The Cedar Rapidian Sorceress Just Says Yes to Lipton

Travis - J. Smith


     It's been eighteen months and nine days since you began working the graveyard shift at the Texaco just off the interstate across from Wendy's. The position is part-time, usually weekends, specifically Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights; it supplements your day job -though not monetarily- as a freelance editor and columnist, mostly pop culture analogies for riveting tales of international realpolitik. While the microwavable burritos and seemingly endless supply of carbonated beverages are a nice touch, the time involved is the biggest draw, as the position better enables one to stay away from local drinking establishments such as the Red Lion, located just two short blocks from this Texaco station. What's more, the time spent stocking shelves, signing early morning delivery manifests, and smoking cigarettes merely for the sake of taking smoke breaks is time spent away from the wife - the woman who, incidentally, was the driving force behind the asinine intervention which led to you taking this job in the first place. Long story short, you prefer to think of this as Eoin time.
     Another draw is the people. Working the graveyard shift provides a person with the opportunity to observe the zaniest of individuals at their absolute wackiest, fellow employees included. On Friday nights, you're joined by Denny Hughes, a guy so consistently strung out that he puts the clientele to shame, and when he isn't on the phone with one of his transient girlfriends, he's busy chatting up whichever girlfriend sees fit to stop by, sometimes both at once. On Saturday nights, Tom is your copilot, and though he's never divulged his surname, which is somewhat odd, you've witnessed him put a rowdy drunk dressed up as Santa Claus into a debilitating choke hold, so you're content with not asking.
     This is Thursday, however, and all things considered, Thursdays are relatively hassle free, so you work alone. Last week, sure, you had to call the cops when a Ted Nugent lookalike began duking it out with an Asian-American version of Sigourney Weaver over the last hot dog, but alerting the police had more to do with the combatants refusing your conciliatory offer of a corn dog on discount than genuine concern for the poor man's Ted Nugent, who ended up getting his ass handed to him before the police arrived on the scene. Pretty tame compared to the weekend, and you'll take what you can get.
     Even so, you can't help but feel as if you're about due for a head-scratcher. For starters, it began to rain roughly fifteen minutes ago, which is odd because the KCRG TV-9 forecast called for clear skies throughout the weekend. This is nothing to complain about since fewer people patronize the establishment during such weather, but still, it's pretty weird, made all the more peculiar by the onset of rain coinciding with you having pressed play on the CD player. The Bends, Radiohead's second studio album, arguably the band's finest release. Fake Plastic Trees, fourth track, probably the best song of the album. Someone approaches, walking in the rain without an umbrella; someone you've met before; a walking, talking head-scratcher if there ever was one.
     The first time you encountered Megan Erickson, shortly after you began working here, you threw up one of those wonderful microwavable burritos, but you hadn't realized it was her because she was several shades of messed up. The only thing you perceived at the time was a woman wearing nothing but a translucent poncho, which was perplexing enough, though itself not vomit-inducing - having seen more than a few naked ladies in your day, a flash of flesh scarcely puts you in a state of unease. No, it had more to do with the fact that a good portion of her skull was cracked and partially caved in, while one of her goddamn eyeballs drooped from its socket, to say nothing of the bones protruding from several parts of her body. She offered no words that night; simply limped to the beverage cooler, removed two bottles of Budweiser from a six pack, and staggered out, back to whichever nightmare whence she emerged, leaving nothing but a streak of blood as proof that you hadn't imagined the whole thing.
     The second time she came in, a Friday night, she received a complimentary fountain drink, mostly because she looked as though she'd been hit in the jaw and throat by a heaping helping of buckshot, which isn't something that you were prepared to view, let alone discuss, and neither was Denny. Subsequent visits have been less disconcerting, and you've even seen her outside of work, usually at parties, but that doesn't make it any less bizarre.
     She looks relatively normal tonight, albeit drenched by the downpour. Sopping wet and decked out in an urban camouflage print tank top, charcoal cargo pants, and to state the painfully obvious, hair dyed blue, white, and red like some kind of screwed-up Bomb Pop granted life, she waltzes into your favorite Texaco station with a smirk etched upon her face; surrounding said smile, somewhat washed away by the rain, is a smear of maroon that runs down her chin. Not knowing what to say, you ask Erickson if she's been blowing the Kool-Aid Man.
     "Pretty much," she responds, not stopping as she makes her way toward the beverage section. "And I'd say that Fake Plastic Trees is an overrated Radiohead song, but then you'd opine that the same could be said for Let Down, and I'd hate for this to get ugly, Eoin."
     You inform her that while you're willing to acknowledge the greatness of Let Down so long as it's part of the Holy Trinity that is Exit Music (For a Film), Let Down, and Karma Police, Fake Plastic Trees remains the end-all, be-all of Radiohead singles.
     "Yeah, yeah. Say, do you guys carry any drinks that are, like, all natural and shit?"
     Off the top of your head, you report that Texaco carries Lipton Iced Tea, 100% natural, in a variety of flavors, your personal favorite being the green tea, because it's your job to know these things. She returns shortly thereafter, places two bottles on the counter, hands you a credit card, requests a carton of Marlboro Menthols, full-flavored, shorts, and begins gulping down some tea. You glance at the card.
     "Is one carton going to be enough, Rodger McCormick?"
     She laughs that grotesque, almost hyenic chuckle of hers. "Good point. Give me two. No, wait. Fuck, give me four," she says before finishing the first bottle of tea.
     "You do know that this store has surveillance cameras, right?"
     "I'm counting on it, actually," is all she offers up before downing the second bottle of tea. With tax, the total comes to $243.35 and she signs for it gleefully. "So the thing about all-natural products is that, well, they don't agree with my digestive system."
     Not quite sure how to respond, you set upon the task of bagging the cigarettes appropriately, deliberately ignoring the retching noises coming from Erickson's direction.
     And then she pukes all over the floor. You feel as if you should've seen that coming, and if you hadn't become so desensitized to her antics over the past few years, you'd be inclined to take it personally. "Really, Megan?" She wipes her mouth, takes the bag from your hands, and walks out the door with the same smirk she came in with. You sigh, shrug, and grab the mop.
     Like most dachshunds, some people just want to watch the world burn; if anything, such people are at once somewhat predictable and utterly mundane, for being an asshole is nothing new, and this job is a constant reminder of that sad truth. As you begin mopping up Megan's mess, however, you find yourself reminded, albeit uncomfortably, that the Cedar Rapidian Sorceress, as you've taken to calling her, appears entirely disinterested in watching the world go up in flames. In contrast, she seems to enjoy performing magic tricks that people will never forget, and what reminds you of this is the detached head and mangled shaft of a penis within the puddle she left behind, to which you add this evening's microwavable burrito.


Passion Pit - It's Not My Fault, I'm Happy
     

Girl Talk

Devin

     Doing seventy on Highway 13 toward Marion because Megan says it's as good a place as any to continue with this ridiculous game she's playing. Crazy bitch keeps flipping through the same six radio stations like there's something worth locating, but it's radio. Asked her about that and she just keeps on keeping on about probability, chaos theory, and some guy I've never met as if I care. She and the rest of these clowns show up at my parent's house and now we're heading north in my dad's Dodge Durango with the passenger side airbag deactivated because Megan said it's superfluous. Who says that? And what the hell was up with that idiotic story she fed my folks? Who does that? She's insane, but she's here. So.

