#Places to get my medical marijuana card near me

[devtrust]

Places to get my medical marijuana card near me

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#Places to get my medical marijuana card near me license#

You can also apply for a grower’s license to have up to 99 plants at your home.

Patients get to have their own cannabis plants at home.

It offers you legal security and leverage while traveling or flying with cannabis.

A medical card helps the patient save money by getting tax exemptions and special discounts at state dispensaries and licensed online stores.

You have easy access to all medical as well as recreational dispensaries across the city and their products.

You can possess up to 8 ounces of cannabis at a time.

It allows younger patients to get the cannabis treatment that they need.

The legal age for using medical cannabis in San Jose is 18 years instead of 21 years.

According to the marijuana laws of the state, any medical patient who possesses a medical cannabis card enjoys the following benefits. It comes along with a number of benefits that make life easier for MMJ patients. HOW DOES A MEDICAL MARIJUANA CARD BENEFIT YOU?Ī medical card is your way to have easy access to cannabis products around the city.

[johannstutt413]

Christmas in the Clouds

(requested by anonymous, who thought this would be cursed...HAH I say. HAH.)

It was Christmas morning, and like most of their employees, the Doctor wasn’t going into work today; they’d polished off most of their work the day before in a Christmas Eve crunch that would make any exec jealous, and now it was time for some serious R&R. They pulled out their trusty rolling paper, tossed in some of their favorite blend of grass, and smiled as they settled into their smoking chair, ready for a comfy evening in their house, just them and the THC.

It was an open secret the Doctor had started smoking marijuana some time after returning to Rhodes Island from their comatose exile in Chernobog; Perfumer, after several sessions with them, had determined they were entirely too anxious to keep up their current pace and not hurt or even kill themselves with a blood pressure spike, so she’d put together a blend of medicinal herbs - including marijuana, yes - to calm them down and prescribed it under the pseudonym “Smoke Balm,” which she got approved through Aak to minimize the number of questions asked by medical personnel. The best part, in the Doctor’s mind, was how easy it was to get more; Lena and Podenco grew the individual ingredients for a variety of other blends for other Operators, and they were more than willing to top the stash off whenever their boss asked them to, which meant the Doc essentially had a year-round season pass to Zootsville whenever they felt like. It was heavenly.

That morning, however, wasn’t the best to start high off their ass, as the knock on their door signaled. They stood up, albeit a bit shakily, set their joint on a silver tray on their chair arm, and answered the door to find...Lena? “Good morning, Doctor...Did you forget about the Christmas party?”

“The what?” They blinked. “We have one of those?”

“Dr. Kal’tsit sent the invite out two weeks ago. Did you not get one?”

They thought for a minute, but there wasn’t really any hope of them remembering at this point - that blend did good work, fast. “Uh...”

“Regardless, I was hoping you and I could go together.” She smiled. “Especially since it seems you’ll need someone watching you tonight, as I imagine you’ll be taking your afternoon dose as well.”

“Yeah...sorry, I didn’t know.” The Doctor wasn’t sure why they were blushing. Maybe from the heat from holding the smoldering herbs to their face?

Perfumer pat them on the shoulder. “It’s okay, Doctor. Next time I plan on asking you on a date, I’ll do it earlier. See you tonight~”

“Yeah, I’ll see you tonight.” She left, and a few minutes after they sat back down, it clicked what had just happened. Maybe they shouldn’t smoke the second one today…

About ten hours and three joints later, the Doctor was going on a vision quest in the main hall as Lena led them around, arm in arm. The lights shone brighter, the music sounded more in-tune, and the Vulpo on their arm looked absolutely stunning, but in spite of all of that, there was a gnawing pit in their stomach that something wasn’t right...or maybe they were just hungry.

“The kitchen staff aren’t serving dinner until later tonight,” Perfumer explained as they walked to the snack table, “but this should be enough to tide you over for now. I’m going to get us some punch, okay? Stay by the brownies until I come back.”

“Okay.” They waved to her as she went off, which was apparently enough to earn a blush, before turning to the brownie plate and picking it up off the table.

Aak arrived around three brownies later, looking oddly dapper in his party get-up. “Hey, dude. Man, you look wasted; how many puffs did you take before you got here?”

“...Uh...” Were they supposed to answer with a number?

“Ah, whatever; I won’t stop ya from having fun.” He winked at them. “Waitin’ for my date, too. Can I get one of those?”

The Doctor looked at the brownies, frowned, and handed them the plate. “There you go.”

“Thanks, man.” The Feline took two and handed back the plate.

“Hey...” They counted the number in his hand. “That’s not one.”

Aak laughed. “I rounded down, man, don’t worry ‘bout it. Guess you got nervous about your speech, huh?”

“...Speech?”

“Yeah! You’re the boss, after all.” He laughed at the expression on the Doctor’s face, but after a moment he realized he wasn’t joking, and the Feline suddenly felt a pang of sympathy for the poor bastard. “Shit, man, they didn’t tell you anything, huh?”

They shook their head. “I didn’t even know we had a party today.”

“No wonder you’re so out of it. Well, you’ll do fine, so don’t think about it too much.”

At that point, Warfarin arrived; if looks could kill, she’d’ve slain most of the room by now in that scarlet dress of hers. “Good evening, Doctor. Aak, you’re not bothering them too much, are you?”

“No more than a nibble on their neck would.” He grinned as she thumbed him in the center of his forehead. “Gotta go, my guy, but good luck tonight!”

“Yeah, man...You, too.” The Feline steered his Sarkaz date away from the Doctor, who suddenly had a real concern on their plate. What kind of speech was it supposed to be? And how do you give a speech when you can’t remember the sentence that came before the one you were saying just then after you said a sentence and forgot about the other one?...Wait, hadn’t they already thought that?

Perfumer returned with two tall plastic cups and handed them one. “There you go, darling...Is everything okay? You’re sweating now.”

“Aak said I have to give a speech tonight.” They gulped down the punch. “I’m not ready.”

“Ah, yes, the speech. I wrote one for you this afternoon.” She reached around the back of her dress and pulled out a set of note cards.

The Doctor set their empty cup on the table and hugged her. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” Lena’s face was now a Christmas light in and of itself. “I also spiked your punch.”

“Wait, what?” They let her go.

The Vulpo smiled back at them. “It’s a counter-dose for the Smoke Balm in your system. It’ll take some time to take effect, but by the time you need to make your speech, you should have all your faculties back.”

“Wow...You’re amazing.” That overloaded her systems, but the Doctor couldn’t tell in their current state. “Hey, is there somewhere I could sit? I’m kinda dizzy.”

“Ah, yes, the side effects...Coming down so quickly might fatigue your body extra. Let’s find somewhere to wait for the antidote to kick in.” She took their arm again, blushing more than she had in her life, and led them to a circle of chairs that, at first, was completely unoccupied.

Once people saw the pair sit down, however, they began to fill in around them; Podenco sat next to Perfumer, which meant Myrrh and a few others from the garden crew did as well, while Gravel took the seat next to the Doctor with a wide smile on her face. “Good evening, Doctor. How’re things?”

“Things? Things are good.” Lena was distracted right then, but that probably wasn’t a big deal. “How’re your things?”

“Good. I’d like to show you something, if you’re not busy~”

They shook their head. “Not really, but I gotta sit for a bit.”

“Oh? That’s fine.” The Zalak pulled a piece of mistletoe from somewhere and dangled it between them. “Here is just fine~”

“...I don’t get it.”

She giggled. “You don’t know? When two people are under mistletoe together, they have to kiss. It’s the law.”

“It is?” The Doctor looked over to Perfumer. “Hey, Lena? Is it a rule that people under mistletoe have to kiss?”

“Hmm? Why are you-” The Vulpo looked over, saw Gravel attempting to steal their date, and glared at her.

The Zalak cocked her head. “Is the Doctor with you tonight?”

“Yes, they are.” She held out a hand to the Doctor. “We’re on a date.”

“Is that true, Doctor?” The knight turned back to her mark-

-who’d plucked the mistletoe from her hand and was now eating it. “Piney.”

“...Doctor?” Perfumer giggled. “Well, I suppose you’re not under it anymore.”

“Huh? Oh, right.” They kissed Gravel’s forehead, which left her steaming in her chair.

Lena blinked. “I...hmm.”

“What?” The Doctor did the same to her. “Now I’m the mistletoe.”

“I...I suppose you are, but...why are you kissing everyone’s forehead?”

They shook their head. “Not everyone. Only if they’re shorter than me.”

“...Okay, then.” She stood up, letting go of their hand. “I need to use the restroom. Stay here until I get back, okay?”

“Okay.” As they walked off, the Doctor could feel the high wearing off as everything turned a little more grey, a little more quiet...or was that because their eyes were closing?

A few hours later, the Doctor woke up, still in the corner, with no one anywhere near him. They glanced around, confused. “Wait, wasn’t...wasn’t there a party?”

“There was.” Perfumer walked in from off to the side. “You slept through the rest of it. No one asked you for a speech after all - apparently Amiya does those now. Are you ready to go home?”

“...I’m sorry.” They really were.

She shook her head. “I should be apologizing, Doctor; I didn’t realize the antidote had a side effect-”

“I shouldn’t have had four Balms in the first place.” They sighed. “I’m a terrible date, and a worse person for making you drag me around like that.”

“Doctor, you didn’t make me do that. I wanted to.”

The Doctor looked up at her. “You did?”

“Of course.” Lena smiled at him, although it was a little shaky. “You’re my patient, after all.”

“You know you’re more than that to me, though, right?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“...You’re sure?” They stood up, holding out a hand. “You don’t seem confident in that.”

“I...the mistletoe stunt hurt, but I knew better.” She didn’t take their hand.

So they took hers. “Lena-”

“It’s fine.” The Vulpo’s eyes fell to the floor. “We aren’t actually a couple, so I-”

“Lena, look at me. Please.”

Perfumer looked up - and sprouting from the Doctor’s head was a sprig of mistletoe. “...Huh?”

“I don’t need this to kiss you.” They snapped it off their head and threw it behind them, into a smoldering fireplace which flared dramatically as the plant made contact. “I want to do that anyway.”

“Oh, Doctor~” She leapt into their arms to accept their kiss-

-and punched their arm to wake them up. “Doctor? You fell asleep.”

“...Did I?” They groggily looked around. The party was still going on, but it did feel like it was winding down. “Sorry. I think the Balm’s wearing off.”

“That’s good.” She was apparently cross with them in real life as well as in their dreams. Reality is often disappointing like that.

The Doctor turned to Lena. “Did something happen with mistletoe earlier?”

“...Nothing important.” The Vulpo looked back at them, completely neutral, as she stood up. “Dr. Kal’tsit said your speech is in ten minutes. I’ll take you to where you’ll be giving it.”

“Thank you...I’m sorry.” They followed suit.

She shrugged. “Sorry for what?”

“For making you work on Christmas Day.” That earned them a curious work. “And on our date, too.”

“It’s not work,” Lena protested.

The Doctor took her hand. “It hasn’t been a date, either...I’ll make it up to you.”

“That’s okay, you don’t have to.” Perfumer looked off to the side before they started walking. “I knew what I was asking for.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, please be seated. The Doctor’s closing message is about to begin.” Dr. Kal’tsit said as she saw their HR head and primary tactician approach the raised platform she’d had set up for the night’s festivities.

The Vulpo patted the pocket where she’d put the speech cards. “Just read that and you should be fine. I’ll be sitting in the crowd with everyone else.”

“Okay.” They took a deep breath, and suddenly the world was brighter again. “Wait, what the-”

“Doctor, would you please come up to the microphone?” The green-haired Feline surrounded by knives - wait, knives? - called to them.

They walked up the mile-long staircase to the mike and looked out into the sea of blood and ashes- looked out into the audience, including Lena, who flashed them a thumbs-up. The Doctor cleared their throat, took a deep breath, and began to read.

“As the end of the first calendar year since my return comes to an end, I look at what we’ve accomplished as a company, and I couldn’t be more proud of each and every one of you. I know that even before my return, you were hard at work, and you set a strong foundation for me to capitalize on, which I can’t thank you enough for. Since then, we’ve created a strong working partnership with Lungmen, initiated trade deals with multiple city-states, repelled Reunion forces from several locations and secured trade routes, stopped a volcano - a fricken volcano! - from erupting and burying a city, prevented a hostile takeover of Lungmen by the Rat King and his forces, and fought injustice and prejudice at every turn. It’s impossible for me to thank each and every one of you for your contributions, but as this year ends and another one begins, I hope to at least be able to return the effort and good faith you’ve given me and this company with my own.”

Applause...and then an awkward pause as the Doctor stood there, contemplating their next action before continuing.

“Truth be told, my own investment has been...lacking, I feel. Shortly after returning, I developed a chemical dependency which very nearly jeopardized this evening.”

Murmurs from the crowd.

“Going forward, I promise I will be fully present and engaged for gatherings such as these, as I refuse to repeat this sort of mistake...and to my date for the evening, I’d like to apologize with every fiber of my being. Let’s grab a burger or something tomorrow. My treat.”

Louder murmuring, which instantly fell silent when Lena called out “Sure!” from the back of the audience.

“Alright, now I’m done.” They chuckled. “Have a good night, everyone. Try to not get caught under the mistletoe at the wrong time, okay?”

A few people in the know broke out into laughs as the rest awkwardly applauded; Kal’tsit returned to the stage and announced the party was over, and as quickly as they’d taken their seats, the crowd scattered.

Except, that is, for Lena and the Doctor, who took their time walking arm-in-arm to her apartment. “You didn’t need to do that, Doctor; I knew you didn’t intend for the evening to go the way it did.”

“I want to be held accountable, so I decided to get the whole company involved. Besides, it was a convenient way of making sure we scheduled a second date.”

“Ah, clever.” The Vulpo giggled. “I would have agreed no matter how you asked, of course.”

They smiled back. “Of course...Well, we’re here. I should probably get some sleep now; I did a real number on my body today.”

“Oh, I’m sure...but are you sure you want to go all the way home to do that?” Perfumer didn’t let go of the Doctor’s arm as she swiped her keycard through her dorm’s card reader.

“Hmm...well,” the Doctor admitted, “I suppose I can stay for a little bit. Having a medical opinion of my condition would be nice.”

Lena nodded. “Oh, yes, I agree. I’ll be sure to give you a thorough examination.”

“...You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Gravel scared me with that mistletoe stunt,” she admitted, “and scent marking might not be as effective as I’d hoped. If you’d rather not-”

They spun around so they were holding Perfumer in the threshold, unlinking their arm so they could hug her instead. “I never said that. I’m just surprised you’re okay with moving so quickly.”

“You can never be too careful around Rhodes Island, Doctor, but you can be too cautious.” She hugged them close, gently leading them backwards into her apartment.

“True.” They pulled the door shut behind them once both were past the threshold. “Merry Christmas, Lena.”

Lena slid the Doctor’s mask aside with a finger and kissed them, eyes glittering in anticipation. “Merry Christmas, Doctor dearest~”

[saundraswriting]

Hercules Chapter Three

SUMMARY:The Case continues with some interviews of the victims families. Morgan and Reid work on the Geological Profile. Reid begins pushing himself hard, and Morgan is the one to calm Reid down. It only works for a little bit when the realization hits the entire team that with the lack of connection and the breakthrough Reid finds, Reid will be the one to solve the case by working himself to death.

WARNINGS: Maybe slight self-harm? Spencer is pushing too hard.

Previous // Next

Hotch and Gideon were on their way to Leonard Davis' home. Mrs. Mary Davis, his mother was their interviewee. "Mrs. Davis, are you home? My name is Aaron Hotchner. I am with the BAU at the FBI. I wanted to ask you a few questions." Hotch said loudly.

"Hold your horses. I'm coming. Haven't I answered enough questions? but come in, come in." Mary held the door open, and only Hotch's years of experience prevented his flinch. Her blonde hair was falling out if its clip, she was dressed in a teal cami and black yoga pants. She had deep bags under her eyes and a half empty bottle of gin in her left hand.

"Hello. I'm Mary. If we could hurry this up, I have a lot to do yet." Mary stood by the sink, took a swift swallow of the gin and dumped the rest down the drain. "Self-medication was okay for a little, but time continues on and so should I"

"He was in the top 15 of his class. He was going to do great things I just knew he would. I was so happy to find out that his meds were working and that he liked them. " Mary's voice was as soft as the wind.

"Medications for what?" Hotch asked?

"Depression. His best friend was his sister. She was killed by a drunk driver when she was 16. He was 13. she had left in a hurry when we were fighting over the divorce announcement. After words I sent Leo to a therapist to help with the issues he was going through. I figured it couldn't hurt, right? Turned out he really liked going. Sorted out a lot of problems that Leo was having at the time. Things looked like there were turning up and then he turned 15. He began reading, psychology, sociology, Buddhism, Hinduism.  He would question me randomly, about my thought on God and the state of the world and Creationism among other things. Please remember I wouldn't have even noticed had I not gone into his room the night he was murdered. I saw the books and I understood. Leo was lost and confused, all I did to help was hand him over to a therapist.  I never forced him to go to church with me, I let him return to therapy seeing it may help him. Then 3 weeks later Leo is found strangled to death." Mary sniffed and rubbed her eyes. "Are we done here? I don't want to talk about Leo anymore. I have several appointments today as well. "

"We don't have any more questions for you.  Thank you for your time, Mary. If you need us please call." Gideon said, handing over his and Hotch's card.

"Good day to you as well." Mary walked them out.

Hotch and Gideon arrived at the station a few minutes after Morgan and JJ returned from their interview with Lucy Basset. They walked into Spencer's cave  where coffee cups littered the table.

"Pretty Boy, got anything?" Morgan asked.

"Yeah, sit please. I talked to Garcia and if this doesn't check out. then we'll move on. First, you guys; what did you find out?" Spencer pointed to the seats round the table.

"Ophelia resents the fact that her dad died. vocally questioned God. Mom is on meds and Ophelia's been running the household since she was 16." Morgan explained.

"Leo was a great student. Was in therapy for the divorce + death of his sister. Leo was researching psychology, sociology, Buddhism, and Hinduism. He was vocal but not drastically so." Gideon explained. Reid's eyebrows rose but wrote the observations in the notes taped to the wall opposite of the maps.

"Ophelia refused to light the candle of her father's shrine Lucy made. Besides that, I am not seeing any family involvement." JJ mentioned.

"Which makes sense considering the amount of violence the victims suffered But it wasn't torture becasue it wasn't for a period of time, the cause of death is the only wound on them. So not a sadist, not family, does that mean we have a run-of-the-mill serial killer whose delusional we need to crack?" Morgan ground out through his teeth, frustrated.

"I may have suspects. It's a long shot but worth a try. Garcia found two people in the 20 Mile radius of the image the relevant sites make that have RR as their initials. I labeled and mapped out the relevant places: Potential kill site based of distance, the dump sites and family homes. When I get the actual kill sites I can narrow it down more-anyway-I feel like I'm missing a link, a piece to the puzzle. The map isn't looking right at all. I did the locations in order from oldest murder to most recent and in crime order so family home to kill site to dump site. It will get more accurate with more information. I know that with the mass of uncertainties that we have right now, this is going to take a while but it is the biggest help we have. Feel free to look in here if you need anything, this map will update as I get information. I will keep working on this. There may be a pattern." Spencer rambled quickly. He gulped out of his coffee cup.

"Sirs and madame, we have the official kill sites now. Forensics gave us a very close locale adn we checked them out to get the exact coordinates. I have them for you Agent Reid." A uniform handed out a list of places to each of the BAU.

"Come here." Reid demanded. The two consulted the map for a few quiet moments and then the purple marks were moved. Reid's key gained a new color: Orange for new information and the black got changed to permanent. The team took the pause to gather their thoughts. Morgan used the table speaker to call Garcia.

"Garcia, any new info on our possible suspects"

"Well, hello, to you too, Chocolate Bar."

"Hey mama. Please give me something good."

"Well you are down to one. Numero dos has been found in jail-GTA. Numero uno is worth a shot." She rattled of an address. Hotch jotted it down and left.

"Pretty Boy, anything else?" Morgan asked.

"No! Damn it, this case is residing on my ability to crunch numbers and find a pattern, on my geological profile. And I can't make rhyme or reason." Spencer ranted. Morgan grabbed Spencer and herded him out of the room.

