Hotel Story, Chapter Part One

You won’t believe the things you see as a hotel concierge. Granted, you probably see the same amount of crazy stuff, or even more if you have a job like being a taxi driver or a motel owner or diner waitress or 24 hour convenience store clerk. Any job where you have to see a lot of different people means you’re going to get exposed to the wacky and weird side of humanity. The creepy side too. I once had to greet a delegation of vampires at three in the morning. No joke. They arrived all in black, and pale and kept sniffing me and looking pointedly at my neck. Apparently they were there for a convention. I didn’t see them before sunset once, and they left at three am too. The kitchen staff tells me all the ordered was champagne and raw meat. To my credit, they kept coming tour hotel every time the convention was located here. Of course, to truly be exposed to the full spectrum of the incredible condition it is to be human you have to live-in a big city. The kind that gets tons of people moving through it on a daily basis. I’ve been at this business for fifteen years, and I feel I’ve become a connoisseur of sorts. A connoisseur of the magical thing it is to be human, Homo sapiens, to be us. The best place to really see people is the graveyard shift. Sure the day shift is good too, man I’ve seen things there, things like wedding proposals, an orangutan escape his cage and be chased by the magician employing it, heart attacks, breakups, makeups, I even helped a woman deliver her baby on the lobby floor. The baby, a boy called Paul Gilbert Ollivander, was born healthy and strong. He’s fifteen now by my count. His dad was so grateful he sent me an ice sculpture of my face. Life sized. Mine’s a weird town folks. The day shift is nice, but it’s too…normal. After years of that I really wanted to see the dark, grimy, hidden side of society. So I took the graveyard shift. A boy did find what I was looking for and more. I’ve seen strange. A transsexual prostitute who asked a fellow concierge for some lip gloss before heading out on the town searching for her next trick. Suburban housewives having a night on the town with the husband, getting stone drunk and telling me their life stories. An off duty cop smoking weed in the hotel lobby with college kids half his age. They were promptly joined by a young couple in their midtwenties and a seventy year old lounge singer. He worked for the hotel though his act had been over for awhile. He’d been at the bar, drinking, when he smelled the tell tale scent of weed. Chaz, a twenty seven year old valet with dreadlocks and a nose ring confided me that he had been their dealer. I’ve seen rich hotel heiresses, all tipsy and wobbly from a night of partying hit on a Catholic priest (also attending a convention) because they believed he was Robert Redford. Funny part is, he really did look like Robert Redford. His friends even called him Bobby. Another celebrity look-a-like story, which is particularly memorable, is this. It was a hot, November night, slow, and boring. The only people that night in the lobby were me, Mindy (another concierge), a young college girl crying into her drink in one of the armchairs near the door, and Chaz, the drug dealing valet. Weird? Hardly. Welcome to my world. So anyway, there we are, sweating, staring, a quiet all over the place. It was 2:45 am. The outside, coming out of nowhere, is this blue, 1950s Cadillac, a beautiful machine, rolling smooth, engine purring. It pulls in front of the hotel, like a dream. A guy steps out. The guy, all smooth, dressed all in black, guitar strap slung over one shoulder, cutting across his abdomen. Mr. Cool. Looked just like Johnny Cash, and if I’m lying, I’m dying. So anyway, the guy walks in, with that effortless way you always wanted, all of him the guy you always wanted to be, like he owned the room. He was smoking, I remember. So he walks in, stands in the middle of the lobby and pulls of his sunglasses. All of it was something worthy of a Tarantino movie, and it was about to get better. He walks over to the girl, the one sitting forlornly in the armchair in the corner, and tucked his hand under her chin and pulled it up. “Why you crying baby? Pretty girl like you got nothing to cry about.” She stared up at him for a moment, kind of shocked and embarrassed, her big blue eyes framed by black lashes all clumped together by tears. She let her head drop gain and mumbled “My boyfriend.” Mystery guy looked at my as if to say can you believe that, or typical, or puh-lease, or told you so. Something like that. It was weird, the sudden jolt of camaraderie. Little did I know what was coming. Weird didn't even begin to cover it. Our lives were about to change because of a smooth talking stranger in a 1950s caddy.

