Could we bare witnesses as brothers and sisters

To the window of the abyss

I watch a silence sweep over the glass

Press my ear to the dirt

Glimpse the centipede march along

Tiny steps of a simple primitive life

Do not leave an unsightly blight

A master puppeteer shows off an

electric dragon with all bells and whistles

I watch trapped as a death head moth to a shiny flame.

A fall storm blankets a region

With record breaking rain.

The waterslide washes away an entire community in one fell swoop.

Putrid water flows through a mountainous region

Would a CAT 6 hurricane

push the dial of progress further?

Alas, Gale force winds don’t upend

sprawling mansions

A child clings to the idea of heat and storm as equalizer

While suits gather in castles to

deliberate in office chairs

While the sky is falling everywhere

Do we care enough

to stop the hush?

I watch the silence sweep

over the glass

A flower awakes and welcomes a fly’s proboscis which swallows

sweet nectar

A metamorphosis of forest and sea

Peels back the skin

Exposed Nature declares her win

Over the brilliant time of men.

ambulant

perturb

that follows

in the moment

and aftermath

the mind takes off

like a straight

jacket

or halter

on a siren

the more it thinks

the tighter it seems

the more it takes

to fall through

the sieve

and then

at every station

tests of dynamics

change of pressure

and flow

ears pop

listening

for a pulse

at the wrist

watch

09.15.2024

Turbulence challenge @Last

I grind my Chevy to a halt on the side of the road, kicking up dust and spinning gravel; a torrent of torment. I am hot for trouble tonight. I fling the door open, ejecting well-bronzed, fishnet-clad gams in flushed fury. My sacral ache is palpable; carnal longings. I side-shimmy from the hot vinyl seat; my pink, satin thong momentarily visible before I pull down my denim mini skirt with one delicately manicured fingernail.

Cocaine and tanning salons are keeping this town in business, I laugh. Everyone here with money is tanned up and coked out. And me? I’m just keeping time with the devils I know: self indulgence and retribution.

Forward motion. I spy the trio of slick-haired, well-tanned men behind the convenience store, talking up a storm. Two undercovers and an informant. I am an agent of change. Or of chance. It’s all the same.

A hush falls over the men when they see me. I stand for a moment, allowing them to absorb me in all my savage glory. I am clad in purple fishnets, chartreuse fuck-me pumps, a short, denim skirt, and a shredded Slayer Hell Awaits tanktop. These men made a grave error, pun intended. They messed with the wrong person’s friend.

Time to act. I walk my pussy like a dog over to the slick men behind the convenient store. I place one foot in front of the other, heels click-clacking; a cacophony on cobblestone. My hips switch like blades as I approach the trio, creating friction under my denim skirt. My inner thighs taught with swagger, I approach the tallest of the lot. I am a wolf in sheep’s clothing, moving in for the kill. Here, sheepie sheepies.

The men start their lascivious cat-calling. They think I’m a sex worker. Fair enough, I’ve been popped for solicitation a few times. I did my time whether or not I actually did the crime. I’m fortunate because I always have money to lawyer up and bail out. Less fortunates are forced to either snitch or get on their knees for the dirty cops running the PD. My friend, Nada, doesn’t have money and isn’t a snitch.

I’ve been watching these men for some time, so I’m well aware of their dirty deeds: the drugs they run, the gangs they supply with coke and guns, the sex-workers they exploit and abuse. I even know which partners are double crossing one other. These thugs arrested Nada twice and assaulted her both times.

I’m counting the moments until they’re on their knees. Begging for mercy. Hell Awaits.

One, two, three…

Inwardly, I recoil. Outwardly, it’s all smiles and subterfuge. The war within! I bite my lower lip as I saddle up next to the tallest man, pressing my body against his. I touch my painted lips lightly to his throat, against his carotid artery, and exhale a warm breath. The man is solid granite from head to toe. I can feel his grotesque protrusion pressing menacingly against my upper thigh. The bile rises.

Four, five, six…

I study the creases around the dirty cop’s mouth as it curls into more of a snarl than a smile. He’s coked out and sniffing wildly. I can smell the blow on his breath as he exhales; a mixture of kerosene and vitriol.

Purrfect. The hungrier he is for it, the more likely to succumb. The man asks how much it’ll cost to take him around the world while offering me a bump of blow from his car key. I inhale; the blow was clearly brought across the border in a gas tank, hence the kerosene aroma.

Blow’s not my jam, but this batch is decent quality. I know it’s better to play into pretense, so accept a second bump. I tell him for an 8 ball of blow I’ll do him and his friend. The more the merrier! The dirty cop made of granite winks at his partner. Clearly, this isn’t their first rodeo.

I swallow back bile and widen my smile, hoping to draw attention away from the loathing behind my eyes. I can’t risk giving myself away. Too much is at stake. Poker face sliding, I pretend to drop my purse, bend over, nice and slow, allowing the denim mini to creep up, exposing my pink, satin thong once more. I stand slowly, make sure not to pull down my skirt too quickly, then walk to my car without casting a backward glance.

Seven, eight, nine…

The two men grin, nudge each other, bump up more blow, then follow. They always follow.

Nada will never have to worry about these two again.

The men won’t make it to ten, I smile.

XxxxX

The trees are zooming by so quickly that Nada can scarcely count the species. Counting is important to her. Numbers matter. The Universe Tells its Secrets Through Numbers. The chaos of the movement is unsettling. Still, the majority are evergreens, so she need not count them all. They are part of a whole. Sometimes, most times, you can only ever know part of the whole. The part that can’t hide.

Since the trees are too chaotic, Nada concentrates on the sounds instead. The drone of the engine is nearly consistent. She’s able to focus on her breath, pulling it deeply into her lungs, then allowing it to expand into her belly and calm her parasympathetic nervous system. She allows her thoughts to pass like clouds, without attachment. None of her thoughts matter. Nothing matters. It’s a realization so liberating it causes Nada to weep.

Nyx would wipe away my tears, Nada laments. It starts raining, and the driver turns on the wipers. The steady, rhythmic swish click of the wipers is a blessing as it drowns out the deafening silence. Nada has nothing to say to the woman driving her away from everything and one she knows and loves; trees continue to whoosh past too quickly to count. Nothing about this feels right.

The halfway house is apparently halfway to the middle of nowhere. Isolation is key to the program’s success in rehabilitating minors, they say. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Nyx will find me and save me, Nada consoles herself. Still, she knows her conclusion is forgone. From the moment the dirty cop arrested her, she’s been counting her numbered days. No one outruns a dirty cop. They’ll find her no matter where the judge sends her. It’s one of the few things she knows for certain.

Still, better to spend the remainder of her days with Nyx than not at all. So she shuts her eyes and breathes. Intrusive thoughts pass, like clouds, as trees continue zipping past the car window. She remembers Nyx’s touch. She counts to ten.

XxxxX

The walls are that special shade of institutional white that causes one to hallucinate if they stare at them for too long. White is the most odious color - reflecting back all the visible wavelengths of light that shine upon it. Pompous dick of a color, Nada sniffs as she resists the temptation to give the walls attention. There is nothing to count and the only sound she hears is the maddening tick tock of the wall clock. She can count the seconds, she thinks. But she knows that’s a trap because then she’ll think about time. She can’t think about time.

If she’s a good girl, if she just settles down, stays calm, and does as she’s told, they’ll remove the five point restraints, they tell her between thorazine injections. They’ll leave her in solitary confinement a few days longer, until she proves she’s not a harm to herself. Or others. Half right, Nada considers. Less than half, actually. It isn’t her they ought to be concerned with. When Nyx gets here and finds out they’ve strapped me to a hospital bed, then. Then they will know true terror. She likes this particular thought. It’s enough to help her return to her breathing.

Thoughts pass like clouds.

Days later, Nada is allowed into the general population. She is a very good girl. They even stop the thorazine injections. When she blinks, the world is no longer hazy around the edges. And there are so many things to count: patients, therapy sessions, picture books, sock puppets, crayons, meal times, nurses and doctors, correction officers and wardens. Her days consist of numbers rather than minutes.

Her thought clouds begin forming a celestial tower. A beacon. This is how Nyx finds me. Nyx will see my cloud tower, no matter how far away they are. How far away are you? Nada wonders without weeping. Only naughty girls weep. She is a good girl. So very good.

