Dumb Light

Sky full of flies
Fault lines breaking up the ground
And it’s so easy to fall with the sun blacked out
See, they build them steeples high
There is one truth I’ve found
Even with your eyes wide open, babe
Aint nowhere to go but down

So I’m down here with the locusts, love
Marching in no direction

Trying to keep these fuckers off my heals
Trying to keep from getting eaten
See, down here we all cannibals
Gregarious little creatures
We'll eat your flesh and pawn your watch
at the first sign of weakness

And the locust king is a pretty thing
I spent a year between its thighs
It taught me how to sing a pretty song
And how to weave a pretty, pretty lie
Said there’s a reason for every thing we do
And ya'll beholden to me
Each of you is a sad collection of
Myths and dreams and ennuii
And each myth exists, you see
To support the next in line
We've stacked them all right here
The big one on top is mine

And they say one day a hero'll come
To seek repudiation
They say that he'll be gaily dressed
And in the highest fashion
And all that bling may mean something
But your own dumb light is blinding
Your the answers to the riddles
Your the deapth of any hell
Heres an empty bag and heres the cat
Heres the bottom of the well

writers group revival

What this town needs is a genuine revival! My house, December 7'th. It will be like the Christ-ass episode of writers group, complete with crying and hugging and a great big, solid, dripping moral at the end!!!

XOXO

P.S. There will be cookies and wassel, but bring something you stingy lechers!

The Experiment...

This might actually count as an experiment in terms of both the title of the story and the fact that I was high as a kite on Nyquil when I wrote it. Not only that, but this one is another of what Crease calls "my diarrhea stories", written in about twenty minutes. Tell me what you think. Please.

"Please, Mr. Gordon. Have a seat."
Donald looked around the small room, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from. But there were no speakers that he could see, no glass that would signify a two way mirror. In fact, the only thing that he could see in the room was a chair that reminded him of the one that graced his dentist's office.
He sat, and the chair reclined automatically.
"Are you comfortable, Mr. Gordon?" the voice said, and Donald sat up to see if he could pinpoint the source again. A small metallic arm darted around from behind the chair and pushed his head around until it faced forward. "Please, Mr. Gordon. Let the chair do the work. Now, are you comfortable?"
Donald flexed, trying to see if there were any cramps currently or that might form if he sat long enough. "Yes, I guess so."
"Mr. Gordon, I don't mean to sound rude, but you may be here for quite some time. We want your visit here to be as pleasant as possible. So, if you feel anything, please, say so now, and the chair will automatically reconfigure itself to find your maximum level of comfort."
A little impatiently, Donald said, "No. I'm fine."
"Good," said the voice, and two steel bracelets clamped down on Donald's wrists, locking him into the chair.
Donald immediately began to struggle. "What is this?" he shouted.
"Please, Mr. Gordon, don't fight. The restraints are merely part of a complex biometric system, designed to measure the slightest detail of your bodily systems. Right now, we are showing a thirty seven percent increase in your heart rate and a twenty six percent increase in your blood pressure. Neither of those are good for a man of your advanced age, Mr. Gordon. Now please, just try to relax. Besides, as we said, you may be in here for a while, and any abrasions you might make while fighting against the restraints would not be able to be treated until we are done in here."
Donald took a deep breath, and tried to relax. He looked around the room for a moment, trying to focus on something to take his mind off the chair. It was impossible, though. The room was completely nondescript institutional tile on all four walls. The door that he had entered was precisely fitted with the wall, and he couldn't swear to its exact position.
"Commencing study on subject 1437-Alpha. Are you ready to begin, Mr. Gordon?"
Donald felt a drop of sweat rolling down his nose, and his entire body ached with the craving to wipe it away. Instead, he watched it trickle inexorably down his nose and dangle, seemingly for an eternity, before falling into his lap with a nearly inaudible plip. "Yes," he said, trying to keep his mind off the next drop of sweat that was already beginning its long journey.
"Very well. Now, before we proceed any further, let me ask you this. You have signed all of the appropriate paperwork, including waivers, insurance forms, and next of kin, is that correct?"
"Yes, yes. Is all that really necessary?" he asked.
"Certainly. We are reasonably confident of the intended outcomes of this experiment, Mr. Gordon, but there are always aberrations in any experiment. Hence your forms, as well as this confirmation that you are here of your own free will."
"Yes, that's fine. What are you guys working on again?"
There was a moment's silence, and then the voice came on again. "We are testing the strength of the fear impulse, Mr. Gordon. Specifically, we are testing whether you are more afraid when you know that the objects aren't real, or when you are not in on the joke, so to speak. You, Mr. Gordon, are part of the control group. We have let you in on the joke, as I have said. You are going to be subjected to a gauntlet of common phobias, but rest assured, they are all simulations. You are not in any danger. However, once the experiment has begun, you may not leave. Mr. Gordon, this is your final chance. Can you speak very clearly, so that we may record your response for prosperity. Do you wish to proceed with this experiment?"
Donald watched a final drop of sweat drip from off his nose, and then he said, "Yes."
"Very good," the voice said. "Beginning phase one."
Suddenly, the lights went out. Donald tried to see or hear anything in the blackness. For a beat, there was nothing, and then he heard, or thought he heard, a gear turning.
The lights came on, and Donald was staring down into an abyss. He was dangling at least a mile in the air, his legs pulling down with the intense force of gravity, and he could feel the breeze buffeting him. He felt his stomach drop, and he looked aside to make sure the restraints were holding him. As he watched, he could see a gear turning within the chair, the restraints loosening bit by bit. Three more revolutions and he would be falling, end over end, towards that cold, unyielding ground so far below. Two revolutions. Donald held his breath. One revolution, and Donald began to pray.
The gear made its final turn, and with a sound as loud as judgment, the restraint popped open, and Donald began to scream.
"Interesting reaction," the voice said.
Donald opened his eyes. He was back in the room, the same blank white walls staring serenely out at him. His face was pouring sweat, and he wished that he could wipe it away. But the restraints were still firmly in place, and Donald wondered whether they had ever opened at all.
"Let me again reassure you, Mr. Gordon, that all of these are merely simulations. You are in no danger whatsoever. Now, are you ready for the second phase?"
"Can I get something to drink first?" he asked.
"Of course," the voice said, and a small mechanical arm rose out of the machinery again. Instead of swatting him, however, this time it was holding a glass of water out to him. "And open, Mr. Gordon."
Donald looked strangely at the arm for a moment, then opened his mouth. He choked for a moment, then was able to swallow. "Are you ready for phase two, Mr. Gordon?"
"As I'll ever be," he said.
"Good," the voice said, and the lights went out again.
This time, there was no grinding of gears, but there was a sound, and not only that but a sensation, as well. It started around his ankles, slowly rising up his legs until...
The lights came on, and Donald was sitting chest deep in cold water. Out of nowhere, the blank white walls had formed spouts, great mighty fountains that were gushing gallons of water into the room; and the water was rising at an incredible rate.
He twisted in the chair, trying to get away from the water (and that's what it was, it couldn't be any simulation for he could feel it lapping at his chin even as he twisted), but the restraints held him tight. The water rose higher, higher, until it was past his lips, into his nose, and he couldn't breathe, couldn't even think of anything other than the fact that he was drowning, oh dear God, drowning...
And then he was back in the room, his clothes dry except for the sweat that was quickly drying in the cool, white room.
"Well, while there was no vocalizing this time, your heart rate jumped exponentially. Are you ready for phase three, Mr. Gordon?"
"No!" he shouted, straining against the restraints with everything he had. "Let me out, you never told me that it would be like this."
"Mr. Gordon, we told you everything that we would be doing. You are entirely safe, Mr. Gordon. These are simply simulations."
"Simulations, my Great-Aunt Ruth. I nearly drowned and you guys were just sitting here watching it all go down."
The voice sighed. "Mr. Gordon, let me assure you, you are in no danger whatsoever. As I have told you time and again, these are merely simulations. In no time are you in any danger. Would it ease your mind if we warned you what phobias we will be testing?"
Donald looked around the room for a moment, thinking back to the last time, when he'd been straining for a hint of what would happen next, the waiting almost worse than the actual test itself...
"Yes," he said. "Yes, please."
"Good," the voice said. "The next test is arachnophobia, then."
The lights went out then, and Donald struggled to remember what exactly that meant. He'd heard the phrase before, certainly, but right now he couldn't think what it related to. There was a mythological precedent, he remembered, a weaver named Arachne, and she'd been punished by being turned into something...
He felt the first prickle as something made its way up his leg.
The lights came on, and it all came back to him then (spider Arachne was turned into a spider arachnophobia is a fear of spiders oh jesus), and he locked eyes with the thing crawling up his leg. It was huge, it's body roughly the size of a softball, and it wasn't the only one in the room. The room was alive with them, their hairy legs ticking maddeningly on the white tile floor and walls and ceiling. The walls were white, he knew they were white, but to his eyes they looked to be a thick, undulating brown. The one crawling up him had worked its way up into his lap now, and he could feel the legs of it digging into his stomach as it began climbing up his chest and towards his face. Donald began to scream...
...and the lights came on again.
"Mr. Gordon, are you all right?"
His brow was sweating, and again he wished that he could wipe it away, or that the arm would dart out of the chair again, this time holding a handkerchief to wipe his sweating forehead, but the arm stayed secreted away in the machinery, and his restraints were still locked in place.
"Are you ready for the final phase, Mr. Gordon?"
Thank you, God, he thought, and aloud he said, "Yes. Please, I just want this over with."
"Very well, Mr. Gordon. The final phase will be fear of abandonment."
And the lights went out.
Donald waited in the darkness, wondering what horrors he would be confronted with when the lights came back on.
A minute passed, then two.
After ten minutes had passed in the dark, he began to laugh. A simulation, he thought. No danger whatsoever, he thought. Any minute now, the lights will come back on and I will be free from this hellhole, and I'll be able to put this nightmare behind me.
Any minute now.
An hour passed.
Then two.
On the second day, Donald began to scream.

