Pay for it

Shit I want to get mad. I want to feel it. I used to get so used.

Naraan got cut years ago. Some who-gives-a-shits took his handle clean off with a blade. We all felt so bad when he went quiet. I have two stickers on me. A Misfits thing and a Garbage Pail Kid. You can't read them, the way they're all dirty.

I work. I still work. There's a guy that uses me. He calls his granddaughter every couple of weeks. He wants her to do things for him, but she's always busy.

Dina is quiet. Not sure when she broke. She's probably broke. No one's come around to fix her.

Sometimes I would feel real grateful. Excited. Someone would come over. Finger in for change. It was something.

And then sometimes I would hate them. Smell their breath. People dial and no one picks up because they don't recognize my number. They're wasting quarters in me.

What if Dina is just faking? Can I do that? Someone picks up and I play dead? Do I have to dial tone? What would choosing feel like?

But now it's just… They mostly don't bother. I mostly don't feel nothing. I have nothing worth cutting.

There's going to be a van that comes by some day. People are going to want to have flowers here on the curb. Okay, maybe just grass. Or maybe just more curb. So this van will scoop up Naraan, Dina, and me. They’ll dig up the wires and put down something nicer. Someone's got to care about this city. They'll come by and fix this place so people like it more.

Someone comes by once a month to empty my belly. She always checks Dina and Naraan too. One time, she found a couple nickels inside Naraan. How did that happen? When did I miss some people feeding nickles to him? Was I sleeping? Am I losing time?

Cars at my back. They built me in a little box that keeps most of the rain out. It's open in front. I can see people walk up and check my handle. They hear the tone and they get all giddy to find a pay phone. They go wow, a working one out in the wild. And they laugh. It's just words to me. They take pictures of me with their little pocket pieces.

I want to leave a note here. Water the grass. That's what I want them to do. Make this spot nice. Make it so people like it here.

I just want to get mad again.

Yellow in the Fullness

It's just a tiny, little fern. I set it up on the mantel above the fireplace so it would grow tits. The dry heat rising from the fire helped it along. Took about a week to show. I was careful not to water it too much. I didn't want to plump them too heavy, or have them sag into the soil. It's tricky to get them to grow like you want them. Little, perky tits.

Stephanie at the garden club loves showing off hers. Last week she had this little bonsai rhodedendron growing out of a hollowed bowling ball. Nipples! It had nipples! I don't know how she does it. She's gotta be pruning them back and working a second growth. I don't know.

But she's so smug about it. Everyone asks about her titties and she gets all coy, "Oh trade secrets. Traaaade secrets." Such a bitch.

Mine are firm with a light green shading. They get more yellow at their fullness. I was thinking about growing them out to B-cups, but the longer I look at them, the happier I get with the A. Also, the fern is too light and feathery. Big breasts would bend it down. They look nice up there, peeking at me as I glance over the fire. They're not perfect, but they're mine.

Stephanie can go die in a fire.

Clip-Clop

I watch her march to the counter in her calfskin boots. The way they make a clip-clop on the slate tiles of the coffee shop. The way her blonde pony tail sweeps back and forth as she walks with her latte back to her seat. The way her tired eyes roll across the ceiling as she thinnks about whatever it is she's working on at her little netbook at her table in the corner.

And idle Wednesday in a quiet cafe, just like every other Wednesday before it. Ever since they dumped me from my desk, the weekends feel like weekdays and everything bleeds into everything else. I turn back to my screen, clicking up my resume, clicking through the listings, clicking on that last email from the headhunter who made all those promises.

Someone comes in, silver hair, nice suit. He has that executive sheen to his clean chin. The new guy has a plastered-on smile, like a decal on a robot. Of course he's meeting with the blonde in the boots. She stands up to shake his hand. She's nervous. Maybe this is an interview, or an evaluation. She's smiling too wide, eyes flashing. The executive's comfortable, tells a lame joke. She laughs politely.

I feel a thousand times better. If she were into that guy, if she really fell for that phoney robot-in-a-suit bullshit, she'd laugh for real. She'd tip forward, a laugh from the diaphragm. She'd look at his eyes and find an excuse to lay her hand on his wrist, just for a moment, just a touch. I write the scene. Directing the action, the woman forgets for a moment the meeting and tells a story of her childhood, the loneliness of the hill she grew up on. I'm in the suit now, and I run a few fingers through my silver hair, making a humble admission, perhaps a set of braces. No, it has to be something more serious. After an accident as a youth, I had to have my jaw reconstructed. I spent two years of highschool with my jaw wired shut. She relates, she moves in closer, my vulerability makes her bold.

His stilted, pained laugh draws me out of the scene. I'm back in the actual cafe, fiddling around, impotent, on my aging laptop. The executive and the blonde are talking. The executive has some sort of list in front of him. He's sipping and reviewing it while the blonde eplains. Maybe she's justifying, or back-pedaling, or apologizing. Things aren't going well, and that empty smile tatooed on the executive's face aren't making things easier.

She's wearing blue sweater and a stylish, black scarf. She looks very casual and professional at the same time. A friendly, welcoming style. She must have a job where people need to trust her. I'd trust her if I met her, if I had any kind of business to offer.

I'm back to my work. My half-finished novel, the blogging gig that pays beans, the screenplay my cousin is always almost ready to start shooting. I check my email again and again. I go through a few sites, looking at pictures of cats, then some other sites, looking at a few artistic nudes, then some other sites, looking at decidedly less artistic nudes.

How long have I been sitting here? I need to piss. I get the key from the counter. I head down the hall. I open the door.

The blonde is waiting in the men's room. I see her, and I stand there confused. It's not till I see her clothes on the floor that I realize she's standing there naked, staring at me. I should apologize and leave. I must have gone in the wrong door. She's looking at me, a little afraid. She's staring right at me.

Oh shit. This is for the other guy. She's trying to keep her job. I've stumbled into some kind of illicit liason. This is what women have to do in this economy. I should leave. I should let her do whatever she has to do. It's not my place to judge her. If I had to do something like this to get my old job back...

But she's looking right at me and I'm frozen. And she nods.

Before the door closes behind me, I'm pressing my lips to her face, feeling her frantic breath. Her hand is on the back of my head, she's forccing her tongue over mine, pushing. Her other hand is working fast, over my hips, down the front of my pants. She's much shorter than me, she's got those boots off. She's trying to climb up, leap up on top of me while we stand there.

We're up against the wall. Her skin is so soft, with lean muscles tensing underneath. She must run everyday. She must go to the gym. She throws a leg over mine, pulling herself up. She must get massages at the spa. She must use oils and salves to keep her skin so...