Sand

Who decides right and wrong? Who decides which actions are worth punishment? I do not know. All I know is that one moment I was at home, watching Mother bake and going to school and playing games in the back yard. The next I was on a bus headed to a camp, that’s the only word everyone said when they tried to explain, I heard relocation camp, interment camp, and even concentration camp. I was afraid. I was being forced to move away. I was just seven. What did I know of war, of hate? I’d never been to the desert and then there I was living in Gila River in Arizona. I’d only ever seen Arizona in maps before. My parents tried to take our situation lightly and keep the seriousness of it from me, but I could tell something was wrong. Especially because of my older brother Yoji. He was ten years older than me. He hated the camp and hated the fact that the government decided we weren’t American. As soon as he turned eighteen he enlisted and was taken to France. We never saw him again. My younger sister Ruth was three, thank God and she doesn’t remember the harsh reality we faced. She didn’t remember the sand in her hair or face, or the tension in the air, or the tears of mother’s who lost their sons in a world across the ocean. I couldn’t understand why we were there. why all around me there were people that looked like my siblings, like my father, like Mrs. Yamamoto down the block, who made cookies and lemonade and treated me like a granddaughter, were locked up, under the hot sun, necks craned towards the sky, as if wishing to be free like birds. Later I would hear that Gila River was the least oppressive of these types of camps, but the sadness in the air and the desire to be free was just as strong as anywhere else. There were too many of us too, and the infirmary was kept busy by rattlesnake bites and scorpion stings. There were still fences and men looking at us with suspicion in their eyes. Didn’t they know that father was just as patriotic as all the other men on our block? That Yoji didn’t even feel Japanese? That I was the only third grader in my school to know all the American presidents all the way back to George Washington? However, the fact that we were Americans prisoners in our country wasn’t what bothered me the most. What bothered me was the fact that those who imprisoned us looked like my neighbors and classmate and teachers too. They looked like my best friend Penny, who was my exact same dress size, so we would switch sometimes during recess. They looked like Tyler Mayhew, who I had a crush on, even though he said all girls were nasty and slimy. Boys. They looked like Mr. Penn who ran the corner grocery tore I’d walk to from my house. They looked like my teachers and people I passed in the street. They looked like some of Yoji’s friends, or Ruth’s. I remember the taste of that was much more bitter than sandy water.

This piece was supposed to show the point of view of a girl in the Gila River facility that housed Japanese American being interned during WW2. I picked Gila River because it was more humane but still a camp and in the desert, which therefore includes all the hazards of the land. It is located on Gila River Tribe land and is currently restricted by the Tribe.

Revision

Anatomy
Though I was once a man, now all that remains of me is dust, and a stray rib bone. I am, as you can surmise, dead, and buried. Several years ago, in fact. I don't know exactly how many, but I know they’ve been plenty. It takes time to turn into dust. My death was a rather stupid one, looking back. I worked on ships, you see, and I was going to jump unto a row boat, from the ship, to row back into the city. The ship I was working on was big, and needed deep waters. It had to anchor further out that port and to get there I had to take a row boat. I went that far out, just enough. Just enough that there were no others around, nobody to help, enough water to drown. I stuck my leg out, trying to reach the small boat and I fell. The world kind of spun on me. I fell into the water, which was looking rather black that day. I remember it was cold. I must’ve hit my head. Next thing I know, I’m laying in some room. I was warm, because there was canvas sheet on top of me. I drearily realized I was dead, and the shock wasn't really there in the way you'd expect. Maybe it was the fact my heart was no longer pumping, so no adrenaline or whatever. Anyway, I lay there, awake but not, there but not, and noticed I maintained some feeling in my body, in the nerves somehow, like a sort of tingly sensation. As if I was straining to feel, and, well, losing the struggle. Then someone came in, maybe two someones. I think I heard two voices, came, and I was moved, I'm not sure how, into an adjoining room. I was laid on a cold wooden table, and men crowded around me. One man began to speak to the audience, and I realized he must be the oft commented Dr. Tulp. And I, an honorary, and unnoticed, member of his mostly captive audience. Unfortunately my mind tuned the beginning conference out and it thought of rotting meat instead, like they kind I’d see tossed out of butcher’s stand in the market, black and stinking, covered in worms and wondered if the maggots and bugs were coming for my soon to be rotting corpse too. Sounds morbid, yes, but I knew then, somehow, that I was just part of a grand design, drawn by a master’s hand. My death would feed the worms, they would in turn make the soil fertile, the soil would bear grass, grass feed cows, cows would feed humans, and the circle would start again. It was beautiful, and I had to die to fully understand. Funny, really, if you think about it. Then Tulp and his spectators moved closer and I saw, or felt I saw, like out of the corner of my eye, Tulp move towards my side, and felt air in or on my hand, but softly, like breath. I don’t know what he did; only the tinglyness was fading. I know I seem dreadfully aware for a dead man, but memory is all I have. I seem to have gotten it back in full force after I died, perhaps because my mind was no longer preoccupied with issues of the present, or fearing the hypothetical future. I was no more, so memory was the only place I could live. There is knowledge, wisdom that comes with death. Wisdom of all things, of what grand design we are working towards, and the simply intelligence to objectively look back on our lives and judge them for meaning. I remember things I’d forgotten, like the way my daughter first lock of hair smelt, or the exact color of the sky on my wedding day. To be honest, I lost all track of Tulp’s lesson, and my burial. I was there, but not. I existed, and did not. Then I was in a cold coffin. The last ghost of feeling I had was a coldness on my face that may have been a worm, but I’m not certain. With the remnants of consciousness that I do, did, will, have I wondered whether there was a heaven or hell. Was I being punished by this sort of here-and-not state, or were we all? Or is this what heaven looks like? Now I wonder, if this I the end for all, are we all sinners? Or are we simply more magical than we believe? I do not know. But I do know that my final time of rest is coming and I will finally be no more than bone dust. Hopefully.



