an ongoing fiction collection that attempts to explore one author's interpretation of modernism in its poignant honesty, revitalized through notions of the bizarre and absurd.
*This work was written for purely recreational purposes only on a scifi RPG site. This character is a heavy homage to Cowboy Bebop.
Even in this post-modern world, resuscitation is two parts science, one part miracle. However, miracle is a funny word. In this frame of light, the weight of life exceeded the strength of his optimism; endurance was prolonged only due to the peculiar resilience of his form, and the insistence of his Charge--a doctor in pursuit of answers. Answers that hid behind an offensive word to the objective and systematic order of his universe: supernatural. A daemon, an incubus, a devil--these things were not real for the Doctor. True demons only presented themselves in the form of obstacles, shortcomings, and paltry accountants who brought omens which foretold the absence of funds.
The Daemund Project began and died in the middle of the Caspian Sea, on an offshore city originally purposed by Stalin as a floating oil rig. Neft Dashlari -- a crumbling waste, a relic of a forgotten era -- reforged into a private working station contracted by a network of private laboratories, whose benefactors were deeply concerned about the emergence of the nightcreature society.
Countless of supernatural beings were smuggled into the facility throughout the years, most of them undocumented, some abandoned by their own. Others were outright stolen from cribs in the middle of the night. Younger was better. Youth adapted to adversity, overcame pain. Ein was four when his clinical trials began.
Originally, the doctor wished to understand that strange phenomena that was the give-and-take of life. The concept of a soul, life energy, the way a body acted like a fragile vial to be filled and emptied by moments of contact and isolation. At his core, the doctor wished to find the fountain of youth--he wished to turn his own body into that famed holy grail, that immortal chalice that floweth over. Indefinite, unchanging. While such discoveries never came to pass, the good doctor did later open his mind to other opportunities.
Augmentation, for example, was much easier on a subject whose body healed considerably faster than that of a normal human. Ein was one of many whose sole purpose was to field test the boundaries of such life-hacks, and the limitations of the body.
Through this process, Ein's mind became a tattered web caught in a concocted whirlwind of experimental chemicals, held together by a series of electromagnetic nodes which allowed his brain to process, transmit, store, and receive data. Within his brain remained over one billion wulongs dollars worth of research; it was a walking vaulted server, an uplink, a cybernetic universal remote, and one hell of a wifi hotspot.
----
Two: The doctor, and a young woman known as Edward. These were the only people in existence with the talent and know-how to acess the backlogs of his cerebral archive.
Ein's mind is a fortress unto itself, separate from his own identity, and yet tangled in the same web. Crossover is infrequent, but terrible--like ghosts skittering in the periphreal, whispering into his ears. Ein refers to these events as seizures, and in those moments he can lose himself to the overwhelming waterfall of binary pouring through his skull.
To further prevent the likelihood of these occurrences, Ein eats a diet strictly of meat and vegetables; foods with grains and sugars are much more likely to cause the brain's synapses to fire more rapidly, resulting in more frequent episodes of irregular severity.Â
Autonomy is a luxury Ein can't remember ever having experienced; his whole existence has only ever been validated by someone else's need, desire, or intent for use. His dependency on the instruction and care of others is, at times, Â dog-like. Within him presides an overbearing need to be anchored. Â Familiarity is important for his comfort; loyalty is just another result of his conditioning.
----
One: Â Primary; alone.
Ein was name given to him as a prize for his singular durability -- Ein, for being one out of hundreds to survive a barrage of clinical trials, experiments, reformats, and the general insanity of their inhumane predicament -- Ein, for being the approximation of nothing, ein Dämon. A thing, a common article, a number.
Before "Ein," there was nothing to articulate the representation of himself, no syllables with which to pin together an identity. Life, before that point, was a series of events happening to a disembodied vessel--a witness, a receptor, and little more.
 ------
 "Let's go!"
No. He couldn't.  The lab, his home, his nightmare, his world was crumbling around him and he couldn't budge. Ein's heart seized at the sight of the ocean--and far off, its shore, the land. Dirt and rocks and trees and people. Other people, normal and emanating beautiful, succulent auras of the likes he's never tasted. The salt air, the smoke and embers, the roaring sound of a molten gouge burning through the wall separating him from everything --
It was too much, too soon.
Ein looked around for the doctor as the woman stood there atop the rubble, screaming at him. Â Â The staff were scrambling beneath the red flickering lights, stumbling as the stilted city buckled and swayed. But where was the doctor?
"Can't you hear me, kid?" she yelled, "It's time to get the fuck outta here!"
Evidently, Mr. Atwood thought it’d be a better idea for the whole family to burn. together. in New Mexico. The end result, of course, was severe weight loss and delusions. It got to the point where dinnertime had transitioned into some sort of spiritual powwow, where mother and son recanted the various cryptic visions which visited them. Â
   “The rattlesnake was made of pearls,” She said, chewing an over cooked brussel sprout.  Â
   “You know that vulture that keeps circling the house?” You said, then ten years old.  Â
   “Yeah.” Â
   “It told me to brace myself for impact.” Â
   “Hmm,” she said. “I wonder what that could mean.”
   If you were honest, the birds said a lot of things, like: “Where’s the cream filling?” and “I used to be beautiful once.” But most of their gibbering was clearly, clearly nothing more than a concoction of sheer boredom and dehydration. But this bird seemed wiser. It seemed cool and confident in the way a freakishly omnipotent being would be. Also, the bird returned, saying the same thing again and again, until you found out: Â
   the impact was puberty.