"Break time. Get some coffee, sit and breathe, Spencer." Morgan began making a cup, pulling hazelnut creamer out of the fridge.

"No, Morgan! I need to get back in that room. This profile. is the only thing going for this case right now. There is no vicitmology, no sexual sadism, we really can't form a normal profile." Reid stated. He sipped at his coffee, eyes widening at the taste.

"Spencer, calm down man. you'll go into a anxiety attack if you keep worrying like this. Listen to me, everything will be fine. Ask a local uniform to get the distances if they can. After that begin your in-depth look at everything. You are fine, you're doing great. Chill out a little." Morgan soothed.

"Morgan, you wouldn't have but hazelnut creamer into my coffee, would you? Thank you, I don't deserve a friend like you. But right now, even the smallest pieces of paper, the smallest connection can help us." Spencer said.

"You can go back in, if you calm down. Promise me?" Morgan pleaded. Spencer nodded and sipped his coffee slowly.

Morgan  stood near Spencer, silent and still as a sentinel. He had a bad feeling about this case and they still had one family to interview.

"Morgan, Reid, I'm gonna visit the Brown's. Garcia said that Tabitha Well's parents are drug addicts won't be any help. They are in rehab and the program forbids visitors." Gideon said. Morgan nodded and helped Spencer stand straight. He was swaying slightly. Spencer yawned deeply. Morgan felt his concern for his friend grow.

"Let's go. We can get started looking at the G.P. Can I have a uniform please?" Morgan said. Matthew stepped forward. The trio walked into the map room.

"We need the exact distances between each point on this map. As soon as possible, please." Spencer paused "And each victim's personal effects. Tell me that you did search their rooms and houses." Spencer said.

"I believe so, at least as much as the families allowed. I'll be right back." Matthew smiled timidly at Spencer before leaving.

"Hey, man. Mr. Matthew is into you. You gonna jump on that?" Morgan teased. The name tasted sickly sweet and tangy on his tongue like new metal.

Spencer sighed and shook his head at Morgan's antics. He appreciate the never-ending support he had gained from the team when he came out as gay months ago. JJ and Garcia had been enjoying it the most though, they spent the evenings at the clubs and bars checking out the men and finding dance partners for the girls.

"I don't do case relationships. You know that. Why aren't you hitting Maddie up? She seems into you." Spencer shot back.

"No. I'm not, uh, feeling it now." Morgan answered. Spencer side-eyed him but didn't push the issue. Morgan exhaled in relief.

"So, I am thinking about the connection between victims will be unorthodox in comparison to a 'normal' serial killer. It will be something in common with the age group. 14-20 year olds- teenagers. Maybe they are in favor of a controversial topic. one of their generation's problems brought them all to the attention of the killer." Spencer rambled, writing under the victims: Atheism.

"Okay, they are high-school to college students from messed up homes all vocal about something their generation is facing. Drugs? Legalization of weed is a big problem, Colorado, Washington and the District of Colombia all legalized recently. Maybe the UnSub didn't want it legalized and saw them using in the open?" Morgan questioned aloud.

"Today, 90% of teenagers don't do drugs-including weed-, smoke tobacco, underage drinking. The majority of people gunning of marijuana legalization believe it is a victimless crime and unlike other substances aren't full of horrible chemicals. So no, that isn't it, I think. Not drugs, not war, not environment...Gay rights?" Spencer looked over at Morgan.

"Back up, boy wonder. Why not war and environment? And why write down Atheism?" Morgan's confusion drew Spencer's gaze once more.

"If our UnSub was against the current War, don't you think that there would have been something majorly different in his behavior? People that make statements dealing with War or politics blow coffee shops up, gas stations, malls. Large, obvious signals. If the victims were on either side, it would have been obvious even for the uniforms here. If it was environmental issues, they would have home set-ups: recycling on a very detailed scale, composting, gardens, homemade snacks, re-purposing of things. So far each victim has dealt with a devastating death close to them. When that happens, people in general turn to God, but each person in this case has turned away from God at some point at some level. A typical problem with many people of this age group is coming out to people that matter and if they will be accepting or rejected. So it could be both but from what I have heard about the families, victims, and their lives none were open or closeted Bisexuals, or Homosexuals. I am heavily leaning towards Atheism. We will know for sure when Matthew comes back with the evidence." Spencer rambled quickly, his words practically attached to one another. Morgan tilted his head and shrugged, agreeing with the young genius.

"Dr. Reid. I have the evidence you requested. Unfortunately we don't have anything to give you for distances. When we looked on G.I.S technology and the ones we used varied, so we validated the coordinates for you to calculate." Matthew explained from the doorway.

"Damn it. That is going to take me a while. Okay-Morgan go outside and sort through the evidence. Use social media of any type, journals, diaries, photos, to see if there is anything relevant or strange. I need to not be bothered while I do these calculations, they are going to be extensive." Spencer ordered, He turned to the map. He stilled, body tightening with a laser-like focus. Morgan chuckled softly and herded Matthew out the door.

"Okay. You heard Spencer. Lets get cracking. He is gonna work himself death on this. We can at least help." Morgan spoke to Matthew and the three other volunteers he had gathered along the way. Everyone grabbed a different tub and began sifting through the journals, pictures, and printed pages from social media.

************

Gideon arrived at the Brown's home. He knocked and patiently waited to be invited in. "Kimberly Brown? My name is Jason Gideon. I am an agent of Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI. I have a few questions for you and you family. I shouldn't be too long." Gideon said entering the well designed home.

"Okay, Agent Gideon. I have a few minutes to talk. Come on in." Kimberly was dressed in a pencil skirt and blue button up shirt.

"I just want to know how Everett was before he died. How was he in school. Did someone close to him die?" Gideon asked. Kimberly grabbed two glasses and filled them with ice and water.

"Everett was a good student. Not the greatest, but he did well with football and baseball pre-seasons, season, and off-seasons. He was the star Quarterback for three years and and the star pitcher for two. He loved it. We were immensely proud. He was working on the final things to be ready for Oregon State University to play football for them and go into business and economics. It was the best thing that happened to us." Kimberly said. Gideon noticed that her tone was rather practiced and empty.

"Who were talking to? Cause that wasn't my brother. He did football for so long becasue you would disown him if he did. He wanted to be a doctor, Pediatrician specifically. He wasn't going to play at OSU. He decided his grades would be more important. Everett loved science. He never made a decision without thinking all the variables through." A male voice from the door said.

"Cameron. Enough." Kimberly snapped harshly.

"He wrote me letters-emails really. I brought them with me. Some were really strange, written in a code or something? I'm not sure. With Mom into fashion design and Dad into the stocks, Everett really didn't have anyone to turn to. So he vented to me. He would even write the first word of the subject line: Ventilation so I knew not even to open those ones. I did sometimes anyway. I go to Columbus for English and History. I am a novelist. I felt that he may not want a response but he deserved to get one." Cameron explained nervously.

"Can we have those? They would be marvelous help. I know he recent death must be difficult but this could help find the murderer." Gideon pointed out. Cameron nodded his consent.

"I can show you his room? I know that the police would have taken things they found relevant, but the BAU is different, isn't it?" Cameron ignored his mother's protests and showed Gideon to Everett's room. The room was tidy, shelves and cube organizers were everywhere. Everything had a place but it seemed that the items didn't return instantly to its place. The room had small stacks of books here and there, probably from the overflowing bookshelf. The clothes were in the hamper, and the walls covered in pictures and collages. "We traveled a lot. Everett believe even if he was a science man, he should be creative with something. called it Art therapy. He did these all himself." Cameron explained.

"I am sorry. We work hard to stop these people but more just slip right through." Gideon looked around and on the desk saw a piece of paper with what looked to be gibberish. He picked it up to look closer.

"That may be true, agent Gideon. but at least you try. Hey, that is what the strange messages looked like." Cameron waved at the paper. Gideon put it in an evidence bag and nodded at Cameron.

"Thanks Cameron. We will keep you posted. If you need anything here's my card. Also at the police station." With that Gideon showed himself out, noticing the two cups from earlier were gone as was Kimberly. He continued to the station.

***********

"Okay, gather round, I've got something." Gideon said upon arrival.

"Me too. And Reid is working and said to not be disturbed. I will fill him in." Morgan said. A shout from the map room had them racing.

"Sorry. I just finished all those distance calculations. I had to do the distance between homes and kill sites, kills sites and dump sites, and homes to dump sites. I also did places last seen when they applied and kill sites. And the distances between the homes of the victims for information. That was 20 intricate equations. I had to validate each coordinate with my info and the police to make sure it was right....and I'm rambling." He cut himself off at Morgan's look.

"What did you find out Reid?" Hotch demanded.

"That it isn't a number compulsion. Each distance is different. And the points aren't making a closed shape, in any order. I rearranged this 6 different times but nothing made sense. I think I am missing a location. Or the homes isn't where they were picked from. Any evidence support home break-ins?" Spencer asked. Hotch shook his head. "So, it isn't the home that are important. That isn't the grab site. I need coffee." Spencer's stomach growled.

"And food maybe?" Morgan commented.

"I will be fine. Give me some more time and coffee and I will have more." Reid said leaving the room.

"Wait, you're a genius but you haven't had a breakthrough? What good are you?" Someone said sardonically. Reid and the rest of the team froze instantly; Reid from terror-that tone brought back awful memories and the team from reacting to Reid's tense body language. JJ and Morgan felt murderous.

"I am a genius, maybe-if an IQ of 187 reading 20,000 words per minute, holding three PhD.s, two bachelor degrees and working on a third is considered genius. But I don't like measuring intelligence with numbers and such. People refer to me as a genius, if that helps. I have just crunched out 120 intricate equations, 20 for each of the 6 different order I have arranged them trying to find a pattern. In my head. From this conversation alone I can tell your life story and I am trying to do the same for someone I have never met and leave me dead people to examine. I think what progress I and my team has made is more than you and your colleagues. Now, I was being nice, pleasant even. If this happens again, I can't guarantee that the two fully-certified murderous looking agents behind me won't do you bodily harm. So do me, you and everyone a favor and sit down and shut up." Spencer sassed. The room was deadly silent. Morgan couldn't (didn't) stop the proud smug look from settling on his face. His Pretty Boy just went Alpha Male on the local bully and Morgan couldn't be happier.

In the quiet Spencer made his coffee and returned to his room. He settled in a chair and rubbed at his temples drinking his coffee. Morgan looked in quickly and returned to JJ. "JJ, can you order some food. I don't know when the last time he ate was. He and us need something, anything. His sugar is getting high, too much sugar in one cup let alone several pots. Gideon, Hotch, I have something to share. Reid needs to hear this as well." the trio commented they'd be there in a minute.

Spencer stood in the middle of the room, hugging himself and trembling. Morgan stepped in close after shutting the door.

"Hey, Spence. You did awesome out there. You went all alpha on him and it rocked his world. Come on, sit down. You are fine. No one is gonna hurt you. I'm right here. He was an asshole and deserved the chewing out you gave him." Morgan sat Reid down and gave him a tight hug, exaggerating his breaths, trying to get Reid to catch on. Reid did, calming down slowly.

Spencer tensed slightly at the beginning of the hug but quickly reveled in the warm, human contact. Morgan and JJ and Garcia may touch him often and Gideon and Hotch less often but no one hugged him like this. He usually got fleeting touches, faint and quick as a butterfly's wing beat. Morgan may touch him the most but only claps on the shoulder, fingertips to a wound's dressing, a  guiding hand on his elbow. No one ever touched him like this; with love and kindness, with the purpose to comfort and share your troubles. 'Isn't that the purpose of hugs in difficult times? To share your burdens with a second pair of shoulders? To share your space with another human, to make the world more bearable?' Spencer thought. He opened his (when did they close?) closed eyes and caught a swirly ray of the sun covering part of Morgan's neck. He knew from tracing Morgan's with his eyes and his own with his fingertips the eight outer swirls and the larger middle one from memory, seeing it this close made Spencer anxious for reasons he didn't know.

Morgan felt Spencer stop trembling but tense up. Morgan only squeezed tighter. He was confused about his reactions to the young genius as of late. He could barely tolerate seeing the look of awe and admiration in Matthew's eye when Spencer spoke in general, the look only got worse with direct communication. Morgan didn't even really understand why he felt so protective of Reid either. He understood as friends you try to protect one another but Morgan was ready to tear the asshole from earlier (Thomas)'s head off so thinking so little of the genius. Morgan wanted to make sure Spence was cared for-eating healthy and sleeping right. He wanted to be the one to administer the human contact he knew Spencer needed. Not just the fleeting touches he gave out but hugs, wonderful hugs that lessened the pressure Reid felt from the world. He wanted to be near Spencer if only to watch him think then so be it. Morgan never felt this way about anyone before. He knew that this was beyond friendship he was feeling but wasn't sure what it was he felt for the Boy Wonder.

"Thank you Morgan. I needed that. I was really scared. I thought he might hit me." Spencer said as they broke apart.

"Do you need any help? I am not sure what I can do but I can sure as hell try." Morgan glanced around and realized that with the case looking the way it was, Spencer would be the one to solve it. He would synthesis the evidence, he would be the one to get the breakthrough, he would be the one ending up overworked, overstressed, malnourished and fatigued.

"No, I've got it. could you get me some...uh...food? Please?" Spencer asked hesitantly. Morgan laughed.

"JJ is already on it. We will give you updates if we get anything. I will be around if you need anything. Just take your time and work you magic. I found something earlier, I was going to tell Hotch and Gideon right now. You keep working. If we need you I'll get you." Morgan left and stepped to the right of the doorway, seeing Hotch and Gideon standing there.

"We believe these texts to Leo, Tabitha, Ophelia, Everett, the emails from Everett to Cameron, the diary of Ophelia are written in a code. We also believe that the note you got from Everett's room was the key. I think he was a recent addition to whatever group uses this code, no one else had a key. We need to use the  key to crack the code. Does anyone want to try?" Morgan asked Hotch and Gideon.

"Neither one of us would be able to do it in a timely manner. We know you are terrible with codes and riddles, Morgan. That leaves Reid and Garcia. JJ is having a rough time with the press right now." Hotch mused.

"Bring it all in here. You know that I am the best and really the only option."Reid called from his room.

"No, Spence, you have enough to do Garcia may have a program she can run." JJ said.

"You have to break the code first and then give it to her or she has to run all her programs on it. I can read 12 languages and am pretty smart I can at least break it quick. Hand it over." Reid strode out, sleeves rolled up and pen spinning in circles. A different persona than when he is calculating something where he has a specific formula and direct end goal, this is thinking-trying one idea to reject it and go to another. He needs to be loose, have no end goal planned.

Spencer began pacing and muttering, spinning his pen and pausing every once and while when a train of thought might lead somewhere. 15 minutes in and he stopped and looked up.

"It's pig latin." He said awestruck. Morgan internally sighed at the tone, it was usually followed by a statistic or random or obscure facts. Morgan wasn't wrong. "The single-page is a cheat sheet for most common transitions between English and Pig Latin. I mean a large number of the population can say they have heard of Pig Latin, smaller percentage say they have heard it, and an even smaller portion say they have ever spoken a word of Pig Latin. This is a great idea. It also means that whoever this correspondence was from or to is smart and manipulative. He had to know and be able to teach these kids Pig Latin, and to get them to use it willingly when talking about this group without brainwashing or violence is no easy feat. If they write in code then no sneaky parents will understand if they accidentally see it. Garcia should be able to help, I can if she can't." Spencer handed back the cheat sheet and return to his lair of maps and used coffee cups.

"Hey, man. None of them were open or closeted Bisexuals or Homosexuals. Leo and Ophelia were openly Pro-gay rights but I don't know about the others." Morgan said to his retreating back. Reid paused and turned.

"Nothing of relevance. So I was wrong. That word is around me more in the case than my life.  But at least we aren't dealing with homophobia or something, those cases are touch and go. So it has to be Atheism. We are dealing with religion." Spencer saw Hotch's mouth open. "No, I don't know what that means, but we have something. We can work with something. Give me some time to think." Reid walked in and shut his door.

"That kid is going to kill himself with this case." Morgan murmured. The others consented their agreement.

Previous // Next

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Okay, The focus of the fic shifts from here. This isn’t a case fic so to speak, it is a soulmate au fic. So be prepared for that. 

[halloweenvalentine1997]

A short story I made out of short stories I’ve written under other names.

When she died, I felt a series of perforations, hollows and bruises

about my skull. I saw her die behind static.

By the stone wall adjacent to the office supplies store, I

bewailed her, screaming,

burning myself later with the tip of a lit cigarette.

I put ash and poison on my wrist for the ones who died.

I wanted to pick a strawberry off the plant in my parents’ backyard

and once more taste its succulence. I wanted to impale my head with the

iron tip of a weathervane. Slice open my vibrant red aorta.

Seeing them all in a hole

through the light emitting

through the asylum blinds.

I myself am a corpse in a bed

in the forensics ward,

green moths on my blanket,

rotting silently in a pastel grave,

killed by medicine,

wasted by time.

If you come close enough to hear my thoughts

(like a chemically-enhanced ghost)

distort and clamor

amongst the traffic, the television,

the noise a death in a family brings,

I will let loose my hatred

like a ribbon from hair,

unraveling red Medusa strands.

I will draw more ribbons on your flesh

if you touch me,

bleed you into the wood,

hammer a nail into your heartline,

devour your fear like a shot of amphetamine

to my malevolent blood.

2013

Stacey

1.

Some of us are the river’s current, floating through life swiftly or slowly, as if in a trance of somnambulism. Some of us are a human shell at its edge, refusing to follow its pattern and be a part of it. Why follow them when you can live on the fringes of society, away from its stigmas and scrutinizing scorn?

2.

When Ellie married Samuel Barnes, the world was a rose-gold utopia. Three years later, at the age of twenty-nine, Ellie no longer felt that the chemistry they had once remained. On a windy September afternoon, when she returned to the red-brick bungalow she shared with Samuel on Hillsam Avenue, Ellie heard moans and sounds of sexual ecstasy emitting from their bedroom. Another woman was there. Ellie’s eyes instantly began to burn like hot coals in a campground grill. She examined her wedding portrait on the wall of the hallway as she moved in slow motion through it. They had been photographed in front of the church’s stained glass windows, a spectrum of color radiating behind the couple adorned in black and white.

She ran her fingers through her long brown hair, blinking through the lake of sorrow in her dark eyes, and suppressing a sob, pushed open the bedroom door at the end of the hall. Another dark-haired woman Ellie didn’t recognize was riding Samuel, and when she registered the door slamming open, she turned around wide-eyed with a cry of alarm, her brown nipples in full view.

“I knew it,” Ellie told Samuel bitterly. “I knew for at least a year that there was someone else!”

Samuel looked at his wife blankly and didn’t reply, his face almost smug.

“Who are you?” Ellie shrieked at the strange woman.

“Lila Stern,” the woman replied. “And clearly, Sam doesn’t love you anymore. He loves me. He has for the entire year you suspected something was going on. We would both like you to leave.”

“Don’t dictate what I will do in my own house, you fucking homewrecker!” Ellie shouted. Lila, remembering her nudity, covered herself with the indigo comforter.

“I agree with Lila,” Samuel said. “Just pack your things and go, Ellie. You’ve been a nagging, paranoid pain in my ass for too long. You’re in need of a psychiatrist, but you won’t pay heed to my advice. All you are lately is a cold fish who’s no fun. A fucking schoolmarm. Find an apartment somewhere. Leave.”

“Now,” Lila said.

Ellie slammed the door shut and bolted down the hall and into the kitchen. She opened the cutlery drawer and grabbed the sharpest knife she could find. Tested its point with the tip of her index finger. A small blood-drop formed in the small pad of flesh. Although Ellie’s tears rained down like heated glass, she felt no physical pain.

I won’t pack my things, she thought. I have a better idea.

She glanced at the neon green digital clock above the oven. It read 1:11 p.m. It was September 24th. As she placed the knife into the pocket of her navy blue peacoat, grabbed her smartphone, scrawled a quick note and left the house, Ellie knew what to do. No more morning to afternoon shifts as a psychiatric nurse at St. Mary Medical Center’s psych unit. No more wondering when Samuel would be home from his nightly excursions. As she walked towards the river, passing the other houses, the Texaco, the railroad tracks, the boarded-up, shutdown factories, memories flashed before her. She remembered her lonely childhood, her even more tumultuous adolescence where she slept with a crowbar in her pillowcase and read The Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird at the edge of the schoolyard grass away from everyone.

