ig-Nobel demise.

my sanity hung loose by the noose that no knife in a surgeon’s hand could thoroughly cut away, it would snap like a piano string anyway, and the numb break from reality would complete itself. they seem to think that the surgery is necessary, but my intuition says a different thing altogether. that it was never meant to be taken this far was not the issue right now, and my family is thinking ideas that betray all reasonable logic or relation to me as a person once in their lives. my hospital room decorated with flowers all over the place, but no idea what most of them were really there for, doubting that anyone else does either.
the sun streaked in like the constant cutting that has defined my life until now. taking the bowl of institutional gruel with fifty pounds of sugar, and breakfast was to be served so queasily. my mind tearing off at some of those duller seams, and thoughtful of the brain salad surgery doomed upon these damned wretches here in the asylum state. hollow chatter of these poor creatures, sitting still and sedated constantly, and doctors were the enemy here along with their strong arm orderless lackeys. no knife to cut through this rubbery food. faked the babbling before, but it only gets you out of work duties, which didn’t make too many of my fellow inmates here too happy. at least, not the ones that were more conscious than sedate. we, here, are blessed with all the amenities like shock therapy and even the occasional lobotomy. a better hostel could not be conceived of for the mentally unstable. with three meals a day and all the intensive therapy you could never want. it was a dream come true for all those on the outside looking inward. the dreams of those inside became tortured and mad representations of an imagined real world, and no hope of getting through to anyone beyond the walls was a common thought here. scalpel and crutch were the things that made us all better people, but where was the kindness created from another form of compassion, one that might seem to see all human beings with equal mercy. there was no pleasantly silent Indian for me to confide in my frustrations with the present situation calling itself home for me. this was far from a nest, but with more than just a few cuckoos to stir the stew into boiling over the top. i remember that when i first got here in a very literal state of psychosis, that i would be prone to violently lashing out at the others, and this earned me that ‘psychotic’ moniker among the patients and doctors here. creatures inhabiting the raw head doctors moving around were far stranger than fiction for sure, but the surety of the insane struggles was far more precarious, even my own grip was constantly on the fringe. how did we know that we were less sane than those supposed to be our caretakers? not much by my regard. it all seemed like just the same regurgitated sediment for all to indulge, and no one was ever consistently conscious enough to repair the damage to our brains. where would this all stop in the end, i wonder? an orderly was walking towards me, and all i could see was contempt for his fat rat face. he seemed calm enough, but i decided to trip him down to the floor anyway. with a moan and a crash, he fell. he got up faster than i could imagine, though, with a red face and steam pouring out of his ears, and he grabbed me by my collar. all the apes began howling for the blood to spill before lunchtime, but there are rules here that disorderly gentlemen need to follow for the record. i apologized in my own inimical way, with a chuckle and a following reply of ‘no harm done’, and through the cacophonous barrage of inmates chanting inane gibberish to precede the proposed bloodbath. that dark awareness opening a center of focus before coming hostile resolution takes place, a nerve center, and the fury that comes from the attempt at knowing your enemy. i then saw the person holding me as that young boy i had killed, incredulous that he was still alive in front of my eyes, and everything else faded into background noise altogether. with eyes wide, i slapped his hands away from my collar, and stepped back a couple feet. i had no idea that i was going to be institutionalized like this. i had heard words like ‘insane’ and ‘mental illness’ before, but never thought in a million dreams that this would be where i stood. in churches i had heard the words like ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’, but none of those ideas made any sense in a real and now world. i never had any expectations of where i was going, and to this day, i haven’t given any more thought about it. i guess even that might be considered insane by those that think their beliefs the more superior to lesser beasts that wander the streets. in the streets, where i killed that kid, the first time. he was staring at me with that horribly knowing look in his eyes. i was the better person, minding my own business, and then i felt his soul boring holes into my skin. it was almost as though he was looking through me into my soul. he smiled at me, but all i knew were the darkest urges to hurt him, to make him stop smiling. i remember running towards him, but afterwards, i was sitting on the curb breathing heavily. the officer who took me away had to point his gun at my face before i was fully aware that he was standing there. we were both just a few feet from the body. the court would have been almost bare if not for the overwhelming hatred that weighed heavy over the proceedings. i didn’t pay too much attention to the boy’s name, or to the various arguments that were made. i think i remember having a lawyer, but not absolutely sure about that either. i must have blacked out when i killed him because none of what they said made any sense to me, their descriptions of the scene, or the assumption of my motivation. i was lead away with a sentence of mental instability. never disagreed with that, but this institution was breeding with emotional disaster in every nook and cranny. nothing was ever what it seemed once i became isolated in this environment, but i could never just keep to myself, as that was said to “hinder” my therapy by those doctors crazier than me. sometimes i thought there would never be any hope for me to escape this place. i think that i really was figuring right. until the hallucinations became real and wholly unsane to witness, and the outright madness began to move gears in both the mind of this victim and the system projected externally moving around him. his mind was the last thing needed to establish the wills of those other things calling out to him, and could believably conflict with their collective direction for his materializing their intents. no, the best it to be erased from his memory, and the doctors indeed had the best methods to erase that meddlesome brain of his. the act of terror would commence soon, and with this information in his brilliantly jagged perceptions, he was cast out back out of his catatonia on the floor. his face hurt severely, and he could feel the bruises all over his body, thinking obviously that more than a few of the animals got their kicks in. his one good eye not swollen, but red and blinking the dryness away, tearing up as he realized his forearms were being restrained to the sides of the gurney. he awoke in a dark room without lights, and he knew it was punishment to keep him restrained in isolation.

the butchers have come.

‘chop. chop. chop. my stirring lover’s figure lay still in a sleep deeper than expected just within this cave structure. the machines were moving closer to the position here, but still many meters away. it was a mistake to have made love with this oaf next to me asleep. this disordered romp would certainly get me into some amount of trouble. deadly, this time of day, and when other things roam about the waste left. throwing the blanket aside and nude, i quickly shuffled to my clothes sitting there on the rocks, and the pistol gripped in my fist. chop. chop. chop. it took me some time to get my pants on right, and i sheathed the pistol into my belt. the safety was flipped into place to control any nervous anxieties i might still have.
‘the machines were dreadfully close now, and moving too fast for me to awake Mutorcs from his slumber. i began climbing the solid stone points growing from the surface of the arid ground, it was this that was our haven for a time, and within moments it was to be the next battleground. he was the bait to lure them, and i would rely on the height to be my advantage in this fight. the trap was set, and the machines were almost here. ducking down over the top of the stony point that reached high from the ground, pulling out the pistol, and praying for Mutorcs to stay asleep. CHOP. CHOP. CHOP. the last thing i needed right now was Mutorcs in a screaming run as the machines moved about in a deformed and mechanical sense. organic grace was completely lost in their calculated footing. there, a few meters out, were a handful of the creatures.
