I feel it circling us out there in the dark, and I pile some more wood on the fire. It cracks and pops, sending tiny embers careening up towards the sky, the trees around us casting dancing shadows as the flames climb higher and hotter. I peer out under the branches and try to convince myself that every glint I see isn't a glimpse of firelight on eyes or teeth, that the hungering dark can be held back for one more night, a few more hours, until the dawn comes, gray and cold, but bright, and we start to run again.
I look down at you, curled up facing the fire, and watch the light play across your features. You've always slept better than me, bundled up in furs and scraps, immune to the wind and the rain, sleeping the sleep of the just, your slow, steady breathing ticking away the hours as I watch over you and tend the fire, keeping my promise by keeping you safe, for however long I'm able. Tonight's no different: a black sky broken by the shattered moon, the silence of the tomb hanging heavy over the woods, oppressive and suffocating. But we have fire, so we have light. We have our health, or you have yours, anyway, so we can run. And we have each other, so we have a reason to.
I put another log on the fire, the thin white bark flaring up quickly as the wood slowly blackens. I reach over to you and brush hair from your face with clumsy fingers. You frown slightly and mutter your dreamspeak, half-formed syllables to go with hazy visions, worlds, I pray, unlike our own. Never could I escape into sleep and dream as you can, slipping into comforting obliviousness with an ease that I can't even hope to match. There you find freedom, where I remain a prisoner: ever observing, ever marking, ever fearing.
Poking at the fire, I stir up the embers and coax new life from them, their heat slowly consuming the stubs and ends of the burned logs and branches that have served us through the night, morning still a long way off.
My poker flares up and I douse it in the ashes before, thinking better of it, lighting it again, the flame growing quickly. Standing up through aching knees, I step over you and walk towards the edge of the light cast by our fire, holding the makeshift torch out before me. I raise it up and look out into the darkness, trying to, but hoping not to, catch a glimpse of our pursuer. I hear the groaning and cracking of some ancient tree off to my left, and before I can even turn, I hear another, right before me, just beyond the feeble light of my torch, and I swear I see that glint, that predatory malevolence lurking out there in the night, that which has dogged our every step and turned our nights to terror. Never had I seen its face, though long have I lived in fear of it. For miles and years, it seems, we've fled, and I've done all I can to keep you safe. There is, perhaps, one last kindness I can perform.
I turn and walk back to the fire, casting my torch into the dying flames. I ease myself down to the ground and curl up behind you, feeling you burrow into me as I wrap my arms around you. I watch over your head as the flames sputter and die, bit by bit, and the circle of light surrounding us shrinks and shrinks, and they close in. I bury my face in your hair as the last orange flame gives way to embers and I close my eyes rather than watch the end.
12 December 2018
December 16, 2018
May 1, 2018
Emergencey
I wake with a start, blood red skies burning away in my vision, replaced by the inky blackness of the bunker. I lie back, catching my breath, staring off into the darkness overhead, and I wait for her comforting arm to drape across my chest.
My breathing slows and I look over to the few lit dials on the console across the room to my right, the only source of light. I roll over and curl up, staring at those dials, trying not to acknowledge the void behind me, the space where her sleeping bag once lay, but I swear I can feel her fingers at my neck, brushing through my hair, so I squeeze my eyes shut and bury my face, trying to hide my tears from who?
Eventually morning comes, near as I can tell, and I set about busying myself for the coming day: routine is the enemy of madness, so I've been told, and it's all I've got left. I go through the motions of keeping myself alive: I roll up my sleeping bag and put it aside, clearing a space and putting myself through the poses she taught me. I sweep out quarters unoccupied for months. I take readings on dying batteries even as they leak onto the floor and into the air. I crack open a can of what the label tells me used to be beans, and this is what's left of my life.
We were safe down below as the fires raged above, death raining from the sky the world over, the world torn asunder and not one stone left set on top of another. Humanity cast down from our dizzying height by the push of a button, as if by design, all that was left a single family huddled deep underground, surrounded by the same weapons of war that bathed the earth above in nuclear fire, protected and sustained by and from that selfsame beast, the all-consuming monster war itself. It seemed poignant at first, these small lives spared while so many burned, or worse. And fear melded with gratitude for the first days, days of exploration and tentative, careful explanations to the children, until eventually fear was forgotten, and gratitude, as it does, died, and there was only life underground, drive more by inertia than will, momentum carrying them forward.
Days turned into months, and the horror of listening to the smattering of broadcasts on the radio was replaced by the horror of the silence that crept in their place. The cries of the dying gave way to a yawning nothing. Familiar voices calling for help for days and weeks, growing ever feebler, eventually faded away as the prayed-for deliverance finally arrived, though not in the form requested, torn to pieces by wasting and disease, or the diseased themselves. She wanted to help them, wanted to throw open our doors and welcome them into our home. She knew better, but knowing doesn't stop the tearing away, the loss and the pain.
The strongest voices rang out as long as they could, citing all the good books and holy words they could muster, pounding the pages to remind any who were listening that this destruction was a holy thing, brought upon us as a tool of purification, a test for the worthy. The twinge of madness was always present in these voices, creeping in around the edges, until their ends came, too. Some simply vanished, voices lost to the world, their apocalyptic transmissions echoing out for an eternity in the void. Others met their end head on, still thumping the pages and cursing us for heretics as they pulled the trigger.
It had been a long time since we let the children stay in the room while we listened to the radio, scanning across the bands, reaching out into the darkness above our heads, hoping to find what? Our deliverance? Companionship? Eventually just a reason to continue.
But the months stretched on, and routine became our ally. The children grew, and we regaled them with stories from before they were born. Long drives to the lake. Half-remembered arguments. Blue skies and pine trees. Birth and death and loss and love. Her mother. My father. She knew all the details; I was always bad at that.
How long it was, we couldn't say, but the air soured, and the stores began to dwindle, and her eyes hollowed, taking on an edge I hadn't seen before. The children didn't play anymore, and I found my stories, lopsided and incomplete as they were, simply weren't enough to hold them close and keep them from drifting any longer. Sickness had stolen into our shelter, the same sickness that had spread across the world above, and it stole my world from me a second time.
I buried them as best I could, and visited them every day. My momentum was spent, and I found will a poor substitute. Routine stepped in and I rose every morning, went through her poses, swept and recorded, ate and said her name like a prayer.
And then one day, our home became a tomb. It didn't happen all at once, but happen it did, and I could look away from it no longer. Dead children. Dead wife. Dead husband just waiting to join them. I talked with her about it, many times, and I could always hear her voice, her gentle and not so gentle urgings, some so old and familiar they brought a smile to my face even as they admonished me, not to be better, but to be as good as I was. Not to be stronger, but to be as strong as I was.
That doubt in me she was never able to break, that shadow she was never able to dispel, grew wider and wilder, and I knew I wasn't fit to rest with her. I knew I had to be stronger, fuller, better, before I deserved to lie with her again. I knew only weakness and a wasting death waited for me down here in the darkness, and that the only way into her graces was to crack the ancient seals and swing wide the doors on their great, groaning hinges, and to walk out into the light and whatever awaited me.
I'll make her proud, I think, as I put my weight against the last door. Bones and waste clatter as they are swept aside, and even the dim daylight filtering in from the cave's mouth is blinding. I adjust the pack on my shoulders once more and take my first step out of the bunker.
1 May 2018
September 25, 2017
Toward the Light/End of the Line (Apostasy)
I follow the light on the horizon for hours, pushing on late into the night. When I finally crest the top of the ridge and look down into the valley, what I see shakes me, surprises me enough that I forget years of experience, years of care and caution. I stand there, the tallest thing for miles around, and stare down on the first living, breathing city I’ve seen since we went under the mountain. Despite myself, despite the horror and death of the wasteland, the fear and mistrust start to fade away as I look down upon this first new city, amazed: they have lights. They have water. They have life.
And I’m not the only one. I see other travelers looking down from other ridges, as spellbound as me. I see them picking their way down the mountains of rubble, descending on the city from all directions, crossing the great dusty plain before the it, casting shadows miles long. Men and women, the women traveling in the open, all of us driven to carelessness by the ecstasy of hope on the horizon: that nameless city, that beacon of humanity’s finest aspirations, greater even than that which came before the bombs, tried and tested by the fires of annihilation and murder. Here, in this city with no name, in this city with The Church, here we will find salvation.
I make my way down along a long-dry arroyo, and climb up to the long plain before the city, baked hard by the sun and then vitrified by atomic fire, dust billowing up with every footfall to be carried up and away by the tugging breeze, betraying my path to any and every interested party for miles around. But there are no interested parties, none to mark my passing, as we all trudge forward, drawn across the continent to this light of humanity, the flame of hope carried far and wide by travelers and traders, thought by so many to be a myth, or worse, and yet here it stands, this beacon in the wastes.
We march on, oblivious to each other, drawing closer to strangers than any of us have been in years. I can’t remember the last time I saw this many people this close together without chains around their necks. But there are no slavers here. No bandits, or cannibals. Only the faithful, completing their great pilgrimage.
We enter through a great gate, left open even in the middle of the night to welcome the weary travelers who were drawn like moths to the flame of the city’s lights just over the horizon, those who abandoned caution and braved the terrors of the night to arrive even hours earlier. The amazed looks on the faces of the stupefied wanderers match, I’m sure, my own. We pass tents, then shacks, then honest to God buildings. And everywhere there are the faithful, praying and holding services anywhere they can stand: in pig sties, on waste heaps, right in the middle of the road. The stink and the press of the crowd is foreign, but welcoming. Truly, this city stands as a testament to something vast and beautiful, something we’d forgotten, something we had to be brought to the brink of destruction to be reminded of: this is our natural state. We are good and pure. We need each other and we need to be near each other, and in the face of this truth we indeed become the divine that we seek, that we trekked across the wasteland hoping against hope to catch even a glimpse of.
I feel a great joy swell up within me, unfamiliar at first, a feeling so long suppressed as to be forgotten, but there it is, filling me with its glow as I bump and jostle through the throng, hearing voices raised in praise and adulation, not crying out in pain or screaming, begging for mercy. No hushed whispers of the hiding, fearful even to breathe lest they be discovered and taken. As I weave through the streets towards the center of the city, towards The Church, I feel my throat start to loosen, and my breath presses past my voice box, my tentative voice uncertainly joining the great din of the crowd, growing stronger and louder with every step, the fear and dust and silence of the years falling away as I join in unfamiliar chants, the light in my heart guiding my voice and my thoughts, delivering me to the same revelation that the studied faithful have discovered, my soul crying out in the universal tongue of hope and aspiration, climbing to match the soaring ambition of this place, this first new great city, this place where it will all begin anew, better and grander than ever before in our lost history, made stronger and purified through the purgation, tempered and cleansed by nuclear fires wrought by our own hands.
I think of my wife and our children, long buried under the mountain, and I think on their faces, no longer twisted in hunger and fear, but aglow with the same vibrancy and hope that threatens to overwhelm me as I draw closer to The Church, the crowd thicker now, joyful hands clasping anyone they can reach, a frenzy of fraternity overtaking the masses, sweeping me along with it as I smile widely, looking into the eyes of the ecstatics around me, my own hope reflected in their perfect faces.
Then the crowd parts and we surround The Church, and I finally see it, the great darkened structure that this city has built itself up around. It seems to writhe against the night sky, the undulating voices of the great press of humanity echoing, seeming to alter reality as I find myself reeling, my mind trying to make sense of the structure before me: the faces, the walls, the great jabberwocky construction seeming organic and grown, rather than built. Something I can almost see, something moving in The Church...
But then one great voice rises above the din, and calls the newcomers forward, calls forth the families, the core of this new city, of this new pure and ambitious humanity. They bring their children forward, presenting them to the priest, and he welcomes them, placing his hands on their heads, each in turn. His men step forward and take the children, their parents falling to their knees in joyous, rapturous prayer, as the voice of the crowd rises as one. Somewhere a great lever is thrown, and ancient floodlights hum to life, blinding me for a moment as they bathe The Church in light, and the chanting of the crowd rises, nearing frenzy, loud enough to drown out the screams of the children as they are added to The Church, living sacrifices to this grand new humanity, long spikes and ropes marrying them to the structure, the mass of bones and flesh and mad ambition, and I recoil in horror, finally realizing that I was right: this is who we are, and this is where we belong: monsters and butchers scurrying in the shadow of The Church of Children.
25 September 2017
And I’m not the only one. I see other travelers looking down from other ridges, as spellbound as me. I see them picking their way down the mountains of rubble, descending on the city from all directions, crossing the great dusty plain before the it, casting shadows miles long. Men and women, the women traveling in the open, all of us driven to carelessness by the ecstasy of hope on the horizon: that nameless city, that beacon of humanity’s finest aspirations, greater even than that which came before the bombs, tried and tested by the fires of annihilation and murder. Here, in this city with no name, in this city with The Church, here we will find salvation.
I make my way down along a long-dry arroyo, and climb up to the long plain before the city, baked hard by the sun and then vitrified by atomic fire, dust billowing up with every footfall to be carried up and away by the tugging breeze, betraying my path to any and every interested party for miles around. But there are no interested parties, none to mark my passing, as we all trudge forward, drawn across the continent to this light of humanity, the flame of hope carried far and wide by travelers and traders, thought by so many to be a myth, or worse, and yet here it stands, this beacon in the wastes.
We march on, oblivious to each other, drawing closer to strangers than any of us have been in years. I can’t remember the last time I saw this many people this close together without chains around their necks. But there are no slavers here. No bandits, or cannibals. Only the faithful, completing their great pilgrimage.
We enter through a great gate, left open even in the middle of the night to welcome the weary travelers who were drawn like moths to the flame of the city’s lights just over the horizon, those who abandoned caution and braved the terrors of the night to arrive even hours earlier. The amazed looks on the faces of the stupefied wanderers match, I’m sure, my own. We pass tents, then shacks, then honest to God buildings. And everywhere there are the faithful, praying and holding services anywhere they can stand: in pig sties, on waste heaps, right in the middle of the road. The stink and the press of the crowd is foreign, but welcoming. Truly, this city stands as a testament to something vast and beautiful, something we’d forgotten, something we had to be brought to the brink of destruction to be reminded of: this is our natural state. We are good and pure. We need each other and we need to be near each other, and in the face of this truth we indeed become the divine that we seek, that we trekked across the wasteland hoping against hope to catch even a glimpse of.