The Exhibitionist

Crease woke up tonguing another face in the sandstone. His cough, like the braying of a autistic donkey, protruded to lift a murder of dessert birds from their vigil. They had perched, he surmised, for the better part of the morning waiting for him to regain consciousness. His tongue was swollen and soar when he tried to speak.

"Flech eateen philisthines! Dont eefen have the dethenthy to eat a man while heeth too numb to notith!"

His helpless flailing, big and awkward like that of something to heavy to support itself, fell short of frightening the birds. In the emptiness of their cackling he could skry laughter, malevolence, enmity. They circled once. He tried to to stand and did a sort of ragdoll summersalt instead. He hoped someone was watching him. Possesed of a constant need to feel abberant, he started to piss and cackle like a hyena, just in case. Like Hemmingway said, he thought, no one can stand before a bar with dignity. Fuck if I can't have it here though.

"C'mon you thtupid dino'th!"

He knew they had him this time, lemming that he was. Fuck, he hoped someone was watching.

Eat, you little shits, eat!

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I have a bad habit...

I can't just let a sleeping dog lie. Shit man, this always happens. I drop out of writers' group for a few weeks and it goes on a six month hiatus. What the hell, man? So, in the interest of bringing back the beast, here's a new story for y'all. It's a long one, but we need a long one to make this bitch breathe again. It's called "Smoke 'Em If You Got Em".

