Introduction

I’m in the process of transferring these works of short fiction from another blog, but as soon as that is complete new pieces will be up. If there is any interest in collaboration, please let me know!

Empty Type of Love

Catherine was angry today.

She was walking down one of the stacks of the local library, reaching towards a photography book on the top shelf, blink of skin between a shirt that was too short and corduroys pulled down in the stretch.

I came up behind her, put my hand on her waist and kissed her neck.

We’d known each other for weeks, I thought we were friends.

Somehow I thought it would be cute, charming, but it didn’t end up that way.

There was a knock on my apartment door at about 6 pm. I answered it and they had their guns drawn.

The voices had been bothering me and I’d just taken my Risperdal.

I just found out I had diabetes after going to my doctor.

One of the cops yelled at me and I started to cry.

Catherine will never see me again.

I ran towards the pointed gun and hoped she would never see me again.

Lesson Learned

“I need you to come over right away,” she said over the phone, voice urgent, almost on the verge of tears.

“Candace?” I asked surprised, “I haven’t heard from you for years. Are you alright?”

“No, I’m not,” she sobbed, “Please come over, I’m still at the same place.”

As I got in the car, I looked at my watch, noticed it was 1:13 am. I had to go in early for work, but it didn’t matter at this point. Ever since Candace and I had broken up three years ago, I had not heard one word from her. I made a lot of phone calls, because I realized I’d made a mistake, but she changed her number, and we never got to discuss a thing.

After a couple months of being heavily depressed and on the verge of losing my job, I got over it.

I was very excited to see her.

Pulling up to her driveway, I noticed that she was standing in the shadows on her porch.

She ran up to the side of my car and when I got out, she gave me a hug.

“Thank god you came,” she said.

“Are you alright?” I asked, suddenly nervous like it was a first date, “Should we go somewhere to talk?”

“We’ll talk later, just come in,” she said, turning briefly to glance at me, “I knew you’d come.”

When we got to the porch, she pushed open the door, there was a light, some voices coming from her kitchen.

I felt Candice shove me inside and then I was on the floor, ears ringing, the left side of my face a broken bone of pain.

“So this is your boyfriend,” said a nasal voice somewhere out in the darkness.

“Well,” said the voice hovering close enough to exude stale cigarettes, “We’ll make sure you never steal from us again.”

Stars – Fake Chick Lit

        Helene’s laughter was resonant like a sparkler in late June.  Tera wanted to rush in for a hug, but restrained herself, smirked sarcastically and fired off another howler which had Helene in further hysterics.  People were turning around and staring at them annoyed, but they had no idea, no idea of the magic these two held.  Even in this club as they waited between sets, the second of three bands starting their soundcheck, they had summoned a wonder derived from a recent divorce and one dead dog.

        Two months earlier, Tera had spilled out nine Vicodin from her mother’s prescription after witnessing her dog Juvvy getting hit and dragged by a station wagon.  On a spring break from Wisconsin, she stared at the pills in her hand – Watson 349 on one side and a split divot on the other.  Impulsively, she could have thrown back those pills, mixed herself a Jim Beam, ginger ale, and lime and sat back and let sedation overtake her.

        But she was deliberate and after staring at the details of those pills, she popped one in her mouth, dropped the others in her pocket and mixed herself a highball.  Four hours later she was arrested for Indecent Exposure and Disorderly Conduct on the grounds of the Leeland Memorial Golf Club.

        Helene had been more successful in her endeavors.  After hearing about Juvvy’s death by phone, she had sunk herself into the bathtub after having taken Valiums stolen from her father.  About eight months back, when the divorce was finalized, she had gone through his bedroom dresser in a rage and found the bottles. 

        Her roommates were at a party two towns over and would likely be pulled over for drunk driving, so they wouldn’t be back anytime soon.

        Through heavy lids, she lifted the razor to her palm and willed her fingers to move, to bisect her wrist.

        Next thing she knew she was sputtering, gasping, then vomiting gushes of water over the edge of the tub as her roommate Sarah stared and pointed at her, repeating “omigod, omigod, omigod, omigod” in a horrified mantra.

        Their father, Jake, had turned to one of his co-workers at the warehouse and said, “Can you fucking believe it, they did that because of a dog we’d had for only three weeks?”

        After Tera had her first court appearance confirmed and Mabel got out of the hospital, they found themselves sitting around a dinner table with Mom and Dad – just like the old days except it was at a Village Inn instead of a Ryan’s Family Steakhouse. 

        Jake said, “I don’t know what’s going on with you kids,” tucking into his 10 oz sirloin steak slathered with A-1 sauce.

        Vivian sobbed and said, “I can’t believe you would do this to us with everything that’s been happening.”  She started to pick at her Cobb salad.

        Tera looked over at Helene.  Helene nodded.

        “We’re taking off – there’s this show we both want to go to,” said Tera.

        “You’re not fucking leaving until you finish your dinner,” said Jake.

        “What?” said Vivian, “You’re going to abandon us after we came together specially for you?”

        “We’ll see you later,” said Helene.

        “Or not,” said Tera.

        They drove to Mom’s house in Helene’s Toyota Celica and grabbed Juvvy’s corpse.  Tera had hid in the garage’s freezer when Mom said she was just going to put him in the garbage.

        “What we going to do with it?” asked Helene.

        “Let’s go to Marvin Park, I’ve got an idea,” said Tera.

        They dug a hole in the tanbark of the playground.  They used to frequent it as kids – back when they hated each other’s guts and tried to figure out malicious ways to hurt each other, like daring the other to jump off the 10 foot slide or shoving each other off the top of the monkey bars. 

        They tore the Glad bag off the corpse until Juvvy looked like demented imp wearing a tattered raincoat.  His tongue was sticking out too far in one direction and his guts were frozen in a reflective bulge in the other.  Tara brought over the gas can and poured it over Juvvy then kicked him into the hole, then handed Helene the Village Inn matchbook.

        Juvvy went up in a momentary blaze, but it sputtered out because of the ice.  Unfortunately enough gasoline had been spilled on the tanbark that it created a rapidly spreading circle of flame.  Tara screamed and threw the plastic tank at the fire, setting the swing set ablaze.

        They ran for it and could not stop laughing even after they rolled into the parking lot of the Klang Klub. 

        As Tera wiped the tears from her eyes, she said, “Let’s get drunk!”

        “I’m with you,” Helene said.

        Arm in arm, they walked into the club as just a flicker of flame could be seen waving to them just beyond the treeline.

Backhanded Action

Community was illusory. I realized this last night when I was at a party for a friend of a friend. Sitting on the couch – taking up the space of two people with my legs – I looked at them talking, gabbing, gossiping, spitting.

They had no souls.

Nobody had one.

They thought they were connecting on some deeply spiritual level around the subject of obscure 45s from the 1980s. Selfish banter, a means to an end – whether it’s to sleep with this or that person or to unload their loneliness as a means to feel better or to peacock their knowledge so they appeared smarter than they did in the outside world.

Every interaction fulfilled a selfish need.

Kat, my sister, admitted to as much – she said that she has roommates because she was afraid of being alone.

That’s why we had pets.

That’s why we pretended to have friends.

That’s why we bother to get drunk.

Sudden like a finger flicking switch, all fear was gone. How could I be afraid of these empty vessels, these transient objects, these meaningless bags of flesh.

They were not worth my time or my energy.

So I sat up and started talking to one of them, one of them flesh pods.

Soon I found it to be very, very entertaining.