     Jenny and Jackie are following us but they're falling behind, only going sixty-five or something like that. They don't know where we're headed besides Marion, and Marion isn't big but it's big enough to get lost when nobody seems to know the final destination, Megan included, no doubt. Brooke's in the backseat, not saying anything because she's ripped on ecstasy. She takes a bite from a Snickers bar; Megan reminds her that the candy is for children like we don't have more than enough to go around. 

     Bitch keeps rambling about this or that; no sense in paying attention since she's psychotic. Just pick a goddamn station, would you? Been stuck with the parents for two years. Can't hold a job. Can't sleep at night. Can't sleep at all without the Ambien, which gives me headaches when awake. Can't get a date besides Marika's boyfriend, Brendan. Can't take showers, only baths, but I'm not sure why. Can't seem to get out of the house often enough. Can't get a straight answer from this lunatic. Can't do much of anything. 

     A Daft Punk song pops up on the radio and Megan mutters some garbage about a convergence of variables, whatever that means, and from the flicker of light in the corner of my eye, I can tell she just lit a cigarette. "You fucking bitch!" I scream, looking that smiley faced freak right in her painted, blackened eyes, "I said there's no smoking in my dad's Durango!" She responds by saying I should keep my eyes on the road and

Megan

102.9 KZIA. Breathe Carolina, Blackout. Wrong place, wrong time. 

     "Fate? Chance? Neither, actually, and this is important, Devin, for He never once claimed to discern the future, as it doesn't exist, per se."

94.1 KRNA. Dio, Rainbow in the Dark. Not in the mood. 

     "The thing is, He was, quite simply, astoundingly adept at assessing probability amidst interactions and butterfly effects, though not necessarily in the mathematical sense, given that humanity and its associated scientific pursuits were scarcely his forte."

100.7 KKRQ. Rick Derringer, Rock & Roll Hoochie Koo. Fuck that shit. 

     "It would be disingenuous to associate said ability with chaos theory, all things considered, for although the results could be viewed as similar, albeit exponentially more effective and reliable, it isn't as if He understood, let alone employed recurrence plots or Poincaré maps to arrive at such conclusions."

96.5 KKSY. Kelly Clarkson, Since U Been Gone. Adorable, but lacking a certain something. 

     "Think of it as super-intuitive meteorological skills, to the max. A silly analogy, sure, but nevertheless appropriate."

104.5 KDAT. Men Without Hats, Safety Dance. Not enough room to get down. 

     "As stated previously, this is significant, Devin, because what keeps you up at night is your inability to accurately perceive and process what had been glimpsed at the end. To do this, you need to understand Him -to an extent, at least- and for one to grasp that concept, so to speak, a person must come to grips with what had been required to break Him."

107.9 KMFW. Tool, Stinkfist. Close, but not quite. 

     "The trick to breaking Him had less to do with the potential inaccuracies of His forecasts, for lack of a better term, than preying upon His pathological incapacity to sort out the unforeseen emotional responses of others to whatever transpired, anticipated or not."

Back to 102.9 KZIA. Daft Punk, Get Lucky. Figures. 

     "Having said all that, Devin, His artistry cannot be overstated, and if one were to consider that we're barreling toward Marion at just over seventy miles per hour, me without a seatbelt and the airbag disengaged while a song like Get Lucky plays on the radio, it stands to reason that an event He once mentioned, however casually, is more or less bound to occur. Convergence of variables and such."

Inhale smoke. Exhale acquiescence.

     "You might want to keep your eyes on the road," I suggest, because safety is merely an accident waiting to happen. 

Nameless (as translated)
     Two have gone ahead, while another lags behind. That one is hesitant to cross the concrete streams, as it has seen others fall prey to those clumsy things swimming both up and down the otherwise still waters much faster than we can sprint. The danger is real, yet so is the need to cross, for what lies ahead is superior to that which has been seen before. It wavers, quivering with trepidation. The success of the two that went ahead has done little to assuage its fear, thus the fawn awaits my lead; I am the eldest, and my antlers have grown so very large since my youth. One must lead by example in this world, and the time has come. May the lights avoid me. May the lights avoid me. May the lights avoid me.
   
Brooke
     Sometimes I feel as though existence lacks momentum, but right now, I feel strangely content about being strapped, albeit comfortably, into the backseat of what is most likely a 2012 Dodge Durango. I've been watching the moon for some time now, though I can't really be too sure about anything, exactly. I seem to think that I recall my doing so began with the onset of Pale Flesh, which has since given way to Sad Eyes, however long that's been. I feel at once distant from this reality but find myself wondering whether the earbuds and I have become one, producing a new form of life, one detached from those occupying the foremost portion of this vehicle; this shared space between the three of us may or may not exist in the traditional sense. Next to me sit bags upon bags filled with smaller bags, all plastic, of individually wrapped candy, all sealed.
     I ponder, possibly aloud, the meaning of the phrase fun size, or for that matter, fun sized. Peeling the wrappings apart, I seize the opportunity -whatever that means, as well- to pop an unknown substance into my mouth and discover the parameters of fun as well as size. The darkness filling up the passenger seat shifts, and the radiant smiley face gazes upon me; the woman beneath or behind it speaks, although what she says is lost somewhere within the space and sound separating the two, three, or all of us. Sad Eyes becomes Insulin just as the smiley face recedes, returning to the darkness whose shape might belong to Megan. Like, profound.
     Strangely, we've stopped, sort of, and now we're rolling, turning, or spinning, of which I'm not quite certain, let alone how or why. The moon appears, disappears, and reappears yet again. Crystal Castles has been supplanted by a cacophony of thuds, scrapes, screams, and Daft Punk. At some point, the world stops shifting and I find myself upside down, looking up -or maybe it's the other way around- at an array of packaged treats and broken glass alike. I may or may not be bleeding, as this has yet to be determined.
     A voice I'm pretty sure is Devin's curses the sad, sad state of one 2012 Dodge Durango. I don't know what to say but feel like speaking anyway. I opine that it's good to be alive, regardless of what that actually means, to which profanity ensues. She instructs me to quit fucking around. Given the context, I propose that it's rather difficult to do anything but fuck around. After some fidgeting, Devin begrudgingly concedes the point, thereby granting me a moment of serenity.
     "Oh, hey," I begin, just now noticing a particularly glaring discrepancy, "so where's Megan?" 