Smoke 'em If You Got 'em



Andrew woke to darkness, darkness and a rough, scratchy surface covering his face. He opened his mouth to say something and suddenly the sack was removed from his face, the harsh light stinging his eyes. Once the dazzle settled from his eyes, he looked around. He was in a warehouse, it looked like.
"Are you comfortable, Mr. Reeve?"
The voice came from behind him, and he tried to turn, but couldn't.
"Oh, yes. Let me get those for you," the voice said again, and he felt someone loosening the knots on the ropes that bound him to the chair. After a moment, he heard the sound of movement behind him, and a small, thin man stepped into his field of vision, carrying a chair in one hand and a small wooden table in the other. He set these down in front of Andrew. "You are no longer bound, Mr. Reeve. You can move about freely, but be warned that you are not allowed to leave just yet."
Andrew stood up, feeling pins and needles shoot through his legs. "How long have I been out?" he asked.
"No more than half an hour, I suppose. But I understand that the ropes can do horrible things to your circulation. Feel free to stretch, if you must."
"What do you want from me? Money?" Andrew asked.
The man laughed. "No, Mr. Reeve. I suppose this is what you would call an intervention."
"An intervention? What do you mean?"
"Ah, yes, where are my manners? My name is Bannister, and I am here to help you quit smoking."
Andrew laughed disbelievingly. "You? What are you going to do? Hold me here, slap patches on me, make me sip herbal tea until I don't want to smoke any more? Look, buddy, quitting's not a problem. I've done it hundreds of times."
The man smiled thinly at this. "Ah, yes, quite an old joke for you, isn't it?" He picked up a small brown bag from near his feet and picked through it until he found a folder. He opened it up and flipped through it for a few pages before he said, "Here we are. Let's see, the first time that your wife recalls you saying that was in December of nineteen-eighty-one. At your office Christmas party, predictably enough. Looks like it was a variation on the theme, however, as you said you'd quit 'dozens' of times by then. Keeping track, are we?"
Andrew looked at the file, then back at Bannister. "You've got that much info in that file?"
Bannister snapped it shut and favored him with another of those thin-lipped smiles. "That, and more. This is quite a detailed little file here, filled with every single detail of your life that friends, family, acquaintances, and of course, your wife, could recall."
Andrew snorted. "So, Ginny sent you, huh?"
Bannister gave a slight nod. "Yes, I was hired by a Mrs. Virginia Reeve. She's been quite concerned about your health lately, you know. She gave me full permission to do whatever I have to do to get you to quit."
Andrew leered at him then, getting up close enough that he could have kissed the smaller man, if he'd had a mind to. "And what's going to stop me from walking out that door right now?"
As quickly as if it had been magicked there, a small, pearl-handled revolver appeared, pressing into the underside of Andrew's chin. "Mostly this," Bannister said, in the same calm, conversational tone he'd been using thus far. "I won't shoot to kill, of course, not unless it comes to that. But I will take out a leg. Both, if necessary. Now, if you would be so kind as to sit back down, we can begin your treatment."
Andrew sat down with a hard thump. He looked smaller somehow, almost deflated. "So what do we do then? Do we just sit here, eyeball to eyeball while I go cold turkey or something?"
"Actually, not at all. Would you care for a smoke?" Bannister extracted a pack from his jacket pocket and laid it on the table between them.
Andrew eyed the pack warily for a moment, as though he expected it to sprout sharp teeth and bite off a finger if he reached for one.
He stared at them for a moment longer, then said, "Alright, I'll bite. What's the catch?"
Bannister leaned forward and smiled. This time he looked predatory, showing off every single tooth in a too wide grin. "Why, I'm glad you asked. This pack of cigarettes is your brand, is it not?"
Andrew looked down and nodded. "Yeah? So?"
"So, I can tell you this. Half of the cigarettes in this pack are absolutely normal, not a thing wrong with them other than the usual gumbo of carcinogenic ingredients."
Bannister paused, obviously waiting for Andrew to say something. Finally, Andrew said, "And the other half?"
"Laced with a slow acting poison. It won't kill you outright. It usually takes six or seven of the bad ones to do that. But you will start to notice certain things. Memory loss, tremors, twitches. That sort of thing."
"Only half of them, though, right?"
Bannister nodded.
Andrew reached down, opening up the pack and looking down at the cigarettes. "Ah, hell. I like those odds. You got a light?"
Bannister seemed pleased, and extracted a silver lighter from the same pocket. "Excellent. Now, you are welcome to smoke as many as you like, Mr. Reeve, but you must answer a few questions for me each time you do so. Are you ready to start your first set of questions, Mr. Reeve?"
Andrew exhaled a large ring of smoke towards him. "Shoot."
"Okay, let's see here... Ah, here we go. Tell me about your childhood, starting with your date of birth."
"Yeah, okay. Let's see... I was born September 2nd in 1954."
"Good, go on."
"My parents were named Ralph and Maggie, and I had an older brother named Alex who was killed in Vietnam when I was twelve years old. He was twice my age, twenty-four, when he died. I didn't really know him that well, since we were so far apart in age, you know. Anyway, I graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1972, and I married Ginny in '73."
"Excellent. And you started smoking when you were... let's see, fifteen, it looks like. That would mean you've smoked for... what, nearly forty years now?"
"Yeah, I guess. Can I borrow your lighter again?"
"Of course." Bannister took out the lighter and set it on the table. Once he was done with it, he started to hand it back. Instead, Bannister held up a hand and said, "Set it on the table. You'll be needing it again soon, I think."
Andrew shrugged and said, "Fine with me."
"Okay, next set of questions. Are you ready, Mr. Reeve?"
"Fire away, chief."
"You said you were born in '54. Who was president then?"
"What?"
"You heard me. Who was President of the United States back then?"
Andrew laughed. "That's your question? I don't know who you been talking to, but I ain't no history major. I could barely tell you who was president ten years ago."
Bannister smiled. "Your best guess then."
Andrew looked up at the ceiling, trying to remember. His fingers traced delicate smoke patterns in the air as he thought. Finally, he said, "Christ, I dunno. Truman?"
Bannister smiled again, then said, "You're right, Mr. Reeve. You aren't a history major. By the time you were born, Truman had been replaced by Eisenhower. And you're on your second cigarette."
Andrew recoiled as if he'd been slapped. "So? Like I said, I ain't no history major. Doesn't mean I got one of your bum smokes."
"No, it doesn't. But it is interesting. I know that Reagan was office the year I was born."
Andrew laughed. "Reagan? Christ, you're a kid. When were you born, '82, '83?"
"I was born on January 20th, 1981. It was the day he took office, in fact."
"Well, hooray for you. What are you doing in this business, then?"
Bannister didn't say anything for a moment, then said, "Let's just say that I enjoy my work."
"Whatever," Andrew said, reaching into the pack and grabbing another cigarette. "So, how long do we play this little quiz game here? I mean, are you trying to bore me into quitting smoking or what?"
"No, actually. We play until you decide to quit yourself, or..."
Andrew looked up at him, exasperation on his face. "Ah, Christ, enough with the dramatic pauses. Or what?"
"Or we play until the poison sets in, and you die."
Andrew smirked. "Poison. Yeah, right. Poison, my ass."
"Actually, they are poisoned. That one you have right there in your hand, in fact, is one of my 'bum smokes', as you called them."
"Yeah, sure they are."
"Yes, they are. If you look by the filter, you'll see a small red dot. I use those to keep track of how many you've had, and adjust the questions accordingly. Your next round I will want a little more detail, if you please, Mr. Reeve."
Andrew froze, the cigarette hanging from his lips. After a moment, he took the cigarette away from his lips and looked at it.
The red dot stared out at him, and he made a panicked motion to stub it out.
Like magic, the revolver reappeared, and Bannister said, "I wouldn't do that if I were you. I'm afraid that it's a rule. You take it out of the pack, then you smoke it. All of it."
Andrew slowly pulled his hand back and put the cigarette back in his mouth. He inhaled and said, "All right, fine. I need one after you shoving that gun in my face, anyway."
"Excellent, that's the spirit. Now, tell me about your family."
Andrew felt a drop of sweat start running down his face, and he said, "Shit, like I said, my parents were Ralph and Mandy, my wife's name is Virginia, I got one kid, a girl. Named Maggie, like my ma."
"Maggie? I thought you just said your mother's name was Mandy."
Andrew smiled weakly, the sweat running faster now. "Did I? I meant Maggie. Yeah, my baby girl, named Maggie, after her grandma."
"When was Maggie born? Your daughter, not your mother."
"A few weeks after you, I guess. February 2nd, 1982. Groundhog's Day."
"More than a few weeks, Mr. Reeve. I would be a full year older than your daughter."
"You said you were born January 20th."
Bannister nodded. "I was. I was born January 20th, 1981. The same year Reagan took office, remember?"
Andrew nodded back. "Yeah, yeah, okay, I remember now." He took a puff of his cigarette and said, "Fuck Reagan. Never liked him anyway."
He reached for another cigarette, then paused. He tilted the pack towards him and tried to look down into it when he heard a soft click. He didn't even have to look to know what it was, and it only solidified matters when he heard Bannister say, "No peeking."
Andrew picked one out and checked the filter.
Bannister watched as his face went white. Keeping the revolver cocked, he said, "Smoke 'em if you got 'em."
He watched with some satisfaction as Andrew lit his cigarette with a shaking hand. "Are those tremors I see, Mr. Reeve?"
Andrew blew out smoke harshly, shouting, "Of course there are fucking tremors. I'm scared, okay? There, you happy?"
Bannister smiled at him. "Yes, I am. So if you're scared of them, quit smoking them."
Andrew took a deep drag, then said, "I can't. Jesus Christ, I can get you money if you want, but I can't quit, can't you see that, I can't fucking quit and you're going to kill me if you don't let me go."
Bannister shook his head. "No, Mr. Reeve. You will have no one to blame but yourself. Now, are you ready for your next round of questions?"
"Please let me go, I can get you money, I can get you lots of money, just let me go."
Bannister shook his head again, and this time he looked as though he were filled with genuine regret. "I'm sorry, Mr. Reeve, but I can't let you go. Not until you quit, or you finish the pack. Your choice."
"Please."
"No, Mr. Reeve. Now, are you ready for your next set of questions?"
"I'll do anything."
"Fine. Don't grab another cigarette. If you can go for twenty minutes, I will let you go."
"I can't."
"You can't do twenty minutes? Not even a full hour, not even half an hour, and you can't do it? You see, that's why we're here tonight. I'm trying to help you, I promise. Even if you finish the pack, I'll be helping you."
Andrew snorted. "How will you be helping me? By killing me?"
"Yes. By saving you and your family from tracheotomies, from lung cancer, from a slow and painful death in a hospital bed. I'm trying to help you. Meet me halfway."
Andrew looked down at the cigarette, the red dot already half burned away. "Twenty minutes? Starting now?"
Bannister nodded. "Actually, I'm feeling magnanimous. Twenty minutes from when the offer was first put on the table. That leaves you with eighteen to go."
Andrew stubbed the finished cigarette out. "I can do this."
Bannister clapped his hands together in excitement. "Excellent. Are you ready for your next set of questions?"
"Sure. Throw them at me."
"When did you buy your first pack of cigarettes?"
"Excuse me?"
"When did you buy your first pack of cigarettes? Describe the experience to me. Make me feel as though I'm there with you, watching you take that first drag."
Andrew glanced down at the pack, then back at Bannister. "That's not fair."
"I doubt anyone would accuse me of not playing fair, Mr. Reeve. I've been level with you from the start. Look at it this way. If you can get through this, then you can get through anything."
Andrew glanced at the pack, then away, as though he was afraid they might burn him. "Okay, fine. What do you want to know?"
"Why did you start?"
Andrew laughed. "Why else? To impress a girl. I dunno what I was thinking. My parents never bothered cleaning out my brother's room after he was killed in 'Nam, and I was digging through his stuff to find something, I don't even remember what. But I stumbled across a pack of his Lucky Strikes, and I figured that this girl I was lusting after would be impressed." He laughed again, caught up in the memory for the moment.
"And was she impressed?"
"Oh, yeah. Real impressed. Fifteen year old kid smoking an unfiltered Lucky the first time he ever tried smoking? Not to mention that my brother had been dead for four years, and those were probably sitting there from before he got shipped out, so they had to have been at least five years old? Yeah, she was real impressed right up until I blew my groceries all over her shoes."
Bannister laughed. "Then why did you keep smoking?"
"Figured I just had to practice at it, show her one day that I'd learned how to do it right, and she'd start thinking I was real manly. By the time I got it right, she was going out with Bobby Stockwell and I was up to a pack every other day."
"I see. And what was it like when you got it right?"
"What do you mean?"
"That first drag where you really got your first look at what it could be like? That first drag where you didn't cough, didn't vomit, just tasted that rich smoke?"
Andrew pulled another one out of the pack and lit up without thinking. "Pretty damn good, kid. That first drag is what keeps you coming back. It's never as good as that first drag, but you keep hoping. That's why you keep..." He stopped in mid-sentence, looking down at the cigarette dangling from his lip. The red dot stared up at him from just above the filter.
"You tricked me," he said.
"Not at all, Mr. Reeve. I didn't put that in your mouth. You did."
"You know what I mean. You might as well have handed me this and lit me up."
"Don't blame me for your addictions, Mr. Reeve. If you had quit before today, you would never have seen me."
"Well, you're certainly not helping. I normally don't smoke like this, you know. You just..."
"I just what, Mr. Reeve?"
Andrew took a long drag before answering, "You make me nervous."
"Then I am doing my job. I believe that makes number four of the 'bum smokes', Mr. Reeve."
"No, it doesn't. This is three. I've had three of the ones with the dots, I've been counting."
"And how many of those have you had, Mr. Reeve?"
"I've had five, and the first two were clean."
"Were they? You didn't start checking until the third one. Are you certain the first two were clean?"
Andrew felt sweat forming in a small pool beneath his nose, and he swiped it away before he said, "I'd have noticed."
Bannister just smiled. "Would you have? Well, then, let's agree to call it three, and just keep in mind that six is usually enough to kill someone."
"Six? I thought you said seven."
Bannister nodded. "I did. I said six or seven. It's not an exact science. One man made it down to four cigarettes left in the pack before he finally keeled over. When I checked for dots, he had two left. So, I suppose the current record is eight. Would you like to try for the record, Mr. Reeve?"
Andrew stared at the pack for a long moment, trying to make a decision one way or the other.
After a second's hesitation, he reached in and grabbed another one, anxiously checking the filter.
No dot.
He breathed a sigh of relief and lit up.
Across from him, Bannister smiled and said, "Well played, Mr. Reeve. That's the spirit. Now, are you ready for the next set of questions?"

Two hours later, the pack was empty, the final cigarette dangling from Andrew's fingertips, forgotten for the moment. A thin curl of smoke still issued from the tip, but he made no move to smoke it.
Bannister leaned forward, tapping Andrew lightly on the shoulder. "Mr. Reeve?"
Andrew's eyes opened sluggishly, and he looked up at Bannister with no recognition in his eyes. "Who are you?"
Bannister grimaced at him for a second, and then forced the grimace into something resembling a smile. "Just a friend, Mr. Reeve. Can I get you anything?"
Andrew lifted his head slowly, turning to stare at the now-dead cigarette in his hands. The red dot had been burned away. He lifted it to his lips anyway, sucked weakly, then threw it away in disgust. "Actually," he said, slowly. "I'm just dying for a cigarette. You wouldn't happen to have one, would you?"
Bannister kept the smile on his face, even though it felt horribly fake, as he reached into his pocket and extracted another pack. He unwrapped the cellophane and extracted a cigarette, placing it in Andrew's mouth. Andrew didn't notice the red dot on the filter, didn't notice anything but the cigarette in his mouth, and the sensation of smoke filling his lungs as he sucked.
Bannister watched him smoke for a minute, then set his lighter on the table. Andrew looked up at him with a confused look on his face that broke into a smile when Bannister said, "Keep the pack."
Bannister walked out of the warehouse, turning back only once to watch as Andrew lit up another cigarette, still wearing that same smile as he pulled the first drag of smoke into his lungs.

