4 am Heartbreak

     “Sometimes ghosts walk in on the voices of the frogs…” Sakura said wistfully…

     She sat on a mountain of pillows pulled from all the couches in the big living room. She had lit the fire and the saint candles and was listening to one of her favorite bands. The tape was white and ancient. One of the first albums she had ever owned. 

     The singers voice was haunting and deep and full of pain and beauty. Sakura was one of those souls that reached out to sad music when she felt sad. It was like weaving a tapestry with her emotions and music to create a larger piece of art. A fantastic landscape of pain, fear, and beauty.

     Sakura was awake because the night felt like heartbreak. In a house full of roommates she still felt alone… and 4am was always the tearful hour. She was not sure why, but her heart hurt at that time. And her soul felt like a crackling old tearful song on a vinyl record or a broken tea cup. 

     Uncomforted by arms that would hold her, she came out here alone… wrapped in one of her favorite blankets. Not that she needed it, or the fire for warmth. The spring nights had begun and the air only held the cold with desperation. It was more to feel hugged by something. And warmed by the light. 

     Something in the night made her fearful. The dark was a physical presence. She chased it away with candlelight, music, and warm thoughts about people that touched her and loved her. 

“A warm thought about loves both lost and found can scare away the deepest chilling wraith from ones heart,” said a soft voice. 

    Sakura was not startled by this voice however. She knew it. After all, she wasn’t even sure if she hadn’t created it altogether. 

     “My heart is heavy this night. And there is soul hurt in the air like incense without a smell. I don’t know why I am hurting this much Coyote…” she turned on her mountain of pillows. “But I know that my soul feels as though it swims in a vortex. I feel like a little girl deprived of stuffed animals and locked into coldness.” 

     Coyote was sitting up and eyeing her intently. He was a canine but his every expression was human and he spoke perfectly. Certainly he was not real. Yet, she did not care. He nodded in response to her.

“Little girls must sometimes face the darkness unguarded to emerge as women… yet a woman you already are my dear. And one of strength as of yet undiscovered. I am here now though… and always will be.” 

     He walked over and laid his muzzle on her leg, looking up at her with canine eyes that held every human emotion. The music continued to play low in the background. The singer sung of pornography and sleep. 

     “I’m here my Little Ronin. And these ghosts coming into your chambers are no more dangerous to you than nightmares or smoke. And I will chase them from your mind if you need me to.”

     Coyote licked her hand and she smiled down at him. “Why are you so kind to me Coyote? What made you come to me? Why am I so special? I do not think I am.”

     “I think you are. And I came to you because I Love You… I need no other reason.”

     “Did I create you?”

     “You are asking me if I am real Sakura?”

    “Yes.”

     Coyote sat up and was not eye-to-eye with her. “I am as real as you want or need me to be my dear… whether you created me in your mind or not is not important. Reality is perception, and if you believe me to be real, then I am. Nothing is impossible until you decide it is, or stop believing. And I know your heart. You believe.”

     Sakura leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him. He certainly felt solid enough. His fur was soft and warm. He smelled of fields and forests and living in the open winds.

     The embrace was long and although he did not hug back with human arms, he rested his head on her shoulder. She could feel his breathing. His strong heartbeat. He had to be real. 

     “Stop worrying whether I am real or not,” he said and pulled back from her. 

     Then both turned in the direction of the window. They knew something had joined them. She glanced at Coyote who only kept staring intently outside. The thing had no voice. It had no substance. It was only a feeling. Yet it was as real as stone. Coyote spoke to Sakura without moving. “Sometimes ghosts walk in on the voices of the frogs.” 

     Sakura felt her heart twinge at its approach. The closer it came the more fearful and lonely and sad she felt. Coyote came between them and it stopped. His growl was barely audible. Then it was gone and she thanked him. 

     When he turned to her, there were tears on his face. All too human. 

     She went to wipe them but he only licked her face. “No. I endure so that your heart is less troubled. It is the price of such things.” She looked sadly at him and he smiled. “No more fear. It will not return. Not on this night.”