   It hit you in your balls, and it hit hard. You remember because of the way it hit you, as if you had lit your nads on fire by way of freezerburn. It felt as if you had dunked your nuggets into a vat of vicks vapour rub. It felt like someone had shoved mint up your urethra. shot it up your veins. Brain freeze, teeth ache, the shivers. Standing out in that hot sun, soaking in that brilliant damned 104 degree weather with little more than shoes? That was your awkward phase. And it came with perks. Â
   Well, sort of.
   You’ve never been sure whether or not pissing ice cubes was something cool to share or medically worrisome. Needless to say, you never asked mother. But that wasn’t everything. You could willfully freeze cups--hell, you could willfully freeze just about anything. Even yourself.
   Note to self: Mind still blown.
   It didn’t make any sense. One minute you were jerky frying the sun--the next, something out of a Christmas claymation movie. Jr. Winter, or some shit like that. (And, funnily enough, Cold Miser had always been your favorite.) One one hand, it fucking sucked, but on the other, it seemed pretty chill.
   Then, you adjusted. Acclimated was probably the better word. It began with hot coffee and sweats, running marathons and hot showers. The older you got, the less you needed these things. Your powers became more precise and non-accidental. Pissing ice cubes was a thing of your past.
What you lost in external frigidity, you gained within. People saw you for what you had  become: a sardonic man encased in a glacial armor.  You utilized your gift of sarcasm through writing. Deflective humor came naturally. It always will. You draw inspiration from the insanity of people -- specifically, from your own family. But life has taught you that everyone is crazy, you’re just a little more upfront about it.
Sure, you have issues. You’re a neat-freak that prefers to be alone. And there’s something wrong with that. You don’t want to be like your mother, chasing after snakes with pearls. You’ve endured your own share of venomous bites. People were never meant for cages--even those in the shape of relationships.
“It's just the ice machine,” my girlfriend says. But she doesn't know.
She wouldn't know the difference between organic, steamable baby peas and a three-cheese Hot Pocket. The only time she opens that freezer, it's to get dessert: froyo, Neapolitan, or one of those fudge pops. It's a foreign land to her; she's just a visitor—a tourist, really, stopping by to get overpriced novelties.
Not me. I'm a celebrated veteran of the frozen foods section.
“That doesn't make any sense,” I say. By now she's wandering into another room, humming some tune to a show about to come on TV. “Why would it be the ice machine. You didn't take any ice.”
“It makes it automatically.”
True enough.
“But why would the ice machine decide to make noise exactly after the door having been open?”
“It's probably just the temperature adjusting.”
“Yeah. Right.”
She looks at me as if I'm crazy, eyes striking like a stale twinkie across the jaw. “Are you honestly going to stand there,” she begins, pointing her spoon at me from the couch, “and argue it's more likely your 'little Japanese man',” she gave the spoon a twirl, “is living in our freezer,” more like mine—my freezer, “than it just being the ice machine making noise?”
I hear what she's saying, but I'm more concerned her spoon's about to take flight and scoop out one of my eyeballs. She's always throwing things. Like that twinkie mentioned earlier, which had to do with the basilisk in the tub drain. I wouldn't let it go—I mean, don't tell her this, but I still haven't let it go. Being told you are wrong is frustrating. She always uses her logic against me.
I stand there, silent. I tell myself I'll find him. Or proof; I'd settle for proof. Then she'd have to admit I'm right—about the Japanese man, the basilisk, everything. Our apartment is riddled with these things. It's a fucking refuge for anomalies-in-miniature.
“You'll see,” I mumble, and slink away to fill the washing machine with my clothes.
We do our laundry separate. Is that weird? She says it doesn't bother her—that it's probably better that way. I used to throw her laundry in with mine. She didn't appreciate it. I can't fold, which she often points out, so we have mounds of clean clothes toppling everything. But only on Sundays; by Friday, the heaps consolidate in the bathroom.
Another thing? The dryer doesn't know when to quit. When it's ready, it'll buzz and stop and buzz and stop, irregularly. It's worse in the middle of the night. Sometimes, I wonder if there's a game show host screwing around in there in there. You know, in the spirit of Drew Carey from “Whose Line is it Anyway?”
But even I know that's crazy. No one is watching us. No one. Why would they?
Well, if you don't count her cat. I don't. Mr. Sprickles (spit and prickles), more commonly known as “my baby Lucy,” doesn't have much of a choice.
What? Lucy can be Mr. Sprickles if I want.
Anyway, I'll come home from work and be like, “Lucyyyy, I'm homee.”
She'll fall off the bed and jangle into the living room, swaying like an overweight drunkard, and lean against the wall.
“Are you hungry?” I'll ask, then laugh as she strains to perk her head up. Her tongue never stays in her mouth because of a birth defect. Hence the spit. It would be endearing if—well, no, it wouldn't if anything. It's gross.
“Well, too bad,” I say. “You're borderline diabetic. Wait for Mommy to get home.”
She shouldn't have shared so many fudge pops or Wingdings or stale Twinkies. Whatever. I don't pay attention to what they eat. It certainly isn't edamame with sea salt or Lean Cuisine.
The point is, this overweight fail-ball of fur is the only witness to this madness I endure, and she doesn't even have the capacity to stop drooling. She wouldn't know the sound of a Taiko drum from her own farts—both, mind you, would send her flying into the arms of a girl who wouldn't notice a hole in her own head if it meant detaching herself from the TV for more than two seconds.
