Decadent
Moist heat hangs thick in the atmosphere, clinging tight unto balmy grease molecules, as if by a court-ordered matrimony. The very white of the sink, blotted out by an array of brushes, combs, colorful cans and innumerable bottles of various spritzes and ointments, designed with the promise and purpose of combating both frizz and kink. A steaming curling iron lies in a corner of the sink top like a monster in repose, calmly awaiting the next jaw-full of its already dead prey. It discriminates neither Virgin nor Brazilian; they being its staple and all. Strands of severed hair litter the floor and sink alike, left behind in the wake of the owner's haste. Quite a Freudian testament it sure is, this love affair between lady and hair that only lasts about three months or so.
Welcome to the kitchen...sorry...bathroom of the 21st Century woman.
Lighthouse Drive
Psycho Cindy left late one night. She couldn't stand another day with the manic depressive, pill popping, alcoholic, with mutiple personalites, that was her husband. During the six years they had been married, he had only spent one night with her in the same bed. He had a terrible way of belittling her. She had become depressed during her pregnancy, and put on 100 pounds. He used to buy her leather mini-skirts, and small tops to torment her. He would tell her that he wouldn't be interested in her, until she could fit into these outfits. He wouldn't do any housework, because he said that was women's work. He would leave for days on end, and tell her that he was going to the campus library.
She had even left him a couple times before, but ended up going back. The last time she went back to him, he had let his friends take over her room. She didn't even have access to her dresser! She was forced to sleep on the floor in the hallway.
Hell, he wasn't even there when she went into labor. He was out getting drunk!
Cindy could never forget her first beating. They happened to be discussing something in the bedroom, when he kicked her in the face, giving her a black eye. They had only been engaged at the time. She should have known better than to marry him.
He had a collection of knives under his bed. One day, he pinned her to the floor, and scraped a blade across her glasses, threatening to cut her eyes out.
He would choke her out almost every night. Cindy was grateful when his mother would stay with them, because he wouldn't lay a finger on her.
He even punched her in the stomach, and the head a couple times, when she was pregnant. Cindy hated herself for being too weak to leave at the time.
Cindy stayed with a friend of hers for a couple weeks, but her husband really had her head screwed up. Every time someone would buzz the apartment, she would freak out. She thought it was her husband coming after her.
A couple days later, she took off, and ended up in a pysch clinic where she was put on some strong medication. A couple hours later, she was released to her parents. She was so doped up that she spent the next couple days sleeping.
She moved into their basement. Cindy was under the impression that she was supposed to be getting married to her best friend. She waited in anticipation for the phone to ring. After every phone call, she ran upstairs to ask if it was him on the other end of the line. She soon became discouraged.
A couple days later, she became convinced that her parents were in the mafia, and out to kill her. She took off that evening, grabbing one of her father's old golf clubs from the basement. She hid behind some bushes.
About an hour later, she flagged down a truck, claiming that her baby was missing. The driver phoned the police, and an investigation was started.
Later that evening, the police had confirmed that the baby was only a figment of her imagination. The actual baby was taken away a couple years earlier by the state.
She was escorted by ambulance to a mental institution. The paramedics who transported her. recognized her as the socially akward, outcast they knew from high school, and pitied her.
She was sentenced to spend 20 years in a mental institution. Oddly enough, she couldn't be more happy in her delusional world. In the last report, the doctor noted that she had created her own pretend family. She even created the perfect husband in her head that only she can see.
She was recently put on Thorazine, and she tends to drool alot. Now she carries around a baby doll that she talks to, feeds, changes, bathes, and clothes. Her name is Shannon...
Dan’s Freaky Arts
Dan owned his own karate studio, and lived directly above, in a small apartment. Sometimes he would throw parties for his students on weekends, that is until he found out about his unwanted occupant, a ghost named Charlie. Sometimes the lights would flash on, and off, but the figured it was just one of his younger students playing a prank.