Meat
The day I lost my hand started like any other. Waking up in the old bed, in the same old town, with the same old morning rain turning everything outside my window gray. I swung my foot over the edge of the bed, onto the frayed old woven rug on the cool wood floorboards, stared at the same point on the wall. Behind me, like any morning, my wife Louise was still asleep, curled up in the little concave dent in the center of the mattress, looking tired even then. Then, like any morning, I got up, got in the shower, washing away the sweet scent of dreams and replacing it with the acrid stench of reality. No way up and no way out, just the same old road, heading nowhere fast in the same old rundown miserable town. Like any kid I’d had dreams, but not anymore. No college came my way, no great job offers, or bombshell women. Just my plain old neighbor Louise with her less than average looks and her secretarial position at an accountants’ office and my own job at the meat packing plant like every other guy in town. Men you used to be dreamers now spend their days elbow deep in the flesh of animals. A five to ten job, that’s am to pm. With that I managed to scrape enough together for a house and kids and a decent enough wedding. Like everyone else. Anyway, that morning, it was a Saturday I remember, though it’s not like it matters, I went downstairs, grabbed some coffee and a lunch pail, and headed out, into the usual morning downpour. My truck was cold, as always, and the radio off. I put both my hands on the wheel, turned the key, and started out. I turned on the radio and the let the dial spin on its own, like a little top, trying to find a station, not really caring where it ended up landing. I thought of kids in the momentary silence, still asleep, tiny bodies in tiny beds. They must be dreaming, I thought. That morning, it’s amazing what you remember, the song playing was a sad old song, sung in a woman’s voice, talking about love. It was probably older than my father was, but it was a good song. Slow, steady, had good backing musicians. I heard a piano, and a flute, maybe a trumpet or an oboe. Memory can surprise you. I can remember those little things, but I can’t remember what went wrong that day. Something must’ve gone wrong; I remember the feeling in my gut. Anyway, I pulled up, parked and walked in. went to the lockers, pulled off my flannel coat, and put on the white smock thing that counts as the uniform, and my one blue glove. See at the plant I worked a small lonely station in the assembly line. I couldn’t see anyone, as there was a white chute on my right and a white machine on my left. I knew there was a guy beside that machine, on the other side, but I couldn’t see him because of the machinery’s sheer size, so it made no difference. My job was to make sure the meat got cut properly. A big square of meat came down the chute every few minutes, landed on the belt. I pushed a blue button and the meat moved to the center of the belt, in front of me, and stopped. A big shiny bade came down and cut the meat in half. Then I stuck out my blue glove and moved the meat. Waited awhile, the blade came down again, and you get four pieces of meat. Four neat little squares. No fuss, no sound, no bleeding. Just a big square, a blade, and four small squares. The conveyor belt came to life then and moved the meat into the machine on my left. Repeat. It goes on forever, from five to ten, meat comes in, meat goes out. Slice, slice in the middle. Supposed to be safe. Anyway, that must have been piece one hundred that day, right before noon, when it happened. Slice, meat in two pieces. Then a blank. All I remember is my vision going shaky and red and white. I look down, and my glove is gone with my hand still inside. The meat was still in two pieces, I hadn’t moved it. Remember puzzling as to why I hadn’t done that, as my vision grew increasingly hazy and taking to time to stare and then meat, then watching my stump. Someone screamed. Then I remember only blackness and silence. I woke up at four pm the next day, in the county hospital, my hand gone, Louise by my side. There were a couple of officials from the plant, babbling about freak accidents and employee safety and whatnot. I wasn’t interested. Then they gave me a check, a check for a bunch of money, for my “disability settlement requirement” or some such thing. Hush money. Still I took it and ran. Ran, chasing after the sun, chased it all the way to California. I drove, not caring about the fact that I only had one hand, one was good enough. It was like waking up from a long slumber to realize you were living in a dream, roaring down dusty roads, a beautiful woman in the front seat, money in your pocket, kids in the back. That trip was a good, fun thing that still warms my chest when I think of it. We drove like there was no world, no responsibilities. The windows down, radio up, kids strapped up in the back, Louise in front next to me. I had one hand on the wheel, one eye on the horizon, the other on Louise, all four of us singing the songs on the radio. The moon and stars winking up above, the kids asleep, Louise’s head on my shoulder, the sun coming up in a pink mist, the engine purring. All the possible colors in sunrises and sunsets painting the sky, white fluffy clouds making shapes above. Louise looking beautiful in the evening sun, the world looking like a play ground. Looking back, and thinking, I see now that driving like that, you could drive forever and never stop, never look back. Forever. I like the sound of that.

Untitled

In need of Rescue,
I called out,
for
a champion,
a warrior,
a knight.