So, fuck her. At least the Japanese man greets me whenever I open the door.
That damn basilisk, on the other hand? I've been trying to get rid of him for ages.
—first published by Catfish Creek in Spring of 2013.
She came up through the mud, first by her fingertips.
We call them Bloomers, these dirt people. They shoot up like roots and have for a while now. My friend Tim blames the greenhouse attendants. I'm starting to wonder if it has anything to do with those rumored plans of filling in the pond.
Whatever the reason, they've never lasted long up here. It's rare to see one surface, much less do so alive. Most are found dead—or “wilted,” I guess you could say.
She lumbered towards me with the horror and gravitas of a wounded foal, and I stared, possessed by a spirit of awful pity. All I had wanted was to burn time between classes, not discover a muck monster from some nightmarish lagoon.
With every step, her movements improved—and you could see, with a piercing certainty, a growing sense of awareness in her features.
“Want a tic-tac?” I asked.
She looked at me.
It was a perfectly valid question—who wouldn't, after emerging from the bowels of who-the-hell-knows-what-kind-of morass, want to feel the least bit refreshed? I decided to try again.
“Are you all right?”
I offered my jacket, and she took it. Part of me was grateful for wearing my least favorite this evening, as it would surely be ruined by whatever alien soil she crawled out from—the image of which still clear in my mind. She had moved like a spider struggling through a raindrop.
We continued to talk. It didn't take long for me to exhaust my usefulness, nor for her to adapt to my use of language, and yet still fall short of effective communication. She understood unusually complicated things, but failed to grasp the concepts of need or identity. My limited knowledge of bloomers forewarned that her time here would be brief if preventative measures were not taken—and, as it turned out, I had grown fond of my discovery, and preferred if at all possible she not wilt under my care. Far too many orchids before her succumbed to such a fate. That fact made me terribly nervous.
“Let's go to the library,” I said. “There must be something on the shelves that would help—I mean, what if you can't eat chocolate?”
She followed me towards Randall Library, and we cautiously approached the stairs.
“I'm not allowed to give my dog chocolate,” I continued. “I know a girl who can't even eat bread, or cheese, or citrus...or nuts.”
Despite my usual avoidance of the library and its musky catacombs of overburdened minds, it was the only sensible place to turn to. Surely, some research of this phenomena had been documented.
“You'll be fine,” I said.
A silent dread trailed muddily behind: what if the book was checked out?
—first published by UNCW's Randal Library, Spring 2013
Three miles south of that turn, a yellow sign stands on the left which reads: “OBX Fishing Pier.” The pier itself stretches out beyond a pale-blue tackle shop with a faded ice cream logo and rusted screen doors. In the summertime it smells of shrimp bait and hotdogs.
As a child, Aidan once spent countless afternoons there occupying its corner arcade, climbing over gnarled wooden rails, peering through the gaps of planks with a child's fear that, somehow, the ocean would swell up to claim him. He used to walk to this pier growing up: road by day, where in the summertime blackberries would grow in the brush and stain his clothes; shore by night, equipped with flashlight and pail to capture ghost crabs who were unfortunate enough to be found. Come morning, despite thoughtful accommodations of sand and water, the crabs were always dead.
Who knew you could kill a ghost?
Looking back, Aidan believes he had it all wrong: they never died, but escaped—only to return each night, for those few hours of darkness, propped up like marionettes. That was the magic of the sea. Whenever he returned, Aidan felt that same tug at his soul, on his bones, upon his limbs. It was as if his whole life were nothing more than a game, twenty years of catch-and-release.
Today, he comes here reeled in on the bait of a memory, fresh off the road, to flounder ashore. But the family cottage is long gone, and the pier is closed. It is winter, after all. Gusts of cold wind remind him of that fact, as do the swirling dark-blue waters which hurl them. Standing on the top of a dune, sand sliding down around him with every weighted shift, Aidan scans the afternoon sky for kites. This would have been great weather for them.
“You shouldn't stand on the sand dunes.” He can almost hear it—it is an interchangeable voice: his mother, his grandfather, himself, a stranger. Aidan heeds the impulse and ventures closer toward the water. He is there to make castles, anyway. There is something spiritual about it, like swings and afternoon naps and long, silent car rides. All which bring him closer to the edge of this world; he compares it to being an astronaut or a spelunker—to trying on the shoes of God, building a kingdom with fistfuls of sand.
A half hour passes. His pants are damp from the ground; his right hand numb from digging a well. It is uncomfortable, but he continues.
“You never let me help,” his sister used to say, buzzing around his work in some brightly colored one-piece bathing suit. A Godzilla among architects.
“Start the castle, then,” Aidan would reply, giving her a shrug as he continued to build the wall. She would later learn that the castle was inconsequential; Aidan only ever cared for the wall. It could never be complete, never reach a point of certain satisfaction. Whenever it got close, a wave would come to erode the base, crumble the sides, or out-right overwhelm the entire structure. But that was the point. Aidan built too close to the water because he enjoyed the struggle, its inevitable outcome of failure.
Two hours go by with an unbreaking monotony. The wall stretches around him, forming a crescent, with towers that rise in modest circles which thin themselves, to a point, three feet from the base. In that time, not a a single wave had come to challenge his endeavor.
In realizing this, he frowns, and scooching back, draws his knees to his chest, feet digging beneath the sand.