She gasps a bit, the tiles on the wall are cold. One arms lifts us up, off the wall. The other reaches down, fumbling through my pants. She's pushing forward against me, breathing, moaning in my ear. The heat from between her legs, the light blonde tuft, presses into my waist. I struggle with my underwear. I can't seem to get at my penis.

She's ready, she wants this. Hurry, she tells me. She moves to look me in the eyes, hungry. Come on, right now. I'm lost, somehow, inside my pants.

She's in a rush. She only has a minute or so before the executive gets suspicious. Her breasts are tiny with thick nipples I can feel poking through my shirt. She just needs to blow off some steam for the interview. Where the fuck is my dick.

She smiles, reaching down to help. It's so fun and dirty, this fling during work. So naughty, perverted, to fuck and almost get caught. Breaking rules, taking an extra smoke break, a two hour lunch.

I remember feeling like that, back when I had a desk. I only ever wanted to escape it. Her fingers finally find me. I feel a cold jolt through my body. In a moment, she'll be back to work, and I'll be back at my laptop.

By the time I'm out of my shorts, I've gone completely soft. Useless.

The Apparition

We stepped on all the cracks
as she chased us

We dove into the underbrush
she was above us
just a torso

She told us
we were right to be afraid

The Show Must

"I don't..."

"What the fuck, Danny?"

"I just don't want to talk."

"Danny, what were you doing?"

"I don't want to talk about it," he says as he drops sideways on the leather couch in his dressing room.

Someone pokes Gus in the back. He turns to see some little blonde intern holding her hand over a phone. Behind her, maybe a dozen gawkers crowding over each other. Some of them look scared, most of them look curious, like those assholes slowing down by the big accidents on the highway. They want to peek a little red on the pavement, thinks Gus. He shoots them all a hard glare and closes the door. They'll have to wait.

Danny is soaked in sweat, flopped face down across the couch like a rag. His shirt is half ripped. His belt, unbuckled. He lost his jacket somewhere out on the set. Gus makes a quick note on his clipboard. Someone's going to have to get that back to costumes.

Gus watches him lie there. He's not moving at all. Maybe he's holding his breath, like a toddler turning blue for an extra cookie. Gus has been in this business a long time, sweeping up shit from all the talent. This was new, though. Gus never saw anything like what happened out there.

"Danny, you know we have to talk about this."

Gus pulls a stiff, wooden chair over. He sits right next to the couch. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Delicacy is a very important thing in this business.

"Danny, I want you to start talking to me."

He coughs and sucks a deep breath in, "This couch smells."

"The couch is fine. I want to talk about the show, the show you just did."

"It smells like mold," Danny finally rolls on his side. His face leaves a wet imprint on the leather, "like mildew,"

"Well that's where people sit. Their butts go there," Gus keeps his voice even, not a hint of sarcasm. You never really know with talent.

"It's not a fart smell,"

"Yeah, Okay. Listen Danny. I need to know if something is wrong. I have to spin this somehow. So you need to talk to me so I can get on the phone and save our jobs,"

Danny turns his face back into the wet leather.

A tremor cramps up Gus's arm. He takes a couple of breaths.

"Do you want to do something different with the show? Do we need to change things up?"

Gus taps his pencil on his thigh. He places the clipboard on the floor. Danny is motionless again. There is a timid knock at the door.

"Not now," snaps Gus. He turns back to the couch, "Is this it man? You want to kill the show? We can do that if we have to."

Another knock.

"Fuck off!"

The door opens anyway. That little blonde intern inches into the room holding that phone like it was a gun to her head. Poor girl. This place will chew her up like a spitwad.

"I'm sorry Gus, but it's..."

"I know who it is. Tell him I'm talk... I'm working here and I can..."

The girl winces and holds the phone away. Gus can hear it squawk from all the way across the room. Someone is screaming into the other end.

Danny rolls back, his eyes look wet, "I don't think I exist,"

Oh for christ's sake.

"Danny, let's take a moment to clear our heads and figure this thing out."

"I can't get it. I can't believe it anymore. I don't know what's going on,"

"Gus, what should I tell..."

"Delay. Keep him busy. I'll get the phone in a sec," then turning back to the crumpled mess on the couch, "Danny, you're stressed, you're falling apart. We can fix this. We can get you cleaned up, get you to a shrink."

"I don't think I'm really here Gus. I don't think I'm anywhere,"

"Well here," Gus places his pencil next to Danny's face on the moldy cushion. "You can pick this up, right?"

Danny pinches the pencil with his thumb and forefinger, lifting and looking at it like some odd bug.

"I guess." he speaks softly, like a child slowly waking.

"Well you have to be here, right? I mean, I'm talking to you. I can see you," Gus jerks a thumb over his shoulder, "She can see you. Who are we talking to if no one's here?"

"I don't know. Maybe you're fucking crazy."

Not Allowed to Touch

First picture a man kneeling directly upon your face. Rather, it is my face. We are naked, the man and I. He rocks back and forth. His anus moves across my cheeks. Sometimes while he rocks, my nose brushes against it and I can feel it tighten.

His legs fold under him on either side of my head, his knees touch my shoulders. The hairs of his legs tickle my skin. He leans forward, hovering over my chest and stomach. He is a tall man, hirsute. He is older, but fit. The loose skin of age collects at his midriff and hips. The hair on his head is grey, but along his body it has already turned chalk white.

His genitals hang just past my chin. The slack weight of his testicles droop and brush against my throat as I patiently wait. He leans slightly to one side as he moves one hand to his penis, limp but heavy. He lifts and points it down my body, directing a strong, hot stream of urine across my torso.

The piss sprays in a wild cloud as it strikes me. The man gasps in relief. He had been holding back for some time. As the initial pressure of release recedes, the man can direct the stream with more purposeful control. He paints the length of my body. The fluids collect in puddles along the creases of my limbs. They form rivulets as they seek to escape and soak into the beige carpetting of the recently remodeled town hall lobby.

The urine flows over me, but my own erection remains dry. The man takes care to direct his stream away. Still, the urine rolling down my stomach soaks into my pubic hair. I can feel the heat and wetness collect, and my penis slowly grows turgid. My hands rest at my side, sweating. The man tells me I am not allowed to touch. Not allowed to touch anything.

The man's streams dies to a dribble, then ceases. The warmth of the wet on my body turns to a chill as the urine starts to dry on my skin. Again he tells me not to touch. My erect phallus twitches, now dark and swollen, curved starkly up and back, pointed directly at the man leaning over me. My hands itch and shake by my side, not from the cold, but from a consuming desire to touch. I must not touch, though. I am not allowed.