“I wish you’d never been born,” Ellie’s mother told her, swilling red wine from a tall, dark bottle.

“I second that,” her father said, puffing on a fat cigar. Once she made it to the river, Ellie collapsed like a house of cards to the white sand, and howled the loss of her love into the godless sky. She glanced from side to side to make sure no one was watching. She couldn’t be sure if someone was for all the foliage and bushes. But she didn’t care. She sat there for the longest time, her breathing a series of hyperventilation. Samuel’s face was all she could see, then Lila’s, the two of them like a rotating holographic image. She wanted her cremated ashes bequeathed to the river. She wanted no tomb in the town cemetery. No funeral. The note she wrote with these directions was in her left pocket of her coat. Such a heavy coat for the nice weather, but Ellie was always cold. Her body, feather-boned and catatonic, slumped over a large rock and she let the tears wet it like a water nymph mourning the loss of a handsome sailor on a receding boat.

Ellie turned on her cell phone and listened to Paula Cole’s “Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?” one last time. It sounded faint above the river’s churning. Just like the woman in the song, she too had an non-devoted, careless husband. She wept hardest at the chorus:

Where is my John Wayne?


Where is my prairie song?


Where is my happy ending?


Where have all the cowboys gone?

“To greener pastures,” Ellie said to herself. “To rose-gold utopias I’ll never see.“

3.

The clock on the wall of Mrs. Sykes’s math class ticked in time to my heartbeat. The hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach that I get when I crave marijuana was there, screaming like a lacuna asking to be filled. The time for more recalcitrance (in this case, truancy and drug use by the river) was near. While Mrs. Sykes droned on like a monotonous honeybee about the Pythagorean theorem, I got up from my desk and slung my backpack over my shoulders. Her gunmetal grey eyes followed me to the door with the poster of the Power Rangers on it, all teamed up together. Always use the buddy system, the poster said.

“Where are you going, Stacey?” Mrs. Sykes asked.

“Skipping class,” I told her. “And dropping out when I turn eighteen in February. This is non-negotiable. You can’t stop me.”

Before my teacher could retaliate, I flounced out of the room, leaving the scoffing and titters of my peers behind me. I left my textbooks in my locker to lessen the load in my backpack. I unzipped a small pocket and grinned at the verdant green pot in its glass pipe.

Jimmy Stirling is the one who introduced me to pot when I was a junior a year before. He was a senior, and one of Lewis and Clark High School’s few homeless students. His dad was a cantankerous drunk and gambler who threw him out. Jimmy spent time singing songs on the sidewalk for spare change, or sleeping at the homeless shelter for adolescents. For someone who was homeless, Jimmy frequently had a remarkably full tin can of bills and change. His singing voice was a rich alto tearing pleasantly through the downtown breeze. On October of last year, he found me crying under the highway after school let out. I recognized him from my creative writing class.

"What’s wrong, Stacey?” he asked.

“My brother’s locked in the loony bin. He’s possessed. He killed Alvin, my guinea pig. Everything is falling apart, and to top it all off, Liam broke up with me this morning.”

"Man, I’m sorry,” Jimmy said. “You every try marijuana? It might make you forget all that stuff.”

“I don’t have any money,” I said, knowing that anyone with marijuana downtown expected payment in return for it.

“That’s alright. I have some I’ll share for free. Let’s sit in my favorite place to do it.”

I followed him, listening to him sing as we walked the few blocks to an alleyway with a set of cement stairs against a condemned apartment, leading to a bolted door. He sang Skid Row’s “18 and Life” and Black Sabbath’s “Killing Yourself To Live.” We sat on the bottom step . He loaded the pot into a glass bowl and taught me how to light it, how to inhale the hit of smoke without exhaling it too soon. I caught the gist of it. Suddenly, within a few minutes, everything was funny. My mind was suddenly devoid of all negativity. I was giggly, light as a tumbleweed blown by a gale of fierce wind. I felt energetic, talkative, and happier that I’d been a long time. Shortly after my day with Jimmy, I learned he went to jail for getting caught with Ecstasy tablets in his lockers. He was also rumored to be selling cocaine and heroin downtown. He wasn’t allowed back at school. I never saw him again. The flashbacks vanished when I approached the river and saw her. She was a woman with long brown hair. She was wearing a peacoat, jeans and pair of black loafers. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw what she was doing. The woman older than me by at least a decade, was holding a kitchen knife to the veins in her right wrist. She made no sound when she punctured them, her hand dangling over the water. I watched her bloodletting turn part of the emerald river red. It was spouting out like the slashed throat of a sacrificed farm animal. She turned and saw me when i stepped on a twig by accident and snapped it in two.

“Go away,” the woman told. “Believe me, you should be letting this happen.”

She took in my red ringlets, my sharp green eyes, my pink hoodie, my Converse sneakers. Then she went for her throat with her knife and slit it open with perfect finesse. There was a vibe coming off of this woman that insinuated I should just let her die. I could sense that her life had been miserable and mean. I sat on a rock out of sight of the dying woman and got high, thinking of her spirit rising, transcendental and free, into the sun and clouds. I thought of how the first settlers of the city I live in came here 10,000 to 30,000 years ago. Before there were cemeteries, they buried their dead in unmarked graves. I thought of all the skeletons that must be under the grass of the lawns and parks, the sidewalks, the urban streets. I thought of the days of religious fanaticism, and how had I been born then, I would have been buried in unconsecrated ground for my heathen ways. I didn’t believe in god, but I did believe in Satan.

2019

Stacey

I am not sure exactly when my family died. Before they died, I was a genuinely innocent soul whose conscience burned to a crisp. I couldn’t blame myself for it, but I didn’t know who to blame because the ones responsible for my family’s death never came out of their disguises, synthetic human skin and features made to look exactly like my family members would look if they were really there amongst you. I still hear them call to me over highway noise and wind, while I’m taking hits off a meth pipe or smoking a cigarette on an overpass with dead eyes and no ache. I’ve already ached so much. Without them I am a branch breaking off of a tree. It’s hard to explain what I mean by disguises; they look so much like my family but aren’t. They could look like anyone and they’re wearing synthetic skin designed to look like my mom and dad.

I am Stacey Galloway. I was born to a family that never loved me but that I tried to love fiercely. I may have turned into a drug-addled street kid but I still wanted them to love me, anyway. I remember when I first suspected them to be dead. I was sitting in my old apartment in the living room with a scream in my ears that sounded like my mother’s emanating from my laptop and whirling through the dusty air like a trap I would remained enveloped in. I heard a chainsaw start up and then the sound stopped. It was like an audio recording that just stayed there screaming and sawing in my computer speakers. The voices told me my parents were dead and replaced by “skin masks.”

I asked, “What is a skin mask?” “Synthetic skin made to look like your parents. Exactly like your parents. And your younger brother,” a man replied out of thin air. “Someone else is wearing skin that looks like them now. Every feature of your family has been replicated, special contact lenses have been made, someone with the same height as them is wearing skin masks.”

I couldn’t see him but maybe he could see me. I hoped not. What he was saying was too horrible to want to comprehend. It’s humanly possible to do this, with the aid of a lot of fake skin and ways of knowing how the victim worked, how they spoke, where they lived, whom they spoke to. I will never know that world and don’t want to. It’s insidious enough just to live in the city I live in, gone and waking up with ice in my chest in a house that is now unfamiliar and rearranged. All I want to do is get high to forget about it, and it’s worked after awhile.

I know the police will do nothing because I don’t know how to explain it without dying or not making sense. I never wanted this.

I never wanted to lose the only lifeline I had.

So after the voices came from my laptop and told me these things, I left my apartment, locked it and went to the stone wall by the office supplies store about a mile away. I sat there in the gravel and lit a cigarette, the parking lot blurring through my wet eyes. I didn’t know why I believed what I was hearing, but I was anorexic and schizophrenic, and didn’t know how to not believe something that seemed so real. Before all this, I heard voices talk to me in my room that really were there. No one was physically present around me, but their voices reverberated throughout my walls, my silent television, my closed laptop.

“We’re going to kill your family,” said the voices.

I didn’t believe them. I didn’t reply. I thought they were full of shit.

Now I know they’re not, because although the identity thieves of my family are never in prison, the handwriting of my parents has changed, and so have the cadence of their voices. They speak in European accents now when they think they’re alone and that I’m out of earshot. But I can hear them. It’s hard to understand what they’re saying. It’s plain English, but indecipherable at the same time.  My brother’s identity was never actually stolen. He is eighteen and currently going to college. I am twenty-three and never doing anything with my life again. I’m in the loony bin.

I stare through the green and blue in the slit in the blinds and think about the house I grew up in, a green bungalow in the middle of a golden field of grass, a porch swing, wind chimes and an attic window that never lit up. My father always told me our attic was full of asbestos and that it could cause mesothelioma to inhale it after years of exposure to it.

“But,” he said, “there is no asbestos in the rest of the house. You’re safe.”

In the backyard, my mother grew strawberries and tomatoes. There was a one-car garage and a deck, a wooden fence and a glass picnic table with chairs surrounding it. I remember days, years of smoking marijuana in my room and listening to music. Grey smoke filling the room with the scent of weed, filling my lungs with blackness and my heart with euphoria. I will do that later on, in another place, when this institution is tired of me and forces me out the door like I want.

When I went home after my tantrum by the stone wall, I noticed that my parents were still there, or they just appeared to be. I saw no blemishes, no redness, nothing but them with a synthetic look to their skin, it appeared to be fake. But there was my mother’s hair, my father’s hair, my father’s eyes, their faces. Over the next several years that I lived in the house with them, I noticed that while they copied the handwriting of my parents well, it was slightly altered. They could do their signatures perfectly, but their notes to me and their grocery lists were different looking than a note would be were it from my parents. I was distressed by the way my father’s eyes were either a dark blue or a light blue. They looked like two different sets of eyes. He tried to hit me three times, but never went any further than that. I could tell he was an angry man all of a sudden, and though he looked like my father, I knew he wasn’t. He was wearing a synthetic skin mask. It looked like my father, but it wasn’t. Its skin is fake. It wasn’t real. Same with my mother. Whoever these people were, I know I need to chop them up and leave their remains to dissolve in a landfill somewhere. I want to leave my brother, Steffan, out of it. I know there’s a way to make them expose themselves. Purchase a gun, aim through the summer air at the targets, themselves and tell them, “Take off your skin masks! You’re not my parents! You killed them.”

They wouldn’t be able to reply, and if they were somehow compelled to reply and tell me what they did with my parents, I would happily kill whoever is underneath that fake human surface and tell the cops that they were serial killers who spied on my parents for years and stole their identities. Something I never wanted to happen to them or to myself. I hardly ever talk to “my parents” anymore and Steffan stays the hell away as well. I know I have to have them buried but for now, I think I’ll drown myself in writing. I haven’t explained what is going on to the psych ward, which is going to let me out anyway soon. I know how to handle it myself after hearing one of the directors of the facility tell me, “Your family is skin masks.” The sick fuck laughed to himself and I knew I had to flee and get those people who thought they could ever replace my parents, who were unkind to me but were all I had. I hated everyone else or lost the ones who mattered. I’m going back into their house and I’m going to dig up my gun and aim it, loaded with silver bullets, at their brains. I know they’ll unmask. I’m not born yesterday. I know I should do this. I would never duplicate a mask made to look like real skin and identity of someone else, and wear it over myself as though I could become that person. I’d rather swallow a bottle of pills and go to sleep forever. Fall asleep in a meadow of bluebells and Vicodin.

Before here, I hung out under a train bridge where I always wanted to follow the mysterious Mathilde, a girl whose surname I didn’t know to this day, anywhere and everywhere. She came there to buy meth and was always hanging out with older men, smoking a meth pipe and blowing the smoke up into the lights under the train bridge on the cement walls, watching it float, a white demon mask, in the illumination. I joined her once. She asked me, “Why are you doing meth, Stacey?”

“Because I’m miserable without it. It makes me feel like I could walk for miles and it feels like it’s only seconds until you’re at your destination. I feel like I can die alone on the autumn breeze and die happy.”

“Don’t die, Stacey. You’re the last one of them that should be killed.”

“Some of these bitches really should die. Last night, someone threatened me with a lead pipe after I threatened his friend with a lit cigarette after that cunt tried to beat me up. The both of them should burn up in a chamber underground.”

Mathilde smiled. “How did you know I love that sort of thing?”

“Because I can see through you. I’ve seen you in fights under here, too. Try to keep a low radar. I know you haven’t initiated any of those fights, but try to see there are real dangers here in town and don’t let anyone know where you live. I heard you lost your ID recently and had to get it replaced. It was stolen. I’m only saying this because I care about you, Mathilde. I don’t think they’ve done anything with your ID except disposed of it, by now. I think we should stick together.”

“I don’t have any friends except you,” said Mathilde.

And a few days later, I was shoved away into the psych ward, the loony bin, the human menagerie. I felt like a psychiatric science experiment, doped up with meds and lost in the dull, utilitarian rec room, playing ping pong, watching an episode of Intervention in drug  therapy, browsing the bookshelves, learning different coping skills, watching the bus park and then leave through the glass cage of windows, learning about different behavioral therapies, making collages with magazine pictures, standing in line for more meds, staring at the ceiling light reflecting from their TV, craving drugs and wanting to cast off all purity. I couldn’t stand it here any longer. I still can’t. I’m crazier and know I won’t pay for what I’m about to do, considering how horrible what these people did to my parents is. I can’t let them live any longer and everyone is buying into their disguises except and another lady whose name I don’t know. Their old friends won’t speak to them. A lady who lives me nearby told me my mom isn’t herself anymore.

“She’s not Autumn,” the lady told me. Autumn is my mother’s name.

She said nothing about my dad, but all the voices ever reiterated to me was that my dad, Roger, was killed and that I would never know where or what had been done with him. I’ll forever remember that scream and chainsaw sound on my laptop, playing through the speakers out of dead silence. What was I supposed to do with that information. Say I heard it out of thin air? I’d sound psychotic to law enforcement, mental health services and anyone listening. I can’t just ramble about this to random drug addicts, either. I can’t tell them why I’m purchasing the gun, what its purpose is, or where I’m going to kill those thieves. I am haunted by days of sleeping and screaming and all I can do is bleed Ativan and never want to wake up. But still want to avenge my parents’ murder as well. I’m getting out soon. I will sleep under the stars for a night out on the deck, and wait until the daylight breaks to kill them when they emerge from behind their locked door and into the interior of the basement.

You’ll see. They have masks that are so fake-looking they betray themselves, they give themselves away. I can find a way to move on and I know I shouldn’t blame myself, because this destruction of the family foundation was never my doing. It was theirs, whomever is living in those disguises. I’ve told no one. I can’t allow myself to be labelled as psychotic or severely mentally ill, but I have been. I can hear the voices to this day, and four psychiatrists told me that schizophrenia is incurable. The voices can only be tapered down with medications. There is no cure alive for hearing voices, for visual and auditory hallucinations. I’ve seen things too. I’ve seen people that look ghostly and transparent appear by the river, or sitting on curbs, and they vanish into thin air just as quickly as they appeared. A cop by the river, a man in a grey hoodie on the street curb. I see black shadows above me, or white or golden flashbulbs emanating in the ceiling like there’s a camera taking my picture. The voices still talk through speakers, walls and televisions. Car radios. Computers. A speaker will transmit a voice faster than anything. All they’re telling me is that my family was bad and that they deserved it. I know most people wouldn’t agree with this or think this is okay. Nothing is okay. I will never feel like I’m wholly human again.

2016

Mathilde

1.

In the woods there whispered a secret I felt compelled to follow, just to discern its meaning. It could’ve been a blessing or a curse, and still I was brave enough to leave my repressive household for those screams that normally would frighten someone, but I’ve been reduced to a frozen-hearted Banshee on the floor of a seclusion room more than once. I remember the fog of those moments and feeling more broken than even the most dismantled women could get. Screaming because it was expected of me.  

I left home when I was eighteen, dropped straight out of high school, a nightmare I never hope to relive. Age eighteen was the last time I saw a psychiatric facility. My family and me lived in a Tudor mansion in the city’s most affluent neighborhood. It was my parents and my sister Sinead, who was always the opposite of me, the black sheep.

“Mathilde, no one is screaming in the woods,” she’d tell me when I first heard the shrill, ear-scorching girl’s shriek echo from the trees bordering the park.

I ignored her and ran knocking a stone statue over, and sought out the source of feminine distress.

“Hello? Are you alright?”

“No matter where you go, I’ll find you,” was the whisper that fervently replied from somewhere in the foliage. As though the angel or apparition (whatever she was) could read my mind. I was thirteen.

Pale and whey-skinned compared to my sister, who perpetually blushed and took better care with her pretty countenance. She snagged Dale Tierney before I could get to know him; naturally someone like him would gravitate towards an extroverted floozy like my sister Sinead. He greeted me politely but tersely upon visiting our house, as I was not the subject of his interest. My sister was seventeen, and a senior in high school, while I was in ninth grade, a razor-freak and antisocial, maladjusted misfit. Sinead pretended not to notice. My cuts bled on tiles to industrial rock music. No one could stop me.

*

“Mathilde-”

“Don’t speak, or I’ll excavate your heart from your chest and incinerate it while I smoke a coffin nail,” I replied. He was chasing Dale with a bat, and I remembered a brief feeling just like getting fucked with a knife. Some bat-wielding perverts had jumped me several years ago and shoved the handle in.

“Mathilde!”

“I’ll eat your heart before I burn it over the pyre,” I snapped.

In the abandoned grain elevator building made of cement, a place I pretended was a mental institution, I executed him. Lobotomized, Never anesthetized, because I wanted him to feel like hell. I always knew there was no inferno underground where bad people like myself and this man who is dying beneath a series of rope knots. I have bound him in a length of chain as well. Years ago, long after the screaming in the foliage to the cacophonous magpies had ceased, I heard a woman or young girl wail in agony above the ceiling. The attic I never went up in because it was asbestos-ridden, and I wondered how schizophrenic I had become.

I told my father (a man who once told me “try harder” while I pretended to asphyxiate myself with a shoelace adorning the knob of my bedroom door) that I heard a scream erupt from the attic.

“Well, your intake with mental health is tomorrow,” my dad replied. “We’ll get you on the right meds.”

I hoped and prayed there was no reality behind the scream.

The house was over 100 years old; it could’ve been a benevolent or malevolent apparition.

He’s dead.

I’ll splash him with acid and dissolve him into the floor.

I see Dale watching me from the doorway all of a sudden.

“I am Hell itself,” I tell him. He seems to know the guy I offed was scum.

We laugh.

*

I wake up from my zoning out on the couch at 3 a.m., content, knowing I had no part in it. None of it was my fault. Tori Amos’s To Venus and Back album has played on repeat all night. I could’ve retained my innocence if the city’s pathetic excuse for a population cut me a little slack, but now all I have time for is complete, indisputable indifference. And euphoria over everything, hedonistic amusement showing at all times. So happy I could die in outer space. I wouldn’t even care. I used to put methamphetamine mixed with angel dust, or PCP into my bloodstream and it was then that I discovered a drug that could take away the fear of death itself. A man said, “Get the fuck out of here or face my gun.” I saw no gun to speak of and felt numb with nothing but mania in my head under the freight train bridge. I moved myself as far away from him as I could go. I was full of amphetamines under the bridge. A place downtown full of drama and drugs. I saw a man hold a knife to the throat of a man in his late teens or early twenties. I told the older man with the knife, “Don’t cut him. Just don’t. I don’t want police under here. I’m not calling them. Just…don’t,” I told him lifelessly. This was before the gun threat with the possibly non-existent gun in one of his pockets. The man withdrew his silver blade and backed off the guy, who was the only one allowing me to use a meth pipe. I felt no affection for him considering I don’t know him to this day, but I wonder how I’m not afraid to waltz out into the insidious Spokane night. A hellhole in the central eastern part of Washington state. I never liked this city, famous for its underground whoredom and criminal activity since the early nineteenth century. I intend to haunt it just like the screaming ghosts.

But I won’t scream. I’ll just make them their own worst enemies. I don’t feel I will ever really die, even when my body does.