“It looks nice.”
Aidan turns to find Wes standing there, arms folded. He looks smug or amused, which was normal for Wes. “You should see it from the other side,” Aidan says, his eyes returning to the crashing waves.
Wes walks around the wall, giving it a look from the front before peering expectantly at Aidan. “It looks,” he says, pausing, “very GaudĂ.” This elicits a smile from the both of them.
Just a year ago, the pair had spent a semester in Spain. All Aidan did was talk about seeing La Sagrada FamĂlia, the architect's unfinished masterpiece. Eventually they did go, taking a weekend to visit the beautiful city of Barcelona.
Wes lifts his eyebrows and again examines the excavation. “Are you okay?”
Aidan shrugs. They had come down to the beach to spend time with his family, though, it is going as expected: too many opinions stuffed into an already cramped condominium. It is the same suffocating sludge he puts up with each Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Years. “It didn't always used to be like this.”
“No?” Wes says. He laughs; his smile is bright and wide. “The way you talk about them, you'd never know it.” Wes steps over the wall to sit beside Aidan. “I can see why you like it back here,” he says, giving a nudge. “Nice and safe. Good view. Kinda comfy.” He inches a foot towards the wall.
“Don't you dare, Wesley.”
“And why not?”
“Because,” Aidan answers, “it's not for you to destroy.”
Wes reaches to hold a handful of sand over the nearest portion of Aidan's amateur GaudĂ. “What if I add something to it?”
A wave breaks, pushing over the wall and soaking their feet. Bubbles recede on rippling sheets of glass. They are quiet for a moment in the gust of another wind.
“I don't know when it happened,” Aidan begins, “Or even if it was any one thing, but, I can remember—just picture it, as easily as you sitting there, a time where we actually all loved one another. When it wasn't just 'keeping tabs'.”
He shakes his head, unsure of how exactly to explain the distance that life had carried them all away from one another. “We just amass these rosters of failures, shortcomings, mistakes. No one talks about it directly, but, hell if it isn't there.”
Wes managed to find a dried reed, and has been etching indecipherable doodles into sand around him while Aidan speaks. “Why do you do it, then?” he asks. “If nothing will change, why do you keep coming back?”
About a half-mile down the beach there sat a heap of peach-colored sandbags, all frayed and busted. Aidan couldn't help but look at them. Someone had lost their cottage there. He figures it must have been recent, perhaps sometime in July when that hurricane blew through. He remembers only because of the flooding that had happened that month farther inland. With every year, this beach slips farther and farther into the sea.
For both of these reasons, his family had let go of their seaside home, anticipating an inevitable loss. Aidan would drive up to look at their old cottage from time to time and marvel at how it had changed. How everything had changed.
“It's all going in one direction,” Aidan says, finally, while looking at his feet. “Eventually the tide has got to roll back out—the current, shift. I just keep coming back in the hopes to find it has.”
It's dark. Walter is hunched on the edge of his bed. The room exudes elegance corroded by chaos—twisted sheets, snuffed cigarettes, toppled furniture, a broken mirror. The glass shimmers the reflection of a thousand setting suns. They are soon eclipsed by the silhouette of a man.
“I've come to strike a bargain,” The shadow says, stepping away from the balcony and further into the bedroom.
The shadow ambles through the room, prodding the tattered objects. “With energy like that,” He says, “it would only be natural for there to be other inquiries.”
Silence. Heavy breathing. Sweat. Tears. Pain. Weakness. A fear—grappling from within—that tomorrow would not come. A wounded desperation. Dreams ripped by the roots, supplanted by a permeating drought of hope. A dry mouth, a parched soul. No water. No salvation. A dying warmth. Helplessness. Shock reverberating through every neurological chamber, magnified by the pulse of his own blood. tic-toc; one beat less.
“Cancer's a bitch, innit?”
“Shut up, please.”
Walter's pancreas is being devoured by the disease. He found out two months before tonight. The doctors saw no solution. All the money in the world can't buy back his health. No one knows. How could he bear the blow it would strike against his mother? She is barely surviving the death of his brother. Four years, now. Emanuel should have never joined the family business. Her sons' weren't fit for running a cartel. Walter evaded that task by being the youngest.
By being weak.
“You don't have to die.”
“But I won't get to live,” Walter whispers. He knows this can't end well.
“I'll let you sing.”
No answer.
“Isn't that what you wanted? A career?”
Walter turns to face the wall. He covers his ears. It won't work. He won't let it.
“I can give you that.”
No.
“It's a sin to waste your gifts.”
Walter laughs.
“Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, 'Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours,'” The shadow pauses. “I believe you know how this ends.”
“What you are suggesting is ridiculous.”
“All you are is this one. thing. And you don't even want to save it?”
"Please."
"Help me help you, Walt."
"Why?"
"Call me soft-hearted, but I both admire and pity people like you."
"Liar."
"Okay," The shadow said. "I envy the gift."
"What is your name?"
"Well, I'd like for it to be Walter."
A promise: death suspended. Pain? Inevitable. Endurance? Guaranteed. Symbiosis has a price. Revel in desperation, feed on the rawness in talent exposed. What is yours is mine.
“There is smoke,” Claude began. His eyes were steady on a faux-impressionist painting of a river in spring. There was no psychoanalytic couch; the altar of Freud had been exchanged for a dated armed chair—one with rough, almost burlap fabric. He ran his fingers through the scratchy fuzz.
“Yes?”