     He leaned into her again and let her hug him. The night now felt less oppressive to her. The music, which had seemed to fade was playing again, low and steady. Coyote licked her hand again and then stood and turned.

     “No…” she said. He turned back and looked at her. “Don’t go.”

     “I have no choice.”

     “Will you let me hold you? I want to…”

     “I want you to. And you always can in your heart.”

     “I don’t want you to leave me.” 

     Coyote walked back to her and nuzzled her with his face. 

     “I will never be far. And I will always be with you.”

     Coyote licked her face gently once more and when she opened her eyes again, he was gone. She looked around and wondered if it was all just her daydreaming again as she was prone to. Then she saw it. A single hair. The music played. The firelight danced on the ceiling and walls. She held it up. A single long white hair. His fur. She held it to her chest and whispered into the night which now felt warm and comforting…

        “Sometimes ghosts walk in on the voices of the frogs…”

XXX ZOMBIEBOY XXX

XXX ZOMBIEBOY XXX is a freelance writer, artist, photographer and model from Tallahassee, FL and a citizen of the world. He attended a college at which he received a piece of paper that said he was a Masters though the plurality of the statement made him question his duality. XXX ZOMBIEBOY XXX has written numerous articles for Carpe Nocturne magazine and has self published a collection known as OCTOPUS. He is currently working on his second collection TENTACLES and sometimes taking off his clothes and smearing blood on himself as a model. He has a thing for Zombies and horror.

Police State

Villains, the original meaning of the word was treacherous, abusive, evil. An

electronic sign in huge red light emitting diodes flashed in my neocortex: Villains At

Work High Risk Zone. A reign of terror beneath my roof was undeniable. I never lied.

    Stepping into the tub, I took my usual pre-dawn shower. I saw headlights from the

window in the bathroom, villains driving vehicles, one after another, out of the parking

lot across the street, sweeping their yellow headlights, turning my white skin tawny. I

heard other vehicles parading down the blacktop as well, showing their contempt for me. 

    Another curious incident, happening often when pissing into the toilet before bed: a

neighbor’s bright front door light would go dark, light, dark. Showering and peeing,

alpha and omega, I had been locked into their vice grips every night.

    I have a peculiar way of washing my hands, more scrupulous than a surgeon before

an operation. I lathered a bar of soap, fiercely rubbing my hands together, then twisting

the bar around my palms, and very muscularly cleansing them, pressing harder and faster

against one another, the procedure exceeding two minutes. I had alerted the villains, so-

called biological entities, aliens is actuality. They assumed I was idiotic, these sentries at

my private gates, stowing the information undoubtedly in subterranean caves, preserving

them until the Sun went supernova.

    When I used a battery-driven Oral B toothbrush in the morning and before nighttime                                                                                         

sleep, I imitated the noise of the instrument as I lightly pushed against teeth and gums,

sliding quickly, a process taking more time than the hand washing. My dental hygienist

recommended that I devote at least two minutes to my teeth. Villains always listened,

wrongly concluding that I signaled outside help, hoping to throw off my bondage. The

thorough gargling, then mouth-rinsing sounding like hydropower turbines, villains

downloaded, capturing the noise so it would be analysed, decoded, attempting to find out

whether I had been decrypting rebellious defamations during my daily ablutions.

    Often, I read print newspapers the way in which genius John Nash ( “A Beautiful

Mind” ), in both movie and book, had read his paranoiac, splintering, bizarrely digitalized

newsprint, searching for an enshrouded conspiracy as I did mine. He had an immense

breakdown, villains desiring my own crackup, going fetal upon the linoleum bathroom

floor.

    Standing before the toilet, I unzipped my penis, releasing urine, staring at a large

poster of the artist Francis Bacon who said, “all that death, I find it very beautiful.” I

pissed many times, drinking teas accounting for that. Staring at Piss-Bacon, hearing

liquid against porcelain, probably made by American Standard, its name rang true, I the

basic AS, nothing out of the ordinary though disengaged, searching interiors of my

carnivore-brain for meaning and consciousness and privacy. I wanted to read on my bed.

