Alaska

Flexing that bicep too many times may cause it to explode.

Nah, I’m good.

I’ve seen it.

Where?

Places.

Name one.

Remember that summer in Alaska, those guys, you know…

I’m not recalling ever going to Alaska.

It was a November morning.

Really?

I had just woken from that dream where your mother kept saying my full name. First, middle and last.

I remember the dream just no Alaska.

You wore six shirts and a pair of those sweatpants that said Firecracker horizontally along your butt.

You really have me confused with some other floozy.

It was you. You had red hair at the time and were obsessed with Rob Pattinson.

Did you go to Alaska with a thirteen year-old girl?

No. I went with you.

You did not. I have never nor ever want to go to Alaska. I don’t like Rob Pattinson, I own one pair of sweatpants and they do not pronounce that I am some firecrackery harlot.

It had to be you.

Why does it have to be me?

Because I remember you there and I remember you commenting on the fella whose arm exploded from flexing his bicep way too many times.

My head is about to explode if we don’t move on to something else.

How can we move on? If I didn’t go to Alaska with you then who did I go with? Is this even my life anymore? Why can’t I remember a small thing like who I traveled to a desolate shithole with?

Maybe it was a dream?

A dream within a dream. Your mother calling me by my full name while my dream self is dreaming about you and I in Alaska watching some isidious man’s arm explode from a building of pressure caused by and incessant amount of flexing. How do I know this isn’t a dream and that the dream we are speaking of is actually real life and that we saw what we saw but for some reason my subconscious is trying to fool me into believing that that was a dream and that this dream is real life.

Pinch yourself.

Why?

It is supposed to awaken you from dreams.

That has no backing for relevance.

I would say it is very relevant. You want to know if this is a dream why not try, well I’m not going to say proven method, try a scientific theory that may allude to the realization that what we are in fact engaged in what may not be reality.

How does it feel to you?

Like another day.

I guess it would.

I wouldn’t know.

You’ve had dreams right?

I’ve dreamt many a night. I couldn’t tell you how my dream self felt in those dreams. So to say that I feel like a normal person today is a moot point.

What do you suggest?

I gave you the best advice I have in store. Pinch yourself. What could it hurt?

Fine.

…

…

Anthropological Aphorism Besets Categorical Distrust Engaging Formulaic Falsities Grotesquely Gouging Geographic Habitations Intricately Involving Jurassic Jests Kaleidoscoping Lavish Magnetic Neutronian Oscilloscopes Pulsating Queerly Returning Salaciously Through Unitarian Vernacular Warranting Worshiping Xanthic Young Zebras.

The people in the foreground are all fake. Extinguishing the hearts of men with their didactic paranoia. Easily seen from the rooftops they single file march upon the bodies of foreign elementals. This would be a dream if I were asleep. It would be a nightmare if I reasoned it so. They turn corners in abstract arrangements. An orchestra plays their steps to the beat of a timpani drum. A dove flies in the mouth of a child bewildered into believing a God rests in the root of his spine. A female: a male, hazened to be born of nothing in a voided sun. Heretical placement of signposts rest shoulder to shoulder with the giant mistakes the male made in previous forms, notwithstanding his prior allegiance to a general disdain to universal misinformation. A radiant glowing forms around the female in haze of plasticine molding. Guiding her allegorical repetitions to a sense of self that only exists in the hearts of fallen angels. An infant crying awakens the senses to the realization that nothing is ever what it may seem to be. The people in the foreground look to sky for answers to lives that will never be lived. The male and female kiss; realizing if that’s all they have then life was worth the hardships, knowing no matter how long it takes the answers will come to them in dreams foretold by an existence not seen nor heard but felt through the belief that something better rests at the end. Finding peace within themselves. Enough to realize that the lives they have are the lives that  have been told through the generations. The male and female look into each other finding a future of unpromised iniquities. They take themselves hand in hand, disappearing in a fog to embark on a foretold future unbeknownst to them.

Facebook Shorts

To explain the title, these are short little pieces that I put on Facebook. Be warned…there will be more. (maniacal laughter)

1.

The more you read this the more you’ll wonder as to the discombobulated nature of the heretical zygote that brought upon the feeling of a once lost herculean abstractor leading the foremost heroes of a bygone era to eventual conclusion of matriarchs of a beating heart; genteel fathers of mothers that bore zebra swathed infants.