I feel a great joy swell up within me, unfamiliar at first, a feeling so long suppressed as to be forgotten, but there it is, filling me with its glow as I bump and jostle through the throng, hearing voices raised in praise and adulation, not crying out in pain or screaming, begging for mercy. No hushed whispers of the hiding, fearful even to breathe lest they be discovered and taken. As I weave through the streets towards the center of the city, towards The Church, I feel my throat start to loosen, and my breath presses past my voice box, my tentative voice uncertainly joining the great din of the crowd, growing stronger and louder with every step, the fear and dust and silence of the years falling away as I join in unfamiliar chants, the light in my heart guiding my voice and my thoughts, delivering me to the same revelation that the studied faithful have discovered, my soul crying out in the universal tongue of hope and aspiration, climbing to match the soaring ambition of this place, this first new great city, this place where it will all begin anew, better and grander than ever before in our lost history, made stronger and purified through the purgation, tempered and cleansed by nuclear fires wrought by our own hands.
I think of my wife and our children, long buried under the mountain, and I think on their faces, no longer twisted in hunger and fear, but aglow with the same vibrancy and hope that threatens to overwhelm me as I draw closer to The Church, the crowd thicker now, joyful hands clasping anyone they can reach, a frenzy of fraternity overtaking the masses, sweeping me along with it as I smile widely, looking into the eyes of the ecstatics around me, my own hope reflected in their perfect faces.
Then the crowd parts and we surround The Church, and I finally see it, the great darkened structure that this city has built itself up around. It seems to writhe against the night sky, the undulating voices of the great press of humanity echoing, seeming to alter reality as I find myself reeling, my mind trying to make sense of the structure before me: the faces, the walls, the great jabberwocky construction seeming organic and grown, rather than built. Something I can almost see, something moving in The Church...
But then one great voice rises above the din, and calls the newcomers forward, calls forth the families, the core of this new city, of this new pure and ambitious humanity. They bring their children forward, presenting them to the priest, and he welcomes them, placing his hands on their heads, each in turn. His men step forward and take the children, their parents falling to their knees in joyous, rapturous prayer, as the voice of the crowd rises as one. Somewhere a great lever is thrown, and ancient floodlights hum to life, blinding me for a moment as they bathe The Church in light, and the chanting of the crowd rises, nearing frenzy, loud enough to drown out the screams of the children as they are added to The Church, living sacrifices to this grand new humanity, long spikes and ropes marrying them to the structure, the mass of bones and flesh and mad ambition, and I recoil in horror, finally realizing that I was right: this is who we are, and this is where we belong: monsters and butchers scurrying in the shadow of The Church of Children.
25 September 2017
September 18, 2015
Only miles to go
I shake my head to clear it as the world starts to slide into gray. I won't do to fail now, not when I'm so close. I rub the sweat out of my eyes with the back of my hand and try to focus on the road as it shimmers and weaves before me. I feel every bump stab through the wound in my belly, not doing as much to keep me conscious as I'd like.
As I leave the warehouse behind, the ashes of that part of my life still cooling, I think I feel something like hope, or maybe confidence in a plan is closer to it. Not everything went exactly right (getting gutshot wasn't something I was counting on), but I'm free and clear and I've got enough gas to get to her and get away clean. Well, mostly clean.
I ease my hand away from the wound in my belly and see the blood is still pouring out pretty good, with no signs of stopping. I guess that's a good sign, means I've still got plenty of it left. That's me, though: ever the optimist. Silver linings and all that.
The car shudders along as it drifts over a rumble strip and I cringe as the vibration tears through me. I yank the car back into my lane and put my eyes back on the road. It'd just figure: not a soul for miles and I'd manage to get into a wreck. And on the most important day of my life, too.
That's not true. Important, yes. Very important, yes. Not the most important. That begs the question though, what is? I know the easy answer, the obvious one, but then I always do. I don't think it's the right one. The day we met. Naturally. That's the clear choice. That's what you're supposed to say. But I don't think the answer to a question like this one is supposed to be a choice. It's supposed to present itself to you if you've got the eyes to see it. It's supposed to slide up into your consciousness and remind you of that day, that moment, when everything changed. It's supposed to make itself known, and it's not for you to choose.
It's the day I saw her smile.
Not like that, I mean. She's always smiling. Everyone's seen it. I saw it before we ever met. But not that one.
There's another smile, a secret smile, that I like to think I know what it means. It's slower, quieter. It doesn't blow up across her face and make her eyes go wide. It's not a smile for anyone else. It's not even for me.
So that's the day. I can feel the sunlight on my face, making me squint one eye, but I can still see her, not really facing me, looking away, and I can see it start. I don't even know what I said, but I see it start, and I see that smile spread across her face, slow, and I know it, I just know it: Nothing's ever going to be the same again.
The engine coughs and sputters, shaking me out of my reverie, and I feel the cold grip of fear reaching into me, right through the hole in my gut, spreading across my insides and sliding up into my heart. Not now, I think. Not when I'm so close. Only miles to go. The hard part's done. Just keep moving and it'll all be okay.
The car rumbles and I don't even mind the pain this time because after a moment the engine settles down and runs smooth again. I breathe again, but I don't dare relax. My eyes are still wide, flying across the gauges as I try to blink away the fresh panic sweat. I breathe shallow, scared even to move lest I do something to upset the vehicle and be forced to listen to it cough and die, rolling slowly and quietly to a stop on this deserted stretch of road, the only sound the crunch of the tires and my own labored breathing. I close my eyes, desperate, for a moment, realizing I've done it again, my imagination has run away with me and I've scared myself beyond reasoning, beyond reality, and my abject terror will certainly drag me down to despair if I allow it.
I breathe shallowly and put a little more pressure on the gas pedal, willing to exchange a little caution for haste. I keep my eyes on the road, flicking them here and there on the dash to check the gauges. After a while I'm able to shift my weight in the seat and breathe a little easier. The engine purrs and the wind whistles outside the windows and everything's going to be okay again.
The miles roll past, the dark and desolate landscape I'm fleeing through illuminated here and there by shafts of sunlight punching through the thick clouds above. The song of the tires on the road is hypnotic, singing me to sleep, and I want so badly to rest, if only for a moment. I feel the weakness prowling through my mind, through my heart, and I think myself already too weak to fight it. I feel my head start to droop, my eyes begin to go dark, as the thrumming of my pulse in my ears grows slower, and quieter.
You looked up at me and I lost myself in your eyes. I never could drag myself out. I suppose I didn't want to. I told myself I was strong enough, smart enough, to do anything in the world, and I told you that I'd do anything in the world for you.
But then I didn't.
I stumbled, and fell, and after a while I didn't see that smile anymore. Not even the big one, the public one. The one for Joe on the street. The one for anyone because that's just who you are. Instead I saw sidelong glances. The back of your head. Half-asleep whispers that weren't for my ears to hear.
But I can fix it. I can make everything right. I'll prove it to you.
I drag myself up out of the darkness, forcing my eyes to open and focus on the road again. Only miles to go.
The engine coughs and the car shudders and suddenly everything goes quiet and my worst fears come slithering out of the pits and crawl through my mind. I steer the car off the road into the dust on the shoulder, cursing it all the while.
We grind to a stop and the thick clouds of dust thrown up by our passing billow around us, mocking our plight by rolling on down the road ahead of us.
I try the ignition over and again, my efforts greeted by silence: not even a whine, no sign that the car is willing to struggle through this with me. I stomp on the gas and pound on the steering wheel, splitting my wound open anew, trying to bully this machine into compliance, to bend it to my will, but it remains silent and cold.
I lean back and lay my head on the headrest, feeling despair not for the first time, but finally recognizing it, maybe, admitting it. Suddenly I'm face-to-face with the reality that it's not going to be okay again, and that's not a realization I can ignore any longer.
I ease myself out of the car and crunch through the dust and gravel, opening the hood and staring down at the engine as though I know what I'm looking at, or for. The fact is, I'm as lost as I ever was.
I hold the hood open with one hand and rest my head against my wrist, surprised for a moment at how cold my own flesh has grown. I close my eyes and I'm there behind you, whispering something into your ear, through your hair, something that makes you smile that secret smile again, and I can tell without even seeing your face. I can feel it, my arms around you, and everything right in the world.
I collapse in the dirt, kicking up little whirlwinds and dust devils, dirty little storms that twirl around me and are destroyed by the cough forced from my lungs. I don't even get to die on my back, the last thing I see a darkening sky overhead.
As my world grows dim and cold, my last gasp becomes a goodbye, a whispered prayer carried off on the wind, I hope, to her ear.
But she isn't listening.
18 September 2015
As I leave the warehouse behind, the ashes of that part of my life still cooling, I think I feel something like hope, or maybe confidence in a plan is closer to it. Not everything went exactly right (getting gutshot wasn't something I was counting on), but I'm free and clear and I've got enough gas to get to her and get away clean. Well, mostly clean.
I ease my hand away from the wound in my belly and see the blood is still pouring out pretty good, with no signs of stopping. I guess that's a good sign, means I've still got plenty of it left. That's me, though: ever the optimist. Silver linings and all that.
The car shudders along as it drifts over a rumble strip and I cringe as the vibration tears through me. I yank the car back into my lane and put my eyes back on the road. It'd just figure: not a soul for miles and I'd manage to get into a wreck. And on the most important day of my life, too.
That's not true. Important, yes. Very important, yes. Not the most important. That begs the question though, what is? I know the easy answer, the obvious one, but then I always do. I don't think it's the right one. The day we met. Naturally. That's the clear choice. That's what you're supposed to say. But I don't think the answer to a question like this one is supposed to be a choice. It's supposed to present itself to you if you've got the eyes to see it. It's supposed to slide up into your consciousness and remind you of that day, that moment, when everything changed. It's supposed to make itself known, and it's not for you to choose.
It's the day I saw her smile.
Not like that, I mean. She's always smiling. Everyone's seen it. I saw it before we ever met. But not that one.
There's another smile, a secret smile, that I like to think I know what it means. It's slower, quieter. It doesn't blow up across her face and make her eyes go wide. It's not a smile for anyone else. It's not even for me.
So that's the day. I can feel the sunlight on my face, making me squint one eye, but I can still see her, not really facing me, looking away, and I can see it start. I don't even know what I said, but I see it start, and I see that smile spread across her face, slow, and I know it, I just know it: Nothing's ever going to be the same again.
The engine coughs and sputters, shaking me out of my reverie, and I feel the cold grip of fear reaching into me, right through the hole in my gut, spreading across my insides and sliding up into my heart. Not now, I think. Not when I'm so close. Only miles to go. The hard part's done. Just keep moving and it'll all be okay.
The car rumbles and I don't even mind the pain this time because after a moment the engine settles down and runs smooth again. I breathe again, but I don't dare relax. My eyes are still wide, flying across the gauges as I try to blink away the fresh panic sweat. I breathe shallow, scared even to move lest I do something to upset the vehicle and be forced to listen to it cough and die, rolling slowly and quietly to a stop on this deserted stretch of road, the only sound the crunch of the tires and my own labored breathing. I close my eyes, desperate, for a moment, realizing I've done it again, my imagination has run away with me and I've scared myself beyond reasoning, beyond reality, and my abject terror will certainly drag me down to despair if I allow it.
I breathe shallowly and put a little more pressure on the gas pedal, willing to exchange a little caution for haste. I keep my eyes on the road, flicking them here and there on the dash to check the gauges. After a while I'm able to shift my weight in the seat and breathe a little easier. The engine purrs and the wind whistles outside the windows and everything's going to be okay again.
The miles roll past, the dark and desolate landscape I'm fleeing through illuminated here and there by shafts of sunlight punching through the thick clouds above. The song of the tires on the road is hypnotic, singing me to sleep, and I want so badly to rest, if only for a moment. I feel the weakness prowling through my mind, through my heart, and I think myself already too weak to fight it. I feel my head start to droop, my eyes begin to go dark, as the thrumming of my pulse in my ears grows slower, and quieter.
You looked up at me and I lost myself in your eyes. I never could drag myself out. I suppose I didn't want to. I told myself I was strong enough, smart enough, to do anything in the world, and I told you that I'd do anything in the world for you.
But then I didn't.
I stumbled, and fell, and after a while I didn't see that smile anymore. Not even the big one, the public one. The one for Joe on the street. The one for anyone because that's just who you are. Instead I saw sidelong glances. The back of your head. Half-asleep whispers that weren't for my ears to hear.
But I can fix it. I can make everything right. I'll prove it to you.
I drag myself up out of the darkness, forcing my eyes to open and focus on the road again. Only miles to go.
The engine coughs and the car shudders and suddenly everything goes quiet and my worst fears come slithering out of the pits and crawl through my mind. I steer the car off the road into the dust on the shoulder, cursing it all the while.
We grind to a stop and the thick clouds of dust thrown up by our passing billow around us, mocking our plight by rolling on down the road ahead of us.
I try the ignition over and again, my efforts greeted by silence: not even a whine, no sign that the car is willing to struggle through this with me. I stomp on the gas and pound on the steering wheel, splitting my wound open anew, trying to bully this machine into compliance, to bend it to my will, but it remains silent and cold.
I lean back and lay my head on the headrest, feeling despair not for the first time, but finally recognizing it, maybe, admitting it. Suddenly I'm face-to-face with the reality that it's not going to be okay again, and that's not a realization I can ignore any longer.
I ease myself out of the car and crunch through the dust and gravel, opening the hood and staring down at the engine as though I know what I'm looking at, or for. The fact is, I'm as lost as I ever was.
I hold the hood open with one hand and rest my head against my wrist, surprised for a moment at how cold my own flesh has grown. I close my eyes and I'm there behind you, whispering something into your ear, through your hair, something that makes you smile that secret smile again, and I can tell without even seeing your face. I can feel it, my arms around you, and everything right in the world.
I collapse in the dirt, kicking up little whirlwinds and dust devils, dirty little storms that twirl around me and are destroyed by the cough forced from my lungs. I don't even get to die on my back, the last thing I see a darkening sky overhead.
As my world grows dim and cold, my last gasp becomes a goodbye, a whispered prayer carried off on the wind, I hope, to her ear.
But she isn't listening.
18 September 2015
May 18, 2015
Ya'aburnee
The steam of my breath curls around my face in the stillness. The snow on the ground seems to muffle all sound, but the thin layer of ice that has formed on top of it lends a sharpness to whatever's left. Even my breathing, calm and even, seems to come to my ear forcefully, piercing the silence that lays upon the forest.
I lean my head back and breathe deeply, the late winter sun playing across my face, casting red shadows through my closed eyelids. This is my first peaceful breath in months, and I savor it. Spring is coming, halfway here, and with it the thaw that drives our enemy north, out of the valley that we have made our home, back to the inhospitable waste through the high pass, the land an endless cratered plain, littered with icebergs though the sea is months' travel away, a land we dare not tread upon until our teeth grow soft and our minds begin to wander, then we take that long walk to the north, disappearing over the ridge and living on only in memory.