One night, while the lights were flashing on, and off, the ceiling lights came crashing down. The books were flying everywhere, hitting one lady in the head. Dan nearly got sued. A large push broom glided across the floor by itself. A window slammed so hard, that it shattered. Tables slid back, and forth by unseen hands.
Things got even worse for Dan, when he finally confronted the entity. He had knives flying at him through his doorway. He would wake up to find a knife suspended above him.
The ghost was especially agitated, if a female would enter the kitchen, which resulted in a barrage of knives. That really put a damper on his dating life.
He tried to hide the knives, and even bury them, but the same thing would happen.
One night, he raised his forearm, to stop a knife from piercing him in the abdomen. He had a deep gash on his wrist. Out of sheer frustration, he threatened to throw a knife at the tiny point of light, that was the entity. That's when the ghost, and him came to an understanding. The ghost was a man named Charlie. He had been murdered by his wife in a fit of rage; she has bi-polar disorder. Anyways, she found out that her husband was cheating. They were both in the kitchen, when she hurled the knife at him, and it pierced his heart, killing him instantly.
Paradox
"Now, where does this go?" Vicky licked her lips, as she pried her credit card into the door, to disarm the lock.
She felt her way along the pitch-black tunnels. "To the sub-basements!" she shouted, pretending she was in a video game.
Vicky crept her way down the narrow steps. "Who needs friends when you have an out of this world imagination?" she thought to herself.
She descended the steps, and stopped at sub-basement "E."
"What could the university possibly be storing down here, bodies?"
Vicky tripped, and fell flat on her face. She fumbled her way along the dimly lit room, and discovered a fake wall.
Her head throbbed, and she felt disoriented as her eyes adjusted to the flourescent lights. Apparently, she had walked into an abandoned library. Some of the shelves were toppled over. The books were caked with dust, and they were all labeled with "banned" stickers.
Vicky thumbed through several books, and noticed that they were full of forbidden spells. "Too cool," she thought to herself.
She grabbed a book of spells focusing on time-travel. "I don't think anyone will miss this," she thought to herself. "This will give me something to do this weekend, instead of sitting here alone."
Vicky sighed as she grabbed the phone. She was mentally exhausted from studying for her trigonometry finals. "Hello?"
"You stupid bitch!" her mother shouted incoherently, as she snorted a line of crack. "You ruined my life! I could have gone to college if I hadn't gotten knocked up. You turned my family against me! You made me lose my job. Now, I have to move. Tell me why, or I'll put a bullet in your head!"
Her mother, Lynn, was a bi-polar drug addict. Vicky was placed in foster care, because her mother was deemed incompetent.
"Bring it on, Lynn!" Vicky shouted, and slammed down the phone.
Her mother called, and harrassed her for 2 more weeks.
"It's all over," Vicky sobbed, "I flunked my trigonometry final, and now I lost my scholarship!"
"I don't have the nerve to kill myself," she thought to herself, "but I can perform a spell to stop myself from being born."
Vicky performed the "time-travel" spell, and caused her mother to have a miscarriage.
Vicky awoke with her head in a fog. She noticed her reflection in the glass doors of a nearby building. "I look different. I'm alot thinner. My hair is straight, and alot lighter. My voice sounds different. It's almost like I woke up in another body. No, that's silly. I just need some rest."
She investigated her surroundings. Apparently, she had been sleeping in the doorway of an abandoned building. Her clothes were torn, and filthy. Her only possessions were a thin blanket, and a wad full of papers.
Vicky noticed that there was something different about the city. It seemed to be covered in a milky-white fog. She forced her way through the white film, and was horrified to discover that she was trapped in a city constructed by huge spider webs, and populated by spider people.
She began to sob, and dug in her pocket for a tissue. She found a page out of the spellbook. "Beware! Anyone who changes any details of the past, can drastically alter the future."
Honest Review
He likes what he likes, and he likes it a lot. In some way, that makes him easy to be around. Predictability goes a long way, you know? Whatever works. Sure, he gets bad mouthed, but who doesn't? At the end of the day he's just like any one of us; looking out for number one, looking for something that makes you feel... good. He's just that much more resourceful, you dig?
