1: In Which i Shave

“I am a good looking man.  I used to be downright pretty but age has had its toll with me.  My cheeks are pudgy from the medication and my smile grew borders.  I’ve got good eyes.  They speak well of my soul.  Piercing.  Soulful.  Yeah.  Don’t forget to shave that path between my eyebrows.”

These are the things I’d be thinking staring at myself in the mirror shaving.  As is I can’t see myself through the fogs of mirror and absent glasses.  I am just trying to feel my way through it.  No self evaluation or praise just “Is there still white on that part?”

I’ll stress my way through it and still miss a few spots.  I know I’ll miss the dimple in my chin.  I hate when people call that a “butt chin” I know they say it to sound cute but it implies that shit comes out of my face.  Maybe I over think it but I still don’t like it.

I finish shaving and wipe my face on my bath towel that is hanging behind me.  It’s the backup.  I am wearing the one I used.  Usually I leap out of the shower, dry, and streak to the bedroom.  One out of three days, shaving days, I wrap my towel around me.  I need it to keep me safe and warm during the blind stumble of sharpness.

I toss the towel on the bed and shrug into my pants.  They are way too tight.  I can’t afford to buy new ones because I am always busy going to concerts or fancy food that will make me even fatter.

 

I throw on my shirt and brush my teeth without any further introspection.   I don’t even think “I should quit smoking so my teeth would be whiter.”  Nope.  I just brush them straight up, slip my fancy dress shoes on and go straight out of the door.

I wear the fanciest dress shoes.  You have been here and there and you have seen some dress shoes that have looked pretty snazzy but you have never ever seen dress shoes even half as fancy as mine.  I would describe them but my paltry writing talents could not due them justice.  Let me say they are slick and sleek, made from a material that surpasses not only the material values of leather but the aesthetic ones, that they don’t tie, buckle or button, and that they do not, in fact, have any sort of tassle.

I wear them in direct spite of the shoddy clothing I am forced to wear to work.  The incredibly tight pants are my own, and my fault, and they are of a modest quality to ensure maximum comfort, though restrictive, while sitting on a stool doing absolutely nothing.

My shirt, however is a different matter.  It is a cheap blend of polyester and straw.  It itches when it is not too busy scratching me.  It has a spot that started wearing at the elbow two days after I was gifted it.  This spot is not quit worn but is shiny and almost transparent.  The collar doesn’t sit properly and makes me look like a small  toddler I am so shoddy and unkempt.  The worst is the color.  The colors.  The shirt is as varied as a gay butterfly.  I don’t mean “gay” as in homosexual.  It doesn’t matter who the butterfly has sex with.  I mean gay as in “loud and fancy free and just NEEDING to express its abosolute joy in everything ducky in the universe” gay as in “exuberant.”  Not just a butterfly.  A gay butterfly.

If you took all of the brightest colors in the box of crayolas, turned up the saturation and the brightness a big notch, then swirled them all around on a piece of paper you would get an idea as to the nature of my shirt.

I look like a fucking idiot.  At least I have fancy shoes.

It’s weird where you have to store your pride sometimes.

I’ve been driving for a while. Just musing about shirts and clothes and not hitting anyone at all.

My phone vibrates.  I check it while I’m driving.  I flip it open.  I hit a couple buttons without looking and then BAM I glance at it for two seconds.  I don’t reply.  I don’t text and drive.  I’m not a psychopath.

I calmly make my next available Uturn.  I take the left after that.  No work for me today, but I’m not headed in.  I’ll call in when I get the change.  I signal one hundred feet ahead of my next right.  I’m driving at exactly five mph over the speed limit.  I’m signaling and making full stops.  I’m careful.  I’m cautious.  I can’t afford to be pulled over.  I have no time to waste.  My heart is hammering out of my chest.  Signaled lane change.  White knuckles on the wheel.  So calm so cautious.  That text was from my best friend in the whole world:  Larry.  All it said was “help.”

Every moment counts.

2: The Clue

All Larry’s text said was “help.”

I deduced he was home because the GPS thing said “Clay.”  Larry was wise to leave the GPS thing on.  I always thought he was being a dumbass but that thing might have just saved his life.  “Clay” was automatically home.  Where else would Larry go in Clay?

 

I pull into the lot very carefully then park diagonally across two spaces.  I don’t mean to do this.  It just happens.  I usually have to pull in and out of a spot around 8 times before I get to the point where I or my passenger won’t have to suck in their guts to squeeze out of the car.

No cop every pulled someone over and impeded a rescue attempt for a shitty parking job.

 

I stride up to Larry’s door.

 

Maybe if one of your friends said “help” you would just text back, laugh it off a bit, shrug.  Not me with Larry.  Larry never needs help in any way.  He is self assured.  I once watched him wrestle his sleeve out of a conveyor belt leading to a giant saw.  At no point did he even look at me like he needed help.  He just squinted his eyes like to say “Don’t you dare.”

He got the shirt out and didn’t die.

Don’t get me wrong.  Larry is a giant whiney pussy.  He would run from a fight with a ten year old asthmatic.  He would be nervous about getting scratched by puny little kitten claws.  He isn’t some tough guy.  He just never says “Help.”

He said “Help” so I am running towards his door.  He lives in an apartment complex that looks like it was designed by the people whose portfolios include schools and prisons.  He says he lives on the first floor but actually he lives on the .5 floor.  Only little windows are poking up from the ground.

There is another little brick building across from his brick building.  A little walkway connects them.  Larry’s door is under this walkway.  This walkway looks like a bridge.  Therefore Larry is obviously a little troll.

A troll who is in trouble!!!

I powerwalk to his door.

I give a short knock.  If there are villains inside I don’t want to alert them that I mean business.  I would prefer to be mistaken as a harmless passerby who enjoys knocking on doors.  I get my Mormon face on in preparation.

There is no answer.  I knock again then pull out the key he gave me.

My hand shakes as I try to ease it into the lock.  I am very upset.  I have a Mormon face on but inside my guts are jelly.  Larry is my best friend and I care deeply about him.  A long time ago I was distant with him,I kept him right at arm’s length, but during an adventure including a small dog he taught me the value of friendship.  I know now that friendship is valuable indeed.

 

Larry is my best friend.

 

I slowly swing the door open.  I hear no sound from within.  I sneak about but see no one.

In the bedroom I find Larry’s phone.  It is snapped in twain, probably by villainous hands.  I pocket it.

The only clue I find are flecks of paint chip.   I google the color on my phone.   The internet tells me that there is only one place in the Syracuse area where that paint exists.

I jump in my car and slowly, carefully, drive towards the old Empire Brewery.

I pray I am not too late.