The village has been spared the horrors of winters past this year, and for that I am thankful. One safe winter, one kind season, spent nestled under furs next to the fire with my new wife. Our first winter; we mingled blood three days before the first snowfall, before the days turned gray and the nights grew talons. The wind howled outside, clawing at the walls of wood and hide, finding no purchase, no ingress. Though I doubt we would have noticed if our home had blown down around us, so enraptured were we with each other's bodies.
A smile spreads across my face at the memory, not cursing the long nights for the joy they brought us. Our first winter. The first of many.
I roll my shoulders under my hides, eager for the spring, eager for the river ice to crack and recede, eager more than anything for her to join me in the river, to strip off her hides and-
I hear a crack, wood snapping, made more sharp against the thin sheet of ice stretching across the snow into the mist through the trees. I turn quickly, scanning the forest with my eyes and ears, my heart already racing. I haven't seen any sign of elk in days, and I want to believe it's simply a fox or hare, but I know better even before I can smell it, the stink of death screwing up my face. I feel its breathing in my chest more than I hear it, rumbling deep and slow, with a poisonous, nameless malice we don't even have words for.
I peer deeper into the forest, every fiber of my being tensed and screaming to flee, but I find myself motionless in the snow halfway to my knees, staring into the woods, praying I'm wrong.
Then the trees begin to fall.
First one, somewhere out in the mist. I can hear it groan and crack, straining to stay upright before succumbing to the irresistible force that assails it, and it crashes through the canopy towards me, snow tumbling down from the branches in its way.
Then another, closer, and I take a step back, the ice resisting my weight for a moment before splintering under my foot. Another tree falls, and another, more quickly now, but I'm frozen, unable even to flee, that first step back all I could muster. Terror rises in me, clawing at my throat something like a scream, and another tree falls. I feel the ground trembling with each step, my heart far outpacing the beat, though that lead is narrowing.
Finally two great trees tumble down before me, and I see it, through the falling snow and pine needles, steam billowing from its mouth in great clouds as it stares at me with a hate more pure and ancient than anything I can imagine. It bellows a roar at me, its ragged maw a mass of fangs framed by jagged tusks, and I break.
I turn on my heel and sprint away from the great beast, my feet punching through the ice and into the wet snow beneath as my legs pump furiously, frantically, trying to carry me away from this doom. The beast's roar echoes through the woods, shaking the snow loose from the branches above me, shaking my teeth in my head. As the roar echoes through the woods, I hear trees crashing down behind me, the earth shaking as my pursuer thunders after me.
I run through groves of the biggest and oldest trees, trying to find something, anything, to slow the beast, but it snaps them like kindling, laying low stately pines that stood tall when my father's father was a boy as if they were twigs. I cannot escape this thing.
I take long, leaping strides down the hillside and across the riverbank, reaching the frozen river. I can race along the rough, pitted ice all the way to the village, definitely faster than struggling through the wet snow that has soaked through my furs, chilling my feet. I run along the ice, the sinking sun throwing my shadow out before me. I'll be back at the village soon. I'll be back with my wife-
My wife.
I stop suddenly, skidding on the uneven surface of the ice, and turn back. The beast crashes through the treeline on high on the riverbank, leaping down towards the river, its long, matted fur trailing behind it in the air. Watching this creature, the hate and bloodthirst in its eyes, its cracked and stained claws and fangs, I know I cannot lead it back to the village, to her. My father's father told me they'd fought one before, in his father's time. They'd driven it away, but at great cost and after great suffering. He wasn't able to protect his wife, and he was a man ten feet tall. So what hope have I?
The beast crashes to earth, smashing right through the thick river ice, bellowing its rage as it sinks into the surging water, great chunks of ice as thick as my leg sailing through the air, tossed like leaves. I know what I must do.
I wait on the river until I see the beast's head rise from the black water, already beginning to climb up onto the ice. I wait for it to see me, and then I run again, up the riverbank and away, back into the trees and into the fading sunlight.
I hear ice cracking like thunder behind me, the river ice shuddering and giving way under the weight of the beast, under the intensity of its pursuit, and I keep running.
My feet are blocks of ice, the furs wrapping them soaked through and matted with ice and snow, growing heavier at the ends of my leaden legs, but I keep running.
My lungs burn, the winter air slicing down my throat and into my chest like a knife, my beard crusting with the frost of my breath, coming out of my mouth in great gouts of steam, tears running down from my eyes as I flee, trees crashing down behind me as the beast pursues, gaining ground, getting ever closer, its stink preceding it, choking the desperate breaths out of me, but I keep running.
Finally, as I can feel its breath upon my neck, its claws tearing at my trailing hides, I break through the treeline and into the clearing atop the cliff overlooking the valley, my village somewhere below, safely out of sight around the bends and twists in the river. I stop, doubled over, at the cliff's edge, my chest heaving, my lungs burning. I grit my teeth and my choked sobs are carried off by the winter wind across the valley.
I whirl, pulling free my father's stone knife as I cast aside my hides and furs, and I stand to face the beast, gasping for breath, weeping and desperate, damned and terrified. I choke out my last breaths and raise knife, defiant and hopeless, praying I've led it far enough away from the village.
It lumbers slowly towards me, a growl deep in its throat sounding like a laugh.
I plant my feet and hold the stone blade out before me.
For her.
18 May 2015
I lean my head back and breathe deeply, the late winter sun playing across my face, casting red shadows through my closed eyelids. This is my first peaceful breath in months, and I savor it. Spring is coming, halfway here, and with it the thaw that drives our enemy north, out of the valley that we have made our home, back to the inhospitable waste through the high pass, the land an endless cratered plain, littered with icebergs though the sea is months' travel away, a land we dare not tread upon until our teeth grow soft and our minds begin to wander, then we take that long walk to the north, disappearing over the ridge and living on only in memory.
The village has been spared the horrors of winters past this year, and for that I am thankful. One safe winter, one kind season, spent nestled under furs next to the fire with my new wife. Our first winter; we mingled blood three days before the first snowfall, before the days turned gray and the nights grew talons. The wind howled outside, clawing at the walls of wood and hide, finding no purchase, no ingress. Though I doubt we would have noticed if our home had blown down around us, so enraptured were we with each other's bodies.
A smile spreads across my face at the memory, not cursing the long nights for the joy they brought us. Our first winter. The first of many.
I roll my shoulders under my hides, eager for the spring, eager for the river ice to crack and recede, eager more than anything for her to join me in the river, to strip off her hides and-
I hear a crack, wood snapping, made more sharp against the thin sheet of ice stretching across the snow into the mist through the trees. I turn quickly, scanning the forest with my eyes and ears, my heart already racing. I haven't seen any sign of elk in days, and I want to believe it's simply a fox or hare, but I know better even before I can smell it, the stink of death screwing up my face. I feel its breathing in my chest more than I hear it, rumbling deep and slow, with a poisonous, nameless malice we don't even have words for.
I peer deeper into the forest, every fiber of my being tensed and screaming to flee, but I find myself motionless in the snow halfway to my knees, staring into the woods, praying I'm wrong.
Then the trees begin to fall.
First one, somewhere out in the mist. I can hear it groan and crack, straining to stay upright before succumbing to the irresistible force that assails it, and it crashes through the canopy towards me, snow tumbling down from the branches in its way.
Then another, closer, and I take a step back, the ice resisting my weight for a moment before splintering under my foot. Another tree falls, and another, more quickly now, but I'm frozen, unable even to flee, that first step back all I could muster. Terror rises in me, clawing at my throat something like a scream, and another tree falls. I feel the ground trembling with each step, my heart far outpacing the beat, though that lead is narrowing.
Finally two great trees tumble down before me, and I see it, through the falling snow and pine needles, steam billowing from its mouth in great clouds as it stares at me with a hate more pure and ancient than anything I can imagine. It bellows a roar at me, its ragged maw a mass of fangs framed by jagged tusks, and I break.
I turn on my heel and sprint away from the great beast, my feet punching through the ice and into the wet snow beneath as my legs pump furiously, frantically, trying to carry me away from this doom. The beast's roar echoes through the woods, shaking the snow loose from the branches above me, shaking my teeth in my head. As the roar echoes through the woods, I hear trees crashing down behind me, the earth shaking as my pursuer thunders after me.
I run through groves of the biggest and oldest trees, trying to find something, anything, to slow the beast, but it snaps them like kindling, laying low stately pines that stood tall when my father's father was a boy as if they were twigs. I cannot escape this thing.
I take long, leaping strides down the hillside and across the riverbank, reaching the frozen river. I can race along the rough, pitted ice all the way to the village, definitely faster than struggling through the wet snow that has soaked through my furs, chilling my feet. I run along the ice, the sinking sun throwing my shadow out before me. I'll be back at the village soon. I'll be back with my wife-
My wife.
I stop suddenly, skidding on the uneven surface of the ice, and turn back. The beast crashes through the treeline on high on the riverbank, leaping down towards the river, its long, matted fur trailing behind it in the air. Watching this creature, the hate and bloodthirst in its eyes, its cracked and stained claws and fangs, I know I cannot lead it back to the village, to her. My father's father told me they'd fought one before, in his father's time. They'd driven it away, but at great cost and after great suffering. He wasn't able to protect his wife, and he was a man ten feet tall. So what hope have I?
The beast crashes to earth, smashing right through the thick river ice, bellowing its rage as it sinks into the surging water, great chunks of ice as thick as my leg sailing through the air, tossed like leaves. I know what I must do.
I wait on the river until I see the beast's head rise from the black water, already beginning to climb up onto the ice. I wait for it to see me, and then I run again, up the riverbank and away, back into the trees and into the fading sunlight.
I hear ice cracking like thunder behind me, the river ice shuddering and giving way under the weight of the beast, under the intensity of its pursuit, and I keep running.
My feet are blocks of ice, the furs wrapping them soaked through and matted with ice and snow, growing heavier at the ends of my leaden legs, but I keep running.
My lungs burn, the winter air slicing down my throat and into my chest like a knife, my beard crusting with the frost of my breath, coming out of my mouth in great gouts of steam, tears running down from my eyes as I flee, trees crashing down behind me as the beast pursues, gaining ground, getting ever closer, its stink preceding it, choking the desperate breaths out of me, but I keep running.
Finally, as I can feel its breath upon my neck, its claws tearing at my trailing hides, I break through the treeline and into the clearing atop the cliff overlooking the valley, my village somewhere below, safely out of sight around the bends and twists in the river. I stop, doubled over, at the cliff's edge, my chest heaving, my lungs burning. I grit my teeth and my choked sobs are carried off by the winter wind across the valley.
I whirl, pulling free my father's stone knife as I cast aside my hides and furs, and I stand to face the beast, gasping for breath, weeping and desperate, damned and terrified. I choke out my last breaths and raise knife, defiant and hopeless, praying I've led it far enough away from the village.
It lumbers slowly towards me, a growl deep in its throat sounding like a laugh.
I plant my feet and hold the stone blade out before me.
For her.
18 May 2015
May 12, 2015
Sins of omission
The flashlight plays across the rusted cans and stacks of flaking magazines on the shelves as I slowly sweep it across the room, breathing slow and shallow, straining to hear anything in the silence that hangs thick and heavy in the basement. This far down, past three dry bodies and through two heavy doors, the relentless wind outside is a memory, its sudden absence turning even this silent room deafening.
Particles of dust dance in the flashlight's beam, pinwheeling and pirouetting through the air, disturbed for the first time in how many years? God knows. Or he would, if he hadn't abandoned this hell, left it to burn and rot a lifetime ago, his grand experiment deemed an irredeemable failure. Can't say as I blame him.
The dust lays thick on the floor, presenting arcane messages written in a calligraphy of rat trails and ash drifts. I fight the urge to cough, an urge growing more insistent by the day, I've noticed, though I'm loath to let my companions know just how bad things have gotten. I suspect somehow they know already: they can smell weakness, their kind. They can taste it. I imagine it must be an overpowering stench in this ruined world, and almost laugh, not able to remember the last time I was so thankful to find myself lacking.
I pass the flashlight back across the room, satisfied there's nothing to find here, nothing worth choking down more of this dust for, anyway, and that laugh breaks free, becoming a cough that rips through me, weakening my knees and caving my chest as I hack, deep and wet, tears coming to my eyes.
In the silence before I can haul a breath into my flooding lungs I hear something, a gasp, a whisper, and I freeze, immediately alert, my eyes and ears straining to find the source of the sound while my lungs burn, desperate for the breath I choked off before it could do me any good.
I whip the flashlight to my left and for a moment I see it, a pair of eyes glittering in the dark, staring at me from behind a century's worth of TV Guides and bloated tin cans, split open by the force of their own decay, now long dry and dusty.
I blink the tears out of my eyes and try to find her, the girl hiding in the darkness with me, from me, but she's silent as a dream and she blows away into the dark like a cobweb. Her eyes stay with me, though: wide and deep, ringed by bony eye sockets under taut skin the color of nothing I can remember seeing, not for a long time. The moon, maybe. White and almost translucent, so thin and delicate you wouldn't even touch it for fear of spoiling it, tearing it.
I cough again, feeling something move inside me that shouldn't, and after several long moments regain my breath, wheezing harshly as I pass the flashlight's beam across the room again. How she survived, survives, down here in this tomb I have no earthly idea. How many more there might be is another question I can't answer, as I hear her chittering in the dark, like a rat. But then, I tell myself, maybe that's all it was anyway.
I back out of the room and through the heavy door, making my way back upstairs to the world, to the driving wind and the grit it carries, to the animals that walk like men that I find myself travelling with. She's better off down in the dark, alone and starving, than up here with the likes of these survivors. I know what designs they have for the women they find, what foul sin and wickedness they visit upon them and carve into their flesh, and while I'm too weak to stand against them, I have no desire to assist them in realizing these depravities.
I thump up the stairs and into the blinding sunlight, drawing my mask back across my face as I reach the burned-out remains of the first floor where my companions have already rifled through the desiccated remains found here and have grown bored and anxious to move on in waiting for my return. I meet their expectant stares.
"Just rats."
12 May 2015
Particles of dust dance in the flashlight's beam, pinwheeling and pirouetting through the air, disturbed for the first time in how many years? God knows. Or he would, if he hadn't abandoned this hell, left it to burn and rot a lifetime ago, his grand experiment deemed an irredeemable failure. Can't say as I blame him.
The dust lays thick on the floor, presenting arcane messages written in a calligraphy of rat trails and ash drifts. I fight the urge to cough, an urge growing more insistent by the day, I've noticed, though I'm loath to let my companions know just how bad things have gotten. I suspect somehow they know already: they can smell weakness, their kind. They can taste it. I imagine it must be an overpowering stench in this ruined world, and almost laugh, not able to remember the last time I was so thankful to find myself lacking.