Jenny
     Normally, I'm not one to exceed the speed limit because there's so often no hurry in arrival whatsoever and speeding tickets aren't my thing, but tonight, on an especially dark, partly cloudy evening, my Dodge Stratus has officially exceeded the limit by two miles per hour, which means Jackie and I are now traveling at sixty-seven in an attempt to catch up with Devin, who must be going at least seventy. Ironically, she's in the right lane, while we're on the left. For me, it's because the asshole we passed thirty seconds ago has halogen bulbs installed in his car and I'll be damned if I'm going to have that shit blinding me via the rearview mirrors. Traffic is sparse on Highway 13 tonight, and the only thing scarcer is secondary illumination, as traffic lights and street lamps are virtually nonexistent on the stretch between the interchange and Marion proper. 
     "I'm beginning to regret buying this Barack Obama mask," Jackie states with minimal affect. 
     "No shit?" I respond, half-laughing. 
     "Well, so far, at roughly every other house we've visited tonight, people either complain that I'm a racist or they chastise me for endorsing a socialist dictatorship. I can't win."
     "I tried to tell you." Although she sometimes says and does the dumbest things, Jackie and I have gotten along quite well since high school, which comes as a surprise to more than a few of our classmates, but it makes sense considering that we attend the same community college, reside in the same apartment complex, and lived through the same traumatic experience. To that last point, we have a rule: I never ask why she agreed to handle the flare gun, and she refrains from inquiring about my decision to put on that goddamn t-shirt. Silence has served our relationship well. 
     "Still better than that stupid pirate cap, sword and eye patch you got."
     "Oh, please. That's a stylish ensemble and you know it." 
     "I know you don't mean that, Jenny. You found it in the children's aisle, after all."
     "Okay, now you listen here," I say, playfully reprimanding her with a wag of my finger, "it was on sale, and at $6.99, I don't give a damn if it was meant for a prepubescent boy."
     "Hell, I bet you're proud of it," she declares, pausing briefly to pop a miniature Twix into her mouth, "and...holy shit!" she shouts, spewing chunks of the only candy bar with the cookie crunch onto the dashboard.
     Ordinarily, I'd give her considerable flak for desecrating my car like that but holy shit is right. Even at the distance between us on such a dark night, it's readily apparent that Devin's Durango just hit something, and before I get the chance to echo Jackie's apt exclamation, the Durango's left end has spun forward; in the time it takes me to hit the brakes, the Durango is rolling, rolling, and rolling some more into the grassy median which separates us from opposing traffic. Like Jackie said, "Holy shit."
     
Jackie
     We're in the median at the moment; Jenny's grabbing stuff out of the trunk and I'm sitting in the driver's seat, too spooked to exit from the passenger side and too shocked to wrap my head around the preceding events. Jenny reappears, hands me some road flares, and instructs me to get a few on the road. I'm all like, "You keep road flares in your trunk?" but she's too busy running toward the upturned Durango with a first aid kit to pay me any heed. Anyway, road flares, yeah.
     Get one flare lit and let it fall to the cement. The Audi with the halogen bulbs nears, pulls over to the other side of the road, and much to my bewilderment, the lights go out. Dickhead emerges and asks if he should dial 9-1-1. Get another flare lit and bawl, "What's that, fuckhead? No, you should call Papa John's instead. Get the fuck back in your car!" before lobbing the second flare at his Audi, hitting the front tire. Asshole gets back into his car. No idea who will be called, if anyone.
     The third flare has been lit, and that's when a noise from the darkness on the road ahead catches my attention; scratching, sliding, and heaving intertwined, but I can't see anything. Might be someone from the Durango. Drop the third flare and light a fourth, the last one in my possession. Move toward the unseen disturbance, flare held high.
     What the hell am I looking at? Still too removed from the flickering red blaze, the unidentified object is a quivering, misshapen mass that looks somehow...rearranged, even amidst the darkness. What appears to be a spindly appendage kicks into the air spasmodically; a second gangly limb, meanwhile, juts out in the opposite direction, rotating more than kicking. Upon inching forward, the light reveals something akin to the frame of a deer, but it's all...twisted, to the extent that I can only assume it had been a hoofed creature of some kind. I then drop the flare and slowly back away because the thing, whose head remains partially obscured by its mutilated trunk, is beginning to rise, and that's...impossible.
     From a distance, Jenny's yelling at me for some reason or another, the specifics of which can't be processed immediately, for everything has been drowned out by the animated object; the first thing that comes to mind, though probably not the correct thing, is the sound generated by taking a bite out of a hard shell taco, or maybe a Whopper loaded with ostensibly fresh vegetables, followed by gratuitous chewing. Shadow overlaps shade, crunch gives way to fracture, and the head emerges, free from its trunk, which sinks back to the glimmering concrete accompanied by a sloshy slap. Jenny's words have begun to make sense.
     I get it now. She was stuck, quite literally, in a buck pretzel but that's no longer the case, barring an embedded pair of antlers and the head to which they remain attached. Happy Halloween, right? The shadow with the severed deer head stuck to it gurgles a request for a cigarette, and I'm all like, "You stay classy,

Megan
     Once upon a time in a wasteland not so far away, I found myself traveling westward on Highway 30 toward an irrelevant destination. In the darkest of hours, when ruminations are brighter than headlights and cemeteries are encountered as often as oncoming traffic, one is apt to focus upon anything deemed out of the ordinary, and to confuse such sights with those of an extraordinary nature is understandable yet the distinction must be made. What I beheld that evening is merely happenstance of the nocturnal variety, decidedly less than preternatural in both appearance and significance but a thing of the utmost beauty nonetheless.
     I'd been hurtling down the road with the high beams of my rusty Beretta doing their best to illuminate the blackened Earth when movement at the ever-shifting edge of darkness drew my gaze to the side of the road, toward an object far enough to be free from danger yet near enough to arouse one's fearful curiosity. Amidst the brightened weeds and vacant plains which characterize numerous segments of Highway 30 (which is to say that for all intents and purposes, Highway 30 traverses, more often than not, a grassy void) I observed a coyote, and a particularly scrawny one at that, feasting upon the partially-dismembered corpse of a doe which had, in all probability, been the unfortunate victim of vehicular cervicide. For a moment, the ravenous canine paused to observe the automobile, its eyes flashbulbs returning the unwanted light. Momentarily illuminated, the gore smeared across the coyote's muzzle was almost cerise, glistening like a cherry atop a sundae and before the light had completely passed it by, the coyote returned to its quarry, burying its face in the belly of the broken beast and I said to myself, Now that's what I call love.
     Funny how things work out.

M83 - Kim & Jessie

Trick or Treat like Semtex

(image source)

Fol Chen - 200 Words

     A few years ago, more or less, during a hospital stay owing to a few broken ribs, fractured ankle, and acute stress disorder, you came across a heartwarming article while surfing the web. At the time, such pursuits seemed an ideal manner by which to whittle the hours away because television was overrated and family, however well-intentioned, could endure only so many hours a day of seemingly disjointed ruminations pertaining to a topic they may have grasped -on some level, at least- but nevertheless allowed to slip through their cerebral fingers. In hindsight, the misgivings exhibited were entirely defensible.

     Oddly enough, you stumbled upon the article in question during a foray into, of all places, the trough better known as Buzzfeed, a gutter better recognized for quirky cat pictures and Robert Pattinson's dating disasters than inspirational tidbits but sometimes a girl takes whatever she can get, and Buzzfeed notwithstanding, it was a pretty good find. The story had been about the birth of two cheetah cubs, sort of, insomuch that technically there were four but only two survived, so it was obviously more complicated than that particular summation. The point being, such a touching tale would have been forgotten entirely had it not been for a rap, rap, rapping at your door about an hour ago on this, a chilly Halloween in an area where few children went trick-or-treating. This is Kirkwood Heights, after all, and community college housing isn't known for its kid-friendly atmosphere, but there was a knock so you answered, Tupperware bowl full of fun-sized Butterfinger bars in hand.

     She took a handful of treats, of course, but the woman who had shown up at your door is neither a child by any gratuitous stretch of the imagination nor someone you would have anticipated seeing again, as in, ever, on either account. But there she was, duffel bag in one hand, Butterfingers in another, this vestige of a stilted reality long since miscarried, though not one wholly unrecognizable. She offered a greeting of sorts, to which you had none prepared, though she didn't seem to mind.

     A few years ago, more or less, the woman proposed, in so many words, that a sealed maw becomes either a womb or a tomb for all things enclosed; that fate was serendipity passing itself off as a beast in god's clothing; and that the time had come to knock a few teeth out. Shortly thereafter, you found yourself splayed out upon warm concrete, coughing up blood and wondering just who, what, when, where, why and how an athlete on the cusp of seventeen could manage to be outrun by a man bearing sockets instead of eyes. You had been advised to resist the siren song of hubris prior to the beginning of the end, but you've always been a bit thickheaded, honestly. Then again, in terms of a heads-up, something clearer than an inscrutable reference to Mr. Brightside WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE.