3: The Derelict Subteranean Hipster Hot Spot

I drive carefully, catiously, blinker signaly.  I better stop at this yellow light just to be safe.

I edge into downtown.  I hit the button to lock all of my doors.  You never know what dangers are afoot in downtown.

Back ten years ago I was going to the bars downtown was a vibrant place.  Frat boys drank along with business executives.  Street performers serenaded nurses who were out on the town.   People went out looking to fight or fuck and they found both.  It was a paradise.

Then one day it all fell to shit.  It wasn’t bums that overtook it.  It wasn’t the police who broke it up.  It was good old fashioned raccoons.

Some signal in the brain of all the raccoons in the greater Syracuse region went off and they were drawn to Armory Square, the jewel of Syracuse.  Maybe all of the cigarette smoke, mixed with the fumes of ethyl alcohol, mixed with lilting scent of sidewalk vomit, mixed with seepage from polluted Onondaga Lake (which wasn’t really all that close) came together to form a raccoon greeting call.

The animal control agents did their best.  They were brave and stalwart and mostly of Korean descent.  They set traps.  Shot guns boomed.  They would have used karate if they had known it.  Nothing worked.  At the end of a long week that kept the entire state of Nueva York on its toes the gave up.  Downtown was lost.  There would be no more Armory Square.

Instead of a new hotspot blossoming everyone just decided to get high and drink some beers at home.

On a side note, no new babies were born since that moment. It has nothing to do with anything.  I am just mentioning that coincidentally there are no populants of Syracuse under ten years old.    It’s a coincidence that the last pregnancy happened around this time.  There are kids but they are all immigrants who moved here from far off places like Ithaca or Wisconsin.

Larry needs help.

The streets are impassable due to raccoon wreckage.  I park my car in the middle of the road.  I am relieved that I don’t have to navigate a parking space.  For a moment I look forward to the chaos of the apocalypse.  My car is crooked, of course.

I look around my car and the only thing I can find as a suitable weapon is a flashlight.  It isn’t even one of the big metal ones.  Just a regular old plastic flashlight.

Out of the corner of my eye I see a skitter.  I think “Raccoon.”

A little plastic flashlight was better than no weapon at all.  I say a little prayer to it to express my faith in its martial prowess.  You have to believe in things or they will let you down for sure.

I turn off the car.  The soft sounds of the Moody Blues (only band to never sell out) are clipped abruptly short.

(Brb.  Cigarette)

(k)

I can hear the raccoons watching me from the shadows.  I can hear their soft chatter.  It sounds like bloodthirsty laughter.  Raccoons have razor sharp teet.  Raccoons have ity bitty claws of death.  Racoons wash their food like they are too good for germs.  Raccoons wear masks.  Everything that wears a mask is so twisted inside that’s its ugliness manifests facially.  Halloween is scary.  Raccoons are scary.

 

I unlock the door and slip through it.  My heart pounding concern for Larry is joined by a cold sweat dread.  I haven’t been this overpowered by emotion since the state made me start popping pills.

 

I creep slowly down the road.  I am stepping over broken bits of bar brick and broken bits of bar glass.  I am darting my head quickly from shoulder to shoulder in a way that I hope looks alert and menacing to the merciless raccoons.

 

Suddenly one appears before me.  It is skirting across the road.

Then it stops.

It looks right at me.

I tighten my already white knuckled grip on my trusty flashlight.

We stand there at an impasse.  I wonder if he is as afraid of me as I am of him.

His eyes glowly beady and threatening from behind his mask.

His tongue darts out between his raccoon lips.

Then he gives a little wave and scampers off.

 

I stand there flabbergasted for a moment.  I don’t even wave back, and for that I feel horribly rude.

 

I pull out my phone.  The internet says that raccoons do not wave.  Ever.

I am glad I know this.  I am glad I have a smart phone.  Everyone should have a smart phone.  Even babies.

 

I add stomach swirling confusion to the heart pounding and prickled skin.

 

I creep down the street.  I want to go home so badly right now but I can’t let my best friend down.

 

If raccoons can wave can they kidnap best friends?

 

I avoid the buildings but as I grow close to Empire I have to walk near an alley.  All too late to change my fate I glimpse down the alley.  Hundreds of glowing yellow eyes peer out at me.  They blink in unison.  Then scores of tiny little hands poke out and wave from the darkness.  I swallow a mouthful of saliva and do the only thing I can think to do.  I wave back.

 

A moment passes.  Nothing happens.  I walk the rest of the fifteen feet towards what once was a hipster microbrewery.  In order to get to empire you had to walk down a staircase.  It was a basement bar.  That made it even hipper than microbrewing on its own would have lent it.  That staircase was wrought iron and after years of disuse was rusted.

 

My fear of heights screamed at me.   Sure it was only a ten foot fall but it isn’t about how bad you’ll get hurt.  The problem is falling at all.  I took a slow step towards the stairs.  Then I took another.

 

My head swirled with vertigo, my stomach flipped with confusion, my heart hammered, and my skin produced cold sweat.

 

One step down and the horrid screech of metal against metal echoed through the air.  I shot a look over my shoulder to see if that had signaled the alley raccoons to come and attack me.  I couldn’t see a thing for a minute because my eyes were clenched tight with fear.  Eventually I was able to look and there was nary a raccoon.  Why would there be?  We are bros right?

 

I resumed my descent.  After the first metallic shriek the other steps are more docile.  They just make little squeals.  I am just grateful the staircase is just swaying.

My heart is in my throat still hammering away, my skin is…. La la la la la.

I reach the blessed concrete of the bottom.  I think “Shitfuck” but do not say it aloud.  My relief does not trigger stupidity.

 

I slap my flashlight against my left palm twice.  The glass windows that comprised the front of the basement microbrewery are all smashed in.  Raccoons did some of this but the rest was done by humans.  Shotgun shells give away the culprits pretty clearly.

This was the site of an epic battle.

(brb)

 

(Okay… where was i?…. right…. Um…. Lemme grab some coffee….   )

(k)

 

The inside of Empire is dark.  It has the kind of darkness we have come to expect from derelict subterranean former hipster hot spots.

I stand for a moment worried about venturing into this total darkness and how much my eyes will adjust.  Then I realize the flashlight in my hand can serve a purpose beyond that of weaponry.  I switch it on.  For just one moment my pride at thinking of this swells over all of the other emotions.  It is that sort of moment a man lives for.

 

I head into the dark.  The second I cross the threshold I can hear whispering voices coming from the back.  I point my flashlight ahead of me like it can shoot lasers and head towards them.