That's why I don't vote.

My Carolina

At the time, I let myself blame the booze. We were five hours into a big bottle of gin, rolling around on Mother's persian rug. We had reached that point of perfect exhaustion where the entire world and everything in it becomes hysterically absurd. We couldn't stop laughing about his stupid cat and how much it hates purses. He, I think it was him, he put an arm, or let an arm fall on me and... Well at the time I blamed the booze, but now I know. I kissed my first boy. I was seventeen and lying under a black coffee-table when I fell in love.

In time, we did all sorts of unmentionable things to each other at the country club. It was easiest to meet there without attracting suspicion. We'd sneak away from our families and find some hidden, secret place. Even now, when I pass those little changing booths by the pool, I can't help but feel a faint stirring. I know it's awful to suggest, and I certainly don't miss those ignorant, hateful days, but there was something incredible about the danger. North Carolina at the time, though it's not much better now, was a hostile sort of place. Everyone was angry, but no one ever said anything. Maybe they didn't know how, or didn't know any better. They were just angry and couldn't do a thing about it. I don't know if it helped much, but every now and then some boys would go lynch a faggot and everyone seemed to feel better for a day or two. He and I would crowd into a changing booth and he'd stand on the changing bench, so the people passing by would only see one pair of feet. And we'd have to be quiet in there. Oh, that certainly helped. Biting our lips and whimpering, pressing each other up against the rough wooden walls. It was a long time ago. Sometimes it feels like it happened to someone else.

That August, we spent a whole two weeks together. Mother kept a boathouse on a lake in Georgia. She didn't have the time to wrap it up for fall, so she sent me off. "Take your time, dear," she slurred over her cocktail, waving me toward the keys, "Bring a friend, have fun," I wondered if she knew, or somehow consented, even encouraged me. I never asked, and I suppose it never mattered. I had my love, a quiet lake, a small cottage. It must be trite to call it paradise, but to a young man... Ah well, I beg you forgive an old man his follies.

I'd like to end the story in proper dramatic fashion. I could paint such a picture of my love slung to the back of a truck and dragged through the night until there was hardly enough to bury. Or perhaps we are discovered entwined and he sends me a tear-stained letter before hanging himself, or vanishing on a train with whatever he could steal from his family to invent himself a whole new self on the other side of the country. But this would all be flattery. The truth is, as truth should be, pathetic.

Toward the end of our two weeks by the lake, he grew cold. On the drive back to Carolina, he wouldn't even look at me. He stopped answering my calls, and turned up a month later with some picture. He nearly shoved it in my face, some girl, his girl. What could I say? He told me he was happy, but he looked so angry. "That's that," he said. And that was it.

Oh I made a big fuss about it at the time, but that passed. I was an old man before I found love again, though... Well, if there's a lesson, it is that there is love to be found in life. It's the same sort of thing in every story. It's what stories are all about. It is the only story.

Marten Rowsdower

Marten Rowsdower knows how to make fire with his mind. The fire is conjured with a certain specific thought. When called, it burns grey. It gives off no light and emits no heat, fuel is still consumed. Wood, cloth, flesh all burn normally, though instead of crumbling in ash, it wilts and rots. Marten's fire burns away the life of things. He doesn't like to use it. He gets very sad when he sees things wither and collapse.

Marten lives in a small, oblong house shaped like a bread-box. There is an old, chipped flower painted on his front door. He lives very close to the rail. The trains thunder by at all hours of the night. The noise shakes his little house so badly that Marten installed locks on each of his cupboards. If he happens to forget and leave one unsecured, the rattling of the trains might knock a few cans or jars from their shelves. Marten has had to replace too many shattered mugs and plates. These days he can not sleep untill he has checked every lock and handle in his house. It is his nightly routine.

Marten works as a steward for the Ministry of Untritefang in Lower Omswick. He serves His Majesty in a number of crucial undertakings. Not a month past, he negotiated a treaty between a few Westfield lobsters and the Labor Commission. The treaty freed up a thousand acres of prime real estate to be reforested. A stardancer descended for the very occasion, and Marten was given the honor of guiding the landing.

Marten has a girlfriend. Her name is Jelly, and her name is Bean. She responds to either, but never both. She is a very tall girl, and can't help but stoop when she stands. She apologizes for everything that happens around her, it is a habit. She works late most nights sorting mail for the local bank. She has very long, very dark hair that hangs straight down her back. Jelly or Bean does not have much luck with men. She suffers from night terrors. She wakes screaming about spiders and saw-blades, but never remembers the nightmares. She is not very fond of Marten, but she has been seeing him a long time. He is used to hearing the trains rattle at night and never wakes when she screams.

Marten will never be fired from his job. This is a thought that comes to Marten now and again. It should be a good thing, a reassurance. When he thinks about his job, he feels very troubled. He does not make very much money, but it is plenty for the simple life he shares with Jelly or Bean. He will be a Ministry steward until the day he dies, and he knows this. Still, when these thoughts descend upon him, he likes to think about the circus.

As a child he sometimes thought about running away as an acrobat or clown. That was all before he found his true calling, negotiation. Marten is a skilled arbitrator and counselor, and these skills prove most effecacious in service to His Majesty. Marten might join a circus if he could find one that needed a steward. They might put a spotlight on him, accompanied with a drumroll, as he worked out a settlement between two feuding farmers. They could stand right in the center ring. The farmers would sign a contract and the crowd would cheer and the vendors would sell plastic cups with Marten's face engraved on the side next to a tiger and a flying trapeze artist. The circus might want him to call his fire to amaze the crowds, but Marten does not want to do that. Marten would not like to be a part of a circus like that.

In his tiny house by the train tracks, Marten likes to wake up very early and walk around his neighborhood. Just after dawn, the world is bright and silent. He can walk past each of the houses on his block and look at them. Some are brightly colored, some have weeds overgrowing stone steps. One has a number of shiny bicycles tied up to a fence. One is having a front porch rebuilt, and maybe some rain got on the untreated wood. Hopefully the planks will not warp. Marten likes to watch and think about his neighbors. He has never met a single one of them, or even exchanged messages. He looks at their houses and lawns and thinks about the people that must live there. No one stops and worries when he does this, no one knows. Only Marten is awake at dawn. The morning has a certain smell, wet and fresh like celery. It is lovely. It is worth waiting the whole night to enjoy.