     The woman steps out of the shower, body glistening amidst the steam and utterly unfazed by your presence in the doorway. As she goes about drying herself with your favorite towel, you can't help but notice a myriad of minute, delicately jagged, almost phosphorescent orange lines chaotically etched upon and spread across her slender frame, though curiously, the woman's face remains unspoiled. Now, the tally marks carved into her forearms, they come as no surprise, but these saffron fissures are something new. Trepidation notwithstanding, you make the obligatory inquiry.

     "Oh, Jenny, Jenny, Jenny!" she quips, running her fingers through a sopping mane of hair dyed black as a crow's feathers. "All the god's hunger and all the god's woe mangled little Ms. Megan before letting her go. Everybody knows that."

     What made the story about the birth of two cheetah cubs so uplifting was, to an extent, the unlikelihood of its occurrence. The firstborn cub came into this world well before the second, third and fourth emerged; unlike their predecessor, the unfortunate trio had to be removed, stillborn, via cesarean section and the staff labored for nearly three hours, attempting to resuscitate the cubs through CPR, medication, and heating techniques. Then, something unexpected transpired, something best described verbatim, though you remain uncertain as to why it's suddenly so readily remembered:

“Given how rare this procedure is, we thought it’d be unlikely for any of the cubs to survive,” said Adrienne Crosier, SCBI cheetah biologist. “But that little female is a fighter. Once we got her breathing, she just kept going. It was a very intense, stressful experience, but among the most inspiring of my career.”

     The woman whose name, you now believe, is Megan has slipped into a matte-black catsuit; atop that, a flimsy, flowing gown of similar hue. Seemingly satisfied with what she sees in the mirror, the woman currently identified as Megan begins applying paint to her face, neck, and ears, ostensibly oblivious to the inherent peculiarity of the situation.

     Upon warm concrete at the onset of the end, owing to a few broken ribs, fractured ankle, and a slew of hysteria, you struggled to inch away from the man bestowed with sight sans eyeballs; a man devoid of humanity, per se, wielding a raised machete that glimmered in the simmering shades of twilight. You vaguely recall screaming up blood, arms held up so as to shield yourself from the inevitable, but also, in the briefest moment of dissociative clarity available, pondering, Does a blade shine in the dying light? 

     The brilliant shade of yellow, as it has been applied to the woman's face, contrasts with the preponderance of ebony so drastically that even here, beneath the soft, white glare generated by compact fluorescent tubes, the sight of it reminds you of staring into a space heater as a child; a mild sensation of nausea coupled with unyielding fascination abounds.

     Does a blade shine in the dying light? is what had been asked right before the end, but the crazy thing about questions is that sometimes the answers arrive in the most unexpected of forms. You remember the blade's descent slowing as the flickering light reflected in it increased, and that the man's face tilted ever so slightly as though he were mulling over a quandary of sorts, albeit one related to your own. The thing is, the woman now known as Megan had offered up an additional, almost conciliatory piece of information before the end began.

     Structurally sound analogies, much like poetry and bean burritos, have always been foreign concepts, sure, but as you stand in the doorway watching Megan fiddle with the black sclera lens placed upon her left eye, you can't help but wonder, accuracy be damned, if she isn't more than a bit like that second, female cheetah cub. Had nature been allowed to take its habitual course, neither would have survived their respective ordeals; and sometimes, nature can go fuck itself because what she also told you, after you had volunteered, somewhat foolishly, for the role of slipshod harbinger is that, come what may, the man with no eyes was at the very top of her list.

     Facing you, she requests an evaluation and truth be told, beyond an awkward shrug and chuckle you aren't sure what to say but in light of what could have been, things don't look all that bad.

(so keep your bankroll lottery eat your salad day deathbed motorcade)

Primary, Secondary, and Yggdrasil Trauma

Bat for Lashes - Moon and Moon

    Tuco once told me that a guy named Jared Leto could shout, no, scream Everybody run now, everybody run now, everybody run! and yet, these days, people rarely do; that the reason for this was the erosion of their flight response. I'm not sure what that means but it seems like she's right about people not running when they should. Even after doing that thing with her body, the thing she calls transmogrification for those without ontological inclination, which I think of as Monsters, Inc., people remain. They cry, throw up, and faint but they don't run. Mostly, they just seem to watch her eat. By the time Tuco's halfway done with her food -and that's a lot!- she's pretty much back to normal, and so she speaks.

    "Dr. Judith Herman once wrote that in situations of terror, people spontaneously seek their first sense of comfort and protection. Wounded soldiers and raped women cry out for their mothers, or for God. When this cry is not answered, the sense of basic trust is shattered. Traumatized people feel utterly abandoned, usually alone, cast out of the human and divine systems of care and protection that sustain life. Thereafter, a sense of alienation, of disconnection, pervades every relationship, from the most intimate familial bonds to the most abstract affiliations of community and religion. When trust is lost, traumatized people feel that they belong more to the dead than to the living. A total bitch of a situation, for sure, but it could be worse. Take, for example, when that cry is eventually met with a response, albeit one neither anticipated nor desired, for trauma had, at long last, cultivated a voice, only the trauma wasn't entirely mine, just as the voice wasn't altogether His. Now, if you're looking for a reason as to why or an encyclopedic explanation of how this situation arose, you're asking the wrong person since your guess, believe it or not, is as good as my own, so don't ask."

    Tuco often tells me that she's a motormouth sometimes, but it doesn't matter anyways since there are too many big-people words and this taco is really, really good. One of the taller girls asks about the situation.

    "Goddamn. Look, some fuckhead philosophers could discuss and attempt to delineate the nature of distilled trauma filtered through a single, spectral entity and subsequently redistributed amongst the greater constructed reality but this shit gets complicated and besides, impotent analyses aren't exactly my forte."

    Another girl, the one who read my whole story, asks another question. A better question, I think. Tuco rubs the space between her eyes for a bit like she always does when trying to make something easy enough for me to understand, but not always.

    "I can only tell you who He was before things went to complete shit, and even then, it's mostly supposition. Anyone here familiar with the English band Keane? Three, four of you? Okay, whatever; the point being, in a song called 'Spiralling' there is a series of seemingly rhetorical questions posed: Did you want to be a winner? Did you want to be an icon? Did you want to be famous? Did you want to be the president? Did you want to start a war? Did you want to have a family? Did you want to be in love? and if I may be allowed to misinterpret that last line, as it was repeated anyway, Did you want to be loved? To all of those questions and more, His honest answer would have been in the negative, like, at pretty much any stage of his life. To be candid, I'm leaning toward the notion that He never really wanted anything, as if He suffered from a congenital defect of some kind. Then I crept into his life, and before you say What's so special about you? believe me, the sentiment, recent ostentatious display notwithstanding, is shared by yours truly, but something clicked inside that peculiar head of His and faster than a teenage boy can ejaculate, cravings developed. A hunger, if you will, for the capacity to desire."

    That said, Tuco unwraps a burrito supreme and simply looks at it. Burritos are no good. Too many tomatoes and gooey stuff. Meat is great and cheese tastes even better. The second girl says what Tuco did a few minutes ago was quite special, all things considered. Tuco chuckles. I let her know that I like that girl because she read my story, and Tuco smirks but it's okay because I can tell when she's going to hurt somebody. Usually.