“I hate you and I love myself, you pathetic fucking city,” I whispered to the mirror. I would place them in an underground chamber. Baths of acid dissolving useless DNA. When people like me are crossed, the night can scream and sleep will reveal what Hell can be. I’ve dreamt of being in a kennel on a plane. Jail cells on a bus with cages lining the aisle that remind me of a jail on wheels. It deserts me by the side of a road aligning a river. Sometimes I dream of treading deep water and drifting along in its waves like a damned soul. I dream of people glaring at me in dark alleys, houses where there’s nothing to watch but a woman in a peach-colored dress entertaining some businessman, drinking something out of a wineglass while she does it. An abandoned asylum being haunted by myself and others. It’s like I’m haunting somewhere that is judging me as I judge it.

I made a carbon copy of him. A clone. I drifted away on dissociative hallucinogens to the sound of his voice in my ear. I don’t care that he’s not really here.

Whenever anyone badmouths him, I feel like they should meet the Windex I pretend to pour in their coffee.

I’ll do what I please for the rest of my life.

2.

Colored balloons and iridescent papier-mâché dotted the walls on the summer evening of my sister, Sinead’s, suicide. I staggered home to Stevie Nicks’s “Stand Back” blaring from her room above the stairwell on repeat, a bottle of Robitussin lingering in my bloodstream. I felt high as a kite. I stared into the rainbow vortex, the littered warps of tinsel on the floor, and remembered hours earlier an argument ricocheting off the walls between Dale Tierney and Sinead. I couldn’t understand them through their slurred drunkenness. I remember a wineglass breaking against his car as it was tossed aside by Sinead.

I had never known her to fall apart.

I would have never done this to him, but I chose to keep out of his way and never tell him how I felt. I was like winter without him, cold as silver and bracing as the winds of the east. I could sustain the fantasy of him more than the reality.

He was somewhere in the house, probably, drunk in the kitchen and avoiding the drama of prior hours.

When the song played one more time, I ascended the stairs and traipsed down the corridor to Sinead’s room.

Do not turn away, my friend

Like a willow I can bend

No man calls my name

No man came

So I walked on down away from you

Maybe your attention was more

Than you could do

One man did not call

He asked me for my love

And that was all

The lines from the song tore through the air and were like bells of 80s euphoria in my ears. I saw Sinead dead with a jagged red line across her throat, torn open from a self-inflicted wound. Blood spattered the mirror of her vanity table. I never thought she had the guts to even prick her finger. I watched her white face for a moment, its waxen marble idiocy, its vacant, grey-eyed death. In extremis, she looked more at peace than I’d ever been in life.

Dale was nowhere to be found on the property. A white sheet covered my sister’s face and they wheeled her to the morgue. I would soon adorn her grave with clematises and dahlias. I would miss her soliloquies on the balcony before he entered our lives. She was so melancholic sometimes, but nowhere near as much as I.

The day after her funeral procession, a blur of black hearses and silver cemeteries, mounds of dirt cascading over her coffin, I smoked angel dust and watched the rain fall outside as I blared heavy metal from the stereo. Tears only burned once and I allowed them to fall for two minutes. Nothing could bring her back, and when Dale rang the doorbell I only told him, “She’s gone,” and closed the door in his face. His double stood behind the closed door ready to embrace me and disappear with me into the bed.

“No one should be allowed to even reach me, touch me or talk to me,” I said. I told the silent thin air. I didn’t want a reply, and I awoke the following day to a touch on my shoulder. When I turned, I saw nothing. Not a person. Not even a trail of vapor. I’d deny anyone from knowing the monster that is me.

Something in me still laughs, despite the grief.

I can see her in dreams. I can see Dale in dreams.

I’d rather daydream on drugs and live in the ruins of my old house than deal with the heinous society around me.

Broken doorknobs and glass I can’t shatter. I swallow pills and wrap myself in blankets, dreaming of a boundless, lazy sea that carries me in its midst. When I reach land, it is steep and treacherous.

I awaken in my mirage’s arms. I am an endless realm of sadism when someone poses as a threat. I once pointed a silver crescent of a knife to the skin of one of his would-be attackers. I won’t ever let go of the image Dale embellished in my mind.

I am as dead as the man in the cement left in a puddle. I am as dead as Sinead, wallowing away in a hallucinogenic reality.

I find nothing damaging although my health is rotting like the grass in the heat waves. Rotting like the relics in every yard, made of metal and plastic. I hate everyone in the world and all I wanted was to end the city.

All I wanted was to end time.

To corrupt and corrode.

To slide right out of life older than anyone had ever been.

3.

I’m only twenty-five years old, and it took me that long to finally kill someone. It was in defense of Dale while we wandered for a couple minutes when I ran into him, discovering he also had an affinity for the abandoned grain elevator where I killed whatever his obtuse name was. I knew somehow he would grace my presence that day. The would-be attacker was quite the opposite of a graceful presence; he was a storm. A storm boiled in my blood, too, and instantaneously, I made the baseball bat fly out of his brandishing arm and struck him several times. Dale Tierney grinned as he watched me debase the humanity right out of the man’s veins. I left him there to rot by some old filing cabinets.

Months after all of that happened, I no longer cry tears or cling to a crucifix on my pillow in the shade. There is nothing more to make of myself; no one will expect anything of me for a long time. Maybe never. Isolative by both night and day, I crave no presence to sustain me through the day. My parents flit about the house and are mostly not in it.

Yesterday I met a girl in a white dress with glittery, crimson-bleeding eyes in the foyer. She bid me follow her to the mirror beneath a chandelier and told me my beauty would wane.  Then she vanished into the air like an exploding star. I didn’t care and I told her to hush and leave me be. I gazed into the mirror, not as dissatisfied as I used to be. Sinead was always prettier, but I no longer envied her for it. If anything, I missed her. I never knew, in my cough syrup-induced state, what Dale had told Sinead that pushed her over the edge enough to slit her throat. She took her own life right off the planet. I will forever imagine her ricocheting into the stars, an astral angel leaving her own body and becoming a new being in the form of a spirit. The girl with blood rivers in her eyes was nowhere near as beautiful as my sister.

Whenever I think of the glow of emergency vehicles outside the limits of the mansion, I pacify myself and push away the thought as fast as it came. I know there were no witnesses besides Dale and me. There was no one to see us all meet there, not knowing one another would gather there to explore the grain elevator. Barbed wire, rusted beer cans and rejected heroin needles littered the ground at the base of the cement building. It had been shut down since the 1970s, and not a soul usually stirred in or around it premises by the railroad tracks. There was nothing to do at the place besides fuck or get stoned. In this case, I killed someone and left him for dead in the place’s basement. The bat was disposed of. Everything wiped clean. No information regarding me can be salvaged because I am a lightning bolt full of speed running as fast as I can away from everyone.

4.

I am sitting by the 7-Eleven high on acid. Halos and wings bleed out of the sky and litter the parking lot in a debris of feathers and gilded circles. I cannot scream in my house, so I went downtown to swallow an LSD-laced sugar cube and careen in the opposite direction from rational thinking. There was nothing to do but melt away along with everything else around me. I wanted the patterns of the strip mall across the street to keep melting, the neon of the bar on Dante Avenue to keep illuminating the girl beneath its sign with the darkest eyeliner I’d ever seen. She kept moving from side to side erratically, as if she were high on speed. I just can’t sustain my lifeform without drugs. I become other selves. I talk to ghosts of humans, both living and dead. She is talking to the empty air that always has answers. Her cigarette smoke forms a crown. I get bored and walk down the street, the church on its corner alit with hallucinatory flames. I think I see Sinead staring at me beneath the wainscoting in someone’s house through their window. I hate everyone except her and Dale, but whatever he said to her caused her to slice her own throat open. I can’t trust him to not make me capsize. I can’t let my iron guard down when it comes to my walls.

Do not touch me, I command every living human.

There is a star I stare at to the south that shines its light upon my shoulder blades ripping open, my veins bluer than before in my wrists. I caress them. The most important love is self-love, I tell myself. That is how I will flourish.

2019

Mathilde

1.

They found the remains of the body that I left behind in a fit of post-traumatic rage. It was a puddle of lye and hydrochloric acid, and gone was the baseball bat-wielding storm of a man after he tried to assault my sister Sinead’s lover, Dale Tierney. A few years ago, my sister committed suicide over an incident with him in which the circumstances are still unknown to me. Since then, I’ve been laying on my bed with voices compressing my head, telling me they’ll sell me and kill me. I am too strong, too fortified with indifference to care. My parents are rarely at home and I’ll never tell them. My dad would just advocate for changing the medication combination I’m currently not taking.

My twenty-eighth birthday is just around the corner. A brand new gun I purchased from one of my meth dealers shines in my hand in the starlight, full of a fresh supply of bullets. My red-lipsticked smile could enchant the devil. On top of the hill where I stand are two high school enemies, Jamie Frances and Stormy Hale. The last place I saw them was under the freight train bridge. They were sharing a pot pipe. They called me an ugly dog. That time, I let it slide off like snow from a gabled roof. Now, I’ve got the two of them right where I want them and I’m still not bothered by their comment. Underneath of them the grass blades look like ebony knife blades and my hand is on my cheap but efficient gun. It’s a silencer so there won’t be much sound when I snuff their lives out. I know how reckless this is considering anyone could have seen me out their window at 2 a.m., but I’m willing to risk it anyway. Jamie and Stormy don’t see me watching from the top of the metal stairs.

2.

I approach with quiet steps across the hilltop. Their backs are turned. My hand grips the gun more firmly than a snake’s coiling hold on a victim. Closer. They turn around. Closer still. Jamie yelps like a mouse before the gun’s bullet catches her in the head, embedded in the wisps of her brown hair. She collapses like a darted, tranquilized animal to the grass. Next, I point the gun at blond, self-righteous Stormy. I see nothing. The fear in her face screams a novel’s length of words. I fire at her forehead and she, too, is done for. It’s my lucky night that they chose this hilltop to smoke weed. I was coming here to smoke meth. I embellish each bitch with another bullet hole and calmly leave them there, the swishing sound of the gunfire replaying in my mind.

The hill. The black grass blades. An abbatoir for two girls who crossed a thin line.

3.

I go home, hide the gun and decide I’m already too high to take another hit. I open an antiquated copy of The Scarlet Pimpernel and nearly read the whole thing, satisfied that the voices in the wall have been silenced. I’ll read the end tomorrow. Before I close my red-tinted eyes at 8 a.m., I think I see Sinead standing at the edge of my bed.

“Good job, Mathilde,” she tells me. “You snuffed those cunts out just like a hurricane takes out a wooden house in southern floods.”

I love her.

I miss her.

I almost cry, but my emotions are in a graveyard somewhere. My eyes are only ice instead of liquid tears. My heart isn’t broken. I know she’ll always be with me. I know that the mirage I made of Dale will always love and caress me, even when I’m no longer young and dangerous. He’s not really here but it’s like I can see him anyway.

4.

I imagine the bones of Stormy and Jamie decomposing under the cold earth. And if they are cremated, their ash is undisturbed in urns for centuries. I think of crimson bullet holes on the hilltop of a feminine warzone. It’s the last thing I see before I fall into a pleasant slumber.

2019

Stacey

They released me from the psych ward. I have a gun in my hand. I’m veering towards the bungalow with meth reeling in my veins, my hands on a fifteen dollar loaded gun. I purchased it from a man in a trench coat in an alleyway. I open the door.

“Where were you?” asks my non-mother. She looks and sounds like my mother, but she isn’t my mother.

“It’s late.”

“Take off your skin mask,” I tell her, withdrawing the gun and pointing it at her head. “Stand up and unmask! You’re not my mother! Take that damn thing off!”

She starts to hyperventilate, and stands up. She fumbles with the layers of skin parts that originated in some clandestine building. They come off and underneath is another pale woman. I don’t study her face but I don’t recognize it. The moment I realize I’m right and that this is a malevolent identity thief, I blow her brains to pieces. I shoot her full of three holes. I only wish this were a smoking gun. I steal away into dad’s TV room and he does the same thing. He’s just an ordinary guy underneath. These two strangers are people that have lived the lives of someone stepping into a stranger’s skin. Stealing their house, their job, their lives. I’ll never sleep again. Once they’re both dead, I call 9-1-1.

“I just killed my parents’ identity thieves. Come and pick up their remains,” I tell the operator once asked what my emergency is. I tell them my address and they wheel them away. They’re covered in white sheets.  A bunch of cops tell me, “You’re not going to pay for this. They were dangerous. They were unpredictable. They could have killed you, too. You haven’t assaulted us, and we thank you for that and understand how hard this is to talk about for you. So we’re going to just let you stay in the house for awhile. Keep the gun with you.”

They leave.

I’m considered a murderer in self-defense. I’m not even going back to the psych ward because I haven’t told them my history of hospitalization.

I scribble a murderous vignette in a composition notebook that night called “Cornfield Rot.”

It reads:

1.

“Some of us are wraiths gliding through your world, blissfully unaware of your cryptic eyes staring past us, of your mouths that eject inanities. All we’ve heard is noise for years.

We’re used to it.”

2.

This is the paragraph I hear spoken aloud to me in a phantom whisper at 3 a.m., my alarm clock bathing my stoned self in a neon green glow. It’s a feminine voice, half-familiar and as faint as the illumination from the clock. My pillow is like a wreath of thorns. I eat pills, caffeine, switchblades and shards of broken teacups. There is a prevalence of apathy that spreads me in me, but what I lack is fear. What they say I lack is self-respect. I suck down another joint, draining the grass until it glows like the motel fire I will see in a few days. Lighting up the firmament with incandescent flames, fiery orange mingled with slate grey. I always wanted to rip open the sky like paper and end the world. When the Days Inn burned down from one of my lit cigarettes, I fled the scene as the firetrucks skyrocketed past me. Black flames filled the town with poison. The colors blurred through the water in my eyes. I hated everything around me since I could think, since I could speak.

Something explodes behinds me as I propel myself further away from the scene of my infantile crime. No more late-night TV, no more waking up to the same sailboat prints on the walls. No more panhandling at the hamburger restaurant next door to the Days Inn.   I’m as thin and intangible as a wisp of smoke floating through the adrenaline-suffused air. I’ll disappear into the fields and search for rotting bodies under the pines.

I imagine swallowing a handful of pills next to the concrete platform by the abandoned bowling alley, the one with the crimson anarchy sign spray-painted on it. I see a haze of red Victorian wallpaper and a knife aimed at many skulls. A flash of fire will light up in other places someday. I won’t kill myself while they recline in the brambled ruin and laugh.

3.

Sometimes I can hear the dead in the dirt beneath me say,  “I am under here.” I’ve heard them come from underneath the bus stops I wait at, the sidewalks, the swimming pool, the abandoned drive-in theater at the edge of town.

I can’t see them, but I can hear them with ears that hear nothing but bells, voices, or chaos. I can feel my pain get carried off with the breeze at such times. They give me the hope that death is an opening to a portal of the soul’s immortality.

4.

My makeup is burning off. I’m a limp, ragged doll in the corn maze getting eaten by ants. I got lost looking for the exit. I am rot given back to the earth.

2015

Janine

Amanda Warwick, age twenty-two, lay submerged in a halfway-house, painted yellow walls, dirt yard, a place to be jettisoned to. She had overdosed on methamphetamine in the heated, sunlit parking lot of multiple storage garages, her head in a hole in the cement next to an empty Halloween candy basket shaped like a Jack O Lantern. After the sharp inhalation of crystallized smoke found her brain, she was set off balance with the cathedral’s clamoring bells, the beauty of the wind’s white noise. She drenched herself in the calm black water of the lake, washing asunder the sins of Janine Crellin. Janine, with her green eyes and reddish-blond hair, a contrast to Amanda’s coarse black curls and hazel orbs, was in an infamous fixture in Amanda’s past. She had bled Amanda in the alleyway, bedazzled by the trails of blood flow, scarlet stars, mesmerizing to Janine. They were both sixteen and lived next door to each other. A red brick house with a picket fence (Janine’s) set beside a white house with green shutters (Amanda’s).

Janine was belligerent. Amanda was polite. They weren’t friends and Janine’s problem with her originated from a source unknown to her. In wild, vociferous rage, Janine left cigarette burns, several of them, that felt like surface tumors after they swelled with ash and pain.

What could I have done to you? Amanda thought.

Amanda was never wholly perceptive of what she was doing to Janine. If the evidence of Amanda’s taunts and provocations had been recorded, her remarks would have been proven to have been said aloud. On that day in the alleyway, Janine couldn’t refrain from assaulting Amanda because of Amanda stealing a plastic bag of marijuana. All they both wanted to do was get high. Janine withdrew a knife, the steel blade glinting, sawing gashes formed like lightning bolts. Gashes made while Janine sat on Amanda’s neck to choke and carve across her stomach, the spaces between her ribs where Janine slightly poked Amanda’s ligament, tearing it. When Amanda passed out from lack of oxygen, Janine began to carve some more. The thighs. The calves. A turning over of the deprecated body. More blood pools against the jutting bones of the shoulderblades.

What a passage to destitution, what a decline of descent into the laconic state of shades pulled down, the swallowing of Vicodin. Amanda was in for it. After the cutting and the burning done unto her flesh was concluded, Janine took off into the night where she was always most comfortable.

Amanda never would have been revived if not for a lone transient who discovered her with a faint pulse and numerous raw wounds, blood cold, veins a transparent blue beneath the skin on her crooked arm. He called an ambulance at a pay phone and Amanda was swept to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with a concussion, loss of blood, five broken ribs and amnesia. It took Amanda one week to recall Janine’s attack and even longer to recover her memory; her head had been hit so hard on concrete. She chose to press charges and Janine was confined to jail for eight months and later on to psychiatric care on and off for three more years. She was very troubled. Her anger seemed baseless. Amanda wondered, withdrawing from meth in her bed, if she had died that evening in rigor mortis in the snowfall, if some silver angel of death, one of grace and storms, would have absolved her of fear and taken her to another side. One separate from life where we all may go, anointed. Amanda wasn’t sacred anymore. She had survived but now she wanted to expire.  Amanda thought of Janine in a devious city, weapons hidden away, only to come out again for the dismemberment of corpses, dragged in burlap thorough a secluded forest, placed in a ditch by the railroad tracks under a pine tree, branches hanging low with needles. Amanda’s thoughts were decay, wasp stings, rotten fruit, sour wines, aspiring homicide. The residents of the group home generally ignored Amanda, but as of recently, they wanted her dismissed as a resident because of her conflict with them over trivial matters of ones full of more depth than would have been suspected.

Meanwhile, Janine was exactly where Amanda supposed, in the position of a merciless killer. She let the bodies sink into remote lakes with heavy stones tied to them, not a trace of her DNA left on their remains because she wore hair nets and was careful. She often got high and was free of institutionalization. No more secluded cages or millstones of grim prophecy. Amanda was only an attempted murder. When Janine left town at eighteen, she acquired a car to transport the bodies. In her new town, a population of nearly 30,000, she knew the civilians to target. She knew who they were.

Fanatics.

Chaos itself.

Dysfunctional child-abusers.

Every house with a shrine dedicated to only the pristine. Their gilded monuments.

So far, Janine had killed seven people.

Her victims:

1. Jay Motley, 36, convicted child rapist and wino

2. Alyssa Sparrow, 14, student, frequent bully

3. Martha Wilde, 45, child killer and teacher

4. Karen Wilder, 21, employee of Burger King

5. Kevin Fielding, 7, was terminally ill

6. Tess Moriarty, 22, bartender

7. Matthew White, 29, pawnshop owner

*

When Janine Crellin was four, she saw in her parents’ living room, a black halogen lamp with white flames flickering at the top. Either it had been left on too long, or her mother had set the fire herself, Janine decided.

“Look what you did,” said Mrs. Crellin, blaming the fire on her. She would grow up to relish those flames, pyromania impending. First, Janine burned her journals, then people.

In remote plains tied to wooden stakes with twine, gazed at by onlookers, the only ones who could hear the screams.

Amanda Warwick, in her reverie of Janine, planned to kill her. A new resident told her where she was living. Not far away.

“Here’s her address. I’ve smoked weed at Janine’s house. After what she did to you, Amanda, I would undo her.”

Seven people were dead so far and Janine still slept, tranquil at night. Never would she allow grief or guilt to disturb her. She had made to list of victims, having met them all, knowing their crimes. They had moved to the town for its quaintness and scenery as well as to carry on their traditions of immorality. Only one victim was innocent. Kevin Fielding, who was only seven years old with severe cancer. Just a needle in his vein put him to sleep and sent him, Janine supposed, to celestial firmaments.