She remains calm, and a few days later, they grant her a true privilege: for one hour (that’s 12 sock puppets and 13 crayons) she is allowed to sit in the courtyard. The fence isn’t too high. She can climb it before they catch her. But how far will she make it in a hospital gown and no shoes? She considers this a bit longer, but decides to count instead. The view from the courtyard consists primarily of a dull gray parking lot. One shiny yellow Rolls Royce is parked in its center. It belongs to one of the shrinks. The for-profit, privatized institution is lousy with unethical doctors amassing small fortunes.

There is a basketball court. One slack jawed, doped up patient dribbles the ball idly as drool dribbles down his chin. Nada focuses on the syncopated beat of the ball hitting the court. It’s maddeningly irregular, but enough to count. As long as she can count, she can breathe. As long as she can breathe, she can keep constructing her cloud tower, her bat signal to Nyx. Nyx will come for me soon. This is Nada’s mantra; its repetition holy.

A nurse ushers the dribbler inside, and Nada notices a bush in the back corner of the basketball court. Her heart soars. She knows this species! It’s a bougainvillea - her grandmother has scores of them. Its bright pink flowers call to her. Unable to resist, Nada slowly stands from her plastic stool.

A watchful nurse takes a tentative step in her direction, but is held back by a correctional officer. He hopes Nada will misbehave so he can restrain her in solitary confinement again. Nada doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction, but she is unable to resist the lure of the bougainvillea. So many flowers to count!

It is a thing of unspeakable beauty, this lone bougainvillea amidst a sea of gray asphalt. As Nada stands, entranced, a ray of sunshine pierces the otherwise dismal day, illuminating the flower's colors in kaleidoscopic cadence. So many hues of pink, she notices for the first time. Strange, how often she stared at this exact species in her grandmother’s yard, yet never noticed its varied hues.

As if orchestrated, three butterflies alight atop three different flowers. Six miracles, Nada muses. She doesn’t know butterfly species, but their wings are bright orange, lined in black, and their entire bodies are speckled with tiny white spots. Nada nearly weeps at their beauty.

The correctional officer is poised for the pounce, but Nada refuses to shed tears and give him cause. She attempts to count the petals of each burgeoning bloom. It’s proving rather difficult. The correctional officer decides Nada isn’t worth the wait and leaves. He can find other patients in need of discipline. Nada watches the butterfly trio, wondering if they’re a family. Or, maybe they’re all butterfly buddies. Just. You know. Hanging out. She suppresses a laugh. She has never witnessed anything as breathtaking. She has never felt more alone.

What if Nyx doesn’t come? She wonders for the first time. Nada pushes the thought from her mind. She returns to counting the flowers and constructing her cloud tower.

XxxxX

On the second floor of the building facing the courtyard, an aggressively mustached man stands nose to window squinting under heavily knitted eyebrows. When the second guy walks in, the mustached man is oblivious. It’s clear to the second guy there’s something out there to behold. He walks over to the mustached man and follows his line of vision.

“What the fuck?” he manages before a figure ducks behind a tree at the far end of the parking lot.

“You see that too?”

The second man shakes his head no but replies, “Yeah. I saw…something. Some. One. ?”

“I know what you mean. Tell me - ” Mustache asks, raising an eyebrow, “What did you see?”

“Someone wearing a denim miniskirt - and ripped up stockings with some kinda yellow-green high heels. Ripped up shirt. Weird hair too, almost the same color as the shoes. Pretty sure it’s a wig. ?”

“Right. Ok. So I ain’t crazy. Maybe.”

“How long they been there?”

“I dunno,” Mustache shrugs, “Off and on for a couple of days. No more than three, far as I can tell. I been calling him - her - it - the Watcher. They seem harmless enough. Just hanging around. You know. Watching.”

“What?” Second guy is dumbfounded, “And you ain’t told no one?” He now seems suspicious. “What the hell? You know you’re supposed to say if you see anyone hanging around like that.”

Mustache man stands upright, a full head taller than Second guy. He looks him in the eye, squares his jaw, and knits his heavy brow. Before he can say anything, Second guy makes a hasty departure. Whether to go tattle on him like a little bitch, or because he’s actually concerned, Mustache isn’t certain. What he is certain of is that something smells rotten.

He doesn’t know why he hasn’t reported the Watcher either. Honestly, he can’t make out their gender. They could just as easily be a perverted man in a wig as they could a troubled mother in a poorly executed disguise. Perhaps Mustache is confused by the ambiguous gender of the Watcher. Perhaps he is confused by his ambiguous arousal. But his confusion doesn’t matter. Something bad is about to happen. He can feel it deep inside his mustache.

XxxxX

I hold my breath behind the maple tree and count to 10. That mustached man and his cohort spotted me. That’s ok, it just accelerates the plan. Same plan, just kicked into high gear. I’m still in high gear from the encounter with dirty undercover cops. I have over a kilo of their blow left. It’s enough to get Nada away from here. We can live for a while together, somewhere, anywhere else. I just need to move the blow. It won’t be difficult. I know all the wrong people.

We’ll sell most of it and head across the border. I’ll keep a small stash for myself, gradually wean myself off. We can live comfortably. For a while. This plan makes an incredible amount of sense as I emerge from behind the tree. The mustached man appears to be gone, so I make a break for the back door to the left of the courtyard. They never seem to have more than one guard stationed there. It’s the weakest point of entry and, as luck has it, close to Nada’s room.

I am going to attempt to open the back door, sounding the alarm, wait for the one dumb guard to open it, brain them, then storm the castle. I’ll rush straight down the hallway, four doors down to Nada’s room, grab her, and head back out the way I came in.

I will kill anyone who tries to stop me.

I see a flurry of movement in the 2nd floor window as I run toward the back door. Purrfect. The orderlies are distracted. They’re all upstairs looking for me from the window.

I send a psychic message with everything I have: I’m coming for you, baby girl.

I kick the door handle, tripping the alarm as I pull the undercover’s gun from the waistband of my denim miniskirt. The guard opens the door as carelessly as anticipated.

And so it begins.

I am taking Nada home.

Where is home? I wonder.

I’m not sure.

I’m not even sure what home means.

I bash the guard in the back of the skull with the gun. The alarm is louder than I expected. The whole place reeks of antiseptic and despair. I see Nada halfway down the hallway. She is standing there in gowns; a heavenly apparition. Nada starts to laugh as she runs towards me. Her laughter is music to my soul. Nada throws herself at me, and I pause for a moment to feel our hearts pressed together, hammering in joyous unison.

“I knew you’d come.”

“Nothing could have stopped me. Now, common baby girl, let’s get the fuck outta here.”

I grab Nada and run for the door, away from this, into the great unknown. I feel Nada’s tears of relief and joy as she presses her face against the nape of my neck.

At this moment, I understand exactly what home means.

THE END

Part 1: A Peaceful Life

In the heart of an ancient magical forest lived a deer named Iren, known for her grace and the sparkle in her eyes, which seemed to reflect the light of the brightest stars. The forest was full of mysteries, but one thing always remained the same: every morning, Iren and her friends, the doe Shelby and the fawn Flick, found endless fields of golden grass. This grass was not only delicious but also brought joy and strength to the deer for their long journeys.

Every day was the same. Iren enjoyed her routine: a light morning, a walk through the forest, and the gentle aroma of golden grass, which grew in abundance in the familiar meadows. The forest seemed eternal and stable, and no one thought that things could change.

Part 2: The Disappearance of the Golden Grass

One day, waking up early in the morning, Iren noticed something was wrong. She followed her usual route to the meadow, but where the tall stems of golden grass usually swayed, there was nothing but emptiness. The grass had disappeared. Iren was alarmed, as were her friends.

— It’s just a mistake, said Shelby, trying to hide the fear in her voice. — It will come back if we wait.

But Flick had a different attitude. He was young and full of energy.

— Why wait? Let’s go find new grass! The forest is huge, — Flick exclaimed, already eager to begin the search.

Part 3: Two Paths

Iren found herself between two extremes. On the one hand, she didn’t want to leave the cozy meadow where she had spent so much time. On the other hand, she understood that change was inevitable. The old deer Hammy, whose age gave him confidence in his own wisdom, insisted on staying put.

