new friends, he tells them to friends to paint vivid memories of the past, and he tells them to me to give advice. That's pretty much the only way it's ever worked up until today. I have in my attic right now a small box of handwritten advice from my dad, probably enough to fashion a book out of by this point. Probably enough to tell his life's story as well. This was no advice. This was the meanderings of a man who's sole purpose two nights ago was to tell a piece of a story, one I've heard countless times before, and one who's supporting cast member I remembered the name of with one part heartfelt laughter and another part absolute horror. I suppose a story doesn't have to be linear to work well. As long as you have a beginning, a middle, and an end it really doesn't matter in what order they're in placed. The story of Helen From Hell was always handed down to me in bits and pieces over the many years since my dad began talking to me more than once every twelve or so months, well after he sobered up, and especially since my son was born. It began with a lengthy and roundabout middle, it touched briefly once on a beginning, and for all my father and I knew or ever expected, some forty years ago it came to an end. I suppose for the full weight of what I'm writing to be felt I'd have to flesh out the entire story of Helen and my dad, but quite honestly I would have no idea where to begin. I've pointed out already the main aspects and given the most important details, so if what I'm saying here doesn't so much as matter to you as it does to me then I'll just have to comfort myself with the fact that I'm not the story teller my dad is, and this story is more for myself anyways than anyone else... Three weeks ago my father was preparing to go to Florida for vacation. Packing his things in his van and hitting the road, he decided to make a stop at my grandfather's house, empty now since my father's dad died last year, and a good jumping off point for a trip to the south. The house is in Monaca, PA, a small area and where my dad's side of the family grew up. It's where most of his stories are based, and it's where he once again, three weeks ago ran into Helen From Hell. I didn't get to hear the entire story behind how, after four decades apart, my father suddenly ran into his first love. I have not a clue why they decided to go to Florida together. I'm not certain how the universe works or what can be blamed entirely on coincidence as opposed to a divine alignment of the stars. All I know is that today I got a letter. And in three pages of handwritten scrawl my dad explained to me how a twenty-one year promise to never again hand out his heart was broken by three weeks in Florida with a woman he'd sworn off one last time all of forty some years ago. In three well thought out pages my dad explained how time has worn the Hell out of Helen, how three weeks in Florida with her was nowhere near enough, and how you just never know what life has in store for you. I'm glad my father's found someone to care for again. I'm sure he's got someone now to tell all of his stories to. I'm certain I'm going to be hearing a lot of new stories about Helen, and maybe even get to meet her for the first time very soon. I'm in utter shock and awe that a tale as long and broken as theirs can find a new chapter long after the end was written. On the back of the third page my dad simply wrote "Hook your sealtbelt". | 9,828 | 0 |
So there I was, running away from the rabbid russian baby mob when suddenly this crazy rich, and hot nerdy chick comes running towards me, stops with the infamous Wonder Woman pose and says "Come with me if you wish to live". I run with her, a car pulls up, the window rolls down, and Keanue Reeves does his ever famous head turn and says "Get in". The back door mysteriously opens, I look at le Wonder Woman chick and say "Lets do it". Several hours later, after driving through seemingly never ending winding canyon roads, and get to our destination... the WAREHOUSE OF DOOOOOOOM. As we pull around the final corner, the silouette of a van appears, we pull closer and the Mystery Machine shows itself in the headlights... Scooby and those medling kids... fuck it, im going home. | 781 | 0 |
It was the middle of the night when I heard continuous tapping. Slightly, I opened my eyes to see a light in the hallway and noticed that there was a lack of warmth by the side of my bed. My wife, Annie must’ve have been tapping, so I went downstairs to figure the situation out. My eyes were still adjusting to the dim light, but I quickly noticed a grisly shadow. It was an unfamiliar figure, it was a bitter looking intruder, and next to him was my wife, cold on the floor. Then the intruder’s black eyes coldly shot mine, and with his rough hands, he shot me. A gleam of light shines in my eyes and I quickly rise up. I panic, it seems as though I’ve been in deep slumber for a long time. As I rise up, I pulled on something which went into my skin; it was an IV needle which I detached. Unclear to this situation, I look at my surroundings. My IV bag is completely empty, the Hospital is filled with complete silence and the room is faint. My situation doesn’t seem to make sense, as it seems nothing is operating and no one is working. Quickly, the stood up on my feet but felt as though I would fall a second later, but with enough effort I reached the bathroom. In the view of the dark room, I can see myself through the filthy mirror. It reflected an image of a ghostly pale man with a beard. I could not conclude anything just yet, and needed more information about my situation. I barely manage to jog through the hospital’s mysterious hallway with the only sound being my footsteps and my breath. Why was no one here to care for me? Why was I alone? I quickly grew frustrated as my questions only developed. I opened the door at the exit and felt an eerie gust of wind blow at my face. The polluted smell of dead bodies came rushing through my nose, yet I saw no dead bodies. In fact I didn’t see a body in sight, dead or alive. Everything was put at a complete stop. Traffic of cars was abandoned in the middle of streets and a row of stores went unmanaged. Yet I was more abandoned than any car or store as I was completely alone without another human. The cars were kept together by road and stores merged by shared walls. Suddenly, I felt a harsh pressure hit my chest and fell to the ground without much effort. I opened my eyes to look at the empty world. Then, I saw someone. Someone was alive in this desolated place, and she was coming towards me. Once we met, she told me her name was Anne; she looked familiar but seemed to be in dangerous condition. The massive amount of lipstick on her mouth contrasted with paleness. After an aggressive set of dry coughs, I managed to agree to travel with her. Rough Draft is Rough. | 2,703 | 4 |
The light rain drizzles down on your Kevlar vest, padded pants, and solid metal shoes. As you walk down the street, the 9 foot wall on both sides flash pictures of the recent violence, and forecasts an 85% chance of violence occurring in the nearby area within the day. As you pick up your pace, the aforementioned violence occurs. Another isolated incident of “gang violence.” The thought of the gun fire barely crosses your mind as you step up to the School House, a giant, looming, drab grey fortress, covered in barbed wire, with armed guards and vicious dogs barking on short leashes. When you step in, several guards surround you. “Name?” grunts one “19267” you reply “ID?” You pass him the card that contains all your vital information, from address to your blood type, and he barely looks it over. “Remove the armor and you can enter.” There is a split second of fear as you remove the bulletproof armor and leggings, but you remember your training, “Don’t think about it, and you will be fine.” You step into the next room, and there is dead silence. You know no one, and no one knows you. The intercom buzzes “Please report to first hour. Do not run, and remain calm.” Your first class is defense. Okay class, what are the three rules of safety that you always need to follow?” asks the overweight and ever stoic professor. “Don’t think, and everything will be fine, the violence doesn’t affect us, and we are safe.” Defense class is repeating this phrase over and over again for an hour and a half. The intercom buzzes again. “Please remain calm, there is an intruder in the build…” The intercom cuts off mid sentence. Suddenly all of the lights go out. In the darkness, you can make out the shape of your classmates, and the guards that stand in every classroom. “Remain calm, remember your training,” whispers the professor “everything will be okay.” But you know better. You know why there is an intruder in the building, you know who she is, and you know how far she will go to accomplish her goals. Later that day, the School House is ablaze, with only the students standing outside. All of the students are terrified, and are unable to move, paralyzed by fear, with the blatant lie of their training revealed to them. You are the only student who stands alone, staring into the wreckage of the past world. As an ash falls onto your arm, you overhear an intercom spraying the message “Don’t think, and everything will be fine, the violence doesn’t affect us, and we are safe.” The only thing that you can think of is how wrong that message is. | 2,564 | 1 |
A small stream feeds a small pool that gradually grows larger. The stream grows until it becomes a river and bystanders come to watch. Two men come forward and try to dam the river, but the flow is out of control. The river’s red waters feed the pool until it spills over a curb and cascades down into a gutter. A lone women walks towards the river’s source and cradles it in her arms. Her face shows no emotion but her hands are a different story. The way they caress the man’s face is similar to that of a lover’s but not quite. There is a maternal quality to them. Those hands once held this man and seek to do the same now. Awkwardly they struggle to recreate something long gone from this moment and their failure only solidifies the fact that change is the only guarantee and who are we to argue with our only guarantee. A man with a stretcher comes forward and attempts to take the body from the women but she resists, slapping at the man’s hands. The man persists. The woman starts screaming, it’s a lonely scream and the bystanders exchange glances, unsure of how to react, they look to the each other for suggestions. Nobody seems to have any so they simply gaze on as if it were a television drama and they were observing from the comfort of their favorite chair. Two policemen approach and try to pry the women from her son’s body. With a superhuman burst of energy she rises, cradling her son in her arms, she makes a wild dash from the policemen. She makes it half way down the block then collapses spilling a body, it tumbles, finding the pavement it stops. They come and take the body. They take it to a room and place it on a large metal tray. They cut at it and poke at it. They take it apart, weighing different pieces and then replacing them. After they are finished others come for the body. They wash the body and dress the body, then paint the body. They put it in a box and then place the box on display. People come to see. Prayers are said, words are exchanged, then they take the box to a hole and bury it. Above the hole they place a stone. The stone is often alone. Sometimes the woman comes to visit the stone. She sits with the stone and together they bathe in memories. She remembers a man and she remembers a boy. She remembers birthdays, smiles, hugs, a wedding. She remembers happiness and she remembers meaning. She remembers being called mother. These memories become an addiction and she visits often. As the time passes the smiles and the hugs are slowly replaced by visions of the stone until one day the stone is all she can remember. She tries and tries to recall just a glimpse of his face or a whisper of his voice, but the stone is a persistent memory. She must remember so she begins digging with her hands. She digs and she digs, snapping off nails. She digs until her hands begin to bleed and then continues. She is covered in dirt when she gets to the box. She opens it. Inside bones stare back at her. She can only return their look. She doesn’t remember this. | 3,027 | 1 |
I tried to be kind of experimental in the way I wrote it. Please let me know if you think it's silly or good or just meh! It's best read slowly. Anyway enough of that, here it is: It was the year 250,000,000 BC. It was the year 2011 AD. It was the end of the universe. It was every year, all at once. A man tunnels inside a mountain using his pickaxe as a woman bites in to a freshly baked bagel. The mountain fractures apart in to pieces that are sent to the coal power plant. The bagels finish baking and the warm smell fills the kitchen in the bakery. The miner coughs and feels slightly ill. The electricity from the coal plant is sold at a rate of 10.96¢/kW•h. The woman pays for the bagel. The baker paid the electricity bill and the woman’s hunger feels temporarily satisfied. It’s there. The path the energy took. The miner, the coal, the electricity, the bagel, the woman's satisfaction…you see it all. It’s at once obvious and yet mysteriously laden with hidden details. You see beings, human and other, making decisions in their lives based on the way they experience reality. “How imperfect their information. It feels almost shameful, being trapped such a low-dimensional manner like that. Like a prisoner. Or an insect. Or perhaps Pac-Man, controlled by the joystick. How limited.” you think to yourself, as if there were anyone else to think it to. It’s all twisting and folding, wiggling around and too impressive to take in at any one moment. Its pores breathe with life at the biggest and smallest of scales, each scale cooperating with all the others in surprising ways to produce layers upon layers of interwoven complexity. “Oh… if only the beings trapped in this thing could come outside it for a second and see it from this perspective” you think, soaking in the richness of detail available in this oversized fractal. The biggest and smallest sizes have a difference of several hundred orders of magnitude, yet it seemed most humans only used a few of them. Silly humans. You fly around and zoom and expand certain portions of time and space, examining some parts of the 4-dimensional block with more scrutiny. You pass through it and around it like a ghost while occasionally grabbing on to edges to pivot around, floating like an astronaut outside the space ship. Except you were outside the universe. The universe exploded in to existence at the start, you see. And the end showed the last souls blowing out their final breaths, silently giving homage to every being that had ever died before them. Somewhere else, it was a balmy 86 degree day in southern Florida as a few gentlemen went fishing in a boat one of them was still making loan payments on. “A lot of them seem to take the game quite seriously, this game of being.” You look around some more, pinching and grabbing the multi-textured styrofoam-like contours of this crazy 4D thing, romantically grasping as if your hand holds were jacket lapels on the coat of a lover. There’s so much emotion and hurt and suffering and pain, while also harboring unbelievable joy, compassion, beauty, and peace. All more or less self-contained in this one object, what a marvel! You fly to a different place. The United States president gave a long awaited speech to millions of diversely-opinioned citizens while inside their bodies billions of glucose molecules metabolized as they processed the words rolled to them down the social hierarchy from above. The atoms the people were made of seemed to buzz with imprecise possibility, as did their states of minds. The decision was made, and the action was performed by the government. The people had mixed opinions about the results. Then, out of nowhere, there’s a pulling. Away from this thing in a manner that didn’t seem controllable or comprehendible in that moment, like the rug was jerked out from under your feet or the chair accidentally leaned too far back. You were in freefall, away from what was familiar. It had been happening the whole time, but you had only just realized it was going on. You reach out to this thing in desperation, this giant marvelous complicated life-giving thing, and yet the metaphorical lapels slip from your fingers. It’s so pretty you want to look at it forever. The pulling persists. It seems as though you have angered a strange form of gravity. There’s a sense of confusion and slight panic. You cling on to this 4D network of form and ideas and lifestyles and meaning and values. You try so hard to keep it from leaving you. In the last moments you see a human, a specific one. This human was you. Or… you thought it was you. But now you're up here. You are dying. Or you died. You remember now. It’s hard to tell which, causality didn’t seem to have the same meaning here. It seemed to just happen moments ago. There was a strange feeling. “Oh well” you laugh to your ever-changing self. What a farce. What a beautiful farce. The universe leaves your hands and you plummet away from it. At that moment of letting go, you briefly forget you were ever alive to begin with. You began to exist in a new way you’d forgotten was possible. You became it, it became you, and all was forgiven. All love and compassion, no divisions or walls. Not just this marvelously complex life-giving 4D thing either, but all the other things too. *All of them*. “Welcome back!” reality said to itself, to you. You realized you had won the war, whatever that was about. What’s the point in fighting if there is no disagreement? You dissolve in to it like a drop of ink dissolves in to the entire ocean. The coal miner exhaled the last puffs of poisonous carbon monoxide as he passed out from asphyxiation inside the mountain. “That bagel was delicious.” said the woman at another time and place. And she was right, it was delicious. | 5,809 | 3 |