Down he came,
like roling thunder,
on icy hills,
Blood of slayed dragons,
staning
his horse's white
heels

Two wings,
on his back
pillars of strength
trimmed like those of eagles,
or angels,
or kings.

He stood before me,
stoic and elegant,
my foes defeated
and still
at his feet.

In that moment,
I was unafraid.

Anatomy

Though I was once a man, now all that remains of me is dust, and a stray rib bone. I am, as you can surmise, dead, and buried. Several years ago, in fact. I don't know exactly how many, but I know they’ve been plenty. It takes time to turn into dust. My death was a rather stupid one, looking back. I worked on ships, you see, and I was going to jump unto a dingy, to get back to land. I want that far out, just enough. I stuck my leg out, and I fell. The world kind of spun on me. I fell into the water, which was looking rather black that day. I remember it was cold. I must’ve hit my head. Next thing I know, I’m laying in some room. I was warm, because there was canvas sheet on top of me. I drearily realized I was dead, and the shock wasn't really there in the way you'd expect. Maybe it was the fact my heart was no longer pumping, so no adrenaline or whatever. Anyway, I lay there, awake but not, there but not, and noticed I maintained some feeling in my body, in the nerves somehow, like a sort of tingly sensation. As if I was straining to feel, and, well, losing the struggle. Then somehow came, and I was moved, I'm not sure how, into an adjoining room. I was laid on a cold wooden table, and men crowded around me. One man began to speak to the audience, and I realized he must be the oft commented Dr. Tulp. And I, an honorary, and unnoticed, member of his mostly captive audience. Unfortunately my mind tuned the beginning conference out and it thought of rotting meat instead and wondered if the maggots and bugs were coming for my soon to be rotting corpse. Sounds morbid, yes, but I knew then, somehow, that I was just part of a grand design, drawn by a mater’s hand. My death would feed the worms, they would in turn make the soil fertile, the soil would bear grass, grass feed cows, cows would feed humans, and the circle would start again. It was beautiful, and I had to die to fully understand. Funny, really, if you think about it. Then Tulp and his spectators moved closer and I saw, or felt I saw, like out of the corner of my eye, Tulp move towards my side, and felt air in or on my hand, but softly, like breath. I don’t know what he did; only the tingly ness was fading. I know I seem dreadfully aware for a dead man, but memory is all I have. I seem to have gotten it back in full force after I died, perhaps because my mind was no longer preoccupied with issues of the present, or fearing the hypothetical future. I was no more, so memory was the only place I could live. I remember things no I’d forgotten, like the ay my daughter first lock of hair smelt, or the exact color of the sky on my wedding day. To be honest, I lost all track of Tulp’s lesson, and my burial. I was there, but not. I existed, and did not. Then I as in a cold coffin. the last ghost of feeling I had was a coldness on my face that may have been a worm, but I’m not certain. With the remnants of consciousness that I do, did, will, have, I wondered whether there was a heaven or hell. Was I being punished by this sor tof here-and-not state, or were we all? Or is this what heaven looks like? Now I wonder, if this I the end for all, are we all sinners? Or are we simply more magical than we believe? I do not know. But I do know, that my final time of rest is coming and I will finally be no more than bone dust. Hopefully.

This is supposed to be the corpse’s P.O.V in the Rembrandt painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp. I’ve changed a bunch of the facts and I’ve operated outside many of the constraints, but still, I think I’ve rendered a likable dead body. Here is the wikipedia entry; which includes an image of the painting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomy_Lesson_of_Dr._Nicolaes_Tulp

