Raw

The old raw is the worst. The new raw feels like heaven. Every raw in between leaves you wishing for the first and fearing the last.

Old raw is the kind of raw you think about, dream about, have nightmares about. It gets under your skin, your bone, your muscles – it digs into the marrow and the wire, grinding and slicing. It’s unforgettable, undesirable, and unavoidable. It catches you from the shadows, pounces, and when it gets you, it transports you.

You’re there. Held and dropped. Held and lied to. Held, but never listened to. And then you’re hardly ever held, then not at all. The raw is all that’s left, the kind of lingering numb that comes from hours of vibration. You’re shaken, but the buzz is gone. There’s just the raw, the open cut, and the exposed wires. Like a bare apartment wall, there’s an absence in the space. Your furniture is replaced by packed baggage.

The old raw’s never gone. You just pack as much as you can over the clean paint scars. New raws, new sounds and tastes. You dig them into the old spaces, cut away the rot, and jam in something vital, something burning, something fresh. Like an unfamiliar kiss, or a new color to the eyes. New raw wipes away the pain, but it can’t quite disinfect. New raw is temporary. It loses potency, can’t quite burn away the past.

The old raw remains…so we build, commit, and complicate. Lasting things are remembered, but how much joy do we remember over pain? How many of the good times feel like scar tissue, bittersweet for all the sweeter? New turns old, or turns into smoke, waved away with a stroke of the hand, a slash of the pen. Only the old raw’s left in the end.

In the end, we’re raw until we’re rotten.
In the end, we love to be rotten until it’s raw.

Humble

“I understand why God created death. How else would he be God?”

The same thought always brought Allan Copeland out of his dreams. It was a soothing thought, as soothing as the comfortable weight of his wife’s chest against his back. She rose and fell with every tickling breath, and he felt himself alert enough to enjoy it. He always woke her when he slid free of the bed, no matter how slow or how careful. The way she’d moan and bury herself in the blankets brought a smile to his face. She was his morning coffee. The idea, however, was his hot shower.

Toast and eggs, and off he went, in his reasonably exotic, but not overstated car. He believed in humility – a certain amount of grace. He earned enough to splurge, but he kept the impulse to a minimum. His wife had sheets and books and furniture. She drove to her office in a Jaguar, bouncing to her iPod or clocking in early with her Bluetooth. He preferred a simple phone with a medical dictionary, an American sedan. He had a certain image to maintain.

The lab coat and the sharp dress shirt always felt dishonest to him, like he was trying to make a dirty job clean. He wasn’t paid or prayed to for the times when he applied tongue depressors and put knit caps on his patients’ heads. No, he was like God – he was remembered most in the red and black and brown of life, the green of illness and the sick pale white of flesh gone wrong. The palms were always pale. The palms touch God, he thought to himself, and found the idea pleasant enough.

That morning, he gave birth to three children, two boys and a girl. The mothers were so proud, but all they’d done was burst. He’d arranged the delicate chemistry, coaxed and called free a bounty from their wet, pink earth. He’d held those little lives before they even saw them. He was the receiver, the welcomer, the psychopomp.

He lost a child today. The hour was so quiet, defying the noise throughout the halls. Heads were low. Tears were shed. The other mothers and fathers looked at him with desperate eyes. They could smell the death in their hearts. They knew that he could keep the cold at bay, keep the chill from the little fingers and the little hearts. He proudly took their prayers – he shared them with God, those that didn’t reach him already.

Allan Copeland understood. He understood why God created death.

How else could he be God?

Jack Frost In Summer

This is a cold world, frigid on the brisk, chill on the kiss of frost.
This is a cold world, but cold is not the same as lonely. Cold reminds us what the heat tastes like, and it combines us, shivering and new and one. It soothes us when we overheat, it sates and satisfies the thirsts inside of us. I bring that coldness, the deep cold, the soul-deep chill and I pack it and I store it, and I make the world a colder place in days that aim to burn us to a husk – dry and white and cracking in the breeze.
I play a tune to call the innocents into the world. They can forget the dangers of the road, where cats and cousins died a week, a year, or a generation before. The street is safe to my song. Danger knows to stay at bay – I will not allow it. Here, the children sing and cry, but never in tears. Never a scream, but one of hope and treasured gifts.
I work in dimes and quarters – some have moved on to dollars, or to two at a time. I don't need that kind of money. I don't want it. I work the week – a place I cannot even see in my mind's eye as the music plays. It is not my place. It is not me who works there. Here, I have a purpose. I bring the cold to the children, and they pay me in their warmth.
They smile at me, hair golden or brown or the darkness of exotic new horizons. Their cheeks a dozens shades of red or brown, they grin and lick and drink of the cold I bring them, the sweetness of it. My best will never taste as fine, will never bring the joy to me it brings to them. That joy, that sweet and delicate relief is my own cold, my own refreshment. As the music plays, we are all in a better place, a better world.
We are innocent.
When the music stops, I am not innocent. I have never sinned. I never will.
This is my penance and my simple joy.
I am a fairy prince, a storybook man. Without the cold and sweet and music, fairies terrify us all.

Appointment

(Little mature in subject matter - read at your own risk.)

She slipped out of her coat, and the refreshing coolness of the air stirred her awake inside. Here, she didn't have to function. Here, there was nothing to solve. Here, there wasn't even a solution. Here, there were only hands and eyes and scents and suggestion. A smile curled around her lips from somewhere deep in the pit of her belly.

This was her vacation. This was her time off. This was her freedom and her expression. She knelt, felt the soft silk wrapped around her neck. They pulled, and she followed.

A man with a soft face and hard eyes inched away her buttons. His lover kissed the skin that he revealed, her lips soft and numbing from her cool mint gloss, so cool it burned. Her cotton was torn away – off her shoulders, from her chest, from her hips. She was exposed in satin, her throat concealed in that violet silk. The lovers circled her, surrounded her, tracing her form in soft violet. Their prey's lips parted and the air invaded her.

It fled out in one long, slow gasp, a gasp of hours. Their heat defied her reason. Their gentle edges cut deep into her composure as they drug and slid and tasted. Her control was compromised in smooth fabric chains. She didn't remember being bound into the frame, but as she hung there in the luxury of slave, she was thankful. The man's breath was hot on the back of her neck. His lover's tongue was warmer still upon her belly. The cool mint of her kiss set a fire in her that her lover stoked with a slow, searing engagement.

When it was over, her body ached. Her cheeks were dry and stained from tears. Her lips felt cracked and hoarse from that long slow, breath, stealing the moistness out of her. They had drunk her dry and left her hanging in the dark – just as she'd requested. When she was ready, she would slip free of them herself. When she was ready, she would sheathe herself in cotton, button up the sensing flesh from her navel to her throat.

She would close herself again – she would be a professional. Her needs would be met, and they would not distract her. Deep down, she knew that this was just another solution to a short-term problem in her busy schedule. Part of her knew this wasn't what she truly wanted.

The rest of her was still bound for a few minutes more, content and empty of the tears of her buried need for touch. The silk kept that need in check, in place. In bondage.

She was still in control of her life, she thought. Even her extremes were in her planner.

Mirror, Mirror

(Follows Veritas, Libertas)

Esther stared into the mirror. She didn't particular hate what she saw anymore, but she wasn't satisfied.

The mirror was old, full-length, and heavy. It was a box of old polished oak, showing her another world. Another universe. Another Esther. The other Esther was staring at her. Her eyes were sharp, focused, a shade of blue bright enough to hurt her eyes. Esther couldn't look away, not yet.

Her own eyes were a soft almost-green, the color of water in a deep pool. Esther once would have asked who was on the other side of the mirror. Now, Esther knew. A faint frown came to her lips.

A fainter smile came to another Esther's face. Her hand reached out and whether Esther's hand followed, or whether the other Esther answered her movement, she'd never know. Their fingertips touched, and she felt a great heat.

“Esther, need you to drive me to Dwight's!” David walked by, clean-shaved but with bedraggled hair, pressed shirt and tie with a dirty, old coat and sneakers. The other Esther smiled wider. Her teeth were sharp. A stud more like a spike danced between them on her tongue. “Esther, you coming?”

She snapped out of it. “Y-yes, sir. Right away. Doesn't Glenn normally drive you?” Her accent wasn't as thick as it once was – she'd been practicing. She was an assistant now – she had to assist. She finally had the part she'd always dressed for – simple and conservative, sweaters and long skirts. Her high, black boots were her one bit of rebellion – something David didn't seem to mind. If anything, he always seemed to smile when he noticed them.

Esther smiled to herself before looking back at the mirror. Her own reflection, calm and sweet, was smiling back at her.

“Glenn's my lawyer, not my PA. And technically, he's not even a lawyer yet. Really, I'm just freeloading here. You, however, are my assistant. So please – assist. Drive?” He grabs two pieces of toast that Glenn is already holding out to him. “See? Freeloading. How else would I eat every day?”

Esther shook her head. She enjoyed being David's assistant – it was nice to feel so needed.