‘two were of a flying method to their motions i later realized while the others were ground-bound. i held still breathing hard, and allowed their sensors to wash over Mutorcs and myself. they would know then that we were both here, but i had already figured out if there were many details in my favor, the exhilarating electricity moving my nerves at the ready. the groundlings moved quickly in this direction, with their airborne fellows not far behind them, and my sweat was hot and boiling through my skin.
‘the rock on which we stood our ground was very much capable of aiding in the defense necessary to surviving. the nervous air would not get to me, i have been through many times worse, and Mutorcs is a known warrior capable of disabling a living device bare-fisted. when conscious, he is a ferocious robot slayer, but like this he was no better than as bait. i began to feel the rumbling all throughout the dirt and mineral beneath me, and i prayed a little longer that Mutorcs would stay asleep, don’t ruin this moment. the sharpened blades of the spider-crawling explorers were snapping at every twist of its trunk. the taller dreadnoughts began sending static noise between each other, and the entire mass of the marching group began herding toward the encampment we had made there under the rocky outgrowth. the flying few were the first to recognize my presence there upon the rock, and the first to be an immediate problem for me. their hideously synthetic squawks sent chills up my spine, washing cold sensation over my bones, and instilling some kind of aural pain into my head. i rolled around, and fired on impulse into the belly of the closest mechanical fiend, it took a number of shots before it fell, and there were always more on their way into the fray.
Mutorcs woke with a start, his yowl rising to meet my ears, after a few “spider bites” marked his skin. my shots rang far into the sky, and penetrated the thin armor hide of the air menace, felling these alloy artifacts. the thrill never matched the stories told and passed along, even though Mutorcs relied heavily upon the tales that made him out to be the hero of the adventure. since i came along, the “hero” has been a little more realistic to my expectations, and my girlish crush on his bravery was put in its place while tagging behind his broad-shouldered frame. seeing me gone must have triggered something in him, the next thing i heard from below was the scream of Mutorcs as he went full throttle on junk heap scavengers, and i heard the clanking of crushing strikes to the creatures trying to destroy us. my mind imagined that Mutorcs was utterly dismantling these walking tin freaks, and sending them to their silent end. i was utterly wet and primed to fight these fragging things to the death. the beats of my heart were making my body move on its own, becoming an obstacle for my shooting practice was a bad move, but i was able to get some rather critical hits on the flock of iron vultures.
i could barely make out the sounds of masculine pain in the distance as the focus drove me further towards a concentrated narrowing, and with that alignment yielded the results of a finished fight without any scratches. as i stood over the edge of the rock, and looked down upon the wreckage of my adversaries, i swiveled once i realized that Mutorcs was in true danger here. his sounds were seeming more and more desperate, and obviously, these things were trying their best to dismantle him. i adjusted my lightweight armor, and then began working my way down the face of the boulder, as i heard the din of whirring machinery below. at first i had thought it was in the distance again, but quickly learned the difference when a wiry, segmented tentacle wrapped snugly at my ankle. the pull took my whole body by surprise, but i managed to deflect the damage as i was thrown into the rock wall. i braced myself as i collided with the surface of it, and sprawled across the ground as the three machines moved about in front of me. my eyes grew wide, and the dry soil felt more solid underneath me, the sweat was pouring off my nose. i knew that if i attempted to reach for my gun outright, they would kill me quicker, but i wasn’t going to die that cheaply. i ducked and rolled through the legs of one large hunk of puttering machine. this open space was the ideal opportunity to draw and fire, and shooting the thing in the back.
my body swiveled and swerved around the trio of legs, allowing me the perfect shot, and the blast was fired off before i was even fully aware of it. it pulsed through the plating over the thing’s mechanical heart, but it certainly wouldn’t be finished with me yet. these kinds of robot cannon-fodder were all put-together with bolts and such, but that never meant that they were ready at any opportunity to fall apart. i tumbled to the left, and fired the pistol at the other two, though they easily moved out of range. in the distance, i heard grunting under the din of noise that was my beating chest, the steady hum of the machines, and the light desert breeze as i shot again after rolling further away to dodge their swings. metal and plating and tendrils of varying sizes were streaming overhead all around me, and i was barely able to get by without a scratch. they stabbed and swung their arms at me, but once i got away from their violence, i had clear aim for some devastating shots that could have taken them out. if it weren’t for the psycho machine that tripped me from behind, with me falling forward, and my weapon flying meters to thump against the arid ground.
the thing picked me up by the same ankle that was sore from the other mindless hauling around by my weight. i cried out this time, though, and cursed the damn mechanical beast spitefully. only cold, hard surface lights flickered at me denoting the animoid’s mechanical despise. the coldest blue frozen from technology of ages past, running vertically along its’ face, and deep inside the shell emitted a dark and hissing growl. then a blur as my body swings through the air, but just as the ‘bot is about to splash my bones against the rock, Mutorcs slices the arm off the beast…’ she knew her audience was in the palm of her hand, the story was just rolling out, and the marks to prove the tale told ached deeply indeed. Mutorcs was busy getting some drinks for the both of them as the words of the adventure in the badlands kept going. the scar, on her left arm, pulsed with fresh heat from the encounter.

october lust.

It was dress-up day for laundry day, and it was going to be a very dangerous day, even though he hadn’t seen it coming until something just clicked for him. The last outfit he had sitting in his wardrobe, and it just happened to be his best clothes as well, out of place looking as though he were ready for some kind of dinner party. There was time enough for him to get the laundry done as long as he kept on the task. The day, though, seemed short as the sky darkened when clouds moved overhead. He was walking through the apartment complex distracted by this change of weather, and approaching the laundromat hurriedly. If he hadn’t had been looking at the ground occasionally, he would have certainly fallen down upon the cracked pavement with clothes soaking in muddy waters, and would have had to make a painful recovery. Today was his lucky day, though, in light of those dangers.
It was bugging him to no end, and dragging itself out thoroughly into the impending fall season, factual practical elements like he didn’t have a job when it would begin to get colder. What would he do then? How would he afford luxuries gas money, let alone any such thing as a car payment, and any kind of meal worthwhile that wasn’t affordable fast food? How could he lavish money on women and beers with his friends without a steady career direction in front of him? Without any help from nonexistent parents, and going to college full-time, his student loans might not even be able to afford the rent for the apartment. It was all stressing him to no end, indeed. Just one day at a time, he thought, the student loans were paying off still. The very idea of repayment hadn’t reared its ugly head, yet. Now was a very different mode. Laundry mode; a veritable countdown to the apocalypse of mundane humanity.
