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
May 12, 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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)