Woke up again, ten minutes late, hurried out the apartment door, on an empty stomach. The icy cold breeze ripping through my skin as I walked toward the metro station located just around the shopping mall. I always thought how those who were worse off than me felt at times like these, those who can't afford a shelter or even a small meal…I mean the homeless people. You can find them in many places, especially in the metro stations, or under the bridges…you know? Oh well, I hope they at least live a good life, a hollow wish, but it was the best I had at that time. Reaching into my left pocket, I searched for the fare card I purchased last Tuesday, but unfortunately I couldn't find it. "Must've left it at home, in my jeans" I thought to myself. Pulling my wallet out, looking for some cash, "maybe one thousand yen?" I guessed it right and took two giant, 500 yen coins. As I stuffed the wallet back into my left pocket, I picked up the already quickening pace and reached the street with the shopping mall and the metro inside it. The sun rays were beginning to reflect their warmth off of the sky rises of Tokyo.The morning clouds passing overhead like they were being herded somewhere by a fierce sheep dog. Every day of the week, I walked a mile and a half toward the metro to work. So many men and women wake up at 6:30 AM, including me, to catch the 7:00 AM train going to the city of Yokohama that it feels like they've never slept. I used to live in the city of Tokyo, in the small Shinjuku District. A small farm, maybe around 5 acres or more perhaps, was located neatly next to the apartment buildings where I lived with humble folks who only knew the basic necessities of life such as happiness, family, and love. I used to hate that small ditch that was next to the farm though; it was always muddy no matter what the day, time, or weather. After 5 minutes of more walking, I finally came into the metro station, hastily pushing the buttons, the machine then spit out my ticket. I ran toward the platform where my train would soon arrive. “So many people”…I thought to myself, “how are they going to fit into those tiny trains?” It still was a miracle to me how so many young, old, college kids, businessmen/women could be pushed into those trains. Even though I got this job back in December, approximately four months ago, transportation was always a surprisingly cramped every morning and evening. After about 30 mins of riding the train and switching stations, I got off at the Yokohama District Station. I worked at a small seafood restaurant in Yokohama. Every day, it was the same routine in that crazy place. I got off the train, walked about 2 blocks into the restaurant and signed in. First things first, take out the shrimps, the octopuses, the eels and the rest of the sea food out of the room-sized freezers in the back to leave them out for defrosting. They were going to be used up later that night, when the customers would storm the place. So far, the weather refused to change and my hands, even after I had on my work gloves, were sore and cold. Next step in the process was to heat up the ovens and the gigantic pans. Then, pour cooking oil in them and while the oil was getting hot, we had to chop up all the meat that was already defrosted from last night; and that process at least took three hours. At around 9 A.M the customers came. Business men and women, just swinging by for a small taste of deliciously fried fish with soy sauce, the best seller at my work place. Soon the sun was high and gleamed with promising heat through the glass windows, casting shadows of the outside world on the tables full of crumbs and all sorts of microscopic germs and dust specks. The crowds of the customers were getting bigger and louder by the minute, and it seemed as if their stomachs were screaming for the food and not their mouths, because the same people usually ended up being extra polite to you after they finished eating. “CAN I HAVE 5 ORDERS OF DEEP-FRIED TEMPURA PLEASE!!!" yelled one man. "3 SETS OF FRIED SHRIMP WITH SOY SAUCE! OVER HERE!!!" exclaimed one woman. The fun was in the rush-hour during the lunch times, when things really started to rowdy up. Plates after plates could be heard being washed with their clinks and clanks against the other kitchen utensils. A young man worked up a sweat while washing all those dishes, how such a small restaurant could handle such large crowds of people is still a mystery to me. Familiar faces drag in around familiar times, the fisherman who could easily catch his own fish and cook for his own lunch, came in around 3:30 pm. The old farmer, with a century old straw hat who had a vague idea that he is living in the 21st century Japan, came in at 4 P.M. As the sun climbed higher the smell of frying fish and octopus filled the air in and around the restaurant, which was a natural advertisement in itself. Every other day, an old face brought in a new one, and I saw the popularity of the restaurant and its employees, including me, grow with the customers. They started to address me with my name, saying “Hey, Setsuna! Get me couple of fried shrimps with some soy sauce, will ya?” and I would say, “2 orders of fried shrimp, coming right up!” Finally, at about 11:00 P.M, my shift ended and I started to head for home....After I cleaned up the place that is. Some more tuna fish were to be taken out of the freezer for defrosting naturally overnight, that's how I knew tuna was on the menu for tomorrow. The final pots, pans and plates were rushed to the bus-boy, still sweating profusely but working hard to clean up the piles of dishes. The remaining fishery material went inside the freezer again, to be used for anther combo of dish later in the weekdays. Finally, after the whole area was cleaned up, I went into the restroom. While washing my hands in the restroom, I splashed my face with cold water and headed out the door toward the metro. A burst of cold air split right through my skin, and shivered me right to my bones. Lighting up behind me was a panoramic view of the city lights as if it was its time to go to work. There was plenty of light and noise of the city even this late at night that it seemed the city would never sleep. Minutes passed and I came to the metro, bought my ticket back to Tokyo, ran to the platform and waited. Soon the train arrived with the cold gust of wind and the same crowd was packed tight into train again. After around 4 or 5 stops…I can barely remember now, they all blurred together…I got off and came out of the metro and the mall. My eyelids seemed to weigh a ton and I could barely walk straight. It seemed that eventually, I was shaken by the bitterness of the cold and the sharpness of the dry air. I went home and prepared for the same routine that I will keep for years to come. That was my life about 15 years ago, and now, I rest in my wooden chair with those memories still fluttering in my mind as if they happened yesterday. After I saved enough money from that job, I decided to move down to the rural town in the city of Okinawa, near the ocean. The breeze here is fresh enough to wake up the spirits in you; it makes me feel like I am living a new life. Here in Okinawa, I bought a small condo and a reasonable garden and started to just grow vegetables and sell them. The reverberating sound of the cicadas echo like microscopic scooters with loud engines, dominating the afternoons here, and the sun is hotter than ever during the summer. The sales of vegetables that I grow, whether they are potatoes, tomatoes, cabbages, and others, was enough to pay the bills and thus, making life worth living here. Those memories still come back to me sometimes, especially in the early morning when it’s cooler out. Now and again, the echoes of those customers ring in the back of my mind, desperately ordering food to satisfy their bottom-less stomachs. Many times I thought of going back there and working again, but something held me back here in Okinawa. The smell of the ocean, the texture of the soil in the garden, the feel of fresh vegetables when they are plucked from their respective trees, the small groups of customers who come along every once in a while, the sunshine and all the new life that grew from it kept me here. Not anymore was alive my hunger for materialism and money in my heart, just of seeking peace and living it. I figured this must be the life I desired when I was a young adult working at the restaurant in Yokohama, but so clouded and misguided by the materialistic dreams I was that I avoided this haven here. Okinawa became my sanctuary, my refuge from the daily stresses of that life back in Tokyo and Yokohama, and once in a while I felt of going back, but the connection with the down to earth life and simplicity of this place pulled me back. Now, time passing by like the slow moving waves of the ocean, I look over the bright stars as I get older and older, a faint smile confirms my past experiences, and I tell myself, “I've lived a good life. | 9,132 | 1 |
As Alanna sat on the bed, she thought: *Why is my marriage over? How? What exactly did I do to cause him to walk out?* She felt dejected and sad enough to cry when she felt a heavy, furry thing on her shoulder. She turned and saw Teddy, aka Theodore T. Urso, her imaginary friend from her childhood "Teddy!" she exclaimed. "Alanna," he said to her calmly, the way he always talked with her. "Do you remember when you were five years old?" "I...uh...barely," she said. "Oh, sorry about the pun, Teddy!" "No problem," he said. "Now if you don't remember, I do. Your family had moved into a new house in a new neighborhood across town. Few children in the neighborhood wanted to play with you. Your older sister hated you because you had taken all the attention away from her. Your older brother ignored you. And sometimes your parents didn't pay the best attention to you because they were busy. "I came to you then. I became your friend. I helped you get through those sad, bad times. "I am truly sorry about what happened to your marriage. Now that you need some friendship, I've returned. Because I never left you. I was a part of you. I am a part of you. And I will always be a part of you. And if I helped you through some bad times when you were a girl and knew nothing, I sure can help you now because you're a woman and know more...and better." Alanna put her hand on his paw and sniffled. "Thanks, Teddy. You're a good bear." "You're welcome," the bear said. "And while you get over your ex-husband, I recommend that you get a dog. Love him or her and he or she will love you back. They are truly man's best friend. And I won't be jealous. I'll be happy that my friend has a good buddy. | 1,705 | 1 |
He had been going to the same coffee shop for nearly a year now. All for her. She was his everything. He thought about her while working. He thought about her while eating. Hell, he even thought about her while thinking about her. To him, she was perfect. And he had never even said so much as a single word to her. He first saw her clearing tables across the restaurant; her tight black skirt giving the perfect outline of her backside. The way she had glanced back as if she could feel his eyes burning holes in the fabric made his heart race. Her raven colored hair and rounded, black eyeglasses made her porcelain skin glow even more. He could remember it like it happened mere seconds ago. A taut white blouse, black skirt, and glossy black sneakers. She always wore the same outfit to work. It was the same attire the others wore, but he never paid enough attention to them to make the connection. When he was in the coffee shop, he only had eyes for her. Each day he went to the coffee shop to see her. He noticed she was quite shy and even when nearing his section, she kept her head down. This never bothered him, so long as she was close by he would take what he could get. He noticed she was being trained to replace an elderly server retiring soon. If only she would come by his table, he would be able to profess his love for her. Then one day, he got his wish. She seemed to glide as she made her way to his table. “I’m Amy. I’ll be your waitress today,” she breathed, as she looked up from the checkered tile floor toward his expectant gaze. Finally, their eyes met. Her beautiful smile was the perfect match to his glowing face. As she brushed her hair softly behind her ear, she slowly pulled her glasses down from her face. In that moment, his heart seemed to burst from his chest, for she had a lazy eye. “Welp, plenty of fish,” he murmured to himself as he exited the shop. | 1,903 | 12 |
I remember when I was five, and my dad gave me his hat. It was late September, and we were walking through the park together. I guess I had complained one time too many, because he carefully took me off his shoulders to stand in front of him. I looked up at him and repeated, “I’m cold, daddy.” “Here,” he said to me, kneeling, “take this.” He had given me his hat. The candy hat. Red and white striped all the way up to the top, with a big red pom-pom on it. He always said that I looked the happiest I ever had at that exact moment. That was about 7 months before the divorce. It’s january 2009 now, and I haven’t spoken to him in 3 years. I get a call at 4:30 from South Trenton Medical Center. He had gone into cardiac arrest and was in their custody. I was his only contact information. I moved slowly at first, as of I hadn’t heard the news at all. Lazily, I pulled myself out of bed. It hit me. This was my father. He raised me, and I loved him. I began to panic. I quickly scanned my shitty apartment for something clean. I found a sweater, red and white. Striped. The cab ride is short, but seems like an eternity. I’m anxious as hell, and only halfway through notice my fingernails dogging into the leather. I let them. The hospital’s doors were heavy, and the inside was barely warmer than the cold outside. Fourth floor, they had said. 402. I knock. An old doctor comes to the door. Grandmotherly but stern. “I’m sorry.” He was dead. Shit. 3 years we didn’t utter a word to one another. What the fuck Is wrong with me? Where was I? Where am I? As I attempted to run my fingers through my hair, which was now bathed in a cold sweat, I hit upon a familiar feeling. Warm wool, prickly but soft. With a pom-pom on top. I didn’t even remember putting it on. God, I loved him. I miss him. I don’t know what to do with my hands. I’m crying like a child, right there in the hospital hallway. I feel sick. I want to die. I let the tears come as they may, choking back sobs. I want to die. Shit. I’m lost. Lost in grief, lost in anger, lost in the real fucking world. My name is Waldo, and I need to find myself. | 2,129 | 5 |
She stood lifeless next to the wall at the end of the darkened musty corridor, blood still dripping off of her hand where it had run down her arm from her shoulder. She slowly starts to peak around the edge of the wall when a loud **SHRIEK!** echoes terribly off the moldy ceramic walls. Quickly she jerks her head back in fear of being spotted. Cautiously dropping to her knees and now down on all fours she tries to look again. The long hall is slightly misty from the broken windows and the adjacent forest next to the abandon hospital. About halfway down the passageway, broken beams of moonlight fall upon the blood soaked floors from the previous victims who were brought here that tried to escape. At the far end it appears very deep and dark….her hopes are set on the stairwell that is mirrored to the one she just came from, hoping desperately that it is unobstructed. Minutes pass without as much as a sound from anywhere. The silence is very thick and weighs heavily upon her eardrums. She decides that the time is now! Slowly she starts to stand back up as her knees and ankles crack like twigs. Waiting again for a few more minutes so she doesn’t stir up attention. She begins her trip down the hall, staying close to the walls and underneath the windows of the rooms in the ward. Peeking around the corners of the open doors where the moonlight shines in to making sure the coast is clear and continues to press on. She is more than halfway down the hall now and is coming into the darkest part when she hears movement from behind her…she quickly turns her head to see a zombie flying out of one of the rooms and in full stride, hungry for the scent of fresh blood dripping from her wounds. She runs as hard and as fast as she can into the pure darkness, hands in front of her reaching out to slam in the handle of the stairwell door when she reaches it. “Wham” the door flings open in a *whoosh* and jerks her in with it, losing her balance but only for a moment. She turns and slams the door back closed, just in time to hear the dreadful zombie behind her slam head first into the heavy steel door. *Sigh* she breathes a full chest of air in relief. *“I made it, I made it” * …... **“SHRIEK!”** she spins around just in time to see the putrid mouth of another Zombie lurching at her thin frail neck, as into tears her flesh and veins. Her head is severed off and lays into a pool of her own blood. Her eyes still processing the horrific scene to her brain of the zombie feasting on her fresh corpse. | 2,533 | 1 |
Jack jerked awake. It was dark, the window was open, a warm breeze blowing through the curtains. Outside the din of city life had quieted to its nocturnal stupor. He could hear a cat scrounging down in the alleyway. Jack reached his arm to the empty space in his bed next to him, forgetting for a moment that Martha was gone. Had it really been 18 months already? Jack reached to his other side under the mattress to feel for his cold steel revolver. That, at least, was in it's place. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stood up. Groggily wandering around the apartment in his underwear, trying to forget the scent of Martha. She had been his everything, and he had given her everything, including a child. But God was not kind and that night, 18 months ago God took her, and the child, in one fell swoop. One bloody swoop that was no accident. The instrument of this crime was a 6 inch blade, left at the scene. No fingerprints, no suspects, no motive. Jack had been drinking and came home late, only to discover his pregnant wife bloodied and lifeless. The horror had not sunken in immediately. Jack was not particularly cold, but he was calculating. He would unravel the mystery and take his vengeance. His first thoughts were violent ones, but then despair sunk in, and sadness and he wept until the police arrived. The investigation lasted for months. But there were no leads, Martha had no enemies, nor did Jack. He was just a schoolteacher, 11th grade english. Who could have been so brutal and why? That was the question that haunted Jack's mind tonight. He opened the fridge. Condiments. And a half cup of milk. He drank the milk from the carton and tossed it at the trashcan. Jack's mind went to the days before the city, when he and martha would take long walks in the woods and make picnics by the ocean. But Jack didn't have the income to support a child and had to move to this very damn apartment. Since then Jack couldn't stand to look at children. He became obsessed with solving the crime even after the police had given up. Picture's of the scene were etched into his mind. He had to clear his head. Jack dressed and put on a coat and left the apartment. He went trudging down the sidewalk next to brick buildings with only the light of a few sparse lampposts. As Jack walked he came upon a bum, sleeping covered under a blanket. He kicked the bum as he walked, the anger inside of him swelling from frustration. The man did not wake but rolled over like a rag doll. Jack leaned down and shook the man trying to wake him. The blanket fell away from his face and the figure of an old rotting corpse stared back at Jack. Jack dropped the man immediately and took a step back startled. Then a dead hand reached up from under the blanked and grabbed Jack's hand. Jack could feel the icy touch of death as the creature turned to look at him once more. "IT WAS YOU!" the creature moaned, pointing into Jack's heart with his dead fingers. "IT WAS YOUUU!" Jack woke up suddenly and reached to his side. The warm skin of Martha rest on the bed beside him, her swelling belly rising and falling with every breath. Jack reached to his other side under the mattress where he found a 6 inch blade, cold and steel, right in its place. | 3,255 | 5 |