— This is just temporary, Hammy said. — We’ve always found grass here. It will come back this time too.

But something inside Iren told her it was time to act. The forest was vast, full of secrets and unexplored places. Perhaps, somewhere far away, there was a meadow even richer and more beautiful.

Part 4: Embracing Change

Determined, Iren began to prepare for her journey. Shelby decided to stay with Hammy, hoping they were right. Flick was already racing ahead, leaping through the forest without looking back.

Iren’s path wasn’t easy. She encountered impassable thickets, dangerous swamps, and even a pack of wolves that almost caught her. But each time she overcame an obstacle, Iren grew stronger and wiser. She began to realize that change isn’t always frightening — it offers us a chance to grow and discover something new.

Part 5: Exploring Unknown Paths

Iren ventured deeper into the forest, leaving familiar landscapes behind. The farther she went, the more she encountered unknown plants and trees. The forest seemed to be alive, changing its forms and colors. Every morning she woke up in a new world, more mysterious than the one before. But the golden grass was still nowhere to be found.

Sometimes Iren would stop and think about her friends. What were they doing? Had the grass returned? But deep down, she knew she wouldn’t go back — her journey was forward.

At one turn on the forest trail, she met an Owl, a wise bird that lived in the highest branches of the trees. The Owl looked closely at Iren and, flapping her mighty wings, perched on a nearby branch.

— You’re looking for golden grass, she said, as if reading Iren’s thoughts. — But perhaps you should seek not grass, but yourself?

These words made Iren think. Until that moment, she had believed that her goal was simply to find a new source of food, as all the deer in the forest did. But maybe her journey wasn’t just about finding grass — it was about finding new meanings and herself in a changing world.

Part 6: New Discoveries

After several more days of travel, Iren reached the Valley of Mysterious Flowers. This place was entirely different: tall mountains surrounded the valley, and unusual plants hung from the tree branches. In the distance, fields dotted with flowers of all possible colors could be seen. But where was the grass?

Among these flowers, Iren met a small herd of roe deer, who explained that this forest had also changed — just like the one she had left.

— There is no more golden grass here, one of the roe deer said. — But we found something else. This field of multicolored flowers. They aren’t like your grass, but they can give you more — not just nourishment, but an understanding that there’s always something new in the world.

Iren realized: she wouldn’t find what was lost. But she found something greater — a place where change brought new opportunities.

Part 7: Returning with New Knowledge

One day, after a long journey, Iren felt ready to return home. She already knew that the world would never be the same, but that no longer frightened her. Now she knew: it’s not about where to find the familiar, but how to learn to embrace the new. The forest was constantly changing, as were its inhabitants. Those who were ready for change became stronger and wiser.

Returning to the old meadows, Iren saw Shelby and Hammy. They were still waiting, hoping the golden grass would grow back in the old spot. Iren approached them and, sitting down beside them, told them about what she had seen beyond the familiar forest — about the valley of flowers and the new world she had discovered.

— Change doesn’t need to be feared, she said. — It opens new paths and gives us a chance to be happier. Come with me. I’ve found a place where we can be happy, and there’s even more than just golden grass.

Conclusion:

The story of Iren the deer is about the importance of embracing change and looking forward. While the initial goal was simply to find new food, Iren’s journey led her to something greater: she learned to seek joy and meaning not just in the familiar but in the new opportunities that change brings.

The moral:

The moral of the story is that change is inevitable, and success depends on how we respond to it. Instead of clinging to the past and waiting for things to return to the way they were, it’s important to be open to new opportunities and ready to adapt. The journey of the deer Iren teaches us that:

1. Change is not the end but the beginning of something new. Sometimes, what we lose can lead us to something even more valuable and important.

2. Fear of change holds us back from growth. Those who are not afraid to embrace new opportunities eventually find more than those who stay in the same place.

3. Acceptance of change is a path to personal development. Change helps us better understand ourselves, our desires, and what truly matters in life.

In essence, the core message of the story is the importance of not fearing change but seeing it as an opportunity for growth and new discoveries.

Victoria Lunar

The hourglass whispers where

one unfurls his wares

Shh shh, tick tock

Time to settle still

A stone may be a throne

but only for a little

The hourglass is fickle

Speeds up in sunshine

Slows down in winter

Shh shh, Tick tock

A mouse runs up the clock

A mansion for vermin

The hourglass sounds shimmer

Along a winding river

The bear grazes berry splendor

A skipping stone of stars

Shh shh, tick tock

A start from a jack-in-the-box

Shh shh, tick tock

Shh shh, tick tock

A conscience despot

Paves a grand palace

Which does one day

crumble and decay

to Humble sand in vain

On more than one occasion, while walking past the basement aquarium in which Hampture resides, I asked myself how my life arrived to this point. It is not a well adjusted man who constructs a fully functional scale model underwater habitat for hamsters, much less makes use of it.

If someday I'm asked about it on an authors panel at one convention or another, I dare not answer honestly that it was a tripartite cocktail of depression, autism and LSD. It's a tightly knit industry and one which expects its representatives to be at least somewhat family friendly, in the bucolic corpo-clean sort of way.

But that is indeed how it happened, and I doubt it could've otherwise. My trauma isn't special, anyone who grows up autistic will tell you a similar sob story of being beaten, tricked, ridiculed and force fed slugs behind the gym. Maybe not that last one, though slugs are a nutritious low calorie snack with a rich, smoky flavor one ought to try before they knock.

I might've had an easier time of school, had I not been the only one convinced of evolution at a fundamentalist private school which taught young Earth creationism from the A.C.E. curriculum. Stubbornly single minded about factual accuracy as my neurotribe tends to be, it was the proverbial meeting of an unstoppable force and an immovable object.

Humiliation and ostracization by staff and fellow students alike only let up when I became receptive to their efforts at social correction, agreeing to meet with a faith based child psychologist who would get to the root of my evolutionist brainwashing.

Something like a G rated version of Winston's interrogation in 1984, I eventually confessed that indeed 2+2=5, Earth is not older than ten thousand years, and received an end of year "most improved" award for my compliance. Turns out, the force was never actually unstoppable!

This left me less trusting of authority, and humans not in my immediate family, than I should've been. But this too is probably a common experience (and supervillain origin story) not worth wringing my hands over.

I've lived a worthwhile life so far not because of such experiences, howevermuch chest thumpers insist that what doesnt kill us makes us stronger (not accounting for the third possibility of becoming crippled).

Rather, I carried on and developed myself according to my ideals anyway, because of how I coped with that trauma. After many years of circling the drain, that familiar downward spiral with death at the bottom, it was no longer in me to swim upstream. I came to a point where, if I didn't do something drastic to alter the trajectory I was on, I would certainly have killed myself.

So, I started a hobby. After all no shortage of well meaning family and friends throughout my life advised me that I needed a hobby. Only to then turn around and say "not that one" upon discovering I was submerging rodents.

It was an engineering challenge, an excuse to care for animal companions, and something to differentiate one day from the next during a period in my life when days had a way of blurring together.

Simply witnessing incremental progress proved therapeutic after spending so long accomplishing nothing at the bottom of a deep, dark pit. That pit can become seductively homey once you resign yourself to the conviction that you belong there.

This is also how I discovered darknet psychedelics, which I soon became a voracious consumer of. Like a horse with a feedbag of cubensis mushrooms around its neck, an explosion of fresh insight and motivation followed, then it was off to the races.

This was by far my most productive writing period. There were week long stretches during which I hammered out one full short story every night. Not my best work, but one can't worry too much about that or they will never write anything for fear of not being perfect from the start.

To be a writer one must write, and prolifically, trusting that quality will come with practice at some point downstream. (Everything written prior to that point may be thrown away. Then you can finally posture as if you were always effortlessly talented.)

This is how I attracted the attention of my first publisher, with whom I put out two tradpubbed anthologies. It's also how I was brought onboard by Honor Code to work on Narcosis, a deep sea horror themed VR game, and how I finessed my way into the Mars Desert Research Program, a mockup Mars base in the Utah Desert where I simulated EVAs by day.

By night I wrote a well received report on sea-space analog principles for Robert Zubrin's Mars Society. During my stay, amid various adult make believe activities, I was interviewed by a journalist to whom I gifted my only copy of Ian Koblick's Living and Working in the Sea. I regret parting with it, given the eye-watering sum it goes for nowadays.