I pass the flashlight back across the room, satisfied there's nothing to find here, nothing worth choking down more of this dust for, anyway, and that laugh breaks free, becoming a cough that rips through me, weakening my knees and caving my chest as I hack, deep and wet, tears coming to my eyes.
In the silence before I can haul a breath into my flooding lungs I hear something, a gasp, a whisper, and I freeze, immediately alert, my eyes and ears straining to find the source of the sound while my lungs burn, desperate for the breath I choked off before it could do me any good.
I whip the flashlight to my left and for a moment I see it, a pair of eyes glittering in the dark, staring at me from behind a century's worth of TV Guides and bloated tin cans, split open by the force of their own decay, now long dry and dusty.
I blink the tears out of my eyes and try to find her, the girl hiding in the darkness with me, from me, but she's silent as a dream and she blows away into the dark like a cobweb. Her eyes stay with me, though: wide and deep, ringed by bony eye sockets under taut skin the color of nothing I can remember seeing, not for a long time. The moon, maybe. White and almost translucent, so thin and delicate you wouldn't even touch it for fear of spoiling it, tearing it.
I cough again, feeling something move inside me that shouldn't, and after several long moments regain my breath, wheezing harshly as I pass the flashlight's beam across the room again. How she survived, survives, down here in this tomb I have no earthly idea. How many more there might be is another question I can't answer, as I hear her chittering in the dark, like a rat. But then, I tell myself, maybe that's all it was anyway.
I back out of the room and through the heavy door, making my way back upstairs to the world, to the driving wind and the grit it carries, to the animals that walk like men that I find myself travelling with. She's better off down in the dark, alone and starving, than up here with the likes of these survivors. I know what designs they have for the women they find, what foul sin and wickedness they visit upon them and carve into their flesh, and while I'm too weak to stand against them, I have no desire to assist them in realizing these depravities.
I thump up the stairs and into the blinding sunlight, drawing my mask back across my face as I reach the burned-out remains of the first floor where my companions have already rifled through the desiccated remains found here and have grown bored and anxious to move on in waiting for my return. I meet their expectant stares.
"Just rats."
12 May 2015
April 3, 2015
Any and everything
The wind brings her mass of brown curls to life, swirling around her head almost in slow motion as she rises. She smiles, her eyes closed, as she turns towards the sun, letting it play across her face for a long moment. Finally she opens her eyes and spots her target. I tighten my grip on her belt as she raises her weapon, pulling it tight into her shoulder and leaning into the recoil as she fires. The car ahead of us bucks and swerves, betraying sudden panic. She drops an empty magazine at our feet and I press a fresh one into her waiting hand. As it retreats I see her looking back down at me through the window she's leaning out of, still smiling. She's the most beautiful woman in the world.
29 March 2015
29 March 2015
March 15, 2015
Running backwards
I cast off from the dock and strain against the oars, the gentle slap of waves on the hull accompanying the rhythmic sounds of my efforts. I watch my lands recede slowly before me, sea ice thumping past my boat and swirling into my wake, seeming to close my path behind me and follow me out of the cove.
I pull harder on the oars, driving my boat against the current, through the frozen sea, larger pieces of ice diverting me, resisting, but unable to turn me from my path. A gentle wind begins to blow against my back, casting my hair into my face, my eyes, sticking to the sweat already formed on my forehead.
I rage at this and throw myself against the oars, dragging them through the field of ice closing in around me. I lean back on them, my joints cracking and popping, the oarlocks screaming in protest. I can't bear to turn and set my gaze upon the sheet of ice in my path, and so again I throw myself backward, the flesh of my hands tearing as I stare at my home, dead and empty, lost to the cold. My boat groans in protest of my efforts, every board and plank straining and creaking, as desperate to let go as I am to hold on.
The ice seizes the oars, refusing to release them, refusing to give even an inch's passage. I clench my eyes shut tightly, and again I throw myself against the oars, redoubling my grip against the betrayal my blood presents, the slickened wood threatening to escape me at any moment, and then it happens: an oar snaps, and with it the oarlock. I tumble backwards against the mast, still clinging to the handle of the oar and rising just in time to see the splintered shaft of my oar slip under the ice.
I rise and seize my remaining oar, yanking it free of the clinging ice and raise it over my head, crying out my fury and despair as I turn and bring it down on the sheet of ice at the bow, feeling the impact shudder up my arms as I'm sprayed with tiny bits of ice, my desperate attack having only the meanest effect on the ice. Again and again I raise the oar high and bring it down, my cries breaking down to choked sobs as my desperation sees my confidence flag.
I set the blade of the oar down on the ice and lean my head against my hands, still gripping the handle. The fog of my breath swirls about me in the new stillness, my heavy, shuddering breathing the only sound to my ears.
Then I think I hear her voice whisper past my ear before that too is taken from me, snatched up and carried off to sea by a sudden breeze from across the ice. I raise my head, now smeared with the sticky blood from my hands, and I swear I can feel a lingering warmth across my cheek, half-remembered as a lover's sigh upon waking, fading as quickly as it came, taking my strength with it.
My shoulders sag and my head bows, but then without a sound the oar slips through the ice and into the sea, loosing itself from my grip and disappearing into the brine where the vast sheet of ice before me has split and gently opened, a path to the bosom of the sea gradually widening as I look on.
I raise my sail and see it ripple slowly in the gentle breeze, filling reluctantly and coaxing my boat forward through the ice to the open sea. I seat myself at the rear of my boat, my hand on the tiller, and close my eyes, letting the breeze play across my face as it slowly carries me out of sight of land.
I pull harder on the oars, driving my boat against the current, through the frozen sea, larger pieces of ice diverting me, resisting, but unable to turn me from my path. A gentle wind begins to blow against my back, casting my hair into my face, my eyes, sticking to the sweat already formed on my forehead.
My oars fight to find purchase in the sea, scraping atop shattered sheets of ice that ripple and convulse at my passing, however slow and labored.
My progress is halted with a jolt as I meet a sheet of ice too wide and far too obstinate to be turned aside. I lift my head and look to my lands, fallow and gray. No smoke rises from my chimney, no hides hang drying. I set my teeth and plant my feet, pulling against the oars with all the strength I can muster. As I strain against the ice, fragments of the sheets around me bump and jostle, knocking against the hull and each other. I reset my grip and again pull on the oars, my breath hissing out from between my teeth, and I watch as the sea ice gathers around my boat, crowding in close, seeking to resume its previous form, a solid sheet, impassable by boat, yet unable to bear my weight on foot.
I rage at this and throw myself against the oars, dragging them through the field of ice closing in around me. I lean back on them, my joints cracking and popping, the oarlocks screaming in protest. I can't bear to turn and set my gaze upon the sheet of ice in my path, and so again I throw myself backward, the flesh of my hands tearing as I stare at my home, dead and empty, lost to the cold. My boat groans in protest of my efforts, every board and plank straining and creaking, as desperate to let go as I am to hold on.
The ice seizes the oars, refusing to release them, refusing to give even an inch's passage. I clench my eyes shut tightly, and again I throw myself against the oars, redoubling my grip against the betrayal my blood presents, the slickened wood threatening to escape me at any moment, and then it happens: an oar snaps, and with it the oarlock. I tumble backwards against the mast, still clinging to the handle of the oar and rising just in time to see the splintered shaft of my oar slip under the ice.
I rise and seize my remaining oar, yanking it free of the clinging ice and raise it over my head, crying out my fury and despair as I turn and bring it down on the sheet of ice at the bow, feeling the impact shudder up my arms as I'm sprayed with tiny bits of ice, my desperate attack having only the meanest effect on the ice. Again and again I raise the oar high and bring it down, my cries breaking down to choked sobs as my desperation sees my confidence flag.
I set the blade of the oar down on the ice and lean my head against my hands, still gripping the handle. The fog of my breath swirls about me in the new stillness, my heavy, shuddering breathing the only sound to my ears.
Then I think I hear her voice whisper past my ear before that too is taken from me, snatched up and carried off to sea by a sudden breeze from across the ice. I raise my head, now smeared with the sticky blood from my hands, and I swear I can feel a lingering warmth across my cheek, half-remembered as a lover's sigh upon waking, fading as quickly as it came, taking my strength with it.
My shoulders sag and my head bows, but then without a sound the oar slips through the ice and into the sea, loosing itself from my grip and disappearing into the brine where the vast sheet of ice before me has split and gently opened, a path to the bosom of the sea gradually widening as I look on.
I raise my sail and see it ripple slowly in the gentle breeze, filling reluctantly and coaxing my boat forward through the ice to the open sea. I seat myself at the rear of my boat, my hand on the tiller, and close my eyes, letting the breeze play across my face as it slowly carries me out of sight of land.
4 March 2015
December 9, 2013
Inheritors
The haft of the axe feels familiar in my hands as I look out through the darkness. The rain lashes against me, but I was soaked to the skin the moment I walked outside, and I don't imagine I can get much wetter. Lightning slithers across the sky, touching down somewhere to the east, somewhere in the valley, and for a moment all the land is bathed in a pale light. I can see the fence to the corral is broken. I'll have to see to that tomorrow. In the meantime the animals are too scared to run away. Part of me wishes I knew what that felt like.
I take one step, then another, wringing the axe handle in my fists, and then the thunder rolls across the plain, shaking my heart loose in my chest. I feel it through my feet, in my bones, before I hear it, louder than anything in years, rumbling up through the valley like a megaphone, the mouth of some demon cast down to this purgatory with the rest of us.
Another bolt of lightning arcs through the sky and that's when I see the tracks, an uneven stride betrayed by the footprints, unnatural deep, in the mud, filled with water, already half-drowned in the deluge. I tighten my grip and turn around slowly in the yard, eyes narrowed against the rain. Not that it matters. The land is bathed in darkness and me right along with it, the only light coming from my doorway, weak and tentative, casting shadows more than illuminating.
But then I see it, off to the east, below the horizon somewhere, somewhere in the valley where that lightning hit, there's a glow, faint and cold, but it's there, otherworldly and altogether unpleasant. It's not much of a light, on a clear night with the moon out you wouldn't see it at all, but in this black it's shining clear across the plain, through the rain and right into my soul. Then I see the figures moving with their damaged gaits exaggerated against the glow, casting shadows a mile long behind them. First one, then two. Then five. Moving towards the glow, moving down into the valley, and I am afraid.
I hear a heavy footstep on the threshold behind me and I stand stock-still, and suddenly I know that the axe I carry is as useless as the arms that hold it, dead and numb. I close my eyes tight, trying to will this fate away, but I know better. Nobody dies in their bed anymore.
It steps down from the porch and I can hear it breathing. My vision goes white and I think for a second about my end, but then the thunder crashes and, jarring every thought from my head and all there is is the rain and the fear and that thing beside me, slogging through the mud, breathing, breathing.
It moves past me, heading off into the storm towards the valley and that glow, and soon its sound is lost in the night.
Long after it's gone I'm still standing there, breathing slow and hard, and I turn back to my house and walk to it, never again turning my gaze to the valley and that terrible glow. I bar the door behind me and set the lamp on the table. I sit with my back to the wall, the axe across my knees, and I wait.
9 December 2013
I take one step, then another, wringing the axe handle in my fists, and then the thunder rolls across the plain, shaking my heart loose in my chest. I feel it through my feet, in my bones, before I hear it, louder than anything in years, rumbling up through the valley like a megaphone, the mouth of some demon cast down to this purgatory with the rest of us.
Another bolt of lightning arcs through the sky and that's when I see the tracks, an uneven stride betrayed by the footprints, unnatural deep, in the mud, filled with water, already half-drowned in the deluge. I tighten my grip and turn around slowly in the yard, eyes narrowed against the rain. Not that it matters. The land is bathed in darkness and me right along with it, the only light coming from my doorway, weak and tentative, casting shadows more than illuminating.
But then I see it, off to the east, below the horizon somewhere, somewhere in the valley where that lightning hit, there's a glow, faint and cold, but it's there, otherworldly and altogether unpleasant. It's not much of a light, on a clear night with the moon out you wouldn't see it at all, but in this black it's shining clear across the plain, through the rain and right into my soul. Then I see the figures moving with their damaged gaits exaggerated against the glow, casting shadows a mile long behind them. First one, then two. Then five. Moving towards the glow, moving down into the valley, and I am afraid.
I hear a heavy footstep on the threshold behind me and I stand stock-still, and suddenly I know that the axe I carry is as useless as the arms that hold it, dead and numb. I close my eyes tight, trying to will this fate away, but I know better. Nobody dies in their bed anymore.
It steps down from the porch and I can hear it breathing. My vision goes white and I think for a second about my end, but then the thunder crashes and, jarring every thought from my head and all there is is the rain and the fear and that thing beside me, slogging through the mud, breathing, breathing.
It moves past me, heading off into the storm towards the valley and that glow, and soon its sound is lost in the night.
Long after it's gone I'm still standing there, breathing slow and hard, and I turn back to my house and walk to it, never again turning my gaze to the valley and that terrible glow. I bar the door behind me and set the lamp on the table. I sit with my back to the wall, the axe across my knees, and I wait.
9 December 2013
November 25, 2013
Joe Cocker
I'm on my feet before Sly gets a word out. Jack's in trouble, he says, and I'm out the door with him in tow.
He tells me the rest on the way. What he knows of it anyway. Jack talked a lot about getting out, but Jack talked a lot about everything. Talk is cheap, but getting out is something else. We all know that. That's the price you pay. Or one of them, anyway.
Getting in's the easy part, but even that's not that easy. You typically need to have brains if you want to make it in this business, Sly being an exception, and if you have brains you tend to stay away from this business. There are other considerations, but a handful of brains and a willingness to turn them off when the time comes are what I would consider two prerequisites for employment in this field. After that, a capacity for violence, loyalty, ambition, these are all good things. But hardly necessary.
We're flying across town, headed to a brownstone on the west side by the tracks. Sly's telling me Jack's big plan blew up, his way out fell apart, and everything's going to pieces. The plan itself was an issue from the start, and I'm not surprised he never discussed it with me. If you want to get out in a method that leaves you breathing and breathing free air, then a plan is fundamental. Planning was always Jack's strong suit, so I'm surprised it went tits up until I hear the details.
That's the other thing: you typically feel the need to pull one last job, a big one, on your way out. You need to be sure you'll never have to work again, mostly because you'll never be able to. You won't be able to trade under your given name, so you have to figure something else out. If you want to throw some paperwork together and pump gas under the name of Scott Peterson or something to make ends meet, be my guest. As for me, when my time comes, I intend to disappear and whoop it up until the money runs out. Which, if I do it right, it shouldn't.
The other issue with leaving is you'll find that interested parties might have an issue with you pulling up stakes after making yourself a nice living under their protection, or at their expense, depending. Some of these parties might feel like you owe them something, whether that's a lifetime's worth of ill-gotten gains, or, say, all the blood in your body. It's easy to make enemies in this business, and hard to live with them. That's why you want to have friends, friends that'll fly out of a diner at a thousand miles an hour when they hear you're shot up on the west side after pulling some damn fool nonsense more likely to get you killed than get you a way out.