Oh Well.

Apparently so.

Chupacabra Stopped

Well, I guess we can lay the bitch to bed, eh?

Why We Write

How with time we all will die
And how life seems to pass us by
How memory we hope won't fail
And every day we write our tale

To leave a legacy of ourselves
To add to books upon the shelves
As photos fade and faces gray
Our words, our phrases will hold sway

Countdown to Apocalypse

Tonight is the night the whole world ends.

Sing it loud to set you free
The Anthem of hope and clarity
Display it proud for the world to see
The words of truth for you and me

Tonight is the night the whole world ends.

Out not with a whisper but with a bang
We shall not whimper but we shall sing
We all look forward to eternal dream
We shall gather in the streets and scream

Tonight is the night the whole world ends.

Large and low hangs the moon
We all know the end is soon
Blood-red ocean, beach whale-strewn
Apocalypse illness none immune

Tonight is the night the whole world ends.

Blammo

I slipped a bit when the pate de foie gras came around, principally because I cannot pronounce pate de foie gras. Eating a thing unpronounced is like donking someone's sister whose name you can't remember. The person whose sister it is, or the sister, you ask.
Forsooth, either. So I slipped a bit.
What I mean by 'slipped' is I ducked under the tablecloth, making a noise I thought would sound as if I was feeling a bit ill. 'My God,' some bitch exclaimed, 'has he the dysentery?'
Naturally, I grasped this interjectionist by the heel and sank my teeth into her ankle.
Who wouled have thought her husband would be so angry?
So, we played a little game. Every time he hit me, I did my best to spit on his wife. The game got better and better, as I graduated from phlegm to blood, and bits of teeth, and then some of my dinner. The other guests were huddled in the pantry to our starboard side, tittering in adulation of my cleverhood. 'You had enough?' I demanded through new holes in my smile, and spit the tip of my tongue into his wife's fatass cleavage.
When I woke up I was in a dumpster. Dear God, forgive them. For they know not bout my crew.
I called all the third graders I'd been buying smokes and mouthwash for, and told them to bring ski masks. Oh, Gotham, you will burn for your transgressions.
First things first- find the fuckers that puree duck liver into French words, and fist their bunkin holes till they swear that Cher's ass a recycled toilet seat. I love my brain.
It is so well-built. The End.

Taxi

My own personal writing exercise, I took a line from "The Crack Up", which is the notebooks of F. Scott Fitzgerald and used it as the first line. Feel free to do the same if you'd like. For me, it wanted to be a poem, but maybe it won't for you, if you so choose to use it. I'm not so sure this is done yet, I haven't decided.


A taxi tipping over on a nervous night
Skidding tires on slick street rain
Crunch of metal and swirls of light
Overturning once, twice, and again

Heaven showers still rain falls
Dripping drops tell up from down
People huddled ‘gainst the walls
One by one begin to drown

Mr. Lucky Lip Saves the Salt

It probably could use more, but this will do for now...
***This is a work of complete fiction***

Mr. Lucky Lip cringed and coughed and looked up and laughed. His tall frame stood scarred and strong as he mounted his extra-cycle, a truly noble transport, and made his way to the Den of Ill Repute. It was there he played the delicate beautiful instrument with bow and heart. Drop-jawed they watched and wondered who this stranger was. They wondered if it was he who wrangled a tattoo-throated fisherman with a belt, or if it was he who served them drinks with a loud laugh at the lounge with hookahs, or he who sold them books with a smile. They couldn’t know that he would set in motion a chain of events leading to the downfall of the local elite, The Church. And no, I am not speaking of the fairly descent band from the golden age of hair rock, the 80s, but of the institution of a faith run by white men and their little clones.
He played until the sun came up and those who snaked around at night tightened their ties and polished their shoes and kissed their clueless wives goodbye to spend the day packed into a cubicle. They played at being bad, thought they were kings, but it was they who were the ones to act for appearances. The poor little yuppies couldn’t sleep, so they quietly crept out of the house and into the bars and showed off that tattoo they got when they were nineteen of a dragon on their upper arm, yes, that would make them look bad and cool. Those people were blind to their contributions to the churning Church machine, those poor saps, he would have save them from themselves.
Mr. Lucky Lip, or Chris, as he was known to most, began his quest by going home. He plugged in his weapon and it hummed, no sound sweeter. He loaded it with a blank white page and began to type. He would write his truth, a manifesto of epic proportions. It was all clacking and dings for seven days he didn’t stop typing. His fingers cramped and bled and still he typed. Page after page, his heart poured out as inky lines, each letter pounded with purpose until he was finished. He signed the end with a Pac-Man ghost.
He made his way to Temple Square and began handing out his truth to anyone who would take it, which wasn’t very many. He stood in front of the Temple of Doom and tried the same with similarly poor results. He decided to make large posters of each page and paste them to the sides of the light-rails. They were taken down almost immediately. Feeling slightly discouraged, he went back to the Den of Ill Repute and left a few of the manifestos on the bar for people to take as they wished. He downed a pint or two before returning home.

A shifty looking man whose name I can’t recall happened to take a copy of Chris’ truth that night and took it with him to the office the next day. The stapled pages made their way around the building within hours. Copies were made and taken home to show the wives and to be passed to brothers and fathers to take to their places of employment. A few weeks after Chris left the stack on the bar, he began to see graffiti that looked remarkably like his Pac-Man ghost signature. It was everywhere, trains, buildings, windows, pavement, and he could swear he saw a tattoo or two. He caught a guy handing out copies of his manifesto and asked him what it was all about. He was told through a hoarse voice to come to a meeting that night deep within the bowels of a local bookstore where he happened to work. Masquerading as a book club, the meeting was led by Zach, a guy who became passionate about the truth within the manifesto. He told them all of his plans to take down the temples.

“Clearly, doing this nonviolently is not going to work. We need to do something a bit more extreme.”

He paused for a minute, judging the feeling of the room.

“Bombs.”


Chris went along with it, fuck it, he figured, why not. A sultry dame wiser than her years told him it was a terrible idea and that it would change nothing, but he didn't care. So someone said they knew a guy who knew a guy who could get them what they needed and they started to plot the downfall.
Around a month or two later (no official record can be found) forty-five or so black clad figures surrounded the temples ready to rig the blasts. They crept with shadowed accuracy to the sides of the buildings and set the explosives with a timer. They went up Capitol Hill for the show.
Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six… Chris’ breath quickened, his eyes widened.
Five. Four. Three. Two… With a large intake of air, he held his breath.
One.

Nothing happened.

“Oh, what the fu-” and before the ck could leave his mouth, BOOM! He felt the sound in his chest, it looked like fireworks lighting the night sky. They did it. He swigged his flask and laughed.

Good(ish) news...

So, the good news is that I got a job that is paying me a significant amount of cash more than what I was getting at any of my previous jobs. The bad news is that between the new job and school starting as of next wednesday, I'm probably going to have to sit out the group until about January-ish. Lame, I know, but I'm going to be working like a slave and trying to keep a decent GPA, so somethings gotta give. I'll still try to post shit on here though, so it's not like I'll be disappearing from the face of the planet. And Chris, I just want you to know that as soon as my student loans clear, that sweet ass guitar of yours will be mine. Anyway, I'll try to come if I can, but for now, I'd say you can probably count on me not showing up more often than coming.

Bricktop Betty

She rambled in like pickup sticks, her hair all ragged wicked wild
And called the regulars to tits, she thrust that bricktop suckle, child.
'I'm come,' spake she, 'for sweating fun,
'For eloquence and catching come. Who here among you knows the eldritch ways of knocking legs?'
The old men all just shook their heads;
They peered in beer, and downed the dregs.

William Shakespeare Writes Corporate Sponsored Poetry

Energizer Batteries: A Sonnet
By William Shakespeare


I hath fallen down dead into the earth
Drained of life I lie pondering why
If only there was a source of new birth
To raise me back to sweet succulent life

At last! I hath found a wondrous gift
A tiny cylinder filled with acid
Oh positive and negative do lift
And now I am energized, death forbid!

How could I have lived without this life source?
I feel I can go on and on and on
Eternal life is now my destined course
My duel with death is now forever won!

Pink bunny so cool beating on thy drum
Energizer Batteries life comes from!

Vamos Vamos Vamos

So... no one else wants to drag Oz through the mud. Who's next? Keltin's on vacation but fair game, as are Zach, Kan and I.
I vote for myself, just because I want to see what strange and evil things I'm doing in your heads. Think on it and comment your choice(?)
Schmorgasbord.