2.

I sat at the table with my grits and spinach leaves. I set my eyes upon the gentleman that rested before me, or in a better way, sat across from me.
“I’m so hungry I could fuck a horse.”
“Excuse me?”
“That girl over there. She looks like she could be a tennis instructor.”
“What did you say before that?”
“It has nothing to do with her physique or the factual nature of her status in the world of present. Just the look about her facial arena.”
“There is a table over there…”
“There are tables all over the place but that doesn’t make your morals any clearer.”
“Did you say you wanted to fuck a horse??”
“Definitely not, it was more of a baroque statement. What’s your deal anyway? You are depressing my hamburger.”
“I’m pretty sure that isn’t happening.”
“Can you prove that statement true?”
I slide my burger over to his person. He gently removes the top layer of bun, examines its integrity, replaces, slides back to me.
“That is a pretty sad burger.”
“I know, right? Happy when I sat down, now a sad little creature. I am afraid I no longer wish to engage in eating with it. You are what you eat.”
“You will become a sad hamburger?”
“I will become a sad obstetrician depressing future children.”
“You…”
“There are times when my tongue gets so big that I place it in my pocket.”
“Your tongue?”
“I had five jackals that wrestled heavenly in a gust of abstract jelly. They fought four bouts with a grizzled ostrich that overtook them with a flip of it’s wrist.”
“You aren’t one of those adults with the brain of an adolescent child, hmm?”
“I once saw a man with thirteen lives. I once saw a woman so peckish she was avian. A man once saw me as a victim of repetitious malfeasance put upon by hazelnut flavored stationary.”
The man before me, or better yet, across from me stands. Placing a coat over his stocky body.
“I think I’m done here.”
He leaves me, to contemplate the miscreant nature of a bee in a wasps nest.

3.

I once had a xylophone that had keys fashioned from an alabaster untouched by French men. I walked with it one morn, prancing amongst the pixie dust that brought a glittering haze upon the strawberry fields. A desolate sun sat basking in it’s ornery glory. A titmouse flew by singing a song of auspacious children whose mothers had left them to tend their fancies.
I laid my xylophone uponst a forlorn buffalo that nibbled at the berries of the Earth’s nurture. I called upon a song with delicate masculinity, grasping the mallet between index finger and thumb I tapped the first key sending a glorious note through the spectrum and landing in the ear of Abraxas.
Upon sending sound into the meatus acusticus externus, for it to be looked upon in such deviating causeway led me to believe that the science of it all is much better than figurative maleficence brought to life by a fictitious genius.

 

Seek: Part 2

“I don’t know what the fuck her problem was, she must’ve been high, thought she was talking to someone, I think she said a little girl,” Alyce explains to Stephen on the phone. ” I know right? What the fuck? Cause I didn’t see anyone, much less a little girl…Conor probably slipped something in her drink hoping it would loosen her up…you know what for….he wants to fuck her, bad…I don’t know, maybe he like girls with bats in their belfry…I guess I’ll talk to her tonight, I haven’t decided if I want to deal with that kind of crazy or not…yeah, I get off at ten, thought I’d go over after, drink a few talk her down from this midlife crisis…don’t fucking tell me that, what is wrong with you?” she hangs up, grabs her purse and keys and leaves to waitress for the next nine hours.

Stephen dials Conor.

“Hey, you busy?…can you stop for like twenty minutes? I need to a talk to you…last night, yeah…that’s what I want to know…did you do anything?…I don’t know, anything…I don’t really want to hear about your self sexualization, besides, shit, did you spike Hannah’s drink, cigarettes?…I know I’m an asshole, I’m just trying to figure shit out…I’m not trying to start a fight, I’m sorry if you think I’m accusing you but that’s not what I’m implying, that’s why I asked instead of just saying, ‘what’d you put it Hannah’s drink’, right?” Stephen hears a click. He looks at his phone to see that his call timer has stopped. Conor had hung up.