How far could she get by being a killer? In the distance, Amanda tried to peer into the room of Janine and sacrifice her dead.

 

                               Amanda

I was born in the middle of nowhere in a Gothic castle with saints and gargoyles guarding the doorway. My father had painted blood coming from their eyes as they knelt in prayer, keeping watch over our mercenary riches. He was blond with brilliant green eyes. When I lived on the grounds of his castle, I had to be his farm slave doing yard work and keeping the flowers by the moat neat and alluring. He made me kill the animals I admired more than the humans. I will forever remember what he did to my eyes. A complicated surgery that lifted up my skin and transformed my eyes from squinty and listless to bulbous and beautiful. I was staring into an antiquated mirror surrounded by four girls prettier than  myself preparing me for eye surgery. My father grabbed me aggressively by the wrists, placed me on a cot and put me to sleep momentarily to perform plastic surgery. An eyelift, he called it. The girls giggled in their pinafores, playing dress up at girls from the nineteenth century. I will kill Janine. They looked just like her. I will kill her. We are sisters. We have the same father and I killed him when he came to my adopted parents’ house to kill me. Shot him point blank in the head. His ghost will never be able to speak to me from the dead. 

I am ready to kill this girl Janine who fucked me up when we were teenagers. People tell me to stop being so high school and grow up, but I’m not in high school or hanging out with high school kids. Just people that keep the mentality around too much and I’m bored of them. Where will I find her and how will I get past her gang of people that I know is protecting her, driving her around in cars to burn people and sink them into rivers. Nobody can find her but I know she’s the type to kill and I heard a woman discuss her and use the term “murder” and “rope.” I don’t know how to take a person down and a part of me tells me to stay away from her. But a part of her wants Janine to kill me again and send me on my way to a better place. The government wants to control my health and not allow me to smoke meth. It houses me in group homes that are unkind to me and compare my surgery to drivel compared to what their daughters with a lot of money paid to get. They got way better facelifts. I have weird eyes. Currently, I’m on the road looking for a way to find out what Janine’s doing, spy on her a little. She lives in a plain wooden house and I can see her in the window, staring out at me knowing it’s me; I am easily recognized by my eyes, even at a far distance. I’ve changed my mind. I want Janine to kill me. I can take a lot of pain. I know I won’t survive her and I can’t help but throw myself at the mercilessness of this sadistic girl.


 

*

Nobody saw Janine drag Amanda’s lifeless corpse up the three cement stairs and into her house to dispose of her with acid. She shot Amanda with a silencer the moment she saw her face loom large and moon-like at the window, open and paneless. The neighborhood Janine lived in was full of gang bangers and drug addicts that shot up and shot people driving by them at night in the street. I must be in the right place, Janine reassured herself. She planned to dispose of Amanda in a nearby landfill, to never be figured out.

2019

Mathilde

My old friend, Janine from summer camp, was just arrested. She told the news she assisted in the suicide of Amanda Warwick, a girl who Janine claimed wanted to kill her. A girl I once met under the train bridge, Stacey Galloway, is not being prosecuted for the murders of Brian Harlow and Jane Seymour, her parents’ identity thieves. It’s really sick shit. Brian and Jane wore skin masks that were completely like real human skin and the features of Stacey’s parents had been duplicated. She didn’t really know what to do about it for many years until she just went crazy. She told me about the recording from her laptop, and I didn’t know how to explain it. I had heard the voices, too. If you don’t want to hear voices, I recommend that you don’t do drugs. You will become a schizophrenic satellite. You’ll hear the world speak to you, and the people in public will say what you’ve heard your voices say when you think you’re alone at home. They can hear you breathe, they can hear you sing, talk, even think. I don’t know how to put Stacey at ease. I’m never really on edge anymore, but I can tell she is. I always wanted to make her my partner in crime. Even Janine would have done well, but I’m against her opinion that Kevin Fielding needed to die. He was just a kid, and I’m against killing kids. Apparently something leaked out and someone turned her in. She is now in prison forever.

I know the same thing won’t happen to me because I plan to stop after three killings. I wish I could free her and I wish I could ease Stacey’s pain. What’ s happened to her is horrible.

Like my old friends, June and Marcelle. Their group home has been shut down and I don’t know where they are, now. Both girls were beautiful and crazy. They had been raped by strange men who met them at the house of their legal guardians and they killed their guardians in self-defense. Marcelle didn’t pay for her crimes, but June had killed the neighbors as well as her guardian and got locked up in the criminal forensics ward for seven years. Just as I’m thinking of them, I decide to write. It’s about a girl who’s always being watched.

It runs on like this:

It was my sophomore year of college. I had just completed the first day and everything depressed me, especially the shadows of the maple leaves dancing on the wall in my dorm room.

“I’m going out for awhile,” said my roommate, Naomi Carver. I assumed she would be gone for a long while. My homely reflection stared back at me from the rectangular razorblade I held in my hand. I took in the zit on my chin, my black curls, my lackadaisical brown eyes. I turned the blade away from me and reflected the white, utilitarian walls covered in posters of new wave bands, the fake plastic red flowers in a vase on the nightstand, the Russian dolls next to it. The bottom of the blade was still covered in cocaine powder from a night Naomi spent partying at a friend’s apartment. My eyes stung. I moved in slow motion to the bathroom and ran water on my wrist in the sink. The key is not to think, I silently told myself. The key is to gash the vein and not fear what’s beyond. With the past, present and future forgotten, I made a vertical red line on my wrists, tearing into the blue creek of vein beneath my porcelain flesh. It brought forth a mild sting, like a bee’s. Blood spurted like a fountain into the sink, onto the mirror.

When I began to feel weak, I allowed myself to fall to the linoleum and wait for a bright light, a celestial set of golden gates. Before I faded out entirely, I felt a pair of arms pull me up and heard Naomi’s distorted shouting.

“Mildred!”

I blacked out, thinking it was only a hallucination when I saw a girl who looked like me staring at the scene from the entrance to the dorm room. I would see her later, in new circumstances. It turned out that Naomi forgot her phone, which is how she found me attempting to end my dismal life.

They sent me to a local hospital, where they staunched the bloodfloow and where I eventually came to. The first thing I remembered was how I used to be such a sweet little girl. I think the most soulless day I had was when I was in junior high and I burned Elena Miller with a lit cigarette, all the world curdling behind my eyes with anger.

“Where do you want it?” I asked Elena, wielding the cigarette like a knife against her arm. “Your skin, or your clothes?” I pointed the tip at the polyester of her blue blouse. At the finality of my outburst, I chose her pale wrist as the target. Elena gasped instead of screaming. I spent two weeks in juvenile detention, was expelled and transferred to another school. As I was recalling this savory memory, a psychiatrist came to evaluate me and she concluded I needed inpatient treatment in the psych ward on the upper level of the hospital. Once I was up there, I frequently threw thermonuclear fits in the blinding flourscence of the ceiling lights. The leather restraints they placed on my bed burned like fire. They were too tight. A whole week later, they sent me to a place of higher security, a building as old as the 1950s called Astria State Hospital. Located in Astria, Washington, a small country town full of orchards and horses.

Over the course of the next two weeks, I covered my bedroom window with collages and childish colored pencil drawings, once of which was a depiction of me rising above three pastel-colored buildings and into the sky. I wore a black dress and had no legs. Often, I stared up at the sky during cigarette breaks and felt like falling to one of the hollow black holes in outer space, but I was bound by the limitations of earth. My heart felt like hellfire.

“Mildred Swain should burn with fire,” said a patient with wild hair, pointing at me and taking a puff of his cigarette. I could only wonder how he knew my last name, let alone was he was saying this. I had been as friendly as possible since I was admitted into the hospital. As I lay in bed one night, a litany of insults came from both patients and staff passing by the door. They called me ugly, weak and deserving of death. I pulled the blanket over my head and refused to fight back. When I felt they were gone, I emerged from under the blanket, and saw her come in. The girl who looked exactly like me loomed, pale and spectral over my bed. She moved as though she were walking on water.

“Who are you?” I asked her.

“An extension of you,” she said. “You are doomed to be hated until you die. Humans are forever to be your plight. When you go home, they’ll talk about you on the sidewalk, in the park, in the classroom. All you can do is be strong and persevere.”

She went on talking until I fell asleep. When morning came, I felt groggy. The sunshine evaporated me. I felt like a puddle of snow melting beneath my blanket. Slowly, in the midst of the empty room, I willed myself to rise to the ceiling and become united with the camera I felt to be hidden in the light above. I watched myself from the top and there was my strange twin in the branches of the cherry tree outside my window, snapping my picture with a polaroid, the black eye of the lens like the eye of an observant spider.

2019

Stacey

In the dream, I am small enough to fit into a crawlspace. I cannot hide from my mother’s red wine in our barren living room that is as black as a power outage, as black as my rotten innocence. My mother picks me up and takes me to the car, says it’s time to go, I need help. She parks outside a stone clinic and leaves me inside. I cry out and am told to be silent by a stern receptionist. Two white coats hold me down and drag me to a white room with a thirty-something redhead in it. She has painted the word “borderline” on the wall next to an immaculate, gold-framed mirror. When we face it to see our reflections (mine child-like, hers much older), we are propelled from its shattering glass by a defiance of gravity. We coil up and writhe, possessed by demons. Satan lets us die together, which is a blessing compared to living in the hospital. I close my eyes one last time without seeing my mother. I only see the broken glass, the blood on the wall (bright as an ambulance light), the linoleum beneath my cheekbone. I am a dead husk of a human determined to haunt the city I was born in. Life grows black again. I don’t scream.

Marcelle

2012

Marcelle Trahern was raised by two cunts with Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a term derived from the original Munchausen syndrome itself. If one has Munchausen syndrome by proxy, it means a caregiver (in this case, the godmother of Marcelle), chooses to refrain from giving their charges the right health, supplements and nutrients to keep them alive. In fact, they make them worsen with sickness and degradation. Subtly, so the good doctor won’t notice they’re causing the illness for their charges. The first bitch had decided to poison her subtly instead. Marcelle’s godmother favored ipecac. In their small village, church was a mandatory service where all girls had to see the Lord Jesus Christ be praised or crucified on film. A montage of filmy sunlight and a golden cross shone from an array of manipulative Christian imagery, perceived on an overhead projector.

Marcelle went every Wednesday and Sunday in a grey stone building with elaborate brick arcs painted black outlining the stained glass windows. The broadcast room was like an insidious revelation opening up a nightmare to the eyes of sensitive Marcelle, without the abrasive steel to pry a pair of eyes open. Especially when the topic was eternal damnation or the crucifixion of Jesus. It was like a metaphorical film lobotomy. They just stayed peeled open, unable to shut or fall asleep for any reason. Nanny Cravat insisted she stay awake. She favored those antiquated neckbands.

The girls sat around her in stiff, ungraceful lines, backs upright or slouching depending on the girls’ preference to posture. Ms. Winifred Scarlet, who had been killing off children in her home for three years, took Marcelle in at eleven years old the year her mother died and Marcelle was never able to know the woman by heart in a way her memory could rely upon. Winifred was a registered foster mother and she was ailing. Marcelle killed her foster mother (and made the police and medical examiner rule the death as a suicide). She sang “Don’t Fear the Reaper” in her choir voice while spoon-feeding Winifred “sugar in a spoon bowl, so the medicine goes down.” She gagged on the Drano and no longer said the words Marcelle needed to hear: “You should be ashamed of yourself,” “You should be grateful,” “Why didn’t you try harder?” Winifred was involved in a canned television broadcast again for that last comment, a boring, banal comedy Winifred needed to have Marcelle watch with her before bed in 2011.

On March 24, a clear, shiny spring morning, Marcelle knew that she had no one to rely upon any better by the time the next foster mother came around to raise her. She was a distant harridan of a woman with a thin, pert mouth shut tight at church and open like a wrathful shrew to chastise Marcelle at home.

“See that window?” said Nanny Cravat, her second godmother: a malevolent, Puritan woman with brown hair in a frizz and vacant eyes.

“You’ll be lucky if God saves you when you fall out of it. It’s all shit. God’s for nothing. But I fear hell just as much as you do. All we can do is try to believe and see if God listens.“

In her dress made for church, the stiff lace a cascade of black and white. A knee-length skirt and pilgrim collar. Church uniform. The telepathy Marcelle heard: “devout truths”, “deep breaths,” “if you need to console yourself, use these coping skills.”

All the things Marcelle picked up on by reading minds that she could never express piled up in her head and she was crazy.

“Marcelle may be crazy,” said a soft-voiced man about to make an assumption based on what he saw in elaborate artwork in a journal: a drawing in Bic pen, of a realistic-looking Nanny Cravat swallowing a spoonful of something, reminding him of milk poisoning and a scary story his mom sometimes read to him at night in his portentous childhood. Marcelle’s self-portrait was accurate. She overheard the bell ringing in the distance beyond her thoughts of his voice by the cathedral  bells that rang with worship, clanging vehemently. When Marcelle got home after spring choir ended, she planned the Drano death. It was under the kitchen sink, meant to mingle with Nanny Cravat’s cup of milk.

“Nanny, I  hope you enjoy your milk,”

“Come, have a sit-down,” said Nanny to Marcelle. She set the glass of milk  in front of Nanny Cravat, who was wearing her red velvet blouse and white cravat.

“Put that milk on the table carefully. Don’t spill it.”

Time to die, Marcelle wished. Down the throat went that blue liquid permeating Nanny Cravat’s esophagus as she choked. The only number Marcelle knew to call wasn’t an option, and she had to make her own way in the world feeling like humans weren’t worth anything and we’re all just partially alien. Meretricious, cheap people.

Marcelle wanted to die in outer space. She left the raw death and agony of Nanny Cravat  slumped over on the table after she choked. Marcelle became the third eye, the third shrew, the ultimate survivor of destiny and doom.

June

2014

My lucidity died in the house I grew up in. I was raised in an arcane Hitchcock mansion with a cupola. There were no servants due to my guardian, Scarlett Freeland’s, illicit exploitation, and her fear of it being discovered. Therefore, she let everything collect dust. Her mansion was tall and monumental. It reminded me of a Halloween sticker decoration one puts on a windowpane. On our street, Cupola Avenue, named for the cupolas on each house, I suffered many seasons of violent turmoil at the hands of Scarlett. She owned a video camera that she balanced on top of a tripod and told me it was my “surveillance.”

On several occasions, at the age of thirteen, I was raped by a multitude of strange men that Scarlett invited inside. She would put 80’s hair metal on the stereo while they raped me and she sat in a red armchair, smoking numerous cigarettes. Sometimes, I wouldn’t get raped and instead it would be my deed, according to every person in the room, to kill a person in front of me. I’ve killed 37 people in Scarlett’s house, each one dissolved with acid in the cupola on film, and killed on film as well, before being doused with acid. Each time this event happened, it was recorded and burned onto a disc to be viewed on Scarlett’s TV.

There were only two other houses on Cupola Avenue: the Tarringtons’ house and the Miltons’ house. Clyde Tarrington lived in a two-story house painted white with black shutters. He lived there with his daughter, Blithe. On their front door was a poster of a symbol that held a cryptic enchantment for me: a cross with an hourglass in the center of it. It always reminded me of their time running out. I had wanted to kill Blithe for so many years. I felt her to be prettier than me with her lustrous black hair and piercing green eyes. She always loved to remind me of how I would have been killed by my twin sister, Adele, had she lived. In the womb, she was the alpha and I was the omega. On a rainy day when lightning split the sky into slices, Adele and me were playing dress-up with red velvet gowns and silver high heels. We were twelve. I convinced her into a “baptism,” holding her head underwater. Despite my carrying the title of the omega twin, my newfound strength prevailed and she soon ceased to breathe.

When Scarlett found out, she didn’t seem to care. Neither did the rest of the neighborhood; they were always killing people. We melted her body into the floor of the cupola with acid.

My name used to be Lillian Freeland, but once my twin was dead, I uncontrollably became someone named June. She came to me, like a doppelganger, looking exactly like me, but bearing no evil intentions.

“I am here, and I am not leaving you,” June told me. I regret killing Adele despite her greater knowledge of schoolwork. We were both homeschooled and Scarlett never told us what she did for a living. I learned later on that she worked for the federal government.

My liberation from Scarlett’s persistent and unyielding abuse came on the day of my eighteenth birthday, April 17. After she made me read Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shallot” to two men, who raped me when I was done, and when they had left, I waited for Scarlett to go upstairs and watch one of her movies. I sauntered to the garage and snatched an axe, the same one Scarlett used in satanic rituals when she was young. I made the predatory ascent up the stairs and into her bedroom. Then, as though she were a chopping block and as though her sanguine bloodflow was sacred, I swung the axe down upon her skull. Hard. She was watching The Caretakers, a black and white movie about women in group therapy. She fell to the side, writhing in pain. I went to the front of the chair and brought the axe down upon her back until her spinal cord was severed and her tenebrous heart gave out. I left her there and ran back downstairs, screaming the whole way.

Next, I opened Scarlett’s freezer and grabbed a carton of Marlboro 100’s, lit one, and burned the subtle swastikas hidden in the patterns of an Oriental rug. I gazed around me, took in the contents of the living room: the Kit-Kat clock shaped like a black cat with bulging eyes, the white topaz chandelier, the gutted hearth, the period furniture. I decided it was time to leave my home behind forever. I grabbed a pink backpack and shoved the carton of cigarettes inside, along with a drawer full of working Bic lighters. I threw in three shirts, six pairs of socks, six pairs of underwear, two pairs of pants, a journal, a pen, and a gun. I topped off the luggage with some rubber vampire teeth I endeavored to save for a malevolent purpose: murdering Blithe Tarrington.

I put my hand on the gun as I walked outside, holding it securely within the large pocket of my forest green trench coat. To my knowledge, the Miltons across the street were always killing people (Scarlett always said so.), but I didn’t know how they felt about Blithe. I didn’t care. I rang the doorbell, staring down the cross and hourglass on the door’s poster. Luckily, Blithe answered the door. I pulled out the gun, and her face became as stricken as one being lashed with a switch.

“Get inside,” I gnashed, pushing her onto the floor  and slamming the door behind me. “And don’t get up. Don’t even talk.”

She talked anyway. “Lillian, please don’t kill me. You don’t have to - “

“But I want to, and I can, and I will kill you and nothing will ever be able to resurrect you!”

“What’s going on with that Freeland bitch? Why is she in my house?” screamed Clyde, who had just descended the stairs. I shot him in the head, and he slumped over, instantaneously dead.

“You’ve been killing people in this house for years, and it’s time to go!” I vociferated over her harrowed wailing. “Now, put these in.” I unzipped my backpack and handed her the rubber vampire teeth.

She stared at me, wide-eyed with feral fear. She did nothing. She said nothing.

“Your mouth, dummy. Put them in your mouth.”

I handed her the teeth, and she took them from me and placed them over her own toothpaste commercial-white teeth.

“You look the very caricature of Halloween,” I said, laughing as I blew out her brains. The remains flew against the wall and painted an inkblot test of blood smears everywhere. I walked into Blithe’s bedroom after I was sure she was dead, and saw a purple canopied bed, a bookshelf filled with many classic and contemporary novels, among them: the Brontes, Oscar Wilde, Theodore Dreiser, Jane Austen, Anais Nin, D.H. Lawrence. I grabbed Nin’s House of Incest, Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and Charlotte Bronte’s Villette, and left the house.

I didn’t make it very far. I was down the road not very far when I was arrested.  I always feared them coming for me. I fell onto the asphalt, scabbing my knees and not feeling it. I denied what was happening. I muttered to myself incoherently.

“We know you killed some people, Lillian.”

“My name is June,” was all that I said before my mind shut off and I suddenly woke up vegetative in a jail cell.

*

Eventually, I was labelled not guilty by reason of insanity. The police found Scarlett’s recordings and the recordings that the Miltons and the Tarringtons made of their own killings when I told them about the neighborhood, and what Scarlett had done to me. One day, I will get out of the forensics services ward, where the criminally insane are housed. I have spent many nights here, remembering the death and ravagings, my hair coiling like Medusa’s on the pillow of the restraint bed, the leather straps leaving black bruises on my wrists. Every night, I pray to God and Jesus and all the saints that ever were that I’ll be forgiven for my killings, and be accepted into a realm I can call heaven.

My lucidity will live again, resurged.