Boredom to the nth degree because he has to sit there the whole two hours it takes to meticulously wash his clothes. Nowhere to go, and no money to do it with. With his car actually being broke, and the sensation of an almost torrential rainstorm outside was just a small bonus. He laughed oddly to himself then as his sense of humor regarded the situation.
Walking through the mess was becoming a heinous experience, with the debris flooding over the sidewalk as lightning and thunder battled it out overhead, but at least the dryers and washers were close-by. The laundromat was a small coin-operated deal with a charge only fifty cents per load, and the same total for the dryers as well. Not a bad situation, but the whole one-room sits precariously between a gas station and large row of rundown and grayed out houses of a less-than-shady demeanor. Sometimes he would have felt safer near a prison than here. He had come terribly close to being beaten to a pulp at various odd occasions in his time going to school here, for architecture, though, he wasn’t quite sure why this was the way. He flinched spontaneously when he had neared the entrance the laundromat as the thunder and lightning struck at the same time a few miles too close.
Gregory couldn’t believe the luck. He could, however, believe the rain starting to get in his way. The only one favorable factor was that of the sanctuary of the launderette, and by the time his laundry would be done, the rain might stop. Nighttime, however, would have settled in, and safety would be a fairly big issue then. Running home would keep him safe from thugs, but how fast could he jog with an arms load of clothes? When he walked through the door of the laundromat, he was drenched to his disgust, and still had to wash the clothes in his tote. With a splat, the bag hit the floor, and he began heaving his clothes one by one into the machine. He was even too broke at this point to separate his laundry, and tossed in all the articles of wash, he didn’t even notice the girl who walked in. So focused, so pissed-off, that he couldn’t sense her presence.
It wasn’t until he slammed down the lid, and she stood across from him at the next machine, that he noticed anything about her. She was a few inches under his height, her pale wet skin almost glowing as she glanced at him, and placed her white skivvies with shirts and pants in the same bleached load. Her hair was red with streaks of dark shades, and as he pumped the machine with quarters, he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. Maybe his day wasn’t going to be too much worse after all. He looked down, and smiled to himself, as he waited. She looked at him, and they made eye contact as she sat down on the other side of the laundromat, the only two people amid the quiet rumble of washing machines. She smiled again, after awhile, but seemed a little more nervous about it. She glanced beside herself, and grabbed an outdated magazine sitting there, perusing it with delicacy.
He looked at her until that action made him rethink his attentions, and he too looked around for reading material, however finding nothing to look through. He was thinking to himself of how best to approach her, and began trying to seem as though he wasn’t thinking about that. His glances in her direction, however, betrayed his attentions to her, and she seemed to have a frozen nervous grimace on her face. He stood up to walk towards her. She stayed true to her magazine browsing, and he seemed in his own mind like the leering stranger, she probably ignored him thinking he was drooling to rape her or something. He coughed to clear his throat, and sat next to her, she seemed intent upon her task. “Hi, my name’s Drew,” he stuck out his hand. She casually looked up from an article on dwarves, and eyed his facial features, scrutinizing. He let his hand go back to his side, and his smile faded as she moved back to reading, shifting away from his awkward feelings.
What could she be thinking, he wondered, glancing at her soft features. He couldn’t suppress the urge to want her, but had to for the sake of avoiding any misunderstandings she might have. The last thing he could use right now was a cop shoving his nose into something blown out of proportion. Some kind of domestic dispute taken to television levels of ridiculousness. His eyes were glued to the floor with all the possibilities that could turn his direction away from her at that moment. The thoughts and insults weighing in with an equal measure that his conscience couldn’t forgive so easily. Her voice, though, quickly snapped him out of it.
“Jude. My name is Jude. It is nice to meet you Drew.”
He looked directly into her eyes when he broke his trance. They were the darkest green, most enchanting green, he had ever seen. He could feel his lip droop down, but neglected to care about it, at least until the drool began. Her soft, pouty lips smirked cynically, and he guessed that was a common reaction as he mopped up the drool from his chin. He caught himself and chuckled. She smiled softly, but turned back to her magazine, and Drew looked away. He felt himself idle into thoughts of livid disappointment. He was now dry-mouthed to the point that he absentmindedly put three quarters into the drink machine in the corner. It was only after the first few gulps that he realized his erroneous ways, and now he didn’t have enough change to dry his laundry.
He decided that he had made a mistake in putting the quarters to a much more frivolous expenditure than was necessary. His head softly hit the soda machine, he damned his dry mouth, and weighed his options more carefully. Either he was going to have to spend more cash that he didn’t have, buying something at the convenience store for the change, or perhaps ask his new friend if she had any change to spare. Either way, he had already made a fool of himself. His tongue staggered as he moved towards the girl he had just met, feeling so inexplicably attracted to her, and fumbled with the words to borrow some change. His steps felt heavy to him, and the progress from drink machine to attractive girl seemed much slower than it was in reality because of the weight his emotions threw in on his perpetuating failure with women. There he was, however, within three inches of Jude’s body, walking into her stare.
She kind of giggled as she reached into her pocket, and pulling out another dollar in quarters, handed him the four quarters with a smile. “It’s really no problem, Drew. I’m glad that I could help.” But Drew still felt a little awkward about begging for the money, however, he was now able to finish his laundry easily. He walked over to the machine he threw his wet clothes into, quarters in hand, and started the process into motion. Sitting next to her, Drew sucked in a breath before he started to speak, and realized that she wasn’t listening to him. She looked into his eyes as she came closer to his face, her eyes were glassy and glittering with a slight image inside of them, and it all blurred out of focus for Drew as they kissed then. A long passionate savory kiss that sent electric vibrations through his lips, a static discharge of lust and desire embodied in this creature, her oh-so-dark hair brushing his nose as his head twisted to match hers as the kiss became deeper. Her tongue leaped out to greet his mouth and lips, forcing through his teeth to meet his tongue on the other side, and he moaned under his breath as he melted into her soft yet firm hold on him.

death.

The air cut away quickly as he rode past, snakes of of vapor floating torn. Almost slithering too fast, the rider’s face enclosed within a pitch-black helmet and visor, among snakes of the morning mist. The sun was rising softly, but brightly across to his right along a desert stretch into the distance. The red-orange glow reverberating from pale cliff and rock now in the morning. Even that small detail, though quickly dismissed, disappeared quickly as he rode down the unhindered road. It always seemed this way, in this early. Cutting through a desert landscape with pain preeminent in the wings.