City of the Dead

A recurring theme in Diego Navarro’s drug addled nightmares was his family’s plot in the Recoleta cemetery. Before becoming the man he was he would visit with his parent and brother every Sunday; to visit relatives, and make sure their eventual place of rest was cared for. Though the visits to the city of the dead were common in the affluent circle of society the Navarros belonged to, Diego had never been comfortable with the old place, feeling claustrophobic when inside its grey walls. What really made his skin crawl were the cats. They were everywhere, somehow having found away to sustain their populace in the quiet citadel, unafraid of the humans and often fed by the visitors. Diego’s nightmares had since them feature himself, closed in a small wooden coffin, feeling tight and breathless. He would be wearing his best suit, used for weddings and such, and he was surrounded by coffins and dust. He would then realize that he was interred in the family crypt, and when began to feel nervous, the real terror would start. In the darkness he would still somehow see the cat. The cat would come from some corner in the crypt, and it was large and grey and had green eyes. It would advance on Diego, eyes and fangs shining with light from some unseen source, its breath hot on his face. He always awoke before it began to eat him alive. His parents would shrug off his dreams, saying that being buried in the cemetery was a great honor, and expensive. And that he would never be buried alive in the crypt, or that cats didn’t eat corpses. It didn’t soothe his fears. As he got older, he outgrew the fears, at least for awhile. As a teenager, he was curious, and rich. A bad combination. It started small, cigarettes and alcohol, then cocaine and ecstasy, and then heroin. Soon all he could think of was heroin and his next score. He tried to stop, but after the high wore off he felt a pain in his legs so intense he had no words for it. It was like fire pokers and knives and glass. Then it got worse, and he got kicked out of his home, a beautiful penthouse that looked down o Buenos Aires. People looked like ants from there, and they really were nothing but bugs to his parents anyway. When he was cast out, he too became an insect. He lived in an old rotting abandoned apartment building, with the other junkies, on a ratty mattress needles in his arm, his head in the clouds. The drug dreams started out well, blue blue skies, sweet smelling grass, fast cars, beautiful women. Then the skies turned dark bloody red, the women into harpies, the car into a coffin. And the cat came again. This time, Diego could not pull himself out of the drug addled stupor, and would feel horribly lucid as he experienced the feeling of the cat’s jaw eating his face. Soon the drugs became too much, a cruel mistress and Diego dreamt only of death, no blue skies or women, just monstrous cats and grinning skeletons. One November night, with the steely needle in his arm, Diego felt something different, like a snap, like his lifeline finally became too weak and frayed under his weight. He felt his skin bubble and burst, his head float and his feet simultaneously freeze and boil. An overdose, he thought, with clinical detachment. He was dying, and he knew this. Idly, with his last breath, he wondered if he’d be buried in the Recoleta. Strange, he thought with a smile, the cats and the creepy old place seem like home now. Then his heart stopped.

This was created during a dinner table conversation where my mom reminded my brother and me that drugs were bad and heroin the worst possible drug, and then we veered off into our trip to Argentina and I remembered all the cats at the Recoleta. This piece is…weird, I know.

Meat

The day I lost my hand started like any other. Waking up in the old bed, in the same old town, with the same old morning rain turning everything outside my window gray. Swung my foot over the edge of the bed, onto the frayed old woven rug on the cool wood floorboards, stared at the same point on the wall. Behind me, like any morning, my wife Louise was still asleep, curled up in the little concave dent in the center of the mattress, looking tired even then. Then, like any morning, I got up, got in the shower, washing away the sweet scent of dreams and replacing it with the acrid stench of reality. No way up and no way out, just the same old road, heading nowhere fast in the same old rundown miserable town. Like any kid I’d had dreams, but not anymore. No college came my way, no great job offers, or bombshell women. Just my plain old neighbor Louise and her secretarial position at an accountants’ office and my own job at the meat packing plant like every other guy in town. A five to ten job, that’s am to pm. Managed to scrape enough together for a house and kids and a decent enough wedding. Like everyone else. Any way, that morning, it was a Saturday I remember, though its not like it matters, I went downstairs, grabbed some coffee and a lunch pail, and headed out, into the usual morning downpour. My truck was cold, as always, and the radio off. I put both my hands on the wheel, turned the key, and started out. I turned on the radio and the let the dial spin on its own, like a little top, trying to find a station, not really caring where it ended up landing. That morning, its amazing what you remember, the song playing was a sad old song, sung in a woman’s voice, talking about love. It was probably older than my father was, but it was a good song. Slow, steady, had good backing musicians. I heard a piano, and a flute, maybe a trumpet or an oboe. Memory can surprise you. I can remember those little things, but I can’t remember what went wrong that day. Something must’ve gone wrong; I remember the feeling in my gut. Anyway, I pulled up, parked and walked in. went to the lockers, pulled off my flannel coat, and put on the white smock thing that counts as the uniform, and my one blue glove. See at the plant I worked a small lonely station in the assembly line. I couldn’t see anyone, as there was a white chute on my right and a white machine on my left. I knew there was a guy beside that machine, on the other side, but I couldn’t see him because of the machinery’s sheer size, so it made no difference. My job was to make sure the meat got cut properly. A big square of meat came down the chute every few minutes, landed on the belt. I pushed a blue button and the meat moved to the center of the belt, in front of me, and stopped. A big shiny bade came down and cut the meat in half. Then I stuck out my blue glove and moved the meat. Waited awhile, the blade came down again, and you get four pieces of meat. The conveyor belt came to life then and moved the meat into the machine on my left. Repeat. It goes n forever, from five to ten, meat comes in, meat goes out. Slice, slice in the middle. Supposed to be safe. Anyway, that must have been piece one hundred that day, right before noon, when it happened. Slice, meat in two pieces. Then a blank. All I remember is my vision going shaky and red and white. I look down, and my glove is gone with my hand inside. The meat as still in two pieces, I hadn’t moved it. Remember puzzling as to why I hadn’t done that, as my vision grew increasingly hazy, and watching my stump. Someone screamed. Then I remember only blackness and silence. I woke up at four pm the next day, in the county hospital, my hand gone, Louise by my side. There were a couple of officials from the plant, babbling about freak accidents and employee safety and whatnot. I wasn’t interested. Then they gave me a check, a check for a bunch of money, for my “disability settlement requirement” or some such thing. Hush money. Still I took it and ran. Ran, chasing after the sun, chased it all the way to California. I drove, not caring about the fact that I only had one hand, one was good enough. That trip was a good, fun, thing that still warms my chest when I think of it. We drove like there was no world, no responsibilities. The windows down, radio up, kids strapped up in the back, Louise in front next to me. I had one hand on the wheel, one eye on the horizon, the other on Louise, all four of us singing the songs on the radio. The moon and stars winking up above, the kids asleep, Louise’s head on my shoulder, the sun coming up in a pink mist, the engine purring. Louise looking beautiful in the evening sun, the world looking like a play ground. Looking back, and thinking, I see now that driving like that, you could drive forever and never stop, never look back. Forever. I like the sound of that.