Them Chompers

In his heavy breath, "I bought them for you, Marie," with his big, stupid grin like a junkyard of rusting jalopies. He is banging away with his huge palm on the old piano his goons just dumped in my living room.

There were some flutes too. I think a saxophone, and what? A banjo? Those faceless lowbrows in black sweaters just keep bringing them in, throwing them around.

"I know how much you like music," he's shouting, but all I can think about are those chompers and how he must cut the inside of his cheeks all the time. "This is what you want," with a flick of drool arcing out. He's waiting for me to jump in here, yell at him, beg, accuse, scream. Fuck him.

"I want you to be happy," he bangs away on the piano again, the room rings with a hard, disjointed note. My head's leaking bad from that gash behind my ear, but I can still think straight. I stare at him, waiting for him to pull that pearl-handled piece out of his jacket.

"I wish it didn't turn out like this. This whole thing is such a mess," he pauses for me to speak. I clam up. Just get it over with, fucker.

He licks his lips over that jagged soup can lid sticking out of his gums. He gets in real close, leaning in, touching my face. "I want him to know it was me. When your man finds you here. I want him to know I did it. I want him to be real angry."

He wipes his sweaty palms on his grey slacks and draws that pistol.

"I want him to be angry enough to do something real stupid."

I close my eyes as he cocks back. I don't want those teeth to be the last thing I see.

Boise to Kansas City

"I'm not going back!" she shouts over the roar of the wind and the rail. I take a step closer and she pops a hole in my hat. The baggage car is rumbling and shaking, but her little hand is stone steady with the tiny .22 pointed right between my eyes. I have to admit, I'm impressed. She's only twelve and already a crack shot. Then again, maybe she didn't intend to miss.

"This is where you jump," she smiles at me, but her eyes are dead serious. She waves at the open side door and the corn fields blurring past. I watch her for a moment, she's only got one more bullet. No, no need to risk it.

I've fallen off of my share of trains, but never on purpose. I step off into the cool night and the ground rushes me like a squad of coppers swinging nightsticks. I curl up and try to roll with it, but its bad. Even when my body stops moving, my head spins like a top. I think I've got some gravel up my nose. My arms are numb, but my hip is stinging. The walk back to town is going to be long indeed. That's alright, I'll still get my payday.

I finally muster up the energy to stand. The train is already a speck in the distance. My hat is lying in a ditch. The wind picks it up and chucks it around. I have to chase after it.

The train's headed west to god-knows-where, but that don't matter. I know where she'll wind up. Her daddy's in Kansas City and so are the diamonds. I'll catch a bus in Boise and cool my heels till she shows.

I finally stumble over and catch my hat. The hole in the brim is hardly big enough to fit my pinky. She got one good shot off. Can't let that happen again. Next bullet won't be a warning.

Cluttermen

Half-formed with bits of others
We puzzle up a Really-Man
Then we can pass on the streets
Fetch groceries for the rest
We have clothes and drugs
Sometimes we even have jobs
Mostly though, we make things
Beautiful things
Sometimes we can sing
I have the pieces around here somewhere
If I find them, I can sing for you
I can sing very well
You wouldn't know it was a Cluttermen song

Chosen Ones

Stirred by a dream, the high priest awoke one night from a deep slumber. He stumbled through the grand hall to the scrying chambers. Shouting and shaking the tables, he roused the acolytes from their cells. There, in their linen small clothes, they consulted the charts, cast stones, and sorted the scalded innards of a bleating lamb brought in from the cold.

The high priest compared each augury, each divination. There could be no doubt. On that night a god was born among the humans.

One week later, all the peoples of the kingdom gathered before the gates of the mighty palace. The king stood on a balcony infront of the great crowd and asked that the newborn god be brought before him that he might shower the child with blessings and wealth. He sent agents out among the people, searching for infants born the night of the priest's dream.

The next morning, three young women holding babies were escorted into the king's audience chamber. The whole of the royal honor guard stood along the wall in their crisp uniforms with gleaming sabers. Distinguished noblemen sat on velvet benches along the side along with doctors, philosophers, and scribes. Great taspetries of rich purple hung behind the silver throne. The king in his cloak of white fur with his queen standing at his right hand and the high priest at his left.

The first of the three women stepped forward. She was a very plain sort of woman with the pitted, heavy features of a hard life lived. Her dress was of the rough sort of sack-cloth used by the fisherfolk, where the salt water brings rot and ruin to all gentle things. Indeed, when she finally spoke, her speech and manners seemed as rough and bracing as the storm-tossed tide.

"To all these mighty lords and wise men do I bring my child. Here in this court do I give name to Razhaal, god of the sea!" and she held her tiny child aloft. The assembled elite squited into their spectacles and leaned forward to glimpse some hint of divinity there, swaddled in fish rags.

After a moment of awkward silence the queen, a woman with an uncommonly sharp mind, wondered aloud if perhaps the child wouldn't mind to demonstration of his godly powers. The people of the court turned toward the fisher-wife with expectant eyes.

She beamed and nodded. "Of course, if the gathered lords and ladies can bear the sight, the mighty Razhaal will perform a miracle this day!"

She took her child and held him upside down, letting the rags fall from his body, revealing the squirming pink flesh. "Watch him now call upon the mighty tides even here in this stoney castle," She held aloft a crude knife, but sharp and hooked to peel scales. With a quick snap, she slash open the child's throat. "Behold," she cried out, "The salt-tides lick the floors, washing away the sins of the world,"

The crowd gasped in horror as the woman shook and squeezed every drop from the infant who quickly grew blue and still. "Return now, clean, to your plantations and counting houses for Razhaal has blessed you this day,"

The guards quickly seized her and pulled her from the king's sight and down to the dungeons below.

The king was greatly affected by the death of the infant and almost waved away the other women. It was the priest who counseled him otherwise, "My liege," he spoke, "Let not this one crude beast spoil this moment. Indeed, she was low and cruel, with such vulgarity. How could a god choose to live among such filth? The other women have poise, beauty and bearing. Let them bring their children before us,"

The king could not refuse such wise words, and so with a gesture, the next woman stepped forward.

"My gracious liege," she knelt before them in her gown of ruffled silk, "and the most honorable assemblage, I am humbled to find myself in such a position, to be handed such a great honor to shepard this new life into the world, to serve as a vessel to deliver such a being as this into the world," and there did she turn to show her arms and the sleeping child nestled in them.

Again the queen mused about mothers and how each must believe each singular child is the most wonderful and special creation.