The only sound filling the background of his thoughts was a noise echoing back at him from the acoustic mirror between open sky and desert plateau, the thunder of his rumbling motorcycle. A low, almost percussive pitch following, and then fading, quickly in his wake. His mind spread before him like a map of past destinations and second thoughts. A strange familiarity taking him into his thoughts, and there he would be for the rest of the trip, impossibly focused yet detached about the whole thing.
The people he has been, flashes like beacons in the rising mist, and the people he has met. All scarred by his reach into their lives. Some dead, others more than in love with the idea, fond of ideas of death leading to peace. All these reminders, however, tossed aside by the rumbling and all-too mechanical reality here in the middle of nowhere. Whispers of random apocalypse notions, maybe more of the same, in an already too real world. It was only a matter of time until Arizona, and then a short trip to the true destination, into the heart of the quarry doomed-to-be.
Though the town itself, Biblical (Pop. 1400), wouldn’t be very welcoming. It made no difference in this particular voyage. Destiny was down to the very hands and minds of the few people in this no-horse town. In the past, Biblical was a burgeoning outpost of religious sanctum, but too soon in an era of lawless motion, it would all disappear. The residents themselves seem to vanish, the wish to disappear sometimes becoming so terribly true, even though truth seems entirely relative to those who know it as their own. Maybe one of those waking ghosts was his next to be taken away.
The Wild West was gone, and now paved over with thick black asphalt. A few people tried to resurrect whatever wealth this place held, back in the Fifties, but where ideals collided with concrete reality lay the crux in which Biblical was doomed to fall again. Not to roving packs of desert pirates, but to big business tycoons ruining the American dollar. More wasted lives to build their faltering foundations. Withering away the population through unemployment. Finally, an overt emptiness drowned, and enveloped the citizenry into a deep despair. Moving some parts into disrepair.
Which brings this tale to the current residents of such a colorful place. First, among those few, an older, married couple. They moved down from the northernmost regions of the central United States. Once their children had grown-up, they seemed to know where to go, or was it perhaps mere coincidence that drew them here? They would tell the people new to town, occasionally muttering their versions of the same story over again in light of boredom, that they moved to Arizona because they met Bigfoot. A tale knowingly fabricated by the seemingly sincere couple.
They sometimes mutter that he had lived with them as well, but only a few “elite” people know that story, even fewer seem to care. They have had two children and numerous pets, and both of them appear to be in good health. Upon moving to Biblical, in particular, it seemed as though life changed for the more serene. A life fed with various diets and exercises through the natural terrain of the Southwest. Regular bouts of exercise were an extensively pursued hobby to the fullest capacity.
Hiking the natural landscape became more than escape. It had become a way of life.
In the confines of town, they drive around in a nice yet beat-up little minibus near relentlessly from place to place. Before the end of last month, she was just entering menopause, but still enjoys an irresistible spirit of adventure. Though he would seem to match her as quite an outdoors aficionado himself, with a gun collection, and various hunted trophies since their time wed. They are owners of the bed and breakfast on Park Street, Mary and Dean Stanton, they are Mr. and Mrs. Henderson as the rest of town has come to acknowledge them. Both of them have grown very comfortable in their routines and habits, some of which are less puritanical than others in a sense, but nevertheless keeps them from killing each other.
The Montgomery couple are a quiet man and woman. She is a nurse, and her husband, the town’s only mechanic. His first name is Jimmy, like his shirt implies, but he’s a well-spoken person with a collegiate background. Angela, his wife, works at the hospital in the nearest large city. Where she works, though, is of no concern except in relation to her experience. Which has come in handy for a few occasions of outdoor strife, and will always be a commodity somewhere in this world. Together, the couple are almost inseparable, and they have enjoyed each other’s company very much in this tiny place.
Her skills a reflection of her cool-headed calm under stress, and over ten years knowledgeable, most specifically in emergency settings. She has had varying experiences in Operating and Emergency rooms all across the Southwestern states, but settled in Biblical shortly after meeting her husband in a bizarre set of circumstances. A three month courtship that she had felt rushed through, but after getting engaged to each other, she began to realize what she felt for the man was real. Their abilities to heal through almost any tragedy has been their strongest link together so far.
Jimmy’s life has a way of being a little more harsh before they settled in Arizona. He was raised by a domineering mother, and his father left them both within a few years of little Jimmy’s birth. His mother, in fits of rage, would scream and cry herself to sleep regularly. As he neared his teenage years, James grew very anxious under his mother’s dominance, and had sneaked away from home. Her rage at being abandoned was utterly boundless with Jim the only victim after he was picked up by the cops, and taken back in errant haste, doubtless the victim of painful memories.
A long, hard life of booze and drugs became his activity not long after he left for good. Guilty and confused, he hitchhiked back home three years after, and returned to find his mother gone. She had died in a car accident shortly after the clock struck twelve on a Friday two days before his return. Weeping absently, as the various persons-in-charge told him the facts, through everything and all throughout. Beyond traumatized, beyond rational, and totally inconsolable. He packed what few things remained for him, putting it all into storage while he drove deeper into depression.
The occasion, being as unexpected as it was, led him to leave the area and the home he knew no longer. He drove fast and drunken into the storm. His mother’s lonely death, smashing her brains against the wheel of her car as another driver struck her from the side, the flowing blood draining the color from her face. Now, in her image, feeding all the addictions he ever had known. Some dim ideas about meeting her in another place giving him the drive he used to get beyond his own limitations, charging into the storm hoping to find peace, and silence. Though he did not die from this pain.
His guilt teasing a sore and open wound in his heart. He began taking harder drugs as the months of depression wore on. Buying time with fear, and making his way to California. In one of the last drug-induced fits he would ever commit to, he drove headlong into the side of a vehicle stopped at the light, going sixty-five mph while smoking speed. The tragedy was very seriously lost on him for a few months more, but would linger on longer than expected, with no real anchor to him.
His mind locked inside of itself in a coma. His soul drifted into others. He never realized where he was. He was floating with angels somewhere deep into the night. At least as he had believed it to be real. He truly thought he had died, and Angela doesn’t tell him otherwise. As this is where they met. Intensive care inside the Loca Vista Emergency Room in California, and Cupid struck.
After he had crashed his car into that other one, and against the law but another story still, he was taken into the same place she was working. Match made in Heaven, eh? As the doctors repaired the light damage to his body, it was then that she fell in love with his bloodied and bruised face, a tender moment amid the chaos. A short time there afterward, Angela was assigned as something of a nurse-on-call, but she relished the work.
It gave her interaction with him. She spent all her time with him. Well, all the time that she could have freed. She would even visit him on her off-hours. Sitting by his side, and making sure he was taken care of. Near to the three months it took for him to recover consciousness, she begun to start questioning her feelings, and saw him less than before. Her questioning thoughts echoing madly within her, and forcing out guilt.