Maybe it was all wasted on me, as I've long been more fascinated by the sea than the heavens. I was space obsessed as any young boy between the ages of 3 and 12. But one quickly runs out of manned missions to obsess over and memorize every detail of. There's a much longer, and lesser known, history of manned undersea activity.

This would lead me to become involved with Dennis Chamberland's Atlantica Expeditions. Chamberland being aptly named, for a man who hopes to establish an undersea land of interconnected chambers. What he managed by the time I joined was the Scott Carpenter Analog Station, a micro habitat fit for two occupants, roughly the size of a delivery van, emplaced in less than thirty feet of water.

The same Floridian lagoon, in fact, which also hosted the Jules Undersea Lodge (formerly La Chalupa) and Marinelab, now in a museum. The month long duration of that mission was the only time in history when three separate undersea habitats were continually manned in close proximity. Conshelf 2 may also qualify, depending what counts as "close".

But fundraising for round two proved more difficult than anticipated. So when years passed without any further subaquatic expeditions, I took matters into my own hands. Using what I learned building heated, humidity controlled positive pressure hamster habitats, I constructed my own solar powered, surface supplied diving helmet.

Inelegant but functional (as with most of my inventions), I built it from a 5 gallon square sided jug into which I inset plexiglass windows. Flat because curved windows distort ones view like lenses in water, and because a diving helmet is under no pressure differential.

It won't surprise you to learn that I immediately used this contraption to trip balls underwater, for up to five hours on one occasion, at the bottom of a Minnesotan lake. Less impressive than it sounds, as limits on the electric compressor meant I could venture no deeper than 35 feet, and mostly hung out around 15 feet.

Helmet diving's quite different from scuba. Posture must remain upright, due to having a buoyant pocket of trapped air on/around the noggin. One may "moon jump" if only slightly weighted. One peers out through big windows into the surrounding water, from within an air-filled sanctuary. Very "Jules Verne". Curious minnows swam right up to the faceplate, undoubtedly more astonished by the encounter than I was.

I saw and felt things that would've been indescribable, if not for my experience as an author. It is the job of authors, after all, to eff the ineffable. The surface undulated overhead like time lapse cloud cover. Shimmering god rays danced between murky shadows, which morphed into whatever I most feared might be lurking in the water with me.

I wrote up this encounter as an article for Psychedelic Frontier, which last I checked is still online. It was one of many such psychedelic expeditions, into subterranean lava tubes and whatnot, by far the most instructive.

It's difficult, after the fact, to give a satisfactory explanation for most of these actions. The closest I've come, (besides "autism and drugs") is to quote Larry Walters, the fella who made news decades back for rigging hundreds of helium balloons to a lawn chair, which then carried him skyward: "A man can't just sit around all day."

July 4th: the sky explodes into color as fireworks burst in every direction. Independence Day? Sure, we’ll go with that, but all I knew was that there was a party somewhere and I needed to make my entrance. I still have a doll from that day. It may be stained and dusty but it is still here as I am. A tiny doll made of hardened plastic all around except its central chest; perhaps I see a resemblance. It has no hair but will always be Goldilocks to me. I cannot for the life of me remember how I came to name her, but I wonder if my sense of humor stretched back to infantry.

I was a vivacious child. As the only girl from both sides, being raised among 10 male cousins truly set the stage for the rough and tumble I was soon to face. Don’t get me wrong, it was a blast, but even sometimes a blast gets too loud. However, outwardly, the silence was all too loud. As chaotic as I could be when I’m having fun, if ever an adult was around, I would transform into a rabid rule-follower.

From creepy hallucinations to playing with just about everyone just about everywhere, my childhood was easily a trippy adventure. Any sport, any activity, I’m down. Bike in the woods? Yes. Roller skate down a steep hill? Definitely. Jump off a cliff? You betcha. All that and I still hadn’t had 2 digits in my age.

Social activities too, I crushed them. I would never leave a room without having made someone laugh. Jokes were my identity. I was known for it. My pranks were legendary, we still laugh about them to this day. Life was good.

One fateful morning, my now teenage skater cousins from Brazil were in town. They were the epitome of cool. From rocking backward caps to graffiti, these guys were living the life. Anything they do I had to. There was just no other option. This time, we’re rappelling down a mountain. I’m all fired up and ready to go when the safety instructor looks at me in amazement, “wow you are so brave to be doing this at your age, epic!” All of a sudden like a tidal wave, I was introduced to doubt. Why wouldn’t it be expected? Why am I considered brave? And just when I earned my fearless title, I gave it up on the spot. It was the first time I had walked away from anything, and what a walk that was. As my childhood idols streamed down the flat mountain, their body perpendicular to the wall and caps dripping with even more legendary juice, I walked the whole way down to meet them, ashamed and disappointed.

What was a new feeling for me slowly grew to be my reality as more fear set in in the following years, crippling my identity and eventually almost costing me my life. I became more cautious, more studious, more preoccupied. My jokes became more calculated, more restricted. I had my entire life planned out to the second but that just wasn’t enough. I grew accustomed to that wondrous satisfaction after going through every possible scenario in my head and finding the right solution. I was safe. My life was secure, of course until one day, in the blink of an eye, I was staring death in the face.

I had actually gone through near death experiences, almost drowning in a pond at one point, getting run over by a bike and falling from a front flip straight on my neck. But nothing was nearly as terrifying as that moment. The cruel irony was that in that moment, I had nothing to fear.

OCD. A term used loosely to describe minor organizational ticks and hygiene repetitions, consumed my entire existence to the point where I would spend all the hours of the day battling the thoughts in my head both figuratively and literally, winding up a few minutes later (in my perspective) with black eyes, a bruised face and bloody knuckles when I wasted another day and should have long been asleep. Hours blended into weeks and weeks turned into months and months into years. I remember being given a drug so powerful that it would knock me out before I could even reach my bed. What a joke, right? I kind of wish I could still get that drug prescription today. It would just be a desperately needed rest. I ran all out of laughter.

From chasing dangerous scenarios in real life to running away from non-existent ones in my head, my life turned upside down… and not in the fun way. I lost everything. My friends, my family, my career, and my mind. I lost myself. Everything I had worked so hard to perfect I could see crumbling in my hands as I tried to hold on to the remaining pieces, when what I actually needed was to let go.

I had to lose everything to realize their invaluable value. Their absolute worthless worth. Everything I held sacred in reality ate me up inside. But I soon realized I was the one doing all the eating. I’d like to think I’m strong-willed but that turned out to be my greatest weakness. A fight between me and me would irrevocably see me win. But which me?

I now think back and laugh. Not necessarily because I feel it was a joke life played and is still playing on me, but perhaps at the idea that I might have never escaped it. What helped me heal was realizing that nothing really matters. Nothing really matters. Nothing really matters. Now I’m called reckless, crazy at times, but I’m finally living up to my younger energy. I might have found myself again, but I probably shouldn’t dwell on it. Nothing really matters. Decisions, property, thoughts, pain, existence, life… it is all a joke. It just took me a few punches to find the punchline.

I never thought of death as scary; life on the other hand…life is terrifying. Life is where every bit of suffering is.

September 2023. Introduction.

I was shamefully middling in my reaction for it wasn't the first time someone woke me in hysterics to the news of a relative’s traumatic passing. It also wasn't the first time I didn't respond as well as I should have to the grief of others. If any at all, my response was annoyed how the information was publicized, as much as when and where else it was publicized.

As I’ve gotten older, deaths in my family have become an overdramatization of situations. With each untimely funeral, we become more chagrined, more irrational (believing in curses and such), and more selfish.

It has since become my belief that many traumatic deaths were preventable and have been teetering on the ledge of the very same precipice for so long that most of us had either grown impatient in our watch, moved on, and/or accepted the foreseeable well before it ever happened; the shock, if any, was present simply because it hadn’t happened sooner.

And though there were a lot of cyclic conditions and responses here, I did have one that was a first: I didn't attend Scott's funeral—it was the first family funeral I hadn’t attended.