    "But that's just it: What that was is a demonstration of the new normal, which is precisely the problem - paradoxically enough, related to who He and I had been yet nevertheless an insufficient explanation for, well, much anything. Boy met girl, girl broke boy, but only because that's what she needed at the time -a stand-in or a scapegoat, undeserving or not- since the skeletons in one's closet continue to rattle well after their respective, deceptive demise. This may not answer your question about who He was, let alone what has become Him, of course, but it's imperative to understand that at a certain point in my life, I needed someone, namely a male -or a boyish simulacrum of such- to decimate and I'll be the first to tell you that He fit the bill, most assuredly. As stated previously, what transpired beyond that point in time is beyond my ability to fully ascertain. Something found Him, or He found it. Maybe both. For all intents and purposes, there is no discernible reason, no why. But you still want, nay, still need to make sense of this idiot-savant enigma, right? Don't get me wrong, the urge is one I understand all too well, and Little Orphan Asswipe here is, like, enamored with your attention span and shit, so..."

    One, two, three, four! Four is the number of bashes the burrito gets from her fist. Yucky tomatoes, icky beans, stinky onions, and a whole lot more, all smashed, is what's left over.

    "...There you go. That's your why right there. Not the hand, what it did, or to whom the fist belongs. I'm talking about the burrito, and I mean, sure, the thing is edible and yeah, it's still a burrito, I suppose, but ultimately -and let's not kid ourselves here- that's a pretty fucked-up chunk of Tex-Mex, which is exactly how He likes his burritos - and we are nothing if not smashed, just as He is nothing if not ravenous."

Grilled Stuft Wendigo

Morningwood - Ride the Lights

2621 Blairs Ferry Rd, Cedar Rapids, IA

      On Thursday evenings, the Taco Bell on Blairs Ferry belongs to the girls of John F. Kennedy High School, specifically those of the junior varsity volleyball variety. Reeking of stress, farts, and hard work the team descends upon tables and food alike; decidedly, if not voraciously, the girls alternate between swarming available chairs and cashiers with a buzz not unlike bees, for their purpose is to unwind, eat, and chat in singular fashion. They know where to sit, how to order, and what to say. Thirteen young women needn’t quibble about the obvious. 

Hillary need not be reprimanded for showboating because she is the best player at this level, after all. Colleen, meanwhile, needn’t be admonished for a poor serve since she, like Sarah, is a libero. As with Colleen, Sarah isn’t the best at anything but that’s just fine. Brooke, a setter, need not be urged to improve for the sake of the team, as this is a collectively acknowledged fact. Carrie and Kelsey, benchwarmers, recognize the importance of dedicated bench warming. Jenny needn’t be reminded that before Hillary came along, she was the best on JV. The other Sara, the one without an h, need not concern herself with outside hitting because that is Devin’s job. Devin, of course, knows that Marika works hard to compensate for Devin’s flaws but this is an established fact as well. Jackie needn’t trouble herself with being a particularly good player because she has more than enough spirit to compensate for questionable athleticism. Anne and Erin, precocious sophomores, need only devote themselves to the experience gained from a year on junior varsity. If teams were automobiles, this would be a Toyota Corolla. 

Regarding personality and proxemics, the team is defined, perhaps even subdivided; though this too remains undiscussed, and manifestly so. Anne and Erin, for instance, routinely sit across from one another so as to best chat amongst themselves while Jackie, popularity personified, positions herself in whichever seat best suits the role at hand based upon availability and mood swings. Tonight, she is situated in the middle of a three-table mishmash consisting of a booth and numerous swiveling chairs like the eye of a mild-mannered hurricane. Despite any protestations to the contrary, Sara and Sarah share more than homophonic titles, as they gravitate toward one another socially as well as culinarily insomuch that each could be forgiven for mistakenly grabbing the other’s fresco-style chicken soft taco and diet Pepsi. 

Jenny, also known as Jenny Don’t Give a Shit or D-GAS for short, prefers to sit on the edge of the Tex-Mex maelstrom because she needs space for her two-handed approach to taco salad consumption, but also due to unspoken resentment of Hillary. Likewise, Marika, seated across from D-GAS, avoids Devin out of professional discourtesy and personal disdain. Having been taken under Hillary’s wing, allegedly to enhance team performance, Devin and her mentor are peas in a pod to the extent that Devin’s hair is now dyed blonde and she has graduated from decadent volcano nachos to the more nutritiously sound black bean burrito. 

Not one to shy away from conversation or bovines, Colleen chatters and chomps on steak chalupa supremes without the slightest hesitation. Despite Colleen’s hatred of guacamole, Brooke, seven-layer burrito aficionado, is a constant partner in mealtime crime, as are Carrie and Kelsey. Bench warming is a tough job, and the amount of effort the girls put into practice warrants voracious appetites. 

With a fork in one hand and a chunk of fried tortilla in the other, Jenny half-listens to conversations about: the forthcoming season of Glee and the viability of its star, Matthew Morrison, as a sexual partner; the cost-to-fashion ratio of Forever 21 apparel; big dogs and exercise habits; the most recent Boys Like Girls album, Love Drunk; and the travesty of Miley Cyrus’ latest hairstyle. Mildly dismissive of her teammates’ respective conversations, Jenny takes a bite from the tortilla shell now loaded with bits of ground beef, lettuce, and something best described as pasteurized, processed cheese product, hoping that the crunching will drown out Hillary’s latest declaration of love or lust for a television series’ lead actor. The effort less than a resounding success, she studies Marika picking diced tomatoes from her gordita and wonders if her friend knows that Devin slept with Brendan, Marika’s boyfriend, two weeks ago. Even if she does, Jenny reasons, she isn’t going to be the friend to bring the matter up; certainly not here, and possibly because Jenny doesn’t, as the joke goes, give a shit. She remains undecided, as the insouciance cultivated since her displacement as the best of the team has crept into other aspects of life, namely of the culture itself. 

Jenny’s attention drifts from this microcosm of high-school experience toward the fast food populace at large. Like most any other Thursday evening, Taco Bell is teeming with people keen to satisfy the urge for cheap eats. Scanning the vicinity, she takes note of a few dorky sophomores from Kennedy at a booth nearest the door, probably discussing the nature of robot heaven as depicted in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. One of them is Bobby Connelly, with whom Jenny had a run-in during study hall last week over assigned seating. He’s a twerp, no big deal. There’s a chubby, forty-something dude stuffing his face with nachos at another table, seemingly unconcerned with the sour cream dribbling down his chin. More power to him, though if she were Jackie, she’d probably offer the guy a few dozen napkins. 

While the six people in line to order have their backs to Jenny, she can tell that impatience is in the air. The woman at the head of the line, bearing a mane of black hair with streaks of gold, most likely a Hawkeye fan, points a finger toward no menu item in particular, much to the dismay of the haggard cashier who, from the look on his pimply face, is struggling to interpret the order for whatever reason. The group behind the woman, two ladies and a guy, is clearly agitated yet remains composed despite foot-tapping and crossed arms, whereas the couple behind them have elected to play on their cell phones to pass the time. Conventional fare, really, yet something captures Jenny’s attention. 