Still Life

The train station is empty. Litter is on the floor, wrappers barely moving in the breeze. Chairs cooling, devoid of bodily warmth, abandoned. A child has forgotten a doll, clothed in pale pink clothing, made of porcelain, with dark brown curls, left on its side by the platform. The air is still, and growing heavier, gathering dust, like air in a tomb. There seemed to have been no hurry in the last departure, no overturned chair or apparent chaos, no, not hurry, rather forgetfulness. A book is opened to the fifteenth page, alone, its pages a stranger to the breeze. It seemed its owner had set it down to gather their things for leaving, and not remembering the book had been set down, the story barely begun. The forlorn pink doll still stares blankly out of its glassy eyes, and under a slightly askew chair lies a solitary wayward shoe, not big enough to be an adult’s. On one of the benches there sits a neatly wrapped triangular slice of cake, something a grandmother would save, its edge barely peeking out of the folds of the white polka dotted red napkin enveloping it. A flower had rolled onto the platform, dancing in the wind, perhaps picked y a passenger or brought there by the wind, a daisy, its white petals playing with the sunlight on the station floor. The shadows slip and slide on the walls, and darkened corners, as if throwing of shackles of shame that human eyes had brought, and in their freedom dancing in the absence of light. There is in a way life, but there is no sound, and the air grows heavier still. The world seems to have forgotten this place, leaving it on pause, and time takes a rest here. Above, the coal black claw of engine smoke still rips a hole through the sky, a tear in the heavens. The sound of the train, and it movement, has long since gone but the smoke remains, a dark reminder of purpose and the passage of events in a place of timelessness. The stillness of the moment fits the place like a perfect glove, a better skin than the bustle of activity. Desertedness suits the station, and while deserted it seems to peacefully watching the sky, going from light to dark and dark to light. Dawn and dusk. Anything that would’ve disturbed the quiet is long since gone, the only memory of it lies in a lonely bee on the floor, long since dead lying in the darkness. There is no light, there is no time, there is no sound. It is perfect.


An attempt at a written still life. Or it could be taken as a metaphor for death, as I now realize. Enjoy.

News of Departure

After the departure of the Heavenly Messenger, Aeneas wandered slowly along the stone halls of Carthage’s royal palace. The stones were yellow and marked by tools and the passage of time. He wondered how well Dido knew the stones and rooms of the building. He’d bet she could walk around blindfolded, and still maintain that grace about her. The strength in hr shoulders, the dainty positions of her feet, that mystery in her half smile, the endlessly mischievous light in her blue eyes, the way the light caught her golden hair at her shoulders and middle back. Aeneas was completely, hopelessly in love. And no it was the will of the gods that he leave her, and return to Troy, on a mission that seemed stupid and suicidal. He moved to one of the rough square window and looked out. Below him, looking like a child’s toy, was Carthage. And how he loved it. He’d been there very little time, but he already loved it, even more than he loved the sea beyond the tiny city, all blue green and undulating, with an inner pulse Aeneas had always tried to stay in tune with. It seemed so trivial now. He loved the winding narrow side streets of the city, and the wide main avenues, the scents and sights. His love of Carthage itself was eclipsed by his love for its queen, Dido herself. He thought back to where he had left her, curled up in her, their, bed. She looked more beautiful than a goddess, al smooth pearly white skin, her golden hair all around her in fan. Her scent was floral, and pure, like milk and honey and roses. He could breathe that in his whole life, and never get tired. He could sleep in that bed the rest of his life and never want for any other. He could have her as his wife for eternity, and always be like a newlywed in love. But he could not deny the gods either. Aeneas sent for a handmaid, and told her to give the order to his men; they would sail at midday the next day. He heard the whispers growing like the humming of a hornet’s nest throughout the palace. It would be all over Carthage within the hour. Soon, behind him he heard frantic running footsteps, light and nervous, and he knew it was her. Dido. His queen, his wrath, his fury, and how he loved her. He turned and there she was, all messy and upset, tears running down her face in rivulets. She looked beautiful. She was wearing white tunic, with blue spiky spirals, no sandals, her hair loose, her crown askew.