Truthfully, I had many reasons for not attending, both monetary and logistically. I also had my best friend in state—a trip that had been planned for months, almost cancelled due to COVID then last minute it was resurrected due to new information and regulations; however, these were not the responses that she wanted. My sister was angry. She was angry without saying why she was angry. She had made assumptions as to why I wasn’t there. She felt her trust had been broken by me a few times now.

"You were his favorite cousin!” It was more of an accusation than she had originally intended. I heard the shock in her own voice that she had said it, but they weren’t getting the apology from me that they wanted—the apology I am no longer capable of. Blame it on the 150mg of Venlafaxine I have been taking since the pandemic and my divorce, or the years of emotional, sometimes, physical damage that led up to that dosage that without, I would certainly still be having daily panic attacks, suicidal ideation, with the occasional nervous breakdown/life-spiral where I burn everything down with full intention of not coming back from it…and, of course, the deep well of depression that, at times, appears too daunting to emerge from.

It all wasn’t gone, by any means, and I knew it was there—waiting just below the surface like a Kraken ready to rise from its slumber within mere hours of a missed dose, and with titan power, could destroy everything stable achieved this far. It was that swift—the withdrawal.

Unlike the medications I had taken before this, which would take time to have negative effects in the event that a pill was to be missed; I was absolutely at the will of this supposedly non-addictive chem-cocktail. Being thirteen years without chemical dependency until now, I recognize the hypocrisy the old-timers had warned us of; I had traded one addiction for another—but I found the risk in my case worth it even with the obvious pitfalls should I become less than diligent. But at the age of forty-three I had arrived at a place where all things had found balance, and my thoughts were manageable. I had finally found a numb that was ‘comfortable’.

“You should have been there!" It was a text, but I heard the desperation regardless. She wanted me the feel ashamed. I didn’t. How do you tell someone that you had already grieved this person? This person who, by all standards, was still considered alive but hadn’t really existed for so long?

I had a flashback of my mother's funeral in 1994. I stood stiffly by watching the array of reactions, trying to figure out where I fit in—how I should be feeling in this moment. They later would call it shock, but I was aware. This was before medication, before booze, drugs, any chemicals (unless you count chugging Dimetapp and eating handfuls of Flintstone Vitamins—gee, who knew I’d become an addict?). Confused. Scared. Yet fully aware of the situation, I was.

I scanned each face; some were unfamiliar, though they seemed to have more of a connection with my own mother than I—at least in this moment.

My eyes met my cousin Scott's—blue eyes striking against the redness. His wet face appearing more angry than sad to me. He was a few years my senior and I feared him. He was not tentative about what he felt, nor would he hesitate to speak his mind or share his opinion—unlike me—who was so very quiet and timid outside of my conscious self; yet whose survivalist brain was never still long enough to allow myself to just experience a feeling.

"Why aren't you crying? Don't you even care that your mom is dead? What's wrong with you?" Scott's words wounded. Wounded me enough to carry that memory to this day; still lodged somewhere between the residuum of shame and the scar tissue of acceptance, like a neuropathic pain that reminds me it exists when the season is right.

I looked up to Scott as much as I was afraid of him. I wish I could have been as passionate and disappointed about ‘all of this’ as much as he was.

"You were his favorite cousin!"

"What's wrong with you?" That's what she really meant. What was wrong with me that I didn’t attend my cousin’s funeral. What was wrong with me that I couldn’t cry at my own mother’s. What was wrong with me that I didn’t experience loss the same way as they did. What was wrong with me that I didn’t understand how she felt. That was what she wasn’t saying. And the truth? Burial is for the living.

In my family, we’d rather be blindsided with grief instead of steadily awaiting the worst. That’s the reality of it though. For most humans in general, I suspect it is. As people we tend to turn our faces away from the constant heart break, feigning ignorance of even the most inevitable outcomes, or wastefully rushing through our emptions so we can just get on with it and our empty fucking lives where everything looks great. We do with hope that when the loss does occur, we will feel some of that devastation we shelved for a later occasion—grief we bottled and tucked away somewhere secret even from ourselves, that if found, we’d be surprised…rather than having been dragged through the insipid furtherance of heartache all along which tends to leave us apathetic in the end. Like me. ‘Ignorance is bliss.’

Call me callous, for it’s true, but it has long since been my experience that—if you’re paying attention—most tragedies these days are expected (normal even) and for those of us who’ve had it the worst—we want to hurt. We want to feel something akin to pain, so that we don’t have to instead feel shame at a time we’re more vulnerable to it. Creeping up on us at night when we question ‘meaning’ and such nonsense. We’re not monsters, per se, we’ve simply become so familiar with loss that we now realize everything is lost even before it begins…we’ve become accustomed to mourning existence.

I couldn't go to Scott's funeral because I couldn't mourn a death that was more of a mercy than the life he left, then watch the ritual of posturing that pretended it wasn’t. Such is shame and our own fear of being forgotten that it leads us to these eccentricities—but then again, I’ve been described as eccentric myself. My sister wouldn’t talk to me for months after, furthering my belief that none of us truly know what we’re doing with our time. Maybe it’d be different if I had gone to live with my sister all those years ago, after mom’s funeral, when given the choice. Maybe I would be different. Thoughts like these have a habit of consuming me of late.

June 1994. Part 1. The Sister.

It was two days before my thirteenth birthday. I had asked Mom if I could go with Maxine’s family back to Nebraska for the summer. I was eager to get to know my older sister better. She had long since been my favorite sibling, sixteen years my senior. I hadn’t been around Maxi much, not since I was five, when we left California. Having had a hand in keeping me ‘alive’ those early years in California, she was like a second mother to me, and I was excited that she had suggested Logan and I live with them. And though I knew we’d be safe there and probably loved; I wasn’t sure that was enough anymore. I needed a schema of what life there would look/feel like because things were much different for her now than they were when we were younger. Maxi was just starting a family of her own. I feared we wouldn’t be a priority. I felt that way with all my family those days. Except him.

My aunt and uncle, who were fostering us at this point, they were in disagreement with the plan to summer in Nebraska; mostly because we had become my uncle’s ‘project’. He hoped that we would stay with him and possibly he feared that this time away would break any of the principles he had instilled in us. Quick to manipulation, my survival tactic of choice back then, I knew that if I favored to asking my mother instead that he would not be able to contend with the wishes of a woman dying of cancer—not with all her immediate family around and having more say in our lives than he, though seemingly wanted none of it. This is how all my older siblings had come to here in the first place—all 6 of us gathered together for the first time since fleeing Modesto, to say their goodbyes to our mother.

1986. California.

Years earlier when we were still in California with John (my dad), it was essential to move regularly for his “job”. We moved often and sometimes we even moved without Dad; he’d have to show up later when it was “safe”.

My mom was swept off her feet when she first met my dad. He blew into town driving a yellow corvette (my mom’s favorite color), introduced to her by the town sheriff in that little Nebraska town. He was dropping off another shipment of Mexico’s finest sugar. He brought the party, and my Mom ate it up. She had spent the last year in a bedroom painted black, mourning her husband’s suicide. She had been married and a mother since she was eighteen years old now that she was thirty, she wanted to explore the parts of life she forfeited being the cheerleader, the good daughter, the smart one. She wanted to live dangerously. And she got to.

Other times we moved without Dad because he was the one who wasn’t safe to be around. Usually for only a night or so after he was having a particularly bad episode. I think Mom was less scared of Dad’s unpredictability and more scared of the certainty that one of her teenage sons would eventually kill him if the abuse continued. Both Owen and Shamus had pulled John’s own revolver on him multiple times by now. The same revolver he used to make holes in nearly every room in whatever house we were hiding out in at the time; the nights he had convinced himself that the shadows in his drug-decayed mind told him were real and coming to get him or take what was his.

I remember one night sitting barefoot sobbing on the stairs of a tavern between the top and bottom floor, men at the bar glancing uncomfortably up at my five-year-old self in my baby blue, flannel nightie. I watched Mom across the mountain road, snow flurries and wind ripping at her robe, crying into a payphone as her teenage children tried to convince her to come back inside and away from the call that would lead her back to him. I was scared because she seemed so far away in that moment, and I felt paralyzed there.