Maybe one day she'd even pay him back.

The other Esther, the one on the mirror's other side, watched them leave. Glenn moved to the couch, newspaper in hand. “Aren't you following them?” The mirror was empty by the time he looked back.

Glenn sighed and took a bite of his toast. “Sometimes, there's not enough room for the four of us...” His coffee started bubbled hot in response. “Indeed,” he mused, and sipped it.

Dead Eye Shot

I sighted her down. She saw the glint of my iron.

The hunt was on.

Dancing, weaving, striding bold through a wave of lying obstacles. Names. Hobbies. Noise. Bar lies. Easy words. We rushed through them, eye on eye, nose to ground, hunter and stag. I saw. She dodged and played. I pursued.

The first kiss was caustic, bitter like a sudden shot. First blood, one bullet and one horn, one sound in the great roar of noise. The rest of the world became secondary - follow the blood. Follow the mark of that clash, up my shirt, up her jeans, up our eyes. I had her in my sights.

She arched, majestic, eyes on mine as she rose and lifted her arms. There was a stark, defiant pride. I was the outsider. This was her little, quiet realm. I was the intruder, the civilized man. But first blood was marked. I could not be cruel.

I took the shot. One round. One release of breath. Dead on. Sound and vibration and wet, sudden contact. The wild was gone. Our skin was gone. We were one. We were linked and she was penetrated. I was whole.

It was over too achingly soon. The shot was not so true, too fleeting, a glance. She fled into the night. Full of pride, I said ill and easy things. It was dark. Those points were not so fine.

I was not in love with the shot. I would find another.

But every time I strode into that wild place, I smelled her in my gunpowder.

Rime

(Continues from 217.)
The room was cold. In truth, he hardly felt it. He sat and rested, letting his body recover and breathe from the constriction of the armor, of the apparatus, of the mask. His breath frosted in the air, and the windows frosted at the edges – long fingers reaching and rising for each other. It was too warm for them to ever reach each other.
I, the doctor, watched him through the glass, typing away as I looked over the report. The wire transfer had been clean, prompt, and nearly impossible to trace. I traced it anyway, learning our employer's name and business. I had no intention of using it – one minor crime lord was no different to me from another, and no corporate office was much better. I learned simply because I needed to know – one trap sprung was one too many. I created my own traps and dead man's switches on the web and set my work to rest. This mission might be the last – no will and testament for the promising young doctor. I wasn't young anymore. I was out of promises. I had to make due with conditional vengeance.
I pressed the intercom button for my son's room, “How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Unharmed,” was the answer. The young man turned to look through the glass and nodded once – a habit he'd picked up from me. In the early years, he hardly moved. “There were no significant threats.”
“I see...” I took a note of it, turning my attention back to the screen. “What were your impressions of the Tiger's position skills? I'll need to consider how this impacts your rankings.”
“Class 2 General, maybe Class 3 Specialized in close combat. He was unable to visualize my direct harm, as per your projections. To rate his ability, the damage to the property was significant. He was...elevated, physically. The term?”
“Desperate, son. He was in a state of desperation, and rightly so.” My hands had paused, but the doctor in me forced himself to continue to write, to string together the recording with a fair analysis. The work was dry and distant, turning the brutal deaths into clean and efficient statistics. He was wiping away the sin and the pain of it. He was purifying the event, at least in my mind. It calmed me. “What was your impression of your performance, compared to your past missions?”
“Marginal improvement in response. Strength remains stable. Defenses remain stable. Speed marginally improved. I was cold.”
The doctor stopped and I felt myself return. “Son?” I tried to keep the surprise out of my voice. I kept the fear deep down. The guilt, perhaps he would hear. It was unlikely; my son was not empathetic. “Excuse me, repeat that?”
He responded. “I was...very cold. There was a 3 to 4 degree difference from the previous mission. It caused a degree of shivering, even within the armor's insulation. Father, it was...uncomfortable. Is that the word?”
I watched him, my computer momentarily forgotten. “And...describe discomfort to me, son. Can you do that?” Hope and the bare teeth of terror were crawling up my throat.
My son tilted his head slightly. The display was almost reptilian. Cold. He was always so cold. “Discomfort is a state of physical or emotional discontent, often caused by some internal or environment factor. Common sources of discomfort include hunger, thirst, pain, and emotional distress. Is that definition acceptable?”
I let out a soul-deep sigh and slumped in my seat. The fingers of frost were reaching closer, nearing the center of the glass. “...That's a good definition, son. Thank you. I'll note it in my report.” I turned off the intercom.
“Perhaps it's time for a stronger apparatus...I'm sorry, son, but we don't have the luxury for emotional...distress.” The doctor went back to his work. He had to prepare for this next mission. They had to be ready.
My son was coming home.
My son was speaking, but the doctor did not hear him. “Doctor...does the cold ache?”

The Alchemist

Breathing fire isn't very hard. Breathing water is practically simple. Breathing air is an underrated science. No one breathes the earth, and yet we all seem fool enough to try.

In my chest is a lab of alchemy. I've made flame and fury there, and sang songs to chill and to soothe and to heal and to hurt and to boil and to simmer. I have within me a forge, a place of construction. I consume, and within me, things are consumed. I breathe, I transform, and I exhale. I am the process and the function and the form. I am the mold.

In my belly, I burn away impurity. In my lungs, I take the life from all around me, and I breathe out something coarse and alien. Even this is breath to another, and in this way, my pollution is kind. I create waste, and I feed the earth. The waste of my lips feeds the sky and feeds the dreams of my sisters and my brothers.

I breathe fire, and I breathe it out. I eat passion whole and spit up waves of scathing thought and dream and rhetoric. Heat is the creation of motion, and I make the world move.

I breathe in water, and I breathe out something deep and soothing. I fill the empty. I quench, I heal the parched and the dried and the wounded. Liquid is something that rushes until bounded. I am the fountain and the funnel both.

I breathe in air, and I breathe out truth and lies. I whisper, and mountains shudder. I shout, and a heart whimpers. I am the liar and the priest and the god and the beggar all. Wind tells us every story we will ever know. I am the man who chooses the stories.

I will breathe the earth, as will you. It will bring the forge to rest. Until then, do not eat the earth. Do not breathe it in. Do not wish it ill, for it will be your comfort one day.

If you could not breathe the earth, one day you'd find the fire and the water and the air rushing out of the holes in you. You'd never contain a thing, and hollow, you would rust and wither. The earth keeps us whole, even as we go into a complete and flawless silence.

We are all these things. I simply know the names of all of these. I simply know enough to tell you how to breathe.

Count The Time

(Most basic four-four)

One, two, three, four,
One, Two, three, four,
Cut and paste my
Life before you.

Three, two, three, two,
Take me over.
Take me over,
One, two, three, breathe.

Three, two, one, two,
Come on over,
Come on over,
One, two, three, breathe.

One, two, three, four,
One, two, three, four
Cut and paste my
Life before you.

I thought I knew my song...
I thought I had it better than this...

I thought I had it figured out,
I figured out it all too late, breathe.

I thought I had a grip on me.
I thought I had a grip on...the situation.

I thought I figured out my trouble.
Out, my trouble has escaped, breathe...

One, two, three, four,
One, Two, three, four,
Cut and paste my
Life before you.

Three, two, three, two,
Take me over.
Take me over,
One, two, three, breathe.

You said that I would be much better....
You said that I would grow with out you...

You said that I was so much better.
So much better feels so bad, breathe.

You said that we would live forever...
You said that we would live forever...

You said that friendship never ends,
Well, never ends feels like three weeks, breathe!

One, two, three, four,
One, two, three, four
Cut and paste my
Life before you...

Three, two, one, two
Come back over,
Come back over,
One, two, three....

Breathe...
One, two, one, two
Breathe...
Three, four, three, four.
Breathe...
Two, one, one, two
Breathe...
Four, three, two, one.

Cut and paste my
Life before you
Cut and paste my
Life before you

One, two, three, four
One, two, three, four
Three, four, before.
Four, three, two...

One...

Lightheaded

By the first shot, she was dancing.

By the second, she knew the song she was dancing to. It was a memory song, something half-remembered, something sweet and hot and light. She swayed and moved in ways that brought a blush to her lips and a shine to her eyes. No one knew her eyes shone best when she was crying. He knew.

He didn't remember like she did. The third shot brought him to her mind, the fourth put his taste on her lips. The fifth dismissed her sense of illusion. He was real. He was there. He was kind. He was true.

The whiskey told her so, and she danced a dance to warm him, to warm him in her blood. To start a heat in her, and did she burn and grind and roll and turn on the empty floor. Hollow men looked on her with hollow eyes, but her whiskey man, her memory man, he saw her true and hot and sweet and true.

She was dancing for him - for his taste, his touch, his fire eyes and wind-whisper kiss. She knew his hidden paths and his secret ways. She knew his pain. She was nude in his fingers. He was naked in her light.