At a table no so far away, there is a boy with curly blonde locks, maybe six, possibly seven years old, seated by himself. Lying upon the otherwise empty table is a closed spiral notebook with a navy blue cover. Alone, this would not pique curiosity but the boy is gazing at Jenny or the JV team in general, which does just that. If he were older, he could be mistaken for someone awash in adolescent fantasies but he’s a kid, so that option is out, although the mere notion prompts Jenny to smirk at its foolishness. The boy sheepishly smiles in return and offers a meek wave, to which she gives him one of her own, albeit with a shred of tortilla in hand. 

“What are you doing, Jen?” Brooke inquires. 

Jenny shifts her head toward Brooke and shrugs. “Just waving to some kid,” she responds, not knowing what else to say. 

“Okay?” says Brooke with rising intonation, herself at a loss.

Jenny’s gaze realigns with the boy, who now holds the notebook in his petite hands. Cover flipped back, the page reveals something written in red crayon which reads:

hi my name is Uriel

Okay, Uriel, hello, Jenny muses while chewing on a forkful of salad. She has no vested interest in this strange child, yet she doesn’t have much else to do, so it works out. Jackie, obviously aware of Bobby Connelly and his dorky crew, busies herself with speaking rather loudly about the definitive grodiness of certain sophomores, much to the restrained amusement of Anne and Erin, but Jenny doesn’t give a shit about Bobby Connelly and the boy is a curious distraction. As she studies him, the boy identified as Uriel flips to a new page. 

I know a women

Don’t we all? Probably one too many, in fact, Jenny considers, keenly aware of the effect that Hillary, a recent transfer from Jefferson, has upon team dynamics. An unfair assessment, perhaps, but that’s how she feels. Brooke asks Colleen for a spare napkin, and Colleen offers one so long as there isn’t a drop of guacamole on her friend’s fingertips. 

her name is Too Tuco she says

     For some reason, the name sounds vaguely familiar to Jenny, yet it does so in a murky, abstract sense like a name she’d seen or heard on television sometime long ago, back when she’d spend Saturday afternoons watching old movies on TNT. Tuco, Tuco... The name rolls around inside Jenny’s head, lost and waiting to be found. 

she kept me from the cat man

Although flummoxed by the text of this latest page, Jenny regards the crude sketch beneath the perplexing phrase with the utmost concern, for it depicts, however unrefined, a stick-figure humanoid with an oversized cat’s head; but it isn’t exactly catlike, as the exaggerated curvature and gaping maw suggests less a cat than something larger, something Jenny has seen before on numerous occasions. It resembles the headpiece of a suit worn by the Kennedy Cougar. Not the current suit, but the previous incarnation, the one used by Beth Lexington, who had been in possession of the suit up until the day she was found in her 2002 Nissan Sentra, skull bashed, suit missing, and questions unanswered eight months later. 

“Hello? Jenny, hello!” Kelsey practically shouts, breaking Jenny’s concentration.

“Wh-What?” Jenny manages despite her addled mind. Kelsey looks at her expectantly. 

“Do you want a refill or not? I’m getting up.”

“Yeah, I guess. Dr. Pepper.” 

“What’s the deal, anyway? Are you on Saturn or something?” 

Jenny’s brow furrows. “I...don’t know. Dr. Pepper, yeah.” She watches Kelsey saunter off before returning to the boy, who has since flipped the page. 

she is my frend

she is’nt yours

    Yeah, whatever, kid, I have plenty of friends, she reflects, vexed by the boy’s demeanor, meekly at ease as only a child or psychopath can manage. Some unregistered comment about an equally obscured remark elicits Sarah’s trademark bellicose laughter, further accentuating Jenny’s bewilderment. 

she made my mom into hambrgr helpr

“What’s that supposed to mean?” shoots Marika, and while Jenny doesn’t usually give a shit, she’s honestly relieved to learn that she isn’t alone on this one. 

“No idea,” Jenny mouths, unabashedly disturbed. Marika begins to respond but falls silent for reasons, Jenny surmises, similar to her own. 

“Here’s your Dr. Pepper, you spacey slut,” Kelsey chimes, placing the bubbly drink next to Jenny’s taco salad. 

“Thanks a bunch.” Jenny takes a sip, her eyes fixed upon the boy and his notebook. Nickname notwithstanding, she is positively enthralled. 

and she burnd but not all the way

    “Okay, so,” Marika starts, whispering this time, “does he mean his mom, or what?” 

“You know, that’s a good question,” Jenny posits, breaking away from the curious lad to shake a finger in enthusiastic agreement. From a table away, Sara wants to know what they’re discussing, but Jenny ignores the question, for a ruckus could derail this vile dialogue to which she has become entrenched. 

“What’s going on?” Hillary calls out from the booth. Goddamn. Not you, too, Jenny bemoans as the boy named Uriel flips another page. 

she is’nt your frend but

shes all you have she says

    Colleen asks Hillary why she’s getting up. Kelsey wants some more appreciation for the soft drink. Jackie is jabbering about something stupid. Carrie keeps eating. Marika questions the material once more. Anne and Erin await clarification. Brooke postulates that something is amiss. Sara and Sarah squirm in unison. Devin follows Hillary’s lead. Jenny simply wishes everyone would stop, or at the very least, shut up for a minute so she can wrap her brain around it all. 

becus He is swaloing the woreld

    For Jenny, the cartoonish cougar keeps flashing in and out of her mind’s eye, as does the vaporous, unidentified moniker proposed by the boy. She isn’t one to believe in fate, yet the appearance of what she perceives to be a former mascot stretches the limits of serendipity. 

“Made a new friend, D-GAS?” Hillary jokes, eyeing the boy and his notebook. 

“A new friend? Where?” Jackie bawls, rising from her seat to get in on the action. 

“He’s crazy,” Marika warns the others in a hushed tone, but Jenny isn’t so certain about the kid’s sanity. There is a serenity to his exploits which belies the boy’s enigmatic conduct, and his actions, however outlandish, are too deliberate, too structured, and too convenient. 

“Shut up for a minute, you guys,” Jenny pleads even though she knows once Jackie’s on the scene, all bets are off. Seemingly unfazed by the commotion, the boy flips yet another page. 

shes hungry and

her body is chenging

  “Guess nobody told him about girls and puberty,” Jackie proposes, standing beside Jenny now, and giggles pierce the air but Jenny remains silent. Jackie asks if she’s going to introduce herself to the boy, make friends, and possibly go to dinner and a movie, but Jenny says nothing. Most of her teammates look at her expectantly, as if daring her to break free from the D-GAS lifestyle. Jackie flashes a mischievous grin and warns that if Jenny won’t get a piece of that prepubescent pie, she will. She turns to make her move but is pulled back when Jenny grabs her wrist with such force that Jackie stumbles. 

“What the fuck, Jenny?” Jackie roars, causing other diners, even dorky Bobby Connelly, to pause and take notice. Still, Jenny remains taut and tight-lipped. “What’s your problem?” Jackie continues, still enraged, yet even with the accusatory stares and remonstrations from her teammates, Jenny endures, her eyes focused upon the kid named Uriel, as an additional page has been flipped. 

“Look,” she says coolly, and for the most part they do. 

shes ordring now

   They watch as the woman with flowing, almost independently wiry hair dyed black and gold deposits a tray bearing a mountain of wrapped food upon the boy’s table. Picking a few items from the peak of edibles, she tosses them to the kid, who beams at her as if she were the bee’s knees. “Just meat and cheese like you said, chump,” she states, her voice at once feminine yet distorted, not entirely unlike the cautionary growl of a muzzled lioness when prodded. Standing, the woman dressed in a faded Atari Entertainment Technologies t-shirt and Adidas breakaway pants grouses that the boy had been bugging her all fucking day to share his little story with someone, to which the boy responds by sticking out a tongue loaded with mashed taco though his eyes are ablaze with the utmost pleasure. “Ah, but youth,” she muses, her words unnervingly atonal, “sweet, sensational youth fosters such indelible charm.” That said, she stretches and yawns, but it is nothing of the sort for those in attendance. 