We’d all suffered John’s chaos in more ways than one, but the worst of which was how he had sucked the life out of her. He’d broken her in ways only she knew. Eventually, it took my sister Maxi and her partner Jack to get us out of there. Jack was a master mechanic who worked for my dad’s “front”—a wrecking yard in Modesto that John had bought with their inheritance— the money Mom had gotten from the death of my half-siblings father.

Jack traded work for a Chevette from my dad and rebuilt it as a project car. One day when my dad was away or maybe in a heroin coma, Jack handed my mom the keys and said, “grab everything you can in 30 minutes and go”. I watched from the dirty glass of the hatchback as he stood, arms crossed, leaning in the doorway as we drove away. A sentry standing guard.

I felt that too—and there have been plenty of times in my years when I felt everything inside of me say, “grab everything you can and go”.

June 1994. Part 2. The Pity Party.

Mom stared vacantly at me, or rather, the shell that vaguely resembled my mother did. Sallow, crêpey, soft, thin skin so smooth to the touch in was like the slickness of snake or tanned ostrich. Once rich, auburn hair that had lost all its “burn”—now dull, dry, breaking—like everything else about her. Her eyes so large and deep-set in their sockets that when her pupils shivered it was as though they were wild, starved animals pressing themselves in accord to the backs of dens.

My mother no longer responded in human language to us. The consistent pain, insomnia, starvation wouldn’t allow it. If her voice, mouth, and mind did work together it was saved for brief, banshee wails that no parent should have to hear in the depths of the night—that haunting cry of their child; not that of infant for mother’s milk or life, but their fifty-two-year-old daughter begging for their mercy and peace.

And here I was a vapid child who had grown so utterly numb of suffering that I thought this poor creature could still provide for my self-intent from their hollowed being. Her ribs were but a cage for me to escape—to get away from this…from them…from her.

Certainly, some wouldn’t blame me. For any child to be wanting of a normal childhood, an ordinary child’s birthday, a stable home environment with basic child and human needs met—that should be available by default.

I remember sitting at the dinner table eating what I realize now was “dish sink” dinners and ignoring my mother go on about children starving in other countries while we were being ungrateful, turning down food stamps because someone else needed them more, working herself sick. Even to this day, writing about this experience I feel privileged, selfish, ungrateful, and ashamed to be writing this at all. I question whether my experience is valid or if I’m just another poor-me in an entire country of self-pitying, snow-white ingrates.

The point being, I knew so little of stability, consistency, or normalcy at that time that when I had a transitory perception of it given by someone recognizing and addressing my needs, regardless if it was for their own self-satisfaction to feel charitable and nothing to do with genuine compassion, I was so overcome with greed that I was dead-set on keeping it…even as it advanced my apathy toward the more nurturing side of necessity. Nature was winning. I could live without love if it meant a full stomach and the occasional frivolity as well. As for the secret horror that I had been suppressing until now and only bringing to the front of my thoughts in the deep of night, was that if I were free of her—I had a chance.

The thought of not ever having those things— “normal” things like consistent meals, clean clothes, shelter and then going back to merely surviving as we had for the last thirteen years minus two days, this chance passing me by…I felt trapped. I felt trapped by my mother’s illness. By adults with selfish aims or ideas of what, how, or who I should be after she was gone—not just where. And I had no reference points for what was good and safe and loving… “happy”. I don’t remember feeling any of those things as a child. I remember strongly appreciating brief intervals of beauty and accomplishment. Of a job well-done. But that’s the proselytization again perhaps. That if I wasn’t putting effort into the things the adults around me thought I should be, then I wasn’t worthy. Knowing I deserved nurture—those parts of me just weren’t born or awake yet back then. They hadn’t had time to be. The person who would have given them to me had been dying since I knew her.

My Grandmother at least attempted a birthday by baking an angel food cake. She had forgotten, then was angry. She seemed angry with me. She always seemed angry with me. So, despite the heavy mephitis of death overshadowing the occasion, slowly permeating every memory made up to this time spent on that four-season porch. The hospice nurse looked over at those of us gathered around a small table with the makeshift birthday in full swing with a dour expression that matched both my own and my grandmother’s. My grandmother had often referred to me a such— “a dour child”—not realizing it likely was innate to her own genes. All the while the nurse was taking my mother’s blood pressure on the worst pullout couch-bed to survive 70s. That stiff, cream velvet with dark brown depictions of farmers and millers and pilgrims or some shit, I remember well. It wasn’t soft like most velvet but prickly and stiff and all over the couch was hard. “It’s made well.” My grandfather defended every piece of furniture they owned with such a clause. Essentially, if it didn’t outlast the aesthetic of the era, what value was it? In any case, they weren’t comfortable couches, and they certainly weren’t comfortable beds.

My older siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles—gathered there solely for my mother’s last days—sang the birthday song to me. I am not certain my mother knew what was happening as she lay there staring far through us—through me in my stupid fucking cone hat that made chubby cheeks on an otherwise slip of a child, look even more misplaced. And my thoughts? My thoughts were the same that year as any other…that every year I asked for a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, but every year I got angel food with white frosting and pink lettering. I hated pink. Ironically enough, my favorite cake as an adult is angel food with white buttercream frosting, I am allergic to chocolate, and now accepting of pink. It’s no black, but pink has its place. Maybe it’s psychosomatic? An atonement? Comfort? Maybe it reminds me of when we were, if not normal, at least whole. All the missing pieces still in place. Or maybe it’s residual indoctrination of what “a young lady should like”.

In any case, received no answer from my mother other than a strained whimper—a solicitation of sort, whether it was begging me to stay or relief that if I leave, then so too could she. Maybe my mom and I were not so distant or different from each other even then.

1993. Christmas.

It was to be, that my brother and I were selected by the school to partake in a program where teacher escorts (discreetly) took kids shopping for Christmas at Walmart. We were hand-selected by teachers to participate and given $500. The teacher would help us with the cart, do math, and make suggestions. I argued with my teacher until she gave in, allowing me to take some portion of that money (meant for clothing, toys, etc. for myself) and spend it on the most basic of provisions of food, socks, underwear, but also a “boombox” for Mom, who could no longer enjoy the entertainment system located in the living room far from her bed in our apartment. Mrs. Thompson started crying and as she had always been fairly stern with me during 5th grade English, I wasn’t sure at the time, but now I understand that she was crying for me.

Mom and I would listen to that boombox as I laid on her floor next to her bed. I couldn’t sleep next to her because at the time she scared me. I had watched Pet Semetary too many times not to associate her with the sister, Zelda. I even had a dream where Mom’s skeletal frame chased me down the narrow, windowless hallway of our apartment that led to her room. I felt ashamed and I hadn’t admitted it to anyone. She asked me before to snuggle with her, a rarity and treat in the past as she wasn’t an affection sort of woman in my memories of her. We’d drift off to her whale sounds, or ocean waves, sometimes Enya if she was feeling spicy. As soon as she was asleep, I’d unwind from her skeletal grasp and go back to sleeping on red shag carpeting, collecting all the Good and Plenty’s she dropped, making piles to pass the time. It was the only candy she could have to herself because there was no way we’d eat that shit. Christmas. It was to be, that my brother and I were selected by the school to partake in a program where teacher escorts (discreetly) took kids shopping for Christmas at Walmart. We were hand-selected by teachers to participate and given $500. The teacher would help us with the cart, do math, and make suggestions. I argued with my teacher until she gave in, allowing me to take some portion of that money (meant for clothing, toys, etc. for myself) and spend it on the most basic of provisions of food, socks, underwear, but also a “boombox” for Mom, who could no longer enjoy the entertainment system located in the living room far from her bed in our apartment. Mrs. Thompson started crying and as she had always been fairly stern with me during 5th grade English, I wasn’t sure at the time, but now I understand that she was crying for me.

Mom and I would listen to that boombox as I laid on her floor next to her bed. I couldn’t sleep next to her because at the time she scared me. I had watched Pet Semetary too many times not to associate her with the sister, Zelda. I even had a dream where Mom’s skeletal frame chased me down the narrow, windowless hallway of our apartment that led to her room. I felt ashamed and I hadn’t admitted it to anyone. She asked me before to snuggle with her, a rarity and treat in the past as she wasn’t an affection sort of woman in my memories of her. We’d drift off to her whale sounds, or ocean waves, sometimes Enya if she was feeling spicy. As soon as she was asleep, I’d unwind from her skeletal grasp and go back to sleeping on red shag carpeting, collecting all the Good and Plenty’s she dropped, making piles to pass the time. It was the only candy she could have to herself because there was no way we’d eat that shit.