Conor sets his phone down, smokes a joint, cigarette, then drinks a beer. He lays back pissed at Stephen for implying that he would do anything against anyone’s wishes. “I’m a hell of a guy,” he tells himself in a drug/alcohol buzz. He sits up growing more irate at the accusations the more he sits there allowing them to stew. “I don’t try to fuck prudes,” he says out loud to no one. He looks down, between his knees, staring at the floor. He rubs his temples as the darkness seeps around his ankles from underneath the futon he sits upon. He falls to his knees and looks for a source for the blackness. He sees none. It is just there. It exists from nowhere. Just like the little girl that dances behind him.

Kremschemelda’s Boyfriend (Tales of People Dying pt. 8)

My girlfriend was shot. Shot and killed. Shot in the head to be exact and it wasn’t gang violence or a robbery gone bad or a random act of brutality. No. The fact is she was hunted and killed. Hunted and killed for being a big goddamn monster. It wasn’t that she was fat or freakishly tall, not that kind of monster. The literal fact is that she was a big, black and green, hairy and scaly, scare the pants off your elderly neighbor; love of my life monster.

I loved everything about her. The dried phlegm that clung to the end of her nose. The slime that dripped from her disgruntled scowl of razor sharp teeth. It was so cute and pains me as I write this. I loved you Kremschemelda the Devourer.

I will miss the times we made love and you would accidentally bite off a chunk of my flesh, though coming from you I knew it was meant with love.

I still have the video we made on that rainy day in France. I know you remember. We had that huge fight. You stormed out of the hotel room, ate someone, returned, told me you were sorry, and made love all night; capturing it all on film.

As I write this remembrance of the beauty that you were a knock happens across my door. I answer, on the other side stands Kremschemelda’s father.

“Pitiful human where is my daughter?” he exclaims covering me in thick spittle.

“You haven’t heard. Oh, dear.”

“Where is…”

“She’s dead, sir,” I say cutting him off.

“Dead. From your hands?”

“Definitely not sir. She was the love of my life. The aura of beauty in my eyes. I would never lay harm to such a magical creature.”

He stands, looking at the floor trying to take in all the love I had just expressed for his fallen daughter. He then looks up, gazing into my eyes. Mesmerizing me so that I do not see his jaw begin to unhinge like that of a snakes. Before I know it, from head to torso are lodged within the confines of his gullet. The rest of my body slithers down, through his mouth and meets my head that rests, dissolving in stomach acids. It takes a full day for me to fully dissolve.

As a gift to his daughter, he finds her final resting place and shits my bones beside her burial; to lay with her forever or until some animal comes around and carries them away.

The Crunge: A Tale of the Skeletal Man (Part 2)

2

The skeletal man was an ace at cards. Took all my money and I’m pretty damn good.

Everything was fine until that goddamn cloaked fella started yappin’ on about his money. I had left the room before the incident began. The raised voices and commotion drew me back in to see the skeletal man standing with a pistol pointed at him. The cloaked man demanding repayment of lost cash. I thought at that moment the life of the skeletal man and everyone else on this ship was at stake. If he shot him why not shoot all of us.Most killers are pretty stead fast on the hope of no witnesses. Witnesses were abound.

Then, out of nowhere the cloaked man fell dead. All seemed back to normal. That is until I approached the skeletal man, had a few drinks and was asked to help him stop the Crunge.

“I’m no fighter. I’m fat.”

“Who said anything about fighting? Sure a gun may be involved, fisticuffs are out of the question.”

“So it’s not human?”

“In a sense.”

“If you want my help I need you to stop being so cryptic.”

“What we are going to be fighting will look human. The Crunge is like a parasite that takes home along it’s hosts spinal column, injecting itself into the brain and assuming control. The host dies, the Crunge dies.”

“How will I know who is infected. I’m not going to kill innocent people. I have to be one hundred percent on this.”

“You’ll see through my eyes.”

“How is that possible?”

“To question what is possible and that that is im is irresponsible in these times. There are possibilities within the universe that you will never know. Just accept what I will tell you and your life will be grander for it.”

“So if I accept what do we do, go through extensive training, only then, that we know we can handle the charge we go full steam ahead.”

“Actually, as soon as you say yes we head to Earth and kill as many of the fuckers as we can.”

“Wait…what…”

3

Hank Barker turned out to be a cracker jack shot. During the four days it took to arrive on Earth he practiced non-stop in the firing range I had built onto my ship for just this occasion.