They come from the old kitchen.  They are muffled by the door.  The door is the exact color of the paint chips I found in Larry’s apartment.  It is flaked and has a huge shotgunian dent in the middle.

I stand outside of it for a full minute.  I listen to the whispering inside.  I can’t make out what they are saying.  I realize I’ve been humming a tiny tune of terror in my throat since the car.

I suddenly scream “What the fuck!!!!” in my head and slam through the door.  Who gives a shit what is on the other side?  This is Larry we are talking about.

For just one brief second as I pass through the door I think “Wouldn’t it be neat if Larry was throwing me a surprise party” and imagine a crowd of people with Larry at the center.  They are smiling and waving and yelling “Surprise!!” and they’ve got my favorite kind of cake.

There is no surprise party on the other side of the door.  What comes into view are four hooded figures standing around a dentist chair.  The back of the dentist chair is facing me so I can’t see who is in it.  They are all huddled around whispering, at least for just one second.  Then they see their worst nightmare.  Me.  With a little yellow flashlight.

 

They are hooded and their only other clothing is boxer briefs.  They are festooned with tattoos of looney tunes characters and their eyes are wide with madness.

One of them screams “A Surprise!!!”

Three of them run towards me.  The fourth stays at the chair ministering to his patient.

I step back into a fighting stance.  My still lit flashlight is raised above my head.

The first reaches me.  I pull back to swing.  He slaps me.

The second one reaches and slaps me.

I am too confused to bash their brains in.  They are just slapping me and slapping me with their eyes wide open with glee.  They aren’t even hard slaps.  Just sharp pats really.  I just start shaking my head with disbelief.

Then I am paralysed.  Just like that.  I can’t move a single muscle.  It doesn’t come on gradually.  It is sudden and complete.

The hooded underwear men all giggle then carry me over and set me backwards on the floor.

I see as I go, through unblinking eyes, that it is in fact Larry who is in the chair.  His face is contorted in ecstasy and his fists are cleanched in pleasure.

“Poor guy” I think “He’s got a friend who’s smart enough to find him but too incompetent to save him.”

 

The looney toones tatted fellow who had never left Larry’s side lifts up a huge syringe filled with glowing blue liquid and plunges it straight into Larry’s heart.

Larry never winces.  He just keeps gyrating his hips until the moment he explodes.

 

(Strangely, I misspelled raccoon every single time I wrote it in this chapter.  Spell check grabbed it every single time.  You would think I’d get it after the first couple times “Ah two Cs” but no.  Racoon every time.)

4: This One Has Pink Deer

I am not showered with guts.

There is no massive fireball that singes off all of our eyebrows.

(sorry.  Had to check a couple of guys in.  They both paid in cash.  One was a defense contractor.  He had called and ask for directions three minutes before he walked into the lobby.  He wanted to make sure he got the government rate.  He had a giant wad of cash in an envelope.  He talked a lot.  I smiled and listened and handed him a key.  During this the second guy walked in.  He was a black dude.  He had on a baseball cap.  He stood there and then said to the defense contractor “Hey man.  You dropped 20 bucks there.”  The Defense Contractor looked  embarrassed, picked his money up, then walked out of the lobby towards his welcoming room.  I gave the black guy the “good Samaritan” discount.  20% off, the same government rate as the defense contractor.   I was grateful to the black guy.  He gave me a little more faith in humanity and made sure I’d never be a racist.)

Larry lets out a sound like a note from a Queen song and a burst of light come from his chest.  It showers the room blinding my unblinking eyes then solidifies into a solid beam.

Where that beam hits the ceiling is a window.  This window shows a piece of sky.  It isn’t the Syracuse sky.  The Syracuse sky Is constantly covered with clouds as green and glowing as a lime.

This sky is blue.

A bale of turtles flies through it on dactylic wings.

The goons giggle and point it at the wall behind me.  I can’t move my head and I’ve never been able to pop my eyes out on little stalks behind me so I can’t see the window.  I assume it’s there.

 

The goons chatter and then immediately rush towards the window.  Is it a door?

Apparently not.  In quick succession they fall to the ground beside me.  I assume they knocked themselves out by running into the wall but there were no headbanging “thuds” to support this.

 

I lay there paralyzed for an eternity.  I have never been the kind of person who could tell how much time has passes for I live in the one everpresent moment of enlightenment.  That moment will make you late to work every day and you will lose jobs because of it.  That moment is a pain in the ass.

Eventually though there is a tingle in my nose.  That tingle encompasses my entire body.  I am like a kid on drugs I tingle so hard.  Then it progresses and by the time I am able to slap myself I am suffering from the worse case of pins and needles I have had in my entire life.  I try to stand but my legs are truly asleep.  I flail my arms to slap bloodflow back into my limbs, even my cheeks are spikey!, but they are asleep as well so I am rolling around looking like an epileptic seal with broken flippers.  This is one of those times I am grateful I am not a contestant on a reality tv show.

Finally my limbs regain proper sensation and I rise to my feet.  I shoot a look behind and to the left and see a beautifully mowed field dotted with enormous multicolored mushrooms.  I stagger over to Larry.

He is lying there.  I don’t think he’s breathing.  I can’t be sure without a little mirror to hold under his nose.  I’d check for his pulse but I’ve never been able to do that.  I just haven’t.  Can’t ever find it.

I sigh a sigh of genuine mourning for my best friend Larry whether he is dead or not.  Being maybe dead is every bit as sad as being for sure dead.  When your best friend dies, or maybe dies, I am learning, that sadness feels like fancy beer and video games.

I pull my phone out of my pocket to dial 911.  My fingers are still not 100% so it takes me a while.  As it is ringing I turn and look at the wall.  Beyond the window is beautiful.  I can see why the goons wanted to go there so badly.  The mushrooms are so perfect.  The sky is so immaculate.  The deer prancing by are so pink.

“911 operator.  Please state your emergency.”

In a monotone I say “My friend Larry might be dead.   I don’t think he is breathing and I don’t know how to find a pulse.”

There are three miniature daschund through the window.  They are far off but I can tell they are sniffing the shit out of everything in site.

“Where are you, sir?” she says.

“I am in the old Empire Brewing Company.  Armory Square.”

“We’ll send an ambulance. Please stay on the line.”

“Okay” I mindlessly say then disconnect the call.

The vista beyond the window is so marvelous that it’s the only thing I’ve ever seen that earns the description.  I desperately want to be there and can understand why the goons ran at it hard enough to knock themselves out.  I glance down at them and notice.  One of their arms is poking straight through the window.  It isn’t a window.  It is a door.

I know it must be dangerous or the goons would still be gooning.  But, I ask myself, is it worth it?