“Du char-bon?”
“Uh, coal. Char. Burning.”
Dr. Thompson nodded, “Go on.”
“The room fills with shadows. It gets harder to breathe. The ceiling starts to leak rain, ash, and soot.” Claude shrugged, shifting his gaze to the psychologist. “I don't think this is helping.”
“Why is that?”
“Because,” he exhaled. “I already know what is causing these nightmares.”
A month ago, Claude's family home in Corsica burned down in the middle of the night. The report determined the gas heat had failed. In an old house, no matter how grand, the danger was always possible.
“It blew from the kitchen. You could hear it roar up the stairs. Rattled the doors.”
Walls started to fold in on themselves. Those in the west side of the house would soon be buried in the very home that birthed them. Six generations of history, a modest empire of bee harvesting, his parents—everything, gone.
Claude was one of five, and all were there for New Years. His eldest sister had survived, but only just. The doctors explained that her comatose state was due to swelling of the brain, likely from whatever debris fell on her before being pulled out. He had her moved to a hospital in the States, where he, too, found himself residing at an aunt's in Connecticut. His mother's sister. She helped arrange everything. He admired her for that. Thanked her for her patience in his utter bewilderment.
His mind returned to that night. Claude couldn't remember who saved him. He recalled the air had turned to soup, the floor was giving and there was nowhere to turn. The upstairs windows didn't open; they hadn't in several years.
Dr. Thompson looked at the clock, then back at Claude, who hadn't so much as budged for five minutes. He raised an eyebrow.
"Your aunt says that you enjoy art."
"Yes," Claude replied. "But, I'm not an artist."
In France, Claude worked in a museum—grunt-work, of course, but quite exciting to him. In school, he studied both art history and anthropology. There was something quite marvelous in the idea of artifacts and discovery. Not to mention, the archeological community proved eager to receive a budding man whose family possessed a penchant for high-minded charity.
But, that was all in the past. He hadn't put much thought into what to do now.
He strained a smile. "I have sent an application to the Metropolitan Museum. -- I've looked into it, and the commute isn't terrible. My English is good. I have experience." Claude shrugged. "It is..."
"Not the same?"
Claude nodded. "But, I can't very well shove off back to Europe and leave my sister."
"You have a strong sense of obligation," Dr. Thompson said. "Is that a family quality?"
"I would say so." He smiled."I never quite fit, you see, but...as family, we were obligated to care, mĂŞme sans comprendre."
"That sounds very warm."
"It is hard to be anything else, on an island like Corscia." A small laugh escaped him. "No; It is important for me to say that I did not really know any of them as well as I should. You can be 'warm', as you say, to a stranger. No?"
Dr. Thompson agreed.
"I have no head for business. Didn't care for insects and family time. I would tuck away into silent rooms and just absorb the stillness like oxygen. I would read and listen to music and keep up with fashion. I still do." Claude hummed as he sank in the chair and looked towards the ceiling. "They wanted me to help advertise. design. scrutinize."
"Did you?"
"—Anyway, the dreams," Claude said.
Dr. Thompson returned pen to pad, tilting his head. "Yes, the dreams." He glanced down at his notes. "Shall we resume?"
these are silly super-short-shorts, not to be considered legitimate representation of my typical work. this was part of a college assignment; thought I'd share
 Story 1. Stalker from Above.
Jack stands alone, peering over the balcony that overlooks the entrance to his apartment building. He stares at a woman, Jill. She works the front-desk during second shift. They have met on several occasions; He likes the way she smells and looks in the afternoon sun. She has greeted him twice today. He watches. She sits behind a computer, idly navigating her Tumblr dash.
“Oh my God!” Jill yells, jumping from her seat at the sound of the crash.
“My head,” Jack groans, his body curling into a pathetic heap on the floor.
“Are you okay? Is there anything I can do?” Jill asks, hovering over his broken frame.
He grins. “You can love me.”
Story 2. Cats.
This was the 279th cat that Jack had bought her. It didn't seem right, owning so many cats, but she insisted that each one was a must-have, essential addition to their clan.
“Did you bring the milk?” Jill asked, her arms outreached to receive the brown-and-white splotched kitten.
He pushed it into her hands and sighed.
“No,” Jack said. “I'll go back out and get it.”
Jill waited for hours, but he never returned. The next day, there was still no Jack.
That night, his body was returned to her back porch, courtesy of the 278 that had once known him so well.
Story 3. The Bearded Lady.
As a child, Jill had it hard. At school, around the age of eleven, her classmates would point and ask, “is that stubble?”
“No!” She would reply, covering her face in an exotic scarf, courtesy of her world-traveling father. But it was stubble, and in the years to come, Jill would struggle against the onset of a full-blown beard. No matter how often she shaved, it would return. There was no hiding it.
She watched from her glass cabinet, perched on a high stool, as the carnival-goers strolled by. Mostly the children stopped to stare. She thought about them, the things they were probably saying. She couldn't hear much from behind the window pane. Their giggling made it hard to smile.
It was then she noticed the man behind them. He moved to the side and, cupping his hands, exhaled against the glass. She blinked, only to find within the fog he had written the word “beautiful.”
Story 4.
Jack and Jill decided to endure the storm. It was a horrible idea. Their seaside abode collapsed under the wet, heavy breath of the hurricane Frank-&-Stein.
“We need drinking water,” Jack cried, arms still wrapped around an exposed beam. Dawn was just breaking, and the storm had quieted only hours ago.