Read in peace, that was, without outside villain-static.

    Villains watched me piss, in the daytime making sure I heard their parked vehicles

outside my apartment, engines running, doors slamming, power brakes pumping staccato

beats, wanting me to be acutely aware I was incessantly under an almighty and

                                                                                                  

mysterious process of observation: Jeremiah 33:3: “…great and mighty things, which you

not know.” Periodically stumped, I shuttered at the omnipotence of the villains’ inten-

tions.

   I stood in the closet, momentum gathering, villains extending their clutches over my

mind, suspending me over the abyss. I took Bacon’s words to heart, pulling out a

Browning shotgun and box of shells given to me by my father for my 16^th birthday. If

I unzipped it from the soft case, classic filmdom’s retribution ( impossible taking the

villains to court---they were so diffuse and dispersed ), I would blast anonymous

persons, all the city’s citizens complicit in villainy. Their toxic venom spurting from

my 16-gauge carcasses, blood cascading, think Kubrick’s movie, “The Shining,” blood

flooding the hall. 

    At night, peeing became a light show, vehicles streaming down the street, headlights

flashing on and off, red lights twirling and flashing from law enforcement vehicles,

firecrackers exploding, their rockets red glare, bombs bursting in air, their amassed

throw-weight measured by the increase of sickness, physical, mental and emotional, they

attempting to overload me with the ultimate affliction: death.

    Reading at night or day, the ceiling light beaming down ( Picasso’s “Guernica,”

history’s light bulb shone down on atrocities ), mufflers covered my ears. I bought them

at a sporting goods store, mufflers used at indoor shooting ranges, men and women of

violence wanting to eliminate or conceal hidden icons of earsplitting noise. I liked great,

sprawling novels and social histories, their fortissimo overcoming the villains lurking

where I least expected it, in books. Where had the people come from, those traipsing past

                                                                                               

my windows as I read, many on cell phones mentioning my name, telling friends about a

“lout,” a “freak of nature,” a “dummy,” a “poor excuse for a human being.” Often, they

would stand against my first floor apartment’s wall, their iPods loud with hip-hop or

death metal. I momentarily stopped concentrating, regaining it after inuring their

undesirable antics. But the villains’ war against me knew no boundaries however I

resisted.

    The villains’ goal: discombobulating me until I raised the white flag of surrender.

Remember the Masada fortress, Zealots holding out against the Romans, finally

deciding death and suicide by their own hands preferable to Romans slaughtering

them. I, the new Jew, under siege by villains, yelled to a person playing guitar outdoors

a foot away from me on the bed, “Never again, punk!”   

   Twice daily, I flossed my teeth, rooting out particles, tiny shards caught vice-like in

between teeth, breaking them loose and free, unlike the villains’ strategy of threading my

mind with corruption and rot. I looked in the mirror, seeing myself in the mirror,

awkwardly angling the floss, transmogrifying my face into the image the villains prefer:

ugly, haggard, wretched.

    Of course, we all loved sleep, even nightmares holding darkness and doom. But we

continued sleeping for the sake of waking up alive the next morning, another day we

were not dead. Impossible to sleep off hangovers of the dictatorship of villains, creating

another insomniac their plan. Billions had gone before me without much sleep, making

them weak and tractable, turning them into moronic insomniacs.

    “They shall not pass,” spoke Delores Ibarruri Gomez, directed at General Franco’s                                                                                               

fascist military machine. Always heroic, I snuggled under sheet and blankets, taunting

them, daring villains to break through my sotto voce or normal verbiage, unafraid,

though through the wall I often heard loud thuds, meaning stop my closed-mouth, tongue

unmoving in throat-speak. I sounded like a Tuvan throat singer, my own overtone

harmonic sounds until sleep. Outside, vehicles ceased, the normally busy street hushed,

silent-nighting me, only without attendant glories accompanying the holiday season.

“That’s terrorism,” I rasped loudly, but below the decibel threshold that would get me

evicted or having to confront the police after my wall neighbor had had enough of my

bedtime harangues.

