Marie

Marie and I went out for coffee today. That’s exactly what we had. Coffee; Nothing more, nothing less. She didn’t know that I was just aching for an excuse to get lost in her gorgeous hair just one more time. In her warm, friendly embrace, I tried to hide my passion – my love.
We sat down and caught up. She was mellow, polite, cordial, and did everything in her power to make this moment as normal as possible. It was not hard for me. I had resolve. I would stare into her eyes, savor her good nature, and mope around the house for a couple hours later on in the day. I asked her:
“What’s Alicia Doing nowadays?”
“She’s an accountant. I don’t see how she doesn’t blow her head off, it’s such a boring job, but that’s just Ally.”
She sipped her coffee, and looked out the window. With her same old concern she asked:
“How’s Jake?”
As many times as I’d heard the question, this time didn’t make it any easier.
“He’s alive, but that barely describes him.”
She grabbed the pot from the center of the table and topped of my white, ceramic cup. I tried to push Jake out of my mind for now, and focus on this one little, stolen moment. Marie was only in the country for a couple of days. She had to fly to Brazil before heading back to France, so I only had a couple of hours. She set the pot down and smiled at me. She said how well I looked.
“It’s the California sun. People turn colors out here you could never imagine in France.”
She laughed, and I laughed. It was the sweetest, most savory, tingling, butterflies in the stomach laugh I had ever laughed. It was the remedy for my woes. It was also the catalyst which ignited my belief that maybe she might still feel something. I searched her face for another hint. God, California was too filthy a place for this beautiful Goddess. Starbuck was a smirch on her reputation. The United States were not civilized enough for her countenance. And I, I could have been just a little better in bed for her liking. Nut no, I wasn’t too bad (thanks to my partial Latin roots).
“You know, Jake asks about you every time I visit. He said he’d make sure I burned in hell if I didn’t tell you he’s still waiting for that kiss.”
She blushed. I wasn’t really sure what it meant, and had no idea how to press the issue.
“Tell Jake,” she said, “that he is most assuredly up on my list.”
There was my opening:
“And who’s on top of that list?”
She took what I felt to be an ill placed sip of her coffee.
“My fiancé.”
I took what she probably assumed to be a necessary sip of my coffee. That solved that question. She was getting married, and I would probably sit in one of the back rows, trying not to sob like a drunken asshole, later on turning into a blubbering drunken asshole at the reception. So I looked into her eyes, and thought to myself fuck it. You’ve got only so many years on this planet, are you going to pass on the only opportunity to stop her from marring this asshole?
“Congratulations. I certainly hope you’ll invite me to the wedding.”
“Do you really want to be there Sam?”
No. No I did not.
“Of course.”
My subconscious was going to kick my ass with a bottle of Rum when I got home. Marie felt all of this. My chest had been pried apart. Nothing was secret anymore.
“Love can only stretch so far, Sam.”
I wasn’t trying to learn a lesson at the time. I knew all of the circumstances and the limits and the differences, but I was too caught up on the similarities to see the truth. I tried to close up. I tried to stick with the matter at hand:
“So, where are you having the wedding?”
Marie refilled her cup.
“In Chartres. And I would be delighted if you came.”
We continued the small talk. Apparently this man’s name was Jean. And I was sure the typical Jean was going to match quite badly with the lovely, smart, funny Marie quite terribly. I said nothing.
I hugged her one last time, and this time it was the pain of half a planet’s distance keeping us apart that made the moment so strong. It was the closing of the door of opportunity – the sealing of the window of our romance.

There was a message on the answering machine when I got home, and I called Marie immediately.
“Yes Sam?
“Marie, I- I have to – oh god.”
What is it Sam?
“It’s uh – it’s Sam, he-“
I couldn’t say it.
“I’ll cancel my flight. I’m coming over Sam. Just have a drink and I’ll be there as fast as I can.

I closed my eyes, and bowed my head, and prayed to my God.

      God, I don’t pray as much as I should. I’m sorry for whatever I’ve done. Please let mom be wrong. Please let Jack be okay. And if he’s not, please…give him back…

Motherhood

She kept trying to squeeze the spoon between the toddlers lips, but the flesh was sealed shut, and his beautiful Buddha belly ceased to rise and fall with the initial breaths of life.

“C’mon, sweetheart.” she whimpered through gasping, airy sobs, “you need to eat.”

But the child’s lips did not part, his stomach did not rise. His fine hair still ran through her fingers in the same way, his little socks were still too big for his feet, but they would never grow in. Mentally, physically, and spiritually, the child remained an infant. Where does the soul of a child go? This was beyond our poor maternal sufferers concern. It belonged with her. His breath belonged to her; his hands, which once clung to her nurturing bosom, which now lay cold and limp, belonged to her. There was no man, there was no family. It was simply son and daughter fighting against a world she was thankful had once refused her the right to an abortion, but now found herself wishing her child had never been born; wishing she would have never had to suffer this irreparable damage.