"Of course," said the woman in silk. She snuck a hand into her bodice to produce three small rocks hardly bigger than a man's curled thumb. She held them out to show the assembly. "You see, this child is already a miracle, conceived in a garden from the earth itself as I lay in the sun. I lay there last spring as the world poured up inside me filling me with such a magic that just this week passed a boy was born," She placed the child on the ground and smiled over him, "This boy, Otok of the Stones, god of earth and bounty. Behold him now as he enjoys his favorite snack. Even without teeth, he can crush stones and eat them like biscuits!"

And she pushed the stones into the boy's face one by one, jamming and shoving them. The guard rushed to pull her away, but she had already burst the boy's jaw and battered his skull with the last rock. The poor creature flopped mutely there on the floor for a moment longer, then lay still. The woman in silk was sent to the dungeon.

The king was upset indeed and stood to march out of the room himself. The third woman pleaded, "Wait, my lord, those women were mad. Come see my baby, come see her. She is the one you seek,"

The king stopped a moment by the door to listen.

The third woman continued, "She has no name, she is a song of light and fire. She holds the secrets of the serpent peoples. She knows the voice of the dark!"

The king watched the woman with her child.

"She is the god born among us and I can show you," she insisted, "I'll just need a bowl of hot coals and a razor,"

The king spit on the ground in disgust and stormed from the hall.

Annihilation Engine Seven, Part Three

I don't really understand how I know what I'm doing, or why I'm so calm. I'm mashed between two walls, but they're soft. They squeeze me gently, almost comforting like swaddling clothes or that time I crawled inside the old fold-out bed in the sofa. It was a secret place, and it felt safe despite the obvious fact that a grown-up might walk by at any time and decide to neaten up. They might fold up the bed, collapsing the legs and pushing it together. The steel frame would bow and slide inwards, slowly crushing me in my little hidden place. I might not say anything. I might let it happen. Those places were so impossible, so magical, that danger or death seemed very unlikely.

And here, in between again, the walls clench and slide me along. I can feel a ripple through the smooth walls, pushing me farther down. It's a natural sort of state, feeling that movement. I can bear the strangeness knowing I will not be here much longer. Knowing that I am moving is comfort enough.

It's dark and I can't really breathe, but none of this can be real, so I'm not very worried. How can a building eat me? What nutrients could it pull from my body? Like a marble swallowed by a child, I will pass cleanly through and drop with a clank against the bottom of the toilet.

With this simple clarity, I find myself deposited in a thin metal chair and my hands resting on a chipped glass table. I feel wind blowing across my neck, so I must be outside. It's probably safe to breathe again, but I'm savoring the air in my lungs, holding it in till the last possible moment.

"Are you alright?" someone asks me. The voice doesn't sound familiar. I should open my eyes. It must be safe now that I'm sitting somewhere outside. Nothing terrible has happened.

"Do you want some water?" that voice again, sounds like a man, and he sounds honestly concerned. I should start breathing again so he doesn't have to worry. I could have held it longer. I could hold it forever, just not now because I don't want this guy to worry.

I let my breath out in a rush and a cough. I reply, "No, I'm fine, thank you. What were we talking about?" as if I knew where I was and what was happening.

He's a thin man with very intelligent eyes. His curious little smile quirks up, "You wanted to know about my work,"

"Yes, it's fascinating," my hand raises to my lips and I'm surprised to find a lit cigarette. I don't smoke, yet I take a drag naturally, enjoying the warmth filling up, the flavor rolling over my mouth. "Please continue," I add.

"Well, the thing is, I never really thought they would work. It was one thing to see it on paper, another thing entirely to see it actually happen. Something like that shouldn't exist. It doesn't belong,"

The man's words circle around in my head. I'm nodding as if I know what he's talking about. I toss the cigarette onto the ground and crush it out. My hands dig naturally into my pockets for another. This is an old, automatic sort of motion. The sort of thing a perrson does after smoking for years. It occurs to me that I might not be in the right person. I hold up the pack of cigarettes and offer one to the man.

"Ah, no thanks," he shakes his head politely, though he's obviously tempted, "I'm afraid that's what gets me. Throat cancer,"

"What do you mean?"

"I've skipped to the end of the book. 1967, throat cancer. That's how I go,"

"Well it seems you've missed the mark. We're much farther along than that,"

He shifts in his chair and furrows his brow. He thinks for a pregnant moment, "Time works a little different when you're hooked up to the engine,"

"So when does 1967 happen to you?"

"Hard to say, really. Might have already happened. I'd have no way of knowing. That's how it feels anyway, it's all a part of the process. You have to step outside the engine in order to access it. You have to see how it's working,"

"Can you help me find my sister? She went running off again. She could hurt herself,"

"Your sister?" He seems startled. He stares at me carefully. "What is her name?"

"Laney. I already checked all her favorite spots. She could be anywhere,"

"I don't think I can help. I just make bombs, big ones,"

"You think maybe she's hooked up to the engine? Maybe time works different for her. Maybe she's in 1967,"

"Well then I certainly can't go after her," he chuckles. There's something he doesn't want to tell me. He's avoiding my gaze.

"Maybe you know how I can get started. Maybe you know someone I can talk to," I suggest.

"Yeah," he sighs. He's dissappointed in someone, but I can't tell if it's me or him, "Go talk to Chalk the Smith. Take my bike, it's just outside. It'll take you right to him,"

"Thanks," I said as I stood up. "You said you made bombs, right?"

"Yeah, never thought it would happen like it did, but yeah, bombs,"

"What sort?"

"The sort that blows up everything,"

"What do you mean everything?"

"Everything forever," he replied, looking down with no small amount of regret.

Annihilation Engine Seven, Part Two

I'm parked a few blocks away. I dig my hands in my pockets while I walk. I tend to rub my keys together as I go. I run my thumb over the teeth of the car key, reading the notches, the scratches. Laney and I used to collect keys.

We had a little fort in the woods made out of an abandoned chicken coop. Anytime we'd find a lost key lying around, we'd take it and hang it up in the coop. There was a big bag of tacks that Laney must have swiped from somewhere and we'd tack each new key up alongside the others. We used to make up stories about the keys, how they opened doors to the moon, or fell out of the pockets of gangsters, or some angel left them so ghosts could get into heaven later on, if they wanted.

This key just starts up my old Camry. It's real beat up, this old thing. It's like some kind of zombie, rolling along groaning and shuffling. It's fifteen years old in a state where cars don't last eight years before rusting out and collapsing. Sitting behind the wheel, I turn the key and the car shudders. I keep thinking about that old chicken coop. We must have had about a hundred keys all over those walls. Whenever one of us would close the door, all the keys would flutter around on their pegs. They looked like little, silver fish all swimming in a school, shivering on our wall.

