Just a story

Yuo remind me of my grandfather.

There are worse things than death, believe me. Sometimes, during moments of nothing,

He barked Monday, and I crept around the corner at the end of the hallway-nothing. On Wednesday, he was barking, standing at the foot of the bed with hair on end. I thought he might have heard something that time, and so I grabbed the gun and crept down the hallway once more.  He walked in front, occasionally looking back to see if I was following the edge of the living room door, he paused. He started growling as if something truly horrible was just beyond that doorway, and this turned my body to ice. I was afraid, again. I had to make a move and so I swung into the opening and stuck out the gun. There was nobody there, only my cat.

“Oh for christ’s sake, Chip, there’s no one in there but Prissy.”

My work makes me jumpy. It makes me believe that maybe, just maybe, there is something at the end of that hallway.

I’m a writer. Like the starving artist, I work hard for very little. From sun up till sun down, I browse the markets and update my blogs. Life outside my home is alien to me. I hardly ever leave, and so gradually, I think the world is disappearing entirely. Someday, it may just fade away. I don’t think I’ll miss it, because I am a writer. I write from sun up till sun down. I work hard for very little.

I had a story somewhere in my head. In the back where the files are kept. It was a horrifying story that will keep you up at night. I started to write, creating the characters and building the personalities, but then I stopped. A wall shot up in my mind and blocked the rest of what I needed to know.

I got tired of trying after several hours. The sun sank into the horizon and nightfall told me it was time to rest. Many times, I ignored that moment and kept writing into the night. Thing is, I couldn’t do it. My fingers hovered over the keyboard and nothing came out. I was frozen.

“Shit!”

I retired to my room and turned off the light. Because my mind was so empty, in moments I was asleep

Then, like the other nights before, he was barking and that’s what woke me. Unlike my previous routine, I lay back down and went to sleep.

This time, I wasn’t going to bother. It was just Prissy jumping on things or trees scraping against the window. There was nothing to be afraid of. I turned over and stared at the wall. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go to sleep. Chip stopped barking and growled for good measure.

“Would you please shut up!”

When I turned to yell at him, I was something else in the room A figure stood in the doorway-tall and thick. I saw no details, just the outline of its shape. My first reaction was shock, then I fumbled between the mattress and wall, searching with my fingers to find my gun. I heard my heart in my ears, sweat erupted on my chest and my breath came in sudden gasps. When my hand curled around the gun, I turned toward the figure. It was gone. I released my grip on the Judge’s handle.

Chip sat on the edge of the bed and whimpered. In a moment, he crawled over to me and lay down. I couldn’t sleep, he may have been soothed by the simple fact that the intruder was gone, but I wasn’t satisfied. I held the gun and waited. After an unknown length of time, I woke to morning light filtering through the windows. Chip was not in bed.

“Chip, come here boy!”

I sat at the computer for an hour before I could find any words. The assignment was vague and that’s the worse kind. Write a short story, he says. Make is fun and yet horrifying. The words didn’t come and that seemed horrifying enough to me. My mind was blank. I had written every short story you could think of. I thought about demon coffee cups that made you drink coffee until you were filled with the spirit, the dark spirit of the porcelain king. I stared at my cup and realized that I still hadn’t poured a cup of coffee yet. I was lost, and so I decided to sit down and start putting words onto the screen. Maybe the story would create itself, If I tried.

I poured the hot coffee into my cup and thought about the demons that could be living in the coffee beans. After all, coffee was addictive, it had to be created in hell.

I walked back to the computer, rubbed Chip between the ears, and started to write. It was lunch before I realized I had filled five pages of something. It was disjointed and mad, but somehow the story grew larger. I toyed with the hallucination from the night before and decided not to include the villain. As suddenly as the idea erupted in my head, I was frightened. AT my feet, Chip started to growl.

“Hey, it’s okay, buddy. We’re safe.”

My words were confident but my thoughts were iffy. I was still not convinced that the intruder was a sleepy halucinations. Those who doubt my tale about the intruder would probably call him a lump of clothes piled atop a chair, or a trick of the light. I knew better. I didn’t leave piles on clothes in chairs and I didn’t sleep with the light on. Rubbish!

I sleep well most of the night, until Chip began to back again. He was insistent, just as before, staring at the open doorway to my bedroom. His hair stood on end and his lips curled  over his canines. He was angry. It was hatred which fueled his discontent. Immediately I reached between the mattress and the wall. This time, I would shoot it. I didn’t care what it was, it was trespassing and I had every right to protect myself. I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to steady my nerves. When I opened my eyes, it was there. The same dark outline from the night before, but this time, it spoke.