It was on her first date in six months that she had gotten the beeper message. She left abruptly, and rushed herself to the hospital, making very few excuses. Going about sixty-five down the highway, and she got there in little under ten minutes, not bad through the traffic. The other nurses were telling her that he was waking up, and with that, the news fueled her ascent to his room. She had to see him for herself, and to feel the truth.
She could see a few nurses and a doctor in the room. She strained to get a good look at him, and as they began to file out, she stood aside and waited to pass. Her enthusiasm and excitement was built into its’ own nervous frenzy. Tapping her foot as she nodded at all the smiling nurses walking out, but stopping the doctor at the end of the line. “Is he alright?” she pushed, intent on his answer, her pleading eyes.
She stood in anticipation, looking the doctor in the eye, but also thinking over the potent moment of his admission. The fast-paced surge in the Emergency Room, and one moment spent falling in love. The doctor’s reply was positive. He told her that he would recover completely in a few days. After asking if it was okay to see him, the doctor nodded, and she opened his door to his curiously handsome face. A fluttering inside her stomach.
The rest, you could say, was history. They got married soon after getting to know each other, in a small chapel just outside of Reno, and conducted by a justice of the peace. It was there she confronted his past, and came to a roadblock. They spent two weeks of intense time with each other, searching and caring for one another, the passion of those moments would trail them to this day. He feels his mother would have approved of his wife.
The only occupation that has stuck with this small desolate town on the edge of civility has been the local undertaker, whose skills have been passed down from father to son since those days of the Wild West when a skilled mortician was highly necessary to any situation where citizens were gunning each other down every day, and the man in Biblical put money away for his family as the bodies dropped in case even his occupation dried up eventually.
With each sequential generation, the population of Biblical died out more and more, and people started leaving the town for larger social horizons in some of the cities like Phoenix and Flagstaff. The boom was ending to fast for the remnants of Biblical to keep up, and though the Verde river stayed true, the town was quickly becoming less and less frequented. Nestled somewhere between the towns Camp Verde and Cave Creek in a small piece of verdant land that began drying up like the population during the Fifties, and soon only a few families and businesses were left to keep the land from completely shriveling up.
Eventually, the strain and stress of trying to maintain the mortuary business took its toll on the family, and especially after the patriarch died shortly before the Fifties. He raised the only son he would ever know with his wife, and he taught his only heir the trade that he had learned from his father before him, this time the young man benefited from attending a school for mortuary sciences. It was losing most of the stigma that it had gained through to the Fifties when his father died, and distraught, he chose to live in other parts of the States then go back to Biblical.
After ten years or so of living outside of Arizona, occasionally visiting his childhood home with his wife, it wasn’t until his mother was dying that he settled into Biblical permanently. Her last wishes were for her son to take over the house and funeral parlor after she was gone, and to keep her family alive through the business. After the burial, his wife and he moved into the house and began renovating both the house and the parlor for his new family. His wife was going to have twin boys just before the assassination of President Kennedy, and putting Biblical off the map.

toilet of the future.

It was the alcohol, that cheap bastard beer with its malevolent residual effects sticking in my lower intestine, irritated bowels were making me grumpy today. So I decided to see my old friends Ben G. and Ann L., the two biggest heads I knew, and maybe they could provide the cure for what was ailing me. The streets were all lined with dealers and hustlers these days, I don’t even remember what the good old days were like anymore, and maybe they weren’t any better than this. I drank, and get drunk, to eliminate with sedation those jarring sensations that back up the fear that seems to seethe beneath the raw flesh undulating with puerile desires like sex and drugs. I sat alone in my apartment last night drinking the cheapest beer I could find, further realizing how low I wanted to go, and nothing had stopped until I felt numb enough to simulate happiness. Sitting in a wooden chair in the middle of the main room with a grimace heavy on my face, remembering the past misdeeds I had done to myself and others, and confusing the will to betterment with the eradicating factor of self-destruction. Sobriety was killing me, the more unable to drift beyond the real world around me, but still stuck only inside my head. The harsh dryness of seeking more substance, and taking that for granted. The rotgut had twisted my mind into a crazy impulse that stormed through the halls in the dark, screaming belligerently at strangers, and condemning myself and others for this state of the crap. God, I was so wasted last night that it felt like I was throwing up my own genitals in that state of frenzy.
As I walked out of the complex, where I live snug between other tenements, I began to gather my thoughts about the state of things. The government rules our lives like it always has, but something made me think everything was wrong, what they have always told me was annoying my sense of right. Effects like this should not be cumulative, but here we were, implanted in a society where corrupt was just another way of doing business. There are few things that cannot be tolerated here with an exception for the privileged masses, but procreation is one of those things, luckily for the friends who also liked to fuck like bunnies. Deviants of all behaviors were allowed to roam the streets with improbable intents, and with anxiety over the current state of things, the joys of sex were always quite far from my thoughts. Intercourse is understandable, but there are many authority-devised barriers when wishing to conceive or give birth to something new. Public bathroom stall filled with obnoxious scrawling as I tried to relieve some of my intestinal pain the natural way. Next to me, I could tell that two men were having rough anal sex, or so I would assume. Rough trade was allowed everywhere, this is what it means to refer to these freedoms, and with more of us becoming so claustrophobic as we are squeezed together around here.
The abortive wing of the government handles all national vasectomies, and the unwanted pregnancies are handled with the utmost professionalism, a clinical unity that has defined progress to the species beyond those most inhumane practices. Many facets including wars and strife in other images have been remodeled as well. I then hear the post-climax revelry of shooting some smack, as one of the boys leaves the next stall over, and I ponder this while smoking a cigarette in the middle of my stink. Smoking and drinking and drugging are greatly endorsed practices of population control by the masses, but unwarranted children are the bane of society seething beneath the surface of a respectable veneer, as the children still get out of control everywhere. However ridiculous it may seem it is all law now, and even the heroin homosexual next to me realizes what potential mess is being flushed through his system. Pushing the excremental bliss of ignorance captured in glimpses, and totalitarian rules bequeathed sane as rubbish in the bin. While devils run amok, and the tidbits of wisdom they assail us with is that extremity that the whole hinders itself with.
The louts and the fiends gather at the preconditioned moments created by this universal tension, aborting freedoms with government sedation through such political harbingers’ protesting a butchered idea of progress. The prostitution of male and female as well become invisible under these ambiguous laws of anarchistic descent. They sell what godlike chemistry has given them to mine away into the depths of the night, and here resides the commodity on which the system has been posed to accept. Flesh is the presence into this real place, the slain are held with respect, and fortified with the government vitamin to have their cloned organs kept in check for pharming. The needs of the few far outweighed the needs of the many here as in almost every span of time as the culture melts away into a porous substance. The tears of the angels as the fires burn the lore of ages past to condemn a stupid race of indignant jackals, laughing cretins that came and went as they figured their chaos was not detrimental to their culture, and still the results pour forth from their leprous minds. Spirit of the leper maybe, that thing that grows forth and multiplies with more potency because of its meme habits, and it holds onto the mindlessness that culture evokes from the filthy humans residing and riding its shattered, shuttering waves of clarity.