No adult was around for us at the time. My brother Shamus lived in the apartment above us, but he was going through a volatile divorce and had his own five children to look after. Mom was so ill—so ill that I would help her to the restroom, check her breath at night, try to feed her condiments because it’s all we had. I was sleeping on her floor every night for a while. This is how it came to be that she was taken from us: my grandmother came to visit, not having been able to reach my mother by landline as our phone bill hadn’t gotten paid. I thought I had done something wrong. She opened the door and immediately she was yelling at me, at Mom. Grabbing things from the closet and shoving them in a bag. Then she left. Next thing I remember she was back with my aunt; Grandpa was carrying Mom one way, and I was being dragged the other.

1994. January. Everything hurts.

The next time I saw Mom was in January. She had said, “everything hurts” in response to me inquiry as to why she was pacing back and forth (this was when she could pace back and forth, or simply stand). We were speaking in the shadows of the four-season porch at my grandparent’s lake house. Christmas lights up and blinking on the tree in the corner. She loved bubble-lights—the dangerous ones that boiled water. The porch was second story and overlooked the lake cove. I think she always felt an attachment to water in general—the sound, smell, the sight of it. It’s where she wanted to be her last days—watching the birds at the feeders in front of the windows, cursing the selfishness of squirrels with the lake as a backdrop. She couldn’t have been more than 100lbs at this time, but she wore that awful muumuu anyway, looking like she was on a Florida vacation instead of dying in the heart of Arkansas. “Everything hurts—sitting, walking, standing, laying, being touched, being. So why not keep moving?” The ugly jewel tone, color block linen swished about her creaking ankles (a family thing—all of the women in our family seem to have ankles that “click”). She stopped to smile at me. It wasn’t a real smile, but it was still rare and the only time I remember looking each other directly in the eyes as we spoke and not because I was stealing Flintstone vitamins from the cupboard or something again. “I’m okay. I’m getting better.

1989. Stranger in the Driver’s Seat.

I was terrified of my uncle from the start. We met him as I was turning nine and my brother ten. In the middle of the night, my mom turned off the ignition of the van—the exposed foam of her bucket seat dry and crumbling as she exited the van. I was awoken by the sound of the door closing. I can still remember how loud those heavy doors were when they were slammed. The smell of gasoline, Virginia Slims, spilled Pepsi. The van was rust-red with the remnants of a blue and white, terribly chipping Navajo band all the way around the body. It had only the two bucket seats and the rest of the inside was royal blue velvet, plush walls and the most grotesque yellow, orange, but predominantly avocado green shag carpeted floor you’d ever seen. Not only did it look like vomit, it also closely resembled it in smell too; it was because of this that we occasionally added our own brand to the mélange. She bought the van for the sole-purpose of moving out of Nebraska, but when asked “where to,” she simply said it was “a surprise”. We didn’t think much of it. We were used to moving.

A man replaced mom in the driver seat—this long-haired, long-bearded, long-in-the-tooth snarling hippie (who could’ve been anyone and Adam but also maybe someone who knew our dad)— we timidly began our inquiries. Immediately we were told to “shut up and go back to sleep!” And no sooner had he put that creaky, rusted-out van into gear, driving for what seemed like miles, that he solidified himself as being someone to fear for years to come after.

They had found Christ in each other, my aunt and uncle, living in a community of displaced adults with all their children and her own two sons of a previous marriage. It was a lifestyle that suited them at that time and grown adults shirking responsibility in the 70s wasn’t anything original; in fact, it was a fairly redundant story for my aunt, though I imagine she was more level-headed than my uncle, wishing to use that hard-earned medical degree of hers and return to society at some point. For now, after her divorce from the boys’ father and the recent rejection of a woman whom she was madly in love with—this made sense to her…accepting the fate that had drawn them together.

My aunt was the third daughter (right after my mother) in an “honest” Catholic family of 4 girls and 1 boy, whom she didn’t seem to feel much attachment toward apart from competing for the role of “the good daughter”. She always had her own agendas and interests and placed those above her other siblings. Most of my mother and aunt’s side of my family had settled in the Midwest, the closest being a 15-hour drive from Arkansas, and my uncle liked it like that way, for it’s one thing to be a pretentious self-aggrandizer for a day or two out of a year for holidays and such—quite another to be capable of proving your superiority as a routine…but now we were ruining that for him.

My uncle, on the other hand, he was a drifter from Florida who dodged the draft by purposefully pissing himself. Son of a single mother with one brother. I don’t recall ever hearing of or seeing evidence that he had any former employment to speak of—he did not acknowledge the authority of anyone other than himself. He was a well-read, unsociable, disparaging man, especially towards his wife’s family: railroad workers, strong and outspoken career women, loud Midwesterners—a melting pot of commonsense, tell-you-how-it-is, salt-of-the-earth folk who couldn’t be duped by my uncle’s self-important, patronizing displays to which he lowered himself to their intellectual level for the sake of counterfeit comradery. They despised him often commenting, “There’s something about him that doesn’t sit right”.

My uncle, on the other hand, he was a drifter from Florida who dodged the draft by purposefully pissing himself. Son of a single mother with one brother. I don’t recall ever hearing of or seeing evidence that he had any former employment to speak of—he did not acknowledge the authority of anyone other than himself. He was a well-read, unsociable, disparaging man, especially towards his wife’s family: railroad workers, strong and outspoken career women, loud Midwesterners—a melting pot of commonsense, tell-you-how-it-is, salt-of-the-earth folk who couldn’t be duped by my uncle’s self-important, patronizing displays to which he lowered himself to their intellectual level for the sake of counterfeit comradery. They despised him often commenting, “There’s something about him that doesn’t sit right”.

He met my aunt at just such a time that a person of his nature would be appealing to someone of hers—he was younger, fun (or so she claimed), and there was a danger about him—perhaps what didn’t “sit right” with the rest of us is exactly what appealed to her…the sociopath. I am uncertain of whether she knew, but he would eventually confide in myself (at the time a young woman of fourteen) that he had attempted to murder his younger brother, leaving the boy brain damaged for life. I would hope that my aunt didn’t know, but two narcissists in a codependent relationship coming out of a final acid trip with both claiming to have seen God and to have been bequeathed with the most holy of hosts anointing upon them—told to go forth spreading his knowledge…I doubt that red flags could have been seen as anything other than just another sign that they were on the right track.

I imagine when my uncle was awoken in the middle of the night to fetch his wife’s heathen sister—recently pulled from the armpit of California and freshly out of a year of hiding in Nebraska from the drug trafficker that spawned her two-wildling children, randomly shows up in his town of Huntsville, Arkansas—to stay under his roof that his wife paid every penny for…I imagine he was pissed.

Not only did he have to host us for a few months, but we’d continue to stay with my aunt and uncle on occasion, mostly days when mom was in or recovering from chemotherapy or radiation treatment; then more often as her illness progressed—all the while against my uncle’s wishes. It took a while, but he did soften; it was gradual, but as he realized we were pliable young minds ever seeking approval, ready to work for it, and not just hellions sent to torture him—he did take special interest in us. We responded well to the reward-system he imposed. Having never won or gained anything in our short lives from compliant behavior alone, our little survival instincts had us all the more eager to please him. Coins, treats, praise… My uncle was doing a good job making us reliant on him, if nothing else. I think it gave him purpose; albeit he was a highly intelligent man, he was often running his social and scholastic coffers dry. He believed the world owed him something without effort or sacrifice—thus giving up his eternal track-switching, lifelong college student career while living off my aunt’s salary and obsequiousness to become our “tutor”. That last acid trip with holy ghost was bearing fruit at last.

June 1994. Part 3. The Funeral.

We left for Nebraska the next morning, my brother and I, along with our older sister. I remember how immediately uncomfortable I was there. My sister Maxi was a new mom, things smelled like urine from potty-training, there were small children which made anxious, and anxiety always makes me feel as though I’ve done a thing wrong even to this day.