    Villains feasted on the quiet, dead-air street in which I might burn my wings and

crash, interrupting the hush, babbling confessions I neither had nor would ever have. I

placated them though, running through childhood memories, increasing their hostility

towards me. “I love drama, so let the pressure mount. You’ll have to assassinate me, I’ll

never be taken alive,” I barked. “Your hysterical terrorism rages and your opposition

simmers, murmuring me into inner quietude.” Bed-speaking words and phrases I would

not have uttered without villains stalking through my private rooms, erupting in my

dreams, I the Conqueror, you lousy with gutter-born syphilis of the noggin.

    For exercise, I rode a stationary bicycle in a long, deep bedroom closet. I pedaled fast

twice daily, 30-minute reps in high gear. Mufflers covered my ears, otherwise the din

bouncing off the walls would deafen me. I pumped robotically fast, villains hoping I

would dizzy myself in the claustrophobic closet, getting disoriented and confused, my

urge for immortality obviating practicality, gaining not deathlessness but cardiac arrest. I

                                                                                              

wanted to outlive the pukes, dreaming of a die-off for those who sought an early death for

good old me.

    Pedaling, I counted silently, starting with one, two, one, two, then counted to twenty,

then counting one to nine to thirty, one to nine to forty, and so on, repeating that until I

reached one hundred. In between, I might repeat a number say eight, rhyming it with

debilitate, masturbate, exonerate, eliminate, frustrate, defecate, exterminate ( my

favorite ), counting silently, my mouth sealed shut: “Nine, nine, nine, feeling

fine.” Endorphins soon kicked in, an opiate-like substance, cosmic dark matter I

intuited, the analgesia making me euphoric. Nothing could harm me. Villains had no way

to hurt, torture, or slay my being: I was Emma Goldman, Buddha, Simon Bolivar,

Seigfried, Frodo, Don Quixote, plus mythological heroes from around the world.

Paranoia melted away, my true version of myself reaching its zenith. Who could deny

history and fantasy? Only the villains, of course.

    After the workout, I drank cups of Morning Thunder, listened to dark ambient on my

iPod, and raised my middle finger at my foes.

    The dressers holding hundreds of family photographs, old VHS porn tapes, hundreds

of clipped articles, a drawer full of literary magazines containing my published poetry,

passports renewed in a small drawer, letters from former friends chronologically

arranged, unfinished manuscripts hiding beneath underwear, collectible poetry chap-

books, ‘60s radical pamphlets, my nephew’s pencil drawings: whenever I opened a

drawer trying to find lost memories, villains shared my eyes, I the camera, seeing

what I saw. What was this, a horror movie, who the monster, who the idol? 

                                                                                               

    The sliding windows near my bed, how villains made them quiver, trying uncountable

ways to assail me, straining to shake my fundament. Those windows often had large-watt

lights outside blazing through closed blinds. What was going on, a Nuremberg rally, ala

USA, klieg lights seeking out misfits and undesirables?

    The maroon blanket, a gold M stitched in it: villains thought my dad had not earned

his university varsity letter in swimming. And for that matter, the villains dismissed my

own graduation from high school and college, I hauling out the diplomas, villains

cheerleading with iPod drum and bass loops from the curb. They determined the

diplomas counterfeit, forged, bought from a dealer of false papers.

    Being unable to reconcile my life and behavior to my dad’s was their fixed idée, their

obsession. The pressure cooker took its toil, though I perfectly addressed my

dichotomous life when I thought about it in a swivel chair near the front windows.

    They whispered through my store-bought earplugs used for sleep. “Shut your mouth,

we’re tired of your senseless backtalk, ripostes won’t stop our investigations.” They

rebuked me, three a.m. horns waking me. Had they entered my sleep-filled

unconsciousness? I turned on the light, examining the earplugs closely. In tiny red letters

I read with a large magnifying glass, “Creech.” It was the Nevada Air Force Base. From

there, a Predator or Reaper drone firing a Hellfire missile could obliterate me in my sleep,

annihilating dreams.