We pull up to the brownstone next to the tracks and jump out, engine running and doors open: I don't plan on being here any longer than it takes to drag Jack down here and throw him in the back seat, and Sly's wild-eyed, but I can tell he's on the same page. We're not going to have a lot of time to get this done, not in this neighborhood, not with lookouts calling us out as soon as we crossed Wentworth. But these are the things you do.
We take the stairs two, three at a time, calling out for Jackie Boy the whole time.Up on three the door's cracked and I crash through it, Sly right behind me. We tear through the place (dead man on terrible green shag, another halfway out of the bathroom) and I hear Jack call my name from one of the bedrooms.
I burst into the room and stop short. First thing I see is Jack, one foot on the windowsill, curtains blowing around him. Second thing is Bernie, Beautiful Bernie, in bed, not moving, the girl with him hanging halfway out, head on the floor, she's not moving either. More blood than I've seen in a while. This was not the plan. This is a death sentence. You don't get to walk away after something like this. I can't tell if there's a train coming or if it's the blood rushing in my ears, but I can hear the footsteps coming up the stairs, five, six, a hundred guys, here for vengeance.
Jack gives me a sad smile, blood on his teeth. Don't think less of me, he says, and he's out the window and gone.
Not a bad plan.
11 November 2013
He tells me the rest on the way. What he knows of it anyway. Jack talked a lot about getting out, but Jack talked a lot about everything. Talk is cheap, but getting out is something else. We all know that. That's the price you pay. Or one of them, anyway.
Getting in's the easy part, but even that's not that easy. You typically need to have brains if you want to make it in this business, Sly being an exception, and if you have brains you tend to stay away from this business. There are other considerations, but a handful of brains and a willingness to turn them off when the time comes are what I would consider two prerequisites for employment in this field. After that, a capacity for violence, loyalty, ambition, these are all good things. But hardly necessary.
We're flying across town, headed to a brownstone on the west side by the tracks. Sly's telling me Jack's big plan blew up, his way out fell apart, and everything's going to pieces. The plan itself was an issue from the start, and I'm not surprised he never discussed it with me. If you want to get out in a method that leaves you breathing and breathing free air, then a plan is fundamental. Planning was always Jack's strong suit, so I'm surprised it went tits up until I hear the details.
That's the other thing: you typically feel the need to pull one last job, a big one, on your way out. You need to be sure you'll never have to work again, mostly because you'll never be able to. You won't be able to trade under your given name, so you have to figure something else out. If you want to throw some paperwork together and pump gas under the name of Scott Peterson or something to make ends meet, be my guest. As for me, when my time comes, I intend to disappear and whoop it up until the money runs out. Which, if I do it right, it shouldn't.
The other issue with leaving is you'll find that interested parties might have an issue with you pulling up stakes after making yourself a nice living under their protection, or at their expense, depending. Some of these parties might feel like you owe them something, whether that's a lifetime's worth of ill-gotten gains, or, say, all the blood in your body. It's easy to make enemies in this business, and hard to live with them. That's why you want to have friends, friends that'll fly out of a diner at a thousand miles an hour when they hear you're shot up on the west side after pulling some damn fool nonsense more likely to get you killed than get you a way out.
We pull up to the brownstone next to the tracks and jump out, engine running and doors open: I don't plan on being here any longer than it takes to drag Jack down here and throw him in the back seat, and Sly's wild-eyed, but I can tell he's on the same page. We're not going to have a lot of time to get this done, not in this neighborhood, not with lookouts calling us out as soon as we crossed Wentworth. But these are the things you do.
We take the stairs two, three at a time, calling out for Jackie Boy the whole time.Up on three the door's cracked and I crash through it, Sly right behind me. We tear through the place (dead man on terrible green shag, another halfway out of the bathroom) and I hear Jack call my name from one of the bedrooms.
I burst into the room and stop short. First thing I see is Jack, one foot on the windowsill, curtains blowing around him. Second thing is Bernie, Beautiful Bernie, in bed, not moving, the girl with him hanging halfway out, head on the floor, she's not moving either. More blood than I've seen in a while. This was not the plan. This is a death sentence. You don't get to walk away after something like this. I can't tell if there's a train coming or if it's the blood rushing in my ears, but I can hear the footsteps coming up the stairs, five, six, a hundred guys, here for vengeance.
Jack gives me a sad smile, blood on his teeth. Don't think less of me, he says, and he's out the window and gone.
Not a bad plan.
11 November 2013
October 10, 2012
Old time romance
We watch long enough for the whole building to go up, the flames casting shadows on the sky a thousand feet high, before we disappear, almost before you can hear the sirens.
10 October 2012
10 October 2012
October 9, 2012
Plans and promises
The white and purple flowers shiver in the breeze, just out of reach. I wish I could tell you what they are, what they're called, but I've never seen them before today. I suppose that's not much of a regret to have, not when compared to the laundry list that's been rolling through my mind for the last hour, but in a way this one stings more than the others. I'm not one to cry in public, and I suppose this counts, so I try to keep it to myself. It's a good way to go crazy, always acting like somebody's watching, and I always figured in the end it would be for the best to stay well-behaved, and yet here I am. So much for that.
I try to work my way closer to the flowers, but my legs aren't cooperating and I couldn't drag myself along with one arm anyways, even if I wasn't spilling out everywhere. The shivers are weaker now, fewer and farther between, too. Cold comfort, I guess, but I'll take it. I'm a little surprised I'm not colder, what with the dew and the dark and that tugging breeze, but again, I'll take it. At least it's quiet, peaceful.
I think about her and how she'd hate me if she heard this, how she'd tell everyone who'd listen, and I think I'm glad at this point she won't hear a thing about it. There's no one left to breathe a word of this, this absolute disaster, to her, to cause that crooked smile to drop, slow, to introduce doubt and fear to her eyes and denial to her heart and lips. It's better this way and I suppose, somewhere I chose and choose to avert my gaze from, I always knew it would be like this, and I think in some way I welcome it.
My breathing is slow and shallow and the blood is thick and sticky on my hand. I'd say I've given up on anyone coming along and finding me, but I honestly never entertained the possibility. Besides, that's a great way to ruin a moment, a sunrise like this, some idiot yammering on, just spewing noise and confusion and stupidity, and I'd like to enjoy this morning, to the best of my ability, and preserve a bit of quiet dignity, if at all possible. I wish I could say that was the reason I've been so quiet, suffering in silence and all, but there are practicalities at play that have a way of relieving me of my choice in the matter. I guess I'm just glad I can still appreciate what poetry there's left for me at this point.
I'm watching the sunrise that should be breaking over the horizon, watching the sky that should be easing itself towards day, shafts of sunlight burning off the mist, bringing warmth and light into the world once more, but instead it's getting dimmer and I still can't quite reach those flowers, turning to face the dawn.
9 October 2012
I try to work my way closer to the flowers, but my legs aren't cooperating and I couldn't drag myself along with one arm anyways, even if I wasn't spilling out everywhere. The shivers are weaker now, fewer and farther between, too. Cold comfort, I guess, but I'll take it. I'm a little surprised I'm not colder, what with the dew and the dark and that tugging breeze, but again, I'll take it. At least it's quiet, peaceful.
I think about her and how she'd hate me if she heard this, how she'd tell everyone who'd listen, and I think I'm glad at this point she won't hear a thing about it. There's no one left to breathe a word of this, this absolute disaster, to her, to cause that crooked smile to drop, slow, to introduce doubt and fear to her eyes and denial to her heart and lips. It's better this way and I suppose, somewhere I chose and choose to avert my gaze from, I always knew it would be like this, and I think in some way I welcome it.
My breathing is slow and shallow and the blood is thick and sticky on my hand. I'd say I've given up on anyone coming along and finding me, but I honestly never entertained the possibility. Besides, that's a great way to ruin a moment, a sunrise like this, some idiot yammering on, just spewing noise and confusion and stupidity, and I'd like to enjoy this morning, to the best of my ability, and preserve a bit of quiet dignity, if at all possible. I wish I could say that was the reason I've been so quiet, suffering in silence and all, but there are practicalities at play that have a way of relieving me of my choice in the matter. I guess I'm just glad I can still appreciate what poetry there's left for me at this point.
I'm watching the sunrise that should be breaking over the horizon, watching the sky that should be easing itself towards day, shafts of sunlight burning off the mist, bringing warmth and light into the world once more, but instead it's getting dimmer and I still can't quite reach those flowers, turning to face the dawn.
9 October 2012
September 4, 2012
Revealed by degree
We roll into town around midday, the boy still bleeding in the back. I look through the dust-caked windshield and take in the main drag, roofs hanging over walkways casting shadows pitch black compared to the glare of the sand, almost white. I check the pistol again and stow it, the other one under the dash in case anyone gets too close while I'm gone.
"I'll be right back," I tell her and jump out of the cab. She latches the door behind me almost before I hit the ground. She's a good kid; she knows what to do.
The sand's so hot I can feel it through my boots. Used to be you could still see patches of asphalt here and there, traces of ancient roads that once stretched from horizon to horizon, roads the masters of this world built before turning it into a cinder, still crackling and hissing in the sun, a perpetual desert, ash covering everything the sand can't. This world was a different place not so long ago. Long enough the little ones never knew it, but not so long ago as to be lost completely. Most of those you meet now can't remember the way it was, or won't, anyway. I suppose I understand that. The ones that could remember often found they couldn't forget, couldn't force this new world to make sense and couldn't find a place in it. Most of them have managed to find their way out of it by now.
A moment to stretch my back is about all I can stand out in the sun, so I make my way up onto one of the walkways and let my eyes adjust to the shade. The walkway runs off into the distance, stopping suddenly at the charred bones of a house or shop. I can't imagine what anyone'd be selling anymore, but I suppose opportunity springs eternal, even if nothing else does. The walkway across the road is battered, with loose boards popping up, twisted and gnarled, beneath holes rent in the roof, shafts of light stabbing through like puncture wounds.
There's no one outside, but there wouldn't be, this time of day. I make my way down the row of buildings, each shabbier than the last. A dry decay has settled into this town, beat down and on its last legs, but it's still a good step above the wasteland stretching out for eternity in every direction beyond these dessicated buildings. Though at least out there you can see death coming for you, striding across the sands, casting a shadow a mile long, ready to swallow you up. In the towns, in the ruins, there's death and danger around every corner and in every hidey-hole: cutthroats and rapers, slavers, the diseased. Cannibals. It seems sad that nowadays the safest life is the solitary one. If no one gets close, no one can hurt you. No one can sniff out your weakness, your fear, your need, and turn it on you. So you keep to yourself, keep moving, and stay away from the settlements. Except when you need something, which we do.
They're not likely to have medicine here, The good stuff, the old stuff, or the herbs and rags you find people that swear by, people missing eyes, people with weeping sores, people clutching themselves, racked with pain that won't abate. You have to trust it, they say: It's the power of belief. Well I don't and they do, and look at them.
The windows are battered and pitted, like the rest of the building, and so caked with sand and dust it flakes away under my touch. Even wiped clean I can't see inside, the darkness on the other side of the glass is impenetrable, hiding God knows what. The twisted shapes lurking within are creatures worse than any that ever strode the earth. Ghosts of decent men, driven beyond reason, molded and pounded into horrible new configurations, appropriate inheritors of this world of the dead and the dying.
I pound on the door and wait, any sound from within lost beneath the hiss of the unrelenting wind. I pound again and reach for the knob, but the door jerks open before I can touch it, open just a sliver, just wide enough for the barrel of a rifle to slink out.
"You get back in your rig and you get out of here."
The eyes behind the rifle are wide and wild, ringed by crow's feet. I tell her that we need medicine, that the boy is hurt, dying, and we need their help.
She doesn't falter, doesn't blink. "We don't want no trouble. Now whatever you brought here, you take it away with you."
I understand her decision. I imagine I would do the same thing. But all the same, it fills me with a great sadness. We've all of us become new beings to suit this new world, twisted reflections of the new landscape and the horrors it holds, our wickedness maybe not so new-found as some of us would like to believe, revealed by the same scouring wind that ground down the great towers and monuments to ourselves, leaving waste and ruin, girder ribcages with steel arms outstretched, broken and asymmetrical, clawing feebly at the sky. It seems some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy: that we have the ability to visit such evil upon each other marks us as deserving of that same evil. Our capacity to inflict suffering earns us the suffering we find ourselves able to inflict.
"You wish death upon the boy," I tell her, and back away from the door. I take another look at the battered remains of this town, this little pocket of humanity struggling to survive despite itself, and I walk back to the truck, the little one opening the door for me. I climb in and meet the girl's hopeful stare, but she should know better. I take a look back at the boy. He's pale, sleeping or unconscious. Medicine wouldn't have helped him anyway.
4 September 2012
"I'll be right back," I tell her and jump out of the cab. She latches the door behind me almost before I hit the ground. She's a good kid; she knows what to do.
The sand's so hot I can feel it through my boots. Used to be you could still see patches of asphalt here and there, traces of ancient roads that once stretched from horizon to horizon, roads the masters of this world built before turning it into a cinder, still crackling and hissing in the sun, a perpetual desert, ash covering everything the sand can't. This world was a different place not so long ago. Long enough the little ones never knew it, but not so long ago as to be lost completely. Most of those you meet now can't remember the way it was, or won't, anyway. I suppose I understand that. The ones that could remember often found they couldn't forget, couldn't force this new world to make sense and couldn't find a place in it. Most of them have managed to find their way out of it by now.
A moment to stretch my back is about all I can stand out in the sun, so I make my way up onto one of the walkways and let my eyes adjust to the shade. The walkway runs off into the distance, stopping suddenly at the charred bones of a house or shop. I can't imagine what anyone'd be selling anymore, but I suppose opportunity springs eternal, even if nothing else does. The walkway across the road is battered, with loose boards popping up, twisted and gnarled, beneath holes rent in the roof, shafts of light stabbing through like puncture wounds.
There's no one outside, but there wouldn't be, this time of day. I make my way down the row of buildings, each shabbier than the last. A dry decay has settled into this town, beat down and on its last legs, but it's still a good step above the wasteland stretching out for eternity in every direction beyond these dessicated buildings. Though at least out there you can see death coming for you, striding across the sands, casting a shadow a mile long, ready to swallow you up. In the towns, in the ruins, there's death and danger around every corner and in every hidey-hole: cutthroats and rapers, slavers, the diseased. Cannibals. It seems sad that nowadays the safest life is the solitary one. If no one gets close, no one can hurt you. No one can sniff out your weakness, your fear, your need, and turn it on you. So you keep to yourself, keep moving, and stay away from the settlements. Except when you need something, which we do.