2017

June and Marcelle

Cathleen Carter

She led me to the house with the cupola

Where she stabbed me in the backyard

Blood flowed glowing red from my pale skin

Staining my white blouse

And my throat ached

I haunt the halls

And my voice resides within the walls

I’m a phantom floating through the inmates

Living in my killer’s group home

Eyes stare from the cupola

I don’t know who saw me die

I’m buried under a thorny bush

Bones hidden by woods and tiny baby teeth

She scattered

Covering my grave with evidence from her recent infanticides

She stabbed my baby

And cut me for giving birth

In her bed

My lover carved our initials in a tree

And we’ll always be in touch

I eat strawberries off a plate in his room

We hung a dreamcatcher to capture his nightmares

Of me being tortured by her ringed hands

Bag placed over my head

Cathleen Carter, the snuff film queen

(I have killed many)

Choking on film reel

Always having to be polite

In the morning light drinking tea

Deirdre, the killer, laced it with GHB

Putting me to sleep

Separated from my lover

Pillow soaked in warm tears

His tears and mine

We drink them in vials and kiss under stars

Soon he too will be a ghost

Swallowing pills on a blanket in the cemetery

Deirdre will find us and take our picture

Maybe she’ll capture my phantom on camera

*

With curiosity, Marcelle Trahern saw from the window Deirdre Carter and her niece, Cathleen, arguing. The infant was dead, that much Marcelle knew. Cathleen Carter had given birth to a baby girl now with stab wounds, lying in red and white rigor mortis in her crib with blood on the teddy bear, in the dolls’ hair and on the lampshade on the side table. Most of the inmates, as they were known due to the group home’s strict rules, were gone for the day at an event and June Freeland was downstairs Deirdre Carter quickly took over June’s life after leaving her post as nurse at the asylum where June was housed. June was incompetent to stand trial, declared insane and sent away for seven years. She had returned to Scarlett Freeland, her former guardian’s, mansion to live. It had been converted into a group home for women with trauma issues.

All thoughts of June vanished from Deirdre’s mind when the knife blade shone in the sun, an ominous metal glint that suddenly penetrated the naked pearl throat of Cathleen. She collapsed to the grass in the fenced-in backyard and as the earth was fresh from the rain, Deirdre found a shovel leaning against the toolshed and dug a fresh grave. Marcelle had never liked Cathleen much because she was always harping on the girls to follow the rules: don’t smoke dope, don’t invite boys over without permission, etc. She had gotten herself knocked up by Miles Sutherland, and Deirdre highly disapproved of him with his leather jacket and cigarettes. Marcelle only saw him once when he drove to pick up Cathleen for a date, his handsome face a silhouette in the dark window. Marcelle decided to keep quiet about the death. She watched Cathleen be tossed into the grave liked a broken doll. Deirdre had tied a plastic bag over her face and stabbed her in the chest. For ten minutes, Marcelle watched Deirdre extract Cathleen’s heart from her chest cavity, holding the dead, lifeless muscle in her palm, her calm blue eyes narrowed and focused on it like a witch in a black magic ritual. June suddenly appeared beside Marcelle.

“The bitch is finally dead,” Marcelle said, breaking her vow not to tell anyone. “What is she going to do with the heart?”

“I don’t know,” said June.

The girls, both in their twenties and too old for Cathleen’s trashy immaturity, watched with morbid fascination as Deirdre snapped a polaroid   (after turning off the video camera)

of Cathleen’s corpse before throwing dirt back over her and packing it in. She laid stones over it and from her pocket, she took something white and scattered it over the grave. When she went back inside the house, Marcelle and June left the cupola to inspect what Deirdre had spilled. Six tiny teeth in the front yard, taken from a toddler’s mouth. A previous killing. When the cops led Deirdre away after June called them, June put on a nun habit and took over the house.

They heard Cathleen’s whispers of love for Miles and reassurances that Deirdre was gone. They buried her baby in an infant cemetery labeled merely “Infant Cemetery” in iron above a fancy gate bearing an entrance to the graveyard. June called the cops by her own policy, knowing hiding a murder is wrong.

“Marcelle, she’s a psycho, bats-in-the-head bitch and she could have come after us, too. It’s better that she’s gone.”

“I guess so,” said Marcelle. her  mind on Nanny Cravat choking on her milk laced with Drano. Marcelle had fled the world of Christian broadcast rooms and the sex trade. Nanny Cravat had invited several men over to force themselves on her, and she was glad she couldn’t remember it in great detail. Dissociating was so divine. Girls wore meretricious makeup to school and church and their naked limbs stuck out from cheap, mall-bought

miniskirts. Marcelle would have given them all Drano in a cup, too, if she knew how not to get caught.

But she was far from their bratty voices now, with June Freeland, Anika White and Marilyn Sanders to keep her company. In the meantime, the house became less of a group home and June began paying the monthly bills with Deirdre’s leftover income found stashed in a safe in her room. Marijuana smoke soon filled the rooms and the girls giggled at the enhanced cartoons on the television, making funny faces at the ceiling. Then, Cathleen appeared in the mirror behind them in her prom finery, staring sternly with her stab wound, The blood withdrawing and disappearing into the gash. Anika screamed. When the others asked what was wrong, Anika revealed what she saw.

“You’re too high,” Marilyn said, running a hand through her rainbow hair. But Cathleen stood behind them, strawberry juice the color of blood on her mouth, back from Miles who contacted her spirit and she came when summoned and manifested herself in the flesh.

Cathleen

My baby is gone

In an infant coffin underground

I wear black to mourn her

And place flowers on her grave

Miles embraces me in the cemetery

Where we have sandwiches and milk

He marvels as the food disappears from the plate

And the milk drains from the thermos

He can see me fresh as daylight

A rose haloed in gold

I am fragile dust and fairy winds and gilded blond hair

They find him dead the next day

By the gravesite of his daughter

His lips blue from the pills

His hair plastered to his head

In the spring rain

His indolent heart gave out and from her prison, Dierdre laughed at the television giving news of Mile’s suicide and the note he’d left:

I’ve gone to be with Cathleen, who drew me into hear heart forever, and our daughter Melanie’s, too. Dierdre couldn’t kill my love, though she tried very hard.

I saw Deirdre from the corner where I stood, staring at ladies dressed in orange watch the television and play cards. Now that I’m dead, I can go anywhere I want to in the world. I’ve explored the moors of England and I’ve been to Alaska, the northern lights illuminating the night sky and I didn’t feel the cold nor the heat of Death Valley, California. I flew and touched the top of the Eiffel Tower.

“Anything can be done in death, it’s like magic is yours after you die,” I told Miles.

Down he went with me and they buried us side by side. We go into earth, then Summerland, then back again. When I haunt the group home, I conjour nightmares for the girls who tormented me, especially June Freeland who told me I looked dressed as gaudily as she had for one of the snuff films her guardian she murdered made her do. I know many murderers: the worst of them being June and Marcelle. I read the evidence of Marcelle’s Drano murders in her journal and her revelations of sex with strange men who came when called by Nanny Cravat, Marcelle’s godmother. But something told me not to be a hypocrite and tell on her. I never had a mother like these girls. She abandoned me on the doorstop of St. Xavier’s Orphanage and Dierdre, the nun (she was a devout Catholic before she moved on to work for the hospital) who knew her sister’s face and knowing I was her niece, took me in and after years of her impossible violence and nagging, I am finally set free and better off, even if by her hand.

The Ouija Board

“Miles committed suicide,” said Marilyn to Marcelle. “It’s on the news.”

“Oh,” said Marcelle. “I bet Cathleen’s ghost dragged him down with her. Anika keeps seeing her everywhere and is freaking out.”

Anika was fast asleep in her room, having taken a dose of Haldol to help the hallucinations.

“But you aren’t hallucinating,” Cathleen had insisted when she came to Anika late at night. Sometimes she wore a nun habit like June, who had taken to smearing on red lipstick and blaring Courtney Love from the stereo. Sometimes, she sang opera with a crucifix dangling around her neck, and quite good. The girls loved listening to her sing her songs of lovers who lost their loved ones like Miles and Greek tragedies where Persephone became trapped for six months in Hades with the Lord of the Underworld and six months on earth. Gods and monsters fighting their battles to the death. The Ouija board they used to summon Cathleen worked. Anika revealed the messages to them of their conversation she heard in her head. Anika directed the board marker’s movement in their hands.

“Cathleen, where are you?” Anika asked, finally facing her fear of the unknown.

“In Summerland, with Miles,” was the reply.

Anika spelled it on the board and all were shocked.

“I knew it was real, like heaven but better than clouds and angels playing harps, waiting at the gates to judge you,” Anika said. “In Summerland there is no judgment, or pain or violence. Just love, laughter and magic. I learned all about the theory of the afterlife in Summerland from a Wiccan book I found in the used bookstore downtown.”

“Are you sure it isn’t fake, Anika?” Asked June, who doubted the paranormal.

“I heard her voice, just the way it was when she was alive!” Anika stormed out of the room, offended by June’s remark. The Ouija board remained still. Out of all of the girls, Cathleen found Anika most vulnerable to her presence. Cathleen enjoyed scaring them a little. But she never spoke to June, who ascended the staircase with a boy from the nearby prep school, holding a candlelabra and smoking a Marlboro cigarette. Marilyn played 20 Questions with Anika in their room and listened to her account of what she read in Marcelle’s journal.

“I saw too,” said Cathleen. “She sent people to their death same as insane June. I wonder what sort of terrorism Dierdre endured at a young age.”

“Probably witnessed something violent, or had no parents like you. I didn’t,” said Marcelle, who stood behind them listening and hearing Cathleen’s voice just like Anika.

Deirdre

High on a precious hill stands my home for abandoned, unstable girls

I can’t return to it

I’m in prison garb in the women’s prison surrounded by barbed wire and a river runs past, saturated in pollutants spilled by the nearby plants and factories.

I used to be a nun, then a nurse, mercy-killing the elderly, smothering infants and pretending they died of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), immune to the wails of inconsolable parents informed by the doctor in the corridor.

I spent my early childhood in a ramshackle farmhouse in Louisiana, smothered by my mother and her hot back coffee thrown in my face. How her knives danced before my eyes. When my baby brother died when I was fourteen, they thought it was SIDS. I hated babies. My mother told me to kill it, it was a sickly, weak little boy and wouldn’t last the year. I fed him to a hungry feral cat and watched the skin ribbon over her bones from the cat’s carnivorous snacking. My mother, a widow always in grey with shadows under her eyes the color of her sweater, watched the baby’s decomposition.

I felt an affinity for June the most out of all the girls in my home. We had killed and had bad mothers who abused our bodies and sucked our souls out through crazy straws, leaving us bereft and insane. I couldn’t plead insanity the way June could, though.

I wish I were out of this stale air and away from these women, with their murderous stairs and rancid shouting, their fights that lead them to solitary. I won’t put a hand on these women. I won’t go to solitary.

June

I murdered this whole neighborhood besides Clinton and Mary Milton and their twin son and daughter. The parents went to prison for murder, and the kids live somewhere else now. The house is vacant.  I never enjoyed what Scarlett made me do. They housed me in an asylum, where I spent the majority of my time in restraints staring at the ceiling with vacant eyes and Medusa coils in my hair that snarled on the pillow.

I dreamt of black widows biting me and in my dreams, Deirdre, who worked there at the time as a psychiatric nurse, didn’t tend to my bites that reddened on my hand. When I wasn’t dreaming, Deirdre liked me. Now she’s in prison where she belongs. I no longer handle nitric acid or kill people or endure stiff baseball bats tearing open my cunt.

Scarlett watched my defiling from behind the camera, recording the rapes in the dark room. I was smothered in her cellar and remembered it, screaming, spitting out the pills, refusing to take them. Deirdre heard my whole story, decided to move into the old Freeland estate and take over as group home director. I moved out of my trailer to stay there. Weird I should live here after killing someone here. I used to hallucinate Blithe, who I shot and killed, but I don’t see her lately. I dismiss Anika despite my own experience. Sometimes, the ghost of Cathleen gets old as a topic and I think all should  remember the living and forget the dead that can’t reach us, gone to nether realms.

But what if she was there? What if she can reach us?

I’ll never know. One day I’ll be a ghost myself. I have faith that there is something prettier to see than this insidious earth after our bodies run out of time and our souls transcend.

There must be something better than what I had, what Marcelle had, what Cathleen had, what all of us had.

I think I just heard a voice. Is it the still, small voice of God, or is it a spirit coming from some divine region, holy or unholy?

I am a combined angel and demon. I want to drink absinthe and sleep with that voice.

Mathilde

2019

I stood in the calm, obsidian woods and gained my frail balance against a ramshackle cabin. Wolves dashed out of the shadows, ignoring me and veering towards a carcass in a wildflower-bordered clearing. I was pretty certain it was human. Then I saw a ski-masked perpetrator, blood channeling from his disguise. He offered me a bouquet of purple irises in his scathed left hand. In the shunning woods, feeling like the ghost of someone gone, I tore my lavender dress on a nail in the cabin’s wood. I declined the masked monster’s offer. Suddenly, I was pulled inside by someone behind the front door. I cried out, closed my eyes and could hear the door shut and bolt. Once the lightbulb on the ceiling flickered on, I saw my rescuer’s face like a sanctified revelation. The kindest pair of dark eyes I had ever seen. My speech failed me but his did not.

He told me, “Nothing will kill your equilibrium while I’m here. You no longer have to claw at wooden walls are cry into a pillowcase. Notice that soon the sun will come up and figuratively, I’ll give you a pair of rose-colored glasses to view the world through. A better world than this.”

“I-“ I began.

“I love you,” he said.

Of course, he was handsome and I coveted him highly.  He pressed his perfect mouth on mine and carried me to bed. After the sex and the sun-glow, he told me he’d be my dreamcatcher, and if not the destroyer of my enemies, the bane of them. The unidentified mask never showed up again. We soon left the cabin to live in a castle. He taught me to love instead of maim, to be tender instead of destructive. I learned to give myself away to a man created by the sparks of imagination itself.

*

I ease myself out of bed after this dream and take another hit of glass. Something to make the world glitter with white ice and a way to make the hell inside freeze over. I see him blur on every bridge, every riverbed, every highway. There is no hallucination more powerful than him. Nothing will perforate me and make me stop haunting this city. Nothing will make me bleed out onto the sidewalk because I am too fast for the blade, the bullet. The smoke flows through the open room and hits the sun. I wake to sirens piercing the quiet. I’m the cause of them but I know their glow won’t alight on me and swallow me up.

[rey-kryze]

i need 'stoner ben solo owns a dispensary in competition with weed lovin' rey's organic marijuana farm' prompt thing...

@luminous-stardusts

Legalization’s the goal, Ben reminds himself through grit teeth.

That sort of pseudo-nu-age-optimism makes his stomach hurt, but it’s also the only thing keeping him from molotov-ing the new dispensary across the street. Ben’s has been a tried and true staple of the medical community for three fucking years and this hot-shot recreation shop just rolls on in and swipes up a good forty percent of his clientele.

Yeah, Ben Solo’s an advocate for ‘smoke and be merry’, but he also really likes being able to pay his bills.

Kushkiller base’s neon sign hums to life, the distant, and stale scent of the front foyer greets him as he turns the card in the window from closed to open. 

He knows he’s got a good half hour before any of his regulars stroll in, so he takes the time to roll himself a slender joint. His daily dose, high CBD indica’s, the strain today a personal favorite he’d had a hand in growing himself. Vader OG. 

His lungs are steel by now, an effortless roll turned to ash within five minutes; the back office filled with smoke and he reaches blindly for his Visine, knowing that red eyes made him look even less approachable than usual.

And in competing with this new upstart, he can’t afford to be his usual brooding, offputting, asshole extraordinaire, self. 

Its really gonna put a damper on his whole ‘nihilism-chic’ but he figures having enough money to buy oreo’s is as good a motivator as any.

He walks out front to puff on a menthol, preferring to not smell like cigarettes in an herbal establishment. Of course, this means he has to acknowledge the purple elephant in the room ( street ? block ? ), that is the glaringly gaudy ‘Resistance Recreational Dispensary’. 

All done up in soft pastels, it looked like Willy Wonka collaborated on some pop-punk bullshit and just glaring at it makes his teeth hurt. 

There’s someone opening their front door- a girl, he thinks, short, in an all-black Adidas hoodie ( he’s like seventy-five percent sure he has the same one ), and her hair hanging in three, loose buns.

A female entrepreneur in the weed industry is a rarity, but Ben’s all about shattering the glass ceiling or whatever, Leia Organa’s legislation had been crucial in the fight for medical usage and now, recreational. Its imbued him with respect, and recognition of a lot of shitty male stoner stereotypes he sees in a solid half of his customers.

It’s disheartening, but she seems to be doing okay. 

The new shop sits between a fucking Taco Bell and frozen yogurt place, whereas Ben’s by a dog-washer, and a real flower florist – its sort of funny how many people went into the wrong place, the mix-ups providing him with at least one giggle-fit a day. 

Weird-hair girl catches sight of him glowering, and waves. Ben waves back because his mother didn’t raise the asshole he’s currently impersonating, and he remembers the scared kid he’d been when foraying into the business world for the first time. 

He’s not gonna be the reason she fails, but she might be the reason he does.

Irony is an ugly mother fucker today. 

Turns out, the weird-hair girl’s heartbreakingly beautiful. 

Ben learns this because an across-the-street wave doesn’t meet her sunshine quota or whatever powers her megawatt smile. She bounds over to him, all freckles and sunkissed skin and hazel eyes that make him feel like he’s back in high school with weak knees and a penchant for saying the weirdest shit to any girl who looked his way.

“Oh, hey.” Ben croaks, coughs, and tries again. “Nice shop.” He doesn’t manage to sound welcoming, but at least it’s without the venom he’d felt in the week leading up to now, where he’s watched them set up and advertise and wanted nothing more than to burn it to the ground.

She continues to smile, and he notices it makes her nose wrinkle around it and his stomach has decided it vacate the premises when it lodges itself in his throat and he’s grateful that she takes it as her turn to speak.

Or, he’s damned by it, the jury’s still out.

“I’m Rey.” 

Her accent is smooth, and of course, her name’s some sunbeam shit like Rey. 

“Ben.” Offering his name by way of reply, gruffly. 

Rey just giggles at that and claps a hand over her mouth, “ I’m sorry. they say it’s a bad practice to get high on your own supply but you’d find it much easier to alphabetize if you’re not miserably sober while you do it. makes me all bubbly though – didn’t mean to laugh. I swear it.” Rey gives him a two fingered salute and he’s smiling.

She organizes her strains by name? 

Ben would mock that shit in an instant if it were anyone else, but all he wants to do is congratulate her on being the single greatest human being between the two of them. And also — he’s smiling? 

???

Either the flower he’d smoked earlier had opened up a parallel universe where he had a personality that wasn’t comparable to sand-paper, or Rey, in like, three whole minutes of existing near him, has made him overcome his decade-long aversion to smiling.

Ben’s so completely fucked.

He’s also just been staring at her in shellshocked silence since she’d finished talking and he realizes how big of an idiot he must look to her right now.

“Oh yeah, you’re good. I smoke my own bud. I mean, it’d be sorta weird to buy someone else’s?” He shrugs noncommittally, attempting to come off as blase but really, Ben just sounds like a dick. 

Rey laughs, and Ben smiles for the second god damned time.

Is she a witch?

More importantly —

                            —is she single?

“I’d buy from you but I can’t get a medical card, hence the recreation assimilation.” Rey waggles her fingers in a mock, spooky gesture, and now its Ben’s turn to laugh, but it sounds more like a bark because the neighborhood humbug is out of practice.

Ben toes the sidewalk, and ashes his cigarette against the stucco wall behind him, watching as Rey tracks the smoke with her heavily lined eyes, and when she bites on her lower lip thoughtfully, Ben thinks his traitor dick has acquired self-sentience and was one bad-line away from leaving him behind.

“You can come into the shop. If you’ve got a seller’s license it isn’t an issue.” Not true, but he kinda hopes she won’t call his bluff.

Rey doesn’t. 

She does pull out her phone and offer it to him, “Well, red-eyes white dragon. Its bad form to smoke alone. Shoot me a text next time, maybe we can have a little friendly competition.”

Ben keys in his number with embarrassing quickness, and Rey messages him with a little sunshine emoji, and Ben catches himself before he smiles a third time – that’s just excessive. 