Why drift when we can spit into the face of adversity? I’m bitter, but the drugs seem to deaden that spot within me that takes on a whimsical persona towards the masses. I sit in my booth, and I type away my grievances in a sedated haze, while nobody is looking. Not that my choices seem to greatly affect the said ‘masses’, but I am not reluctant to resist. Staring at the keyboard gets me nowhere these days. As useless as one might be drinking the nectar intoxicate, striving onward into the unknown goal of this reality, and I bite my tongue speaking truthfully. There was no way of broaching the topics easily, or with any flare of impertinent queasy thrills. The intoxicated polarity of well-meaning paces behind the route I was walking, following the aim at which others seem to slow, yet quickened into a thrilling experiment that draws the existing material closer to meet each in some doomed plane. Where these forces were the equivalent strength of that which can be called a material will, the cars dropped from the sky, but took too long to drive away. Even as the fuel flooded the street, a blood pact which had broken the day the wasted things began disappearing, and those taken for granted left in one gulp.
Haste through these treacherous territories was of the essence, though was not the future, and its decaying behavior lashed out to produce a rage-filled violent mood swing that affected the whole of civilization. The broken syringes were everywhere littered about, but without any of the dead junkies one might expect to see in a sea of dead flesh, as billions upon billions boiled upward into the sky. The massive stench and decay of human matter. God was gravity, and the lack of a primary source wasn’t that easy to explain at first, as fire rolled across us like a serpent from the sun. An idea labeled ‘just so’ that all things were constrained against it in some way. Whether moral comfortability or total dread were in order first was a display that tread the doorstep of my neighbor this day, and they did open that door so reluctantly. My first few steps after speaking to Ann allowed me to take in all I had missed being sober, the massive amounts of paraphernalia and drugs, and a lack of children running around and squealing was for the best I had figured out then. Protection of youth and all.
Ah, this was a sanctuary against the more frightening aspects of the outside mainstream, and I began taking off my coat before I even got remotely comfortable. As I began taking a seat, I noticed that I was taking off my shirt, and those first moments leaning back into the chair was heaven. This familiarity was amazing and perfect in the simplicity of the execution. The style was not my own, and that was the first measure of safety. The fact that I was not at my residence at all made me downright proud to be alive, and finally, my work was done for the day with happiness a stoned throw away. The room was hot, and Ben offered me a drink ten minutes after having arrived there. Ann was making some dope, and I trailed her every move with my eyes as Ben moved away. The atmosphere residing within this place was instantly comforting in its own right, and the floating scents of powerful incense was making me slightly drowsy then. My lids drooped closed for a moment, and suddenly Ben stood in front of me with a glass of water in his hand. I thanked him after he went to sit back down next to the stereo, his dreads were falling out of their net, and Ben was talking again of reggae and ska musics that he had recently discovered. He adjusted his hair as he put something into the air, slowly changing the volume level as the drums kicked in, and Ann began smiling as she finished up the solution.
Ann passed the dope over to Ben as I sat slouched in the chair, a soft and comfy thing that absorbed every part of me, and they were both talking at me about the new government regulations of the day. I smiled and nodded, but had no idea what exactly was going on in this interaction. The small talk would be condoned for the moment, and I threw in my own two cents about my gut pains as Ben was handing me the dope, I said thank you after finishing my wallowing. They both realized that I had not been over here in quite awhile, but they also knew of my solitary predicament, sometimes not being rather trustworthy in matters of timing. I took a hit of this dope, and my eyes widened, I could feel it immediately. For a moment I held my breath, but it was in exhaling that my vision blurred the tiniest bit. Like a wave of bubbles creeping across my spine, the excitement entered my body, and a new restless form of myself emerged right there on their floor. The alien retardation of my sober mind was drifting away, but I could still see Ben and Ann there, around me as I handed the dope back to Ann. The room had gone crazy, but my pores were not idle, as sweat began forming all along my spine and down my extremities. Every orifice was on edge then, and now, on into the infinite posture. I haven’t lost me yet, and that’s for the better right now. I don’t want to isolate from Ben and Ann, but I know they will merely think I am mad for the moment.
The moment grows longer as the shapes of Ben and Ann warp in front of me. Their sexual advances upon each other seems from a distance, hazy visions of them in mid-coitus while I sit there in a blank stare. The territory of imbeciles as the parading blankets of sight become fathomless glimpses into my own mind. The stark understanding of these individuals in front of me is dim under the glare of reeling from the dope as my friends fornicate in full view of my comatose body. Seeing it from above was comforting because of how numb my senses were, and I knew that sight wasn’t how I was viewing my body this way. I was feeling my way beyond the moments as they were slowing, and finally stopping for me. Total lack of sound, from subtly hearing Ann and Ben having sex into a reduction leading to nothing, and not even white noise or static fuzz in the background. It almost felt like what sleeping may have been if awareness remained intact underneath the heavy wall of unconsciousness. I could not tell if this was longer than I expected, or if I was just dead or something. I was definitely not inside of my body. I didn’t care where I was or who I was, but there I was floating in a hazy if fully awake state, wondering nothing but acknowledging that something was happening. All other senses warped or lazed around this odd tumult of feelings and emotions. I had no idea if it was a complete blackout, or if my body was still moving like I was conscious of it. However, nothing seemed amiss to me personally, and I could have accepted doomsday if it had occurred then. There was nothing unusual about these absences from my perspective, and there was nothing that I could do about it, I loved every tingling moment of it.
It was a jungle out there, and we were outgunned. All around lay obstacles to block our progress. Those foolish Botswana cock smugglers had gone too far this time, and there were only a few of us left to do something about it. It had taken months and months to allow ourselves to adapt to this fear-soaked hell, the jungle was now our ally in our quest to defeat these insurmountable odds, and our bravery shone like a badge made of blood-glistened gold. There were many things that we could do to capture the leader of these evil geniuses, their primitive ways mocking the raw intelligence in their eyes, and it was as though they only followed the witch doctor because it was easier to fall into line with tradition than rebel like the animals that they pretended to be. The leaves were shiny with blood of guerillas who claimed that any other people were impossible to deal with, and so took matters into their own hands, followed by their bullets and knives and clubs. The animal intent to survive was alive among them, and mocked all demeanor of intelligence that had evolved over too many eras of progress. The consequence of this modern age of waste was this bloody war, and the fear was drifting through the air, afflicting all those in the wake of these tribulations. The ground quaking as soldiers march onward toward the enemy, and the pulse quickens as the streaks from the sun heat the jungle floor around us.