Even if attempting to pass through the door might kill me, as evidence suggests it might, it would be a noble death.  Those astronauts who died in the Challenger disaster did not die in vain.  They died the death of explorers.  That is the death I’d die.

 

I take a step towards the portal.

 

Besides… If your best friend dies to spew out a portal isn’t the proper thing to do step through it?

 

(bbiab)

 

(sorry.  I smoked a cigarette then this teenage hooker came in to ask for change for the vending machine, which I gave her, then she came back 10 seconds later to tell me the machine at her money.  So I gave her a refund.  She went off to be a no candy having hooker and I sat back down to be a writer.)

 

I pass my hand through the fringes of the beam.  I am neither cut nor repelled so I move my hand further in.  The beam feels like warm sunlight.  Harmless warm sunlight.  I slowly walk down the beam with my hand in the center.  My hand doesn’t occlude the projection at all.  The portal is still strong and firm on the wall.  Every once in a while I take a breath.

Ever so slowly I reach the portal.  My hand is flush with it.  I begin to press my hand is as my testicles shrink into my pelvis.  Yup, I’m scared.

I hold one breath in for a full hour and then my hand is through.  I exhale with a groan.

My hand is perfectly safe and fine on the other side of the portal.  I twiddle my fingers.   I slowly begin to move my body through the hole.  I hear myself singing the same little song of fear that I was earlier.

 

I am through.

 

I am standing on precisely grown grass in a field of mushrooms and tiny deer.

 

My testicles descend as the corners of my mouth seem to draw themselves up to my ears.    I scream syllables that are some cousin of “yoo hoo!”

 

When you are a kid people always ask you “What do you want to be when you grow up?”   I never had anything to tell them.  Other kids in my grade were dreaming of being firemen or astronauts but that never appealed to me.  All I wanted, from the earliest I can remember was to be transported to a fantasy land.

 

I am not shitting you.  This isn’t some shit I am saying just because I happen to have found myself transported to a fantasy land.  This is some way back shit.  Every month when the Tor book order form would come I would hop my nerd ass up and down hoping the next book of Chronicles of
Narnia was on it.  On to Tolkein, over to Oz, Xanth, Diskworld, etc.  Anywhere somebody thought of a place I’d take a mental trip there.  All I ever wanted from the time I was a boy was to be somewhere amazing.  I wanted to go to a chill place.  Someplace where people are generally friendly and the weather is reasonable.

 

I kind of swallowed that dream down as I got older, I needed to make room for dreams of being awesome, but they were always there.

 

I am there.  I am there.  I am in ….

 

I realize I am hyperventilating .07 seconds before I pass out.

 

As I wake up I realize I have no idea if that was .07 seconds or not.  I live in an eternal moment.  There are no seconds-  Okay, I am goofy and lightheaded.

I move to sit up and seven tiny pink deer scamper away from me.  I realize they have chewed massive holes through my horrible rainbow brite shirt.  These giant holes probably don’t even make it uglier.

 

They eye me, with absolutely enormously cute eyes, cautiously and sort of twitch their hooves.

 

I rise to my feet for the second time in a few blips of the moment and look around.

 

Behind me is the portal leading to the Empire Brewing Company.

Ahead of me and to the sides are miles of unbroken mushroom paradise.

I set off walking in a random direction.  I am walking so straight, and so excitedly, that direction was immediately dubbed “Straight Ahead.”

 

 

(Behind him the tiny pink deer silently prowl with malice in their giant eyes)

5: In which i lose my Shirt

I put one foot in front of the other.  I do not put the front foot directly in front of the rear foot because I am neither walking on a tight rope nor pretending to walk on a tight rope.  I am walking a brisk normal step that has a bit of a spring in it.  It is taking everything I have not to outright skip.  I do not want the denizens of this land to think I am light in the loafers.  The way these things go there is a good chance I shall at some point end up being their king.  I will need them to respect me and perhaps, at times, fear me a bit. It will not do if they catch me skipping about my first day.  But seriously, have you ever tried to not skip when you are super duper extremely tomato happy?

 

Oh, it’s hard.

I’m still grinning.  I’m still swinging my arms.

I must walk for at least ten miles like this before my enthusiasm finally gives way to tuckered.  I trudge as far as I can but that spring in my step starts slowly winding down.

I flop on to a mushroom.  It is a nice chair sized one.  It is lavender with maize spots.

As soon as I flop there is a horrible buzzing.  Four giant insects emerge from the underside on angry sounding wings.  They flutter directly in front of my face  darting in and out.  I don’t get a great look at them because I am attempting to shield myself from them with my hands.

Then the buzzing mellows into a flutter.

A tiny voice says “Hey.”

I begin to slowly lower my hands.

A second voice says “Hey you.”

I see now that the giant bugs are actually tiny people.  They are colored brightly in zig zags, polka dots, and plaids.  Their fluttering wings are transparent blurs behind their backs.

A third voice says “Hey you, guy.”

They look very angry but they also look extremely cute.  It is hard to take them seriously.  They are like growling puppies.  I just want to hug them and laugh and laugh.

They are about the size of my hand.

They begin to speak again in rapid sucession.

“Hey you guy, there.”

“Hey guy you here hey”

“Hey guy.  Hey guy there.”

“Hey guy.  Hey guy.  There you.”

“Fuck”

“Fuck you guy there.  Hey.”

“Hey fuck guy!”

“Hey there you fuck guy there hey!!”

“fuck fuck fuck fuck guy,  hey there!!”

“Hey guy.”

“Guy hey hey hey hey hey there.”

“You guy.  Hey!”

“Fuck guy.  Fuck hey.  Fuck there.”

“Hey there you guy there hey hey you fuck guy guy guy guy hey fuck hey fuck you.  Fuck you guy there.”

“Hey guy.  Hey guy.  Hey guy there hey!!!”

 

And they go on like this until they are overlapping and their tiny voices are just a beautifully orchestrated blur of babble.

I listen enchanted while I stare between their angry little faces.

I keep swallowing nothing.  My mouth is parched.  Walking ten miles in a fantasy kingdom without water is akin to mounting Everest wit out oxygen.  It kinda takes It out of you.

I wait until a relative lull in their vocal buzz and say “Excuse me.  Would you please fetch me some water?”

They stop abruptly with only one “hey” spilling into the silence.

These are fairies, right?  What we know of fairies is that they are cute and they are helpful.  So, why not ask them for some water?  Maybe they  would bring it in little droplet filled leaves.  That is what fairies are like.

 

That isn’t what happens.  They exchange looks then dive straight towards my face.    Right before they hit I think how much they look like little supermans.  Then they hit, and they hit.  It doesn’t hurt so much as the idea they WANT to hurt me stings my heart.