The yawn itself is the joyful yip of a coyote with its snout buried deep inside a stag’s disemboweled belly reverberating across shambolic tissue. Arms twist, pivot, and crack like tree trunks splintered as skin struggles against bones unrestrained. Fingers coil while knuckles tear through flesh unchallenged and nails creep both inward and outward, bloodied and accipitral. Within mouth agape, elongated teeth push against teeth, protruding through lips tattered and flaccid. Beneath clothing, obscured joints pop like corn in a kettle while ribs diversify, pressing against a t-shirt ready to burst. Neck craning, the head shifts to gaze upon the team, yet the face strays, sliding across eyes now blackened with ooze dripping through wayward slots. And it smiles.

     For all the stuttered wails and dejected gasps surrounding him, the boy claps, utterly delighted by his friend’s display. “What, this?” the mélange responds, her face still grinning. “This is nothing, but that’s how it always begins, for the most part. Like, verily.”

The Joy Formidable - Chapter 2

When the Bell Bites Back

The Greg Kihn Band - Jeopardy

624 1st Ave, Cedar Rapids, IA 

     On any given Thursday, Greg Kensington and Mickey Thompson eat out in the evening. Though possessing different tastes, the two men have come to tolerate, if not appreciate the art of culinary compromise. Over the years, Greg has become desensitized to Mickey's penchant for chicken of all kinds, be it fried, grilled, baked, or broasted. Truth be told, Greg has grown numb to a good number of Mickey's less tantalizing habits, criticism being one of them. From time to time, Greg is too nice, too brusque, too fat, too fit, too stubbly, too smooth, too anything, too everything. For what it's worth, Mickey is too much of an asshole in more ways than one, in as many years. He has pretty big ears, too, but that goes without saying.

     On this particular Thursday, the two of them have elected to dine at the local Taco Bell, mostly because it's convenient, but also because Mickey loathes the decor and, more importantly, routinely bemoans the quality of its fowl-based products. Greg Kensington has a bone to pick, you see, albeit slowly, as he fully intends to savor the present opportunity to make a scene befitting the crime, for his boyfriend of three years has been cheating on him for approximately three months, and if there's one thing Mickey Thompson deserves, it's three months of discomfort wrapped up and blown out inside a Taco Bell.

     In his thirty-seven years on this earth, Greg has at times been labeled a sadist, which makes sense inasmuch that he is one to satisfy his cravings at the expense of whomever shares his bed but on the flip side, he is nothing if not loyal to his companions. Having never cheated on a partner, Greg Kensington considers betrayal a far more egregious error than any form of bondage imaginable. If Mickey were so dissatisfied, Greg reasons, he could have left some time ago. He could have done Greg, hell, himself a solid and simply broke off what has become a longstanding romance. Instead, they find themselves at the shittiest Taco Bell in town, staring cooly at one another between bites of Soft Taco Supremes and Cheesy Gordita Crunches.

     After Mickey complains about the quality of chicken in his Gordias for the second time this evening, Greg readily acknowledges his partner's preference for meat with a bone. A silence of sorts ensues, broken up by chewing, swallowing, and sauce packets tossed aside. Seated in the booth behind Mickey is a family of four, the husband and wife each attempting to assuage the unfounded fears of a finicky eater while a teenage girl beside the wife practically shouts what sounds like Justin Bieber lyrics toward some unfortunate soul on the receiving end of her cell phone call. Behind Greg, an older, crankier female version of Mickey complains that her crunchy taco is, doggone it, simply too crunchy, and it is here and now that he sees fit to make a scene; and a spectacle Greg Kensington shall become, though not in the manner envisioned.

     Gently unwrapping his second Soft Taco Supreme, Greg questions what it's like to suck Corey Schneider's dick, quite loudly in fact, to which Mickey's mouth drops wide open. A gasp from the crotchety old lady signifies that someone besides the two of them is privy to the thinly veiled accusation lain out for all ears to discern, and Greg wouldn't have it any other way. The glimmer in his boyfriend's eyes, at once diminished yet incredulous, prompts him to take a bite from his taco - a taste of victory, so to speak, or the zest of humiliation inflicted. Either way, he has won.

     Unfortunately, it is neither.

     The look on Mickey's face has transformed from one shade of horror to another, muddied by confusion and perhaps concern. For a moment, Greg is unaware of what has transpired on anything but a searingly primordial, something hurts! level. Reflexively, he jerks the taco away from his lips and, attempting to speak, quickly realizes that a profusion of blood contorts all language. Mickey asks him what the shit just happened but Greg needs a second or two to wrap his brain around the perplexity gushing forth. He drops the taco, grabs a napkin and presses it to his lips. Between distorted profanity and a tongue partially removed, Greg Kensington tries explaining to his boyfriend that the goddamn taco just took a bite out of him yet nothing seems to come out properly. Scrambling out from the booth, he stumbles toward the island of condiments, chin, napkin, and the collar of his striped Billy Reid polo stained red, dripping ichor along the way. The finicky eater, having caught sight of the blood, has begun to cry while Mickey, panicking, tells the kid to shut the fuck up as the teenage girl, meanwhile, captures the calamitous moment with her cell phone camera. The cranky lady, up and at Greg's side in an effort to assist with the napkins being stuffed into his mouth, opines that, doggone it, there's a lot of blood. Mickey tells her to shut the fuck up, as well. Not that it makes a lick of difference, but she does just that because at the rate poor Greg is bleeding out, there isn't much more to be said.

     This is how, when and where the end emerged: Ragnarök protracted and dinners disturbed.

King's Horses, Men Need Not Apply

Grace Potter & The Nocturnals - The Lion The Beast The Beat

     Everything throbs, vibrations resound. A light flickers, flesh burns, the floor shudders and walls bend, bleed, and moan. Hye-Joon's body seems at once afloat, amiss, and ajar. Her legs feel as if they're asleep and she's unable to manipulate her arms so as to get off the floor. Vision is blurred and reality slurs. A high-pitched whine fills the air as if she has become a dog unable to tune out a horrific preponderance of whistles. She feels soggy, though her throat is parched. Most of all, Hye-Joon wants to move because amidst the ocular haze there is motion; a shifting of almost vaporous proportions, black and brown with diaphanous strands of fluorescent orange carved into the diminutive frame of a human being rubbing its ears in response to what transpired just moments ago. What she ascertains of this shadowy adjustment, most definitely, is the fluctuating whiteness of uneven teeth as they articulate something lost, something hideous within this foaming morass of reverberation; something that makes Hye-Joon scream while the scraggy silhouette, superficially oblivious to the unfolding calamity, hops, skips, and glides along its chosen path.

     Desperately, Hye-Joon cries out for husband and child unseen, her voice drowning in a murky pool of distant pops, structural creaks, dismal screams, and orchestrated disarray. Of her husband, Jeff, she gleans nothing but the whimpers of Gavin, her son, pierce the veil of opacity, grinding through layer upon layer of cacophonous uncertainty and for a moment Hye-Joon dares, however feverishly, to believe that this is merely a horrific nightmare, one from which she has yet to awaken. Craning her neck as best she's able, Hye-Joon's delusion cracks and splatters as the splintered, feminine contour ventures back into sight, its colors reddened by annexed flesh and smoldering embers. Behind this ghastly, reassembled gloom tattooed with undulating streaks of cinnabar, being dragged by a leg, nearly upside down, is her three-year-old son, a wailing mess not unlike his mother.