    If not, I had plenty of dreams in my pockets ready to use. But the villains shelling

me with mortar rounds was not inconceivable. I began energizing my force field,

protecting me from incoming ammo.                                                                                     

    I heard cars’ or trucks’ back-up beepers outside. Perpetual war persisted.

    I’d take my chances in Tripoli.

George Sparling

Bloody Soil

I just can’t forget

to remember the red soil

before and after

the cock fights.

I just can’t forget

to remember the red soil

before and after

the bleeding moons.

I just can’t forget

to remember the red soil

before and after

the dripping eyes.

I just can’t forget

to remember the red soil

before and after

the slashed penises.

I just can’t forget

to remember the red soil

before and after

the spilt watercolor.

I just can’t forget

to remember the red soil

before and after

the violent rape.

I just can’t forget

to remember.

Isn’t it just fucking unfair?

Amit Parmessur

Late

I know, you don’t have to tell me

the dead aren’t dead until we have forgotten them.

Under a most priceless morsel of sky my love

dwells, solemnly, in that howling graveyard.

But this graveyard is not a graveyard.

These tombs are not lifeless, sad repositories.

They are the fashion shop windows

where the mannequins have grimaced for eternity,

showing how to die is an awesome adventure.

There lies my love – so young, so calm.

I now sit there with a spider tattoo, cigarette in mouth,

a cluster of souvenirs round the wrist, guarding it.

And these mannequins do not frighten

me as I do not aspire to be one of them.

People say I’m mad. I can’t care when I deceived

the one who loved me and she killed herself.

As soon as she died I started living for her.

I’ll now see her in the faithful moon.

I’ll now count tears that tell stories of silence.

Amit Parmessur

While craving for her

I find her in the gossips of holy statues;

I find her in timeless, teeny rivers running

over unknown lands with grazing goats.

I find her on blistered tongues which are

never tired to spell and sing love. I find

her while drawing the curtain over fiery

love rumors. I find her at the edge of my

romantic brain, on every inch of tearful

darkness. I find her in each breath I feign.

I find her on white walls, in the fragrant

frangipanis of my garden. If this vast sky

can see itself in a street puddle’s mirror,

why can’t I find my darling in the moon?

If disloyal souls find good love why can’t

I find her the way I wish? I find her in wine.

I find her in solitude. In pure, red solitude.

Amit Parmessur

Born in 1983, Amit Parmessur is one of the editors of The Rainbow Rose. His poems have appeared in around 100 literary magazines such as: Ann Arbor Review, Calliope Nerve, Black-Listed Magazine, Red Fez, Damazine, Zouch Magazine and many others. His book on blog Lord Shiva & other poems has been recently published by The Camel Saloon. He is nominated for the 2011 Pushcart Award and lives in Quatre-Bornes, Mauritius.

Blog: http://therainbowroseezine.blogspot.com/

entropy

“Out there it is bloody, fucking chaos, mate.” he spun on his left leg toward the younger, twirling the spatula in his left hand. The apron settled in front of him and he began again shaking the spatula at the younger gently and then turning back toward the stove. “In here, you think about it, and the whole fucking thing seems simple enough. Yeah?” He pressed down into the skillet and something seemed to shriek, as he resumed too quickly to allow a response, “Simple enough and straight about too. That's how things are too. If you can find that in here you know that is how they are. It is so elegant that you'll know- when you find it, that all it takes is to express it and like the lights mate, you've got it.” He moved his arms around a bit in a restrained motion in front of him and then turned toward the table that the younger male was sitting at. He walked to the table and placed two plates on it. “It's so simple; yet out there, it's bloody, fucking chaos.” He sat down and then looked directly at the younger. “Now, eat up, mate.”

It was especially when the younger male sat on the hard floor of the living room, staring at blocks with sunlight streaks cutting through smokey, dusty air to strike whatever was in its path, that the younger went, in his mind, to something nice and simple. Mostly he sat there quietly with his legs crossed and his hands palms up, one holding the other, and both resting in the center of his legs. The sounds of his neighbors were a varying ambience that was internalized as well as unrecognized.