I've got a few places I like to check first whenever I'm trying to track Laney down. There's a McDonald's across the street from the library, sometimes she hangs out in the parking lot. There's a bus stop near that Filene's in the strip mall. She never takes the bus, but likes to sit on that bench for some reason. There's the old cathedral with the over-grown lawn. I go to all of these places first. I really hope she's there. If I can find her and talk her back, then I won't have to go to the last place. I hate it there.

One way or another, she always winds up at the old brick armory. This crumbling, busted up, blister of a building squats along a drunken bend of the downtown sprawl. About a dozen traffic lights surround the oddly shaped structure, roads cut around it at all angles. This building sort of sprung up in the most inconvenient place, growing like an abscess, a city planner's nightmare.

I get this pain in my head just looking at the thing. I park my car around a corner and jog up to the front walk. A grey, cement walk runs down a few steps and through a hole cut into the middle of the building. It's a dreary sort of tunnel, unlit and perpetually damp. It leads to a long courtyard circled with a black metal catwalk leading up to all the different apartments. It looks like a huge, winding fire escape, tacked on as an after thought. Maybe they built all these different little rooms up three or four stories with no thought as to how exactly people would get up there. Just doors opening into a dead fall over the cracked cement and sprouting weeds of the damp grey courtyard. Standing in the middle of the whole thing, I could be in some Eastern Bloc housing designation.

Bean lives up on the third floor. He probably doesn't know where Laney is, but I have to check. I don't know how that fat piece of crap can make it up all these rickety goddamn stairs. He probably never leaves. He must have a dozen different burn-outs bringing him food or whatever. The railing's bent and twisted away by his door. It's rattling under my foot. Maybe he can't leave. One step and the whole thing might peel away, sending him twenty feet towards a quick splatter and a well-earned reception in hell.

It's dim inside and it smells like vinegar. The humidity makes me gag. It's so swampy the wallpaper's bubbling in pockets.

Bean, too lazy to complete sentences, calls out from his couch, "What you want?"

I don't even want to look at him. I reply from the doorway, "Bean, I'm looking for Laney. You seen her?"

"Oh I know what you're looking for," and I know he's smiling. I can hear his great, leathery jowls peeling back in that so-pleased-with-himself grin.

"Hey man, I don't want to fuck around. I gotta find my sister," I get this shiver down my back. The boards squeak under my feet. The whole building is moving to pin me down.

"You know what you want," his accusation is punctuated with a shudder of protest from the couch as his bulk shifts around. I can't see him, but I know he's rolling forward on his hands and knees.

"Bean, man, has Laney been here?"

"Uughh," he grunts as one hand slinks down under his elastic waistband jeans.

I feel a pain spinning around in my back, like a knife. Something's swimming around in my guts, pulling the viscera apart and rearranging it.

Bean digs around, curling his fingers around his wrinkled penis, pushing it through the zipper. "Uuuunnh," it touches the ground.

The walls are drooling syrup. The ceiling sags toward me. That noise again from the drug dealer, "Uuughnn," but maybe he's not making it with his mouth.

I push my hands through the floor and slide away between.

Annihilation Engine Seven, Part One

"That guy behind me, blue windbreaker, is he looking at me?"

"Nope,"

"Is he taking notes or anything. Does it look like he's listening?"

"No, he has a coffee. He's just standing over there," I tell her.

She glances over her shoulder for a hard second. When she turns back, she has that old, paranoid scowl. "He was taking notes. He stopped when I turned around," she says.

"He just has a coffee or something. He's probably waiting for a sandwich,"

She leans back in her chair and spins a coaster underneath her fingers on the table. She does that when she's pensive. Flip, flip, flip. Her hands look dirty; there must be a dozen kinds of shit caked into her cuticles. I already know the answer, but I ask the question anyway.

"So you're off your meds again?"

She glances up at me with her suspicious eyes like bitter slits. "I can't take them, Ed. It's not safe,"

This old thing again, this same old routine. She goes off, and the lizards are coming to get her again. She spends a few frantic weeks living in trash while I try to hunt her down and talk her back into her apartment.

"Laney, I know you're upset, but this is bad. You scare me when you're like this,"

"I know, but Ed..."

"And then we get you back home and clean you up..."

"Yeah, but Ed..."

"And you apologize to me. You say you're sorry and you promise..."

"Ed, something's wrong, please,"

"Laney, you keep telling me you're sorry. I get so scared driving all over town looking for you,"

"Ed, I don't think I can protect you anymore,"

"Laney, whenever you go off I pick up the newspaper every day expecting to find a picture of you all smashed up in a gutter,"

"I know. I'm sorry,"

Well, at least she's sorry right now. That means she doesn't think I'm working with the lizards. Every time she gets that far in her head, it makes things much worse. I'm the last soul on this earth that gives any kind of shit about her.

"Okay then, let's get you back home. Let's clean you up,"

"Ed," she's pinching her lips together, real tension. She's not going to come with me.

"Are you on anything? Did you go to Bean?" She knows a dealer downtown. I'm pretty sure she blows him for crank sometimes.

"Someone's been... Something's different with them," She's struggling to put her thoughts into words. Conversation starts to break down after a certain point, like she's trying to fit her square thoughts through her round mouth.

"Laney, let's get you back home safe,"

"Someone's leading them, Ed. You know what that means?"

"Please don't do this to me. Please," my words fall so useless out of my mouth. I just wish I could say something, do something, "Please. Please come with me, Laney,"

I hate how this always happens. I hate this. So goddamn pathetic.

"Someone's plugging in. Someone can drink it," she says. She's getting loud now. She gets like this, like a toddler throwing a tantrum. She's holding onto either side of the little cafe table like she might have to wrestle it away from me. Her elbows out, her knuckles white. Soon the little flecks of foamy spittle will form at the corners of her mouth.

Again, there's just nothing I can say here. There's nothing I can do. I just sit there while she stands up, kicking away her chair.

She's making some kind of angry growling. Her face is turning beet red. I can see the other coffee shop patrons shuffling away, wide-eyed. The barristas are probably calling the police.

"Are you hearing me? Someone made it down to the middle. All down to the center of the earth and drink. They've got a drink. ARE YOU LISTENING?" She's absolutely screaming at me, "THEY'VE GOT A KING!"

It's bad. It's always bad, but I'm still always looking for progress. I still keep hoping like an idiot. I try and finish my cappucino. I can't even look at her.