When it came time for him to put his skills to use there were no questions asked. He ended the target’s life be it man, woman, child. He saw the truth of what they were, shells for a parasitic virus.

*

I never thought twice when Charlie sent me on a hit. I saw the creatures that lay inside each person. The vile that was stealing their humanity. I was their only hope. I was their savior from a life of imprisonment. A single gunshot to the head was all it took to free them. I felt powerful. I was doing good. I would no longer be the fat piece of shit that lost at poker. I would be respected. Children would look up to me, they’d want to be me. I was saving their future.

*

I showed him the truth after his final hit. I sent him into the coffee shop as soon as I exited. It was to look like a robbery. He entered demanding money, instead he opened fire. Killing all that occupied the establishment. It wasn’t until the last body fell to the floor that I released the veil I placed over his eyes. He saw the atrocity for which he had just committed. Killing innocent men, women, and children.
He fell to his knees. Tears streaming down his face. His dreams of heroism crushed. He would be hated. Disgust would be heard in the vernacular of his spoken name.

He brought the gun to his temple and fired one shot in between tears. Taking his life for being nothing more than a homicidal pawn in a game I was controlling. A game who’s ending was far from over.

The Crunge: A Tale of the Skeletal Man (Part 1)

1

The man sitting next to me smelled horrendous, talked way too much, and was big as a house. But he played cards horribly and I was up ten thousand fifty dollars already, so a little stink and rubbing of elbow to love handle could be overlooked.

“I hope you’re happy fella,” the fat man says. “You’re taking all I have.”

“I’m taking? It’s more like you are giving me everything you have. Besides, no one is forcing you to play. I would have given up ten hands ago,” I gather my money and slip it into my pocket. “I tell you what, when we land I’ll buy you a drink. Nothing soothes the loss of money like a warm gullet. So what’dya say boss?”

“A drink won’t buy me a house.”

“And neither will I,” I pull a cigar out of my shirt pocket and light it. “Tell you what I will do. I just so happen to be great friends with The Commander, I’ll chat him up, get you a bang up job, and not one of those excavating jobs, we lose about two thirds the men we send out there-”

“The cold?”

“-to worms.”

“I thought the Worm Annihilation Front had that under control?”

“Oh, yeah, let’s be a little naïve and believe that twenty college dropouts are going to eradicate a worm problem as big as ours in a year. Not going to happen.”

The fat man stands with much difficulty. “Well, you do what you can. If a job comes your way I’d be much grateful, promises just don’t hold much weight these days.”

“Can’t say the same for those pants.”

He takes a thumb, slides it between fat and fabric, gives it a tug forward.

“Elastic my friend. A gift from the gods.”

The fat man walks away and leaves me with a ragtag group of gamblers all pretty pissed I have their money. I quickly stuff the winnings in my pocket. Excuse myself from the table and stand.

“We’re not finished here,” says a cloaked fellow from whom I won the biggest pot.

“Sorry pal, we are. Everyone’s tapped.”

“You’re not.”

“Well, that’s a difference of opinion.”

The man slams his fist on the table toppling chips and spilling drinks.

“No pal, it’s not.”

“You play a game of chance…there’s a chance you may lose. Deal with it.”

The cloaked man stands, uses his right hand to unveil a pistol.

“You sure you want to play it this way? On my ship?”

His hand creeps around the butt of the gun. A finger slides over the trigger.

“You fire that you’ll be dead before the bullet hits me.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“It’d be the first time you won tonight. Not great odds.”

The gun slides from the holster. He holds it, down at his side. Out of the corner of my eye I see the fat man has returned. He stands with the other spectators, waiting in anticipation.

“I tell you what. Return your gun. I’m feeling charitable today. I’ll give half what I won and free drinks till you reach your destination.”

“You’re scared.”

“Not scared, just concerned about the poor soul who’ll clean up this mess.”

“You return all my money. That’s the only way we’re solving this.”

“You’re right…how much was it again?”

“Six…”

A shot rings out. The bullets catches the cloaked man in his right eye. He falls to floor dead. I holster my pistol.

“Free drinks till we clean up this mess,” I tell my passengers. They run to the next room to place their orders. I walk over to the man I shot. I bend down and pull the hood from his face.

“A dolan. No wonder. They’re sore losers,” says the fat man.

“You come back for your money as well?”