Strippers in Atlanta

I went to Cameron's bachelor party night before last. It was fun- the strippers weren't gross.
Well, any more so than any pretty girl who wiggles her nibbly bits on guys noses for dirty one dollar bills. Strippers are gross. I lied.
The strippers kept telling me I needed to tip or get away from the rail, but that's where Cameron was, so I just pretended I was deaf and talked funny and pointed at my ears. Guys kept peeing in the garbage cans in the bathroom, which was fucking weird. Also, there was a really fat guy with a tray of cheap cologne and lotions and shit who squirted the soap in your hand when you used the sink and I think wanted tips but didn't say anything to the guys who kept peeing in the garbage cans. 

I have found that paying attention to the strippers is against the spirit of the thing. Either you are coked out of your mind and full of whiskey and think the whole thing is swell, or you drink bud lite and try to stay away from the tables, and just watch, because the setup is unhealthy and pretty weird, and there are 100 guys hoping the stripper offers to go get coked out of her mind and drink whiskey with him. Now- Saturday night- we visited a true Atlanta institution (apparently): the Clermont Lounge.
A piece the newspaper did recently dubbed it 'The stable where old strippers go to die'.
Not only were the strippers on an island in the middle of the smokiest most gnar-drawling bar I've evr drank $1 PBR in, they were, almost uniformly, over forty and wobbling around like PCP had the better of them. One grandma wore a little red riding hood outfit, then a Krispy Kreme getup, and crushed beer cans between her tits. This place was both horrible and inherently honest, stuffed beneath a weekly-rate hotel on a run of Tattoo parlors. I got the inside of my lip tattooed.
The rub was- the joint filled up with an old Cuban DJ in a fuzzy white Kangol hat and more happy, drench-sweating gorgeous twenty and thirty somethings in rockabilly dresses and sunglasses and snappy shoes than I have ever seen, and danced like the paving stones were coming out of their streets and howled and gave dollar bills to women that looked as if they'd cut their hair that morning with a grapefruit spoon.
It was the best bar I've ever been to, and the girls were sharp and quick and danced too well for me and the enormous lesbian bartender put me in a headlock and called me Cuddles at one point. All I did was order a drink, and she dragged me onto the bar by my neck and called me Cuddles and told me I could have a job cleaning the dancefloor, as she gave me a painful noogie and people laughed at me. I am still confused, but the Clermont Lounge was pure 1950's debauchery- the kind of thing I imagined as a small boy when bad things were described to me.
When I first heard punk rock, or metal, I remember being reeeeaaaally disappointed, because they were candycane tame in comparison to what I'd imagined. I eventually found bands to redeem my imagination. It took longer to redeem strip clubs. That place was fucking dynamite.
Oh... there's a tattoo parlour next door.

Oh Hell.

I know this isn't here to solicit anything, but this is making me angrier than when I heard about the remakes of "The Day the Earth Stood Still", "Wizard of Gore", AND "Last House on the Left". Fuck MTV.

City of Strays

I wanted to re-post this without my other introduction. This is what I have so far. I have started adapting it into a screenplay even though it's not finished, which is giving me so many ideas for the story.

I

She took the cigarette like water, sucking down the smoke in gulps. The dim blue glow of the moon lit her face with shadows, her red lips puckering to blow then swirls of smoke danced circles before her. She dropped the butt beneath her pivoting foot and began to walk toward home, her high heels clicked on the concrete. Jean’s only solace was her lonely stride home through streets littered with the trash of the world in a city built for strays. Sidestepping past bums was just part of the path and turning a deaf ear to the whistles and calls from dirty old men became routine. Jean was the prettiest thing about that part of town, a diamond in the mud and the mud was drowning.

In the night there in the City of Strays things tended to change, buildings would twist and stretch and some would sink into the sand-soft pavement. Jean loved watching this happen, it seemed like she was the only one who noticed anymore, at times she questioned whether anyone else could see it at all. By morning everything would look the way it always had, dull gray buildings covered in filth, but the night, yes, the night was magic.

Jean slid the key into the lock on her front door, she felt the pins move beneath the grooves a twist and a sigh and she was home. She knelt to retrieve the mail finding only one unmarked envelope which she opened with one of her long red nails. Pulling out the folded paper hidden inside, she found a single sentence typed.

“Wednesday 7:00 p.m. Gravel Pier”

Jean tossed the note into the fireplace and followed with a match. She went to her bedroom, flipping off her shiny black heels along the way, and began unbuttoning her dress; the neck stretched to just below the chin and the hem to just below the knees, little black buttons swirled their way down the length of the blue satin fabric embroidered with pink cherry blossoms, following lines of black piping. Eventually managing to free herself of the garment, she unclipped her stockings, rolled them down her statuesque legs and placed them in a drawer. She pulled the pins from her auburn hair and let it fall free onto her slender back. And there she stood nearly bare at the floor to ceiling one-way mirror which was her window to the ever changing city, ten stories above the trash and filth and scum of the world in that muddy little part of town. She stood watching the buildings sway and bend and wondered why this was, why the city could change at night and show no signs of its dance by dawn. She sauntered to the kitchen and poured herself a drink. Moving back to the window in her bedroom, she sat on the floor before it, drink in hand, and let herself get lost.

***

The bright warm orange sun woke her in the morning. Jean had finished the drink and fallen asleep where she sat. She lay awake on the floor soaking in the sun’s embracing rays hoping the new day would be better than the previous, she hoped the night’s meeting would bring a good assignment, and she hoped that Cliff would catch her hints of disinterest. Leaving her glass on the floor, she propped herself up, stumbled to the bathroom and filled the tub. After a lengthy soak, she slipped out of the towel and into a silky blood-red floor-length dress, a slit from toe to hip let flash her long leg, a white leather holster attached to the thigh cradling an elaborately decorated six-shooter with a gleaming white mother-of-pearl handle. She climbed into her black heels and pinned up one side of her hair, leaving the other to rest on her shoulder and back. She dripped dangling pearls from her ears and painted her lips scarlet.

It was noon.

Jean locked up and walked to the Tea Tin, a tiny diner a few blocks away from her apartment, it was a small one-story building that had streams of a rust-colored grime running down its once sky blue exterior walls, the interior looked like a typical roadside/airport diner from some forgotten time that had been left to devour itself. There were tears in the fabric of the booths, gum beneath the tables and bar, the walls of the restroom were layered with thousands of markings from girls with pens, and the teal and once-white checkered floor was ever-sticky with syrup and soda. The place was run by a sweet old lady named Dot who tried her best to do what she could to keep that diner going, and to keep it from going to the Rats, a band of transients who stayed in the Strays to terrorize the town into submission.

“You want your usual, hon?”

Jean nodded while giving a friendly sort of smile. If there was only one person Jean could truly trust in the Strays, it was Dot.

II

Five-forty-five and Jean started toward Gravel Pier, two miles east. She tossed her leg over the seat, thrust her foot down the kick-start and the bike sputtered alive. Roaring and raring to go, she situated a pair of silver framed goggles on her face and curled the throttle back, speeding forward, she rode. The sun began to set over the crumbling old city just outside of the Strays. Rebar and beams were skeletal silhouettes against the orange pink sky with a few reflective panes of glass clinging to the bits of concrete and brick still attached to the once grand skyscrapers. Gullville used to be a great city booming with suits and stocks and bonds and ties, polished shoes and gallons of hair gel, a yuppie paradise built for trade. People moved like clockwork in straight lines like drones, work, lunch, home, work, lunch, home, day in, day out, no weekends, non-stop. You could almost hear the ticking of their synchronized wrist watches echoing from the shiny buildings.

Jean looked like a ruby speeding through the smokey bleak city, the side of her hair that wasn’t pinned up waved behind her. She reached the edge of the Strays and found the road she had always used to be nothing but rubble in the desert sand. Fucking Rats, she thought. She had to hope her junk-yard bike would make it across rough terrain, the tread on her tires was nearly non-existent and the sand spray not caught by the fenders would certainly leave some sort of rash on her legs and arms. This better be a damn good assignment. She rolled onto the sand slowly, it was hot, she could smell the rubber begin to melt and knew she would have to go as fast as the bike would let her. She backed up onto the remaining road, revved the engine, and bolted forward. The sand swirled around her like a hurricane, she kept her mouth shut tight and her face down. Weaving around chunks of road and rubble, she rode toward Gullville with determination. After what felt like an hour, she felt the front tire bump up and onto pavement. Jean took a moment to brush some sand from her hair and face and wipe clean her goggles before she continued on to Gravel Pier.

Six-forty-two. Jean pulled up to a rusty gate chained shut to an even rustier fence that crumbled at the slightest touch. She went to the largest hole and pushed her bike through. She climbed back onto her bike and rode along side the murky littered shore to Gravel Pier.

Jean saw two shadowed figures before her as she approached the pier wearing trench coats and hats they spoke to each other with intensity, she was unnoticed. She popped down the kick-stand, removed her goggles, and dismounted her bike. Wanting to listen in, Jean stayed back silently. She couldn’t hear anything more than undecipherable whispers, she saw a gun pass between silhouetted hands. Being two minutes to seven, she decided to join them. As she walked up to them, they kept their faces down, shadowed. The figure who passed the gun handed Jean a manila envelope and walked away without a word. She turned to the other figure, a face lifted enough for the setting sun to light the eyes.

“Hello Jean.”

“Cliff.”