They're not likely to have medicine here, The good stuff, the old stuff, or the herbs and rags you find people that swear by, people missing eyes, people with weeping sores, people clutching themselves, racked with pain that won't abate. You have to trust it, they say: It's the power of belief. Well I don't and they do, and look at them.
The windows are battered and pitted, like the rest of the building, and so caked with sand and dust it flakes away under my touch. Even wiped clean I can't see inside, the darkness on the other side of the glass is impenetrable, hiding God knows what. The twisted shapes lurking within are creatures worse than any that ever strode the earth. Ghosts of decent men, driven beyond reason, molded and pounded into horrible new configurations, appropriate inheritors of this world of the dead and the dying.
I pound on the door and wait, any sound from within lost beneath the hiss of the unrelenting wind. I pound again and reach for the knob, but the door jerks open before I can touch it, open just a sliver, just wide enough for the barrel of a rifle to slink out.
"You get back in your rig and you get out of here."
The eyes behind the rifle are wide and wild, ringed by crow's feet. I tell her that we need medicine, that the boy is hurt, dying, and we need their help.
She doesn't falter, doesn't blink. "We don't want no trouble. Now whatever you brought here, you take it away with you."
I understand her decision. I imagine I would do the same thing. But all the same, it fills me with a great sadness. We've all of us become new beings to suit this new world, twisted reflections of the new landscape and the horrors it holds, our wickedness maybe not so new-found as some of us would like to believe, revealed by the same scouring wind that ground down the great towers and monuments to ourselves, leaving waste and ruin, girder ribcages with steel arms outstretched, broken and asymmetrical, clawing feebly at the sky. It seems some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy: that we have the ability to visit such evil upon each other marks us as deserving of that same evil. Our capacity to inflict suffering earns us the suffering we find ourselves able to inflict.
"You wish death upon the boy," I tell her, and back away from the door. I take another look at the battered remains of this town, this little pocket of humanity struggling to survive despite itself, and I walk back to the truck, the little one opening the door for me. I climb in and meet the girl's hopeful stare, but she should know better. I take a look back at the boy. He's pale, sleeping or unconscious. Medicine wouldn't have helped him anyway.
4 September 2012
August 1, 2012
Made of stone
We steal up the steps and into the church, the doors swinging lazily, refusing to close. I'm confident no one saw, but she's convinced. I don't know if the shadows here are deep enough for her to hide, to feel safe, but if not here, then where? This is supposed to be some kind of sanctuary, but I can't tell if those eyes are looking down on us with pity or accusation. Hundreds of eyes in hundreds of faces, staring down from pedestals and windows, not so different, as it turns out, from the very same eyes and stares that drove us in here, into the dark.
She's breathing hard, a knife edge on each quick gasp. She won't look at me, and I know why. I leave her to her thoughts and walk deeper into the church. My hand hovers over the holy water font, miming the forgotten gesture with a mind all its own. I look into the yawning dark and see no one, no one to cast us out, to see us for what we may be, to hold up that mirror that we've worked so hard to convince ourselves is distorted, twisted. It seems we may find peace here after all.
The door slams in its frame, knocking itself open again, the resonating boom echoing through the church, repeated a thousand times, the voice of judgement, perhaps. But the sound diminishes, and disappears. This place holds no terrors for us, no great unknown. We'll be safe here if only because it's empty.
I draw her deeper into the church, slowed to her stilted pace, and keep my arm around her. When she does look up, her face is streaked with tears. It was before, too, and my response, my rage, is to blame for our flight, our need to run and hide and not be seen. Her tears have always had that effect on me and I have never seen it as something that needs to be controlled or tempered. If she does she's never said so. Something leads me to believe it's a welcome response, proof somehow that the world still makes some sort of broken sense. And if she needs that from me, if I can provide some bent compass rose to her, then all the better. I'm happy to do it.
But this time her tears weaken me, and I hold her tight. I don't know quite how to do this, but I try and find that she seems to approve of the results, though I feel awkward and weak, uncomfortable and embarrassed. It's stupid of me, and I know it, but there's nothing for me to destroy here, nothing to break in order to fix her, so I have to do my best in unfamiliar territory. There's a weakness in her that I love, that I find myself protecting like a flame, holding it gently, against everything else there is that seems to want to crush it. Sometimes I'm able to open my hands and let it go, to let it soar and wheel through the air, reveling in a beauty I can't detect or fathom. When it flies high enough to leave me behind I'm left with traces, dust on my fingers from a moth's wings, sitting silent on the edge of the bed, paint peeling around me.
But it crashes to earth, it always does. The gravity of this place is just too much to escape, no matter how light your soul is, how overwhelming your need to be free. So I rush back to protect it, to put it back together and let it heal and forget.
Her breathing is even now, and slow, punctuated by the sniffles of a child. I know she didn't want to come here, but where else was there to go? Soon she'll lean against me and we'll make this place our own. Her eyes will close and I'll lie beside her.
1 August 2012
She's breathing hard, a knife edge on each quick gasp. She won't look at me, and I know why. I leave her to her thoughts and walk deeper into the church. My hand hovers over the holy water font, miming the forgotten gesture with a mind all its own. I look into the yawning dark and see no one, no one to cast us out, to see us for what we may be, to hold up that mirror that we've worked so hard to convince ourselves is distorted, twisted. It seems we may find peace here after all.
The door slams in its frame, knocking itself open again, the resonating boom echoing through the church, repeated a thousand times, the voice of judgement, perhaps. But the sound diminishes, and disappears. This place holds no terrors for us, no great unknown. We'll be safe here if only because it's empty.
I draw her deeper into the church, slowed to her stilted pace, and keep my arm around her. When she does look up, her face is streaked with tears. It was before, too, and my response, my rage, is to blame for our flight, our need to run and hide and not be seen. Her tears have always had that effect on me and I have never seen it as something that needs to be controlled or tempered. If she does she's never said so. Something leads me to believe it's a welcome response, proof somehow that the world still makes some sort of broken sense. And if she needs that from me, if I can provide some bent compass rose to her, then all the better. I'm happy to do it.
But this time her tears weaken me, and I hold her tight. I don't know quite how to do this, but I try and find that she seems to approve of the results, though I feel awkward and weak, uncomfortable and embarrassed. It's stupid of me, and I know it, but there's nothing for me to destroy here, nothing to break in order to fix her, so I have to do my best in unfamiliar territory. There's a weakness in her that I love, that I find myself protecting like a flame, holding it gently, against everything else there is that seems to want to crush it. Sometimes I'm able to open my hands and let it go, to let it soar and wheel through the air, reveling in a beauty I can't detect or fathom. When it flies high enough to leave me behind I'm left with traces, dust on my fingers from a moth's wings, sitting silent on the edge of the bed, paint peeling around me.
But it crashes to earth, it always does. The gravity of this place is just too much to escape, no matter how light your soul is, how overwhelming your need to be free. So I rush back to protect it, to put it back together and let it heal and forget.
Her breathing is even now, and slow, punctuated by the sniffles of a child. I know she didn't want to come here, but where else was there to go? Soon she'll lean against me and we'll make this place our own. Her eyes will close and I'll lie beside her.
1 August 2012
May 24, 2012
Zeno
Mick starts talking about all the girls he fucked, and I don't want to hear it. I've heard this story about a dozen times and I don't believe a word of it. Well that's not fair. I guess I just don't believe the word "hundreds".
Mick didn't talk at first, and that was nice. I thought we'd be able to just lie here, waiting, in peace and quiet, the only sound our labored breathing, but I guess he tired of that eventually and opened his mouth. He'd asked me if I knew how many girls he'd had, and I told him I didn't. I didn't ask for any more information and he didn't offer it, so we went back to silence, just breathing and waiting.
"Three," he says. After a second I look up at him and he's looking right at me. He gives a little nod and repeats it, and this time I have to ask.
One is some girl I never heard of, not that I should have, as from the sound of her she was just some truck stop whore off the turnpike. I don't know many who paid for their first, and I'm comfortable saying I know less who would admit to it, but there you go.
He tells me about her and honestly he paints a pretty picture. Obviously I got the sense to not fall in love with the first girl to throw a piece my way, much less a whore, but Mick's not the most worldly of individuals, as is becoming clear. It sounds like the cutoffs are what did it for him, what made him pick her out of all the girls working that night, and I guess if he felt like he got his money's worth then that's all right, but I'll tell you, I'll take tight over short any day of the week and not think twice about it. It's entirely likely that says more about me than him, but there it is.
The whore was all right though, he says. She was nice, she was sweet. She kept her bra on and took her shoes off and Mick didn't know which way was up by the end. She had big eyes and dark roots and the way he talks about her you can tell he was thinking about how he's gonna save her from all this and take her away somewhere, give her a good life, make her happy, be the one that she turns it all around for and everything else, every fairy tale his fool head was full of, and she smiles while she smokes, nodding along and "Sure, sure, of course," even while she's pulling those cutoffs back on and when he tells her he loves her and she says it back, walking out that door, he believes her, and I can't help but sympathize. My grin turns into a wince, but he's worse off than me by a long shot.
Donna's the next one, but I knew about that already. In fact, that's the one I did know about, because everyone did, because everyone was there when she came ripping into the shop screaming like hell about she was gonna kill him for what he was spreading around. Never once did she deny any of it, but she swore up and down he'd regret opening his mouth the way he did and I swear to God I expected him to come to heel like a whipped dog, but he just stood there, cool as can be, shrugging it off, trying to calm her down in that way that just makes them madder, until she knocked a socket set down into the Dodge and stormed off, the sockets clinking and clanking down through the guts of the car and into the oil pan beneath it.
Now like I said he was very cool: he didn't rattle. But then again he didn't talk about Donna again, even if someone asked. He'd laugh and say something about how that was nothing and get a load of this, and he'd whip out some other story about some other girl, but none of them ever had that meat, the blood and bone in the story where you know it's in their flesh and coming out their mouth. For all his stories, it was Donna all along: Donna the scene queen. Donna the party girl. Donna the hellion. Donna big tits. And I guess I understand that.
I wonder why Mick's telling me this- I know why he's telling me, I just figured he'd still think he was going to make it out of here: I didn't expect him to figure it out quite yet. I guess he put that quiet time to good use, thinking it over, figuring out the lies, rather than just lying there bleeding. He's come a long way, really. I'll be sure to tell the guys how impressed I was with him by the end.
He starts in on Jen and I go rigid. My vision goes white for a second and fire rips through me. That was stupid of me, but I guess I deserve to get hurt, still keeping her so close. Even now she does this to me. Even now she's got me tearing myself apart trying to make her mine, trying to keep her mine. Years of playing the game, years of the chase and Mick's the one she picked? I'd drag myself over there and choke the life out of him, but that's not the smart play. I need to sit here and breathe and save my strength. That's why I'm making it out of here and Mick's laid out, spilling his guts. I'll outlast him and I'll make it out, they'll come and get me and patch me up and it'll be too late for Mick there but hey, I'm still here and I'll have years yet to make her see me the way I need to. If he can, I can.
Only he can't. Or he didn't, anyway, not that he didn't want to, not that we all didn't. He wanted her bad, he says, yeah, him and everyone else. Legs forever, great figure. She had this hair that was just... He wanted her as bad as me, and by the sound of it, she was about as interested in him as she was in me. Obviously that didn't stop me from chasing her, year after year, trying my damn best. Mick tells me he tried, too. He did everything he knew how, even going so far as to swear off the dozens, scores, of other women beating down his door, if only she'd say yes. I'm confident she saw right through that, but she just laughed that laugh of hers and turned away, gliding.
It was then, Mick says, that he made his decision. He went out and he found a girl with that same look: tall and strong, deep, dark eyes and a neck that was just so, and I guess she did the trick. This one he doesn't have much to say about. She was a looker, obviously, but even he knew it wasn't the same. In a way that probably ruined it for him, and were he a thinking man he would have known that, recognized the shame for what it was, and known the disappointment was in himself. Instead he took it as enough of a victory to move on, satisfied he'd put that dream to rest in a manner close enough to the ideal as to make no difference. That doesn't sound half bad.
I try to keep pressure on the hole in my side like you're supposed to, but it hurts too bad. It's starting to get dark, but that's okay, it can't be much longer now. Mick's lying there, pale, looking at me with glassy eyes, and I can't help but pity him. He's gonna die here with that story on his lips, and I'm gonna get out of here and make that girl mine.
Mick laughs a little and looks away.
24 May 2012
Mick didn't talk at first, and that was nice. I thought we'd be able to just lie here, waiting, in peace and quiet, the only sound our labored breathing, but I guess he tired of that eventually and opened his mouth. He'd asked me if I knew how many girls he'd had, and I told him I didn't. I didn't ask for any more information and he didn't offer it, so we went back to silence, just breathing and waiting.
"Three," he says. After a second I look up at him and he's looking right at me. He gives a little nod and repeats it, and this time I have to ask.
One is some girl I never heard of, not that I should have, as from the sound of her she was just some truck stop whore off the turnpike. I don't know many who paid for their first, and I'm comfortable saying I know less who would admit to it, but there you go.
He tells me about her and honestly he paints a pretty picture. Obviously I got the sense to not fall in love with the first girl to throw a piece my way, much less a whore, but Mick's not the most worldly of individuals, as is becoming clear. It sounds like the cutoffs are what did it for him, what made him pick her out of all the girls working that night, and I guess if he felt like he got his money's worth then that's all right, but I'll tell you, I'll take tight over short any day of the week and not think twice about it. It's entirely likely that says more about me than him, but there it is.
The whore was all right though, he says. She was nice, she was sweet. She kept her bra on and took her shoes off and Mick didn't know which way was up by the end. She had big eyes and dark roots and the way he talks about her you can tell he was thinking about how he's gonna save her from all this and take her away somewhere, give her a good life, make her happy, be the one that she turns it all around for and everything else, every fairy tale his fool head was full of, and she smiles while she smokes, nodding along and "Sure, sure, of course," even while she's pulling those cutoffs back on and when he tells her he loves her and she says it back, walking out that door, he believes her, and I can't help but sympathize. My grin turns into a wince, but he's worse off than me by a long shot.
Donna's the next one, but I knew about that already. In fact, that's the one I did know about, because everyone did, because everyone was there when she came ripping into the shop screaming like hell about she was gonna kill him for what he was spreading around. Never once did she deny any of it, but she swore up and down he'd regret opening his mouth the way he did and I swear to God I expected him to come to heel like a whipped dog, but he just stood there, cool as can be, shrugging it off, trying to calm her down in that way that just makes them madder, until she knocked a socket set down into the Dodge and stormed off, the sockets clinking and clanking down through the guts of the car and into the oil pan beneath it.