I'm an odd memory in most minds. Like a harrowing communal conscience of migratory birds or a sea breeze that took a train to the prairies and is seen walking along the street. I suppose I'm a sort of stationary, a figment used to paint a portrait of understanding but this is really strange since I am not at all like a brush or ladle or roller or whatever would make sense to paint something. I've been a transient congested throat in days gone by. I swam from seashores to deep blue waters and sailed away. All in all I think I've had things pretty good up until now. But right now I feel like a bag of squeezed lemons left to rot, like I've gone through a garlic press alongside the garlic, I feel like I can't even like this situation and I really wanted to like it. Let me clarify. I believe in god about as much as I believe in myself. If you get to know me you'll find I don't believe in myself that much. But if you get to know me better you'd know that I've met him. I'm not saying him in that god is male it's just that calling him *it* seems strange and it's a default. With that in mind it was a day just like today with me on a stage but I was in the middle of a wheat field and opera singers dressed as vikings were scattered around looking for cues, lines and presumably marbles in the dirt. It hit me that I shouldn't be there, I was supposed to be somewhere else but I felt if I left now to I would likely be eaten or worse, stood on, read then knocked around by the vikings. It was at this point that god pulled up in a brand new jeep made out of a thunderstorm and waved his arms in a motion that very distinctly triggered a perhaps unbelievable but entirely real sense that he was god and I should get on his thunderstorm-jeep-of-love to ride away to eternal safety and abundance. So I hopped up onto the cloud and into the passenger seat. He looked at me in a way only god could with eyes as deep as artesian wells, with a sort of sisyphean tenure gained only after watching over everything for ten times eternity and then started speaking with a very plain voice. "Would you like to take the wheel?" he asked and I didn't really want to but this was sort of troubling because.... why would anyone turn down an offer from god and he said "It's alright, with the exception of your neighbor nobody has actually wanted to drive the thunderstorm the first time meeting me. In general it is an odd question to ask, isn't it?" I smiled politely. Then he said "Alright here's the deal. You get three questions answered. Anything in the realm of conceivable knowledge of the infinity that is me. Three of them. Just ask whenever and I'll answer but when I answer the last one you will die." "What!? Why?" I blurted out of shock as he looked at me. I looked right back at those constellations within constellations within a walmart parking lot folded over into itself and back out towards the sunrise. I smiled realizing the game was ruined and asked "Are you serious?" Then he laughed, we drove a short while in silence and he dropped me off a block away from home still a little agitated by his interactions with my neighbor the week before. "You can't screw this up by just asking silly off the top of your mind questions. Here is my email address. Send your questions there and I'll have an answer for you written out within a day or two." god said as plainly as before from inside his thunderstorm with the window rolled down while gesturing blindly in the air to make a point or sign what he was saying but it was entirely lost on me. He could tell by my glazed look it was time to go so he simply said "Get a job" and drove off. So now. Slightly but not entirely glazed in circumstance I am struggling with this interaction. I can know anything in the universe via email at the cost of my life. I don't really have a desire to acquire knowledge or a need for something like this... so here I am a bag of lemons staring off at the sky like it is staring back in part of that endless crashing gaze of god wondering what the hell I should do with myself. Aside from getting a job. | 4,145 | 7 |
The Celebration Sarah slipped out onto the balcony of her loft. From the twelfth floor, Chicago was a Lite-Brite cityscape, each building and monument pegged into the grid. Metered and regular, from what appeared in the streets as a tangle of twisted metal and cement, a careful design emerged. Sarah enjoyed this view of Chicago. It didn't make her nervous. From ground level, the chaos overwhelmed her. Perhaps she just thought about it too much. Leaving the building, into the street, Sarah set out down East 21st, headed toward Michigan Avenue. Her bag held a bottle of wine, a corkscrew, a tube of lipstick, and five crumpled ones. A napkin from Armadillo Red, tucked into her back right pocket, gave directions to park bench six blocks from her building. On a bench in Grant Park, a man sat waiting. He filled out the crossword puzzle from a three-day-old newspaper. He had been troubled for the last two hours by number 27 across. A kitchen gadget, 7 letters. Blender didn't fit, microwave was too long, and he didn't have enough interest in culinary arts to know of any others. Frustrated, he pulled out his watch, noting that the person he was waiting for had three minutes to arrive. Sarah, realizing the time, began to walk more briskly. She turned down Hendricks and kept toward the curb, avoiding those staking out various doorways and dark inlets. She kept her eyes on the sidewalk, except to occasionally glance ahead at those approaching. A man, older, dressed for an evening out, turned the corner half a block ahead. Sarah, startled, pulled the corkscrew from her bag. She glanced up more frequently as they approached. Twenty paces. Now fifteen. Now ten. She gripped the makeshift weapon tightly in her left hand. As they passed each other on the sidewalk, she shifted her body toward the man. Swinging forward, she pushed and twisted in one fluid motion, sinking the metal deeply into his chest. Sarah stepped back and watched him crumple. The man lifted his head. He saw Sarah, but his expression did not change. He pulled the stainless steel from between his ribs, and the blood began to rush from his body. Sarah waited until his eyes were empty, then snapped away from the scene. She was going to be late. Picking up the corkscrew, she stepped around the body and down the sidewalk. As she approached the man on the bench, he suddenly realized that "toaster" was the word he required. Scribbling it in and wedging the paper between the bench slats, he silently congratulated himself, then focused on the matter at hand. Sarah was seething. "Why? Why like that? Why didn't you tell me, bastard!" He replied, "I thought it would be interesting. Besides, it's like ripping off a band-aid. Sometimes it's better when you have to do it quick. Either way, I see that it's been done." Sarah was silent for a moment, and then extended her hand. "Give me the envelope". He handed her a manila folder. Sarah sat down on the grass beside the bench, and spread the contents under a streetlight's glow. Photographs of the man she had just buried her corkscrew in fanned out like a silent film. He was shown leaving various cafes, trailed by a different escort each time. There were snapshots of the man entering Porsches and exiting hired cars. A copy of his passport listed his name as "Victor Bartoshevich", a Belarusian national. A birth certificate, for one Sarah Yurevich, bore his signature. A copy of a wire transfer, made twenty-seven years ago, indicated that $50,000 had been drawn from he and his first late wife's joint checking. The recipient was a hitman who helped facilitate "alternatives to divorce" for those in positions of power and influence. Victor Bartoshevich, a notoriously private man, would have been shocked to see his own paper trail. Victor left the cafe on Hendricks at precisely 2:30am, as had become his routine over the past few months. Rochelle always worked on Tuesdays, and she had better tits than money could ever buy. Victor paid for them by the hour. After a night of indulgence, Victor would stumble the block back home. Aging and "out of the business", he had reconciled with the most hostile of his enemies long ago, and had been enjoying retirement his own way. Namely, walking alone through the streets of Chicago after dark, and ignoring his estranged daughter's attempts at contact. Sarah placed the envelope into her purse, and pulled out the bottle of Merlot. Wiping the corkscrew on the newspaper, she then maneuvered it into the cork, using the same push-twist familiar from thirty minutes prior. Taking a swig from the bottle, she passed it up to the man on the bench. They drank the wine and finished the crossword together. Through the trees they could see the flashing blue lights like fireworks, and imagine the sirens as their parade. | 4,880 | 0 |
"Shut the fuck up, lets roll!" "Wut!?" "Step away from the crack pipe I mean my drums or we'll be late, dipshit!" "Oh yeah..." ... Bael was the last bicycle allowed across the bridge. The officer crossed the roadway after Bael passed and said to Rael, "Pedestrians aren't allowed on the bridge as the cruiser passes under." "But that's my brother there that you let cross ahead of me." It was nearly a hundred yards before Bael realized Rael wasn't following. He stopped and noticed the officer had crossed the roadway to talk with Rael, then eventually let her pass. As she rode closer she shouted, "We can't be on the bridge when the boat passes." Bael didn't think that they would get such a surreal view of a Navy ship steaming up the Willamette. He thought it was strange to see a military ship. This was new for him, Bael hadn't lived in a Port city before. For the rest of the ride he thought of what it would look like to see war at home. Then snapped out of it and gave thanks to his great friends for hauling his heavy instrument around. Rael usually stood in the center of the room whenever and where ever Bael's band played. She stood in the center of the room at any show. In fact, she just liked being in the center of rooms. At first it was of an OCD nature, where she had to be in the center of the room for some geometrical reason that even she hardly understood. As she grew out of her minor obsessive compulsive tendencies and listened to more live music she found that the center of the room usually sounded the best in her opinion. Occasionally there was an incompetent sound engineer running the sound system. Rael being somewhat obsessive compulsive, and controlling would have to ask if the engineer would lower or raise the sound of an instrument, or adjust the high or low frequency levels. Rael was kind of weirded out by this particular peculiar sound engineer. He had a strange way of staring at her, and when she first noticed, he looked away suddenly then back in her direction but not directly at her as if he hadn't been staring at all. This had been going on since she arrived. He was always staring at her if she looked in his direction. "Bael, tell the sound guy to cut some of the lows when you guys play, it sounds like shit. I would but he's fucking weird." The music was loud and Rael had to lean close to her brothers ear. "Haa!" She just stared at him and Bael realized she was serious, he nodded once. "...ok." He said to himself. Bael went straight to the engineer and without thinking twice leaned in and said. "You see my girl over there?" Rael was watching confused, angered and embarrassed as her brother pointed her out. The engineer sat up straight and stared emotionless at Rael. "She asked me to ask you if you're down to fuck. :D We like you, oh and when my band plays next could you turn down the low frequencies a little?" The engineer turned to Bael with his brow scrunched, confusion and excitement and skepticism wrinkled throughout his face. "Uh what? ...yeah, I mean, really? I can turn down the lows sure... uh are you fucking with me? what, a threesome?" "Thanks, man. Yeah a threesome, dude. You look fun, at least have a drink with us?" The engineer pondered the proposition for nearly a minute, laughing to himself while staring at Rael who was still watching. "Fuck you, I don't believe you. You're fucking with me." He turned towards Rael and laughed, then back towards the sound board. "Nice try." "Sorry, man just messing around, didn't mean to offend you or anything, thanks for running the sound." The engineer nodded and looked back at the stage as Bael turned and walked back to his curious sister. "What the fuck did you say to him, dipshit?" "Just told him I was your manager and you do private dances, wanna make some money tonight?" "I'll fucking stab you!" She lunged at him and started punching his chest and stomach. "Whoa, don't worry lil' sis he doesn't have the cash!" He said while deflecting fists. "You're band is like a bunch of amateurs compared to them." She gestured towards the stage and Bael laughed. He didn't care if it was true, this band was killing it. | 4,277 | 1 |
Now I will tell you a story about when m&m's and skittles met in glorious battle. So one day the m&m's army was out patrolling throw the forest of color, when out of nowhere the Skittles started raining down rainbows of death upon them. The m&m's immdently fell back into the shade of the trees where the rainbows couldn't reach them. The returned fire with the egg shaped peanut cannon balls. This battle went on for 12 hours! Hundreds of skittles and m&m's lost their delicious lives that day. And as both armies’ thought they had the other beat... THE STARBURST AIR SQUADRON STARTED RAINING DOWN JUICE HELL UPON BOTH ARMY'S!!! Oh the scrumptious humanity!!! No m&m's or skittle survived that now absolutely decedent battle field. | 734 | 0 |
Excerpts’ from “The Journal” This is one of the journal entries from a book called “The Journal”. Let me know what you think........ :: January 10th 7:55 am It’s snowing. Still the first one here. I hate the snow. It took me 2 hours to drive to work and I smoked all my cigarettes. My head hurts. I have had the same head ache for 6 months. It seems to only go away when I am drunk or high. I remember a time in my life when I loved the snow. I was born in February, so snow was always reminded me of my birthday and that was exciting. I hate my birthday now too. I need more cigarettes. I think it is the craziest shit in the world to go to work and pretend to be happy or excited to be there; when you are dying inside. If people acted the way they felt, everyone would fucking hate everybody. I hate the background noise of casual conversation. Who cares about your weekend, you’re probably telling me a lie about what you did anyway; so that you can think that I still respect you. If I told you the truth about what I did this weekend, you would think I’m fucking nuts. I can just imagine that conversation with these Midwest jerkoffs. “Oh, hey Bob, how was your weekend”? “Good, just relaxing, how ‘bout yours”? “Good, you know, the usual, got piss drunk wasted, blew coke in a bar’s bathroom until my nose was clogged and then spent Sunday masturbating in between throwing up”. Fuck these people. We have nothing in common. I am constantly acting. It’s hard not to curse. I love coffee. I love coffee with cigarettes. I sometimes day dream about how awesome it was when you could smoke at your desk and basically anywhere you wanted. I have an old Playboy that shows add for TWA, where the hot stewardess is lighting the business man’s cigarette. That is awesome. But, I still think its ass backwards to smoke indoors. I hate the way you stink the next day after going to a bar that lets you smoke inside. It also seems to bring in the morons. I hate bar games. You can still smoke inside in my home town. I hate my home town. My dogs will probably shit inside my house today; they won’t go in the snow. They are good dogs though. We got them from the pound and they were abused as puppies. They have little scares on their feet from their cages at the puppy mills. What kind of soulless piece of trash do you have to be to abuse a fucking puppy? They were a gift to my fiancé. We are getting married in September and moving to LA the first of the year. This is all I think about. I can’t wait to get out of here. I once planned to move there, but chickened out because I had to do it alone. Pussy. Now I have her and she wants to move there too, so it’s perfect. I don’t care if I have to be a bartender; at least it’s not here. At least there is some fucking culture and life and art and something to do besides, drink yourself to death every fucking weekend. I am excited for every moment of our move; from the house hunting, to packing our shit, the drive, the hotels, the adventure. That is what life is about. Not this day-to-day Midwest bullshit, I suffer through. I am done playing this fucking corporate shit. I am successful, but fuck it, I hate it. People with any talent don't live here. I can’t stand anything about living here. The way people talk, the way people act, the fact that everyone is a grossly obese and no one seems to notice how fucking ridiculous that is. When the fuck did everyone become so fucking fat and stupid. I sometime wish I was stupid. That would be an easier road. Someone just showed up. There goes my morning. fuck this. | 3,586 | 4 |