“Are you gonna open it or what?”

“You know I won’t until I get home.”

“Aren’t you curious?”

“You seem to be.”

“You know, this light makes you glow.”

“Is that right.”

“You really are beautiful, Jean.”

“So they say.”

Jean left Cliff beneath Gravel Pier and walked unturning to her bike knowing Cliff’s wanting eyes were solely on her. She zipped the envelope into a pouch on the rear fender, fit her goggles on, kicked up the stand and down the start and rode toward the hole in the fence.

***

Jean locked the door behind her and sat on the couch opposite the fireplace, which she lit on the way. She lifted the little prongs holding the envelope shut and raised the flap. Reaching inside, she pulled out and eight-by-ten photo of her assignment. Her lungs emptied with a shocked sigh and her shoulders dropped. Flipping the photo, she found the explanation as to why. This is what it said:

He has been found to be the Pin of the Rats.

He can not be trusted.

We have enough evidence to prove so.

You have one week.

Though she had a dislike of him, she would have never wished his death. A single tear flowed down her soft cheek as she started contemplating how his life would end.

The next morning, Jean walked to the Tea Tin as she had everyday for the past year. To her surprise, when Jean arrived at the corner of Dent and Forty-Second, all she saw was the faint shape of the Tea Tin's roof in the ground and a few of the tiles peeking through the dirt. It had sank and failed to emerge during the night's swaying sinking stretching dance. She had never seen a building stay the way it had been at night, they always had gone back to normal by dawn. Things were changing. It couldn't be good.

A Novella Coming?

There is a city- an island city- set grandly in the center of a forest-edged bay. The bay has two inlets, and over each a Collossus stands, straddling the point of entry. The Eastern Collossus is a man, the sun piercing up into the sky behind him each day. The Western Collossus is a woman, accepting the sun into her waters each and every evening.

They are man and wife, these two, and have not ever touched.

They sing to one another, and perhaps speak, and sometimes whip the waters of their city's bay into a murderous mess for want of ways to punish just the other. At night, their city swells, and blooms, or cracks, and warps, according to the shape they've made between them. There are centuries of drought and war, of taifoon and crops curled ankle deep in every plot of earth. And then comes reconciliation, then come birds, and trade, and sunflowers the height of horses, as their love renews.

Their feet rest deep in ocean bedrock, and the people of the island city say their ancestors carved Them from basalt ranges over eons, cutting out the ships' passage into shapely legs from the solid stuff of mountain gods. The people in the woods around the bay say that They sat up, fullbent formed and seeking one another from the ocean's silty bed one day in time past memory, and froze under the sun before their monstrous arms could meet.

The Man's temper was a heavy thing, and wild, and dashed the island's people from their rocks and homes, some years. The Woman never struck so hard, but her legs stood in deeper water, and her enmity ran deeper still, and held its roots for years, and years. Sometimes the people of the island city would wake to find sharp canyons where their streets had been, and poison oak over their temples. Sometimes the water came like wolves and dragged their children off at night, and they would gather on their beaches come the morn and offer fruit and milk and tears to reconcile the feuding giants.

Sometimes there were fish so thick that they could walk across the bay to land, and overhead the Collussus sang in warbled tones along the wind; never to touch, always- just to stand.

Just as long as your thing ain't got a thing to do with me and what I'm tryin a bring

Regarding writerly groupings.

I think a regular meeting place can easily be established over on 800 East where Chris and I lay our heads. Then I have to issue an asterisk.

If that is indeed to be the regular meeting place, some things need to be modified. My stipulations for further participation on my part- and my agreeing to allow my space, furniture and dishes to be used-include:

-Attend only if you brought writing to share and discuss (except John- who is a great reader and always offers thoughtful feedback); basically, attend only if you are contributing.

-Be thoughtful and constructive in your feedback and requests for feedback. Condescension and entitlement are a little rampant for my tastes. Defensiveness is rather present and rather absurd. The point of getting together as I understand it, is to evolve our writing while having a pleasant and sociable time. Respectful criticism shouldn't be met with jabby remarks and criticism or gripes should be void of name-calling and attacks. Be fucking articulate on both ends, you are fucking writers.

-Be critical. Compliments are so appreciated by me but snags are sooo important. We also should to be directing the focus of the group when our piece is being shared. What do you want from us? "I'm wondering about the story int his one..." or "How do you guys feel about the characters/dialogue/flow in the piece I am reading as I have been really struggling with the dailogue/plot/ending..." and then we will actually evolve. Sometimes it may just be "I wrote this, I like it and I want to share it." which is part of all this but when it's not that, tell us what you want.

-Be nice while being articulate and critical. Be nice while being articulately criticized.

-Bring a bottle. No more showing up empty handed and emptying out the booze supply. If you are going to drink, you need to be contributing. I have been unemployed for almost two months and I pay rent and I have managed to scare up enough cash for wine. Not because I am a self-righteous cunt but because I am a wino and I can't write with out sousing. I wouldn't drink another wino's wine with out throwing down my own first. I expect the same courtesy from guests in my house. There are times we can't bring anything, of course. Life is a mean thing and sometimes you need someone to give you their share. That needs to be an exception, not a rule.

-Respect the space. Breaking glasses, spilling all over furniture or floors and generally employing frat boy antics is unacceptable on my porch.

-Figure out a ride home. It is not the job of people with cars to ferry the rest of us about, I do not run a hostel (El Hostel Free for All Motherfuckers) and I have shit to do the next day. We are all adults and if you can't get yourself back to your own home in an adult way it is not on the rest of us to figure it out for you. If you want to crash, ask ahead of time and work it out, don't spring some last-minute awkward shit on the people that live there. I walked home from Chris' old joint at 4am in the winter plenty of sputteringly drunk nights, it is a drag but comethefuckon. We are adults. Bring that grown up ruckus, y'all.

-Respect each other and personal space and boundaries. For fuck's sake.

I am highlighting what I need to participate. Feel free to vote me off the team, I understand that I am not in charge and many of you may have different ideas about what makes a successful writer's group.

But my home, furniture, booze and dishes will no longer be utilized unless the above things are addressed. I feel I have been very genuine and generous with these things as well as my couches, pantry and time spent cooking. I enjoy sharing and cooking and writing and reading.

However, lately a number of instances have tried my patience and boundaries and I simply feel drained each time we get together. That and the house and yard are always trashed the next day.

Please don't respond to this on an individual basis. I am not calling anyone out. I am simply defining my boundaries for my home. Chris pays his own rent and can do what he sees fit but my shit ain't going out like that anymore.


Thanks for reading and pondering.

Watch It

I could reach my hands inside your mouth and split you open like a peach. The sadder that I get the worse I talk about it.
I have violence in me like breakers, doll- they swell, and ebb- but that's not what this is. It's more the way things should be, a return to the quiescent state before you grew your grand ideas. You never shammed me, doll.
I could count the drops of sweat that beaded on your young little lip.
This backlash, now- how sad, oh bunny, pobrecita, dear. Did you fuck it all up? Did you derail and lose what little respect you held cogent 'gainst your oft-flashed ass? Did you ruin something you wanted so goddamn bad you'd mark up corny books of poetry, or flowers, and leave them shivering on my doorstep?
Did you have no one else to blame?
How cute that now you're coughing up your bile. You'll lose the taste for it, sad babydoll, oh dear.
Don't let your cunt, or drink, turn you into another skidmark bimbo on the scene. Oh yeah- I'm mean- But never were to you.
Don't fuck my memory to ease your choices made. I've had enough of taking punches for the decade, peach. Your whole ripe shell would shuck in half and settle to the sawdust in a pile. It's age, and care for my self that's made me treat folk well.
Yeah, sure, they listen when I speak; and I do love to laugh. You'll listen too if I lose that keynote bit, and tear your fake in half.
Thanks for the fucking photo.