Now like I said he was very cool: he didn't rattle. But then again he didn't talk about Donna again, even if someone asked. He'd laugh and say something about how that was nothing and get a load of this, and he'd whip out some other story about some other girl, but none of them ever had that meat, the blood and bone in the story where you know it's in their flesh and coming out their mouth. For all his stories, it was Donna all along: Donna the scene queen. Donna the party girl. Donna the hellion. Donna big tits. And I guess I understand that.
I wonder why Mick's telling me this- I know why he's telling me, I just figured he'd still think he was going to make it out of here: I didn't expect him to figure it out quite yet. I guess he put that quiet time to good use, thinking it over, figuring out the lies, rather than just lying there bleeding. He's come a long way, really. I'll be sure to tell the guys how impressed I was with him by the end.
He starts in on Jen and I go rigid. My vision goes white for a second and fire rips through me. That was stupid of me, but I guess I deserve to get hurt, still keeping her so close. Even now she does this to me. Even now she's got me tearing myself apart trying to make her mine, trying to keep her mine. Years of playing the game, years of the chase and Mick's the one she picked? I'd drag myself over there and choke the life out of him, but that's not the smart play. I need to sit here and breathe and save my strength. That's why I'm making it out of here and Mick's laid out, spilling his guts. I'll outlast him and I'll make it out, they'll come and get me and patch me up and it'll be too late for Mick there but hey, I'm still here and I'll have years yet to make her see me the way I need to. If he can, I can.
Only he can't. Or he didn't, anyway, not that he didn't want to, not that we all didn't. He wanted her bad, he says, yeah, him and everyone else. Legs forever, great figure. She had this hair that was just... He wanted her as bad as me, and by the sound of it, she was about as interested in him as she was in me. Obviously that didn't stop me from chasing her, year after year, trying my damn best. Mick tells me he tried, too. He did everything he knew how, even going so far as to swear off the dozens, scores, of other women beating down his door, if only she'd say yes. I'm confident she saw right through that, but she just laughed that laugh of hers and turned away, gliding.
It was then, Mick says, that he made his decision. He went out and he found a girl with that same look: tall and strong, deep, dark eyes and a neck that was just so, and I guess she did the trick. This one he doesn't have much to say about. She was a looker, obviously, but even he knew it wasn't the same. In a way that probably ruined it for him, and were he a thinking man he would have known that, recognized the shame for what it was, and known the disappointment was in himself. Instead he took it as enough of a victory to move on, satisfied he'd put that dream to rest in a manner close enough to the ideal as to make no difference. That doesn't sound half bad.
I try to keep pressure on the hole in my side like you're supposed to, but it hurts too bad. It's starting to get dark, but that's okay, it can't be much longer now. Mick's lying there, pale, looking at me with glassy eyes, and I can't help but pity him. He's gonna die here with that story on his lips, and I'm gonna get out of here and make that girl mine.
Mick laughs a little and looks away.
24 May 2012
May 10, 2012
A father in the wastes
I put two feet of steel through his belly; that seems to shut him up.
His friends are up immediately, reaching for their irons, but none of them quite makes it. They're looking at me, looking at him, looking at each other, and none of them's moving. The room's silent, went quiet when I cut that last word out of this boy leaning against me. They're all watching, waiting, the whole world holding its breath.
I slide my eyes across the men at the table, standing over fallen chairs, hands hovering, unsure above their weapons. Some of them meet my eyes, some watch the lifeblood of their compatriot drip drip drip off my blade, still in him, clean through him. Some of them look away, chewing their lip, hating me for all the times this has happened before, trying to curse themselves into action, not realizing, perhaps, the value their fear has.
In the end they're cowards, all of them, but even cowards have their moments. One of them will have his today: he'll follow me outside after failing to goad his companions into action. He'll fly out that door, his blood hot in his veins, and he'll know that he'll kill me, that he'll set things right, and every time he woke up gasping, clutching at something, anything, in the dark will be washed away. He'll be a new man, a strong man, and it won't all have been for nothing.
He'll know these things, somewhere he doesn't know how to look, and when he comes through that door, all fire and vengeance, and he points his weapon at my back, he'll be the man he was always meant to be, for that moment, and I'll take it all away for him in one screaming second.
The boy's knees are going and he's batting at me feebly, like a kitten. I let him go and he slides down off the blade. Nobody moves to catch him, or to see to him once he's fallen.
I turn to leave and stop, my hand on the door. I look back at him, the one in blue, the one who'll come out after me, and he meets my gaze. I think I envy him his moment.
The battered ceiling fan spins on overhead.
10 May 2012
His friends are up immediately, reaching for their irons, but none of them quite makes it. They're looking at me, looking at him, looking at each other, and none of them's moving. The room's silent, went quiet when I cut that last word out of this boy leaning against me. They're all watching, waiting, the whole world holding its breath.
I slide my eyes across the men at the table, standing over fallen chairs, hands hovering, unsure above their weapons. Some of them meet my eyes, some watch the lifeblood of their compatriot drip drip drip off my blade, still in him, clean through him. Some of them look away, chewing their lip, hating me for all the times this has happened before, trying to curse themselves into action, not realizing, perhaps, the value their fear has.
In the end they're cowards, all of them, but even cowards have their moments. One of them will have his today: he'll follow me outside after failing to goad his companions into action. He'll fly out that door, his blood hot in his veins, and he'll know that he'll kill me, that he'll set things right, and every time he woke up gasping, clutching at something, anything, in the dark will be washed away. He'll be a new man, a strong man, and it won't all have been for nothing.
He'll know these things, somewhere he doesn't know how to look, and when he comes through that door, all fire and vengeance, and he points his weapon at my back, he'll be the man he was always meant to be, for that moment, and I'll take it all away for him in one screaming second.
The boy's knees are going and he's batting at me feebly, like a kitten. I let him go and he slides down off the blade. Nobody moves to catch him, or to see to him once he's fallen.
I turn to leave and stop, my hand on the door. I look back at him, the one in blue, the one who'll come out after me, and he meets my gaze. I think I envy him his moment.
The battered ceiling fan spins on overhead.
10 May 2012
May 9, 2012
Arrowhead
Tony pulls his head out of the toilet and he sprawls backwards, gagging and vomiting up toilet water and piss as he tries to scramble back out of the stall, splashing across the tile floor. He whips his head around, looking for a way out, I guess, but in front of him's Tony and behind him's me and even though he's soaked I can see he's crying because he knows as well as I do that he's not getting back up off that floor anytime soon. It's a pathetic sight, really, but I look up and Tony's smiling, so I guess it can't be that bad.
This is the part where he tries to reason with Tony, to talk his way out of this hole he didn't even know he was in. He's sputtering, like they always do. He needs time, he needs help, he needs another chance. They all need something, but at the end of the day, I've never seen one of their little speeches work. Tony gets what he wants, or as close to it as he's willing to settle for for the time being, and we go on our merry way.
I met Tony when I was fourteen. He was kicking the shit out of a guy I was trying to deliver a sack of brown to. He didn't seem to notice me at first, so I just stood there in the doorway, watching Tony beat on this guy. All things considered, I should have bailed the minute I saw what was going on, but something made me stay. It couldn't have been what Tony was saying, because he wasn't saying anything at all. And it wasn't that I'd never seen a hellacious beating before, because that's not exactly a rare sight down here. I didn't know what it was, and I think I still don't, but I stayed there, watching this guy get his ass kicked, knowing there wasn't any reason to stay, knowing he wasn't going to have anything left to pay me with when it ended (if it ended: I've never known Tony to tire, or bore, easily.) and that the maniac bouncing his head off the radiator would almost certainly proceed to help himself to any cash and whatever else I was carrying once he noticed me, but I stood there and watched.
When Tony did look up from the guy he asked me if I was confident I was making the right decisions. I didn't have an answer then and I don't have an answer now, so I guess the years haven't changed everything. I've been watching Tony hand out beatings all up and down the highways and byways of America for some time now and while it started as one thing, it's become another, and suddenly I'm not entirely sure this is where I want to be. Not in this bathroom, watching drops of piss and tears drip off this guy's face, not sleeping in bucket seats and waking up with every muscle in my body making a fist, not forever following, lacking the conviction of the man who's leading. I'm not entirely confident I'm making any decisions anymore.
Tony drags the guy across the tiles back into the stall and leaves him there, crumpled on the floor. He turns to me and tells me it's time to see my stuff.
The guy cringes away from me but I get my hands around his neck all the same. I don't really know what I'm doing, but as I press my thumbs into his throat I realize that it feels right. I start to squeeze and the guy's barely fighting when Tony steps back in.
"Not like that," he says. "I'll show you."
9 May 2012
This is the part where he tries to reason with Tony, to talk his way out of this hole he didn't even know he was in. He's sputtering, like they always do. He needs time, he needs help, he needs another chance. They all need something, but at the end of the day, I've never seen one of their little speeches work. Tony gets what he wants, or as close to it as he's willing to settle for for the time being, and we go on our merry way.
I met Tony when I was fourteen. He was kicking the shit out of a guy I was trying to deliver a sack of brown to. He didn't seem to notice me at first, so I just stood there in the doorway, watching Tony beat on this guy. All things considered, I should have bailed the minute I saw what was going on, but something made me stay. It couldn't have been what Tony was saying, because he wasn't saying anything at all. And it wasn't that I'd never seen a hellacious beating before, because that's not exactly a rare sight down here. I didn't know what it was, and I think I still don't, but I stayed there, watching this guy get his ass kicked, knowing there wasn't any reason to stay, knowing he wasn't going to have anything left to pay me with when it ended (if it ended: I've never known Tony to tire, or bore, easily.) and that the maniac bouncing his head off the radiator would almost certainly proceed to help himself to any cash and whatever else I was carrying once he noticed me, but I stood there and watched.
When Tony did look up from the guy he asked me if I was confident I was making the right decisions. I didn't have an answer then and I don't have an answer now, so I guess the years haven't changed everything. I've been watching Tony hand out beatings all up and down the highways and byways of America for some time now and while it started as one thing, it's become another, and suddenly I'm not entirely sure this is where I want to be. Not in this bathroom, watching drops of piss and tears drip off this guy's face, not sleeping in bucket seats and waking up with every muscle in my body making a fist, not forever following, lacking the conviction of the man who's leading. I'm not entirely confident I'm making any decisions anymore.
Tony drags the guy across the tiles back into the stall and leaves him there, crumpled on the floor. He turns to me and tells me it's time to see my stuff.
The guy cringes away from me but I get my hands around his neck all the same. I don't really know what I'm doing, but as I press my thumbs into his throat I realize that it feels right. I start to squeeze and the guy's barely fighting when Tony steps back in.
"Not like that," he says. "I'll show you."
9 May 2012
April 8, 2012
I can't say I mind
We bring the bats down on Jerry a couple more times before he wises up and stops moving. Shanahan's already sweating and breathing hard. He'll be easy when the time comes, and I'm sure it will. He might know it too, but he's not telling.
The basement's wood paneled, with a dinky little bar in the corner. It's a little early for me, but Wilkes is already working on his third. It's not that he doesn't have the stomach for this- well it's not just that he doesn't have the stomach for this, because he doesn't, but he's got himself a weakness. He'd be easy too, but I don't think that'll ever fall to me. Something about him says he'll handle things himself, nice and tidy. Either way, we got time: Jerry's lady's at the grocery, picking up lamb shanks and asparagus for Sunday dinner. Must be nice. This idiot can't do anything right, can't even keep his mouth shut, and he's got all this. Meanwhile I do what I'm told and do it quiet and I'm sleeping on a mattress on the floor and eating takeout every night. I tell you, there's no justice.
Shanahan's giving Jerry an earful, wheezing as he does it, and I take the opportunity to stroll around the basement, giving my back a stretch. He's got some of those neon beer signs hanging here and there. Pretty tacky, I always thought, but then again I'm not the type to buy a ranch house in the tree streets, so what the hell do I know about it? The dart board I don't mind, but there's more holes in the wall than in the cork, and that gets to me. You'd think he'd get good eventually, but I guess that's just not him.
I grab a mug and fill it with water, taking a seat at the bar. I take a sip and swish the water around in my mouth, trying to get rid of the taste of blood. I bit my tongue roughhousing with Jerry when we came in, trying to get him down into the basement. By the time we got him down here Wilkes had the radio on loud enough to keep our little encounter from the neighbors. Ask me, they'd have to be idiots to not know something was up, but if you ask me most everybody's idiots as it is, so there you go.
Jerry's whimpering on the floor, bleeding out his mouth into the carpet. The Ames Brothers come on and I guess Shanahan feels like he's made his point, so it's time to go. I finish my water and put the mug from some shitty little fishing town in Wisconsin back on the bar. I head up the steps with Wilkes on my heels. Shanahan gives Jerry one more shot in the ribs and tells him we don't want to have to come back out here, which is true, and he climbs the steps after us.
We're at the front door when we see that Wilkes left his bat downstairs and Shanahan sends him back down there to get it. Something tells me he did it on purpose, but before I'm halfway down the front steps I hear him yell and a shot rings out. I turn around and try to get back inside but Shanahan, that lump, is halfway in the doorway and halfway out and about the slowest moving human being I've ever encountered. By the time he's turned and headed back into the house Jerry's there with his .38, putting three into Shanahan's chest. He falls forward and I follow him into the house, taking a wild swing at Jerry on my way to the floor.
I connect with Jerry's face right below the cheekbone and I can hear everything break. His eyes went wide when he saw the swing coming, but there wasn't a whole hell of a lot he could do at that point, except for watch it happen. Jerry drops and the piece falls through the glass end table where he was standing. I pick myself up and he's already trying to drag himself away, one hand holding his jaw together, the other scrabbling at the carpet. I stand over him and put my foot on his leg to keep him steady. I aim for the base of his spine the first time, and it's effective. His legs kick a little with each swing, but he's not going anywhere now.
Jerry put one bloody hand up, some feeble attempt to wave me off, but my next swing connects just below the elbow and I guess he decides it was a bad idea because he folds back up, gurgling. He's not the only one gurgling though, and I look over to see Shanahan roll himself over onto his back, coughing up blood and whatever he had for breakfast. Maybe he's going to make it after all.
I turn back to Jerry and take another swing as Shanahan says "Get me out of here", gargling on the words.
I'm going to have to drag him back to the car and get him patched up, and me with a bad back. I bring the bat down. I tell you, there's no justice.