And introduce an element of cynicism and darkness into it and just realize that we're all vulnerable. We are humans. There is a finite end to this life and we're all going to face it and a little silliness can help. ~Alan Thicke There, in the large city of New York, on the date July 21st, 2001, sat a man named John Swift. John was at the age of 21, and just beginning to grow the urge to, as a man, enjoy his first drinks inside of a bar. At least, to do it legally. You see, John was never one to think things through. He always did things spontaneously, rather than take the time to understand what had happened. He was average- in all senses of the word. He wore average clothes, average shoes, average shaggy hair, average glasses, and had average intelligence. But what made John completely unique, was in fact, his averageness. Upon entering the bar, he found two of his highschool friends sitting at the desk, though none took notice of John. John wasn’t extraordinary in any way, and so they weren’t able to tell him from the bartender. It was often a joke, in fact, that John could literally go anywhere and become invisible. John sat at the bar, and slowly began to enjoy the beer. It had been a long day at work. John was a factory worker, at which he continuously worked the same machine for hours upon hours. “So, what’s your name?” said a stranger that had strode up to the bar. John was spooked by the mans voice. It was seductively deep, to the point where it made John want to answer. John had absolutely no resistance to the man’s voice, and quickly gave in. “John. John Swift,” he said. The man was strange in all senses. He was tall, wore gigantic glasses that covered a majority of his face, and wore a hat that shadowed the rest of his face that couldn’t be seen. His jacket was soaking wet, but there was no rain outside. His shoes were work boots, covered in slabs of mud, regardless of the fact they were in New York and there wasn’t a puddle of mud to be seen anywhere. He gave off the scent of nature, which only made John wonder all the more where this man came from. “Ah, nice to meet you John. Thought I recognized you from somewhere, where might you work? If I could inquire.” The man’s voice was only becoming stranger and stranger, sort of pulling John into it. “The factory down the street. We produce boxes. I work the hot glue gun.” “Ah, I work nowhere near that,” he claimed as he gave a bellowing laugh. He quickly ordered whisky on rocks, and sat next to John, continuing the conversation. “So what religion are you, John?” John had never been asked that question in his life. Sure, he naturally was a Christian as was most of the other population, but never was asked. This man was now giving off a welcoming aura, and it only made John more interested. “Christian.” “Ah, and do you know why you’re Christian?” John had never even thought about it. “No, not really.” Adam winked, “Isn’t that the mystery, John.” “What’s your name?” John asked, getting just slightly enough courage to ask. “Adam. No last name.” John nodded, and the name Adam brought back memories. None of them were as welcoming as that man. It reminded him of a bully in elementary school, who often shoved John into lockers, pull his hair, and beat him senseless. John shuddered at the thought of that Adam. That Adam never had a last name either. But what that Adam did do was make John stand out, for once in his life. The feeling was elevating, regardless of the pain. It gave him pride, the scars. His parents took notice of him out of his three brothers and sisters. It gave him joy. “I see. I knew an Adam once. Not the greatest fellow, but he did a lot for me. Even if he never knew it.” “Oh, I wouldn’t say he never knew it,” Adam said. John looked curiously up at this Adam, but didn’t say anything. “You’re easy to read John. Maybe too easy.” John realized that, and then nodded. Adam quit bullying him a week later, and his parents quit noticing him. Maybe Adam knew that hurt him more than any pain. Of course, then again, Adam might’ve been doing it because he knew it would help John. John’s mind was flashing with new thoughts that he’d never had before. “So are you in college John?” Adam asked as he took another shot. “No. My parents never had enough money to send me there. I never paticularly wanted to do college anyway,” John said gloomfully. Adam laughed, “John, you’re a fool. Anyone could tell you wanted to go college. You don’t want to be this average bastard you are. You want to be better than that.” John started to say something, then stopped. This Adam man knew an awful lot. “C’mon, John, follow me. I gotta show you something.” John rose from his seat, and followed Adam. A tall stranger, full of mysteries. Yet, he trusted this man more than anyone else in his life. They walked out of the door, and continued down the street. It had gotten dark since he was in the bar. What time was it? Then it got foggy. He couldn’t see anything. Where was he? He heard horns, he saw lights, and then nothing. He layed in the cold darkness, and was lost with his thoughts. He began to think about the world. He began to see the world. He saw himself sitting on a throne- a king. He saw himself on the streets- a peasant. He saw himself everywhere, and nowhere. He was writing a book. The book. He was hung on a piece of wood. He was the world. And the world was him. He finally woke up, in a hospital. A stranger sat next to him, vaguely familiar. “Adam?” John asked, his throat sore and could barely produce a noise. “John? How are you feeling?” “I’m... Perplexed.” John admitted. “I’m sorry, John, I lied to you.” “What do you mean?” John asked. “I mean I lied to you. My name's not Adam. I didn’t recognize you- well I did, but not in the way you are thinking.” “What are you talking about Adam?” John said, still unbelieving of what this man was saying. It seemed like he was telling the truth. “I’m an Angel, John.” “An Angel?” John asked. What was he talking about? “Not the kind of Angel you’re thinking about...” Adam said, in a low voice. “What...?” John asked, but it suddenly hit him. One of the things he saw when he was asleep. “You’re... Satan?” Adam nodded, slowly and sadly. “What are you doing here? Why are you here looking for me?!” John asked, terrified. “Do you know who God is, John?” Satan asked. “Wha- What kind of crazy question is that? Of course I don’t- he’s not on Earth. He’s not a human. I’ve never even met a man aside from you who could possibly be God.” “That’s not true, John. God is on Earth. He is a human. And he’s in this very room.” John opened his mouth, and began gaping. “I’m... God...?” John asked Satan nodded, obviously sad, “I’m so sorry, John. So sorry. You’re God. This is your world. You created this, and then locked yourself into this world. I was put here to free you. To release you from your own mind.” “What... I was never special at all!” John yelled, trying to disprove Satan. “Thats what was so special about you. You would never have known. If I never crossed that bar by accident, if I never beat you as a child, you would have lived your life and died as a human, and you would have kept doing this over and over. Your world is created specifically for these few moments.” “You’re crazy! Get out of my hospital room!” John yelled, but slowly his eyes were opening up. Truly openning up. Satan stood up, and his coat flew off. Wings of bone shot out, his red flesh was there, horns upon his head. “This is all a figment of yourself, John,” he said, and walked out of the room. John saw the world melt around him, and saw sand everywhere. He heard the ocean lapping the ground, he felt the breeze touch his face, he saw the sky above him. He was slowly forgetting the world he created. The average life. The memories. Everything was now just relying on this world. This world was him now. Empty. Alone. *Just a note, I totally stole the idea from Mark Twain- The Mysterious Stranger. I'd like it if people just totally ripped this apart and told me everything I did wrong. | 8,322 | 0 |
Batman looked out the empty window to see an empty chair in a field full of pansies all up staring up at him with their little faces. Some were a deep dark purple and others were varying shades from sky to royal blue. There were also some yellow and white ones which were only just yellow or white. This year was unseasonably warm but the flowers didn't seem to mind. If they were asked they would say they really enjoyed the warm weather, each others' company and the extra lifespan given that the lawn hadn't been mowed in over two months. Batman simply stared out the window in a typical Batman-grimace way as he was unable to appreciate the pansies. He was actually upset the lawn hadn't been mowed. The pansies didn't mind. The chair probably didn't mind either since it was just a chair and not pansies or Batman or any kind of flower at all. -- I really like pansies. For most of this year I had forgotten what they were called until I asked my mom "What are the ones with the faces?". There was a lot of them in my yard this summer. Then one day my dad came over and mowed the lawn. | 1,103 | 16 |
I wake up in the morning. I get up, get ready for work. Boots, pants, belt, shirt, mask. I step outside. Immediately, I can’t breathe. I adjust my mask. I can breathe now. The bus ride always seems longer than it is. I always get stares. Not hidden stares like most other people get. Bold, challenging stares. The people don’t know who I am. They have never met me. But they hate me, somehow. I ignore them and try to relax. I step off the bus, walk quickly to my building. I can’t wait to start. Working always calms me, in a strange way. As I walk through the crowds, I again attract the gaze of several people. I’m thankful of my mask. They can’t see my eyes. They will never know how much I hate them back. Finally, I’m here. There’s no offices, no cubicles, no desks, not even other people. Just a cavernous room, entirely white. When I step in, I am alone. Breathe in, breathe out. And repeat. Left foot, right foot. And repeat. I must concentrate. I can’t work if I don’t recognize patterns. My heart beats 173 times in one minute. I blink 17 times. I feel an itch behind my left eye. White becomes black. My heart stops beating. My eyes a permanently open. I no longer need to breathe. Time to start. I love my job. I was born to do it. Literally bred through many generations, to create the perfect worker. I was isolated from birth to my 18th birthday, when I started working. I was trained by automated systems for eighteen years, just to make me as perfect as possible. Just to make me detached as possible. Just to make me ready. I think I have lived up to expectations. Probably exceeded them. I love my job. And I am amazing at it. First assignment. It’s nearby. A simple one, stationary and weak. I get there somehow. Not physically, my body remains in a white chamber. I don’t know what I am right now. I just can’t be seen, except by my clients. I arrive. She sees me. She screams. She gets up, runs. It’s not much of a chase. I immediately catch her. She is still screaming. My mask dissolves. She can’t scream anymore. I am done here. It is an easy work day. Mostly old, sickly, or newborn. I love my job, but it’s more fun when they can fight. When they can run. When I can play with them. I like a challenge. Though it rarely is challenging. I return home. Bathe. Eat. Read. Sleep. The next day will be more of the same, I think. I want the same. I live off of patterns. Wake up. Boots, pants, belt, shirt, mask, bus, white, black. First assignment. Second. Third. All within seconds of each other. I must work fast to finish all my duties. Noon. Night. Home, bathe, eat, read, sleep. And repeat. I have been working for years. I have stopped aging. I don’t know how old I am. I remain in perfect condition for years, until I need to be Replaced. I await that day. I love my job. But I long freedom. Today, I feel… odd. I take the usual steps to work. It’s my fortieth client for today. I am distracted. She is a fighter. Young. Almost as perfect as me. She distracts me. She does not run, as most do. She stands her ground. Looks me in the eyes. Or where my eyes would be, if she could see them. She speaks to me. She speaks words I have heard of, but I do not understand her. I am filled with my usual rage, but something else is creeping in to me. She continues talking. Two words. She starts to repeat two words. “Thank you.” I do not understand. I have been cursed at, told to die, pleaded with, even. Never thanked. I hesitate. That small feeling grows. No. I must complete this task. She grabs my hand. Wraps herself around me. “Thank you.” I can’t. I hate my job. I forget all my other assignments. She must be mine. No. I must behers. No. We must be. Yes. We must be. I lift her. She starts crying. I feel tears against my chest. I lift her, hold her close. I am back in the white. She is with me. We must be. We must escape. They will be after me. I don’t care about me. She must be safe. I know where to hide. Finally, we are here. We are safe. For now. She has stopped crying. I set her down. She is tired. She lays down, closes her eyes. Smiles, and falls asleep. I look around. I have not been here since I started working. My childhood home. My development center. My training grounds. It is the perfect hiding place. Undetectable, and impenetrable by those I do not want in. They won’t be able to get in. I hope. Two days have passed. I have not slept. She has done nothing but. I spend my time staring at her. Exploring her past. She has had a hard life. She is my opposite. She knows of nothing but life. I continue to stare. She awakes. Immediately, she leaps up and clutches me tightly. That growing feeling has almost overwhelmed me. I feel she is hungry. I am lucky. All the machinery still works. A meal is made. Another for me. I don’t know where it comes from. I now it is an infinite supply. We will survive. Weeks have passed. We are still alive. I still fear our capture. I still wear my mask. I cannot take it off. We do not talk. We do not have to. That feeling has grown to take over everything else. I feel different. I love her. I awake. It is dark. She is asleep. I sense something. No. We have been found. No. Not by them. They have sent someone. I have been stupid. I forgot he could get in the same way we did. My Replacement is here. I will miss her. I get up. Walk to another room. This one is a mirror of my workspace. White and huge. I lock the door. I sit in the center. I take off my mask. I wait. I will miss her. Hours pass. Or minutes. Or years. I cannot tell. I sense him drawing nearer. He is cautious. He thinks I will fight. I will not. I will miss her. Finally, he is here. I open my eyes. I see me. No. I see someone who looks like me. I stare at the figure, clothed in all black, with his mask still on. I nod. He nods back. I will miss her. He steps up. Puts a hand on my shoulder. His mask dissolves. Freedom. I will miss her. | 6,071 | 1 |
I am currently writing a short story (which may one day evolve into it`s own series) about a boy, aged 16, who is tragically anti social, although he does manage to get some normal friends. One day , through some unknown chain of events (obviously i`ll make one), he decides to create an alter ego, J. J is everything that Dean(name?) isn`t. He`s cool calm and collected, he`s well liked, he`s goal oriented, he`s mysterious. He is the talk of all the girls, and the poster boy for all the boys. Dean just wanted to feel a little less alone, but J wanted to be king of the world. So guys any input, suggestions, ideas, advice would be really helpful! I`ve done some writing, but never a project with so much potential for expansion. | 736 | 1 |
"I don't mean to be depressing, but I sometimes feel I have nothing to gain from a meaningful conversation other than the endorphinous rush of mammalian bonding. But then again, I am one lonely bloke." These where the words typd on Fogrowalds frontdoor, if not lonely, he was at the very least odd, at the very least a bit off, but still full of hope, to put it bluntly. Of course you couldn't discern that from the notice on his front door. His reasons for hanging it on that front door were ambigous, he probably didn't know himself. That's not saying much tho, he is very much not the kind of person to know that himself. If asked he would probably respond with a very logical sounding reason. But merely logical doesn't mean it's the true reason now does it? Of course not. And therein lay Fogrowaldes true problem, a nagging disbelief in himself. Not merely a case of the bad selfesteems, but a case of the bad selfesteems founded by shakey newagey science involving receptors and evoloutionary theory. All adding up to some kind of "without abolute knowledge of the physical state of our brain we cant REALLY know what's going on". A philosophy that while fanciful and deepsounding indeed, offered few real insights. Fogleworth was not no misunderstood genius, he merely did not know how to navigate the fragile threads of contemporary society. Of course he had plodded down the anticultural path, but he had quickly realized, thanks to his evoloutionary biologythinking that connection with other humans is so important. And no matter how 'brilliant' you may be, if youre a dick, people will always treat you as a dick. Thusly he had to learn to navigate society. To sing the song of smalltalk, of latenight chatter, of empty meaningless conversation devoid of content. To harmonize to the tune of humans flocking together. To rejoice in being that most sapient of the homos. To be a man. To be a man ultimately amounteed to being a gossipy nonsense talking barfly fuck. No fuck this actually thought Fogleworth, but of course, didnt do nothing about it. He wanted to be happy, not rational. Still the orange streetlights on the walk home shone bright and kindly upon him, their reflections in the river made poetry that no served no purpose to anyone but him, and they made his night worthwhile. | 2,305 | 0 |
Our story takes place amidst a dreary time, where flies almost conquered the world with their exponential growth and insatiable thirst for blood. But the ingenuity of the plant kingdom ultimately brought the earth a new beginning in a bleak time. An island at war the inhabitants grew hostile towards the tribes over centuries of aggressively opposing religious debates, it ended in an island slaughtered, thousands of island people lay shore to shore of putrefying flesh. For the next several months, the already magnitude of flies became the most vile infestation ever, the island was like a giant pulsating maggot teeming with puss. There was eventually too many flies and the island was not enough to fit them all one atop another, piles of dead flies along the shore and diminished food supply due to increasing demand. With starvation rampant and their demise eminent, the elder flies devised a plan based upon myths of far off utopias abundant in resources, over the water. The swarm would synchronize as a unit and make the grand excursion. The magnitude of flies has grown tremendously at this point, reaching a near thousand fold of the forgotten island itself, now enveloped in decay. The swarm departed from the once oasis and left a rancid sore in the middle of the ocean. For a week the slightly diminished horde of flies battled the waters harsh, salty gusts, feasting upon whatever lofty cadavers they encountered, they saw land and with a sudden burst of vigour they hastily made way. Victims of the oncoming attack had full suspicion something was awry, for the magnificent, sunny day beset by a sudden absence of flooding warm rays, replaced with a distant buzz, ominously looming. The ravenous swarm longed for the taste of flesh and was eager to obtain this. A vicious and most painful practice consisted of engulfing a person in a swarm and sucking draining one’s life force from the soul. Within a fortnight the flies had eradicated all other living creatures, aside from themselves. The heavens obscured with an insurmountable mass of flies that now drape the sky. Flies claimed superiors of the animal kingdom, dominating the others; too vain to admit destroyed any future for themselves and earth. They were now split off in groups scavenging for sustenance. Throughout this entire ordeal, the silent witness were the plants, which were now dying from lack of sunlight. They communicated and decide it was time for action, time to band together and bring the cursed flies reign to an end. After much deliberation they decided to make a trap, something to attract all the flies in order to rid them once and for all. All plant life spliced and fused back together, creating a colossal container rimmed with large barbs. They brought a combination of scents of assorted flora, until it produced a putrid aroma, which aroused flies from all around the world to one region. They drove drown into the trap like a cyclone, as soon as they reached the chamber they all burned in the digestive acids of the newly formed plant. The chemical reaction was so intense the plant erupted, shooting bubbling mess of black viscous liquid, everywhere. From this repugnant scum that veiled the earth arose a new order of creatures, including our unsung hero, the venus fly trap. The world grew back and regained the glory it once was constant battles between natural forces, trying to keep a steady equilibrium. | 3,440 | 1 |