“Let me help you.”

I didn’t understand what the words meant, but I thought I heard the voice correctly.

“Don’t come any closer, or I will put a hole in you!”

“Let me in…”

It spoke again, but it didn’t come closer. In fact, it didn’t even waver. Chip growled softly perched on the matress.

“Who are you?”

Then the figure moved forward, and the light of the moon, filtering through my window, shone the truth of the thing. It was a man. For a while, I didn’t recognize him. He wore a uniform with symbols I recognized all too well. His hair was dark and a square bit of hair sat atop his upper lip. I guess you could have called the thing a mustache. He was pale with the bluest eyes and I knew who he was. Shivers passed through my body when realization hit me.

“How is this possible? How are you in my room? Of all people on the face of this earth, why you and why me?”

“I’m an artist and so are you. I admire your work and would love for you to join me.”

“Join you where?”

“Oh, just a place where the muse never leaves. I always have inspiration there, and my roses have never looked better.”

All the while the figure stood before me, it didn’t move its’ lips. I heard the sound from deep within the thing, reverberating and smothering out the low growls from my dog.

“ Why me?”

For a moment, there was no sound and then the voice spoke softly.

“You are an artist, just like me. I knew at the moment of your birth that you would have the talent to create things, things so vivid that it was if life was in your work and fantasy was the world you perceive outside your window. I knew you, and you knew nothing of me.”

I was confused. “What do you mean?”

“Your mother didn’t have it, but you do.”

“Have what?”

He smiled, the figure smiled. I saw the capsule between his teeth. He reached and took the little pill, placing it in his other hand.

“You see this?”

“Yes, what is it.”

“A gift.’

Forever

In forests
In dreams
Drifting upon the ocean
Reading poetry
Writing poetry
Tearing words apart
Far away
But not so far
Raven

Spirit's in the sky
Stars n other worlds

I will not let her sleep
She will not let me sleep

The Morbid Ghost, pain and mortality

“Sit down, my friend. Have a drink?” Jerry held the vodka bottle poised over the card table. 

He knew vampires couldn’t drink vodka. He knew and yet he offered it to me anyway. No matter what I said to him, he persisted in giving me things I could not have.

“Why do you do this, Jerry?”

Jerry seemed amused. He leaned back in his tattered armchair and chuckled. He looked a mess, as most dead heads did. He looked both confident and defeated.

“I watch you. Maybe I watch you as much as you watch me because I know you watch me. Isn’t that what vampires do? You watch your prey, sometimes for years, even decades, and then you eat them for lunch. Oh man, I wonder how long you will watch me before I become a snack.”

I was irritated by his rambling. “What does that have to do with anything? Not that I’m partaking of such nonsense. What are you yapping about, Jerry?”

Jerry smiled. He wasn’t afraid of me, regardless of how much he talked about vampire moods, vampire tendencies and vampire characteristics. Jerry was fond of me and then he was curious as well. I know this because I can live in his brain. All meat things are easy for brain picking.

“I offer you things because I know you wish to be human. I know you wish to die. So, the worst thing that could happen, if you drink this, would be to die. Isn’t that what you want, awesome creature of the night?”

Jerry waved his hands in the air as if he could see a rainbow. Then again, maybe he could.

“I don’t know what I want, Jerry. No, I do know what I want. It’s simple and there are two choices. Either I want to die or I want to live beneath your basement.”

“Why? That makes no sense, man.”

I rose from my chair, the other tattered chair opposite from Jerry. All around me were stacks of comics, records and magazines. Perched upon each stack were brightly coloured bongs of all shapes and sizes. Thrown into the valley between those towers were piles of clothing that either Jerry had worn or were straight from the dryer, unfolded and neglected. Most anyone would wonder why I wanted to live beneath this rubble.

I walked around the room. I surveyed the posters which covered almost every space on Jerry’s lime green walls. I wanted to be here and I had no idea why.

“In all honesty, Jerry, to you, I have an unbelievable reason to be here. Months ago, right before I met you at that dilapidated white house, you know the one with the shattered window and putrid smell? Yes, right before then, before I walked the streets looking for the perfect place, the perfect person to help me feel human. I looked Jerry, I looked and I thought about so many things that my mind should have exploded. But vampire minds don’t break, they never break. No matter how much you try, were are fairly resilient. As I was saying, when I woke up from my slumber, I searched for someone like you and some place such as this. I woke in the earth, beneath the sands and I yearned to be human. I wanted to be a true human, not some wealthy ingrate with the belief that he would live forever. I wanted to be mortal, feel mortal and die like all of you. I wanted to live in filth, human-made filth that I could smell and I could detest, only as humans hated things. I didn’t want to observe from a distance like some mortals do. I wanted to live within the dampest hole beneath the home of a small person. Jerry, I insult you, this I know, but I would never be anything but honest with you.”