He’s about to say something, but Rey’s already crossing back over her side of the street, but she calls over her shoulder.

“Show me yours and I’ll show you mine.” Gesturing to the window, and clearly in reference to her stock.

Ben’s dick isn’t smart enough to know the difference and he almost blacks out in front of his store.

[purplesurveys]

1372

survey by emptyspaces

What brand of face wash do you use? Good ol’ water, if that counts. I don’t use skincare products.

Do you know anyone who owns a boat? Probably. You never really know the people in your circle who are secretly insanely wealthy.

What's one place you've been that you never want to go back to? This bar near my university named Drew’s, which I’m never gonna get to ‘go back’ to anyway since they closed down several years ago. The place always had its lights compleely turned off at night – so you never knew what people were doing in there – and the stairs leading up to it was apparently always laden with vomit on Fridays. I went there once just to see if the rumors were true and never came back.

Did you get carded the last time you ordered an alcoholic drink? I did, actually. Was the only one in our circle to be asked for an ID, so that was a delight.

What social media sites do you use? I’m most active on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And here too, I guess.

What did you buy the last time you went grocery shopping? I’ve never gone legit grocery shopping, i.e. with a full list and all, but the last time I had to pick up something was for Cooper’s pet food.

Do you have any pets? What kinds? I have two dogs.

Who takes care of your pets when you're out of town? Most of the time we bring them to my maternal grandma since their house is super near; but if we’re headed south, where my paternal grandparents live, we make a quick stop to their place instead.

Do you know anyone who uses medical marijuana? I probably do but just not aware of exactly who. That’s not legal here so anyone who uses marijuana for medicinal purposes would have to do it secretly.

Are you a talkative person? With certain company, yeah. I’m not always.

What's the last letter of your last name? Nope.

When was the last time you traveled to a state you had never been to before? I think that would be Batanes, four years ago. I’ve been to dozens of provinces since then but they were all repeat trips.

Did your parents give you an allowance as a kid? Only starting in high school. I had packed meals as a kid and if we went to the mall, it was more of me having to ask my parents if they can buy me this or that.

Do you drink enough water? Definitely not. I used to; but I’m so neglectful of my well-being these days lol. I only remember that I haven’t eaten or drank anything after a full day of work.

Do you know anyone who's died in childbirth? I had a cousin who died early. It’s not talked about in the family, so I’ve never known the details, e.g. if it was a miscarriage or if she died shortly after birth.

Where is your significant other right now? (if you have one) I don’t have one.

Do you know how to knit? Not knit but I did dabble in embroidery for a few months, after my breakup. I’ve let go of the hobby now but will always have a short spot for it considering how much it served as therapy and solace for me then.

What did you do for your 21st birthday? My ex and I were in a fight all day, and Angela felt bad about me not being able to celebrate my birthday with anyone so she planned an impromptu date with me in the evening and brought me to the arcade and my favorite restaurant.

Would you ever consider moving to another country for your career? In a heartbeat. It’s never been an issue to me, especially now that I’m single and don’t have a hard reason to have to stay in the country.

What is your religion? (if you have one) I’m atheist.

What religious beliefs were you raised with? Catholicism, but I quietly said bye to that when I was around 10.

Have you ever been to a hotel bar? Yeah, just a couple though because they jack up the prices ridiculously in hotels. My go-to would just be the one my mom helps manage since she’s chummy with the staff, so my friends and I get to have free shots and meals lol.

Do you wear foundation? Almost never.

Have you ever been to New Hampshire? I have not.

What's something that people always seem to misunderstand about you? People always think I’m active and religiously work out, which is a huge compliment in itself but is hilarious because I hate exercise and sweating and straining my body.  I have tried starting routines before, but it’s just never been for me.

What was your last purchase that was over $100? My new phone and my new hair dye job. I went insane last weekend LOL

Do you own a Kindle? No, never had one. I’ve always preferred books anyway, if I do read.

Are you (or have you ever been) a vegetarian? Nope. That’s so hard to maintain here, where alternative diets are usually more accessible to the super well-off.

What budgeting method do you use? I try not to go below a certain amount every paycheck. I also already have a routine set in place for the merch I buy so that I don’t go overboard.

Do you know anyone who has run for public office? Yes.

Describe the shoes you wore yesterday. I didn’t wear any yesterday.

Did you collect Pokemon cards as a kid? I did, but just fake ones since I didn’t know how the cards worked to get the real deal anyway. I also had the Pogs.

Do you have the same best friend as you did 5 years ago? Only Angela. The other one is out of my life.

Have you ever kissed someone you shouldn't have? Nah.

What scent of hand soap is in your bathroom? Just a plain, soap-y scent.

Are you still friends with any exes? No.

Do you have a cartilage piercing? Nope. Other than my earlobe I don’t have any.

About how many people live in your town/city? Not sure, if I had to guess it would probably be close to a million.

How would you describe your home decor style? Just minimalist but still cozy. I never plan for my own space to have a bunch of furniture; just the basics and a few knickknacks here and there for aesthetics would be enough for me.

Do you sleep with your closet door open or closed? Always closed.

[ecogoth1]

Part 4 So Logan Your mother has kept you away from you and your father away From You Time to ask why I'm still terminally ill Ask why they took your grandfathers home And no family members stopped them Ask why they left your grandfather to die starve And cast Him on to the streets in the worst Pandemic in history.... Ask who in that situation would survive None would My love for my son my grandkids Keep.me alive still does I.kept my promises Lake Henshaw safe the evil people except evil mangers are gone Basically or under control.. People who could caused our families harm left.. Because they knew I was a good man a honerable man Grandfather stopped the use of marijuana For medical reasons as soon as the perscibed treat and recovery from The effects of cancer and stroke where over.. Then he pitched in during this virus in houston Texas for everyone as a chaplin as a Reverand praying with every one. Who needs it.. Still I was left homeless Grandfather wanted his home his stuff he saved to give to you and lily given to him by his parents his grandparents back the evil people seem to have won law doesn't exist to help anyone in California unless your a crimal.. So please ask your mom to move you both out California because I had 5 other christains who have propoheic dreams like me that California will be the victim of a nuclear event.. Southern California I think near San onfrea I've been right 5 times now So if all our there don't want history to remember you as horrible people who sat there on your phones or computers just watching Please get me Justice finally for my self my family my son my grandkids and get me a small place to live in spring Texas.. I do have mailing address there And for love God 🙏 help me get my inheritance and fix my bank account so I don't have to keep starving or borrowing money from people or asking for money I hate asking people for help I've been screaming at you all for almost two years now and no one would help save me?? Why? Few that dontaned money expect and did expect it back which leaves me broke I don't have credit cards or stuff like that I pay my bills off always have unlike our families do.. https://www.instagram.com/p/CA0MMO2n0NH/?igshid=pnp94a8xvfu5

[andresqhxz324-blog]

Where to Get Legal Medical Cannabis - A Guide to Dispensaries and also Clinics

"Colorado citizens voted to pass Change 20 in 2000 unlocking for an increase of brand-new lawful clinical cannabis dispensaries. Over the past numerous years, the Colorado medical cannabis market has actually ended up being the fastest-growing sector in the state. It was reported in 2010 that the variety of Denver dispensaries has actually grown to surpass the variety of Starbucks in the city.

With this frustrating variety of brand-new marijuana dispensaries opening up throughout the state, it's tough to understand where to begin. So if you have your Colorado medical marijuana computer registry card and also you're questioning exactly how to locate the most effective Colorado dispensaries, then keep reviewing for some helpful pointers ...

The very first step in finding a brand-new clinical marijuana dispensary is to identify all the dispensaries that are in close distance to your place. Google maps is a great tool for this job because it will actually overlay area markers if you do a look for something like ""Denver Dispensary"".

Once you have a checklist of a few dispensaries in your location, you can begin researching each by doing one more Google look for their specific name and also search phrases. So look for something like ""Denver dispensary evaluation"" or just ""the very best Denver dispensaries"" and you need to get you the appropriate results. I recommend using the research study from these results to further improve your list down to concerning 3 of the extra fascinating dispensaries.

You've done the correct study and read the reviews, now it's time to see these top 3 medical marijuana dispensaries to see on your own. One thing to bear in mind is that since this market is still so young there actually isn't a sector criterion when it involves just how individual Colorado cannabis dispensaries run. What this suggests for you is that every Colorado dispensary that you check out will certainly be a distinct experience!

While the majority of Colorado medical cannabis dispensaries do not require consultations to access the medication watching spaces, it's probably a good concept to call ahead as well as see if there is mosting likely to be a wait to be seen. When making your individual analysis of a new Colorado cannabis dispensary, there are a couple of points you will want to pay attention to on your initial visit.

Your first impression will usually be the waiting room location where you will certainly need to offer your Colorado clinical cannabis registry card to the person at the counter. After that, you will either be instantly taken to the bud room or you will need to wait up until your recalled. Wait times are generally really short, typically only taking a couple of minutes. I have actually discovered several Denver dispensaries have no delay at all during none height buy cbd near me times.

The most fundamental part of assessing a new medical marijuana dispensary in Colorado is your experience in the bud checking out area. For many people, their first time walking right into this area can be frustrating. With row after row of glass containers loaded with the finest Colorado expanded medicinal cannabis, clients simply don't recognize where to start.

Well, below are my suggestions for dealing with this preliminary experience. Start with the most effective. Ask to see the A grade, top shelf, red dot or whatever they call their ideal marijuana pressures. This will quickly offer you a concept of the very best that they have to provide. Additionally, don't forget the lower qualities of bud ... in some cases you can find the very best worth for your dollar below.

Additionally, make certain to make note of their rates framework. This can be a major determining variable when picking a primary caretaker over time. A lot of Denver dispensaries offer different rates frameworks for participants and also nonmembers, so make certain to ask each for certain information.

After visiting a couple of locations you will certainly begin to see just how the basic decoration and environment of Colorado marijuana dispensaries can widely differ from place to place. Some dispensaries offer a stark clinical setting that resembles a physician's office while others will certainly feel much more like you're strolling into a close friend's comfy home. Whatever your choice, there's a Colorado clinical marijuana dispensary that's right for you.

This write-up is not a recommendation for marijuana use. Marijuana is still a drug however it is incredibly valuable in dealing with many individuals with different conditions. The clinical cannabis globe is rapidly transforming so I highly recommend reviewing the official Rules and also Laws for Medicinal use of Cannabis from the Colorado Department of Wellness before making any kind of choices regarding the medical use marijuana. In the end, the very best decisions are informed decisions, so make sure to do detailed research on any type of subject entailing your health prior to acting."

[trevorxokc258]

Cannabis Withdrawal Effects - What Should You Expect When You Quit Weed?

"Colorado residents voted to pass Amendment 20 in 2000 unlocking for an influx of brand-new legal medical marijuana dispensaries. Over the past several years, the Colorado medical cannabis market has actually become the fastest-growing market in the state. It was reported in 2010 that the variety of Denver dispensaries has actually grown to surpass the variety of Starbucks in the city.

With this frustrating number of new marijuana dispensaries opening up throughout the state, it's hard to understand where to begin. So if you have your Colorado medical cannabis computer system registry card as well as you're wondering just how to find the most effective Colorado dispensaries, after that maintain checking out for some helpful pointers ...

The initial step in locating a brand-new medical marijuana dispensary is to determine all the dispensaries that are in close proximity to your place. Google maps is a terrific tool for this job due to the fact that it will in fact overlay location pens if you do a look for something like ""Denver Dispensary"".

When you have a list of a couple of dispensaries in your area, you can begin looking into each by doing an additional Google look for their certain name as well as keyword phrases. So search for something like ""Denver dispensary testimonial"" or just ""the most effective Denver dispensaries"" as well as you should get you the ideal outcomes. I recommend utilizing the research study from these outcomes to additional improve your list down to concerning 3 of the a lot more fascinating dispensaries.

You have actually done the correct study as well as check out the evaluations, currently it's time to go to these top 3 medical marijuana dispensaries to see on your own. One point to remember is that given that this market is still so young there actually isn't a sector standard when it comes to exactly how specific Colorado marijuana dispensaries operate. What this means for you is that every Colorado dispensary that you go to will be a distinct experience!

While the majority of Colorado medicinal marijuana dispensaries do not need consultations to access the medicine viewing spaces, it's most likely a great idea to call in advance as well as see if there is mosting likely to be a delay to be seen. When making your individual evaluation of a brand-new Colorado marijuana dispensary, there are a couple of points you will wish to pay close attention to on your first see.

Your first impression will generally be the waiting space area where you will buy cbd near me certainly need to offer your Colorado clinical cannabis pc registry card to the person at the counter. Afterwards, you will either be immediately required to the bud room or you will have to wait up until your recalled. Wait times are normally really short, frequently only taking a few mins. I've located several Denver dispensaries have no wait in all throughout none top times.

The most vital part of reviewing a new clinical marijuana dispensary in Colorado is your experience in the bud seeing space. For many individuals, their first time walking into this area can be frustrating. With row after row of glass jars packed with the finest Colorado expanded medicinal marijuana, clients just don't understand where to start.

Well, right here are my ideas for dealing with this first experience. Start with the most effective. Ask to see the A quality, top shelf, red dot or whatever they call their ideal marijuana strains. This will right away give you a suggestion of the best that they have to supply. Also, do not forget the reduced grades of bud ... sometimes you can discover the best value for your dollar right here.

Also, be sure to make note of their rates structure. This can be a significant determining factor when choosing a key caregiver in the future. Many Denver dispensaries supply different rates frameworks for participants and nonmembers, so make sure to ask each for specific details.

After going to a few places you will certainly begin to see just how the general decor as well as ambience of Colorado marijuana dispensaries can commonly vary from place to location. Some dispensaries offer a plain clinical environment that resembles a doctor's office while others will certainly feel a lot more like you're strolling right into a pal's comfy home. Whatever your preference, there's a Colorado clinical marijuana dispensary that's right for you.

This article is not a recommendation for marijuana usage. Cannabis is still a medication but it is exceptionally handy in treating lots of people with numerous disorders. The clinical cannabis globe is swiftly altering so I highly suggest checking out the official Regulations as well as Rules for Medicinal use of Cannabis from the Colorado Division of Health and wellness before making any kind of choices concerning the medicinal use cannabis. In the end, the best decisions are notified decisions, so make certain to do comprehensive research on any topic entailing your wellness prior to acting."

[riverecus908]

Use Medical Cannabis

"Colorado people elected to pass Modification 20 in 2000 opening the door for an increase of new legal clinical cannabis dispensaries. Over the past numerous years, the Colorado medical marijuana industry has actually come to be the fastest-growing market in the state. It was reported in 2010 that the number of Denver dispensaries has grown to exceed the variety of Starbucks in the city.

With this frustrating number of brand-new marijuana dispensaries opening up across the state, it's hard to recognize where to start. So if you have your Colorado medical marijuana computer system registry card as well as you're questioning exactly how to locate the very best Colorado dispensaries, then maintain reading for some handy ideas ...

The first step in locating a new clinical cannabis dispensary is to determine all the dispensaries that remain in close distance to your location. Google maps is a terrific tool for this job because it will actually overlay location markers if you do a look for something like ""Denver Dispensary"".

Once you have a checklist of a couple of dispensaries in your location, you can begin investigating each by doing one more Google search for their specific name as well as key phrases. So look for something like ""Denver dispensary evaluation"" or just ""the very best Denver dispensaries"" and also you need to get you the proper results. I recommend using the study from these results to additional improve your note down to regarding 3 of the extra interesting dispensaries.

You've done the correct research as well as check out the evaluations, now it's time to visit these top 3 medical cannabis dispensaries to see for yourself. One point to keep in mind is that since this market is still so young there really isn't a sector standard when it involves just how individual Colorado cannabis dispensaries run. What this means for you is that every Colorado dispensary that you see will be an one-of-a-kind experience!

While a lot of Colorado medicinal cannabis dispensaries do not call for consultations to access the medication checking out rooms, it's possibly a good idea to call in advance and see if there is mosting likely to be a delay to be seen. When making your individual assessment of a new Colorado marijuana dispensary, there are a few points you will wish to pay close attention to on your first see.

Your impression will usually be the waiting room area where you will require to offer your Colorado medical cannabis computer system registry card to the individual at the counter. Afterwards, you will certainly either be quickly taken to the bud area or you will need to wait up until your called back. Wait times are usually extremely short, typically only taking a couple of minutes. I have actually found lots of Denver dispensaries have no delay in any way during none top times.

One of the most fundamental part of evaluating a brand-new medical marijuana dispensary in Colorado is your experience in the bud seeing space. For many individuals, their very first time strolling right into this space can be frustrating. With row after row of glass jars loaded with the finest Colorado expanded medical marijuana, clients simply do not understand where to start.

Well, below are my suggestions for taking care of this preliminary experience. Start with the best. Ask to see the A grade, top shelf, red dot or whatever they call their ideal cannabis stress. This will promptly offer you a concept of the best that they need to offer. Likewise, don't ignore the reduced grades of bud ... sometimes you can discover the best worth for your dollar below.

Additionally, make sure to make note of their pricing framework. This can be a significant determining variable when picking a key caregiver over time. A lot of Denver dispensaries supply separate rates frameworks for participants and nonmembers, so make certain to ask each for specific details.

After checking out a couple of places you will begin to see just how the general design and also atmosphere of Colorado cannabis dispensaries can widely vary from cbd near me area to place. Some dispensaries present a plain clinical setting that resembles a physician's workplace while others will certainly really feel extra like you're strolling right into a pal's comfy residence. Whatever your choice, there's a Colorado clinical cannabis dispensary that's right for you.

This write-up is not an endorsement for cannabis usage. Marijuana is still a medicine but it is very useful in treating many people with various conditions. The clinical marijuana globe is rapidly altering so I strongly recommend checking out the main Policies and also Regulations for Medicinal use of Marijuana from the Colorado Division of Wellness prior to making any kind of decisions concerning the medicinal use of marijuana. In the long run, the very best choices are notified choices, so be sure to do comprehensive study on any type of subject including your health prior to acting."

[knoxtdmi902]

Should Cannabis Be Legalized? - Three Things You Really Did Not Learn About Medical Cannabis Until Now

"Colorado citizens elected to pass Change 20 in 2000 unlocking for an increase of brand-new legal medical marijuana dispensaries. Over the past several years, the Colorado medical marijuana sector has ended up being the fastest-growing sector in the state. It was reported in 2010 that the number of Denver dispensaries has actually grown to outnumber the number of Starbucks in the city.

With this overwhelming number of brand-new cannabis dispensaries opening across the state, it's tough to understand where to begin. So if you have your Colorado clinical marijuana computer registry card and also you're asking yourself just how to discover the most effective Colorado dispensaries, after that maintain checking out for some useful pointers ...

The very first step in situating a brand-new clinical cannabis dispensary is to recognize all the dispensaries that remain in close distance to your location. Google maps is a wonderful device for this job because it will really overlay place pens if you do a search for something like ""Denver Dispensary"".

When you have a listing of a couple of dispensaries in your location, you can start researching each by doing another Google search for their particular name as well as keyword phrases. So search for something like ""Denver dispensary review"" or just ""the most effective Denver dispensaries"" and you ought to get you the ideal results. I suggest using the research from these outcomes to further improve your list down to concerning 3 of the more intriguing dispensaries.

You've done the correct study and read the testimonials, now it's time to visit these leading 3 clinical cannabis dispensaries to see on your own. Something to keep in mind is that since this market is still so young there really isn't an industry requirement when it involves exactly how specific Colorado cannabis dispensaries run. What this indicates for you is that every Colorado dispensary that you visit will certainly be a special experience!

While most Colorado medicinal marijuana dispensaries do not call for visits to access the medication checking out spaces, it's most likely a great suggestion to call ahead and also see if there is mosting likely to be a wait to be seen. When making your individual assessment of a brand-new Colorado cannabis dispensary, there are a couple of points you will certainly want to pay very close attention to on your first browse through.

Your impression will usually be the waiting space area where you will need to supply your Colorado medical marijuana computer system registry card to the person at the counter. After that, you will either be immediately required to the bud space or you will certainly need to wait until your called back. Wait times are usually really brief, typically only taking a couple of mins. I have actually discovered numerous Denver dispensaries have no wait in all throughout buy cbd near me none height times.