“No shit, Dear,” Jill said, flipping the switch on her hair dryer on and off. She waved it near her face and frowned.
“The power is out.”
“Go get that water, Jack.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I can't leave the house looking like this.”
“What house is there left to leave?”
Jill stared at him, her eyes half shut.
“I'll go get the water,” Jack said, rummaging through the debris for his sandals.
“Bring back some of those wine coolers while you're out.”
Jack walked off into the broken sunset, muttering, “I'm such a tool.”
Story 5. Poke.
Jack poked Jill on Facebook. The next day, Jill poked back.
Story 6. Lucille.
“Loose seal!” Jack shouts.
“What are you on about, dah-ling?” Jill asks. She is draped across a lounge chair, oiled up and tanning. They are alone on her father's yacht. Jack had always wanted to be a pirate.
“There's a loose seal!”
“Wild seal—I think you mean there is a wild seal. This is the pacific ocean.”
“We have to catch it.”
Jill hummed. “I don't think PETA would appreciate that. I already have one too many mink furs in my winter wardrobe.”
“I have to catch it!”
There is a knock at the door.
“Jack?” Lucille says, “Are you ready for your medication?”
“Yeah,” he nods, with what little grace a man strapped to his bed can manage. “Hey, nurse?”
“Yes, Jack?” She taps the syringe.
“Can you bring me a glass of water? I think Jill is thirsty.”
She looked around the room, then smiled. “Of course.”
Story 7. Manipulation.
Jill broke her ass by falling off her bike. She didn't realize it at first, so nearly a week of discomfort went by before going to the doctor.
“What did the doctor say?” Jack asked.
“He said you should be there for me until it gets better.”
The pain had made her grumpy and hate her boyfriend. The hate was also due to Jack laughing at her when she fell. It wasn't his fault, but, he shouldn't have laughed.
“Okay,” Jack said, fluffing her pillow as she reclined on the couch.
Jill grinned and swallowed a vicodin. She had this shit in the bag.
Story 8. W.O.W.
Jack spoke into the mic, “Are you going to farm the mats for that engineering equip coming out next patch?”
Jill was quiet for a moment. “No. I'm too busy leveling my alt druid.”
The two played World of Warcraft together every afternoon after school.
“Oh,” Jack said. “Your alt druid?”
“Yeah.”
“I didn't know you had an alt.”
“Mhm,” she said. “Me and Abby are leveling together.”
Jack frowned. They had leveled their mains together. And until recently, they used to raid together, they used to PVP together—they even talked and dated IRL.
“Elemental spec?”
“Nope, Enhance.”
“Jill, are you a lesbian?”
He could hear giggles through the receiver, and then nothing. She had turned off her headset. In the chat window, in that purple /r writing known as a personal “whisper”, she wrote: ttyl, Jack.
T.T.Y.L.
Story 9. Delinquent Minds.
Blood splatter lined the walls. Jill stepped through the crime scene, hands tucked in the pockets of her camel-colored pea coat. This was the work of a creative mastermind. She knew the one. She had been trailing him for months. He went by the name Jacques.
“What've we got here, Lt. Barnes?” She asked, pulling off her shades. She winced at the pull of her scalp. Ponytail too tight. She hoped he didn't notice.
“The usual,” Barnes said.
“The man's an artist,” Jill says. It is weird to admit, but she considers herself an admirer.
“If you say so.” Barnes frowned. “Did they show you? What he left behind?”
Jill shook her head. What clue would it be this time?
Barnes took her to the adjacent room. They both stared at the wall. It was messy, like a finger painting.
“And Jill came tumbling after,” Jill read aloud. She pursed her lips and tried not to smile.
Story 10. The Poser.
Jack struggled to fit into his extra-slim sized 28 straight-cut black denim jeans. It wasn't working. His feet were turning purple and his junk refused to be zipped away without a fight. His rooster wanted to breathe, but he knew Jill was into this look, and he wanted to bang.
“Mom,” Jack yelled from his room upstairs. “Where's my vintage wash v-neck?”
She directed him to look in the hamper next to the bathroom.
“It's not there,” he whined. “What about my Guatemalan wool knit pullover?”
Jack needed to really look the part if this was going to work.
“Never mind, I found it.”
His phone buzzed across the nightstand. It was a text from Jill. She wanted to know if he was ready to go to the Posh Pail for brunch. They would give him a paper crown for his birthday, she explained, along with a complimentary free-trade triple mocha coffee cake, gluten free, drizzled with some organic toffee. It was supposed to be completely vegan.
“Great,” he said.
His mother knocked on the door. “Jack,” she said. “Is meatloaf okay for dinner?”
“Sounds perfect, Mom,” he said. “the one with the bacon gravy?”
Jack liked gravy.
Story 11. Surrogates.
Jack was gay, and he wanted babies. Jill didn't, but needed the money.
“Are they going to use a turkey baster?” Jill asked.
“I-I don't know,” Jack said. The thought made him uncomfortable.
“Is it going to be yours or Jacob's?”
Jack smiled. “We decided to have it be a surprise—we don't want to know.”
Jill nodded. The details weren't of much interest to her. “You said something about, uh, benefits? While I'm pregnant?”
“Yes, we'll pay for spa treatments and vitamins and everything.”
“How lovely,” Jill said. “I feel like you two fell right out of a queer prime-time show and landed in the middle of MTV's rendition of Pretty Woman.” She laughed. “I'm Julia Roberts, of course. You are Robin Williams from The Birdcage.”