“Wow Stephen, that was both insulting and exhausting. You should write a book, man.”

“As I said, I’m sorry to have insulted you. I want to feel what you feel, Jerry.”

Jerry furrowed his brow. “I have one question. If you wanted to live in poverty, why not live in some village in a third world country?”

This angered me. Jerry had no idea how long I wandered the earth and he was getting under my skin. Every word, which fell from his lips was ignorant to me. It hurt my brain and yet, intrigued me all the same.

“What makes you think I haven’t experienced that sort of existence? I have lived in places you could never imagine. It’s just…well…”

“What, Stephen?”

“I lived in villages, I watched the natives fashion weaponry with little pieces of stone-chert, I believe. I watched the women and children playing in the earth, letting dirty water stream down their brown bodies. You should have seen it, Jerry! They were some of the first people here, in this land. I watched them for a long time, but then I scared them. I started wars among the tribes. You see, they believed I was a spirit sent from the enemy, and so I had to leave. I ran to the mountains where I slept in a cave. There, I was alone with my fire for years-absolutely alone. No animals wandered near me. In the distance I heard the wolf call and I traced its yearning. When I grew hungry, I hunted them, the wolves, but I was still filled with loneliness. Then, for still many more years, I lived on farms, in barns and beneath fields. Once, when I crawled from beneath the earth, I came face to face with a dead meat thing. I sat for hours watching the meat man, dead and neglected in the middle of that field…and Jerry, I wished it was me.”

“Wow man, you’ve been everywhere.”

Those are just places on this land. I have been to darker places than that on land across the waters. But I want to be here. I don’t want to live eternally alone, Jerry. I would be anyone but me. I would be you, Jerry.”

Jerry turned as if thinking of mortality, his human condition. His thoughts would have been interesting if I hadn’t heard it all before. Jerry turned and looked down between the chair and the small table beside him. He reached scrambling for a remote control. Jerry wanted me to hear a song and so he picked up the remote and pointed it toward a speaker in the corner.

“You want to be human but you’ve no idea what humanity is now. What you were and what we are is different, even when you breathed the air of meat men you were different than us. Here, I want you to listen to this, Steve, ole buddy. And I’m not pissed or anything. I’ve been insulted much worse than that. Listen.”

Jerry pressed the button and the emptiness filled the room. Inside the emptiness, a tinkling began. After a moment, music filled the room. I listened, and as the song progressed my mind absorbed the lyrics. It wasn’t altogether distasteful-it was like most music in the present era.

“What is this?”

“Doesn’t matter what it is, Stephen. All that matters is how it makes you feel. Listen close, maybe it’s your destiny. Maybe you are the king…the king of pain, my brother. Maybe you should keep living and truly understanding how devastating it is and how lonely it is. Keep watching us die, Stephen! Here, have a hit off this.”

Jerry pushed the joint toward me and nodded his head. I looked away.

“I don’t want that, Jerry. It will do nothing for me. In all this time, I have never touched those things, those vices of the human being.”

“Well, maybe you should. Hey, when “your meat men” are in pain, we like to numb the situation, know what I mean?”

 “Give me that!”

I snatched the joint dropping it onto the floor. My left Armani shoe crushed the marijuana cigarette.

Hey man! What you do that for?”

I stood and walked around the card table that separated us. Grabbing Jerry by the collar, I lifted him out of his chair.

“What is wrong with you? You should feel privileged to feel every moment of this.”

Jerry gasped. “Every moment of what?”

“Your impending death! You make me sick. You are so ungrateful for this gift.”

Jerry couldn’t understand and I could barely stand to look at him. It was plain and simple, I hate how spoiled the meat men are. When offered the greatest gift of all, they try to avoid it.

“Put me down! I thought you were my friend, man. Chill out!” Who doesn’t want to live forever?”

I slammed Jerry into his old recliner and walked toward the speaker in the corner. His infernal music was pushing him on. I lifted the speaker and broke it into pieces. No more king of pain, the music died in a whine and smoke curled up into the air. As Jerry yelled obscenities, I left the basement slamming the door behind me.