My brother and I slept in bucket chairs in the living room. I was miserable. I laid awake most of the night feeling as though I had made a huge mistake. I’ve always been a particular child with separation anxiety and feeling no particular attachment to any one person any longer with this newborn apathy. What a conundrum, right? I’ve spent most of my life choosing, being and feeling alone. Despite being in a relationship or crowd of people, I can still feel completely outside of everything and at times this can either be a superpower or kryptonite. Even with my siblings, who have rarely invested much of themselves into me since Mom’s passing. Mostly they’ve just bailed me out of situations, never sharing their own thoughts or feelings, tribulations, what’s made them happy or upset—the things that round a person out. My siblings have always been 2D, and our mother—basically, a stranger to us all, she never offered false witness, but she certainly concealed much of herself from us; yet, because of how I am, I probably know her best in some ways, because in a lot of ways, I am her—having inherited that omnipresent and duplicitous character she maintained even upon her deathbed.

The phone rang early that next morning, and I already knew.

“Not on my birthday!” I shouted toward the kitchen where Maxi leaned on the doorframe, back toward me in her denim tuxedo, head bent down, hand clasped over mouth. I could tell by her stance. “Not on my birthday!” I screamed it again to make sure she heard me. As soon as my sister returned the phone to the wall, she rushed to me and kneeled like I deserved her attention more than she deserved a moment to mourn—the moment I stole from her.

“No, baby girl! No, it’s not on your birthday! Your birthday is tomorrow!” she wept. I had been so caught up in my selfishness that I forgot what day it was.

I was…I am…so selfish.

When Scott said, "What's wrong with you?"

I suddenly started to sob. Scott couldn't have possibly known that just on the way here, our uncle had told me that crying would be questioning God's will and ultimately a sin; however, that's not why I didn't cry until Scott’s accusation. I was crying because it was the first time someone had said it out loud.

After years of being misled, told God would heal her, that the cancer was in remission, that she was getting better, then going through even more chemo, even more radiation, that we we’re not praying hard enough, that mom was an unbeliever, more starvation, more disassociation, more nausea, begging her to eat, hearing her cry at night, isolation, from family, from friends, abandonment, being pitied, being bullied at school, being told “if your mom hadn’t met your dad, none of this would’ve happened”. After four years, someone said it out loud. That she was dead. And I was relieved.

J.M.Liles ©️2024

You know how the saying goes: “Whatever can go wrong… will go wrong.”

It's an apt slogan for my existence thus far.

But perhaps that oversimplifies the thing. The phrase shouldn’t end there. A more accurate descriptor might go something like this: “Whatever can go wrong…will go wrong…. except when it doesn’t and goes bafflingly, marvelously right in the most awkward way humanly possible.”

Yes, that’s a better way to surmise my life thus far, because as I sit here and clatter away at the keys, I’m aware that calling my life a failure is a falsehood. I’ve got some pretty great things going on. I’ve got cute kids, a dedicated husband, a home, and a day-to-day existence so sickeningly sweet it’d give your neighborhood pessimist cavities. Alas, you’re not here to read about that part– that part is boring. The things that go right usually are. And hey, I’m here to tell ya that boring isn’t always a bad thing. Boring leaves some space for peace. If you’ve found that (peace, I mean), please let me know– ’cause I’m still searching. So, let’s dive in, why don’t we? I suppose we should start where all good stories do…

At the beginning.

It began before I can remember. It began with a woman much stronger than I, a woman who overcame, a woman who inspires me to be the best version of myself every single day (It’s my mom, duh). Yes, my mother. She is a rare woman. She is the strongest person I know, but not in that harsh, horrible kind of way. She is strength in her gentleness, in her caring spirit, in her meticulous cleanliness, in her arms that encircle with warmest embrace. She is the reason I’m writing this. I hear her soft alto whispering in the back of my mind even now, “You have got to write a book about your life, Pearl– No one would believe it!” But before there was me, there was her. There was him.

He was handsome. He was tall, and lanky but well-muscled with darkly tanned skin and striking blue eyes. His teeth were a little crooked, but he couldn’t help that. He was meticulously well-groomed, almost as if he were trying to make up for something…and, well… he was. His childhood reeked with the hallmarks of parents still caught in the lingering strife of the great depression. Everything you’ve ever heard about the worst-case scenario of growing up poor? It was true for him. He wore it wonderfully well. He drove fast cars and rode motorbikes and blared rock and roll from his custom record setup. He womanized and fist-fought and was recently divorced– twice over. He was a man on a mission. He was a man with something to prove. He wanted so desperately to be what the world had always told him he never would be: a success. A family man. And so, when he saw mama from across the roller skating rink, her auburn locks glittering in the light of the disco ball- so beautiful, so alone... and wrangling three small boys, he just couldn’t pass up the opportunity. He’d tried to start a family with his first two wives, and had one kid by each before the relationships ended, but here was a woman with kids in tow, and boys nonetheless. Instant family. And he could be the hero. They were married less than a year later.

Mama says he showed his true colors for the very first time on the night of their honeymoon. She’d thought she’d found her knight in shining armor, but instead, she’d leapt headfirst into her worst nightmare. When they got married, there were already five kids between the two of them. Mama’s first marriage had ended in divorce, too, and she liked to think of her family with her new husband (my dad, if you hadn’t caught on) as their own little Brady Bunch...But with a darker bent that mama happily swept under the rug, along with the rest of her baggage. The abuse escalated with each day of the marriage, and I think Mama might’ve fooled herself into believing that giving him another baby would fix it. Along came my brother, and she saw a different side of the man with striking blue eyes. She saw him love with reckless abandon.

He loved my brother more than anything he’d ever seen, more than any of his other children, certainly more than my mother or me. But the abuse didn’t stop. Instead, it escalated. Now she wasn’t just doing things wrong with the house, and her clothes, and her hair… Now she was tainting his precious son. She did what she must– she got pregnant again because he didn’t hurt her so badly when she was pregnant. And thus, I came screaming into the world with a tuft of violently red hair upon my brow, more bruises on my infantile body than seemed humanly possible, and a fire in my soul that smoldered, but didn’t burn. And of course, the undeniable truth that guaranteed a torturous existence: I was female, and my monsters equated that to being less than dirt. So begins our story.

Purpose- The testing of the durability of the Human Spirit under extreme duress.

Research Subject- 815165

Specifications- Species-Human

Type/Gender-Female

Hair/Eyes- Blnd., Hzl

Height-5'5" Wt.- 105lbs.

Life Stage- Pre-Adolescence

Dated: May 05 1986

Time: 1500 (MT)

Observer/Intuitive Perspective:

The subject is in a dark room. Neon red light begins to spiderweb all around her. The floor is splitting open below her. She does not know what to do. So she sits. The web encircles her, weaves into her mind, her thoughts, her psyche. Later, when she seeks comfort, she will re-enact the webs as best as she can, because this is what she knows. And familiarity breeds comfort. She has not stopped falling, but the webs lend her hope in the moments she brushes against them.

Observer/ Reality Perspective(as pertains to Humanoid Environment):

She is sitting on the love seat, her mother on the old cat clawed, raggedy fold out couch.

Next to the couch is the scarred up nightstand with the clock radio quietly blaring baseball stats.

Her mother's mouth stops moving and she snaps her mind to attention. She is supposed to say something here. "Uh-huh", she manages. Then too late, she realizes her mistake as her mother launches into (yet another) lecture on proper grammar that somehow sidewinds into a shaming session on what an ungrateful little slut she is.

This time, when the mouth stops moving, she is ready. Has dutifully paid attention to every single word. She is ready for the pop quiz.

She uses every ounce of willpower to control her facial muscles so the relief does not register anywhere in her expression, as she mercifully, eventually, scores high enough on the quiz to be granted dismissal.

She walks steadily to her bedroom, and carefully closes the door. Her mother values privacy. Another mystery unsolvable.

She lifts her hands to her face with a vengeance, then abruptly re-orients to grab at her hair instead. Mustn't leave marks. She yanks and pulls, grits her teeth, and screams inside her mouth.

She needs blood though, so she raises her shirt, and claws at her chest. Then she calms herself, shamed silent by her outburst.

She then looks fondly over at the pram with her baby dolls, and exclaims brightly, "Let's go for a walk!"

She is 10 and a half years old.

Session 2 concluded.

Observations recorded.

Awaiting analysis reports.

To be continued...