He was just an ordinary kid at school. Kind of chubby, brown hair, average height, your average middleschooler. Every day, her would go about his schedule, go home, and wait for the next day. But one day, he noticed a very pretty girl. Long, Blonde, Flowing hair. Kind of tall, the kind of person who stands out in a crowd. Every day this boy would just stare at this girl in the hallway. He didn't even know her name. Imagine that. That boy wanted to meet this girl, and get to know her. He approached her the next day. "Uh.. Hi." "Hello.." "I'm Sean.. are you new here?" "Umm.. yeah. I still need to memorize this place, I still get lost." "I could show you around, if you'd like." "I'd like that. I'm Rachel, by the way." "Nice to meet you, Rachel." Every day after that they would talk, study together, and sometimes just.. talk. But one day, Rachel knocked on Sean's door. "Hey Rachel." She appeared to be crying, tears streaming down her face. "Oh Sean.." She said, "Cody cheated on me... I saw him kissing a girl behind the gym!" "That's... horrible. I'm so sorry..." "Please... I need someone to talk to.." "I'm always here." "I'm glad you're my friend.... I wish more guys were like you.." Months past and Rachel was still dating guys, while Sean always comforted her through harsh times. No matter how many boyfriends she had... Sean always loved her. One day, Sean couldn't hold it in anymore. He had to tell Rachel how he felt. He went to her house, and noticed something in her window. Rachel and her ex-boyfriend, the one who cheated on her, was sitting on her couch, kissing her. Sean was heartbroken. He couldn't tell her now! He ran back to his house, and just sat in his room in silence. He continued to admire her, without her knowing his feelings. Years past, and that love still went on strong. No matter what happened, he couldn't get her out of his head. | 1,899 | 0 |
Peerless was her name, and in every way throughout her short, thirty-three year life, she was a paragon of excellence--just as her name might imply. Valedictorian, Rhodes Scholar, possessing prefect penmanship: everything about Peerless was without flaw, including her exactingly cerulean blue eyes that never saw a moment of bloodshot. Her honey-blonde coif was always neat, with never a hair out of place; and today it was held nicely in French braids, without a fray in view. The stylish shoes she wore were never scuffed; and the seams of her white stockings were always straight as an arrow from her heel up to beneath the neatly pressed skirt that covered areas polite ladies simply do not discuss. In her, perfection was personified; but the problem of perfection is boredom. For Peerless, nothing ever went awry; nothing unfolded in any way that wasn't exactly as it should. Though perfect to external eyes, she dreamed of new discoveries that didn't exist in her world--a world which made her weary. Even now, while sitting on a park bench, contemplating her end, she showed impeccable posture. Try as she might, she simply could not slouch. This was typical Peerless. Even the gun she brought with her was polished to an unearthly sheen. She had only one bullet--after all, she wouldn't need more. Aiming at her chest and pulling the trigger with her thumb she fired, and felt no pain. As she calmly set the gun beside her, she felt the eyes of many upon her, but she was used to that, sadly. Looking down, the perfect rosette of blood formed on her white blouse, and not a single petal of the red unfolded in a manner unbecoming her legacy of exactitude. She had hoped for irreverent chaos, splatters, or gore. Instead she was a picture-perfect soon-to-be corpse as the blood billowed outward in circles; yet not a drop fell on her skirt. "Dammit," she said, "I can't even screw this up." Then she closed her eyes as if going to sleep and breathed her last. Peerless left nothing out of place for the police and paramedics as they rushed in moments too late. In the end she got what she long desired, just not for herself: a chorus of glorious noise surrounded her body as she quickly grew cold. Someplace, wherever it is that spirits go, Peerless found some satisfaction in the mess she finally was able to make. | 2,330 | 8 |
All criticism is awesome! thanks A Bad Suggestion From the seventh floor balcony, I waited for the stars to rise and fall. Just as soon as they went up, they were greeted by another far away star, and together they would dance in a melancholy stupor until they met at a focal point of blackness, and subsequently collided leaving smolder and hot metal parading the sky. The 7TH floor of the abandoned children’s hospital was an ideal place to watch them, and I remember doing so with my older brother. Sometimes we would cheer for more rising stars, and sometimes we would recognize the stars for what they truly were. Our moods were interchangeable based on how we felt, and often, were just interpretations, for they never lasted. In the end it was the same old story. Genocide had swept our nation like a broom, and its only remaining duty was to sweep the rest of us under the rug. We were of the last ones there; the survivors. We were alone and had nothing to rely on but each other, and our father’s mandatory last advisement: “Trust No one.” This, of course, was months before his last and more imperative words: “Run!” On this particular night the moon was full, and whenever there was a hiatus in the back and forth of gunfire and floating bombs, we could still see our native Africa illuminate from the same light that had guided our ancestors. We got tired of listening to the clamor of bullets ricochet, and bored of watching the flares and missiles illuminate the sky. We were hungry, and had nowhere to sleep. It was time to begin our night’s usual routine of scavenging. My brother nudged me in the shoulder, “Come on, we have to go now.” We turned around from the balcony and sprinted down the concrete stairs of the hospital until we reached the bottom. When we made it out of the hospital stairs, the smell hit us. The stench of death is something that is overwhelming at first, but just like anything if you give it time, it will either take on the droll task of expected repetition or, it will haunt your every dream, and stalk your every move. It was most definitely stalking us and it scared us more than ever. We proceeded to run immediately to our right, through the cold sand, and past the huge tree. Usually, the task of running just on the outskirts of immediate war was enough to urge us to keep running. However, on this particular night, the leafless branches of the tree collided with the silver radiance of the moon in an utmost peculiar way. We stopped and watched the branches sway just for a moment. I don’t know why we stopped. Maybe it was just intuition telling us, but our intuition had been sidetracked for so long, we dared not to think that. Our momentary seconds of splendor were soon over, and we began to run again. The sand whistled beneath our cracked black feet as we ran. I remember the unusual chill in the air, and the warmness that would embrace my face each time a far- away missile would light up the sky, and leave its presence booming in the echoes of the barren desert. As we ran, the village where we used to live approached our immediate right, and just adjacent to them were the black windows and torn rubble that used to be our home. We didn’t dare look, for if we did we might have tried to decipher our home from the others, which of course would just perpetuate the fact that there were no homes left at all. It was important to us that we carry no baggage, we were free of emotion. We were no longer people, and I only say this because we had no characteristics of any normal person. We were too young to generate any logical conclusions on our non-generic personalities, so we just went with the notion that we had none. Our feet kept moving until we reached an old tire factory. The smell of burning rubber was still lingering in the air like a flame from an old wick, as we mechanically hopped over the only part of the fence that was not barb wired. There was a light on in the distance. If somebody was there we would rip them to shreds. We didn’t care who they were or why they were there. Trust no one. That was our motto, and we stuck to it like it was the law. Perhaps it was the sound of our tearing flesh on the rocks beneath us, or, perhaps it was the flickering shadow that left its impression so memorably on the hard dirt path. I don’t know what it was for sure, but somebody inside of that room heard us. We began to run faster as the room beyond us started to rumble with preparation. My brother pulled out a long blade that sparkled in the moonlight. Then, that door opened. He warned us to stop, but we kept on going. We were savages. As we neared, the outline of the man’s skull began to familiarize itself with the images of my mind. I paid no attention. The man pulled out a large assault rifle, and we stopped dead in our tracks. He shot my brother between the eyes and I locked mine with his. My brother was dead on the ground. He was only following the advice that my father had given him: Run, and trust no one. He did well. Then, it became clear to me and my shadowed counterpart just exactly who we were looking at. The man I was staring at was my father. As he dropped down in tears, I glanced at my brother’s bloody corpse, and soon after brought my head up to look at the battles in the distance. I took one hard glance at my father, and then remembered his last pieces of advice to me and my deceased brother. I proceeded to turn around and run as fast as I could. | 5,479 | 1 |
1 It had only been a few days since we had left the mainland, and only a week since the infection had been first reported. Corpses scattered across war zones, covered with the settled remnants of radioactive dust from chemical weapons had begun reacting... twitching... moving. It was only a day later that the first scientists and reporters became the first victims and the first living humans turned. From there, the destruction and rate of infection had exploded. Within 24 hours of the firsts, reports came in of massive hordes of reanimated corpses occupying major cities... turning all that stood in their way. Several countries tried sending their armies to quell the situation, but that only worsened it. Guns only did so much to zombie armies, hundreds of thousands deep, and with large explosions from tanks and bombs, came even wider contamination due to the chemicals in the corpses being disturbed and pushed higher into the atmosphere. It had become airborne... The only escape was to rural areas, or to the sea. I chose the latter... it was only a matter of time before even the rural areas would not be as safe as people had hoped. "LAAAAAAND!" An island... Those in charge had said that there we would be safe from any sort of infection. We were students and teachers. Soldiers and doctors. Men, women, and children. We were, quite possibly, one of the few hopes for maintaining the species. "Where the hell are we?" Sgt. Reynolds barked at one of the older gentlemen who had been appointed captain of the vessel. The original captain was... well, he didn't make it. Reynolds was a former Drill Instructor and has taken to appointing himself the leader of our group. At least we had someone to tell us what to do... Most of us were so disillusioned with the situation that we could barely talk. There were only a few dozen of us who had made it onto the ship from the harbor. It was a miracle any of us had made it off the mainland alive, and even more so considering the only food we had we were lucky enough to have recovered from the bowels of the ship. It seemed as if the original captain had been preparing to live at sea until he could come up with a plan as to how the hell he could survive in a world full of flesh devouring corpses... But food for one man only goes so far between a group. Zombies. They were fucking zombies. All of the films and stories had done nothing more than make us lower our guard as to how real a possibility the walking dead were. "I have no idea, but we don't have the resources to care right now." Most everyone was on deck, now, staring at the monolithic island before us. Whether we liked it or not, it was our new home, for now anyways. I, for one, was eager to get off the ship. I had always been afraid of the emptiness of the ocean. Funny how little your fear of the unknown matters when you’re faced with fear of something much greater and much more terrifying. Still, it felt great to know I would be able to step off of that heap I considered to be my floating coffin. Staring at the coastline, all I could see was sand, and a thick tree line leading into a lush forest. I was looking at trees I had never seen before that looked like they had been there for far longer than I could imagine. Vines and thick brush started to come into view the closer we got. And then something in the trees... Fruit! Or at least something that resembled the fruit I was familiar with! We were going to be able to survive for at least some time longer. Relief flooded my body. Relief that we were going to be ok. That I wasn't going to die at sea with no hope of survival. Relief that... My eyes locked onto something in the underbrush as we closed in further on the island. Something reflective... but what? The relief turned to panic as I realized what I was staring at. We were being watched. Those were eyes. I glanced around for Reynolds. We needed to be prepared that we might have company when we landed. The undead? Impossible. Not this far out, there was no way. By the time I had looked back, the eyes were no longer visible to me. Maybe I was seeing things... "Start unloading some supplies for a reconnaissance team to check out the island and we'll see if we can find any food, shelter, or signs of intelligence on this rock." Reynolds booming voice effortlessly carried itself. I had convinced myself that I just needed to get off of the boat when a shriek erupted from the forest. A sound like nothing I had ever heard. The sound of a screaming jet engine combined with the emotional tones of something living... something communicating. Birds flew from the canopy of the forest as we all stared silently into the mysterious interior of the island. "It doesn't matter, we can't stay on board," Reynolds projected over the deck, already knowing what we were all silently wondering. "Besides, nothing can really be as bad or as frightening as what we've all already seen and been through..." None of us could have possibly known how wrong he was. | 5,022 | 9 |
He woke up in a cold and sterile room. Sickly green curtains hung limp over the window, adorned with lilacs and daisies. The room was strangely devoid of personality. There were no clothes to be seen, everything was neat and orderly, and there was no dog-eared journal, yellow and faded with age. "Where is my notebook?" he thought, angrily. He propped himself up in the bed and searched closer. Nothing. He did, however, notice the framed portrait of an old couple on the bedstand. "Oh." He realized where he was, and shakily stood up to get a coffee. As he hobbled down the halls of the nursing home, he looked around at the others in the entertainment rooms. They sat about, some talking, others watching TV, others still merely sitting and watching their lives fade away. The only thing they had in common were their eyes. Each one shared the same look, the same gaze, one of hopelessness and disgust and confusion. "Good morning Edward!" someone called out. He paused, unsure how to react, or to whom. "Good morning to you too!" he eventually responded, to no one in particular. His name was Francis. When Francis finally reached the kitchen, he paused again. Why had he come here? He began to rummage through the various drawers and cabinets. "What are you looking for, Francis?" The voice frightened him. He looked around, starled. One of the nurses stood in the kitchen, watching him quietly. "Oh, just whatever I find." he said, suddenly cheery. She smiled a sad sort of smile and left him to his own devices. The coffee machine gurgled on the counter. "Ah, that's right. Coffee." Francis thought. He pulled a stained blue glass out of the cupboard, and set it brusquely on the table. He shakily grabbed the pot and poured the coffee into the glass, spilling enough to dribble down the sides and onto the wood below. He set the pot back on the machine, and picked up the steaming glass. He cried out in pain as the hot glass burned his hand, and he dropped the glass onto the floor. "I'll get that" said the nurse as she swept up the glass and called for a mop. Francis stood, rooted to the ground, looking very scared, and confused. He didn't understand. The nurse returned with an insulated styrofoam cup, and filled it with coffee for him. "Oh, thank you Agnes." said Francis, with a warm and overlarge smile, as he shuffled out of the room clutching the cup. Her name was Alice.   Francis sat on the cold, hard couch and stared at the cup of coffee. A television played Fox News very loudly in the background, and, at another table, a man sat playing chess with himself. "Francis, your grandson is here to see you!" He looked up, to see a different nurse guiding a man to the couch where he sat. Francis smiled. "Hello Robert!" He said cheerily. "Hi Grandpa" answered Robert, somewhat meekly. "Would you like a coffee?" Francis asked. "The nurse poured me one, but I didn't really want it." "Sure, Grandpa." Robert said, as he grimaced and took a sip. "Thank you." Francis was very pleased. He smiled at Robert for a moment, then asked eagerly "So how is school going? You must be in the 11th grade by now, isn't that right?" Robert paused, unsure how to answer. "I'm in the 14th grade, Grandpa." "Oh." Francis said. "Well, I always liked the 11th grade. That was the year I met your mother!" Robert looked rather uncomfortable. "You mean Grandma?" "Ah yes." Said Francis, ignoring him. "Say, be sure to let your mother and I know if you ever need help paying for college." There was a long pause, and Robert teared up. "Grandpa, Grandma has been dead for 9 months." "No, she hasn't!" Francis said, airily. "She's right here with us! Agnes! Come over here Agnes, Robert has come to visit." The background chatter hushed, and head began to swivel towards the pair. "Agnes? Come on honey, don't you want to visit?" A note of concern began to enter his voice. Robert was crying. "Where have you gone? Get over here you old bat!" Francis stood up, and began to search for his dead wife. He stumbled down the hall, screaming her name, confused and angry, at this, at himself, at everything. Robert still sat on the couch, holding the cold cup of coffee, tears running down his face. Next to him, the spot where his grandfather had once sat was still warm. He was once a brilliant man, an engineer. He lived his live with vigorous pride and determination. He worked hard, retired early, and gained the respect of almost everyone he met. He was happy, and others were happy for him. His life was charmed, it seemed. But now, he hobbled through the halls of the nursing home, yelling at the empty frames on the wall and the empty people that lived there. He screamed and searched for his wife who would never be found. He could no longer understand. His name was Francis. | 4,952 | 7 |