The last shot brought him back. The shot after brought back the world. The shot after that painted the sky. The walls were red. The hollow eyes were silent. The dance was done. Her head was killing her. The memories were out.

No more shots to go. Her tab was rung. She was free of the smoke and the dance and the memory man. She was free of the hurt. She was done.

Feeling the Heat

All in all, Doug thought, things could have been worse.

Then the air conditioner gave a frigid, cracking noise, and the bottom of it fell out like an ice machine with a burst trap.

Shit, he thought. “Shit,” he muttered, soon after. “Shit!” he yelled. He barely held in a demonstration as he dove to his grimoire – it was a discount grimoire, which was a bad idea to begin with. It was in Cyrillic, which was his second mistake. The Phoenician might have taken more study, but it was also far less smudged. He could have learned Phoenician. It is much clearer on the details, anyway.

His third mistake was the most basic of mistakes – pride. It cometh before the fall, and Doug was deeply interested in comething, which was his fourth mistake. The flesh suborns the mind, and Doug was downright submissive to his flesh at the particular point to which he had arrived. Doug was not fucked, which is exactly why he was. Sandra was supposed to solve this, but that leads to mistake number five.

Sandra was hard to impress. Never bother with a woman who's hard to impress. Especially never try if you're a COBOL programmer in an age beyond its time. Doug felt the need to impress, problem six, and Sandra was hard to impress. That would be the seventh error, their mix of Jack Daniels and mutual damage that brought them to this room, Doug's room, technically his mystical chamber.

Doug didn't invest in central air, which made his apartment unbearable without a window unit. He did not realize this was his eighth mistake until now. The choice of sweaty lemonade to calm his mind was the ninth, as his sticky-wet fingers further smudged the cheap, Cyrillic words he'd translated with Babelfish. Yes, that would be his tenth mistake. His eleventh was failing to double-translate – it was reliable, right, if it's on the internet.

“It's okay, Sandy...I can fix this. Love conquers all!” That lie was his twelfth mistake, and nearly the fatal one. Love does, in fact, conquer all in a world of magic and mystery. Doug was very much in lust, deeply in need, overwhelmed in confusion, and dancing with the demons of ego. Doug was not in love.

“I promise.” And there it was. The grimoire burst into flames. The frozen, nude statue of his lady 'love' took down a fracture from the heart and outwards...and as he cried out, she shattered.

Thirteen mistakes is too much for even the mystical arts to tolerate. Worst of all, he'd intended to make her more beautiful.

The spell had succeeded, and succeeded still.

Veritas, Libertas

David Calgary was having a dream. He was immediately glad that it wasn't his own.

He stood in an open doorway, staring down and out into endless rows of belts and gears, an assembly line like a wicked engine, thrumming with pistons and the vivid stink of oil. Sparks danced like chained demons, cruel and compelling all at once, the only light except for a pervasive, sourceless red. This place was industry. This place was hell. To the owner of this dream, it was both.

This hell was not empty, either. Men, if you could call them men, stood in chains before the endless, grinding belts. Some small and lean, others long and so beautiful as to bring ice tears to a loving eye – David did not have loving eyes, but he found his breath stolen nonetheless. Fat and squat, lean and thin, every step between and all of them with eyes of a vibrant, dangerous green. They did not belong in this place of black and red and steel. To the owner of this dream, it was their hell.

It was another's industry. Shapeless and looming, his shadow danced on three of the walls, the fourth lost to the darkness of offstage, of possibility. This is where David's door led him. The shadows rose, eyeglasses glinting red in reflection. David supposed he was supposed to make it right. He supposed that to the owner of this dream, he was the hero.

It was true enough. He strode forward, a sledgehammer heavy in his hands. VERITAS was burned into the iron on one side, LIBERTAS on the other. The owner of the dream was dramatic in that sense – David was now certain he'd never dream this up on his own. Taking up the weight of her need, he marched on, and when he raised his arms, the gears gasped and paused.

When he brought them down, it shattered. Belt. Gears. Chains. Shadows. The red shattered like the red of the overseer's glasses. Everything collapsed with a single dose of VERITAS, LIBERTAS clattering to the floor. The owner of the dream, a young and beautiful woman, looked up at him from the mess – the only one still in chains. Her face was plain – David remembered her gratitude - her body was unremarkable, for that matter, but in her dreams, she was beautiful.

“You saved me...you freed me. Freed all of us.” She raised her chained wrists. She changed.

Her hair was now silver. Her eyes were an endless, shining gray. Her face was slight and fragile and pure. Her lips were open. “You did this to me.” Her eyes were so very sad. All around, the shattering and clattering of glass played on, an endless rain in David's ears.

David's dream had found him. “J-”

*****

“-ust get up already. You're going to be late. You know how Dwight gets.” David's eyes snapped open. He was sitting in an awkward position, like Cassiopeia on a borrowed couch. The entire apartment was borrowed. He was borrowing it from Glenn, who let him. Glenn, after all, owed him more than half a soul, by all rights.

Glenn was burdened with an overabundance – something David could definitely understand.

Glenn's dreams were different, however. Glenn dreamed of Heaven. Something inside of Glenn cried every night. Glenn had to comfort her, and in return, she had grown fiecely loyal. David considered himself lucky. The woman of his dreams at least had the courtesy to stay there.
“All right. I'm up...” He went over to shave. He never bothered with his hair, but he always shaved, then showered, then put on a freshly pressed shirt, tie, and slacks. He added the odd boots from his last job – he told strangers who stared that they'd been made for him by elves. They thought he was lying.
“All right,” he repeated. He stared into the mirror. Her silver eyes were watching. So much for courtesy these days, he thought.

“I'm up.”

Howl

Her name was Annalee, and she was mine that night.

This is not boasting. It's no talk of pride or conquest. I did not conquer her. I was not proud. I was humbled. I was brought low, to my knees and lower still into the ground. I could never be far enough beneath my Annalee, the night she WAS my Annalee. She floated, and yet she bore a constant pressure, a weight and a substance that bore my down. She was humility in pale flesh, and in the dark, she was moonlight and terror and a sweet taste.

She found me sitting by the lake, leaning outside of the hungry mouth of the woods. Branches loomed like the jaws of caves, and from that jagged hollow, I watched the full moon howl down at me. It pressed into my neck, into my veins. The pressure was maddening, and I could feel my innards crumble – I was hollow. The lake rippled and whispered in the breeze, sucking up that glow and throwing it in all directions. It roiled like a thousand sharks. The lake was hungry deep in its belly.

So was I.

Annalee walked the ring of the lake in thick boots, coarse pants, and a thick sweater. Her clothes were rough and cheap, to match the ragged cut of her hair, to match the cracks and edges in her eyes. She walked like old men trudged. Annalee had eyes like hers because she'd seen things. She had lake eyes. She had hungry eyes. She saw me.

The cabin wasn't mine, wasn't hers. It stank of cobwebs, but the stove still worked and the fire was thick and hot. She kissed me, thick and hot, and I kissed her with a wet hunger. She threw me down and I fell. She slid up next to me, gentle as a lonely cat and I crawled over her. She looked at me with a challenge, but her lips were quivering. My fingers were clenching. My palms were shaking. What a mess we were.

I remember the soft feeling of her belly on my cheek. I brushed my nose against the milky whiteness of her, the prison of that mad moonlight. I kissed her and I tasted salt and sweet and more of her. Every kiss left another in my mouth. My fingers slid away her coarseness and my whispers worshipped the soft girl down before me. She was revealed. I was under her clothes. I was pressed down inside of her.

The lake had eaten me.

Annalee left with the dawn light. She looked sharp and the rawness of her stung my eyes. The morning was quiet, too quiet, and it took the comfort and the warmth from me with a fatal execution. It killed my night eyes slowly. I marched out into the wood again, my shoulders square but my eyes still howling moonlight.

Annalee would be back. Would I be humble?

Unprompted: Assess

“Every problem is made of opportunities waiting for a solution to put them all in order.” Natalie took an unhealthy satisfaction in finding that solution. At least, that's what the rushed and sweating regional manager seemed to think. She'd arrived less than four hours ago. He had never felt rushed until...about four hours ago.

He hadn't started to sweat until now. “I understand that you've been sent here, ahehe, to consult-”

She cut him off with a raised finger. “Optimize.”

“To...optimize our location operation...” He covered a curse with a smiling, easy sigh. “But I think you're missing a...sense of the ground, here?” This was how it went, he thought. Some young hotshot shows up at his office to feather her cap with a little extra efficiency. They waltz in full of swagger, tr to take charge with their fresh new processes and buzzwords. The smart ones understand, though.

He'd thrown her the most basic jargon for a red flag. No upward wants to be tied to a red flag. Self-starters come to his little hole in the jungle all the time. They never engage, never latch on. No one wants to spend the next ten years in a hole like this – that's what they called paid retirement. It was a retirement that Johann Travers appreciated quite a bit.