The younger could smell the older male and hear the older's body any time he was there. The older spoke loudly sometimes, and he liked when the younger looked at him while he talked. According to everything the older imparted, all the things that the older said would be of benefit, but it didn't make sense because the younger had already found the simplest and easiest way. He was polite, and some people gave him what he wanted.

“Get up. We've got to get the trash out of here, now.” The older man was wearing a plain white t-shirt that had a number of holes widening around the neck line. In his pocket rested the soft package of cigarettes that had the visual appearance of a decoration. The younger rose, walked to the kitchen and opened the cabinet beneath the sink. The large green plastic trash can had been with the older man longer than the younger had. The rim was worn, revealing a number of holes that were beginning to widen. The result was that small pieces of the lip would crack off when lifting the can by the lip. The older man would lament and attempt to reinforce in the younger the importance of not breaking off any more of the lip. The younger would listen. “I realize that that can is getting old, but every day that we make it last from now on, is another day that we save the cost of replacing it. It's like overtime. These points are important. Do you understand that?”

The younger would nod his head in the positive. The younger would inform the older when another piece of the lip would break off, because it was important. What was actually real in his mind was the can could be used long after it had no lip and that a broken lip was no reason to stop being polite & getting what he wanted.

A wrapper spun at the base of the hallway's wall. A piece of string swung at the top of the stairwell. He drug the toe of his shoe pointing it at the spinning wrapper, then across a seam with a thump. Another thump against the angled concrete above the stairs. Another fainter down the hall. The light grew brighter and brighter. He reached the bottom step. The last on the left. The door was the end. Light streamed and spread around the darkened concrete wall. Light from above and up the steps on either side of the wall ahead at the end of building. The light came up into the hall and just past the last door on the left where he now stood.

He touched the handle and then knocked. The tiny dent at the upper left was always a comfortable resting spot for the ring finger of his left hand. The knob turned with his hand still on it and the man pulled the door open. The boy stepped inside and rubbed his left eye with the meat of his hand.

“Got the trash out quick didn'tcha?” The man pushed the door closed behind the boy and then walked into the living area and sat on the couch. “You know. When you don't take out the trash, I have to walk out to the left, Down the short steps and all way 'round. The banging stairs you bound up, I can't take anymore.” The man sat there with the television for a moment while the boy sat down on the hard floor. “Chinga. Never get like me. Ya hear. And would'cha look at that on the screen.?” The boy lifted his head in the direction of the screen. The two watched as a news story was read and text scrolled across the bottom of the screen.

“They're screaming overthrow him. I'm wondering where's the bloody dictator supposed to dictate the people that want to be dictated when we give the country to the people that want to be free.” The younger watched as some diminishing flames and embers lit part of the otherwise darkening room in a brief image. “But out there, it'll be a lot of bloody fucking chaos before its over, mate.”

Edward Wells

Edward Wells II is a writer, recently returned to schooling. His work The Rider is appearing in serial publication at The Bicycle Review, while other pieces are available to readers at The Writing Disorder and Bending Spoons. His collection Mexico 2009, originally released electronically by Full of Crow ( HYPERLINK "http://issuu.com/fullofcrow/docs/mexico"http://issuu.com/fullofcrow/docs/mexico), is soon to be available through major e-book distributors in the form of small e-books containing adaptations of the manuscripts original sections. His author page can be found on facebook.

I, Tad

Dead, I had become transparent eyeball, not Emerson’s, but godlike. Dead, I

knew and perceived more than alive. My father Gustav was dead, mother Hildy too, but

sister Herpy’s alive. My entire life, its repellant bloom had yielded nothing of

importance. A man without biological necessities, lacking essential neurons had no

reason to sit down at dinner to discuss his day, the news, vocations they regretted not

pursuing. Mother wrote for the town’s newspaper, Gustav ran a pharmacy, Herpy taught.

I, dead, and not loquacious, sat and endured.