Jack began to cough. He suddenly needed a glass of water and a polite way to back out of this deal.
Story 12. Math is Boobiful.
Jacquelyn buys six bras every third Tuesday to meet her on-floor selling quota. She hates harassing the customers about store deals. Insulting peoples breasts just doesn't feel right. What's worse, her own are rather non-existent. The hormonal treatments weren't working as well as they should. No one at work knew that she used to be a boy, Jack Caldwell, of Somewheresville, Maryland. How many bras must she sell to Jill, her stupid friend with too much money, to meet a yearly quota of 300 bras a year, if she's already purchased 36 bras herself? If each bra costs $22.37, how much of her own paycheck has Jacquelyn spent because she's too introverted to do her job?
Story 13. Plot Twist.
The car was broken. Jack had tried to fix it.
“It's hot,” Jill complained, her arms wilting through the passenger window.
“I think the damn thing overheated.”
“Why did we come to the desert, anyway?”
Jack got back into the car and reclined his seat, sighing. “I don't know. At this point, I don't know.” That wasn't true. They both knew: it was in search of his grandfather's old ghost town saloon. The man used to swear there was oil sitting beneath it, and Jack had finally found the property rights to prove such a saloon existed. Even Jill threw herself at the chance to become a Texas-style millionaire.
“Are we going to die out here?” Jill asked. “That would be so sad.”
“Yeah, it would,” Jack said. “I'd hate to kick the bucket out here.”
Jill pulled out a gun and pointed it at him. “Too bad.”
Story 14. Oral Surgery.
“My mouth hurts,” Jack said.
Jill looked at him. “You know why, don't you?”
He shook his head.
“It's because you have impacted wisdom teeth. Remember? The dentist told you that last year.”
“Oh,” Jack said. Yes, he did remember this. Jack was afraid of surgery, however, so had put off the operation.
“You're going to need to schedule an appointment.”
“I know.” Jack frowned. “Will you go with me?”
She nodded. “Who else will drive you home?”
She prided herself on being a good girlfriend—plus, this would hopefully score her points with his mother.
The next day, Jack and Jill went to Hillside Dentistry. There, they discovered not only had Jack needed to remove his wisdom teeth, but he also needed to crown a tooth because of a previous root canal. Thankfully, the drugs helped him once he finally got home.
Story 15. Depression Hurts.
“I wasn't asking you how you feel,” Jack said. “I was asking you how to peel this freaking orange.” If it wasn't a cutie EZ peel orange, Jack struggled. Everyone knew this.
Jill went silent. Jack rolled his eyes, and handed her the orange.
“Fine,” Jack huffed, “How are you feeling today, Jillian?”
She began to peel the orange and smiled. “I feel horrible. Yesterday was awful, and, I don't see much chance in a happy this-afternoon.”
“I see,” Jack said. “Why's that?”
“Because. I'm depressed.”
“And who does depression hurt?”
She rolled her yes. “Everyone.”
Jack laughed. He loved those commercials.
That night, he found Jill passed out in the bathtub, overdosed on aspirin and appletinis. There was a hair straightener plugged in, too, sitting on the edge of the tub. It never managed to fall in.
Jack deliberated giving the straightener a nudge.
Story 16.
“I love Nicholas Sparks,” Jack said. “Don't you?”
“No,” Jill said. Romance made her bellybutton itch.
“Well, you should give him a try. I've watched all his movies.”
“Faggot,” she said. “Watch a real movie instead.”
Jack wanted to cry. “Like what?”
“Die Hard. There's like four of them. The fifth is coming out next year.”
“Will you watch them will me?”
“Yeah,” Jill said, “If you promise it'll help you grow a pair.”
He looked at her.
She leaned toward him and stared back. “My place. Eight O'clock. Be there.”
Story 17. Home Invasion.
Jill was sleepy but Jack wanted to snuggle.
“Get off me,” she grumbled. “It's too hot in here—I can't breathe.”
“But baby, please,” Jack whispered as he corralled her wriggling body between his arms, pulling her in.
She smiled but tried to hide it. “No,” she said. “Let go.”
Nicholas Cage appeared in the doorway. “Might I cut in?” he asked.
Jack and Jill both shrieked, nearly falling out of bed.
“What are you doing here!?”
Nicholas Cage smiled. “You're both part of my new movie,” he said. “It's called The Bedrobber.”
Freaked out, Jack flung himself out of bed and fled past him towards the kitchen, living room, anywhere—anywhere to escape this Cage. Jill soon came running after.
Story 18. Who is the Dr.?
Jacks face was deteriorating.
“What's wrong? Are you on meth?”
“No!” he shouted. “My biological apparatus is malfunctioning—it's making my cellular structure break down and return to whence I came!”
Jill blinked. To her, this sounded like some sort Wonka-vision kind of shit. “Excuse me?”
“Please help me,” he wheezed. The degradation had gotten to a point where he could no longer stand on his own two feet.
“Are you sure this isn't bath salts?” She patted her weave. “I don't have time for this.”
“P-please.”
She folded her arms. “What you need? A fix? My cousin Maurice might be able to help you—”
“Yes, a fix,” Jack said. “I need you to fix the BioApp4000.” He turned around and pulled up his shirt. There was a metal box jetting out between his shoulder blades.
Jill recoiled from the sight of it. “I'm not touching that.”
“Just insert a quarter. It loves quarters.”