“Didn’t cross my mind before, definitely not now.”

“Thing is, you and I could’ve come to some kind of peaceful resolution. He was going to shoot no matter what.”

“I was scared for a second.”

“Only a second?”

“Sure.”

“Let’s get that drink.”

“You buying?”

“It appears so.”

*

“So I gain like fifty pounds and she leaves me which makes me more depressed so all I do is eat and eat which led me to obesity you see before you.”

“You never told me your name.”

“Oh, sorry, Hank Barker.”

“Well Hank, I’m Charlie Cutter.”

“Wait, Charlie Cutter? Bullshit.”

“The one and only.”

“So that speech about get me a job and knowing a commander was just…”

“Bullshit, yeah. Sorry, I have to give the appearance that I’m an everyman.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I can trust you.”

“But you don’t know me.”

“I know things about you that no one else knows.”

“But how?”

“All I need is a name.”

“Then what?”

“That’s where the mystery will lie dormant. It’s not for you to know.”

“I’m confused.”

“That happens. Look, when you first boarded my vessel I could sense something about you. When you gave your name I could do more than sense it.”

“So what is it?”

“I need your help.”

“Help with what?”

“The Crunge.”

Hide: Part 2

The inner sanctum of the house was encapsulated in a darkness as thick as molasses. I was only able to find my way to a comfortable resting spot by being led by the girl’s tiny hand.

“Stay here,” she said. “I’ll grab a phone.”

She came back a few minutes later carrying a cordless.

“Here go.”

“Thanks.”

I pressed the talk button. The phone came to life and shed a minuscule amount of light allowing me to see my hands and the edge of the couch. I brought the phone up to the girl’s face. As I did this I swore, and I’m not sure how to explain this, but, the darkness seemed to move out of the way of the light. Kind of like it were smoke disrupted by a slight breeze. Gently pushed out of the way to reveal what lie hidden behind. I took it for my eyes playing tricks on me and dialed Alyce’s number. She picked up on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Alyce. What the shit girl?”

“Hannah? Where are you.”

“You left me in these freaking woods is were I am. I happened across this nice family who let me use their phone to call your sorry ass.”

“You didn’t go home?”

“Why would I go home? I sat by this big tree for, for I don’t know how long waiting for you and those two knuckleheads to stumble on me… I told you this was not a good idea.”

“Wasn’t my idea.”

“Doesn’t matter. Just come get me.”

“Where are you now?”

“Where am I exactly?” I ask the girl.

“In a house in the woods.”

“I know that…never mind. Can you take me back to where I found you dancing?”

“Who was dancing?” Alyce asks.

“I’ll explain later.”

“I know these woods back and forth.”

“So you’ll take me?”

“Only if you promise to come back someday and play dolls.”

“Sure, sounds great.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Okay. Let’s go.”

“Alyce, we’re leaving, just park where Stephen parked earlier, I’ll be there.”

“Fine.”

“Is this some sort of inconvenience?”

“No…well, yeah…kind of.”

“Really?”

“No…ugh, I’ll be there.”

“Thank you.”

I hand the girl her phone. She grabs my hand and leads me out of the house and onto a trail that leads to where Alyce shall be waiting.

“Was that your friend?”

“Who?”

“On the phone.”

“Oh, her. Sure. Close enough.”

“You don’t like her?”

“We get along fine. She can just be a real bitch sometimes.”

“What’s a bitch?”

“She can be annoying.”

“Oh. We’re almost there.”

We walk awhile more then come to a thinning of trees and roaring of passing cars.

“She should be here soon.”

“Okay.”

“You never told me your name,” I say.

“Lillian.”

“Hello Lillian, I’m Hannah.”

She starts the dance I witnessed earlier, she stops when headlights focus on us.

“Come on Hannah, I don’t have all night,” Alyce exclaims from the car.

“Hold your horses, jeez.”

I turn to Lillian. ” Thanks for everything, I’ll come back soon so we can play, okay.”

“I can’t wait.”

“Now get home, your mom is probably worried.”

“Bye,” she says as she runs back into the woods.

I walk to the car and climb inside.

“Who were you talking to?”

“Lillian. She led me back here. Smart little girl.”

“Little girl? There wasn’t anyone there.”

“Look Alyce, you’ve fucked with me enough tonight. Just take me home.”