     All you people, the revenant begins, her voice effortlessly navigating through the labyrinth of babel toward Hye-Joon in particular, can you feel it waiting? Innocence and love, wrapped in the arms of the burning neon. I feel it, she continues, teeth glistening with that which is presumed to be the blood of Hye-Joon's recently dismantled husband, I feel it, but you'll be so disappointed to learn that this moment of magic really isn't meant for you; and the magic before your very eyes lies not in the folly of you having killed for the purpose of sustaining life, nor does it relate to you having wronged in a futile effort to negate my indelible rights. In the end, it's not even about all this, the loquacious shade opines, waving her free hand to and fro as outlying shouts of increasing desperation creep further into Hye-Joon's throbbing ears, because this is merely the result of proper planning, really, though you were nothing if not the catalyst for the spectacle itself, and yet, to be candid, that explosion was both bigger and louder than anticipated. I mean, I hadn't expected the blast to shred dear old Dad so, so, the adumbration stammers, momentarily distracted as the building's sprinkler system sputters to life, so completely, you know?

     Even as the cascading water douses her lips, Hye-Joon continues, somewhere between howling and spitting, her protest; to which the waterlogged shadow shrugs, though not indifferently, and resumes dragging her quarry toward the balcony, its door agape and inviting. Debilitating pain hinders Hye-Joon's attempt to rise, yet still she tries, and when she fails, she crawls, she watches, and she assails her ghoulish opponent with profanity unfettered. In return, the sylphlike blight prances amid the mechanically induced rain, yanking the toddler along as she frolics despite his continued shrieks. Though her vision has stabilized, Hye-Joon is unable, showers notwithstanding, to determine where her stepdaughter's features end and the wounds begin, nor does she particularly care. What concerns Hye-Joon is something cold, black, and wet with four rounds left unspent. This is why she crawls.

     Anyways! the carrion crawler trumpets while lazily fingering one of the many holes in a T-shirt through which an equal number of bullets have recently passed, seemingly amused by Hye-Joon's aspirations. Anyway, she repeats, this time with a sigh, like I said before, magic, yeah. Disregarding the fact that your propensity for violence is what got you people into this mess in the first place, and don't get me wrong, maternal rage is a sight to behold! and shit but even so, the magic is this: what goes down may come up, the operative word being may because as stated previously, this magic really isn't meant for you, with the you being plural, of course. Stop me if you know where this is headed, she taunts, gripping both of Gavin's ankles tightly, and to that Hye-Joon simply wails, for words, no matter how stirring, sway not madness.

     But still she crawls.

Sheepskin Esplanade

   
Oh Land - Rainbow


      In the kitchen of a two-story olivine stucco on Garden Drive a boy named Uriel sits sobbing with knees pulled to his chin. He rocks back and forth upon marble tiles once described by his mother as Andes Calacuta but to him it just looks like someone spilled chocolate milk and never bothered to clean up the mess. Uriel is five years old, pushing six, and he weeps because the master bedroom on the second floor of this particular stucco on Garden Drive is ablaze with his parents dead inside it. He wails because his brother, Tristan, lies motionless upon the staircase while his aunt, Amelia, rests lifelessly just outside the dining room of this once happy home, each the victim of at least one blast from a Mossberg 590 pump-action shotgun owned by a man whose name no longer exists, for it has been lost within the corpse of a catlike, manlike mascot lying at the base of the stairs. Tristan, a shot to the chest, unexpected; Amelia, one to her left hip, from behind, another, point blank, to her right breast, on the floor, rolled over, unaided by desperate pleas; the Cougar, nothing quite so loud, yet easily twice as sweet.

     Within the stuccoed carcass of this broken home the boy remains, rocking and weeping, living and breathing, watching and waiting; for he is neither deceased nor abandoned, and the one to thank for this rummages through the kitchen in search of an agreeable meal, her disdain for clean eating readily apparent. Clearly, almost sardonically repulsed by the likes of spelt bread, homemade almond milk, roasted summer squash, wheatgrass smoothies, hummus and carrot sticks, citrus celery salad, organic peanut butter oatmeal, and a pizza without cheese the woman settles for a clipped bag of Lay's Kettle Cooked Sea Salt & Cracked Pepper chips, a jar of pesto, and a 2-liter bottle of Canada Dry. She then joins Uriel upon the floor, sitting cross-legged, naked, and peculiar. That the woman lacks clothing should trouble him, as should the bits of charred flesh clinging to her own skin which, despite its griminess, appears significantly healthier than it did a few minutes ago. That her hair, though dingy, remains intact should elicit curiosity and indeed it does, but for a boy on the verge of six, it is the hair between legs spread which captivates one so effortlessly, and the urge to cry has been supplanted by an urge to know more.

     The scorched woman, both mindful of and amused by the child's fascination, repositions the bag of chips, thus obscuring Uriel's view of her crotch but the accompanying laughter, mildly hyenic, assures him that he has done nothing too wrong. In the punctured heart of this bloody, burning maelstrom Uriel watches intently as the woman blithely dips a pair of fingers, middle and fore, the gooey, bloodstained ones, into the jar, scooping out an oily, almost putrescent glob of crushed basil and nondescript additives. She complements the luscious sludge with a handful of potato chips, only to stuff the stinky, salty mess into her mouth. Chewing profusely, Uriel's charred companion, this angel without a halo, sticks her tongue, mangled contents and all, out at him, much to the boy's momentary, detached delight; for even in the darkest of hours a child can be distracted, and in this moment, an idea springs to mind.

     Uriel leaps to his feet, leaving the woman to chug, chug, chug the ginger ale while her free hand wipes the remnants of the sumptuous, artificially-flavored feast into her sooty, matted locks. By the time half the bottle's contents have been consumed, the boy returns, teary-eyed, dragging a flamboyantly colored Desigual jacket behind him as an offering to his unclad champion. Again she laughs, postulating, though not contemptuously that he can be the kid brother she's already had. Risen, the woman snatches the garment from his outstretched arms and tries it on, noting that it's just a tad big; that she adores the splashes, swirls, and various shades of red and blue which define it; and finally, accompanied by a smirk, that Uriel really ought to see her in the coat after she's taken a shower. He doesn't quite grasp what she means, but neither of them seem to care.

     Sounds, sounds, as they're apt to do, abound: the crackling of encroaching flames; the recurrent whine of smoke detectors; the distant shouts of onlookers; the incoming blare of sirens. It's all so terribly annoying, the woman informs Uriel, and she hasn't the patience for such things let alone an inclination to gratify strays; but in this case, given that she relishes his mother's coat, is willing to make an exception so long as he can brown-bag those emotions of his and keep up or, to be precise, keep quiet. Without giving him the slightest chance to respond one way or the other, the woman tilts, jarringly, toward the patio door; each step taken a disjointed lunge of sorts, and for a second or two Uriel wonders if she'll simply use her body to stab through the glass itself, but she doesn't. She unlocks the door, slides it open, and questions whether he's coming or not. With nary a thought, Uriel chases after his dilapidated savior, eager to make her acquaintance and, somehow, meet with her approval while the woman, in contrast, merely shrugs and steps further into the night.