   

    Some said I died from untreated syphilis, others said the white trash hooch I drank,

glycol from antifreeze giving me cirrhosis of the liver killed me, others saying it

was cancer, too many soft drinks, ignorance dominated the town. I never had sex, seldom

manually released, never drank alcohol, thinking folks would never again doubt my

ignorance, and I drank only herb teas. Soft drinks I associated with white southerners

drinking Coca-Cola, gibbering about how superior they were, unlike dummy blacks.

   

    While putting up storm widows, bracing for the Midwestern cold, Gustav was in the

garage attic where we stored the windows, me up a ladder on the concrete floor, and

instead of carefully handing me the heavy wood-framed window, my weak arms could

                                                                                                                                                                                                      

not balance on the ladder. I had been born with multiple sclerosis, an undeveloped

twenty-one year old, due to oxygen deprivation at birth, the umbilical cord twisted

around my neck. Gustav bullied me into work, all the time knowing the obstetrician’s

absence, nurses fondling each other, not attending my primal needs. Gustav flung

one wildly at me, thinking I would hold on to it but it smashed my forehead,

knocking me off the ladder. I thudded on my back upon the cold, hard floor,

gazed at the ceiling for two seconds, then oblivion, blood haloing my head.

    A Blue Jay cawed. A diesel truck throbbed down a far off highway. A dog barked. A

spider’s legs noisily crawled over my face. Dust hummed through the air. The door,

squeaking, from the house opened, then slowly, creakily shut. I lay dead.

    Herpy grabbed my body, wrapped it in a heavy tarp, and then rolled me to the

backyard, hiding me in thick, gray dogwood. It kept me comfortably out of the world,

concealing me from the backsides of neighbors. Herpy told mother I had met a friend from

my high school years, reliving memories at a tavern or restaurant, possibly sharing a

downtown theater’s movie. Mom looked surprised, then her expression changed---

for the first time her eyebrows bent low over her eyes, finding me intolerable.

Who would date me?

    Think of nostalgic western films, on sheriff’s walls, Wanted, Dead or Alive posters.

Mom and Herpy liked those old TV westerns, seeing dead outlaws heaped in a 

big pile in front of the hoosegow. She still watched them on rerun channels. I pulled

at my suspenders, puffed out my chest, momentarily pride and glory engorged me,

then I snapped the bands, too loud for Hildy. “Don’t interrupt me, please,” she said,

her mean eyes staring hard. Watching “Rawhide” reruns better than speaking to the dead.

     Herpy slid me from the shrubs, barely able to lug my pear-shaped corpse into the

trunk, driving to deep woods, pulling off the tarp and found maples, locust, hickory,

hemlock, a thicketed undergrowth, used the shovel she snagged from the garage,

digging four feet in a patch of soft mire, mostly mud, near a small pond, rolled me into

the hole, tamped down loose earth making my cadaver impossible to locate. I sunk to the

bottom of a manure pit. That lasted until she left the scene, then I rose from the wretched

earth, seeing the dead more plentiful than before.

    Later, Herpy committed mother to a mental hospital. She wanted to protect Hildy from

the fact of my death. Nothing would conceal my deadness, not even motherly affection,

though that was nil in her case. Mother always hated my insufficiencies, and would have

gloated at the news of my death. There, psychiatrists put her on serious medications, the

kind that never let you know that you were better off dead.

    My albino sister Herpy taught at the community college in town. Damn Gustav had

driven me out of my gourd, always directing my eyes toward mirrors. Gustav made

sure of that because there seemed to be a hundred scattered about the house, in the attic

and basement as well, but he never mentally hogtied and tortured albino sister. My face

and body were covered with wens, warts, bleeding moles, body smelling like fiery crap,

hag-breath so foul father wore a gas mask bought at an army navy surplus store, hell, was

he a cruddy, mean dad. And what a cruel simpleton donning a gas mask. Photos of me in

earlier days, a handsome Gene Autry, good looking in a cowboy outfit. Our family ate in

a cramped dining room, full-length mirrors on two walls. Dad never flouted traditional

kindness except when it came for me. At heart, my kind of visage people despised

because it reminded them of suffering, sorrow, pain, decline, ruin, and decomposition.

Dead now, Autry looked and sang better that ever. Mother had no appreciation of Gene.