“Whatever, believe what you want.”

She threw the car in gear and we headed home.

Seek: Part 1

“What time is it?” asks Stephen.

“Two thirty-eight,” Alyce responds.

“In the morning?”

“No. The afternoon. That’s why the sun is shining so bright,” she exclaims sarcastically. “Yes the morning, jackass.”

“Well, I don’t know where she is. Maybe she left.”

“Maybe she fell in a hole. A passerby saw the hole and filled it. Now she’s buried, trying to dig her way to freedom,” responds Conor.

“Maybe you’re an asshole,” Alyce says.

“Sugar, there’s no maybe about that.”

“Look, either we find her or we leave. I’m not going to spend all night, morning, whatever looking for someone who is most likely fucking with us.”

“What if she is hurt?”

“She’s not hurt. She would’ve screamed or be screaming. Let’s go home, call her tomorrow and you’ll see everything is just fine.”

“Fine. If she’s hurt I’m blaming you two.”

“You’re not the law…so who gives a shit.”

The three of them walk back along the trail that leads to Stephen’s red Mustang. Conor climbs in the back, directly behind Alyce.

“Don’t even think about kicking the back of my seat. I tolerated it on the way here, if you do it now I’m going to scratch your eyes out.”

“Chill out. Jesus.”

The car rumbles to life, is put in gear and drives towards the highway.

Hide: Part 1

They left me without a second thought and I know we are too old to be playing hide and seek yet we do it anyway trying to live out our childhood fantasies I guess. In all the times we’ve played I never won, never came close and that’s probably why they left me out in those cold, dark woods. Probably thought I gave up and ventured home. I did not. I sat on the damp, gross ground waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and scream out, “Found you!” It wasn’t until I heard Stephen’s Mustang rumble to life that I knew I was alone.

The dark doesn’t scare me. Usually the dark and I have a pretty mutual understanding; it never hides an evil with intentions of doing me harm and I give it the glorious pleasure of watching me in all my intimate moments. I sat a few minutes until it became clear that no one was coming back for me. I stood, dusted the leaves and mud from my ass and journeyed as best I could remember the way I came.

I saw the girl after walking a mile and realizing I was lost. She was a tiny little thing in a white dress skipping to and fro in a circular patch of grass void of trees though full of moonlight. I stood and watched as she danced and danced. I didn’t speak. Only watched. I had never ventured these woods before so I was not confident of locations of houses in the area. Even with a house close by this struck me as strange; it had to be close to three in the morning. I know as a child I was never allowed in a wooded area, hell, outside at three in the morning at her age, supervised or not.

She had begun to spin. Going faster and faster then all of a sudden falling to the ground in a fit of laughter. I took this as my cue to approach and find out what exactly was going on. She was still on the ground when I reached her. Giggling and playing with her feet.

“Hello?” I question.

“It’s rude to watch,” she says.

“I don’t know if it’s rude per se, no, I’d say it was more of an act of inquisitiveness.”

“Inquisita-wa? You’re funny.”

“I really don’t have the patience to explain it right now. Are you supposed to be out here?”

“I’m always out here.”

“You live out here?”

“Not out here.”

“In a house out here?”

“Yes.”

“Do your parents know you are out here?”

“My mom knows. She’s watching me.”

“From how far away, cause, I only see the two of us.”

“She’s around,” she stands and approaches me. “Are you lost?”

“A little. My friends and I were playing games and I got left out here.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-three.”

“You don’t drive?”

“I didn’t drive here. I can’t really explain why they left.”

“Maybe they left you to die.”

“That’s a little creepy.”

“My mom made cookies. You like cookies?”

“Cookies are fine at a reasonable time.”

“You can share with me.”

“You want me to come to your house?”

“My dolls will love you.”

“I can call my friends.”

“Sure.”

She took me by the hand and led me back into a wooded area. We followed a trail that I was told about though did not see. I then saw the house. Nestled in between a group of trees and pitch black. Not a single light was on.

“Are you sure about this?”

“You need help don’t you?”

“I guess. This just seems the beginning of something much worse than help.”

“What’s much worse than help?”

“Help isn’t something bad…never mind. Let’s get to that phone.”

We reached the front door which she opened with a gleeful smile and we stepped inside.