She takes a few wild swings at the bystanders. I should be stopping her, apologizing, holding her back. I should be explaining that my sister is not normally like this. I've got a whole speech down: chemical imbalance, not her fault, we're getting her real help this time, I'll pay for damages. I can't bring myself to speak a word of it.

"You fucking LIZARDS," she stomps around right in the middle of the cafe. People are streaming out of the place. There's one guy, must be a manager or something, trying to calm her down. I want to tell him not to bother, want to explain to him that there's nothing he could say. He doesn't know how far away she goes.

"YOU got drool... YOU DROOL DRINK," she's taking huge gulp-breaths, struggling for the words, "at the CENTER WITH THE... middle," she's even confusing herself.

And she's out the door. I don't even have to look, I can hear her canvas sneakers pumping away down the street. She's going full sprint, probably down the middle of the road.

Everyone in the cafe is staring at me. They're waiting for that speech. They want my explanation, my apologies, my promises. Fuck 'em, it's all lies. I get up and walk out. My jaw's all clenched up as I go through the door. I'm staring down at my feet. I feel like if I look up, then that'll be the exact moment I hear tires squeal and a big thunk. If I look up, I'll see my baby sister die.

God's waiting to kill her, waiting so that it happens while I'm watching. God is such a motherfucker.

The Knife or the Sea

“You are all now dead,” he bellowed over the wind and the ringing in our ears. “I have taken your lives. As such, they belong to me!”

We couldn't even see his face past the red, blinding, magnesium light of the flares. We could see the rifles, though. We could all see those clear enough.

“And so now you have a choice,” With the whole world rocking under our feet, he repeats, “You get to choose!” He was laughing in his breath, carefully enunciating. This was a practiced speech.

“Sink with your ship to your rightful graves,” He paused to let the idea sink into our heads, then said, “or serve me and my crew,”

Someone burst into tears, blubbering and falling over. I stood frozen, I stared ahead, trying to think, but my head was filled with mud. It was like one of those dreams where the monsters are coming and you can't run. Like your feet are so heavy and slow and your arms are too weak to open a door and those monsters keep coming.

“Go on! Jump in the ocean if you want!” he shouted, “Jump right in or come and kneel at my feet!”

We all just stood there. One of us was crying. Someone fired a shot. The crying turned into gasping, then a kind of panicked moan, then nothing. None of us moved.

“Right then, put them over!” he called to his men. We rushed forward, throwing ourselves down. The boiling fear and the cold will to live. Fight and flight. There were four of us kneeling. The others were pushed overboard.

I had my palms on the steel of the deck, squeezing my eyes shut. I remember trying to listen for the others, tried to hear them splashing around. Maybe if I could've heard them cry out, heard their last words, they might forgive me. I heard nothing but the ocean and the creaking metal under my hands. They touched the black waters underneath and ceased to be. Taken at once by the night and the sea.

“Four souls so eager to join up! Good lads!” he was so pleased with himself. His crew laughed along. This was the point in the speech where they were supposed to laugh; they obliged with tired chuckles.

“Thing is,” he continued, “we only need three. I expect you lot to sort things out,” He pulled a little knife from his belt and held it out to me. We looked at each other and I took the knife. It was tiny and dull and stank of fish. It was caked in fish gore and offal. A single scale stuck halfway down the blade. I took the knife from him and we all looked at each other. Why'd he give me that knife? Why me? I took the knife and used it. So help me God, I took that knife.

We were birds, once

She waits until he’s sleeping to go outside. She picks up groceries, maps, train tickets. She doesn’t take the bus anymore. She had some problems on the bus.

We were birds one day...

He’s still sleeping. She can feel him dreaming, turning over and over in her head. She’s at the cornerstore with a bag of batteries and some energy bars. This place doesn’t have any lotion. That sucks. It totally sucks. Her cheek will start to peel soon. This weather is too dry.

He let us fly with him. Exalted birds in His Grace...

It’s not so easy for a girl of sixteen years to travel around. There’s a knack to it, one that Robyn picked up awhile ago. She’s on the short side of short, perpetually slouching in her dark grey hoodies. A natural sort of camouflage if you don’t want to be noticed in a city.

For one day, we could fly...

There’s a couple of cops crossing their arms. There’s a man sitting on the curb, a trickle of blood smeared under his nose. One of the cops is holding him a bottle of water. They must be waiting for backup, or something. They’re blocking the whole sidewalk. No one’s trying to pass them. They step away, circling, pacing. When you grow up in a city, you learn to read cops like the weather.

We were birds...

She’s looking to cross the street. It’s a big one, four lanes. Four guys coming down the other way, a hot wind from the south. One’s shouting something. One curses. They look properly stupid, profoundly stupid. The cops take notice. A cold front gathering clouds. Now it’s becoming something, the cops can’t back down, the punks need to save face.

For one day, we were forgiven...

Shouting leads to shoving. Robyn tries to cross the street, but the traffic won’t let up. Everyone’s yelling. She can hear the smack of flesh, a fist. She’s watching the road, waiting for a break. She doesn’t want to see the fight. There’s s snap, too loud, too quick. Someone pulled a gun.

What was that?

She lunges into the traffic, leaping past the cars. They are honking horns, slamming on brakes. A hatchback catches her on the hip. She spins and collapses. Everyone’s shouting now, the bag of batteries all over the road. She’s got something up against her stomach. The driver of the hatchback is out of his car. He’s shouting at her, calling her a crazy bitch. She’s hugging something. It has sharp edges, but it’s like a box. What the hell is it?

Her head is quiet. She can’t hear anything in her head. He’s awake. Oh god. There’s screaming on the sidewalk. The cops are probably all dead. He hates guns. They’re all probably dead. She gets up and runs. Only a few more blocks. The guy from the hatchback grabs her arm.

‘What the fuck was that? You see that?’

‘Let go, let go of me,’

Her hoodie falls away. He can see the burn scars, the bald patches on her head. He lets go. She runs. She has to get far away, it’s the only way to keep him in her head. Her own boogeyman, her curse. She’s got to get to New York before anyone else dies. He’s watching her thoughts, waiting for an excuse.

She’s back in the apartment. She locks herself in the bathroom. She’s still got a couple thousand dollars from Colorado, most of the blood’s washed out. She hates this, living like this. Just till New York. This thing only goes as far as Gotham. The devil, the ifrit, the killer in her head. There the Badman dies.