The vines clung to the concrete outcroppings that grew out from the sidewalks, with their metal fire escapes wrapped in verdant green growth crawling through the former cities of progress, and the shadows of these many tall and angular ruins covered the landscape cutting the skyline in half. We tread lightly through this jungle scene with the guns in our hands, our cover would be blown if anyone saw us coming, but the united stealth allowed us to pass without a sound to distract the enemy. Walking into the heart of this shit-storm was an improbable mission, a foray into the pits of death itself, and there most certainly would be casualties as more than the heat would make us sweat going around this personal cataclysm. The one called Crenshaw stood as a guide in front of me with his bare chest heaving against the pressure of the alertness, with the automatic rifle in his hands, and he stopped quickly as he raised his hand up to halt the rest of us altogether. There were six of us then, not including Crenshaw and his infamous persona, but two of us were of native blood in rebellion with the growth of a new world. We had grown weary but resilient in the forest of their ancestors, wondering on so many different occasions what winning would be like, but to focused on survival for any consideration of a future. The time had passed like nothing, and sometimes I wept like a baby when I remembered my years as a civilian.
The wars had absorbed us all in the grip of uncertain fear tainted with the blood of nations in the past. A creeping option that would allow us to attach ourselves to pity or pain another as we see fit. I never thought that my life would be enveloped by these odds overwhelming me to conform beyond peaceful retaliation, and hatred for the other was a pennant and banner that many followed the leaders under. A colorful image that revealed with grimacing teeth what people could be possessed by other than their own wills to pursue the greatest end result for everyone else. The flags waved above our heads as we climbed the mountains of panic in our collective path, and we trudged miles beyond the capacity of any other men and women in the forgotten history of this unkempt plane. The grieving cries overshadowing the imperious resonance that afflicted the saints and the sinners alike as the quest grew thick to find a single truth unsullied by greed and regretted action. The women wept as we all walked past with our rifles in hand, and prepared for the next glimpse of an apocalypse to be. I was the only one really ready to see the torment in the eyes of the native forces, the white of their eyes revealed behind the shade of the setting sun that crept across the sky as shots rang out, and we threw ourselves to the ground by instinct. Whatever would we do with these people?
The bullets flew with a dread grace that caught our small forces off guard for only the moment as we recoiled like a group of trained professionals in the heat of battle at last, dropping to the jungle floor in haste with what needed to occur right now, but cover was only the first of the priority decisions to be made.
Eyl seemed the appropriate place for them to stew in their own juices, so-to-speak, but it was difficult to gauge properly since the disbanding of most naturally occurring pirate havens in the world by proclamation of their governments in control of the order as we knew it by then. The surging waves of people washing ashore within the vicinity of the brand new freedoms that we would all want to enjoy in some aspect or another. Everyone whose wishes were not that of the greater governing body were always subjected to mistreatment at the hands of supposed humane agendas. This has been the running theme for centuries since the world began spinning upon its hidden axis, swinging back and forth as the seas ebbed and flowed from one age to another, and the creatures on the surface were always warned to be kind to each other in one form or another. This hardly ever occurred within the boundaries of civilized membership, though, and few were confident enough to stand against the push and pull of public opinion.
A meaty, ochre island on the horizon revealed to me our destination on this rickety vessel taking us down the open waters, and a smile crossed my lips from side to side as I looked up to the setting sun in praise to god that we were going in the right direction.

the house call.

He had just stabbed the lady of the house, and was beginning to close the door of the bedroom. This one was to be savored. His morals demanded it, and, by God, he would stick to his oath. How he happened to get into this lovely lady’s now-broken home is going to be a question many interested will ask for a very long time. What was the motive, and how entrance was gained?
Let alone entrance into her boudoir. Maybe it was all just an urban legend. Those stories getting passed around like germs in this weird mayhem we live in. One way or another, you’ve got to give the doctor much proper respect, he got in without triggering the alarm. It’s quite a bulky, well-strapped system. Would have triggered at a touch. Had it even been touched.
He wasn’t worried about that when he got in. No, what he was looking for was there, and nothing was a deterrent. However, he now dragged her twitching, slumped body to the bed. He reached out to steady himself against her weight. The sheets felt like velvet to him. He was going to use this time well. Before moving on to the children, whistling along as he would go to work.
He tossed her onto the beds’ first layer of sheets. She lay face down, and off to the side, facing away from him. His large Bowie knife jutting from her shoulder blades. He remembered it sinking in with bone-cracking strength. Piercing a rib or two, slipping into one of her lungs, he then gave it a twist, but she loved him and wanted him. A smile on his lips, and she was his now.
That’s what she was saying to him as she began to scream, but found she couldn’t do that very well. He sat there in the near dark. Staring at her silhouetted form. She was beautiful, a real dream, with her manicured face and manicured life. He wanted his knife back, and she was going to give it to him. He stood up in the darkness then. Reaching out to touch the blade.
A shit-eating grin firmly planted on his face…
The children awoken by a loud crash to the floor. The two boys just looked at each other, in the dark of a room with the door cracked open slightly, bewilderment painted on each other’s face. Something was going on beyond their reach downstairs. That’s what they read without seeing a word on each other’s face. Quickly the boy, William, jumped out of his bed. Followed soon after by, Quentin, his brother. They began to crack the door open further, to reveal the truth outside, but seeing only the silent hall.
William was the first to see anything, as they crept down the stairs together, and felt that dark things were somewhere here. There were no lights on, except for one of the porch lights outside, which he only noticed as the front door swung wide open. Quentin hit his brother’s arm, pushed him out of the room. Billy jumped in fright, without telling his brother what was going on, and both were knocked into the railing around the second floor.
The sound reverberated around the house. A strange set of echoes followed. Both of the children stood still, with wide eyes staring, at the appearance of their front door. The locks were all broken, and a chunk of the jambs’ paneling was missing from the edge, where the locks were set into the wood. No alarm, Quentin thought, and looked at his brother upset.
William was the first to react, and heard the footsteps of someone heavy-set, tramping their way towards the stairway. Quentin called out into the dark, looking for a sign of his mother, but instead heard more of the footsteps soon afterward. “That doesn’t sound like Mom,” William said, quivering slightly at that thought. Quentin was cursing himself with questions like why he had yelled.

a cat well-armed.