The Devil was once known as Lucifer, and he was God's favorite. He was made of gold and light, a shining glory for all to see. Lucifer was proud, too. He wished to become powerful and mighty, but like Icarus, he flew too close to the sun and was cast down from Heaven. So I pray to God for the Devil, because he is the sinner who needs it the most. Perhaps he will someday return, and his returning glory will shine through the heavens.
Mr. Heller’s Friends
Brian Davis sat on the stone steps in front of his parent’s house with his one and only friend Chris Demarco. Chris had been yammering about something for the last 20 minutes, but Brian really wasn’t listening. Brian had been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder earlier that year. His parents breathed a sigh of relief finally knowing why ‘poor little Brian was struggling’. He didn’t feel that he had A.D.D. Most of the time when someone was telling him something uninteresting he chose to turn his mind elsewhere. ‘Simple’, he thought to himself. Now as Chris blabbed on and on, bits of Doritos falling from his pock marked face, Brian’s attention was on the faded blue lap-boarded house across the street with its sagging soffits, heavily draped windows and its anomalous inhabitant.
Mr. Heller moved in the day after summer vacation started. Every day, just before the evening light surrendered to night he would ride down the street on his gray Honda moped, returning later with a big plastic bag from Jacks Shop ’N Stuff dangling from the handle bars-swinging rhythmically, like a white plastic scrotum. Both Chris and Brian enjoyed the struggle Mr. Heller displayed keeping the moped balanced and the mopeds labor, heaving the gelatinous mass of its rider along the quiet neighborhood street.
“There is nothing funnier than a fat guy on a moped,” Chris said for the umpteenth time.
“Nope,” Brian said, again.
Soft rolls of fat seemed unsatisfied being restrained under the sweat stained polo shirt. They dangled and bounced happily as the moped putted along. Mr. Heller’s bald head and puffy face flashed red by the stress jostled like a life size bobble head. His garage door opened reluctantly. Rusted rollers strained against unforgiving tracks.
No one had lived in the house for as long as Brian could remember, but his memory was about as reliable as his father’s piece of crap Oldsmobile. Brian watched Mr. Heller disappear into the dark garage. The door lowered half way grinding to a stop. Brian continued to watch his friend. A high-pitched noise interrupted Chris’s story. A scream. Someone was screaming in complete terror as if they were falling from a sky scraper, then quiet. Silence.
Chris stood, dropping the bag of Doritos. “What the fuck was that?”
“It came from the fat ass’ house. I bet he fell over and the moped is on top of him. Come on. Let’s go and see if he needs help.” Chris said.
Brian eyed the rust speckled garage door. Chris walked cheerfully towards it. Street lamps recognizing the darkness, sprung to life spilling puddles of yellow light along the sidewalks, except those in front of Mr. Heller’s house. His narrow house and garage appeared to be darker now.
“Chris. Wait.”
Chris continued, wiping cheese dust onto his tan khaki shorts. “Don’t be such a pussy.”
Brian followed slowly, stopping next to Chris standing a few feet from the door, close enough to investigate, but far enough to high tail it home if he needed to, with or without his friend.
“Let’s just take a quick peek at the fat asshole.”
“Dude, let’s just go”, Brian edged away.
“Hell, man! This is some funny ass shit and I gotta see it.” Chris whispered then slid under, “Mr. Heller? Are you alright?” He giggled.
Brian stood outside shifting his gaze from the garage door to home. He wiped the sweat from his palms wishing his sister or mother would be standing on the front porch yelling for him to come home but, silence surrounded him.
“Get in here Bri.” Chris poked his head out. Brian jumped, wiped his hands again then stepped into darkness, but not dark, black. Blackness surrounded him. Caressing a cold, uncomfortable embrace. It was considerably warm. A wave of hot air stabbed the back of his throat. Oil, gas and something smelling liked cooked, rotten meat lingered on his tongue. Brian had a familiar odd feeling. Like when he tried sledding down suicide hill for the first time, knowing halfway down it was a terrible idea and there was nothing he could do about it, continued towards the bottom, helpless. That’s where he was now. Halfway down a terrible idea and there was nothing he could do about it.