It was daytime and I would try again to end it all.

More Rubbish

I don’t know if I’m ready. I’m not ready, I’m sure of it. I guess I could pretend to be ready and that might work. Once, in church, a long time ago, the pastor told us to fake being happy in order to find happiness. It was kind of like having faith to search for faith, or something of the matter. In ways, it worked, and so I’m faking the readiness that I need.

On your mark, get set and go! Is that good enough for you?

Okay, so we have tried that exercise and now off to something a little more interesting-or not-probably not.

It’s now moving into the New Year, oh whoop-de-doo. I have no resolutions, in fact, I have nary an idea, to be honest. This year may well be like the next, filled with wilted dreams and faded attempts to make monumental changes. I guess it could be a failure, yes. I do think it could. But, what if…

Nah, let’s not get hopes up. I have come to a place that is thoroughly unsatisfying. It is a place that keeps sadness close in order to avoid sadness. It’s like the opposite of finding faith with faith and being ready with readiness…or something like that. The whole idea is if you remain in the gloom then the gloom cannot hurt you.

To tell you the truth, I have no idea what I’m talking about. The thing is, my head is full and unfiled. There are thoughts racing round with no destination or reasoning. Today, I realized, once more, that I would die. I felt my death moving forward and there was no stopping it. I saw the pictures in the album today. In one picture, my grandmother was young, beautiful, and the next she was bent and contorted into something else. I watched my aunt transform this way. I will transform this way, will I not? Sometimes, I think I am exempt, that surely I cannot die. I see the world from within some safe bubble, watching others grow old and fade into nothing. That’s what we do, isn’t it? We fade into nothing and we are forgotten. Yes, maybe we are mentioned in a story or two, in a joke or a memory between sips of coffee. But for the most part, we will one day have no place here, and what of it?

It’s just a rock, right. In comparison, we never were anything to begin with. So, you see, I’m not ready to move on. I’m not trying to ready myself with readiness. I am trying to stay in the cocoon. I scream at the thought of writing, and I scream at the silence that envelopes me. I cannot give anyone an explanation that would suffice.

I know what the pastor said, and I understand. To believe in God, is to want to believe in God. If you want to have faith then you already have faith. If you want to be ready, then you must believe you are ready.

But I am still not ready and I cannot make myself believe.

Not today.

Ithe doctors find nothing.

The Morbid Ghost: Two dead girls

“My friends called me Pyra.”

“Why?”

“Because, I like to burn things, silly. Haven’t you ever heard the word Pyromaniac?”

“Oh, I thought your mother gave you that name. I’ve never heard anything like it before.”

Pyra, the girl with the long brown hair and bright hazel eyes, laughed and for a moment, half her body dissolved in the mist. She was flawless, and of course, she was pale. The outline of her body shifting with the wind and smudged like a damp oil painting. In fact, against the backdrop of the misty forest, she fit right in. Pyra liked the other girl, she was pretty. Pyra didn’t have many friends when she was alive, but she liked to tell everyone that she did. She didn’t even have many family members left among the living. When she decided to check out, no one was the wiser. There was nothing left, dying was just the right thing to do.

The other girl was a little like Pyra in resemblance. The major difference was that she was a classic beauty.  She wasn’t attractive in the modern sense-not thin and modelesque. Her being was full, curving into the backdrop. She was pale just as Pyra, and as the dark took possession of her form, it was evident that she was no stronger than Pyra. There was a mysterious quality about Pyra’s new found friend. Her beauty was something that belonged to another time, maybe even another place. Pyra watched her closely, trying to take in any unique qualities. The girl’s form blinked in and out with the pushing of the breeze, and her long red hair glowed in a devilish halo. It reminded Pyra of fire. Maybe this was why the girl was so intriguing. The redhead smiled and her dark eyes twinkled.

“So, you like to play fire?  What a peculiar thing to do.”

Pyra looked at the other girl, wondering if she could possibly understand.

“Yes. Of course.” Pyra said. “So, you never told me your name.”

The redhead with the dark eyes smiled faintly. She shook her head.

“I don’t remember.”

As suddenly as the admission, the redhead turned to look behind her. When she glanced back to Pyra, there was fear in her eyes.

“He’s here again, Pyra.”

“Who?”

“That vampire.”

Pyra’s form dissolved and for a moment the other girl thought her friend was gone. As quickly as Pyra disappeared, she formed again. The wind blew and Pyra’s face wavered.

“I hate that. I hate when that happens. I cannot stay long, I’m losing energy.”