    Gustav gabbed about his day at the pharmacy, telling there were rumors of customers’

hospitalized because he scrimped on medications, like watering down penicillin, and

buying them cheap online, he using big Latin words, ticking drugs off as if proud of

what he had done. And he lost membership in a downtown business club. The members

thought him grand at first but funds went missing, so they banned him from their midst,

preferring not to press charges. Ostracized, but shallowly, unlike the grateful density of

my own exile. Deaths brought about by him also. He died in prison, an inmate slashing

his throat with a razorblade, settling the score, avenging his wife’s murder.

   

    Herpy was sensitive about being albino, pigment leached out of her. When we were

in nursery school, could it be that when we played kissy-kissy, touchy-touchy, you know,

stuff going on everywhere on earth, made her whiter and whiter as years progressed?

    Herpy collected paintings from the art store, prints the owner said, but I still called

them paintings. I was stuck in my ways, hating change. Herpy, the artist, drew my

portrait, my hair uncut, more balding than I assumed, my Dumbo ears making me goofy

looking, my fat cheeks as if big chaws of Mail Pouch bulged out, my chin long and teeth

crooked, me thinking I was as good looking as Adonis. She drew my tongue protruding

out the side of my mouth, my bug-eyed-monster eyes, one iris greener than the other,

my nose aquiline, my mustache, how skimpy it looked by her steady hand. Herpy

said it was a fine Roman nose, one looking like Emperor Commodus’s. Herpy told me

the assassinated emperor begot the word, commode. Whether that was true had not

mattered, but merely associating with toilets, its receptacle of excrement and urine,

even blood, lent my deadness greater potency. I beamed at the thought of toxic, liquid,

chemical turmoil. My mustache, how skimpy it looked by her steady hand.    

    Herpy and I inherited the house we lived in since birth, both having a trust fund from

which would last our lifetimes. Mother out of touch with us, her mind overloaded with

pills and tablets, too may westerns, perhaps. Herpy paid her visits, mother’s expression

offering Herpy recognition as her daughter. I visited once with Herpy, mother staring

at me blankly, lifting up her flabby arm, pointing wobbly at me, stammering, “You two,

stay together,” that barren, empty look still there. Herpy gave her an easy going hug. I

tried copying Herpy’s embrace, but Hildy withdrew, staring at the ceiling, a nurse ready

to change the sheets.  

    One day, during visiting hours, I saw mother alone, she sitting in an upright chair,

watching Fox News. She looked better than last time. What were her days like? She said,

“I watch Fox all day, eat, pray in that cute little chapel, take meds and sleep. Nightmares

of our house and garage, the yard.”  

  

    I decided to leave, moving toward her, clasp her floppy body, seizing it in my arms,

                                                                                             

squeezing it, showing my exuberant love. No, not love, I only wanted to be Herpy’s

equal. I kissed her and she recoiled, saying, “Cold lips you have. Are you my son?” I

moved away, telling her Gustav killed me. I witnessed her hair turning from gray to

white. Dark outside, a single fluorescent light bulb lit the room, like moonlight. I said

goodbye, “Goodbye” a clichéd response, then recalled a song about a woman lover 

not knowing whether she had said "Goodbye" when she and her lover split. 

    Home, Herpy said the hospital called: Hildy just died. I crushed her dead, though I

never told her that. Unless Herpy had gotten pregnant, there would be no offspring. The

family line stopped. We began quarreling, trivial stuff, like who would rake the leaves,

weed the small garden, vacuum, cook, go shopping, maintain the car, wash the dishes,

sweep the porch. She at her computer, creating digital art, I knowing nothing about

technology except for archetypal toilets.

    I sat on a soft chair in the enclosed porch, staring at cars, watching families walk by,

listening to leaves cry in the wind, hearing end-time, funereal noises of birds, snakes,

ladybugs, dogs, hearing historically unrecorded sounds emitted from mouths of folks just

prior to their deaths in our neighborhood---it grew maddening, the events known only by

the transparent eyeball, how its majesty, its grotesque lowliness exalted me.

George Sparling