Broken Social Scene

Liz had a pile of them, now.
They'd accumulated, somehow; a chipdrift 'gainst her laptop by the door, heavy little lightweight bits, so useless by themselves. Invaluable to those they'd left. The Philistines, Liz liked to say- under her breath to friends in places without crowds. She'd never liked a crowd.
Now Liz was from Los Angeles, or thereabouts. This meant two things. One, she refused to walk. For chumps, walking- for the goddamn birds. Two, she was sick to death of people. Pressed against her, breathing on her, pawing sloppily at countertops with warm beer slopping on their hands and eyes. She had a poet's soul, she'd tell her friends, and crowds do not a poem make.
Whatever, said her friends. We're going to see the Schmunkaholics at Johnny's on Second.
But this required walking. Philistines.
It was a year back when the Bluetooths began integrating. Sounds funny, don't it? A jeweler and a neuroscientist whipped the whole business up at UC Berkeley- the start of it was hearing aid implements and how they interacted with the brain itself, if the eardrum was bypassed. Folk with shattered ears could hear again, allowing one small wire and something like a transducer pickup on the skull. Punch it straight through to meat and voila! Sound- the world restored.
So this scientist, a capitalist at beating heart, decided to push things further, and called upon a jeweler friend. The standard slim clip Bluetooth, integrated into the ear's upper cartilage, could be wired straight into one's brain, eliminating cell radiation, extraneous equipment, and most hateful to Liz- the need to interact with one's fellows with any sort of decor or respect for personal space.
It was as if the hateful bar followed her everywhere now- everywhere, she was assaulted by stranger's intimate conversations- never sure who was schizophrenic, and who was just another integrated asshole.
Darcy was the first in her inner circle. They talked about it, tersely, in the back of a hookah lounge, hidden away in a booth. Darcy showed her how it was turned on and off. She had a piercer install hers- far more chic, more pleasing to the eye than an instore job, and lined with bit-green LEDs no bigger than a flea's tit. 'Well, what about showering?' Liz asked. She was immensely annoyed.
'You have to turn it off,' Darcy said. 'Look, its not a fucking product scanner, Liz. I'm not some corporate heist-monkey, here to ruin your world. Its just a fucking phone.'
'It's in your head.'
'Yeah, yeah.' Darcy had a sip of her drink. 'Its weird, though- spooked me out a bit. The guy who integrated me, holding this big wicked punch in one hand, a sautering pen in the other, says Don't ever, ever, remove my RIFD chip from the back unless its powered off. Rain- even a shower- won't hurt me, just maybe screw the electronics up. It's like pulling an external drive out of your computer without, um...'
'Ejecting it,' Liz offered. She drained her drink, and stood. Sighed. 'You want another? And you'd better still give me a ride, drunky.'
'Yeah, yeah.'
When Liz returned Darcy was on a call. Manly Banister, her o'ersized troubadour, no doubt, pooing sweet somethings into her ear. Only not into her ear, Liz seethed, a drink in each hand. Directly into her inconsiderate little brain! Past the ear and into meat itself! "Are you going to ignore me so you can talk into that thing?'
Darcy waved at her distractedly. 'A real person, Darcy,' Liz snapped. 'Right here, in front of you!' No response this time. Liz set both drinks roughly on one of the many abandoned tables and stalked up close to her friend. 'Philistine,' she hissed into her blinking ear, and thumbed the little chip off the node that wired away into Darcy's bright red hair.
When Darcy's head hit the table Liz shook her once, fear in her in growing shapes. Then she turned heel and split, clutching at the chip in what approached fixation. Darcy! Oh God, what did I-
Oh God...
They'd come after her soon, she knew. She tried to target random assholes; even put herself in crowded situations and just waited for the inconsequential jerk who'd yell to get his aural rape across. But those she knew just kept on integrating! She would show up for a chat with friends, and there was Ben, his still-raw instore blinking inanely as he talked around the people he had come to meet! She took care of him as he used the urinal (still talking), thumbing out his chip with practiced ease, watching with orgasmic glee as he slid down into the pool of bile and urinal cake. They'd connect the dots. Oh yes.
Liz slipped a hand under her shirt and thought of all those noxious eyes- going blank- fogging over when she reached behind as if to caress, and fucked their hardwired brain instead, her thumb a killswitch clitoris they just didn't see coming. Philistines, the lot of them.
All she knew was, when they did catch her- it was going to make one hell of a screenplay.

'Cause mami's a rida and I'm a roller

The sun poured out of the sky, long and hot like kettles of oil onto the early afternoon as she poured buckets of water over her wellies in the ditch behind the barn. Blood mixed with water and human filth and ran pink and cloudy into the mud. Liz craned her head to the left and reached into the hole in her neck. Flesh ran crusty up against her pale and uncalloused fingertips and the dried blood of last night's examples clung in riverbeds of burned saffron down the back of her translucent hands. Beneath her squalid cattleman's hat she scowled over the landscape that lay cringing under the hot hot sun. Moistened with sweat, dried with nocturnal winds, wetted with sweat and dried again in the morning sun- her black hair stuck in hooks around her face as the lion's fur nearest his mouth stands erect for the first hour after a particularly vociferous feeding.

Her slate eyes flickered in blue rage as she found another gash, this time on her cheek. Anger diminished apace and perturb gave way to tenderness as a golden-maned child came bounding from behind the truck.

"Ma ma!" cried the child and threw her arms around Liz's sticky neck. The child's arms adhered to the sweaty blood and tears of last night's toilings.

"Hello, little girl." Liz winced and she scooped the child into her arms. Her husband, Jake, rounded the corner and handed her a cup of coffee and newspaper.

The rebel attacks grew in 1973. Liz had been hired by her brother's firm to come down and get some sunshine in her family's life while providing the surreptitious muscle for government enforcement of rules during the resettling effort. Having accomplished all she could professionally as a psychologist specializing in experimental therapies in London, she had spent four years in Hamburg before being recruited to Rhodesia the year their daughter and only child, Charlemagne, was born.

By moving her research to Africa she accomplished an atmosphere of untethered creativity while also serving her Homeland.

Once Dr. Shattler's experiments were finished and the bodies incinerated, a canvased truck would lumber dark and leathery as a rhinoceros over quiet night roads. Bumpy tree roots of roads which clucked and moaned with daylight traffic of chickens, goats, landless farmers and women with loads of household burdens. The truck would squeal strangely in the silent yard and after a loud knock a door would swing back timidly like the hatchets of children. The sleepy-eyed ghosts were told their missing relative had been located and to come right away to the hospital. The translator was typically shot on site once the family had been secured in the truck. The rebels families were driven blindfolded to a swath of dirt which lay gummy and hard beneath their huddling bodies under the cold African sky until the sun came to reveal the day's intentions.

During the three years she conducted her research, a documented 750,000 blacks were resettled in 200 equally-documented Villages- as they were called at the time.

She was managing the wing of government that would eventually become the Psychological Operations Unit in 1977. The literature outlines in part, a goal of "creating emphasis of 1 POU operations against the terrorists structured toward psychological confusion of the enemy with the objective of so undermining his morale that he becomes unwilling to fight and is encouraged to defect from the forces of communism."

Alas that would not be published until after Dr. Shattler had been killed, her husband remarried and her child... well. That story needs to be told, but not now.

She kissed her husband on the inside of his hand and took the coffee and paper. On the page he had folded back was printed the list of guidelines her brother's office had drawn up for the citizenry considering harboring terrorists calling themselves rebels.


Restrictions will be posed upon all of you and your Tribal Trust Land and Purchase Land:

1. Human curfew from last light to 12 o'clock daily.
2. Cattle, yoked oxen, goats and sheep curfew from last light to 12 o'clock daily.
3. No vehicles, including bicycles and buses to run either in the Tribal Trust Land or the African Purchase Land.
4. No person will either go on or near any high ground or they will be shot.
5. All dogs to be tied up 24 hours each day or they will be shot.
6. Cattle, sheep and goats, after 12 o'clock, are only to be herded by adults.
7. No juveniles (to the age of 16 years) will be allowed out of the kraal area at any time either day or night, or they will be shot.
8. No schools will be open.
9. All stores and grinding mills will be closed.


"Do you work tonight?" Jake asked, picking up her duffel and heading toward the house where the behemoth, savage dogs were clamoring and howling, stretching chains to their capacity in the entry yard. The canines silenced as she approached and sat quietly as she reached into her knapsack for some treats. Three hands, curled and black with dirty fingernails landed in a stiff and flat thud on the ground in front of the dogs.

Liz sighed heavily and put the paper in her shirt pocket, "Yes. Until these animals figure out how to behave like civilized beings, yes. I will always work tonight."

Cripes

I, famished, ate the dross from off her eyes, and sated, pushed her newlit to the swelling world.

She Slipped

And as she drew her last breath, she stared up to the sky with wonder. She saw the clouds huddling closer together, the blue was beginning to hide, the clouds darkened and it rained. She could taste the first few drops as she closed her eyes and died.


He couldn't hold on, lost his grip. Whose idea was this?


They went up the one hundred and twenty flights of stairs to sit on the roof. They crawled if they had to, took small breaks to rest. He thought this would be a romantic spot to propose. The view, my God, the view. She wanted to see it from the edge. He told her no. It was slippery and still she insisted on looking over. My God, the view.

I should've seen you was trouble right from the start

They arrive in a quiet invasion on the night streets of July, silver rims clatter against chain link and the side yard becomes a flashing hall wheels and red lights. Hours have been spent in the deafening sun ducking under aquamarine rooftops filling the ears with wet and the hair with chlorine. In the twilight, natty cotton has been retired for breezy linen. The grip of summer is white knuckled but still fully intact. His face is healed from last weeks tousle with the asphalt and her dress hangs comfortably from her shoulders. The guy with a guitar keeps smoking while the guy with college and wine collects names like Brynne and Cami. They raise glasses and empty them with gusto- over and over. They run forks against porcelain and paper alike and hold hands on the stoops releasing the last heat of daylight beatings. Wishes suspend themselves in the still, still air over their heads and the dogs bark down the alley. This is what they look forward to each February and what they remember sweetly each November.
Then comes the breeze marking two hours until comes the sun, here. With the stirring of Cottonwoods wishes are dispersed, beds are found, lovers are vanquished and the surreptitious day creeps out of gardens and parking lots.