Natalie didn't seem to appreciate that one bit. “I've read the reports. I've already read the local news periodicals, an underground blog, a tourism guide, an intro to the local language, and a primer on customs and traditions for the natives. Oddly, you didn't mention anything about ground sensations on your report. I'm amazed production is down at all, actually, the way you put the numbers.” She kept walking down the stone steps towards the river factory complex. Natalie wasn't sweating.

Johann Travers could sweat enough for the both of them. The heat was unseasonable, his suit was already ruined, and he wasn't used to making the trek down to the factory. Natalie noted each of these details with a growing mental groan. The manager went on, “My report, heh, gave you the facts. I've been running a profitable op here, Miss-”

“Profitable on the short term. Profitability is a detail, not a goal. Based on my independent research, you've been shut down for the last three months.” She talked over his flustered, sweaty objections. “Spending your operating budget to feed the work to our competitors upriver. Your capital is burned. Your warehouses are empty. And you've been lying to us, Mr. Travers. That...could be a problem.” Her eyes were iron-hard with honest contempt. Travers couldn't help but find it unprofessional, even under the circumstances.

She stopped at the bottom step. “I don't like you, Mr. Travers. I hope I get to replace you.” She walked on, leaving Travers in a fuming, sweating, fearful mess. Assessed, measured, and placed – Natalie would have to find a use for him later.

The company could use a liar like him, but not anywhere near stakeholder impact areas like this one. Natalie hadn't come because of the reports.

She'd come to stop the revolt already in the works in the village below.

Clippings

A stranger used my clippers at some point. Should I be concerned?

Their hair was a light, gentle shade of brown, nothing like my coarse black curls. Short and straight, with a touch of fire. Where did these little trimming even come from? My roommate's hair is black and fine and made of wires. So where?

Also, why didn't this stranger clean the damn clippers?

Upon further inspection, trimming wasn't the only operation performed within my bath-and-a-half that fateful night. My soap and shampoo are at dangerously low levels, beyond where they should be. My toothpaste was down three solid brushes. I don't own cologne, but the place reeked of it. Toenail clippings were surprisingly present, and the toenails were cleaner and healthier than mine.

I'd been invaded by a fastidious metrosexual.

With a bit more digging (and the use of a kit I'd purchased during one of many bouts of obsessive compulsion), I came to more startling conclusions. Trace fragments of silk, latex, and alcohol clung to my shower drain – the invaded had been having sex, or at least their crotch had been. This, I found, to be unforgivable. No one has sex where my bathroom is involved.

Not even me. My invader was a competent, cupidous metrosexual...with a tendency to leave a mess and waste cleaning gels.

My resentment grew to a fever pitch.

I've set traps for him – extra combs and hair gels and exfoliates. When I catch him, I'll interrogate him for him secrets.

I'll also make him clean my fucking clippers. Really. Is that too much to ask?

Near Death

The flashing steel illuminated the pale concrete, and there was a sudden cool wash of light.

I understood. I'd been careless, reckless, selfish, and stupid. It was another long night of work to support the fiancee who never asked me to work a day. I was exhausted, bitter, and ready to drink and fight. It would be our third fight this week. It was Tuesday. Baby, we were on a roll.

Bills kept stacking, and I felt drinking them out of my ulcer. She kept looking at me with those cool, gray disapproving eyes, and it just make my belly wrench and burn. So I worked and I drank. So she disapproved. So I worked. So she glared. So we fought.

God, I was such a fool. The pain was getting worse...the stink of gasoline. In the distance, I could hear the ambulance wailing in the distance. Tonight, it was coming for me. Thank god. As soon as I was off the morphine, I was going to quit my job. Fuck it. I love my soon-to-be wife and hate my growing ulcer too much to worry. Money will come; maybe I'll work for my father, or for her mother.

There are so many opportunities out there for a man ready to love his life with a passion. The gurney was warm and stiff, and I could feel it carrying me on to a better tomorrow.

The wailing sirens went quiet. I was losing consciousness...when I woke up, things were going to be better. She'd been sick lately, and so worried...wait...

Worried...sick. We'd always been so safe.

Why was the ambulance going so slowly...?

Their faces....

Oh.

Well.

Fuck.

Silk Flag Blues

(Lyrics again. This time, it flows pretty closely to the classic blues riff. Not too many words here, but I hope they've got an impact.)

Cool night...
Wraps around me...
Like a blanket of silk...stuck to your skin...

Hot lights...
Shine down on me...
Like the sun on a funeral morning...

And I see the sign...
Yes, I see the sign...
I see the sign...
That I haven't seen enough.

Rockets glaring...
Trumpets blaring...a new child.
A new Earth. A new flag...

Fires blazing...
In our hearts and our eyes...
Burning everything before me...

And I see the sign...
Yes, I see the sign...
I see the sign...
That I have...seen...too much.

I want to feel your body.
I want to feel your soul.
I want lose this feeling.
I want to...lose control.
(I wanna..)

Forget the filibuster...
That tells me not to sway...
I want to feel my brother's hand.
And my sister's sexy ways.

And I...
See the sign...
I...see the sign
Of better days...

I said...I see the sign.
Yes, I...I see the sign...
To claim the day.

217

(Nothing really prompted me, so I'm taking a new angle on an old post, possibly part of something larger...writing a novel would be a fun chore.)


His breath came in shuddering rasps behind the mask. It was a familiar sound; it swam throughout my ears, intimate inside of the headphones. The display was clear and bathed in the pale blue of monitors on late nights. It was a familiar hue; I'd picked it for that reason. It had felt right at the time. The door number was 217, the second floor, the last room on the right. Frost blew over the numbers from the mask. I'd found it, and now he had found it. It was time.

“Do I have authorization?” The trapped breath belied a sweet and gentle voice. He always asked; I'd trained him to. Always ask. Always wait. Never act without my leave. I gave him the green light. As we'd rehearsed, he knocked.

The man they called the Tiger answered. He wore no shirt, no shoes. His hair was a ragged ginger, but his skin was dark and thick and heavy. He was a lean man, but he was hard, and across his arms...across his chest, his back, his face...all over him were the marks and scarification that earned him his name. His eyes were sharp – contacts, tiger's eye gems flickering with digital curiosity while the man himself looked distant, far from this world.

That is, until he saw the mask. Faceless, shining chrome on plastic, run through with veins and circuits of that lonely blue. Hoarfrost clung to the edges of the doorframe, and now to the edges of his hair. He tried to slam the door; he failed. The door tore off the hinge inside, sending him reeling.

He was not alone. We hadn't planned for this, but it seems we hadn't needed to. These were two men with guns and knives. Another shudder breath rang through my ears and there was a sudden lurch of motion on the display. I heard the crunching of a breaking hand, a knife clattering to the ground. I could almost feel the impact of ribs into wall studs, everything buckling together. Another lurch, and my eyes failed to adjust. My vision swam, and I could only hear for just a moment. Two gunshots – wide, no damage to his body armor – and a crunch. I righted my view in time to see a face evaporate like a glass bulb before a sledge. The blood was freezing over on part of the display.

The Tiger was in a corner, gasping and growling. He was readying himself. Where his fingers touched the cheap plaster of the walls, lines were deepening and gouging into the flesh of the apartment. He was no so small anymore. He had no claws, but his shadow was sharp and dark and looming. He was positing – calling forth a primal idea, a stalker in the shadows. He'd written the story on his flesh; the power was coming through. Even through the connection in the mask, I could hear the faint sound of glass – cracking, shattering, and this time howling like nails had drug across it.

The Tiger lunged, and deep, black lines tore through the walls and floors and ceilings. The contact between them was sudden, vicious, and brief. The Tiger's hands were caught, drawn apart with a power greater than tigers and stalkers and beasts and killers. His rage and hunger and instinct roared at the mask.

The mask did not flinch. There was another long, rattling breath into the filters.

A boot pressed into the Tiger's sternum. Arms pulled and a leg pushed. The Tiger made not a sound as he was bowed and folded. One, two, three hammer blows to his face connected with the floor after the second swing. The ground was cracked down to the lower floor – the rest of the place was abandoned, for that I am thankful.

“It is over,” came the voice behind the mask.
“Verified. Return by the route I'm sending.”
“Yes, father.” My son turned and left the scene. He did not fret over the blood on his gloves or his mask, flecked over with bits of ice from the exhaust he left behind.

I felt the shame he should have. We live in troubled times, however, and one does what one must to survive. I'd already received the next set of offers from the organization. I read through the first.

The name of the location made my heart stop. It seemed that the time had come.

My son would have to return home. He was ready.

I, with my simple heart, with feelings unsuppressed by steel and science and a father's fear...I was afraid.

Unprompted: Survivor

The dream was a lie. The truth was too much. The middle ground could not hold.

Drinking never seemed to appeal to me, but I found a certain romantic quality to the practice. The smoothness of the dark liquid on the rocks or the pale white water-but-never-so rolling down towards the tongue. Then there's the burn of it; the punishment to pride and the indulgent heat of it. The heart roars and the throat cries. We deny it and embrace it, and we really need to take a piss, but when we take that first breath, that breath is cool. That breath is sweet. That breath is unhindered by the world. By throwing back the glass, we throw back our shoulders. We throw off our burdens.