It is a bright sunny day. The school children are outside playing for recess. The kids are swinging, sliding, running and jumping. All the little ones are playing except for one child, his name is Jason and he is an adventurer, he is an explorer. Jason is off by himself searching. He is tracking down a chirping sound that he is familiar with. He sees the grasshopper sitting on a blade of grass. He carefully inspects the insect trying not to disturb it. The grasshopper is motionless trying to blend in but Jason is not fooled. Jason picks up a stick and touches the bug, the grasshopper jumps high into the air startling Jason, he falls back laughing. This catches the attention of his teacher Mrs. Ratchet. “JASON! Leave that bug alone” she screeches. This catches the adventurer off guard; he stands up and faces her with his head bowed and his hands behind his back. “Wouldn’t you rather play with the other students?” she asks inquisitively. Jason looks over at the other kids playing and then bows his head again. Mrs. Ratchet peers at Jason then glances at her watch. “Play time is over children, line up we are going back to class.” Mrs. Ratchet sits at her desk reading aloud to the children about photosynthesis in a monotone voice. Jason is staring out of the window wondering where the grasshopper went and what it was doing now. “Jason!” Mrs. Ratchet yells, “Pay attention.” The students laugh. Jason turns red with embarrassment and bows his head. Mrs. Ratchet continues reading aloud. Jason picks up his pencil and draws a crude picture of the grasshopper. One of the students sitting behind Jason announces to the teacher and the class “Jason is drawing!” “Jason! Come here. Bring your notebook” Ratchet says furiously. The classroom collectively moans “OH!” Jason bows his head slowly stands up, and walks steadily holding the picture close to his chest so that no one can see it. Mrs. Ratchet grabs the notebook and holds it up so the kids can see his crude drawing, the children giggle. She takes the notebook and slams it on the desk, “Jason, come with me.” Ratchet grabs Jason’s hand and drags him out of the room and down the hall. Jason is silent with tears streaming down his face. Jason is surprised to see Mrs. Ratchet pass the principal’s office; he begins to wonder where they were going. He is confused as she drags him into the nurse’s room. The nurse sitting at her desk looks up with her plump face and with her paper thin lips forms what looks like a smile. “What is the matter with this one?” the nurse says while sizing up Jason. “He is having problems paying attention. I think he has ADD” Ratchet says while cocking her head to the side and folding her arms. “What is wrong with me?” Jason ponders. “Jason, Jason, JASON!” Ratchet shouts. Jason snaps back to consciousness. “See it is the worst case I have ever seen” Ratchet remarks. “I suppose you are right” accesses the nurse, “I will call his mother.” Mrs. Ratchet glances at Jason and leaves the office. The nurse picks up her phone and call Jason’s mother. “Yes Ma’am he has a mental disorder that makes him unable to pay attention” the nurse explains, “you will need to follow up with his doctor; they have medication to fix this kind of thing.” Jason nervously fidgets, the nurse looks up at him, “Jason, your mother is on her way.” Jason sits worrying “what is wrong with me?” His mother arrives and the nurse meets her at the door, they talk in the hall. Jason strains to hear what is being said but cannot decipher the mumblings. Jason’s mother walks into the room eyeballs him and says “come on, let’s go.” Jason stands up and follows his mother to the car, nothing is said. He gets into the car “buckle up” his mother say; she drives him to the doctor in silence. When they arrive Jason finds the courage to ask “Mom is there something wrong with me?” “I don’t know honey, but if there is we will get it fixed.” As they sit in the waiting room Jason is restless. He ponders to himself what was wrong with him. His mom has a pamphlet in her face with the words ADD labeled on the cover. Jason sits fidgeting nervously. His mom peers over her pamphlet at him. “Jason” the receptionist calls out. Jason’s mom takes his hand and leads him into the back where they are taken to a smaller room. Inside of this room is a plastic uncomfortable bed with paper sheet on top. Jason curious as to why anyone would put paper sheets on a bed starts to pick the sheet apart. Jason’s mother cuts her eyes over and moans then grabs the back of her neck as she looks away. Jason pauses and tries to figure out what he had done wrong. The doctor bursts into the room, she stops at the door and looks down at her clip board and looks up and smiles “Hi Jason!” “Hi” he responds shyly. “Hey mom what seems to be the problem with Jason?” “Well I got a call today from the school nurse, she said he is having a hard time paying attention in class, and while sitting in the waiting room he was showing these signs” Jason’s mom points inside the pamphlet. “Ah, restlessness, can’t sit still, not paying attention, these are all classic signs of ADD” the doctor says as she holds her clip board close to her chest, “Well we have a lot of options here, but I prefer to treat ADD with Ritalin.” Now a few weeks have passed and Jason has been cured; he doesn’t play with bugs or wander in the fields. He no longer fidgets or daydreams. He silently stares at his schoolbook as his teacher reads aloud. While sitting in class Jason sees a grasshopper sitting on the classroom window, he yawns and continues reading. | 5,600 | 1 |
He had tried to fuck his mother’s cat when he was seven. The incident had resulted badly and now his genitals were permanently scarred and the cat dead. Does that seem strange? Well I suppose you could view it that way. He wasn’t really different. But what’s different? At the time trust me there were logical steps to his attempt at rape. Now this all might seem trivial but it is imperative if one is to understand why Billy later did what he did. Billy was aggressive from day one. He used to hit his mother’s friends with his baby bottle whenever they came near him. When his first tooth came in his mother had to give up breastfeeding after he nearly bit off her left teat. She was heartbroken for she saw breastfeeding as a type of bonding with Billy, but Billy always had it his way and when he wanted Precious he got Precious his way. Precious was his mother’s cat. She had Precious before Billy was born but once Billy was born he became Precious and it was only natural that he would eliminate the cat. Precious had been the first for Billy. What followed was a mother’s worst nightmare. Billy became a serial killer of felines. Ms. Griffin had come outside and found her cat hanged from her doorframe. A note attached said I love pussy But Billy, do you really love pussy? Billy came out when he was nineteen. A drunken night with a frat brother had confirmed this. So Billy why do you hate pussy so? Is it because you feel an allegiance to dick? That could be, but I think its deeper than that. I think the secret lies in Precious. It’s important to include what Billy did to Precious. Precious’ attack on his genitals was not the ending to the incident. Billy ended the incident by grabbing Precious’ neck and breaking it. He said it wasn’t really anything, It moved and then it didn’t. Damn Billy. That’s cold, but he got colder. It came to be that all domestic cats stayed inside while the strays were inevitably eliminated by Billy. But no one knew it was Billy. The people talked. Some said it was the postman. Others blamed gangs of vicious stray dogs. But no one ever said Billy. Billy’s mother knew though and Billy knew this and this bothered Billy. It bothered Billy so much that people came to think it was a pack of wild stray dogs that killed Billy’s mom, when really Billy choked her and fed her to the wild dogs before reporting her missing. Ice cold Billy. That’s what they called him, Ice Motherfucking Cold Billy. Nobody fucked with him. He had tattoos of kittens he had murdered across his back, a pet cemetery of sorts. After Billy’s mother met her maker, the maker she made, people started talking. Well, they’d already been talking, but now their talking included Billy’s name. See Billy started slipping a little bit. Maybe cause he was drinking more or maybe cause he had taken up the habit of wearing a cat skin belt. Either way he was on their radar or rather they were on his. He killed them all. Mr. and Mrs. Jones were found naked and crucified in their front yard, their cats crucified on top of them. Ms. Washington got a knife to the head. Between the knife’s handle and her head, her cat. Mr. Thomas was bludgeoned to death with a bag of his cat’s food. His cat was later found in the bag. All the murders were gruesome. The luckiest were suffocated with kittens. After the murders Billy left to travel the world. He had moved on to bigger things, bigger cats. The common house cat didn’t do it for him anymore, but when he was desperate and couldn’t find a lion or tiger to kill, he would return to domestic cats as a means to meet an end. Sometimes when a cat would go missing from a house in whatever remote village Billy was in, the people would start to talk. They would talk about the outsider and his funny belt. Or they would comment about his tattoo and then Billy would just repeat his previous actions and move on. This routine carried on for many years until one day Billy found himself in India fighting a tiger. He was naked (he always fought cats in the nude). He lunged at the tiger with his hunting knife, but he was not as agile as he was in his youth and he tripped and fell on his face. The tiger took Billy by the neck and broke it. Billy moved and then he didn’t. The locals say the cat didn’t devour him, but simply stared at him and then walked away. And that’s the end of Billy’s story, but not ours. We still don’t know why Billy hated cats so much, but we do know it involves Precious. See before the incident Billy loved cats, he loved cats so much that he tried to make love to one. But sadly for him and everyone he later met, Precious didn’t return his love. Instead she mutilated that which Billy tried to love her with, rendering it useless. After that Billy said he was never able to give pleasure, so instead he took it. | 4,837 | 0 |
I don't want to read about a "veneer" and what's beneath it. I don't want to read about glass and wires and the new noir. It's the way that you think of the concrete in an alleyway, the door that you look at with the blue light buzzing overhead in its wire-caged socket. I mean: I hack away furiously at a keyboard, minding the sirens in the distance —and this time, for the first time, I'm sure that they're for me— and she bursts through the door and slips on the tile for a second, just catching herself. "Shitshitshit! Come the fuck on! Come on!" I jump up, barely catching up to the moment. Her coat is blown by strong gusts from outside. Then I see a blinding white spotlight stream through the doorframe into the room right in front of me, painting her into halves before I hear "zeeowwhap! zeeowwhap!" and she's too shocked to scream as she looks down at the torn fabric and dark spots, all the blood. She looks up at me. She won't make it, and as soon as I realize that, I feel like throwing up. But there's no time. I grab the memfile and I run through the narrow hallway towards the front of the place. There are already people shouting at the back entrance as I make my way onto the street. I slam the door behind me, as if that would somehow separate me from what's coming to get me. As I run down the stairs, I lock eyes with a guy standing right next to my bike. He and I both know what's happening and he widens his stance and squares towards me, taking deliberate steps over the curb, past the parking meter. He's not pulling a gun; he wants me alive. That's even worse... I'm fighting panic, the urge to run. This guy is fucking moving on me. What am I doing? There, in the gutter next to the steps: the vodka bottle. I pick it up and rush him, and he seems to get what's going on, but he's pissed off, like he expected the confrontation to go a lot smoother, like me not surrendering doesn't fit into his schedule. But he doesn't feel what I feel, which is all the unused adrenaline from a docile life (a life that, undoubtably, is past and gone now) surging and spiraling through my veins like bobsleds made of electricity. And rage— rage because they killed her and I didn't even know what she was like, because now she can't be "like" anything anymore, because they want to kill me too and I don't want to be killed. So it proceeds that, as he tries to reach for the bottle to grab it out of my hands, to go on with his plan of subduing me without becoming dead, I yell and swing as hard as I can. His eyes get big. I hit a home run. It's nothing like the movies, the bottle doesn't break. He doubles over and screams because his nose and part of his face are broken. Still yelling, I pull the bottle in an imaginary arc through the side of his head, like driving a golf ball— the sound is sort of the same too, "WHOP-ping!" except it's followed immediately by another scream and the guy is stumbling and falling onto the ground. He is about as angry as someone can get, reaching out desperately with one hand to hook my leg or something. I step back and dart to my bike, turn the key in the ignition. Come on. Thumb the start. Ok. Pull as hard on the throttle as I can. Shit. The other people are bursting out of the front door now, still yelling. "Shit!" From a few hundred feet behind, they're firing at me— I know because I can see lines of air and things spraying sparks and bits of themselves all around me. I'm ducking and turning sharply into the next street. The air is freezing. The night is dark. Streetlights and neon pass by as lines of fire; almost nobody is driving. It's terrifyingly empty. About a half hour later, I'm out of the city. I pull behind an abandoned gas station, cut my engine, step off of my bike, and collapse into the wall. I can't seem to cry or think about what I'll do next. All I can do is stare and think about how fucked it all was, how I want to go back to before it all happened. | 3,948 | 4 |
It's a science fiction story, I *think* it was written by Arthur C. Clarke. The plot, as far as I remember it, involves humans colonizing a distant planet that's inhabited by an alien race. On the planet, there's evidence of advanced technology - but the aliens have "forgotten" how to use it. The human's colonization is aggressive, and the aliens warn them that if they continue, there will be consequences. The humans shrug it off, though - after all, the aliens have "forgotten" how to do everything. Anyway, in the end, a human spaceship ends up trapped inside some sort of mini-universe by the aliens, and the main character suddenly realizes: "How do you make a fire, [other character's name]? What kind of bark do you use, etc." and the other character responds "I don't know... I've forgotten". | 903 | 0 |
I walked slowly, admiring the eerie yet stunning beauty of this little paradise I found. The trees were all full of green leaves, so many shades from a bright emerald to a dark shimmering green almost black. The trees also boasted an affinity for life, squirrels, birds, bugs, snakes, all creatures coexisting within the same tree, and there were thousands of these trees around. The ground is covered in soft grass, damp and cool from the shade provided by the multitude of trees, Fungus and mushrooms of strange shades and hues burst through the ground at seeming random intervals, shelf fungus along the trunks of the trees make an almost spiral staircase up to the foliage. Luscious yet bizarre fruits decorate the upper branches and suspend themselves like shining gems, each a different color from the one next to it. The breeze and the sound of a distant river provide a soothing ambience along with the sounds of life in this place. I've been to this place quite often, climbed the trees, tasted the fruits, and talked with the multitudes of life, yet I have not seen the river from which this place must grow. I've walked for hours in all directions, the trees and bear no distinguishing marks, and I choose not to make any for fear of upsetting this place. I can always hear the river, never growing stronger or fading, always a constant, as if seeming for me to know it’s there but not to let me see it. I continue to wander, searching, no longer entrapped by the beauty of the trees or their complex eco system, the fruits have all become bitter, this place senses my frustration and changes accordingly. Sometimes when I first enter this place I can still feel the presence of the outside, I think I can see other people walking, as enraptured as I was when I first came here. I think I see them but, they too disappear as this place envelopes me. I am spending more time here now, constantly searching for the water, I don’t know why, but it’s all I care to find. The trees are growing to a constant shimmering black, and the sound of life has almost ceased. Every now and then there are bright places, with new life, snakes, snails, mice, all moving spasmodically in an area, like flashes of light in the surrounding gloom. I hardly notice them anymore. I must find that river, I spend almost all day here now, and I come back every night. The river still eludes me. I need to find it. The leaves have begun falling off the trees, what I can see of the sky is a flat black, it gives neither the illusion of night, but seems to absorb all the light. I've not seen a sun in this place yet. I choose to write this here now, in order to express the full effect, the need and desire to find this river. I don’t know why, or what makes me feel the need to find it. I'm not sure what will happen when I find it, or if I will, but I have to. Today I’m going to find the river. I found another snake, he had the same grin and vibrant colors of the others, I ignored the pleasant aura, I have to find the river. I opened its mouth to find two sharp teeth. As I carried the snake to a tree it began to grow, longer bigger, he grew cold in my hands. It started to hiss and writhe in my hands, I forced its mouth open and dragged the razor teeth across the dead tree. I must find the river. The snake struggled harder as I pushed its face into the tree harder, scouring deep gouges in the wood. The tree started to wail, a loud high pitched keening, its creamed and caught fire, the dead wood and remaining leaves alighting in azure, liquid fire. The burned down to a pool of aqueous blue fire, the surrounding trees caught flame also. I was surrounded by blue flames, purging this place of life and substance, the sound of the river grew stronger. Then I was there, the river raging relentlessly, flowing with the rage of an angry god. Still covered in the liquid blue fires I stepped into this torrent. I start to feel myself dissolve, as the river was made of the same liquid blue fire that burned me, yet as I felt myself burn away, my thoughts continued, my psyche still intact and active. I stopped the flow of azure fire, feeling it bend and give to my will. I opened my mind’s eye and surveyed my life as it was...... and I let go. | 4,241 | 1 |