“You can’t go! You can’t!”

“Dido…”

“No! No! You don’t just get to leave! You’re mine Aeneas, mine and no one else’s. Not even Troy’s!”

She begun to cry as she shouted, and she brought her hand to her chest, hitting herself, but seeming to take no notice of the pain. Aeneas took a step forward and stopped. She wouldn’t, couldn’t understand. He turned around; it was easier not facing her. “I must go, love. My destiny is there, I cannot stay.” She took a deep gaspy breath behind him, and reach for his arm “Your destiny?! What about me?! Don’t you love me anymore?! You can’t leave, I won’t let you! Your not allowed!” his heart broke and he turned and took her into his arms. “I'm sorry. I do love you. So much. But I must go. The gods,” she snorted loudly at this “the gods will it. I’m so sorry. I must go. Come with me.” the last bit he added thoughtlessly, desperately, hoping to salvage something of the best moments of his life. Her face was pressed tightly to his chest; right on his heart and she shook her head wildly. She couldn’t go. They both knew that. She had to stay and be a queen to her people, heartbroken or not. He held her tight, trying to imbed the memory al firmly as he could. He knew he would need it for tough times ahead. For the long nights on the creaking wooden ship, where the slightest change of wind could cause his death in a storm. He would need to keep her scent close on the cold nights in the Trojan ruins. There would be many roadblocks and battles ahead, and he could almost smell the oily fishy smell of the tents he and his men would dwell in until buildings were constructed. The memory of Dido’s hair would be his comfort in the nights after the hard painful battles ahead. After all, empires were built on blood and stone and the wills of men combine with those of the gods. He had the will of the gods, there was more than enough blood coursing through his veins, and there stone in the hills of what was once Troy. But his own will was lacking. What he truly wanted was to lift Dido and carry her back to her, their, bedroom and make love to her. Then he would curl up beneath the feather cover with her, and sleep. When he woke, he would be King of Carthage. He wanted this more than anything, to marry her and give her sons and daughters and live in peace in Carthage. However, the desires of the gods override the desires of simple mortals, which are theirs to create and destroy to their will. Her hands reached out to encircle him, and they swayed slightly, both lost in their private and shared despair. Their destinies were set, not even love and blood and tears could erase the words set in stone. Their lives were spoken for. He would go, she would stay. She would die, of a broken heart. His fate was to break it. The time for that was coming, flying ever faster. However, the gods, in their infinite wisdom, granted them that one, perfect moment. The rest, were imperfect and painful, like all others.

Based on the performance today. The basic plot is theirs, but I don’t know if this is how it goes down in the opera. I could’ve checked, but where’s the fun in that? I’d have limited myself. Meant to count for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Contact

I stepped into the elevator without really looking, just like any other day. I usually ride it twice, once going down in the morning, once going in the afternoon. In the morning I’m usually still wolfing down a scone, trying to remember something for a Bio test. My Biology teacher is the devil, she really is. If I’m not doing that I’m totally in zombie mode, due to no sleep the night before, or I’m hyper and ready to start the day because I nicked my dad’s coffee of the table. Then, like a swimmer trained to leave the block and the gun, I fly out of the elevator and run down to the corner to catch my bus. The rest of my day is just an average day in the life of a high schooler. Forgive me, I’m boring and un-athletic. But I’m pretty, so it’s all good. Anyway, my next elevator ride is uneventful, the elevator is usually empty and I wouldn't chat anyway, I’m still plugged into my bipod, the only way to survive a bus ride with screeching kids and maintain your sanity. So anyway, I got on, and I stopped. You see, like any teenage eleventh grade girl, I like to take some time out of my day to visit my good friend Mr. Mirror. But today there was a face in the mirror. One of those childish, breathe into a mirror and fog it up, then draw on top. And yet there was something about it. I pushed the button without turning around or taking my eyes of the doodle, and kept looking. Even I’d made things like it on mirrors or metal, but you rarely saw anyone else’s drawing. It was special. Like me and the artist had a connection, if only for a second. Even if the artist was a total freak, who pulled of his/her fingernails and took drugs and kicked puppies, for that one moment, we were together. Like maybe I had someone to hold my hand, someone as scared as me about the future. The face was smiling, but there was an almost sad quality about it. I wanted to know this person, ask their name, know who they loved, and what that streak of sadness in their eyes was. It felt like finding the perfect match, like a soul mate. To know that my feet and hands touched places the other had touched, and that for one second, I was him, he was me, and I wasn’t alone or scared. It made me think of a comic my brother had shown me once. I was a man in a bathroom stall, looking at the graffiti, and though there were the usual penis drawings and so-and-so is gay, the main thing was a sentence reading “This graffiti is fleeting human contact both of us lost, but for a moment were lost together. I wonder who you are”. But I didn’t wonder. As the last tendrils of my friend’s breath faded, I knew who they were. An artist, a poet, my best friend, and a stranger. Smiling, I took a deep breath and misted up the glass once more, to the face was visible. Then I stepped outside. I wonder who saw it next.