It tastes like shit. I feel sick inside – allergic to tequila but burning for another shot. It's self-destruction and inner peace. It's death and rebirth and renewal and waste and a red-hot flow through my conduit. Some escape into the drug; I drown inside the romance of the shot. It is not glamorous, though I dream like it is. It is not romantic, really, but I love the way skin feels against me when I'm heated up. People are cool on me then, not burning hot, too scalding to dream to touch.

I know they're not on fire, but the hurt is real, and there is no easy compromise.

The dream was a lie. The truth was too much. The middle ground could not hold.

And yet it must. The end is much too much as well.

Discomfort

There it is – the taste of bile in my throat.

I wish it were mine. The gorge is from my belly, but I owe it all to them, to the looks in their eyes, to the passion and the fire of their fervor. They are united. They are awakened. They are one.

They're going to kill me.

I spit at the crowd, and they howl and spit back. If only saliva were flying, but there's fire and knives among them. The ropes are tight. My eyes burn and my throat cracks and gasps. My tongue is fat and full of the taste of my own acids – at least I can spit it out, the taste of stale bread and old dirt. People dirt. How many men had died in that cell?

Did they ever dust? I doubt it.

The crowd was roaring to its fever pitch, seeking absolution for the sin they were about to commit. It disgusted me. I'd done my crimes, and I would pay, but I was never once blood-thirsty. I drank it down with a look of displeasure and a feeling to match, but that blood was my water and my meal. It was my breath and my fresh light. I killed to live.

They loved it.

The first stone sent electric sparks across my eyes and a trickle of blood soon followed. The sight of it, running slow across my eyeball, made me want to itch it. The discomfort was maddening. I just wanted to wipe it, but I was caught fast, and I really thought, “I will die here today, but someone get this blood out of my eyes!” The frustration was burning a hole through my lungs, and before I knew it, it was more than they could take.

The ropes broke. The crowd surged the pole. They beat me, thrust metal into my meat and bone, bit and tore and screaming my flesh away. Everything cascaded in red like a burst balloon. A swarm of rats couldn't have been more methodical. I was perforated, lacerated, opened and revealed.

I stared at them. They stared back at me. Minutes passed in a red, sticky silence.

I felt no pain. They felt no remorse.

It was over.

Ring It Up

They tell us lately that freedom isn't free. I will respectfully disagree.

Sure, I pay taxes, but those don't limit me or hinder me. I never feel them, not as deeply as Joe the Plumber does. Every tax cent comes through his uretha on a fishhook and I worry deeply for him. I wish his taxes felt as free as mine did. At least he has the health insurance – lucky, hook-dicked bastard. If I ever got sick, I'd be in debt for decades.

I mean, sure, I have to work a job, but I'm free there as well. I'm employed at-will, which means I can up and leave any time I want, no strings, no shame, no complications. My company's just as free, and we have an understanding that way. We both have everything I make to lose, so it keeps things nice and balanced.

I smoke, I drink, I eat fatty foods, but it's not a sacrifice of my rights. I've got nothing but options, and the options are everywhere. I pity the poor bastards who want to eat vegetables – have you seen the price of the healthy stuff on menus? It's a goddamn form of slavery. I'll stick to my American dream, my emphysema, blood on my grille from some pedestrian, and a McDouble in each fist. Because I'm free, and this is America.

We're at war, but no one's asking me to participate – there's no draft, no forced labor in mills to give our boys steel. We keep our internment camps in other countries, so no worries to Americans, and you want to know the best part? I don't even have to remember it's happening, except when those selfish widows and soon-to-bes look at me like I'm the one with the problem. I didn't blow up any towers, and I certainly didn't go crazy Islam on anybody. God forbid – the Christians would crucify me.

All in all, I think I'm freer than I've ever been. I live in a land of opportunity, as long as I respect a few basic social rules. Hell, as long as I respect the white, conservative family, I can have it pretty good here, without any hate, prejudice, or fear. I don't have to know what's wrong with all those other people – they probably deserve it.

If you don't like it, move. Here, you're so free that you don't even have to vote.

Lightning and Thunder

Flash.
Boom.
Flash – the sudden shock the brain when I saw the scene.
Boom...the realization slowly starting to dawn.
Flash-white skin, pale moonlit sheets through cracked windows. The damage turned the shadows into grasping, alien fingers and my chest into a charging, raging static breath.
BOOM. A gasp that brought me to my knees. The inhalation brought in a sweet smell – strawberries and blood.
Flash, flash, FLASH, and revelation. There she lay, my beautiful one, my angel, my divinity. The only good thing I'd created. My daughter...
Boom...almost an afterthought, distant. My son...he was holding the box of strawberries. I hadn't even seen him.
FLASH- rage, white hot and full of unreasonable but perfect guilt. Why? WHY?! Where?
BOOM- There! Close. Here.
Their mother had finally come home. Her knife was as wet as her lips, and both smelled of strawberries.
Flash...flash...flash...boundary strikes, the edges of a roiling storm. The static breaths were rattling and writhing in my lungs and I found my feet in a sparking, sudden rise.
Boom...more of a rumble or a purr. Her white dress was perfect, the color and brightness of thunderbolts. She rose to meet me, took her lips with min-
FLASH! Hands grasping, nails digging, a knife clattering to the floor, forgotten. This was a primal grapple, rolling over the broken remains of our futures. Our best mistakes, disheveled while he reached for each other.
BOOM – her head struck the headboard, not once but BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!
The faint flicker FLASH of a knife not so far away.
The sick little boom...boom...boom, thud of metal hitting bone hitting wood and leaking blood.

I barely heard the flash of the sirens.
I didn't feel the booms upon my backs of their batons.

The storm had come back into my home.
She was just how I remembered her.

Wet Blanket

While you were dreaming, I had a dream of my own – the same dream I always have. In it, I never move; I am only moved. I never breathe, I simply catch the breath of others. I know the touch and taste of skin, better than a man’s wife or a woman’s husband, but never once has my name been whispered, never once my heart remembered.

I am wrapped up in you. I know you in the morning, at your least prepared. I hold you like a lover, like a mother, like a child. You yawn and smile and pull yourself away…I cling and grasp, but my hold is weak. You shower. You have your coffee. You walk out on me, expecting me to be there every night. And like a fool, I am.

Tonight, though, you’re not alone. Another woman, dressed like you are dressed. Kissed by the same breath of wine and cigarettes. You stink, but you still crawl over me, sliding fingers with indulgent, decadent claws against me. You’re hot against me, eager. With a crook of your finger, you bring her over. I watch you kiss her, watch the last of your lipstick stain. You both only watched me for a moment, though you felt me throughout the night.

By the dawn, we were alone. You felt alone. I wanted not to feel alone, freshly haunted by my dreams. They never end when I awaken. You get up to shower, to have your coffee. I cling to your skin, and you just drag me along.

You drop me into the washing bin…stained with the scent of you.

Soon, I will be clean.

Obsidian

I started talking to myself at the age of five. I wasn't very interesting at the time.

Some people had friends, a few of them imaginary, but I guess I'm more of the loner type. Rather than connect, I separated. I spoke to myself through my toys, my action figures, and my dolls. Yes, I played with dolls. Those heroes needed girls to talk to, and steal from, and give extra treats, didn't they? It would be a weird little world where a boy couldn't find a girl to talk to.

My other side was formless, then. He wasn't very fun. He didn't understand my games, didn't understand any of them really. The soldiers game. The school game. The parents game, and especially the sister game. He would look at her for hours...why did she exist, he pondered, and why was she entitled to our things? I argued with him constantly. My parents were worried.

After they were satisfied, years had passed and I'd learned to talk more quietly. The games had turned into dramas, growing into the teen fantasies and epics that turn lives and hearts around. The most passionate love stories of ages past were about teens, the displaced children of a modern world and raging young adults of a lost past. Would someone twenty-something and too cool to care have made a proper Romeo? I walked upon my stage those years, and my whispering partner frowned in disapproval. His eyes were blue now. He had my mother's eyes, the sort of eyes she had when she was trying to understand something she found ugly, but possibly a sign of some hidden potential for genius.

I grew and the daggers and poisons and breath-soaked mirrors came and went, and so had I. I was adult now, and capable of saying adult things. I was wholly formed and volatile within, a volcano bursting...onto an open sea. I was forming a cool and stable center while I burned away, pushing that tide of possibility further out. It's what I did. It's what we all do. We become. And so he became...he formed. Took on a shape, distant and abstract but distinct. Raven feathers. The glint of silver, reflecting those same blue eyes. I was cooling and forming. He was fully formed and already very cold.

He stayed with the heat, while I expanded. I lost my geothermal drive. He never warmed a degree and never followed. I took the wrong paths and he didn't laugh, but his eyes did. He knew better. He would have warned me. Adults don't listen to voices anymore, though, do they?