“Is it going to tell me my fortune?” Jill asked. “I'm a Leo.”
She cautiously opened her purse and inserted a few quarters. The dials began to spin counter-clockwise and it sounded as though Jack was winding up. By the time he turned around, his face—and everything—was fine.
“Now,” he said. “How would you like to travel the universe with me?”
You wake up in the middle of the night. It's hot, the air stale, swirling sluggishly beneath the whining silhouette of a ceiling fan. The covers have been kicked to the floor, and yet still it feels as though your bed clings like a damp breath, sheets sticking to skin. But it was not this discomfort that awoke you. No, it was that thought rising, again, from the back of your mind amid a dream—that notion, that self awareness, that cue to a lack of privacy. You are not alone tonight.
Sometimes you ignore it, that shadow overlapping your bedpost from the window. It's late and all you wish is to return to sleep, return to a place of ignorance. But tonight, you are playful; an interest arises to start a conversation with him—with Benoit. After all, the two of you have not spoken since—no, not since you started taking Abilify. And, that's right, you forgot to take it before going to sleep two-nights-in-a-row. You've let him in, left the door ajar, and it would only be rude to leave him to his corner, perched on a stool, a gargoyle of a man—a statuesque nineteenth century British dandy, to be exact, wrapped in wool and tweed, with eyes as large and alive as nuggets of coal—they scan beyond you, perhaps through you, listless and knowing.
“Benoit,” you croak, the dried cracks on your lips threatening to split. A dry mouth and numb tongue are reminders of that nightmare which rung round your neck.
“What a delicious dream you were having,” he replies. You see him blink. That harrowing innocence is kind to his features. Or perhaps the other way around. “I was wondering when we might get back to it?”
“I need a glass of water,” you announce, sliding off the bed.
The pads of your feet brush through dust as you plod to the door, groping in the darkness haphazardly for the knob. With a contemptuous amount of glee and vigor, he stirs from his seat and grins—and this grin, you know, means he has missed this, has missed you.
“Debilify,” he'll call it, if ever you reach into the medicine cabinet, and you'll both laugh because you know it's true. You know the madness is what you want, is what you prefer to swim though day in and day out—despite its difficulty, its horrors, its viscous maladies—because above all, it is entertaining. Reality, un-embellished, is terrifying. And bland and unbearable.
Unbearable because it must be born alone in an eerily vacant mind.
“Let's get that glass of water,” He says, disappearing down the hallway with such energy. You can hear his steps descend the stairs and leak into the living room, and you wonder what it all means. What must it mean? Do you own a thousand faces? Are you fragmented, an entity dominant in a singular vessel; or are you haunted, a lure for ghosts—yes, ghosts, because that is what they must be; lest you be merely a hemorrhaging vein in the cosmic imagination of some Divine that has ascribed, to you, the task of care-taking for a most voracious and witty incubus, whom you so dare to call your only friend.
I burned his flowers and collected their remains in a glass vase: arrangements of cut lilies, daffodils, daisies, snapdragons, snow-bells, mums—as well as my pitiful presentation of lavender and rosemary, which before two hours ago, sat square on our coffee table. All of it, burned. Watching them brighten the corners of our home made me sick.
“It was a beautiful service, Frederick,” My sister said, leaning against the kitchen counter which overlooked the living room, as prim and pressed as she ever could be. That black linen dress, that silver-white ribbon tucked through her hair, those pale sandals and smooth skin.
She looked at me from that counter, unmoving, for centuries. Her wide, round, glossed eyes had fixed on mine—but they couldn't cross oceans; they couldn't cool deserts or promise a better tomorrow. They couldn't set my body ablaze, put me on edge, make me ache. Those eyes could not save me, merely watch—watch from an incredible distance as I drifted on the current, that low-tide going out, of his existence.
“Pistachio ice-cream,” I replied from the couch, half burrowed into its grooves, a pillow tucked under my head, one under my arm. I pressed my toes against the opposite arm of the couch and watched her scan the counter-top, smoothing over it with her fingertips.
She hesitated.“Is there any in the freezer?”
“No.”
She raised an eyebrow, as if to warn me that she was ill-equipped to deal with this. “What about it, then?”
Feeling my eyes begin to sting, I moved my gaze to the wall, swallowing at a knot the size of my fist. What about pistachio ice cream? that absurd flavor—that horrendous green, overpriced tub of dairy. What about it?
A smile cut across my face and I began to laugh, voiceless and pained. My throat burned, as it had for days.
“Would you like me to run to the store and get some?”
I nodded, knowing she needed to escape.
“Not vanilla fudge-striped?” she asked, rounding the counter to enter the living room. “Coffee? butter pecan?”
Swift and quiet, she moved as if in a museum—as if the very foundation would crack under the force of her heel. She reached to wrap her hands around my forearm.
“He planned on grocery shopping this weekend,” I said, my chest tight with all the air I couldn't release.
The grocery list Gib had begun to make that Tuesday still stuck to the fridge, on it scrawled all manner of goods: cheese, ground hamburger, broccoli, candy peppermints, brown rice, and so on. That stupid ice cream, among them.
I never liked that flavor; I still don't. Yet time and time again, he'd send a spoonful my way, with those insistent eyes—those sharp, clear, beautiful worlds of marbled gray. Resistance became useless. Gib had inspired the definition of persistent with his entire being, and with one look—one quick, fleeting glance—you could be subdued, tricked into believing he could do anything.