 

Then abruptly they flutter away.  Their fists still held out like flying fascists.

 

I decide to find my own water, after I recover from my heart ache.  Speaking of heart ache, wow, real shame my best friend is probably dead.

 

I climb into the top of the tallest mushroom I can see and look about.  I quickly spy a small pond in a ring of mushrooms off to a direction I decide is east.

(going for a smoke.  The tiny deer are totally hiding under the mushroom.  They look so excited.  There are about twenty of them now.  They are licking their little deer lips.)

 

(ok. Back.  I was wondering how much easier it is to ruin your life jumping behind a wheel with one beer in your system than it is to win the lottery.  Then I was wondering would it be more dangerous to have a beer in your system or scratch off a lotto ticket while you were driving.  Then I was wondering why they don’t put scratch off tickets right into the labels of beers.  Then it would be like Vegas any time you bought a six pack.  Then you could scratch off your beer and drink it while you drove to your mom’s house for Thanksgiving.  That would be American as fuck!!!!)

 

I hop off of the mushroom and head towards the pond.

I’m walking more slowly now because my exuberance has faded after being pummeled by fairies.  I can hear things.  I hear the gentle soft breeze.  I hear the sweetly wailing tone of bag pipes coming from an indeterminable direction.  I hear soft grass crackles coming from behind me.

Every time I turn back there is nothing there.

I trudge on.

Check.  No.  trudge.

It only takes me a few blips in the moment to get there.  I kneel next to the gently rippling pool and stare down at myself.

I am covered with the images of multicolored fist prints.

Thousands of them.

Not just my face but everywhere my torso wasn’t protected by my clown shirt are tiny little blotches.  I am officially more colorful than my shirt.  I reach up to touch a swath of blotches then rub vigorously at them.  Nothing happens.  I look at my rubbing fingers.  They are covered with a light multicolored powder.  It is so thin it is almost more like a …. Oh fuck that is stupid…. dust.

 

So I decide to try to get the dust off with water.  I am kneeling over a pond after all.

I reach with both hands to cup the water.  They go in just fine, cool and refreshing, but when I go to pull my own beloved hands, that I’ve had for longer than I can remember, OUT they stick.  It is as if they are encased in putty.  I jerk and a yank and I ease and I try everything but I realize I am only getting stuck worse.

I slump, defeated, hoping someone more friendly than the fairies will come along and save me.

 

I sigh in frustration and begin to regret coming to a magical fantasy kingdom at al.   I am wondering whether to call for help when a herd of thirty pink deer emerge and savagely devour the rest of my ridiculous shirt.

 

I stay like that, trapped in a pool for just over an hour, what the fuck do I know it could have been a week.  When the tiny pink deer finished my shirt they all scampered away.  Except for one, who has cuddled right up to my belly and is purring.  I named him Folzbrantz and have decided he is going to be my sidekick if I ever escape this torment.  He will prance along by my side and alert me to dangers.  In exchange I shall feel him bits of shirts for a treat.

When just over an hour passes a man jingles along.  He has a giant pack on which is covered with all types of gizmos and gadgets.  He has a seven foot tall crooked walking stick with a weathervane topping off the cap.  He has a bushy brown beard that runs from his eyes down to his belly.  He has an expression on his face that makes it look as though he should be whistling, though he is not.

 

He walks straight up to the pool and stands over me.

 

He pokes me with the uncomplicated end of his stick and says “pixie bitch.”  He laughs and laughs.  His laugh is high and crystalline and echoing.  He then sets eyes on Folzbrantz.  His eyes light up with delight.  Well who doesn’t like tiny pink deer?  Even after they ate my shirt I can’t get enough of the little suckers.

 

This is where I fail my new best friend.

Larry is totally dead right?  It is time to move on.

Beardo the backpacked reaches between my legs.  I hope it is to pet the sleeping Folzbrantz and not to fiddle with my junk.  I stay silent so he can get some good pets in before the little guy wakes up.

 

He does not pet Folbrantz.  He snatches him up.  Folbrantz looks at me with terror.  I say “Hey there you guy!!” It is all I can do.  It is all I can think to say.  The man lifts Folbrantz over the head which he is tilting back.  As his head tilts a bowling ball sized hole appears in his beard.  When it is at its ultimate circumference he drops my tiny deer friend in and begins to chew.

 

I drop my head in shame.  I can’t watch.  This is two best friends I have lost in one day.  All I can do is mutter a single “fuck.”

 

When the horrid chewing noises have ceased the man walks over to me.  I am too disgusted to look up as he shackles my hands to a long chain.

He then points the weathervane end, rooster and all, at the pond.  It is liquid again and I fall into it face first.

I don’t think it is water but after three and a half weeks looking at a pond trap when you were parched out from a three year walk before it you drink whatever you can get.  I’m only doused in the pool for a second but I get three or four good swallows of the liquid in before Beardo drags me out.

 

He smiles back a sweet caring smile at me as he drags me forward, presumably towards slavery or the slaughter.

This magical kingdom sucks.  This day sucks.  This life sucks.

6: Beardo and How He Treated The Squids

I’m strung along behind chewbacca’s redneck uncle for miles.  Occassionally we stop at little ponds along the way and he fishes out the victims of his traps.  Mostly these are tiny pink deer (which he alternates gobbling and stuffing into his pack… after slitting their throats) but occasionally he fishes out the most bizarre monstrosities.  Once he fished out a shadow which snapped at him until he weathervaned the shit out of it.  He folded it up and threw it in his pocket.

At another pond we came upon a gaggle of glowing blue squid.  They didn’t just glow.  They sparkled too.  The sunlight just shone.

 

Well there’s that.  “Sunlight.”  I didn’t notice it at first because its one of those things you take for granted.  There wasn’t a sun.  The place was lit like noon but there was no discernable light source.  The sky was blue, the grass was green, and the mushrooms grew all around all around, but there was no font of illumination.  I have had a lot of times to notice tiny little “there is no sun” things while I’ve been dragged along.

 

He unfroze the pond and the squid sank into the shallow water.

Beardo walked around the pond where they flocked over to him.

 

He lifted each up and gave it a little kiss on the head.

When he had smooched em all he took them one by one into the air where the flailed their tentacles and fluttered skyward.  They reached a point far above then flocked in a tiny V shape together.  Slowly they meandered towards the horizon.

 

Currently they are a far off blip only squintingly perceptible.

7: Pieces of Hair, Pieces of Worlds

The man I have royally dubbed Beardo is checking one of his super magical pond traps.  A whole bale of flying tutles is stuck in it.  Some are underneath the hardened goo and banging their heads attempting to get back the blue sky.  Others have their heads stuck in it.  Still a couple others just have their heads sticking out.  There are a lot of turtles.