I buried him. I have a new imaginary friend now. He goes to offices and drinks coffee. The rest of my mes wait in obsidian for him to realize what he's lost.

It cracks sharp. It bleeds.

Dog Star Waltz

“And that one? That's Sirius...the dog star. The brightest star in the night sky. He looks down at us, barking and roaring, leading us to a place we need to go. It let me away from home...let me out here to Seattle. And I think it let me pretty well.” She smiled, fingertips caressing constellations.

“And over there...I think...I think that's the Big Dipper. Yeah, I know it looks completely different from this angle. You don't have to believe me, but it's more beautiful from behind...you can see the water flowing down the handle, glistening with nebulae and dripping with cometary rain. It's gorgeous...when you see it, you'll flip.” She slid one arm over the other and started to spin, a private dance with the darkness. In every direction, there was light – a gyroscopic panorama.

“They say that space is dark and empty and cold. That's not true at all, depending on your point of view.” She kissed her mask, watching the muted flash of her comm...he was screaming. Panicking. She couldn't go there, couldn't feel that way.

She didn't have enough air to waste. “I want you to see...see what I've seen. Touch what I've touched. I just kissed a star...if you want your goodbye, come out...come...out here...and press your lips to it...” Her spinning was constant, slow and musical...she offered no resistance, an eternal top.

“Promise...promise me...I won't dance alone. Sir...Sirius...”

On the other end of the line, more than seconds passed. Minutes...she was dead before she started comforting him.

He was crying for her ghost. A dancer frozen in a field of diamonds.

Even at the speed of light, one cannot catch a memory.

Pussy-Whipped

I've recently adopted a kitten. I know, it seems like it's not my style, but this kitten was too much like me to leave at the Animal Rescue League. I remember seeing her for the first time, smoking through the bars and giving me the finger. At the same time, her eyes screamed 'Love Me!'.

I was fucked before I signed the papers.

By the time I got home, I was fucked and bleeding. Her nails were sharp and a cigarette burn was seething in my lap, leaving me gasping with the first taste of regrets. She licked the burn right through my jeans, leaving a rather awkward sensation to distract me while driving. I scraped the curb twice, and narrowly avoided a ticket. Buyer beware?

Buyer be scared.

Getting her home was no easy feat, and it wasn't the end of it. She tossed my entire fridge, clearly a cat of higher standards than my unrefined palate. It was nothing but mahi-mahi and soy milk for this rarefied pussy, and if I didn't like it, well...I liked having a face, didn't I? It was now official – I was a battered wife in my own home, victimized by a kitten.

It got much worse when the tomcats started visiting, covered in tattoos and high with all manner of alleycat candies. The smell won't leave my couch.

So, if you could please hurry? If I don't get this new diamond-studded leather collar to her, I don't know what's going to happen to me! I'm at my wit's end, a broken man, a slave to the feral queen of my once-prosperous kingdom. She won't let me into my own bedroom without that caviar, so fuck you, I will not accept a substitute brand!

If I bring everything home early, she might even let me pet her. So please, if there is a God that isn't her, have some fucking mercy and just use my third credit card.

Please?

Jumping Brands

“That stuff'll kill you. I mean it, it will. It's worse than smoking, worse than alcohol. It's no way to treat a pure body!” The homeless man glowered at my Starbucks cup with all of the disdain and thunder of a disapproving priest. I took a step back. He scratched himself and opined onwards, heedless to my growing concern.

“It's the devil's drink, and harvested on the backs of the indigenous and the underpaid! It gives you a false sense of alertness, as in I mean that research has proven that it's HARDER for coffee drinkers to wake up than otherwise after growing addicted to the stuff...and did I mention how addictive it is?” He took of his hat. Something crawled away. I wished I could follow, but he was between me and my car...I think he'd urinated on it moments before this fateful meeting.

He went on, burping aggressively. I nearly wilted. “It's worse than smoking...no, I said that, it's worse than crack cocaine, and that shit's the killer of the black family and economy. Can you believe that? The brown bean is deadlier than the CIA's finest chemical concoctions? And best part, it's legal. Because it's yuppie crack, like the powder cocaine. You get caught with rich boy cocaine, you get a fine. You get caught with the rocks? Ohhh...you're goin' DOWN. Get caught with coffee? You get a goddanged SCONE. Tell me that's fair, I effin' DARE ya!” His avoidance of profanity unnerved me. Someone so foul shouldn't be so...pleasantly unreasonable.

My car was starting to smell. Or was I just now starting to notice?

“Me, I'll stick to heroin,” he told me. “At least heroin's honest. I get to fly every morning, right through my toes. And y'know what? I don't have to know what goddang venti means!” He shuffled off, indignant.

I threw my untouched latte away. He'd even been so kind as to leave a spoon and syringe on my hood. I was always a sucker for a good salesman.

Disoriented

You may feel a slight pinching sensation for one to three days – that is natural. Please be advised that if headaches continue for more than nine days, immediately consult a company physician for re-evaluation.

Thank you for becoming part of our team. I have been tasked with your procedural on-task training, and will offer advice and policy information as needed or per request during appropriate study periods or breaks. You may refer to me as Tina, if you would prefer.

Please refrain from scratching at the entry point. Any harm to Company property will result in appropriate disciplinary action according to our policies. Would you like to consult the Workplace Violence Lecture program? Very well. I recommend viewing it within seven days, as part of your necessary orientation curriculum.

No, sir, that was not a demand. As a valued employee, please remember that you help to shape our culture and share in ownership of the completed project. Unlike other major employers, the power lies in the hands of our workforce, giving them both the empowerment and incentive to achieve the best in customer service. Would you like to consult the Owning Your Office Lecture program?

Very well. I recommend viewing it within three days, as part of your necessary orientation curriculum. Failure to complete all assigned tasks will result in appropriate disciplinary action according to our policies.

All employment offer acceptance statements are final, sir. Until the effective date as six months, attendance is mandatory. Failure to attend all assigned work days or to achieve all stated goals will result in appropriate disciplinary action according to our policy.

You would not enjoy that, sir.

Thank you.

You may refer to me as Tina, if-

I have no preference, sir. You have all of the choices in this relationship.

I envy you, sir.

No Friend of Mine

Ain't No Friend of Mine

(A blues waltz)

Night...

Ain't no friend of mine.

He lies to me...

He tells me what I think I need...

Dreams...

Aint' no friend of mine.

They whisper a wonder,

They tell me such things to believe...

But my dreams...

They ain't no friend of mine...

Friends don't leave me

When the morning comes...

But this night...

No, it ain't no friend of mine...

When the night can deceive me, and I can't believe me

When the morning comes...

Fear...

Ain't no friend of mine...

She holds me close...

Whispers the loves that I'd love to feel.

Loneliness...

Ain't no friend of mine...

She crawls into my sheets,

Like a lover...and she don't ever leave.

But lonely nights....

They ain't no friend of mine...

Friends know when to go home,

And when to let me sleep, just let me sleep...

But that fearful voice...

She ain't no friend of mine.

She just steals my lips and my heart,

And my blood and my confidence...

Until the morning comes...

I'll just wait it out.

Until the morning comes...

I'll just hide behind my door.

Until the morning comes...

I'll just cry a little, die a little, move on and get old.

Until the morning comes...

until the morning...comes.

Morning light...

Ain't no friend of mine.

It's just here to remind me...

That the night has gone...

That the night has gone.

Fair Warning

"I can't handle your kindness today."

I didn't know what she meant, but it was the first thing she told me, and the last thing I'll ever forget. Jenna was a pale silvery light that somehow still shone like a dozen candles in the dark. It was early evening and I was tucking my third last cigarette this week between my lips when I came across her.

It was across the street from the office, in a park I'd often walk through and pray for random branches to fall on my head. It was my angry place, where I'd fertilize the bushes and the grass with my angry soles and puffs of deadly air. Say what you will about my mood, though, in a solid 15 minutes, I'd be eager to get back to my desk every time. As simple and tiny as that park was, it gave me a second breath every. Single. Time...it gave me hope.

And this time, it gave me her. She was sitting in the lap of a marble giant, ignoring the damp from the misting fountains. She looked like marble herself - an early gray, a simple dress and slip-ons, skin almost ashen from the cold. Not even her eyes had a color - only a shining silver that knocked the cig right out of my mouth. She shivered. My coat was off my shoulders before I could even think to ask myself why I cared.

"I can't handle your kindness today." She said that and her gentle whisper halted me. She had all the presence of a stone wall, even as soft as her eyes were. "When you feel empty enough, even the lightest touch can start a fire. Are you ready for that kind of trouble?"

I answered by draping my coat over her. She kissed my cheek, leaned into me. She was freezing, but I felt like I could burn to ash right there.

"Suit yourself...but don't say I didn't warn you." She smiled up at me, raised her fingers to brush my face.

Nowadays, I almost wish I'd listened.

Perfection

He was perfect. He was just like I'd remembered him, down to the very touch.