The stars did not penetrate the barrier issued by the street lights, and there was no place for her to go that would make her child’s stone face any less grimacing. His eyes were shot open, but blank as a summer school board. They were windows to empty rooms; aquariums of lifelessness.

She found herself wondering who would stand with her to mourn this beautiful baby boys denial of life? Who would sing requiem for his soul? No one. Not one soul beyond her meager own, would mourn her child, who was a victim of circumstance; carried away with a winter chill, after being conceived in a summer heat. She thought back on those little memories she had to hold on to. She was dumbfounded by the passion endowed to a suckling infant. As her nutrients became his, so did her heart. And with his death, so went her life. To be indifferent would have been her salvation, but she was a heart in hand, scarlet blazoned sinner of the most compassionate kind. A tear fell from her cheek to the little child, and she leaned her head to the brick ball she sat against, feeling nothing but the cold winter chill, which taunted her moment by moment, holding her child’s breath, refusing to return it; it was no longer his, or hers. His breaths would pass through the lungs of the more fortunate children of the world; the ones who had been bred from the pedigree class, who were not to proud to breath derelict air; or perhaps, too proud to admit that it was not theirs to begin with.

A coughing fit enraptured the poor young woman, and she fell sideways to the floor, embracing yet another cold surface. The only blanket to her name covered her precious little boy, and it was ‘round his tender torso it would stay. She would not lower herself to the level of those people who live for themselves, living without loving; giving with the expectancy to receive; and caring only on the holidays. She shivered, coughed, wheezed, hacked, and hollered defiantly, but she kept her child warm. She hoped the biting breeze would know to seize her too.

Saved From Iniquity (By the heat of the Gun)

            My

                                

 father used to say that I would be the death of him. I knew he meant it. It was one of the few things he would reiterate in his sobriety.                  “You’d better wash the blood from your hands now Jackie, because you’ll have no shame when it’s over.”      

I often wondered what he meant by that. He would be sitting on the porch while I sat inside the house, below the broken window nearest him. I didn’t like him, but found solace in his immediacy. The bad men, the outlaws as they were called, never brought the inkling of mortality to Cisco’s mind. I was the child he conceived, and I suppose he figured that the one he brought into this world should be the one to take him out. That was human nature, but most parents would never dare take it as far as he did. 

      My father was not a religious man, but he knew he had a soul. A soul that I unwittingly condemned the night I shot him…

      Life’s ostentatious elixir speckled across the floorboards and the walls. It oozed out of my father’s mouth and created a strange geography of fault lines in his lifeless eyes. His existence was wiped clean by the boring of a .38 caliber fissure through his forehead. There were two other living beings in the room: Mary, the only woman whom I had ever grown to trust, and the man who had taken my father hostage by gunpoint in the defeat of the night, and handed me the contrivance which delivered my father from iniquity.           

      This man wasn’t desperate; he was too good, too surgical and mechanical in his craft to be desperate. His hardened face and rough composure detracted from his good qualities: his beautiful green eyes; the gateway to a soul which had been cast away long ago; eyes that were no longer alive, but mere pretty pictures hung on a mildewed and rotten wall. His hair was soaked and his clothes were damp. Was it sweat? No. Callous men never sweat. Even his gun trickled with the mysterious moisture. None of this deterred from his image. He was a professional, and he knew how to make sure his presence would not soon be forgotten.           

      I wish I could say that the room was pitch black and that everything was chaotic. I wish I could say that I was shaking and horror-stricken, too. But it would all prove to be fallacy. My father met his demise in a brightly lit room accompanied by his son, and the love of his life; neither of which shed a tear. We all knew who would be gone by the end of the night, but I was the last to admit, despite being the one who pulled the trigger.       

      The twisted man with the pretty green eyes held my father round the neck and calmly iterated that not one person in this room really wanted to live. He put the decision in my hand to choose which one to euthanize. Beautiful Mary calmly sat down and straightened her silk blue nightgown. I’ll always remember how composed she was that night. It was her poise that led me to pull the trigger. It was the knowledge that everything would be all right and that someone would be there for me no matter what. But the man was right. Not one of us really wanted to live. The only one I felt remorse for was Mary.           

      Mary, who had traded in her husband’s blood for the love of her life, was about to see love lost by the hand of the child she had promised to raise. Finally within me, I felt a hesitation. More thoughts. Thoughts about my father: a loner; a snake in the grass whose agenda bore no room for the normal trappings of life. My childhood of stacking barstools and sleeping in rags was the best he could offer me. Had he not been my father, I would have hated him. But I saw something redeemable in him. I wanted him alive…for Mary’s sake.