These turtles look sad, and worried, and frantic all at once.

Beardo goes around the pond and plucks each and every one out.

When he is halfway around he bends down and the top of his head falls right off.  It plops straight into the water.

Beardo immediately drops the turtle.

He reaches for the ball of fur that forms the top of his head and I get a massive look at the giant bald spot that pokes out.

He plaps the sodden mess that is his toupee back on and gives me an
“If you ever tell anybody”

Stare.

I am afraid but deep inside I am laughing at old Beardo the Baldy.

I am laughing because in my culture bald people are funny.

(You know.  When you get your license changed at the DMV they never ask for like PROOF.  So you could really get your license changed for anywhere.  Then you could call the cops and say “I’m sorry.  I lost my keys and have no money for a fancy locksmith.  Would you please break this window.” The police would say “Do you live here?” and you would say “Yes. See?  My address is right here on this formal proof of identification.” Then they would look at your license and smile so big because you are a fancy person who lives in this nice neighborhood.  Then they would smash all of the windows of the house.  Then you could go in and watch TV.  It would take you a while to learn how to work their remote control but you would get it down.  Then they would get home from work and you’d be surrounded in a sea of their now empty snak packs.  They would say “well hey now!” and you would say “It is my house” and show them your license.  They would be surprised but it says it right there loud and clear.  They would leave all sad.  Perhaps they would make a grab at their favorite grandma knitted scarf from the banister but you would say “ah ah ah” and they would drop it.  Then you would live in that house for another day or whenever the food ran out and take another trip to the DMV.  There is no way anyone would catch you!!! NOT EVER!!!!)

We come upon a hill.  There have been no other hills during my trip into the fantasy kingdom merely rolls and dimples.  This a genuine hill.  It extends upward for about twenty feet.  It is a very sharp incline.

In the middle of this hill is a very green door.  This door is not square or rectangular or round.  It Is not even a hexa, dexa, duplexa gram.  It has more sides than I can leisurely count.  These sides range from jagged to ornate.  The door doesn’t appear to be openable. Despite this, Beardo opens it.

On the other side is a bustling city street.  It is not filled with workers or businessmen.  Instead it is filled with vagrants and beggars.  Within the brief time I am gazing through it is see four prostitutes, their junk hanging every which way out.  I am not tempted to solicite any of them.  Their junk is on the unsettling side of bizarre.  None of the people on this street resemble anything close to human.

Some of them have trunks like elephants, long and slender, with little crowns of antlers on their heads.  Others are small and green and look to be almost made of tender wood.  Some of the people on the shanty street are as fat as elephant seals and seem to be traveling on mobile easy chairs. Some are tilted back others are leaning forward as though ready to pounce on a pile of slightly crisp bacon.  There are people of uncountable shapes, sizes, species, and gender.  They all seemed to be dead set on being as poor and lascivious as possible.

I liked them all immediately.

8: The Sproutlings and my Shoes

(okay.  Back.  This transsexual kept trying to thrust her boob-job in my face.  She had a strong Miami accent and horrible teeth.  I’d have shelled out to fix my teeth before I got boobs… but then again I don’t want boobs)

 

Beardo has yanked me through the doorway and onto the bustling alien street.  Once was pass through the door I can vaguely detect the ridiculously strong all permeating odor that is coming from every single denizen of the street.  No.  It is more than that.  It is as if the streets themselves are paved with ofal.  My incredibly nice and extremely expensive shoes are sticking to the cobblestone.  They make a “SSSSSSSOOOOOOK” sound every time I lift them.  And I am lifting them.  I am lifting them a lot.   “ Sook Sook Sook” it goes.  Our pace was rambling in the grassy fields but now that we are in the city of filth he is yanking me left and right.  My arms are far outstretched in front of me.

A group of tiny green people take an interest in me.  They dance around me in circles.  This is no easy feat.  Beardo and I are moving fast.

These little fellows have this absolute peaceful joy in their eyes.  I can tell that these little scampers are zen as fuck even before they loot my pockets.  I am in no position to defend myself.  They just poke their little hands in there and raid.  I wouldn’t even defend myself if I could.

They get my wallet, it is one of the kind with the magnetic money clip.    They get my key chain.  I once read that you can measure a man’s worth by how many keys he is entrusted with.  I try to live by that maxim.  I only have four keys.  I am admitted into these things:  My car,  My parents house,  My ex girlffriend’s apartment [We broke up eight years ago but you never know when it could come in handy],  And a safety deposit box filled with incriminating evidence against all of mine enemies.  All of those keys were gone.  All of them gone.

My wrists are chafing.

My cell phone vanishes down the road.  Two of the sproutlings, aww that is a cute little name for them, hit buttons and activate the slide over and over again.  It is incredibly cute, and quite zen of them.

They take my lighter and cigarettes and bounce off with them.  I haven’t smoked in three years but you never know when you might want to sell out.

They take my belt and they oh so mischievously drop my pants around my ankles.  I begin to stumble.

One of them pats my bum in such a sweet way.  “It’s only stuff” their wide eyed wisdom councils.

 

(I just totally gave a guy a pen.  Like for keeps.  Wasn’t mine to give but I handed it over anyway.  I feel like a Robin Hood outlaw.)

 

These things are so damned cute.  They have these gargantuan eyes sticking out of these huge faces.  Their mouths are wee small and they don’t even have noses.  And they smile.  They smile with those little mouths in a way that lights up your heart and makes you forget worry was every invented.  I am glad they have my stuff.  They deserve it more than I do.  They will make better use of it than me.

 

It’s when they go for my shoes that I snap out of it.   “Oh not my lucky shoes!” I yell and begin to spin about doing kicks.   The guy with the beard that runs from his eyes to his belly and secretly wears a toupee is whipping me through this slum swarm at a breakneck pace.  He looks back at my pocket pickery and smiles.

 

Not my shoes.  I’ve lost everything I own.  All of it, gone.  I don’t know if I will ever see home again.

They can’t take my shoes.

So I summon up all of the karate I learned when I was eight years old.  It’s been a while but I bring up the info like I am searching the internet.

 

(I just checked in a girl.  It was her 21rst birthday TODAY!!!  First time she was eligible to stay.  I gave her the room for free.   Cause fuck it.  Why not.  I am a good person.)

 

It’s there.  Karate.

I start using my spin kicks and front kicks and side kicks and round houses all the smash in the faces of these little fucking thieves.

I get a couple kicks in and manage to keep my shoes on for an entire eleven seconds.  That’s just how many awesome kicks I threw.   Eleven:  Exactly one phenomenal kick per second.