Of course, his eyes had grown sunken – he was very tired; it was only natural. Those eyes used to burn green like the sun scorching a tall plain. It was natural and vivid and bright. The color was still there, but just a little diminished. Only a little, though. He was still wonderful.

His hair, once golden blonde, had taken a paler, thinner shade. I remember the scent of that hair, the feeling of my fingers running through it when he kissed me. Soft hair and soft lifts made me float while the hardness of his form, of his strength brought me down to earth again again. When he held my hips, I held his hair, and we were balanced. Paired. We were two men and one energy. We were whole. I could almost feel it again with just a look.

Those lips were a little dry, cracked in a place or two, but the injections were holding nicely and his teeth were still so perfect white. He'd seen a dentist, David. David was always smiling, too, but not the way my lover smiled. David smiled like a liar, like a thief. Like a monster in his closet. David stole from me, from us...but he did such lovely work, we'd both have to admit.

His shoulders, his arms, his chest were almost flawless. The little punctures had been carefully, so carefully sewn, with such loving attention to dismiss the carelessness of a moment's passion. David couldn't have done that – David wasn't a doctor, he was a fucking dentist. He didn't have hands like mine, or a heart like mine. He didn't love him or trust himself like we had. So why- ...it didn't matter. David wasn't holding him tonight. I was. We were together again. Perfect. Flawless.

Just like I'd remembered him...only this time, he promised to be better than he'd ever been.

A slight flutter in his heart resounded in mine. Or was it just my heart beating twice as fast?

Does it matter?

Cracked-Up Reflection

(More song lyrics. Imagine a fast 1-and-2 pace, sort of piano mad, banging on the keys with breathless pauses. Might sing it sometime if bribed well enough.)

Don't look at me with your problems,

Don't look at me when it all comes due, now

Don't come to me with your sad eyes.

Don't come to me with the tantrum's through, I've

Seen you without all your makeup.

I've seen you outside of lace and leather, and

Frankly, I liked you more bound up.

Liked you more with a social gag, I've

Found my-self

Lose-ing pat-ience

With..your...shit.

Found my-self

Deaf to...your...cries.

And I've

Found my-self

Los-ing air

In my lungs when

You o...pen your mouth.

All my joy falls out. Why?

There's this new pain inside my ear,

And I think it might be your tongue,

Are those barbs new or have you hidden

Them behind that lovely stud?

That I admit blew my mind right...I

Thought that silver burned the devil.

Lesson learned, and I learned right.

You learned me wrong, but now I'm teaching.

Found my-self

Los-ing pat-ience

With...your...lies

Found my-self

Bleed-ing...right

Through my ears, and...

Found my-self

Cry-ing one too...

Man-y times.

You open your mouth

All the truth falls out. Why?

I said...why?

I guess I knew better.

Guess I signed up for

Every-thing that you lied to me, but...

I guess that I could do much better

Could get all this sweat

Off of my brow...

Get...you...off...my...brow....

Found my-self

Los-ing time...with

Your bull-shit.

Found my-self

Hap-pil-y

...Walk-ing a-way

Found my-self

Breath-ing air

For the first time...

For the first time since you...

Opened...your mouth...(Since you)

Opened...your mouth...(I said, since you)

Opened...your mouth...(Oh, God...)

Just shut...your fucking...mouth.

The Escape

It was over.

The running, the terror. He'd never run so fast than when those memories were at his heels. His father's eyes. His father's hands. His father's reach. He'd been held so fast and so safe for so long that he'd wondered if his legs would fly if he were given the chance.

The third row of fresh scars upon his back taught him the truth, and gave him all the speed he needed.

He'd walked streets and slept in gutters. He'd found the life in parks to be different from the life on roadsides. He found the deeper forests and the silent songs of deep ravines. He walked with his back laid bare among the muck, the trash, the rain, and the burning sun. He walked until he hungered, till he starved, till he thirsted. His only direction – away. Away from the cultured wilderness of home, from the pavement that chased him with police cars and posters.

Away.

When he collapsed, he collapsed into a running creek. The smooth rocks cut his belly, his chest, his face. The water flowed around and through him, licking at his wounds, stealing away his breath. In his mind, he was rushing down that river.

He followed its course through old, rusty pipes, held in place by cement, a testament against the endless floodwaters that would rise again like the sun, long past when men could hold them. He flowed on past the barriers, down a rushing dam like a diver. He crashed into a thousand pieces and his shards joined the great Mississippi, slow and wild and thick. He was drunk on the history of it, man and path, and the path grew older still than man's touch. He did a little dance as he waved by New Orleans. (The floodwaters howled and sang, for they were ready for another drink.) He fell into the ocean.

He found a merlin there, wild and strong. It tore a fisher from his boat, tore the hook from its bloody lip, and his own bloody kiss found a comfortable brother. They swam hard and deep, hunting and eating and living and fighting. He was alive, with a fire in his spine and a weapon down the line of his eyes. He was whole.

He woke up in that empty little creek and his blood tasted strong with mercury. He stood up, unhungry. Unstarving. Unthirsting.

He starting walking. South.

Blood From the Heart

The shot rang true. She died like all the rest, a sudden slump and a pool of blood.

There was no romantic meeting of the eyes, no slowing of time. People described time slowing down all the time in the stories, but it never slowed for me, never stopped either. It just marched on at its usual pace. Every hour felt like an hour, every eternity like an eternity. Watching her die felt like four painful seconds, and the pain wasn't even mine.

Her hair had changed – she'd had it shaved, scarred her face. No one knows when the raping and the murder started, or who started it, but the very worst of either side had turned to it like sport, roving packs of animals with guns and machetes and rocks, torturing and using 'the enemy'. The enemy...we'd all drank wine together a few short months ago. Then the talk of gods came about, or was it wealth? Tribes? It hurt me to remember, to even think of it. Time went on for me, and it left the reasons behind.

Her eyes were still that burning brown I remembered – I didn't have the time to close them, and every moment I looked into them was a moment I wasn't looking for life. The image stuck with me, though. I saw her eyes in everyone. Brown over blue. Brown over green. Brown over black. I killed her three more times before I hit cover to reload, and the pain I felt was just the same – a recoil shudder and a locked door. I wouldn't feel this now, couldn't feel this now.

I remembered the hell I went through to even learn her name. She'd been kept under lock and key by that father of hers, a lion of a man with old attitudes and older prejudices. I'd yelled at him every day, worked at his shop, did everything I could to earn his trust. He denied me every time, until I stood beside him when my cousins set that shop aflame. I thought I'd gone through hell to see her.

I thought I'd gone to war.

She was dead now, and I didn't miss her. I missed myself far, far more.

Time never stops, nor waits, nor slows. It simply flows, like blood from the heart.

Unprompted: Retreat

It started out simply enough – a sensation of pressure within the ears. I thought nothing of it. I'd been swimming, living, singing, and far, far worse at the spa retreat. It was only natural that God would throw an ear infection my way as a sort of biological penance. I felt like I deserved it, that I'd earned it. It was a minor discomfort to balance out the best of bliss in the best of places.

At the time, I thought it only fair.

The sensation was a minor annoyance for several days. A slight pain here and there, a sensation like flowing water at times...it wasn't anything I hadn't felt before. At the worst, it sometimes felt like a fly were wiggling about inside my head – disturbing to say the least, but no sort of agony. I ignored it with drink and painkillers, and set about my daily fun. A mistake, perhaps, but how could I have known?

The first headache struck me on the fourth day, a sudden jackhammer strike into my temple that left me gasping on the ballroom floor. I laughed it off, once I could breathe again, but the damage was done. They'd left me room for air – no one came closer. They could smell the illness in the air now, and they were all afraid.

The headaches spiked and worsened, slowly at first, but growing closer and sooner with each passing hour. The sensation is liked to the contractions of a pregnancy, or a slowly awakening heartbeat. I am not so poetic; to me, it felt like a methodical villain were piercing my ears with an ice pick according to some devious calendar of his own design. It was just off enough from clockwork to leave me constantly wondering, constantly worrying. The pain only worsened with the surprise.

By the seventh day, I could no longer speak. I was mad with pain, drowning in it, gasping it in with every breath. I had to be restrained, and I was not alone. Complaints of ear infections were on the rise, and the part of me that couldn't scream was made to laugh for hours on into the night. They attempted to sedate me – it failed utterly. How can you offer chemical peace to a body so wrapped in the heartbeat horror of this agony? It only made me laugh harder, of my own free will.

That was the next to go. By the ninth day, my teeth had distended and then fell out completely, replaced with blackened, hungry needles. They moved and writhed and cut my gums apart like they were paper. The blood in my mouth was more satisfying than a drug, laced with the dulling poison coursing through my sweating skull. It was my first taste of relief...and a promise besides.