Hi, I'm not really a writer. I wrote the below piece and just wanted to see what other people think of it. First reddit post, and I'm hoping it goes well. :) "It had been a particularly cold winter. The white frost blanketed the ground, killing everything that lived, as if Death himself laid down his tattered cloak over the land. I soon forgot what warmth was. The feeling itself frozen and shattered from my memory. There was only the cold left to keep us poor folk warm. It was during that desolate winter that I had the pleasure of meeting Joe, a stoic man who had come from farther up North, seeking a warmth his body didn’t feel and his mind couldn’t remember. When I saw the crystal clear blue of his eyes, I remember thinking that the cold was in him, in those eyes, and he would never escape from it. But I was sillier back then. I was young. A girl alone in the world, left to my own devices on a neglected and deserted ranch. Or at least what was left of it. I sometimes thought to myself I was Jonah, and the dilapidated house around me the dying carcass of that biblical whale. The “farmhouse” I lived in had been falling down around me for the better part of my stay, and showed no signs of slowing. I had found it like this and it had stayed like this, as broken and empty as I was. Most people kept their distance, as I was seen as undesirable. Whether I thought myself worthy of such a distinction or not I did not care. I only cared that they thought I was worthy of distance. Peace of mind was something rarely afforded to most in this world, and as long as I was an unnamed presence meant to be quarantined from the normal folk I was afforded that peace of mind. Until Joe. We met in the cold and it was the cold that sustained us until the frost became too bitter. He had been sleeping in “my” barn, or at least what was left of it. I rarely ventured out of the main house, as it was there I felt the most safe. I sometimes looked out at it from the kitchen window, mostly in passing, to check if it was still there, giving it’s sorry condition. I watched through a spiderweb of cracked and stained glass as he went to and from the barn. I didn’t know where he went, but around dusk he would always stumble back to the shelter that the barn provided. I had been alone for so long by then that his presence wasn’t easily articulated into clear feelings one way or the other. I knew he might be dangerous, but I also knew he was like me. A connection flowed from that kitchen window to the door of that barn. We were both a body without a soul. A life wasted, created in misery, and destined to die with a whimper not a bang. So I decided to speak to him, the first person in a long time I felt connected to on any kind of level worth a damn. How he had been surviving in the barn for this long with it’s missing shingles and barely patched south wall, which had been through absolute hell during tornado season two years past, was a mystery to me. Everyday had found the weather turning colder as if the ranch was turning solid, and the barn wasn’t much protection. I didn’t know how to approach him without scaring him, as I had come to think of him as a solitary fellow, never having seen anyone in his company while he stayed on the ranch. So I knocked. My knuckles meeting the frayed once-red, now pink, wood that covered the brown oak that made up the barn. The sound of my knocks were small, my shivering not only a result of the winter wind, but nevertheless he heard. Joe had been a man slow to talk when we first met, but he opened up as our talks grew. It was around then that I began to realize his eyes were more the blue of the ocean water that I had sometimes dreamed about than frozen ice. We talked of many things, and when I told him of how I felt like Jonah, his laugh brought back something in me, and I laughed along with him. It was the shared laughs more than anything that kept me coming back to that barn for so long. He introduced a warmth that didn’t stretch very far but radiated with an unparalleled intensity between the two of us. We spent a month together on that cold farm, keeping the frost at bay. Eating when we could, sleeping, and most importantly living. He and his watery eyes eventually moved on. But those days I kept with me for a very long time. I can still remember the bitter cold in my old bones, but I also remember the warmth that Joe and I rediscovered, that had been lost to us in the frigid world, until it to was killed off by the frost. | 4,525 | 4 |
I am a first time poster here and unsure if this sub frowns on linking to my own site. A heads up would be nice. In the mean time. Here is a story I wrote in 2008 about socks. It has been denied publication after sitting in slush piles 10 or 12 times. My website is . The first half is below, the second is the first post as the story is over 10k. Thanks! I looked down to see two drops of blood on the green carpet. They had come from my nose, and there would be more. The clerk, a woman in her 40's, began walking toward me from the counter with a concerned look on her face. It occurred to me that she may find it odd that I was standing in the sock aisle, with a nose bleed, after closing time, at a Boy Scout Store. My love affair with the Boy Scout sock started innocently enough. I had graduated from Cub Scouts into Boy Scouts in the fall of 1990, around the time I turned ten. Reading about the BSA (Boy Scouts of America) now, I can only imagine the amount of angst within its ranks. The membership controversies over sexual abuse, homosexuality, and religion make me wonder if I will let my son join. But my time with the Scouts was nothing but sunny skies and clean, safe times. Well, mostly anyway. There was that one summer camp when my patrol leader ran out of cigarettes and gave us all tea leaves wrapped in parchment paper saying, "Look, it's the same thing, okay?" Or the time that we filled another Scout's bellybutton with tooth paste the first night of a trip. A week later, we watched in horror as the same scout took off his shirt before jumping in the pool. The once green and white toothpaste had turned black and molded into the folds of his overweight... folds. Or the time that we wiped an entire can of catfish bait under another scout's tent at the National Jamboree. The poor kid smelled like a cow pasture for the rest of the week. Even at my wedding a Boy Scout story was told, about earning my wilderness survival merit badge when my best man and I rolled over one another down a hill because we decided to sleep on too sharp an incline. (Many in my family already thought that I may be gay. The story of two boys rolling over one another down a hill didn?t help.) The Boy Scouts was a great experience for me, filled with excitement and adventure. I earned the rank of Life before dropping out and clearly remember the night that I told my scoutmaster I was leaving the troop. I cried and stuttered. I knew I was never going to make Eagle. It wasn't in me. I had been drifting away from Troop 674 for a year. It was my time to leave. I grew out of my uniform. I left the dreams of Eagle behind me. I even started growing my hair to lengths the Beatles would never have gotten away with. But I never took off those socks. When I started with the Scouts, the uniform sock was worn up to the knee, puce green, and had a three-inch red rim that was meant to be folded over. A uniform change in the early 1990's brought the red trim to a logical half inch. That sock was the one I fell in love with. It was called "The Boy Scout Crew Sock," but was changed later to, "Boy Scout Thorlo Hiking Sock." The sturdy socks were made from a blend of acrylic, nylon, and spandex. If you bought them from an official Boy Scout store they were treated with Triclosan, an antibacterial, antifungal agent that stopped odors and athlete's foot dead in its tracks. The sock wicked sweat away from the foot and into the shoe. You could hike all day without an extra pair and never give it a second thought. You never had to wear two pairs to stop blisters. These socks were thick and clung to your foot with the force of super glue. They were, by far, the best sock ever produced. I haven't worn another sock since their release. I wore them to job interviews, funerals, and of course, hiking. I wore them on my first date, wedding, and to the birth of my child. Every year, my mother bought a few more pairs at Christmas, and I waited until they were beyond threadbare to throw them away. I gave serious thought to learning how to darn socks just to make old pairs new. Ask anyone who knows me well about my clothing. Invariably, my socks will come up. But I never learned how to darn socks. I never savored the pairs I owned. Standing in that aisle at the back of the Boy Scout Store, I came to the realization that my sock was not there. After eighteen years, the uniform had changed, and left me in the cold. That's when my nose started to bleed. I was tempted to bolt to my car at the speed of shame, my embarrassment following a few seconds behind. I pictured myself in the car, nursing my nose with an old Wendy's napkin from the glove box for almost a minute before a knock on the window would catch up with me. That's when I saw the woman with the concerned look walking toward me. | 4,841 | 1 |
2/11/1373, 6/30/1908, 7/7/1997, 11/1/2011, 6/21/2013, 11/18/2013, ? 32492/ 6 = 5415.33 194952/365=534.115 902.55 The Bloop... That’s what it was called at the time, The “Bloop” , because I guess we didn’t have anything better to call it. And to be honest, after reviewing the audio several times, it did kinda sound like a bloop. The kinda noise when a large volume of water is displaced all at once. We were lucky on that one, or unlucky. Maybe if we had recognized it for what it was… I’m getting ahead of myself. I believe it was the Olmecs that first encountered the phenomena around 1831 BCE. There’s this monument, they call it the San Martin Pajapan Monument now, that was carved in approximately that time period. The statue is early example of their artwork, showing a young lord or demi god, holding up a ceremonial bar. The general consensus is that it was a figure meant to be establishing the center of the universe. What little we can translate of their culture and writing, the statue was placed at a location that they viewed as being a place of powerful energy. Maybe they saw something in the hills between those two volcanoes. Something that defied nature. There’s no fossil or archeological evidence, but it just fits, you know? By working backwards with the math? The first recorded incident was February 11th, 1373CE outside of what is modern day Baghdad, Iraq. I say this is the first “recorded” incident for a reason. What happened outside of the recovering city was never properly documented. The Il-Khanids, Mongol rulers of their captured Arabian lands, weren’t too keen on writing down things that didn’t involve the glory of the Mongol empire. What can be gleaned from the entire TWO historical documents concerning the event, was a massive shockwave tipped over several ships on the river, as well as toppling dozens of homes within the city. The writings from the era said that a pressure wave, described by them as “the air punched at our chests as if a forceful man ” , originating from the desert sands east of the city. I calculate the epicenter to have been 1 mile east north east of the cities’ harbor, of approximately 63 kilotons of TNT in strength, somewhat less than the destructive threshold of the atomic warhead dropped on Hiroshima by the United States during World War 2. The effects of being so close to a blast of that magnitude would have been similar to what was described by the accounts. I can consequently see why no one cared. It was not a great era of scientific curiosity. It was written off like any myriad of events during that era. The second recorded event occurred on June 30th, 1908. Centered around 5 miles South South east of Lake Cheko, in Tunguska, Russia. I’m sure you’ve heard of that one, though. What’s more commonly known as, The Tunguska Blast. Up until last month, it was easily attributed to a rogue asteroid or cometoid exploding in mid air over the deserted forest. Official estimates vary, but the explosive force rattled windows 400 miles away. It hammered the Siberian wilds with what we now know was around 2 megatons of explosive force. Speculation was, that had such an event occurred in a populated city in that era, say for instance, Paris, London, or New York City. The death toll would have numbered in hundreds of thousands. We were “lucky” though, it was a deserted location, very few people were injured. Hell it took months for a study team to even venture out into the frozen woodlands to survey the damage back then. Again, No one really cared. | 3,551 | 6 |
Pale eyes, crewcut after a long stint of length, rounded unabashed nose, strong lips leading to a sag in the very muscle of the face, all pointing to a strong cleft chin, only vaguely hidden by stubble. Eyes of alcohol stained isolation, but not many saw that, only the mirror and those who accompanied him past his strange-focus setup. In all truth, Stockton Miller was a fair and unmoving man, except for sudden outbursts that had seemed to accelerate in occurrence since his final years of high school until a point in life, now twenty-three, where they were on par with his natural and accepted baseline. He was, in all manner speaking, a psychopath (and notably, still is), yet his behaviour was not that prescribed to the word psychopath, and, as his gut told him, was more like a number of other statistics in populations that cast aside the cliche so long-glued to the aura of psychopath and instead chose to live as a productive member of society. An affinity for jeans and blazers, weather permitting, sitting this day aged blue tweed blazer, dark blue cutting through threads of light, blank white T beneath, loosely hanging over thin body, slight rolls in the skin unseen beneath, aged lightblue jeans tight on skin, canvas shoes tightly laced, belt only for purpose, strong stance leaning back against soft fabric couch, dark red against soft blue, legs crossed, hand behind head sorrow eyes looking at the only interest in the room, interest staring back with apprehension, intrigue, thoughts of feelings same as red light running. Freight train conversations rolling through, eyes fixed, depression interest, she glanced back, eye contact unnerving, both taking sips of red wine, pouring more. Melissa Salaway. Thin brown hair, light voice, face pale and clear, eyes ready to receive information, wide wide pupils, lengthy nose but only obvious on studying her face, gaunt jaw, bones like plumbing. Black dress, loose, modest, dark blue cardigan, dull flats. She sat and listened for the most part, glancing occasionally at Stockton, engaged almost completely, clattering tracks of ideas rolled through. Most of brain attached to conversation, small slither analysing, body language, phrases, watching eyes. “Hey uhh… If I die and your hair’s still growing when I do, don’t let anybody pray for me. Tell them to stop it. And uh, if, by this time, you end up saying words about me, that is if you still uh, admire me, by that time enough to say words about me then don’t tell anyone about me, tell them about my ideas. Tell them that I’m just an assortment of well positioned atoms. Tell them about the fact that I’ll only die if my ideas die. Tell them that my ideas will continue whirring as long as people can think them.” By this time Stockton could feel a rush coming on and decided to keep talking, better judgement notwithstanding. “And uh, I think that the time may come quite soon. Not soon as in months or day but soon for a twenty-three year old.I think thirty. Yes, thirty,” The rush gaining strength, vision blending into thought, dragging him down into deep depression, bad energy proving immovable, kept from tears only by constant talking. “Yes, I’m going to die on that lone highway. I saw it the other day, you see. A car, and I don’t even drive. A car, me propped up against the door frame, dirt slightly shaken, legs splayed out in from of me, toes pointing straight up. And then I remembered that I had just been shot in the head, or had I shot myself? It doesn’t really matter. I died there. I tried to talk myself out of it, only half aware that it was the dream, and these things give you the impression of inevitability anyway, real or not. Well yes I tried to talk myself out of it, slowly, then sharp and harsh, not desperate or insulting, but harsh. I felt myself die. I woke up then, slight adrenalin buzz wore off and I felt nothing. This is why today is about death. I’m sorry. I really am. I never talk well to others. I imagine topics so well in my head and they always fail to be of worth in reality. I’m sorry.” Stockton felt that he was more a person to be talked about than talked to, regardless of how many ideas he tried to give away. Rush receding, almost a sense of self accomplishment for having withstood, yet grasping onto the draining force, knowing that it won’t come again with any sensible reason, and as worrisome as it was it felt good, felt being the most important term. Melissa stood up and took another bottle of wine, started pouring in both glasses. “I find that interesting, you seem to be admitting and embracing this death yet, in that exact moment, you tried to talk yourself out it.” “Well that’s put down to the fact that I was twenty-three in my dream. I wasn’t thirty.” “Oh! Well then I suppose it comes down to how far the subconscious is willing to go to make this happen, and subsequently how little your conscious is willing to fight it. Of course I have my own personal response and please re-think this, but I know you well enough to predict that any attempt to convince you otherwise will just strengthen your resolve. So uh, if you do decide to off yourself, do it near me at least.” “I don’t know where this is going to take me but I’ll try. I’ve been missing you for a while, even when I’m talking to you. My guess is that it’ll all fold up into one large crunch, and in a mad rush something will happen. Simply put, things will explode. Whether we’ll be together remains unseen. From what I can guess it’ll be in a few years at least but the way things are going..” Stockton trailed off, eyes focusing on the wine slowly streaming down his throat. “Stockton I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.” “Oh but you know I can’t help it, for, of course, ‘I am a Karamazov!’” “Shut up with all your book stuff.” “They write for their readers, you know.” “You’re not going to die.” “Ah, my dear, I’m sorry. I’m afraid you failed to grasp the summary of your 6 years of studying biology. We all die. I’m just going to finish existing sooner than some other people. You’re lucky you didn’t fall in love with some african aids orphan. At least we fucked.” “Fuck you Stockton. Somedays you’re so fucking vile. Get a fucking grip. You’re wingeing about your fucked up life and doing nothing but drinking yourself to death and deceiving yourself that your writing is worth anything. Clear up your shit. Every night it’s the same thing. Depression or violence or happiness, you only have three. It’s so simple. They’re just a triangle and you hit them each in series. You’re a fucking loser.” Stockton laughed. Windows into other worlds flashed through his head while he made up his mind on what kind of emotion he should put in his response. Whilst he was good at dolling out emotions, he still had a tidbit of trouble knowing which ones were appropriate. | 6,845 | 1 |