      I aimed at the twisted man and pulled the trigger. But unexpectedly, the bullet sinned and went straight through my father’s skull. Blood spattered face and hands of the twisted man as my father fell to the floor. The twisted man released the hammer and returned his gun to his jacket pocket. He took a handkerchief from his black lapel, walked to the sink, and cleaned himself up. Then he smiled at me. His eyes searching my soul to see that he had done his job. Then he patted my shoulder. I raised my gun and pulled the trigger again, but nothing. Again! Again! Again! Again! I should have known: One bullet and a warped barrel. A shoddy tool the S.S. wouldn’t deem fit to use.           

       He slowly made his way over to Mary, sweet Mary. He kissed her on the cheek as she stared longingly, lovingly at her child-hood love. I went wild with instinct and fury! Like an animal, I leapt upon him, one hand around his throat and the other continually smashing his face. I spit, kicked, grabbed, grappled, bit, scratched and screamed until I was sure that he had passed out in his agony. Mary did not move. I grabbed the gun from his lapel and shook him until he was awake. I stared into his eyes and I fired. Again! Again! Again! Again! Again! I watched that sickeningly beautiful color drain from his eyes and threw the gun across the room. Finally, I fell upon the floor. I didn’t cry. The floorboards welcomed me with as much warmth as it did the blood that coagulated between us. The remains of a monster to the left of me, and a twisted killer to the right of me. Mary laid a blanket over me and lay down beside me. At last I felt free.            

      No matter how beastly my father was, I would always remember that not all monsters come from beds and closets, and not all horrors are bred from the depths of hell. My father was right. I never washed my hands of that night, and I have never once regretted my actions.

another Huxleyesque take on society

 Insomnia

I had this idea of a society that never slept, and was kept alive by various hormones. i don’t have much in the way of a plot yet, but this excerpts is about one of the earliest incarnations of the idea, and therefore, has to do with one of the fatal flaws; namely the human bodies inability to run indefinitely without sleep. 

 

The Harlem Conclusion

 

The needle pierced his sternum, sending an electronic impulse through his spine and into his nerve endings, flooding his cranium with endorphin. His flesh tightened and the dark, purple-black bags disappeared from beneath his eyes. The wrinkles betwixt his brow stretched and his muscles contracted, revealing sickly, black veins throbbing beneath milky white skin and causing vile blood to emanate through unhealed wounds at mid-arms length; you know, the point in the arm from which many a being has explored in hopes of discovering peace, only to find restless solemnity. The sound of metal on brittle cartilage rang through his ears as they slowly, meticulously, tortuously, slid the needle from his chest. His heart palpitated double-time and he began to sweat profusely. Drip after drip landed on the cot, and soaked the leather straps that held him down. He was a representation of the experimental laboratory subjects of the 1950’s horror era: he was a monster; a rag doll man; homosapien artificialis. He screamed and fought against the bindings until his wrists ran crimson with pain and anguish. The shadowed strangers around him held up dark, maniacal hands laden with sterile gloves. They prodded and shocked him to stimulate more, and more, and more, and increasingly stronger impulses. The destitute soul’s heart beat louder, with a telltale undertone. The larger and more masculine figure raised a club above his head and reigned fury down upon the patients knees and shins. And to no one’s surprise, the rag doll hollered in ecstacy and cried for more! They beat him and stabbed him and pleasured him and prodded him until finally, and with insufferable certainty, his chest rose, and fell, in one final display of life in the midst of iniquity, and his eyes ran red with the blood that had once given him life.

The large, shadowed figure – tossing aside his club – decreed to his peers, “It is neither a viable nor an ethical practice to attempt to revitalize the tempests of an irrevocable society. Let them pass from iniquity into the garrulous noise of the unknown hereafter. Waste no more on these derelict souls.”

And the lights came on in the expansive white washed ward. The blinds raised from the mirrors that lined the ceiling, revealing the landmark dark clouds of a society that prefers the shadows of night, in order to hide from themselves. Row upon row of cots lined the floor, like so many bread rolls, neatly lined in an oven, each with a body incapacitated in one way or another ranging from ailments of arthritis to heart failure; brain hemorrhages down to swollen ankles. Hundreds of creatures, perhaps thousands, perhaps none from a biblical perspective; just shells once inhabited by souls lost in lust, unable to be stimulated by the bare necessities of life. Their visages sagged, and their eyes were shot and stared blankly at things that didn’t exist, if anything at all. Appendiges and aesthetics drooped, and limbs cracked. Bones could be heard rubbing against cartilage counterpoints. The sorrow is in the irony. The symptoms of the elderly, being exhibited on creatures no older than twenty, and having no subsequent hope of revitalization.

The metal door shut with an unsympathetic clang, and an ominous hiss permeated the room, marking the judgement of the ward’s damned inhabitants.

“Goodbye ye fair youth who hath sacrificed age for beauty; and conviction for that which is not passion, but the outer shell from which passion attempts to emerge, only to stain the fragile casing with an image of burlesque; the antiquated, archaic substitute for beauty.”