The comic that is referred to is a strip of the online comic xkcd, which I do not own, and am hoping I will be forgiven for using. The strip in particular is called Graffiti, which can be found here: http://xkcd.com/229/. Once again, I do not own the line, and I did not write it. Someone else did, and I’m not trying to steal their work. The line stuck with me and spawned this. Hope you enjoyed.

Abduction

The sun was shining down cheerily on the dirt path when the father turned his head to glance at his family’s progress on the path behind him. He was satisfied when he saw they seemed to be doing alright, his wife and two youngsters moving quickly and easily on the trail. With any luck, they’d be at the top of the mount in half an hour. There they would rest and eat and take in the view. His mouth watered at the prospects of the cool clean spring water burbling happily in the distance. The family had set out on their hike in the early morning and it was now near the afternoon. The father smiled thinking of how close they were to their destination, and how beautiful the forest looked under the rays of sunlight poking through the leaves, and it was then that he heard a sound. A sound that immediately alarmed him. A twig snapping under a heavy footstep, about five yards to his left, behind a big gnarled tree trunk. “Everyone, get close” he said through clenched teeth, and his wife, the mother, immediately herded their offspring and placed them between the adults. The parents would protect their children at all costs. There was a sound from the same direction, but closer, and more whistle-y, like air rushing out of an irregular balloon. What ever was there, it seemed to notice that stealth was no longer necessary and stepped out from behind the trees unto the dusky road. The family’s eyes widened in shock and fear, and the mother noticed the beings carried with them a disturbing new scent. The aliens, as the father had no other word for them, were the most terrifying beings the four of them had ever seen. They were hairless and sort of shiny, but seemed to have a weird patch of uneven vegetation on their tallest point. Their eyes were small and close together and their color was incredibly ashen. The eyes very divided by a sort of half snout which was somewhat wide and stuck out, but was only as long as half the face, or what appeared to the father to be the face. They were incredibly tall and large, giants, and had long gangly limbs, though the pair touching the ground ended in two shapeless blocks, and the one above ended in a spindly shape which reminded him of spiders. The face part was the very ashen one in color, maybe like old meat, and the body was all sorts of different colors, which differed between the three creatures. Two had blue lower limbs, the other black, and the block parts were black for one, brown for another and white for the third. The top halves were a dazzling array of colors, like white, blue, green and red. The third also seemed to have more pale bits. He’d never seen anything more terrifying. “Stay back!” he growled at the monsters, stepping back slightly “I’m warning you!” meanwhile his kids shivered and whimpered behind him and his wife whispered to no one in particular “My God, what are they?...Aliens?...Demons?...My God…” the father yelled again, and tried to look threatening, but the things didn’t seem scared or even nervous. They were too big and muscle-y to feel threatened. The father then saw the turn to each other and make noises, which he thought meant they were talking. They way they talked was like nothing he’d ever heard, the things barely used their throats, and used many “s” and “r” sounds. The its made clicking noises occasionally, and he noticed how much of their face parts contorted and shifted when speaking. He noticed they had a fleshy thing in their mouths, which he was nearly positive was a tongue, and noticed it repeatedly struck and moved against a white stripe near the top of the mouth , which he thought had to be teeth, but were unlike any teeth on anything he’d ever seen. As he stood his ground, attack posture ready, his mind cataloguing his foe, he didn’t notice the beast seemed to come to a decision, and one suddenly lunged forward and grabbed him by the neck. His mind went into shock, and was unable to process things for a minute, but his body reacted, thrashing and wiggling and eventually cursing when his brain caught up. He tried to get free with all his might, but the spider part was like steel. The monster held the father away from itself, so that he could not scratch it, or held his neck firmly, so the father could not twist around and bite the abomination. Finally, his brain fully caught up, and he realized his family was in jeopardy. “Run!” he yelled to them, and noticed for the first time how far he seemed to be from the ground. “Run!” but it was far too late. The other two being had taken advantage of their shock and fear and fluidly caught his family and also cautiously held them away from their disturbing bodies. The father watch in horror and the beings held up little metal enclosures. They packed his wife into one, even with her crying and screaming, and both his children into another. His mind found comfort in that, seeing they at least had each other. He also realized, with a dreary sort of hit of reality, what was happening. They were being abducted to serve whatever dark purpose the beings had set aside for them. Most likely, he and his family were going to die. The thing holding him looked down and parted his fleshy lips, exposing two rows of white teeth. Then it turned away from him and spoke to its friends. “Good catch, eh, boys? Sorry, boy and girl. Four beauties, a family of foxes. The professor is just gonna love ‘em, foxes are his favorite study subjects. Isn’t that right, lads?” As he was packed into his own box, the father fox realized he did know the word for these monsters. His mother had warned him against them long ago. The word was “human”.

Written for both Thursday and Friday.