Chris flicked sparks off his dad’s Zippo. “Mr. Heller? Are you in here? Lighter is a piece of shit.” A flicker of yellow flame grew illuminating a 3-foot diameter swath of light. “About Goddamn time.”
“We shouldn’t be here.”
Chris ignored the request, shuffling forward. “Hello? Mr. Heller?” Light reflected off the moped’s muffler, laying on its side, motor tinging as it cooled from lugging around the excessive passenger.
“See. I told you he fell off. He must have knocked himself…”, Chris froze in his tracks. Mr. Heller lay on his back, motionless. His pendulous abdomen, naked, white, thin red cracks streaking down the sides, like some enormous bird’s egg.
Brian’s pulse clicked in his throat. “We need to get the fuck out of here.” He never used the ‘F’ word, but when he did, it was appropriate. In fourth grade, having enough of his long-time bully’s antagonism, Brian told everyone he was going to ‘fuck him up’ and did so at the bus stop. This felt like an opportune time to let his feelings be known and ‘fuck’ was just about the only thing he could he could express.
Brian grabbed the back of Chris’s shirt pulling him towards the door. Then, something chirped and clicked repeatedly. It’s tone high, nervous, like an animal backed into a corner.
“What?” Chris held the lighter with both hands, shrugged himself from Brian’s grip and moved towards the sound. Brian felt the bottom of the hill coming and didn’t want to see, but he did.
It had three long claws on each foot, puncturing the soft belly flesh creating new red ‘cracks’. Its clawed hands shoved wads of what looked like raw hamburger into its softball sized head above narrow black slits for a nose and a wide mouth full of needle like teeth. Blue eyes twitched back and forth. Sinewy muscles flexed beneath greenish blue iridescent skin draped tightly over its small human like skeleton. It wasn’t any bigger than Chris’s cat, Mr. Whiskers, except Mr. Whiskers didn’t stand upright and use his hands to feed himself.
Chris stood rigid, the zippo flame quivering in his hand. Brian felt like someone was pulling his ball sack up through his belly button.
“Chris…”
Brian clenched onto Chris, pulling him towards the door. Until. Something much larger than the thing squatting on top of Mr. Heller, decided to come out. Brian couldn’t see but could feel the air shift around its enormity. Deep throaty breaths washed over the two from above. Heavy foot-steps with what Brian could only imagine as claws racked across the floor. Chris turned towards Brian holding the zippo. Odd shadows danced over his horror-struck facial landscape. The smell of fresh urine wafted in between them.
Brian would only remember interesting things. Fantastic things. He could tell you the difference between dark matter and dark energy. Brian could calculate the surface area of a dome and tell you how much paint it would take to cover it. His teachers cringed at the sight of his raised hand in class. He was smart. But, he couldn’t remember anything remotely intelligent now, only his father sitting sternly at the dinner table what felt like a long time ago.
“Just so you kids know, I spoke to the new neighbor across the street. Do me a favor and stay away from that guy. Something about him aint right. He smelled and was one hell of a twitchy sum bitch”, his father had said.
Brian stood trembling, the words swirled in small eddies of memory. Brian was left swimming in his Attention Deficit Disorder as the owner of whatever was scraping along the floor, closed the garage door.
twentysomething
I wish life had a fast-forward button
I'd skip from this insecurity, this monotony, this passionless drudge
to the loving spouse, the golden children, the flourishing jet-set career
they say I'll miss this part
nostalgia whispers it in their ear and they shout it at me
"you're wrong" I shout loudest of all
"because I know I was unhappy as a child and I know I am unhappy now"
I wish that I could skip ahead to my favorite scene of life
but what if that scene
doesn't exist?