His feverish yelling reverberated around me, bouncing mercilessly from dark surface to dark surface - A primal voice crying out again into the black accompanying his physical efforts. My mind ached as my bloodied ears received the sound. This intolerable pain was increasing immeasurably by the floods of adrenaline that followed the icy jolt of anxiety ripping up through my spine. I cursed my claustrophobia; the room could not have been more than two meters wide, and just over that again in length. In addition to my tight bindings, the shuddering echoes of exhaustion and ragged laughter jumping out from all around me were like cold, violating hands pinching roughly at my clammy slack skin. Most of my tension had left me now. Fatigue and a growing complacency with my situation had led me to be absurdly relaxed under the coming blows - or perhaps I had just started to feel numb with shock - perhaps my brain had just become too occupied with pain. A sudden rush of air came from my right, gushing past my cheek. My head flew back and a muted yet moist 'thach' ricocheted off the walls. Strangely my head began to hurt before my face did. I started feeling a strong urge to vomit, as I used what always seemed to feel like the last few bare threads of my energy to pull my head forwards again. As I did, my eyes feel closed in sync, like a child's toy doll. "I hope you feel that" My eyes snapped open and my brain, which had been teetering on the edge of unconsciousness, was now utterly alert. "I hope you fuckin' feel that" It was the first time he'd spoken - I was so amazed and fearful that the moment might would be lost that I gurgled on my own blood in my excitement to try to engage him. Quickly I tried to clear my throat, but my swollen face and knotted muscles wouldn't comply, so I ended up gnashing and fizzing the blood against my teeth in my derangement. Coagulated blood was forced through the small gaps in my teeth and spat from the slit I had left for a mouth; I heard loud heavy droplets hit the smooth floor in front of me as the blood mingled slobber crept down my chin. Naturally when I first woke here and we started this, I cried and screamed and begged for a reason - or even a response - to the blow after blow. The questions burning in my mind as each skin on skin assault left a smoldering ember of hope in me that, maybe, I could feel even just a small crumb of humanity from my assailant. Some leverage. I started choking - the thick blood in my throat started gushing into my lungs. In my haste I must have opened some internal wound. Every painful quake of my chest, as I desperately clambered for air, seemed to satisfy him. "Fucking good." I was seized with terror as I knew he was closing away again - I tried one last staggered attempt to speak with everything I had left. It tore from my larynx like it was wrapped in sandpaper; "Why" At this point I didn't even know if it was a question. In the gloom I just made out his silhouette. He was standing at 90 degree angle facing away from me, I couldn't tell in what direction. My eyes were almost swollen shut so I could hardly ever decipher his proximity from me; his thickness was the most I could manage. In mid-breath, I felt an overwhelmingly powerful slam to my sternum - so powerful the chair was hurled backwards and I felt the metal legs beneath bend as my propelled weight hurled into them at such an angle. I thought they'd broken off as I tipped pathetically to the ground. Due to the confinement, my skull cracked loudly against the wall first, followed by the quiet slap of my body against the damp concrete of the floor. The pressure in my head was then too much and was released as I convulsed to vomit, violently enough, as fortune had it, to force my solid jaw apart. Just as I started to pass out, I heard a satisfied grunt from the abyss. **EDIT** : Anyone who's taken the time to read this, I'd really appreciate some feedback. | 3,974 | 0 |
This is a throwaway account for a project I've been working on where once every few weeks, I pick a theme and over the next 5 nights, write 5 short stories about that theme. Each story can't take more than a night. This story was drawn from the theme, "Let me think". =========================== When I was young, I moved. I moved like the ground was being pulled in front of me, and every frantic breath measured a stride. I ran. I lived in a sprint. From outside Atlanta in the sweaty eves to shivering in the awnings at Gare L’est. I am 15, I am 19. A busker with uneven teeth smiles at me and I think she is the world. Jon, my best friend brushes me with his elbow. -Not this one, he says. -Rock, paper, scissors, I joke. Wait, let me think. It was morning, and I am 43. The island sweats. The dog and I run in silence. The sun has risen and the land heats. We spring up the hill, panting and dizzy. Beyond us in the peninsula, the sea beating foam and white against the granite. I measure sides of granite sliding into the ocean in degrees. 37, 49. It was two years ago since we came here. -Come on, I say to him. We cross the end of the of the road and navigate through the boulders and cacti along the path. As we descend, I feel the air thicken. Salt like nettles. Ahead, for some reason, the tide pool is a dark black. I slow, tie the dog to a branch and regard the gleaming layer. For some reason my reflection is nothing more than a dull figurine. The dog whimpers. I reach out with my hand. And then I vanish. I am 19, at a horrible electronic music show. The singer pulls a sheet over his body and shrieks into the microphone. I rattle off my list of four letter words and my friends rescue me. They drag me outside where it’s still light and dump me on a curb. I fumble for a cigarette that reaches my lips before I understand how. The light escapes me and suddenly I burn bright. A face, familiar and new acquiesces my premature death. I think I want to marry her and know instinctively that I will never see her again. She gives me a name that I forget and offers a hand. I reach forward. And then I vanish. Alexandra always regarded me with caution. We are at dinner. I am 28. I know our marriage won’t last I know she is gaining weight. I know my hair is starting to recede. I am not as fast as I used to be. I still stand straight, but my legs carry more than my frame. She and I once met as youngsters. She and I once fell in and out of love. Now in a different age, we have dinner, forget how we used to be and make vague promises. Land to spread out, air to breathe, a literary life. She turned me to Nabokov and Kinglsey Amis. She taught me that Russian beers are numbered to reflect your drunkenness. She excuses herself from the table, and suddenly the room changes. I see visions of myself stumbling in from every door. I am confused, because just one second ago I was here and I saw this. It lead me to that and now here I am. We shake, trying to clear out the fog. The poor bartender opens a few bottles and slides them down the bar. I am a set of ages and lifetimes. We amble, have the same taste in drinks, love the same songs. But no, I am 15. Jeff has just run into the street. We’ve been drinking. His sister bought us beer and a couple friends came over. Tonight is sweltering. July, and the Georgia air that stinks of sweat and mosquitos. We did shots of bad vodka, we swam and goaded the girls to remove their tops before hoping in the pool. The water was warm, and I felt floating through the chlorine and the floodlights that all my senses were deadened. I looked up to see the faint outline of clouds brushing past. Later we lit off fireworks. I remember my trunks still dripping and my feet caked in dirt. The bottle, fully loaded with munitions tips over. Meteors and cannonade stream past me. Jeff is 15 and so am I. He darts into the street hollering. I follow. Two bright stars explode. I pause to think. The universe tells us that all things are permitted, that in some incarnation I am 37 and swerving along a desert road. That give enough time, maybe not me, but a close approximation is staring down the sights of a rifle at a fine looking doe on a chill November morning. I am one ensemble in the sum of possibility and there are others around me, gathered by the void, we snack on tuna and crackers. We bask in the afternoon sun. So imagine if you will this. I am in a room at the end of a long day, struggling through drinks, wary that I’ll fail to stomach dinner. Versions of myself meander about. Some grab snacks, others talk quietly. At first, it was such a shock. Even to hear one’s voice projected in a mass, but now after a couple passes, it seems second nature. I converse with myself, I am 45, 52, primes, divisions of 3, dead, mangled, born again. The maitre d’ announces the first course. We precipitate towards tables, the same habit of crossing left over right and folding the napkin just. But I tarry behind. I think about the time in my youth, a feeling of warmth, sitting on a bed of pine needles. I’ve heard about a distant day from an old friend. About a walk under the Gothic arches of the place I so dearly called home. The creak in my knee is not yet come to pass. The knot in my wrist is only just now begun. I wince at the pinching of nerves and the grinding of joints and the momentary pain awakens me. I feel as if I can’t breathe, trapped here in this dinner party. Bunel was insufferable enough without himself as a guest. Do you think they remember who it was that told that story? She had brown hair, and I could at least never forget her. I wonder if she would recognize my face now. I wonder if she would notice the difference when I step back into that room. Some things can never be made right. Some things can never be made whole. Many of the others have given up, but I believe the next time through I can get it right. Around me. Like version of Judas, we conjure and we exist. We permute and arise, crowding an already suffocating room. We sin and we shuffle. God save us in our disgrace, our possibility. I bound for a door. | 6,163 | 4 |
This is a throwaway account for a project I've been working on where once every few weeks, I pick a theme and over the next 5 nights, write 5 short stories about that theme. Each story can't take more than a night. This story was drawn from the theme, "Snobbery". ============= **The Monster from Midtown** I’m going to eat you, said the monster. Hmm, what, Cheryl replied. Darling it’s late, can’t we save it until morning. The monster was confused. Rawwwwwwrrrr he screamed. Ughhh, I know, tell me about. I don’t know why I keep doing this to myself. Every weekend. But say, thank you so much for taking me home from Alistair’s, God that man can sure throw a party. The monster had done no such thing. In fact he had abducted her stumbling up from midtown at four in the morning. He raised his claws and bared his fangs. He was hungry. He hadn’t enjoyed a proper human in weeks. Oblivious, Cheryl rummaged through her purse. Say, do you have a Xanax on you? I just can’t bare to be awake any longer. Oh good, here’s one. She crushed the pill up into a little line on the coffee table and snorted it with a twenty. Don’t look, I know it’s disgusting. God I’m sorry we had to meet like this, and I thought things were going so nicely at the bar. Well, this is me. We can talk about it in the morning ok? Promise. She fell backwards onto the couch, catatonic. Within a minute, she was snoring. This was horrible. The monster craved the taste of wriggling human. He prodded her with the tip of his claw. No response. He pounced up and down on the floor of the apartment. He hollered and beat his chest. Nothing. At last, he checked for a heartbeat. Satisfied she was still alive, he went to bed for the night dreaming of a hearty breakfast. He awoke to the sound of a blender. He groaned. Hi sleepy head, Cheryl said from the kitchen. Would it kill you to keep some fresh fruit around? I had to truck it two blocks to find the nearest grocer. Also, you didn’t tell me you lived on East 87th? And in the basement of an abandoned church? Helloo, that is so cool. These floors, my god, I would kill for these floors. The monster rushed into the kitchen. I’m going to eat you, he roared. Oh, Cheryl said, slightly taken aback. Come on, I wasn’t actually going to kill you for this place, although seriously, how’d you land such a nice pad? You must have killed somebody. It’s an absolute crime to have a place like this. She peered at him from over the blender. Huh, she said, I remembered you being cuter. Must have been the lighting. Well look, have a smoothie with me. It’s got B vitamins and dried kelp for the hangover. And then I really must be going. Brunch with the girls today. I have to get down all the way to 11th and 5th Ave. God, can you imagine how long that will take? He took the offered smoothie. It tasted like rotten seaweed. Rawwrrrr, he screamed, heaving the contents across the room. You’re mad at me. Ok, lets talk it out. I’m sorry about last night. Last night was..., well maybe you and I can just pretend last night never happened. Our little secret? Honestly, this is going to be embarrassing, but I can’t even remember your name. I’m Cheryl, and you are? The monster was stunned. No one had asked him for his name in over a hundred years. Frank, he replied. Well pleased to meetcha Frank, she said. You know, you are kinda growing on me. You’re quiet, I like that. Call me up this week? Do you like mussels? I know a great place on 13th st. She placed her card on the counter. Ciao, she said. Before Frank could finish deliberating whether to eat her or not, the door had clicked shut. He sighed. He was so hoping to spend a lazy Saturday, full and happy. He lifted her card. Cheryl Baker. He didn’t recognize the name of her company. A number and note were scribbled on the back. This is my cell. Don’t be shy, it read. Frank let out a dejected bellow. After some time, he called for Chinese. The delivery guy would do in a pinch. ==== He called her up. He wasn’t exactly sure why. Well number one, he was hungry again, but number two, there was something about her. She didn’t seem to mind that he was almost seven feet tall, covered in hair with sharp claws and fangs. It was a hard life being a monster with the torches and the slaying and the what not. Aside from other monsters (and he hated spending time with other monsters), no one had been nice to him in a very long time. I do miss being around someone nice. And, he thought, if things don’t turn out, I can always eat her. They went to the mussels place on 13th st. He gagged on the wine and spit it out all over the table. Hmm, she said, you’re right this wine is absolutely awful. Languedocs can be so hit or miss. She hated the way he dressed, all rags and burlap. Honey, she told him, I know it’s hard, but we’re not film majors at NYU anymore. You might be trying to make a statement, but it’s paralyzing being around you. Can you imagine the stares if I brought you to lunch with dad at the Union Club? He relented. She took him to a tailor by the Park and had him measured for a set of nice suits. Honestly she said one day at brunch with the girls, it feels like I’m dating a monster sometimes. I mean the things he wears? And how he eats? I swear I’ve never seen him chew. Darling, said Elise, he’s just like Bradley. You will not believe what he did. I found him in the kitchen shoving a hot dog down his throat, dribbling mustard all down the front of his shirt. I told him right then and there to cancel our reservation. No need showing up if you’re going to look like you came straight from a baseball game in the Bronx! Cheryl had already moved on in thought. I’m going to see if I can get his hair done, she said aloud. It’s hideously long. Did you not have the heart to tell him Grunge died in the 90s? Rachel mocked. The stylist in SoHo lopped off his mane and insisted he put some smelly oils in the remaining locks. The suit jackets made him feel constricted and itchy. The wines at dinner tasted like spoiled fruit. He absolutely despised frisse salads. Still, he went on with Cheryl. For some reason, he liked her. He liked how she talked incessantly. He liked the shiny bits of metal she wore. He liked going out in public without causing an uproar. When he went out alone, he was a monster. Around Cheryl, he felt, almost human. He began to appreciate the finer things in life. He enrolled in a wine class to refine his palette and slowly graduated from buttery Chardonnays and fruit bomb Cabernets to more nuanced Brunellos and Petite Syrahs. He took up squash with Cheryl’s brother and dominated at the club. He read up on the newest exhibits at the Guggenheim and sharp underground plays opening off Broadway on the Upper West. For the first time in decades, he was enjoying himself. Frank, Cheryl interrupted. They were at a late dinner at Bella’s on West 84th. The restaurant was closing. Only a few other diners remained. We need to talk. I’m all for openness and I think you and I have done a good job of being open with one another so I think it’s healthy if I just clear the air. I’m seeing someone else. Who, Frank growled. A nice guy I met down at a gallery in TriBeCa. You remember, it was that night you blew me off because you said you absolutely had to have some fresh human flesh. You know I’m a vegetarian, well pescetarian really. Anyway, could you blame me? I was disconsolate, I went alone and had a bunch of Sidecars and there he found me by the bar. But why? Frank said. Why? Why? Because it’s suffocating being around you lately Frank. You’ve changed. You used to be interesting, and now I swear, I can’t tell you apart from Dad’s golf buddies. Don’t you blame me now, it’s not like I haven’t tried. I do so much for us, when was the last time you put anything into this relationships? But my hair, my clothes, I did all of this for you. Oh please, I hate it when men are such pushovers. It’s the 21st century, honey you were doing yourself a favor not me. Besides, I liked the way you dressed before, it was so hip. You had style. It was too much for Frank. Something snapped. He snatched Cheryl and crammed her down his throat whole. The waiter screamed, and he ate him too. He devoured the other patrons before lazily munching on the kitchen staff. After picking the restaurant clean, he retired to a table, completely gorged. A long belch escaped from his stomach. The sommelier had been particularly heavy going down. Still, what a fine meal. He poked around the cellar and pulled out a dust covered bottle of Napoleon brandy, just the thing to help him digest. | 8,658 | 3 |
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