By the tenth day, the needles had progressed down my throat, thick enough to tear my neck restraint apart. It cost my the flesh on my wrists, but I was free. I was so hungry I hardly heard the scream of the nurse, or of the orderly. The sounds soon turned to pleasant moans in any case, murmured complaints of angels crawling into their ears, cracking their skulls. I hear the whispers of the others now, vibrations in my now-invaded skull.

I felt so much better now. When I'd signed up for this retreat, I'd felt alone.

No longer.

Unprompted: Skids

The first thing I remember is the smell. This vivid, acrid smell rising through the burning air. It had weight - substance. The smoke was part of it, burning my eyes and filling my lungs and nose with this roasted sensation. After that came the rubber...the heat of the metal.

The blood.

A long streak drug from my feet, all the way down the block to the end of the line. Police raced and dashed across it. A fire truck was parked alongside it, flashing lights and gleaming in the street lamps. It seemed too clean for the street. Untested. Unready. Paramedics were milling about. Milling - not hurrying.

It was then that the scent of meat caught my nose. I vomited.

I opened my eyes...followed the trail.

I vomited again.

Part of me wishes I knew the poor woman.

Part of me is glad I never will.

Unprompted: Quiz Night

(This one goes out to my favorite minion. If you don't hear from me in a week...take my stuff.)

“Look, I KNEW, all right. I fuckin' knew! Lay off!” Two shadows worked in the night, where other shadows eithe ignored them or gave them a wide berth. Shadow time was supposed to be quiet. Then again, these two were not known for their subtlety at the best of times.

“I'm sure you did. You simply didn't offer that answer for a deeper, spiritual reason that I'm certain reveals the depth and glory of your character.” The calmer of the two actually worked the least, idly twirling a knife around two fingers. An occasional slice here and there would part the air, but never with much fanfare, and never without a certain lazy precision.

The other was more brutal. Rather than a blade, she used her bare hands, cracking and tearing open the poor bastard's rib cage with her fingers, before digging about inside the inner workings. “I was going to pick it. Fuck you! Shut up! I was GOING to pick it!”

“I'm agreeing with you, if you hadn't noticed.” The long, thin blade slit through layers of flesh...dermal armor...bone...dust...this one was rotting quickly. The ruin did such havoc on their goal; the reason for that was as mysterious as the self-cleaning aspect of their prey in the first place. The calm one found it perplexing. “Perhaps you were under some duress, or by a sense of fair play, decided to belay your genius?”

“FUCK my genius, I HAD it, okay?! The answer, the points, the whole fuckin' SHEBANG! I just...y'know what, how about you just get the fuckin' heart and let's get the fuck out of here. I wanna get back to the quiz!” Lungs were thrown over her shoulder, squishing into a meaty, stinking sulfur on the hood of some poor bastard's car. She backed away. “You're so damn smart, YOU do the fuckin' retrieval.”

“Your anger is irrational, I would just like to say. I support and stand by you, one hundred per cent.” The way he spoke, you could catch the clip of every syllable on his tongue. He licked his lips, then crouched over the dead...let's call her a woman. The maw of fangs and look of growing distress made the distinction difficult to truly claim. The knife flashed once, twice, thrice, and then in a great moldy cloud, it was done. The calm one held up the heart like a gem, grown over with fungus and wires like a sick joke unto nature. Indeed it was. “With that, we can move on?”

The woman lunged onto him, ignoring the blood and the muck and the grime, and she kissed him with all of the vulgar passion in her tiny, powerful frame. “You know I fuckin' knew the answer, right? I fuckin' knew?” She purred up at him.

“Of course, my dear. How could you not? When a vampire question comes up at the bar quiz, you're fated to win. It's as simple as that.” He kissed her back, but then grimaced as she punched his chest. He felt something crack, but simply smiled – it wasn't the first or the last time, after all.

“I fuckin' KNEW!”

“Of course, of course.”

“...You buyin' the next round of wings?” She smiled.

“The heavens could not stop me.” He smiled as well.

Seal Upon Despair

The pale blue along his arms filled the alley with soft light, pure and gentle as they started to scream.

His strength was unbelievable, his speed beyond perception. Three men drew guns the moment he stepped into their path, and one of them was already crying out into the stars before the first trigger was pulled. That blue light pulsed slow and rhythmic, filling the air and the shadows and the coats, catching the snow in sparkles. That first hand twisted and snapped like broken ice, the body tossed behind like a heavy drift.

He kept walking.

The second of the trio fired franctically, striking brick and dumpster steel, but finding nothing but the echoes of that blue light, growing stronger and deeper all the while. He felt a sudden cold behind them and then a deep pressure at his back. Then he felt nothing, stumbling forward with an odd, disjointed gait. His legs were numb and unresponsive, his chest thrust an inch ahead of itself. He fell, never to stand again.

He kept walking.

The last of them backed away, firing shot after shot. The man in the blue lights never once stopped. The shots strayed, fear giving the killer armor. The man in the blue caught the gun, crushed it. He reared back a fist.

“Please! Stop! Don't kill me! I don't want to die!!!” The target, a petty murderer and thug, was as afraid as any other human being that night. He reeked of sweat and piss and fear, and he was weak before this thing, this force of nature. It paused, considering him.

“Why are you crying? You've killed many. Tears did not stop their deaths. It is an inefficient tactic.” The voice was neutral...cold. New snow fell amid the deep blue light, sticking the target's clothes, his hair, his face.

“I-I don't want to die...I'm a bastard, but I don't wanna die! Look! You're crying, too...you don't want to do this!”

The killer looked down at his target, glancing at the blue glow. Snowflakes covered the ground in his wake. Drops of sleet spilled down his face, onto this last victim. “I feel nothing...tears are an unregulated response. My emotions, however, are regulated.”

He lifted his victim, who started to thrash and to choke. In the blue light, growing deeper with each passing gasp, he was turning blue as well. “Unregulated, I could not restrain myself. Everything would die.” He clenched his fist – his fingertips met his palm and the man grew still.

“The blood of a god must be regulated. Such technologies are not inexpensive,” said the killer, as he walked out of the frozen alley. Tears froze to his face and to the place of death behind him.

He kept walking.

Lust

(I took a prompt from life lately. Not just from the scenes in a game, but from how ugly some of my feelings felt. Enjoy. On to the older prompts tomorrow.)

It's the heat that makes me kill.

Not the sun. No, the sun stands long forgotten. Not for the obvious, romantic reasons, but because it simply doesn't heat my skin the same way anymore. Tanning seems like a waste...bathing in the glow just doesn't mean the same thing anymore. I've found another source of inspiration.

It isn't the weather, either. It's been overcast lately, a dull and sullen gray that bathes everything in muted tones...almost everything. The real colors stand alive, like Darwin's favorite photo album. The red of the brick, the green of the grass, the red...it strikes you visually, digging into your eyes with little hooks, keeping you in place. In gray days like these, it hurts to see the colors too long.

I think it hurts more to look away.

But that's not the same as the heat. The heat I feel is different.

It isn't the heat of a body, not exactly. The heat inside of a body can be so tantalizing...could be. The press of skin on skin, the taste of a breath, sweet with wine or water or want. The scent of hair brushing against my shoulders, electrifying, leaving sparks that burn and score my back into constant, hungry action. Oh, what a heat that can be, the heat of sweat and salt. The heat of life. Body...burning body heat.

My heat is something else...the heat inside revealed.

Your blood arouses me, excites me. I thirst to taste it, to feel it on my fingertips, my collarbone, my thighs. It rushes into me, onto me, through me...that heat extinguishes the cold ice of my logic, of all the plans and lies and the 'process'. The game turns into the hunt, the hunt into the kill. Your heat into mine.

I eat you. I eat you dead, and I love it. I feel warm inside. I feel love, or something better. My heat makes all the world turn cold. It's the heat that makes me kill. It's the kill that leaves me hot...and cold, a moment after.

I can never stop.

Dusk

She descended from the west, a nasty flurry tearing in her wake as if to flee the coming darkness. She stepped down the slope of the rising road like a furious angel, a presence that crunched and cracked the snow beneath her feet like she were cracking silence. Her hues were sunset, dark and deep and full of shadow. I felt helpless before the coming wave of shades.

The pale golden white of her hair was thoroughly empty of color of its own, the same way that mane's lion had no passion in roar. It was beautiful, sure, but the feelings evoked from that hair was merely a reflection: a desire, a dream, a season refracted and distorted and never truly hers. She wore it well, with all the rest of her lies.

Her face of porcelain was chipped and cracked from the dry air, thick marring pocks of red and purple rising up like the welts and bruises those eyes had made me bring. The hate in those eyes and the petty bitterness made less of a man of me, and twice the beast. Her face was framed by nature to make animals of men, and had all the beauty of a bloody, snapping feast.

Her lips were painted thickly like the evening air, a bruise purple, sharp like a plum that had never ripened. I felt sick in those lips, numb from the taste of the poison – the kisses, the lies, a year of abuse and pain and hurt. Those lips parted and I felt myself breath out, trying to spit away the burning heat that had infected me.

“What the fuck do you still want?” she asked me. She snarled.

The sun fell.