How To Proceed

'Tell them what you mean, little miss.' Her Daddy trails a feral shape out from his pipesmoke mouth and doesn't cough. 'Look at them square in eyeballs and you tell them what you mean. You will be rude for twenty years; stupid for longer; but you'll be that which we need, little miss.'
She tucks her precious hands beneath her hem and gazes on him with gravity. 'But,' she pipes, 'but Daddy, you say be polite.'
'Humph,' her Daddy humphs, 'that's it, though. Treat a soul politely, offer them what's yours, and blast them out the water when their falsehoods gather. Prudence will come to you, little miss. Sycophants ain't polite; they're sycophants.'
'Sick of pants!' she squeals.
'Sick in pants,' he counters grandly, and he coughs. Some stringy tar like bark flings hotly down his wrist.
'Daddy?'
'Little miss?'
'You gots to not smoke, Daddy. I heard of it.' She stands and puts her precious hands on his knees, and looks him square in the eyeballs. 'Stop smoking, Daddy.'
He hits her, hard, and laughs as she gets up off the floor.
'That a girl, little miss!' Her eyes well up, betrayed. 'Now, now, pup, don't bawl for that. That was your reward. Your Daddy gots to quit smoking? You tell the dumb son of a bitch. And when he smacks you for it, smile, little miss.' He stands and picks her gently up in arms, and hands his warmish pipe down to her precious hands.
A tear pops loose, and curls down to her nostril well. She throws the pipe against the wall- all spark and soot and ugly little burst of wood on wood. He howls with laughter; she is silent still. 'Remember that I struck you, little miss. That's gonna happen most every time.' He sighs and buries his face in her hair. She clutches at his ears. 'And every time they's gonna keep getting smaller, little miss. They shrink, and with each blow, you grow.'
The dawn breaks, thin and dusty through the cellar windows, thinned through bushes. She can see the Mason jars screwed into the beams, their lids nailed up. She can see the mess of his pipe, the mess cats leave, mice leave.
She can hear the birds heartening, maybe a creak in the floorboards overhead. She can feel her Daddy's monstrous mitt still shock against her cheek; she sees his scruffy beard.
She can feel a warmth for him that hurts her teeth, somewhere married to her heart- against her ribs. She hates him, too. She wonders at her ratty dress and he just puts her down, and goes and stands against the wall, his arms at angles to the brick.
'One day, little miss,' her Daddy says, so soft it sifts out from his lips, 'someone will want something from you that you can't give. And you will rod that little spine of yours and tell them what you think of them. And they will hurt you, pup. They's gonna hurt you like you never known. Happened to me. Happened to your mother, to your teachers, to the Lord himself. And when you've taken all they care to give, you'll have that for yourself. You'll have the power of their secrets, little miss. They'll leave your broken spirit or your broken bones a cowardly mess, and you'll just rise up, darling. Big like mountains cause you looked them square in they eyeballs, and you told them what you think.'
'Daddy?'
'Little miss?'
'I don't want em to hurt my mother.'
'No, pup; I know.'
'Or you, or me.'
'Or the Lord?' She shrugged; he barks a laugh, and turns off from the wall. 'Little miss, people hurt each other. It's what they do. It may just be an embarrassment. It may be hell itself. But you're gonna take them, pup, even if you wake up in a pile of blood.' He scoops her up again. 'You know what I believe, little miss?'
She shakes her head, eyes wide. 'I believe it's no sin to lose. To fall, to smother; to have to take another man's garbage in your mouth. You just have to keep your spirit in your eyes, and your will in your hands, cause behind every boarding house door they's poets dying, pup. On every wooded hill a congressman is crying out his eyes. Each overpass has the messiah howling, mad on truth and mouthwash to his lungs, and dying slow and sure beneath our notice. I believe those things we build to make us feel like what we've done is something doing- all those things are tablecloths. The wood beneath is warped and split and that is how we are, people- twisted as a corkscrew, shining just as bright. And all we've lost is truth, little miss.
'It's a tiny thing. It'll kill us all before it heals us.' Her Daddy takes a breath and looks at her intently. 'Do you understand, darling?'
'No, Daddy,' and she begins to cry.
'Good,' he whispers. 'Good.'
And when the floorboards sift from footfalls over head, and they go out amidst the weeds, the low sun ain't as bright as she had thought, the dying stars just tinfoil. The trees are shrubs with grand intentions, and the birds the egos of the insects 'neath the leaves and loam. But there's her Daddy, big as mountains in the cold and damp, his broad back holding up the world from off her precious eyes, his wide hand pointing out the way to start-
To hold up just a little bit, each day, and take that extra step alive-
Your spirit in your eyes, and your will in your hands, and your own Truth fresh blood upon the lips of anyone who calls you false, little miss, I promise. You can rule them all, if that is what you want. There are gods with less in them than you.
I tell you what is true.

Flight

Don't give me any snarky "what about rockets and airplanes and helicopters and hang-gliders" comments. I don't need that bullshit.


So loudly sounding, the song of the wren,
Feathers flutter through wind so restless,
And hollow bones float easily weightless,
Lovely flight inspiring dreams of men.

Ever held to gravity, man has been,
To touch the stars, a wish I now confess,
Forever doomed to dream, and write, and guess,
And never soar the skies, feet planted in.

How is it that the heart is free to fly?
And minds can travel anywhere in time?
But the body can only pantomime,
To lift my heavy feet from where they lie.
Since the dawn of man he has wished to soar,
But rooted down he shall stay evermore.

Write what you know...

So, in case it wasn't painfully obvious last Wednesday, writing has not been coming as easily to me lately. In particular, there is one story that has become the mental equivalent of a kidney stone, in that I need to get it out, but it ain't coming easy. Hopefully, this strange little vignette here signals the return of my muse (whom I've christened Zeke) from wherever his dumbass went for the first half of July. It's called "Write What You Know".

Write what you know. That's the first rule of writing.

Write every day, that's another rule. Write every day whether you want to or not, whether your muse comes down and hands you an idea that will get you every acclaim from the Man Booker Prize to Oprah's Book Club or whether your muse just comes down and hands you a big pile of reeking shit.

When you're writing, don't take the time to go back and edit it. Get the story down first, as fast as you can, like you're vomiting onto the paper, and then go back and see what's story and what's just puke.

He's heard all of these rules a hundred times, no, a hundred thousand, and yet he still can't write. It's not won't, he wants to write like the desert wants the rain, but he can't. Every time his fingers click down on the keys, they produce nothing more than uninteresting scenes with characters that he hates, or worse yet, feels nothing for. At one point he looks up to see what he has typed and sees the following sentence on screen:

Why the fuck can't I do this any more?

It is not a part of the narrative, it is not a witty piece of dialogue, it is not even a clunky piece of dialogue. It is just there in the middle of the screen, related to nothing. It does nothing to advance the plot, and yet, sadly, he thinks that it is the truest sentence he's written all day. Maybe the truest he's ever written.

He gets up, pacing the small confines of his apartment. Write what you know, that was his main problem. He's not a very interesting person, he'll be the first to admit it. He doesn't have an interesting job, he isn't going to school for anything interesting, he doesn't even have any interesting hobbies. As for reading, forget it. He never had time to read in the first place, and the most riveting fiction he's read lately is the turn-ons and turn-offs column for Miss December.

He doesn't even know any people who are interesting enough to swipe wholesale and transcribe onto a sheet of paper. He doesn't know anyone with any life threatening diseases or fascinating jobs or homicidal tendencies. Hell, he doesn't think he even knows anyone that's been robbed. All of his friends are drab, lifeless facsimiles of himself, people who were below the notice of most people, people who seemed doomed to lives in the service sector.

He doesn't have time to read, that's his main problem. He wonders where he got the idea that he would be able to write the Great American Novel when he doesn't even have time to read the back of cereal boxes anymore. Right now, even, while he stares at his computer screen, begging and pleading with his subconscious to burp up anything resembling a story, all he can hear from his brain is a mental litany of everything he's putting off to stare at this white screen. Even worse, it's not his own mental voice that he hears listing everything off. Instead, it is the whining, nasal voice of his bosses' secretary, and it is so clear that he can picture her, right down to her cat's eye glasses, attached to a chain that looked like it had once had a pen on the other end, and she is reading them in a bored voice.

Christ, even his subconscious was bored. He needs to go out and do something, do some research, live a little fer Chrissakes'. He stands up and walks over to the bookshelf, closing his eyes and running his fingers along the spines at random. He promises himself that whatever he pulls from the shelf, he'd go out today, right now, and research. No, not just research. Live, do, experience.

He runs his fingers along the spines for a few more minutes, trying to disorient himself, trying to forget that everything was in alphabetical order, that he had actually organized it by subject as well, and wondering what he would do if he pulled a biography off the shelf, wondering whether he would go out and impersonate that person, or whether he would simply try to live as they had. For a moment, he loses himself in the nearly inaudible piff-piff-piff his index finger makes as it jumps from spine to spine, from subject to subject.

After a moment, with a final piff, his finger stops, and he opens his eyes to see what the fates have decided.

He sees the title his finger has stopped on, and, smiling slightly, pulls the book down from the shelf and begins to peruse The Serial Killer's Encyclopedia.