 

My stocking feet are now what are touching the street of filth.  They are making more of a “smoosh” sound as I pad them along.  We are still going breakneck son only the pads of the feet touch.  I am grateful that my heels are staying relatively clean.

 

Freaks keep pointing and laughing at me.  Elephant people are horning their noses at me with noises that could only be brutish laughter.  Chair blobs are guffawing.  Sproutlings are chirping their mirth.

I do look the sight.  I must.  I’ve got my pants around my ankles.  Shackles around my wrists.  Dotted with dabs of tiny primal colors.  In just my socks.

 

I’ve been fighting it.  But here, shackled and drawn along, looking like a street clown.

I give in.

I break.  Every ounce of pride comes crashing in.  It no longer matters that I won that spelling bee in third grade.  It no longer matters that I got higher than the average college bound student on the verbal SATs when I took them in seventh grade.  It didn’t even matter that four girls had tried to kill themselves over my amazing love.  Nothing mattered.

 

I was drawn the fool.

 

Inside I am nothing.  I am one with the refuse.  I am plummeting quickly into the abyss of my soul.  No tears are coming out because I am not good enough to cry.  I don’t deserve to feel better.  I am just total shit and that’s all I’ll ever be.

 

As I reach the depths of my soul see a tiny light.  It grows.

I race towards it and can soon see it is a raging fire.

I know this fire.  I am this fire.

Somewhere deep inside me chaos is brewing.  And it is getting big fast.

Oh motherfuck, oh motherfuck.

I haven’t taken my meds in three days.

Oh Oh Oh OH!!! Who’s that kid with the Oreo cookie?

It’s me bitch.  I am that fucking kid.

 

Oh just a whiff.  Just a puff.  Just a promise on the wind from my emotional core.

 

Soon despair shall be burned away

 

For mania is coming

And this little fantasy kingdom was about to find out what to do with a raging werewolf.

 

(sadface)

 

9: JCPenney has the fanciest shoes ever!!

The hint of mania is there.  It has been heavily proposed for a future date but it is still a long way off.  In the here and now I am broken.  I am dejected.  I am nothing of a man.

I slouch as I stumble  along.  I move my feet at the bare possible speed to keep up. At one point I fall and Hagrid’s hairy brother drags me for a block.  When I finally get back to my feet my entire front side is covered with the detritus of a modern fantasy society.  My nipples poke sadly out from the mire that is my chest in a way that is not at all sexy sexy.

I look for small things to latch on to and be grateful for.  I have a fleeting positive thought “At least my boxers are still on” but it is quickly dragged away by a “Not for long, the way things are going.”

 

I am sad.

I’m just fucking sad.

And I challenge you to stay upbeat and optimistic in a situation such as this.   You can say you’d do better than me.  You can say you’d keep your head up and your hopes high.  I just don’t have it in me.

Just as I hit the rockiest of the rockest bottoms I feel an emotional biochemical “pop.”  Instinct tells me that this is the feeling of the door to my home world slamming shut.

This evokes more desperation and also reminds me that Larry is probably dead.

 

We reach our desination.  Beardo the Great yanks me up to a doorway.  I am so sad I don’t even care what is on the other side.  I still look up when he knocks and a little panel opens up.  Large blue eyes stare out from the other side.  A voice from inside speaks in a little singsong language.  Beardo replies and sounds RIDICULOUS doing so.  It is the equivalent sound you’d have if you taught a Dog to sing happy birthday.   He is apparently understood though for the door is opened and we are ushered through.

 

The blue eyes belong to an extremely tall spider.  I have always wondered what a spider looks like standing on its tippy toes and I have finally found out.  Thank god, this whole nightmare was fucking worth it.

 

They sing song back and forth and Beardo the Magnificent holds out his hand.  Yeah.  He wants payment for the fabulous slave prize that is me.  The spider shakes his head.  Beardo speaks lower.  The spider shakes his head.  Beardo flat out whines.  It sounds like a little kid’s voice coming out of him.  The spider shrugs a couple of its legs, reaches into its enormous spider mouth, and pulls out a couple of battered beaten coins.

 

My head is still hung low but I am close and can just make out that the coins are Canadian nickels.

 

Beardo hands over my leash to the spider, opens the door, and walks out of my life until a suitable times comes to seek my revenge.

 

The spider detaches my shackles.  He sings to me in a way that says “follow me.”   I can tell it is a he because of the enormous spider penis that hands down between its eight legs.

 

As we pass through vacant corridors filled with doors leading to scores of windowless rooms I realize we are headed in a spiral upwards.

 

Eventually we reach a closed door.

The spider raises two fist feet things and either knocks on or kicks the door, depending on what interpretation you are going for.

 

Inside I hear a muffled voice speaking in yet another ridiculous language that I have never heard of.

The spider opens the door and motions me in.

Inside the room is resplendent with tapestries.  Books line every wall.  At the far end of the room where it should close off into a wall it opens into a balcony.  I didn’t realize how high we’d climbed.  The balcony overlooks the city.  The city is actually quite beautiful up here

Apparently we are in some sort of tower and this is way too fucking high.

I shrink back against the wall and begin reciting the litany against fear.

 

In the middle of the room is a rather fancy desk.  Behind it sits an average looking man.  His hair is fashioned into a side part.  Very tasteful.  He has an ordinary looking moustache.  He has ordinary looking hands.  He is wearing ridiculous robes.  They aren’t tasteful like Dumbledore or Gandalf’s.  These have the same stars and moons that the wizard costume I wore for fourth grade Halloween did.  He looks like a total ass.  For this wonderful moment my shirtless-ooze-splattered-pixie-battered-shoeless-joe looking self feels less ridiculous.  This man gives me a modicum of pride.  At least I didn’t intentionally wear queer ass wizard robes.

 

The man hops up from his desk and runs at me.  I try not to laugh at him.

“Oh my!” he says in perfect Dan Rather English “Oh my!”

 

He reaches me and starts poking parts of my body.  He pulls my teeth back from my lips.

 

I have been through too much to fight.  That balcony is way too close and this was obviously some sort of a magic man with a giant daddy long legs friend.  Why fight.  Just let him pry open my mouth and pinch my tongue.  Who cares anymore?

 

At least I’m not wearing wizard robes.

 

The man I have decided to dub “The Magician” holds out his hand and says “Hi, I’m the Magician.”

I shake it.

 

“Oh Horatio’s ghost I have never seen the like of you before.   An amazing specimen.  Whirp, where did you say he found this?”

Whirp sings a fancy little song.

The Magician shakes his head and smiles.  “This is so exciting.  So exciting.”