The baby’s arms were fully attached to the cat, exactly where its front legs and paws had been previously, and it seemed at least that the surgery was a success even though the creation still had not yet fully recovered. Smitty was busying himself with throwing away, washing, and/or burning any evidence of what had only transpired three hours ago. Jane was watching over the animal, as she was feeling quite maternal and protective, and had the training to handle any situation. The “cat” was sedated in an upstairs room inside of a crib with all the appropriate gear hanging around asking all the inappropriate questions to hasten the healing process, but Jane stood off to the side monitoring this equipment, occasionally staring off into space trying to grasp what she and Smitty had truly done this night. Her sweat and musk thick in the small plastic-covered room, the bleeping machines blurry beyond the translucent shades and the windows were covered with cellophane and tinfoil to keep out harmful irradiation, or perhaps there to keep the secrets of this act private.
The “cat” slept calmly through the night and into the next morning, Smitty had gone to bed hours ago, and Jane was the only one left awake to care for the creature. The sheets had to be changed periodically, a little more frequently than the bandages, but the mess would become too much too quickly sometimes. Now, as she stared into all those monitors set up to measure the results, she started to recall how it had been so much different for Smitty and herself just a few weeks ago. They met just after Jane finished nursing school earning the fully elaborate degree while high on crank and many other uppers all throughout her tenure, and could play by ear the techniques that would keep the animal alive, starting to date and moving-in with each other months before anything like this. Never had the relationship been this intense, never before with a specific direction in mind. They were originally together to enjoy each other’s company for as long as it was agreeably decent for both of them to participate within, now they could never turn back.
Surgery was an amateur interest at first for Jane, she had studied for a short while to become a nurse, and Smitty had a strong medical fetish as Jane found out being intimate with him a little longer. They had both pursued some classes in taxidermy as a couple, and shared a common delight in knowing more about the art of surgery and anatomy, connecting through their love of knowledge. They had talked about children en numera after the relationship kept getting progressively more serious, Jane soon understood that Smitty saw this all as a way to make them both closer in some way, but the way she felt didn’t give her any inkling as to what extent. They were both going to change the world phenomenally, though unthinkably, toward the next conclusion.
Smitty collected scalpels as a habit of choice, and how he enjoyed their sleek chrome, their slim yet efficient design. Sometimes it was scary to watch Smitty wax taboo over the passion for his instruments of choice. Smitty was normally a calm and passive person on the surface, but beneath that there was a masochistic glee that infused every action with a juvenile fearsomeness that seemed almost palpable to the right people, those were the ones that Smitty relished frightening the most. Sometimes he sat for hours watching those medical shows on television when he got near one, and after Jane moved in with him, they soon acquired a television with the usual cable/ satellite transmissions. It was only a few weeks straight, falling asleep in front of the television, before Smitty stopped talking children altogether with Jane. The crack/ cocaine had begun to take its toll on his mind as well, and Jane had taken up crystal meth just the other day, just to put more distance between herself and Smitty. He had become a real bitch to hang around with,
Suddenly over the course of one night, it came to a head, and Smitty began telling Jane about his plot to advance science. Even before that, though, they brought a cat into their home. A lonely boy cat that they had found while walking along the boulevard, Smitty had taken to the creature right away, but Jane took her time getting used to its personality. A kind of pastel Calico that had only been in this world a few short days itself, Smitty was particularly gentle with it, and took baths with the small animal after he had become so fully attached. Sitting in a rocking chair with the cat in a towel, slowly rocking along to an Elvis Costello tune, and Smitty with the largest smile on his face, he was so pleased. Which was why the events afterward were so bizarre in hindsight.
He had begun watching those medical shows, with the cat after their time spent bonding, the odd glance or two common between them as though there were an understanding between these different creatures. Smitty was now cold and distant at most periods of the day, and looked down his nose at his own creation, he seemed to treat the matter as though he did not even care. His indifference followed to the bedroom, rolling over after a short blurt of lovemaking, and when Jane seemed adequately pleased he would drift on into his other interests in secretive detail. By the time that the cat was but a few weeks under their care, Smitty’s attention was drawn away to work, but secretly the stressful situation drove him to reconsider his idea. However, ideal for an interesting blueprint being formulated where Smitty’s mind was crossing an edge between those classroom-real situations and the fantastic sciences few dared.
Back as Jane and Smitty grew more proficient in their taxidermy skills, they began to quiz each other on the topics of anatomy and surgical procedures on the fly back and forth, and even in front of relatives during family gatherings. Delighting in the distinct disgust of their respective relations as they sat and chatted over meals. Dissections of this or that thing became common interjections for all those who came to know these two even slightly better than their parents, getting to know them at all was quite a frustrating ordeal sometimes, and even their parents didn’t like to be seen socializing with them much. Holidays were those occasional instances. They didn’t get the blood on their hands until a little later.
The knife fetish was wearing thin for Jane, who now seemed to be the only one to take the responsibility for the animal they had recreated together, and Smitty just sulked and went back and forth between interests like an unhappy child with too much on his mind. Jane just had no idea what to do with him, and all while taking care of their “cat”. The nights began to grow quieter as the distance grew between them, and these lonely nights were spent nursing the cat back to health in the sterile room. Smitty just whiled away the evenings into dawn with late-night medical programs, freebasing cocaine until he would pass out at eight in the morning, and Jane finding him asleep on he couch as she woke soon afterward. She was beginning to tire of the silent mistreatment and cold calculations it appeared that Smitty was up to.
She stood there half-dressed behind the couch watching Smitty sleep, and wondering where their relationship had gone, when a cry came out of the nursery that woke them both in a way. They looked at each other then, eyes wide and lit with an unusual fire, and then raced to get to the room first from where their creation was wailing for attention. Once across the threshold of destiny, there was no going back to whatever normal life might have been, and their lives were now to that next level. There in the crib, peeking through the bars was the face of their cat, but fingers gripped the rails where a curious baby would have. Something profound was tearing open their human minds with two large hands, and firmly pointing at their ‘product’ in all its glory. Their jaws dropped as though it were all timed in some event or race.
The fear of discovery was sharp in their minds, with the “cat” in full recovery it seemed like the experiment was a success, and here they stood now not noticing the huge gap in-between each other in communication. Pre-planned as if to look like an accident, but nature never moved the mountains to make this thing before them both, until now that is. The meow threw both of them on their asses with laughter, as the much larger arms moved unwieldy to their host, and shaking a rattle that suddenly drew the cat’s attention. The “cat” was now standing on its hind legs, with one hand that gripped the rail of the crib, and the other hand fascinated with the rattle sitting in its palm. Smitty touched Jane’s arm, and looked at her with an enthusiastic fire in his eyes, it was as though all the distance melted with this tender moment of realization.