Scribbled in a Bathroom Stall

We are not born, only dreamed
A cruel and bitter lie
A dream of love and loss and fear
And in that dreaming, die

Her Name Escapes Me

The girl can't be older than twenty-five. She's wearing a simple, white shirt and a flimsy blue sweater, unbuttoned. Her hair hangs loose and light. She tilts her head to keep it out of her eyes. She hovers over a big, thick book. Watch her flip the same page over. She's supposed to be reading there, in the diner. She's well settled in her booth with her coffee and a tiny plate of collected crumbs. She looks like she belongs in this diner. Perhaps the booth is reserved for exactly this sort of behavior. If she were to pack up and leave, within minutes another young woman would sweep in, throw her jacket across the seat opposite, lay her hat next to the salt shaker, and pull out a huge, old book to flip through idly.

But the girl does not leave. She had been sitting for hours, ordering just enough food to keep the manager from throwing her out. She'd picked apart a muffin twenty minutes ago. Watch her eyes scan a page. See her fingers run under the edge. She flips the page over. The action is purely mechanical. This is how a person reads a book. This is how a book is read. The words evaporate in her mind, the meaning of the page leaves her. She turns back to the previous page. There is something to decipher there, among those words, something evading her on that one specific page. Watch her eyes scan it again.

And now here is a man. He can't be younger than fifty. Wearing a plain, old suit. He wears it in just the way every man should, simply, naturally. He wears the suit like every man should, but no one does anymore. He is the only man in a suit in this whole diner. No one wears suits anymore, even though they should. Watch him move slowly down the aisle. A waitress is leading him to his own booth, but he moves slowly, falling behind. He does not want to sit where she places him. The waitress reminds him of a nurse in a hospital, the way she moves, efficient. She places a black, folded menu on the table of the booth where he is to sit. He smiles at her and she leaves him. He does not want to sit at that booth. He'll find another.

Watch him hover down the aisle. See how his hands touch each chair as he passes, like he is counting them. But he is not counting them, or perhaps, just not adding the numbers as he counts. One, one, one. Each chair, each booth, each table is singular like his footsteps. They add up to nowhere.

And then he sees the girl.

He does not speed up or slow down. This is important to remember. He sees the girl and knows that he will go and talk to her. He will tell her everything if he can, answer any question. He does not speed up or slow down because he knows that he is mistaken. Watch him now, smiling in a tired way. Watch him smooth his thinning hair. He knows that he is wrong.

Now he is interrupting her and excusing himself. She doesn't want to chat with anyone, but he caught her off guard. She invites him to sit. She curses her own politeness, all the manners her mother buried in her brain. She doesn't want to be so polite. She tries to smile, but she's not really listening. This works out just fine, because the man is talking, but not to her.

He tells a story. There was this girl, you see. This was all a long time ago, but he met a girl with an Egyptian name. She worked at this gallery, hanging pictures and paintings, dusting up, watching the register. Everything was painted white, and she'd wear black, but her eyes were blue. She had a way of talking like she was laughing.

'You remind me of her,' he tells the girl in the booth. She nods like she turns the page, mechanically. This is how a person listens to a story. This is how a story is listened to.

The man married the girl with the Egyptian name in the story. They lived together and things happened. Some things were scary, some heart warming, some tragic. This is a sad sort of story, it has to be. Watch the man talk to the girl. The way this story goes, it has to be sad.

The man asks about the book. The girl turns the cover to show him the title. Bullfinch's Mythology. She's reading about some king or something. He asks if she likes to read that sort of thing. She tells him that it's for a class. She is lying. Watch her lie about the book. She just grabbed the biggest thing on the shelf as she walked out the door. She doesn't want to go back anytime soon.

'And which one are you reading right now?' he asks her. He wants any topic, any excuse to stay away from the other booth, the place where he is supposed to sit.

The girl looks back at the page, the one she keeps reading. There was a king and he was very clever, but he made the gods mad. When he died, they made him roll a boulder up a hill over and over.

The man smiles, he's heard that one. The girl asks him about the girl with the Egyptian name. What happened to her? Where'd she go?

The waitress walks by. She wants to take his order. He asks for a few more minutes, a little more time. The waitress leaves, she doesn't really care either way. He watches her hips sway as she walks. There was a hallway in a hospital somewhere and a nurse pointing to a door. So casually she pointed to the bed where a woman was going to die. He never had a say. No one ever asked him anything.

On Thursday, We Died

On Monday, we were certain of it. Some things aren't too difficult to figure out, if you're honest with yourself. All the signs were there. It all seemed pretty cut and dried. I ordered a pizza. We didn't have any plates or napkins. We shared it on the bare floor of our apartment, drooping slices dripping greasy onto the sodden cardboard box. It was fun; we smiled to each other despite everything else.

We curled into each other, wrapped up in a dozen blankets. We slept like kittens.

On Tuesday, we sold the rest of the furniture. We didn't need the money, we just agreed it would be cleaner this way. We didn't want to leave any clutter. The thrift store took most of it. They didn't want the old lamp, the paintings from the bathroom, though they took the chipped porcelain butter dish. We found some old books and took them to the park. We lay around, letting the sun cook us slowly. We flipped through the books, skipping chapters, reading lines aloud, smelling the old paper.

I tried not to cry. I failed. You wouldn't look me in the eye.

We walked for hours that night. It got really cold, but we didn't want to go back. The street cleaners were out late, powerwashing the sidewalks. Slim metal wands fired beams of water, peeling gum off the tiles. Mist kicked up in a cloud where they worked, glowing green by the street lights and red by the crosswalk.

It was so late when we got back. We were exhausted, but we couldn't fall asleep. You complained about the blankets. You wished we hadn't sold the bed. I had nothing to say. We just laid there for hours. We must have fallen asleep at some point because I remember waking up.

On Wednesday I couldn't stand you. You were still asleep when I left. Maybe you were just faking. Maybe you were feeling the same thing. It was too early, nothing was open. I slid some change into a newspaper box and pulled out the morning edition. I flipped through a few pages.

All the headlines looked like jokes. One was about a couple of kids starting some fundraiser out of their garage. Another one talked about a local library closing down. Then there was this story about some senator fighting for a bill. He had some really snappy quotes about protecting our rights, safeguarding liberties, setting examples for future generations. He nailed it, he hit all the hot points.

That's what sells, I guess. Something's ending! Something new is about to happen! Look out! It's coming!

I got this idea to make a fire. I wanted to burn up all the trash in a big pile. A big ol' bonfire. I went back and got all the shit together. I took that lamp they didn't want, the pile of paper bags we never used, all the letters we stopped opening, and some other shit, I guess. I made a big pile in the parking lot. I didn't have any matches. I didn't want to ask anyone, so I just left it there.

When I went back inside, you were waiting. We didn't have anything to talk about. We weren't hungry at all.