He looks at me and says “Parle Vu Fraincais?”

I shake my head no.

“Spreken se Deutch?”

I shake my head no.

“La la la Chinese sounding shit?”

I shake my head no and say “I only speak English.”

His eyes go wide with wonder.  What a fascinating sound it just muttered, Whirp.  Let us use the Roget’s Spell to record what he just said and find a reference.”  He turns back to speak to me “We will find some way to speak to you, my new friend.  Until then let us get you some clothes.”

 

He runs around and reaches in his desk.  He races back in a way that makes his robes even more ridiculous.  He hands me a JCPenney catalogue.

 

He says “Pick out anything you want” in the same slow loud way you really shouldn’t speak to deaf people or they are going to think you are an offensive asshole.

 

I rummage through the pages and point at a few shirts.  They are nice monotone.  Burgundy, White, Black, and Light Blue.  I point to a pair of jeans and point to the size I need.  Then I point to the finest most expensive shoes I could find.  And everyone knows that JC Penney has the very fanciest of shoes.

 

When I look up from America’s catalog my clothes are all hanging, unwrinkled, in the air in front of me.  Yup, The Magician can do magic.

“Let’s get you a luxurious bath given by sexy ladies in just a moment.  We need to find something for you to do.”  He looks into my eyes again.  He opens my mouth again.  Finally he lifts up and examines my hands.  He smiles.

“Yes!”  He says “This creature has exactly the right kind of hands for… Eureka!!”

 

I have a bath given by ladies I am sure they are very sexy to their own species but aren’t exactly my type.  One has an owl beak for a head, perfect human breasts, and tentacles for her lower half.  I always thought I really liked boobies until seeing them so displaced.  The other was a teddy bear in a bikini.  She was the one who insisted on scrubbing my scrotum.  These perfect rounded breasts and rubbed scrotum aside it really isn’t my scene to get turned on in and I am so grateful nothing pops up.

 

I’m grateful when it is time to get dressed.

 

I decide to rock out solid black.  I’m going to button down it up.  I feel like a god when I slip my amazingly clean into those amazingly grand shoes.

 

When I am showered and dressed Tip Toe the Spiderman reappears.  He leads me further up the passageway a full three rotations of the tower.

 

He opens a door to a room and ushers me in.

At first it is nothing but blackness.  I can still tell by the sound quality that the room is enormous.

The Spiderman reaches in and flips a switch.

 

The room is illuminated.

It is completely vacant except for a cubicle sitting slightly right from dead center.

Whirp of the Long Legs ushers me further in and then closes the door behind me.

 

My despair slightly alleviated from being cleansed and clothed.    I walk unslouchingly towards the cubicle.

 

On the desk sits computer.  It is a Tandy 1000 and the screen glows with green alphanumerics.

On the right side of the desk sits a stack of papers.

On the screen is a form.

 

I look closer at the paperstack in dread.

 

Yes.

Yes.

Oh fuck no.

I realize the job assigned to me with sinking understanding.

From Larry’s chest was surely a gateway to the unkindest hell.

My despair finds a rockier bottom which makes the last rock bottom look like mud.

They expect me to do Data Entry.

10: There is no Poop in this one

On the third day of working in the data entry center, slowly losing my mind to the repetition of nonsense, they moved in a tiny little cubicle cube and abutted it with mine.

 

On the second day of the empty cubicle the spider, whose name I totally forgot, ushered in a little fellow.  His hat was red, His beard was white, he was as tall as a knee.  He was, I shit you not, a motherfucking lawn gnome.  He didn’t look one bit happy to be here.

 

He plopped down at his desk and gave me a look as Spidero closed the door.  His look was one of indignation.  He raised his fist and cried out some noises that were high pitched and guttural.  “Ygarg!! Blarkgark!!!” were his words.

I agreed completely. “Fuck Slavery!! Fuck it hard!!” I shouted back.

From that moment, till the moment I watched his eyes flutter close sending him into the sleep that knows no sleep,  we were the best of friends.

 

The gnome was with me for five days.  On the fourth day he seemed to catch some horrible suffering cold.  I felt guilty as I watched his life flash away to snot and anal leakage for I knew he must have caught it from me.  It was obviously a recessive plague to which humanity had long since grown immune.  He stayed at his desk until the end, filling out electronic form after form on his tiny commodore 64 even though that paperwork was killing his soul just as assuredly as my stinking human disease was killing his body.

On the last day he started coughing, then hacking up tiny balls of mucus, followed by dry heaves that wracked him so severely.  Then he started vomiting blood.  It was then that I stepped from my desk and gave him comfort. I took off his hat and stroked his tiny white head.  I held him closely to me as the blood spewed from his lungs.  It flew a speckle of red flecks all over me.  I said “There there.” He tried to smile.

Two hours later I watched his eyes flutter close.  His death reminded me off Larry’s death and I was sad.

 

They took him away.

 

His tiny desk remained by for weeks.  I used to look at it.  When I did I sighed.

 

(there are several reasons a person could come to a hotel in the middle of the night.  A guy who’s run a lot of miles that day, finally winding down.  An afterhours party needing a place to settle.  A furtive couple groping each other in the lobby.  I just got the hardest one.  A woman with dried tears in her eyes who’s afraid of eye contact.  If you have a story like hers you can get next day’s business before six am.  If you don’t you can just go fuck yourself. )

 

One day they brought in cupcakes.  They all sang some freaky alien song, even though they probably knew “happy birthday” and were trying to get around copyright laws. Then they made me blow the candles out.  I counted the hash marks and sure as shit it was my birthday.  They handed me a tiny gift box.  I opened it and inside was a yo yo.   I love that yoyo.   When you are bored at a desk a yoyo can be your best friend.  They also handed me a pad of post it notes and a pen.  They must have heard of my work in the visual arts somehow.   That was really an effort they didn’t have to take.  It really made me feel less like a slave and more like a valuable employee.

 

For some reason I haven’t had to use the facilities the entire time I’ve been here.  No there hasn’t been a single tinkle or pooting from me.  This is good because there are no facilities provided.  There is also no bed.  Really my entire world has been this cublicle.  I sleep under the desk.  I enter data.  I scribble on post its.  I yo the yo out of the yoyo.   This is my life.  Sometimes I still sigh when I look at the little desk.  Days turn into more days.  The flouescent light is always on.  The temperature is always perfect.  The carpet always smells new.  There is always paperwork to do.

 

I eat sometimes.  They give me healthy little office snacks.  Yogurt straight from the refrigerator.  Carrots and celery with a spot of ranch dip.  Oranges.  That sort of thing.

 

I never poop it out.