8 April 2012
The basement's wood paneled, with a dinky little bar in the corner. It's a little early for me, but Wilkes is already working on his third. It's not that he doesn't have the stomach for this- well it's not just that he doesn't have the stomach for this, because he doesn't, but he's got himself a weakness. He'd be easy too, but I don't think that'll ever fall to me. Something about him says he'll handle things himself, nice and tidy. Either way, we got time: Jerry's lady's at the grocery, picking up lamb shanks and asparagus for Sunday dinner. Must be nice. This idiot can't do anything right, can't even keep his mouth shut, and he's got all this. Meanwhile I do what I'm told and do it quiet and I'm sleeping on a mattress on the floor and eating takeout every night. I tell you, there's no justice.
Shanahan's giving Jerry an earful, wheezing as he does it, and I take the opportunity to stroll around the basement, giving my back a stretch. He's got some of those neon beer signs hanging here and there. Pretty tacky, I always thought, but then again I'm not the type to buy a ranch house in the tree streets, so what the hell do I know about it? The dart board I don't mind, but there's more holes in the wall than in the cork, and that gets to me. You'd think he'd get good eventually, but I guess that's just not him.
I grab a mug and fill it with water, taking a seat at the bar. I take a sip and swish the water around in my mouth, trying to get rid of the taste of blood. I bit my tongue roughhousing with Jerry when we came in, trying to get him down into the basement. By the time we got him down here Wilkes had the radio on loud enough to keep our little encounter from the neighbors. Ask me, they'd have to be idiots to not know something was up, but if you ask me most everybody's idiots as it is, so there you go.
Jerry's whimpering on the floor, bleeding out his mouth into the carpet. The Ames Brothers come on and I guess Shanahan feels like he's made his point, so it's time to go. I finish my water and put the mug from some shitty little fishing town in Wisconsin back on the bar. I head up the steps with Wilkes on my heels. Shanahan gives Jerry one more shot in the ribs and tells him we don't want to have to come back out here, which is true, and he climbs the steps after us.
We're at the front door when we see that Wilkes left his bat downstairs and Shanahan sends him back down there to get it. Something tells me he did it on purpose, but before I'm halfway down the front steps I hear him yell and a shot rings out. I turn around and try to get back inside but Shanahan, that lump, is halfway in the doorway and halfway out and about the slowest moving human being I've ever encountered. By the time he's turned and headed back into the house Jerry's there with his .38, putting three into Shanahan's chest. He falls forward and I follow him into the house, taking a wild swing at Jerry on my way to the floor.
I connect with Jerry's face right below the cheekbone and I can hear everything break. His eyes went wide when he saw the swing coming, but there wasn't a whole hell of a lot he could do at that point, except for watch it happen. Jerry drops and the piece falls through the glass end table where he was standing. I pick myself up and he's already trying to drag himself away, one hand holding his jaw together, the other scrabbling at the carpet. I stand over him and put my foot on his leg to keep him steady. I aim for the base of his spine the first time, and it's effective. His legs kick a little with each swing, but he's not going anywhere now.
Jerry put one bloody hand up, some feeble attempt to wave me off, but my next swing connects just below the elbow and I guess he decides it was a bad idea because he folds back up, gurgling. He's not the only one gurgling though, and I look over to see Shanahan roll himself over onto his back, coughing up blood and whatever he had for breakfast. Maybe he's going to make it after all.
I turn back to Jerry and take another swing as Shanahan says "Get me out of here", gargling on the words.
I'm going to have to drag him back to the car and get him patched up, and me with a bad back. I bring the bat down. I tell you, there's no justice.
8 April 2012
March 25, 2012
Liars, all
I take my eyes off Tommy and watch the cruiser as it rolls down the street towards us, slowing to a crawl. I don't like doing it, taking my eyes off him, and it's not something I'd recommend, but I can't watch the car and Tommy all at once, so there it is.
I met Tommy about three years ago, when I needed something and someone sent me his way. I didn't like him, I didn't trust him, and I guess I still don't, but for the time being I need him and I'm pretty sure he thinks he needs me, so I guess in that regard things are on an even keel. He calls me, like he did last night, when there's something need's doing, something that might end up something of a mess, and we put our heads together and see what we can see.
I headed up the steps ahead of him, climbing the musty staircase with the broken handrail, the carpet worn to nothing where a thousand men like me had walked before. I'd like to think, and I used to, that there were no men like me, that I was a different breed, set apart and unique in my abilities, but we're all killers and thieves, we're all the same, and I'm nobody special.
He let us in the door on the third landing and closed it behind me. The apartment was cramped, littered with the evidence of a thousand years of solitary life, hidden away behind locked doors and ratty, faded wallpaper. Dust pinwheeled in the air, suspended in shafts of light stabbing through the rents in the macrame curtains. An ashtray sat half-full on a tv tray in front of the couch, reminding me of Virden and my mother.
We walked through the kitchen, the garbage already turning in the can, and headed into the bedroom, a sad little temple to loneliness and loss and the eventually accepted belief that it probably didn't matter in the first place. There were little nicknacks covering every surface, dried out little snow globes and painted spoons from far-off places like Spokane and Lebanon. The one in Kansas. Maybe she'd had something of a life before, or almost did. Maybe someone'd taken pity on her and brought these back, one by one, trying to convince her there was a world out there after all, a great big place full of horrible little towns to die in, and not some dinky one bedroom walkup in a wasting hulk of brick and rotting timbers.
Didn't work though. So Tommy pointed me across the room, past the woman on the bed, to her vanity sitting spotless in the corner. I don't know why, but I expected everything to be dirty, covered with dust and long-abandoned. I always did, but it never was. I don't know if that was a disappointment, but at the end of the day it probably made things easier, made it feel a little less like the grave robbing it was.
The mirror was clean, and as I gathered up the rings and bangles, the little pearl earrings and necklaces with bits of amber and coral, worthless jewelry worn around the house for years and years, I watched Tommy's reflection as he looked over the room, knowing full well there was nothing else for us to take, no strongbox, no bonds or cash, no silver or family pictures even. That's probably for the best: Tommy's got a weakness. It's the little ones, and I don't like that much but it hasn't got in the way yet, so I'm inclined to look the other way for the time being.
I packed away the rings and such and as we turned to leave we heard the front door open. No voices came with the sound, and that said it all. Tommy took off through the kitchen and I was right on his heels, crashing through the back door and flying down the lopsided steps and across the yard. Over the fence and into the alley, we split up and were gone, without even a shout to fade away behind us.
I turn back to Tommy as the cruiser slinks off into the darkness, the taillights fading embers beckoning, drawing us into some new oblivion if we would only follow, and Tommy's smiling.
25 March 2012
I met Tommy about three years ago, when I needed something and someone sent me his way. I didn't like him, I didn't trust him, and I guess I still don't, but for the time being I need him and I'm pretty sure he thinks he needs me, so I guess in that regard things are on an even keel. He calls me, like he did last night, when there's something need's doing, something that might end up something of a mess, and we put our heads together and see what we can see.
I headed up the steps ahead of him, climbing the musty staircase with the broken handrail, the carpet worn to nothing where a thousand men like me had walked before. I'd like to think, and I used to, that there were no men like me, that I was a different breed, set apart and unique in my abilities, but we're all killers and thieves, we're all the same, and I'm nobody special.
He let us in the door on the third landing and closed it behind me. The apartment was cramped, littered with the evidence of a thousand years of solitary life, hidden away behind locked doors and ratty, faded wallpaper. Dust pinwheeled in the air, suspended in shafts of light stabbing through the rents in the macrame curtains. An ashtray sat half-full on a tv tray in front of the couch, reminding me of Virden and my mother.
We walked through the kitchen, the garbage already turning in the can, and headed into the bedroom, a sad little temple to loneliness and loss and the eventually accepted belief that it probably didn't matter in the first place. There were little nicknacks covering every surface, dried out little snow globes and painted spoons from far-off places like Spokane and Lebanon. The one in Kansas. Maybe she'd had something of a life before, or almost did. Maybe someone'd taken pity on her and brought these back, one by one, trying to convince her there was a world out there after all, a great big place full of horrible little towns to die in, and not some dinky one bedroom walkup in a wasting hulk of brick and rotting timbers.
Didn't work though. So Tommy pointed me across the room, past the woman on the bed, to her vanity sitting spotless in the corner. I don't know why, but I expected everything to be dirty, covered with dust and long-abandoned. I always did, but it never was. I don't know if that was a disappointment, but at the end of the day it probably made things easier, made it feel a little less like the grave robbing it was.
The mirror was clean, and as I gathered up the rings and bangles, the little pearl earrings and necklaces with bits of amber and coral, worthless jewelry worn around the house for years and years, I watched Tommy's reflection as he looked over the room, knowing full well there was nothing else for us to take, no strongbox, no bonds or cash, no silver or family pictures even. That's probably for the best: Tommy's got a weakness. It's the little ones, and I don't like that much but it hasn't got in the way yet, so I'm inclined to look the other way for the time being.
I packed away the rings and such and as we turned to leave we heard the front door open. No voices came with the sound, and that said it all. Tommy took off through the kitchen and I was right on his heels, crashing through the back door and flying down the lopsided steps and across the yard. Over the fence and into the alley, we split up and were gone, without even a shout to fade away behind us.
I turn back to Tommy as the cruiser slinks off into the darkness, the taillights fading embers beckoning, drawing us into some new oblivion if we would only follow, and Tommy's smiling.
25 March 2012
March 19, 2012
"The time of test is just upon us"
I listen as their laughter fades and the sounds of night slowly make
themselves known again. When I'm satisfied they've gone, I lower myself
from my hiding spot and pick my way carefully down the ruined stairs. Glass crunches under my feet, the bigger pieces long since removed, raised in desperate defense or drawn across the throat of one of the precious few of us left. What a cruel joke, that I should linger here, alone, while my children lay in unmarked graves. Crueler still the knowledge that had they lived they would surely have cost me my life by now. They didn't, they couldn't, understand the gravity of this situation, know the need for silence, mistrust, fear.
They couldn't have lived: they are not for this world.
Wisps of cloud drift overhead, the last remnant of the toxic storm that blew into the valley below, choking the life out of anything unfortunate enough to be caught exposed and unprepared, finally carried off by the western wind, carried off to ravage some other land, some dusty pocket where decent folk try to scrape some semblance of a life out of the poisoned soil. Then the storms come, blow their homes to pieces and steal their breath. Then the vultures come, the vultures on two legs, picking over the remains, taking what they want and leaving the rest to the dust and the wind and the sun.
These ones stripped the clothes off the bodies, taking that and more from the mother, then packed up the few misshapen vegetables the family'd managed to coax from the earth and headed southwest. They all headed southwest after they got the word (heard it from a man who heard it from a man), taking what they could along the way. And now I was headed that way too.
Moonlight streams into the house through the hole in the roof, though at this point it's more hole than roof. I hold my breath and listen, but nothing's taken notice of me. I peer through the remains of a window before slipping through the doorway. I want to head down into the valley and look over what the vultures left behind, but there's no time. I need to keep moving and I've already lost too much night. Besides, the last thing I need is to be confronted again with the dream laying dead down there on the valley floor. I need to see it, but I need to see it alive, fighting for survival against a world that wants to stamp it out of existence, fighting against this new, ugly human race. That's why I'm headed southwest.
I get my bearings and start walking again. It's tougher now, the stars don't make sense. Someone took this world and shook it, some vengeful god, raining fire down on the good and evil alike, leaving a broken world of wickedness and wrath, with a hopeful few barely holding on, fighting against the storm of destruction threatening to topple everything they've built. They know how delicate it is, and I know too, and that's why I have to see it. I have to know we've got a chance, that these animals that stalk the night don't have the right of it. I have to believe there's a reason to take another step, and for right now, getting to that church is all I've got.
I track the men leading me south around a towering mesa, but they make no effort to disguise their trail. After all, what do they have to fear? We made ourselves masters of this world, and destroyed it to show it. I stay safely out of sight, maybe half an hour behind them, until they set up camp to sleep through the upcoming day. It would be easy enough to slip into their camp and wipe them all out, one by one, make them pay for what they did to that family and I'm sure countless others I wasn't there to witness, but I can't bring myself to do it. I don't know how many of us are left and I have to believe they'll be of some use, they'll serve some purpose. So I wedge myself between some rocks, thankful for the shade they will provide, and cover up as much of my skin as possible. I watch what I can of the coming sunrise before covering my face as well, weariness claiming me beneath my tattered tarp.
I think I imagine a far-off wail, carried by the wind.
19 March 2012
They couldn't have lived: they are not for this world.
Wisps of cloud drift overhead, the last remnant of the toxic storm that blew into the valley below, choking the life out of anything unfortunate enough to be caught exposed and unprepared, finally carried off by the western wind, carried off to ravage some other land, some dusty pocket where decent folk try to scrape some semblance of a life out of the poisoned soil. Then the storms come, blow their homes to pieces and steal their breath. Then the vultures come, the vultures on two legs, picking over the remains, taking what they want and leaving the rest to the dust and the wind and the sun.
These ones stripped the clothes off the bodies, taking that and more from the mother, then packed up the few misshapen vegetables the family'd managed to coax from the earth and headed southwest. They all headed southwest after they got the word (heard it from a man who heard it from a man), taking what they could along the way. And now I was headed that way too.
Moonlight streams into the house through the hole in the roof, though at this point it's more hole than roof. I hold my breath and listen, but nothing's taken notice of me. I peer through the remains of a window before slipping through the doorway. I want to head down into the valley and look over what the vultures left behind, but there's no time. I need to keep moving and I've already lost too much night. Besides, the last thing I need is to be confronted again with the dream laying dead down there on the valley floor. I need to see it, but I need to see it alive, fighting for survival against a world that wants to stamp it out of existence, fighting against this new, ugly human race. That's why I'm headed southwest.
I get my bearings and start walking again. It's tougher now, the stars don't make sense. Someone took this world and shook it, some vengeful god, raining fire down on the good and evil alike, leaving a broken world of wickedness and wrath, with a hopeful few barely holding on, fighting against the storm of destruction threatening to topple everything they've built. They know how delicate it is, and I know too, and that's why I have to see it. I have to know we've got a chance, that these animals that stalk the night don't have the right of it. I have to believe there's a reason to take another step, and for right now, getting to that church is all I've got.
I track the men leading me south around a towering mesa, but they make no effort to disguise their trail. After all, what do they have to fear? We made ourselves masters of this world, and destroyed it to show it. I stay safely out of sight, maybe half an hour behind them, until they set up camp to sleep through the upcoming day. It would be easy enough to slip into their camp and wipe them all out, one by one, make them pay for what they did to that family and I'm sure countless others I wasn't there to witness, but I can't bring myself to do it. I don't know how many of us are left and I have to believe they'll be of some use, they'll serve some purpose. So I wedge myself between some rocks, thankful for the shade they will provide, and cover up as much of my skin as possible. I watch what I can of the coming sunrise before covering my face as well, weariness claiming me beneath my tattered tarp.
I think I imagine a far-off wail, carried by the wind.
19 March 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)