“I know, me too.” The lovely redhead said as she twined the fingers of both hands together. She was horrified when her fingers past right through each other.

“Pyra, my hands!”

Pyra was silent for a moment. She thought she heard the girl say a vampire was in the forest, but she couldn’t be sure. Energy was deceiving sometimes and dead words were not real anyhow.

“Did you say a vampire was near?”

The girl was still moving her hands and letting them pass through each other and through her own face. She reached for her tattered gown and her hands passed through that as well. She panicked.

“Pyra, what’s wrong with me?”

“It happens to all of us. There’s no need to be alarmed, you will get used to it. So, about the vampire?”

“Yes, he lays in that field, there, behind that stand of pine trees.”

Pyra laughed and it sounded like soft fabric rustling against skin. “Vampires aren’t real. Besides, how would you know he was a vampire any way?”

The other girl did not speak. She turned to look into the distance to her right. Her body faded as her face contorted with horror. As she turned back to Pyra, her eyes looked painful.

“My name is Marilyn. I think it is, anyway. I saw a picture in the trees. It was an image of me and I saw my mother beside me. She was looking at me, and she was saying Marilyn. That’s what it means, right. Isn’t my name Marilyn? Pyra, please, that’s what it means, right?”

Pyra couldn’t hold the energy much longer. The buzzing had already started. For just a minute, she wanted to touch the other girl, she wanted to console her, but that was impossible.

“I think so. I think you’re Marilyn, but I hate to assume without proof. Besides, that vision could mean something else. Your mother could be asking you about Marilyn. Honestly, it could mean anything. I don’t know.” Pyra stopped for a moment and rolled the possibility over in her mind. “Although, yes, I think… Maybe we should just call yourself Marilyn anyway, so that I can call you something. It wouldn’t hurt.”

“Maybe, okay, I’m Marilyn and you are Pyra. So, I have a question.”

“Yes, Marilyn?”

“You tell me that I will get used to that strange thing with my hands?  So, where are we?”

“You’re dead, Marilyn. I’m sorry, though, I don’t know where we are!”

“I’m not dead, Pyra. How can I be dead if I am here, conscious and without heaven? Yes, I feel like nothing, and I’m floating around between trees and shadows; and fields and the dark sky. I am not dead at all. How can this be death? It has to be something else.”

Pyra was confused. The girl was strange, she said the damnest things. How could she not understand the mechanics of death and the after-life. So many people spoke about the in-between and the fact that it was possible that death could mean roaming the earth forever in torment. I mean, the girl seemed smart enough, but her idea of unreality was torturous.

“Marilyn, why is this so bad. Isn’t it better than to be nothing at all? We can see things and we can still interact with others like us, when we find others like us. Maybe you haven’t gotten used to being dead yet. You see, from the moment I saw those trees and those dark hollows past the field, I knew I was dead. I know, because I remember the city streets and my home. I’ve never been to a place like this. Then there’s the obvious, I have no form. In fact, I thought I was in hell and that any moment the demons would welcome me into their fire pits. I thought it might be nice, really. From the first moment of darkness, I was okay with it. It’s okay here. You just have to get used to it.”

“NO! You don’t get it. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I feel it, I know it. Can’t you see, I cannot exist, not like this…not like anything where I have no solid form. I don’t want to think anymore about this god awful place! I want to go home!”

“Where do you think you are? Maybe this is earth, and maybe not, Marilyn. I don’t think you can go home.”

“Pyra, where is heaven? I dreamt of heaven, I remember that at least. I remember the church and my…I remember my mother, but I remember nothing else. There is just this strong yearning for God and he isn’t here!”

“God doesn’t exist, Marilyn.”

The other girl was motionless. Her form wavered and turned into static, then wavered back into a smooth film. She began to heave. A soft whimpering escaped her lips as her eyes squint shut. She was fading as well.

“You’re lying! You’re a liar! Can’t you see, I’m trapped here, not allowed into heaven yet. I have to find a way to die! I want to die, really die! I think, maybe, we are both in a coma or something. Don’t you think that’s possible, Pyra.”

But Pyra felt sad because she knew Marilyn was wrong. Pyra didn’t understand how she knew, but she did.

“I can’t hold it any longer, Marilyn. I will have to find you again when I have more energy. Listen, you have to accept the fact that you are dead.”

“I’m telling you, I think we’re in a coma! Don’t’ you think that’s possible?”

“No.”

Pyra disappeared, and in a moment, she was still gone.

AMY LEE - "With or Without You" by U2