One of the most fundamental part of examining a new medical cannabis dispensary in Colorado is your experience in the bud watching space. For many people, their first time walking into this space can be overwhelming. With row after row of glass containers packed with the finest Colorado grew medical cannabis, people simply don't know where to begin.

Well, below are my ideas for handling this preliminary experience. Begin with the best. Ask to see the A quality, leading shelf, red dot or whatever they call their finest cannabis strains. This will immediately provide you a concept of the best that they have to provide. Likewise, do not overlook the lower grades of bud ... in some cases you can find the very best value for your dollar here.

Additionally, make sure to make note of their pricing structure. This can be a major determining element when selecting a primary caregiver in the long run. Most Denver dispensaries supply different pricing structures for members and nonmembers, so make certain to ask each for specific details.

After checking out a couple of locations you will certainly start to see exactly how the basic decor and atmosphere of Colorado marijuana dispensaries can commonly vary from location to area. Some dispensaries present a stark professional environment that's similar to a physician's workplace while others will feel much more like you're walking right into a friend's comfortable residence. Whatever your preference, there's a Colorado medical marijuana dispensary that's right for you.

This article is not an endorsement for marijuana use. Marijuana is still a medicine yet it is very valuable in dealing with many individuals with various disorders. The clinical marijuana world is swiftly changing so I strongly suggest reviewing the main Policies and Regulations for Medicinal use of Marijuana from the Colorado Division of Health and wellness before making any decisions concerning the medical use of cannabis. Ultimately, the most effective decisions are educated decisions, so make sure to do thorough research on any type of topic including your health and wellness prior to acting."

[shanepmoy085]

Marijuana in Ancient China

"Exactly how can we account for what is possibly among one of the most remarkable lawful variations in clinical cannabis to day? The problem of non-profit ""sale"" of clinical cannabis to qualified individuals through collectives and cooperatives. There's nothing else like this conflict. What do the professionals say regarding this anyhow?

Steve Cooley, The Los Angeles District Attorney, differs with Jerry Brown, the California State Attorney General.

How could 2 prominent state-employed attorneys concern completely various verdicts on the solution? Initially, the Los Angeles District Attorney claims ""all sales are prohibited"". The The Golden State State Attorney general of the United States was sure sufficient to write in his standards that ""shop collectives may be legal under state legislation"". How could this be? Besides, each lawyer is taking a look at the very same point, right?

So what is the answer? What does the regulation say?

COMPASSIONATE-USE ACT 1996

Proposition 215 was approved by a bulk of Californians in 1996 as well as it became known as the Compassionate-Use Act. The statute itself does not state anything about ""sales"" however it does talk about ""belongings"", ""growing"", obtaining medical cannabis, about cost as well as ""distribution"".

It does say that professional clients and also their key caretakers will not be a sufferer of criminal concerns:

""( B) To make sure that individuals and also their primary caretakers who obtain and also use marijuana for clinical purposes upon the suggestion of a doctor are exempt to prosecution or sanction.""

And also it likewise presses governments to assist make sure ""risk-free and also affordable access"" to clinical cannabis for ""all certified clients"".

""( C) To encourage the government as well as state federal governments to apply a plan for the safe and budget-friendly circulation of cannabis to all people in medical requirement of cannabis.""

The Los Angeles District Attorney, Steve Cooley, had State and also Federal police officer plunder a clinical marijuana collective as well as apprehension at the very least 3 individuals, the week before Christmas. He insists ""all sales are unlawful"". This seems to be against cbd oil sold near me the letter as well as spirit of the regulation, not the reference the spirit of the period.

Additionally if all ""sales"" are prohibited, why does the Compassionate-Use Act claim ""budget friendly""? If the individuals are monetarily in charge of marijuana, just how does Cooley anticipate the money to be exchanged? What's wrong with step-by-step reimbursements?

MEDICAL CANNABIS PROGRAM OF 2004

The Medical Marijuana Program (MMP) entered regulation in 2004 through the legal authorization of Us senate Expense 420. It was the state's effort ""to implement a prepare for the risk-free and cost effective circulation of marijuana to all clients in clinical need of cannabis,"" as the Compassionate-Use Act of 1996 (Prop 215) urges the State and also Federal government to do.

The MMP improves accessibility to clinical cannabis for qualified clients by authorizing collectives and cooperatives.

""( 3) Enhance the access of people and caregivers to clinical cannabis via collective, cooperative cultivation tasks.""

What Steve Cooley doesn't appear to recognize is charitable store front Medical Marijuana Dispensing Collectives/Cooperatives are the distribution facet of ""cultivation tasks"". Similar to a collective cultivation ranch would not have customers concern the ranch to get their tomatoes, they would need to obtain their cumulative tomatoes at a farmer's market or distribution place-- that's just how medical marijuana collective farmings happen. Expanded in one area for safety and security and various other factors, then dispersed at another place.

The MMP goes on to talk about all the criminal statutes that qualified individuals and primary caretakers are exempt from. In area 11362.765, it claims: ""shall not be subject, on that particular single basis, to criminal obligation under Section 11357, 11358, 11359, 11360, 11366, 11366.5, or 11570.""

Let's take a look at each of this one at a time:

11357: [property],

11358: [cultivation],

11359: [belongings offer for sale],

11360: ["" transports, imports into this state, sells, equips, administers, or hands out""- or offers to or attempts to do any of those],

11366: [Every person who opens up or preserves any location for the purpose of unlawfully marketing, distributing, or making use of any controlled substance] 11366.5 [Managing a location for manufacture, storage and/or the distribution of a controlled substance] 11570 [Every building or location made use of for the objective of illegally selling, serving, storing, keeping, manufacturing, or distributing any kind of abused substance, forerunner, or analog defined in this department, as well as every structure or area in which or whereupon those acts happen, is a nuisance which shall be enjoined, abated, as well as protected against, and also for which damages may be recouped, whether it is a public or exclusive problem.]

The Health And Wellness Code area 11360 specifically says ""sells"". Not just that, but it also says: ""gives away"" and ""equips"". How come the LA District Attorney's office states ""all sales are unlawful"" as well as charitable storefront medical cannabis dispensing collectives/cooperatives are prohibited?

In that very same costs,

"" 11362.775. Qualified individuals, persons with legitimate recognition cards, and the designated main caretakers of qualified clients and individuals with identification cards, that link within the State of The golden state in order jointly or cooperatively to cultivate marijuana for medical functions, shall not exclusively on the basis of that undergo state criminal permissions under Section 11357, 11358, 11359, 11360, 11366, 11366.5, or 11570.""

Once again, it says that people can collectively grow cannabis and also disperse it amongst themselves for charitable. Again, the circulation of clinical marijuana is separate from the cultivation much like the manufacturing of my Vicodin lies individually from my pharmacy.

The Medical Cannabis Act likewise calls on the State Attorney general of the United States to supply guidelines related to clinical cannabis:

"" The bill would call for the Attorney General to develop and also embrace standards to ensure the protection and non-diversion of cannabis grown for medical use, as specified.""

Which precisely what State Attorney General, Jerry Brown did in the late summer of 2008

GUIDELINES FOR THE SAFETY AND ALSO NON-DIVERSION OF CANNABIS GROWN FOR MEDICAL USAGE August 2008.

To accomplish his mandate, the State Chief law officer releases these guidelines to aid law enforcement do their work according to State legislation and also to help patients comprehend those legislations.

The standards specify non-profit storefront Medical Marijuana Dispensing Collectives as well as Cooperatives could be legal under state law if they followed the guidelines and also the above legislations.

"" It is the point of view of this Workplace that a correctly arranged as well as run cumulative or cooperative that dispenses clinical cannabis via a store may be authorized under California regulation""

The State Attorney General confirms what the legislation says. The Attorney general of the United States is the highest-ranking legal worker of the State of California. His workplace also responded to the problems increased in Los Angeles by the City Attorney's workplace.

According to the New York Times on October 17: Christine Gaspar, a spokesperson for State Chief law officer Jerry Brown, stated that after Mr. Trutanich's remarks in Los Angeles, police officials and supporters from around the state had called looking for quality on clinical marijuana legislations.

Mr. Brown has released legal guidelines that allow for not-for-profit sales of clinical marijuana, she said. But, she included, with legislations being interpreted in different ways, ""the final response will ultimately originate from the courts.""

So what do the courts say?

INDIVIDUALS v. MENTCH

The District Attorney's office would certainly have you believe that the Mentch choice outlaws non-profit storefront Medical Marijuana Giving Collectives/Cooperatives and makes ""all sales unlawful"" yet that choice has to do with the definition of ""primary caretaker"" not sales.

Mentch had 82 marijuana plants growing in his residence as well as he sold the medication to 5 people that came to his home with the main function of acquiring marijuana. Most of the plants in Mentch's home belonged to him as he testified. Their procedures were not a cumulative or a cooperative nor a storefront. Mentch possessed Hemporium, for-profit caregiving, and also working as a consultant business, not a charitable cumulative or a participating.

Based upon the proof the courts concluded that Mentch's procedure was mainly a for-profit industrial venture and that he was not a primary caregiver for those he provided clinical marijuana to from his home based business. I have actually discussed this comprehensive here.

So there you have what the courts state, what the State Lawyer states, and also what the legislations state; all confirm charitable storefront dispensing of medical marijuana can be legal under State legislation.

Currently the Los Angeles District Attorney have to obey the law and also the will of the people and also quit wasting time and also resources to hurt clinical cannabis clients particularly just before Christmas. Particularly when there are over 7,000 untried rape packages that the District Attorney claims to not have the resources to handle."

[reidwyqp135-blog]

Marijuana Rapid Truths For Teenagers

"Colorado people voted to pass Amendment 20 in 2000 unlocking for an influx of new lawful clinical marijuana dispensaries. Over the past a number of years, the Colorado medical marijuana market has become the fastest-growing industry in the state. It was reported in 2010 that the number of Denver dispensaries has grown to surpass the variety of Starbucks in the city.

With this overwhelming variety of brand-new marijuana dispensaries opening throughout the state, it's tough to know where to begin. So if you have your Colorado clinical cannabis windows registry card as well as you're asking yourself just how to locate the very best Colorado dispensaries, then maintain reading for some helpful suggestions ...

The initial step in locating a brand-new medical marijuana dispensary is to identify all the dispensaries that remain in close closeness to your place. Google maps is a great device for this job since it will really overlay place pens if you do a look for something like ""Denver Dispensary"".

When you have a checklist of a few dispensaries in your area, you can begin researching each by doing one more Google look for their specific name as well as key words. So look ainsworth near me for something like ""Denver dispensary review"" or just ""the best Denver dispensaries"" and you need to get you the suitable outcomes. I recommend utilizing the study from these outcomes to further improve your note down to about 3 of the extra interesting dispensaries.

You've done the proper research study and check out the evaluations, now it's time to visit these top 3 clinical marijuana dispensaries to see for yourself. One point to bear in mind is that because this market is still so young there really isn't an industry criterion when it pertains to exactly how specific Colorado cannabis dispensaries operate. What this implies for you is that every Colorado dispensary that you check out will certainly be an one-of-a-kind experience!

While the majority of Colorado medicinal cannabis dispensaries do not need visits to access the medicine viewing rooms, it's probably a good idea to call in advance as well as see if there is going to be a delay to be seen. When making your individual evaluation of a new Colorado cannabis dispensary, there are a couple of things you will intend to pay attention to on your first check out.

Your first impression will typically be the waiting room location where you will require to supply your Colorado clinical marijuana registry card to the individual at the counter. After that, you will certainly either be immediately required to the bud room or you will have to wait until your called back. Wait times are generally extremely short, frequently just taking a couple of mins. I've discovered numerous Denver dispensaries have no wait at all during none optimal times.

One of the most fundamental part of assessing a new clinical cannabis dispensary in Colorado is your experience in the bud viewing area. For many individuals, their very first time walking right into this space can be frustrating. With row after row of glass containers packed with the finest Colorado grew medical marijuana, people just do not know where to start.

Well, here are my suggestions for dealing with this preliminary experience. Begin with the most effective. Ask to see the A quality, top shelf, red dot or whatever they call their ideal cannabis stress. This will quickly offer you a concept of the most effective that they have to provide. Additionally, do not forget the reduced grades of bud ... often you can discover the best value for your buck right here.

Likewise, make sure to take note of their pricing structure. This can be a major determining element when selecting a main caregiver in the long run. The majority of Denver dispensaries supply different rates structures for members as well as nonmembers, so make sure to ask each for specific information.

After seeing a couple of areas you will certainly begin to see how the general design and also environment of Colorado marijuana dispensaries can widely differ from location to place. Some dispensaries present a stark medical atmosphere that resembles a doctor's office while others will really feel extra like you're strolling into a buddy's comfortable house. Whatever your choice, there's a Colorado clinical marijuana dispensary that's right for you.

This write-up is not a recommendation for cannabis use. Marijuana is still a medication but it is extremely helpful in dealing with many individuals with different disorders. The medical marijuana globe is rapidly changing so I highly advise checking out the main Guidelines and also Regulations for Medicinal use Marijuana from the Colorado Department of Wellness before making any kind of choices pertaining to the medical use marijuana. In the long run, the best choices are educated decisions, so make sure to do thorough study on any type of topic involving your health and wellness prior to acting."

[dominickjanj073]

Marijuana Addiction - Actions for Getting Off of Marijuana

"Colorado residents elected to pass Modification 20 in 2000 unlocking for an influx of brand-new legal medical marijuana dispensaries. Over the past numerous years, the Colorado clinical cannabis sector has ended up being the fastest-growing sector in the state. It was reported in 2010 that the variety of Denver dispensaries has grown to surpass the variety of Starbucks in the city.

With this frustrating variety of new cannabis dispensaries opening across the state, it's difficult to recognize where to start. So if you have your Colorado medical marijuana windows registry card and also you're asking yourself exactly how to discover the most effective Colorado dispensaries, then maintain reviewing for some handy tips ...

The initial step in situating a new clinical marijuana dispensary is to recognize all the dispensaries that are in close proximity to your place. Google maps is a great tool for this job due to the fact that it will actually overlay area pens if you do a search for something like ""Denver Dispensary"".

Once you have a checklist of a few dispensaries in your location, you can begin researching each by doing an additional Google search for their particular name and also keyword phrases. So search for something like ""Denver dispensary testimonial"" or just ""the very best Denver dispensaries"" as well as you ought to get you the suitable results. I advise using the research study from these outcomes to further improve your list down to regarding 3 of the more interesting dispensaries.

You have actually done the correct research as well as review the reviews, currently it's time to go to these leading 3 medical marijuana dispensaries to see for yourself. One point to remember is that considering that this market is still so young there really isn't a market criterion when it pertains to how individual Colorado marijuana dispensaries operate. What this implies for you is that every Colorado dispensary that you go to will be an unique experience!

While a lot of Colorado medical marijuana dispensaries do not call for visits to access the medicine viewing rooms, it's most likely a good concept to call in advance as well as see if there is mosting likely to be a wait to be seen. When making your personal assessment of a new Colorado cannabis dispensary, there are a few points you will certainly intend to pay close attention to on your preliminary see.

Your impression will generally be the waiting space location where you will certainly require to supply your Colorado clinical marijuana pc registry card to the individual at the counter. After that, you will certainly either be right away required to the bud space or you will have to wait until your called back. Wait times are generally extremely short, typically only taking a few minutes. I have actually discovered lots of Denver dispensaries have no delay in all during none optimal times.

The most important part of reviewing a new medical cannabis dispensary in Colorado is your experience in the bud viewing space. For many people, their very first time strolling right into this space can be frustrating. With row after row of glass containers loaded with the finest Colorado expanded medical cannabis, patients simply don't recognize where to begin.

Well, right here are my suggestions for managing this first experience. Begin with the most effective. Ask to see the A quality, leading rack, red dot or whatever they call their ideal cannabis stress. This will quickly offer you a suggestion of the very best that they have to use. Also, don't ignore the reduced qualities of bud ... in some cases you can find the very best worth for your dollar right here.

Also, be sure to bear in mind of their pricing framework. This can be a significant determining variable when picking a primary caregiver over time. Most Denver dispensaries offer different prices structures for members and nonmembers, so make certain to ask each for specific information.

After seeing a couple of places you will certainly start to see just how the basic design as well as ambience of Colorado marijuana dispensaries can commonly vary from area to area. Some dispensaries provide a plain clinical environment that's similar to a medical professional's workplace while others will certainly really feel more like you're strolling right into a pal's comfortable house. Whatever your preference, there's a Colorado clinical marijuana dispensary that's right for you.

This article is not an endorsement for marijuana use. Marijuana is still a drug yet it is extremely valuable in dealing with many people with numerous disorders. The clinical ainsworth near me cannabis globe is swiftly transforming so I highly suggest reviewing the main Regulations as well as Rules for Medicinal use Cannabis from the Colorado Division of Wellness before making any decisions regarding the medicinal use of cannabis. In the long run, the best choices are educated decisions, so make certain to do comprehensive research on any subject involving your health and wellness prior to acting."

[mariouocn961-blog]

Selecting a Trusted Medical Marijuana Dispensary

"From the ancient Egyptians to 20th-century medicine during Restriction, there has actually constantly been an idea that alcohol has medical effects. Even today they assert that drinking a glass of red wine will certainly decrease your chance of cardiovascular disease. Of course, a glass of ordinary grape juice would certainly complete the exact same. Now, for the first time, right here in the 21st century, there are significant efforts to legislate as well as give legitimacy to the favorable medical effects of marijuana.

The use of cannabis has major social and also lawful impacts on society as a whole. Socially, is making use of cannabis acceptable? It is definitely coming to be a lot more so as 14 states as well as the Area of Columbia (our country's funding) have legislated the medicine for medicinal usage. The city of Breckenridge, Colorado has actually legalized it for entertainment use. It is not uncommon to see people smoking marijuana joints on the Pearl Road Shopping Center in Stone. Is this socially appropriate behavior? In November, California, desperate to balance its budget plan, has a suggestion to legislate the recreational use of cannabis by adults!

Now, I am not a prude or a cranky old man (maybe a crotchety middle-aged male), however as a parent of two young, impressionable children, I certainly do not want my kids revealed to cannabis usage in public. I likewise would certainly agree to wager that the majority of that smoking cigarettes marijuana would not want their kids to develop an addiction to marijuana when they grew up.

Legally, just how does police respond to people making use of or having cannabis? This inquiry is the origin of all that is essentially wrong with current legislations concerning medicinal cannabis. Head of state Barack Obama's Administration has actually mentioned quite plainly in March 2009 that they will certainly not pursue distributors of clinical cannabis. That generally put the enforcement rules right into the states themselves.

The golden state and Colorado are the two most famous states managing the repercussions of their citizens legalizing cannabis for medicinal use. Among the basic problems that all states that have legislated making use of marijuana for clinical functions encounter is that no one was ready when these suggestions passed. By that I imply, the propositions did not detail just how the state would deal with refining and also settling this brand-new sector. There were no procedures for who could become a medical marijuana dispensary, just how to classify the businesses, where they can open up store or even how to tax the market.

It is interesting to keep in mind that after California came to be the initial state to pass a regulation legislating medicinal marijuana in 1996, nothing truly occurred. Consider the current ""pot shop"" phenomenon in The golden state for a moment. Doctors, individuals, as well as owners took extremely cautionary paths. Couple of doctors would risk their medical licenses by suggesting marijuana, few brave business owners would certainly run the risk of opening up a store that could be plundered by federal representatives at any moment. Only those that the law was made for, individuals suffering from glaucoma, cancer cells, and also AIDS looked for suggestions for medical marijuana.

What occurred? Why the rapid development in applications to make use of and sell clinical cannabis? While the modification in governmental managements and also lawful settings relating to the enforcement of federal marijuana laws from Shrub to Obama favors the ""pot shop"" community, there is no doubt that the huge surge took place well before Bush moved back to Texas.

The number of medicinal marijuana dispensaries has actually exploded in all states where it has ended up being lawful. According to a story in USA Today (March 8, 2007), the number of dispensaries in Los Angeles boosted from four in late 2005 to 98 less than a year later on. In June 2010 there were 186 ""pot shops"" running within the Los Angeles city limits. Actually, an estimated 50 similar stores were dislodged of service as a result of market over-saturation. With 186 ""pot shops"" open up the City of Los Angeles had more than 400 authorized applications for dispensaries within the city limitations that had yet to open their doors.

Police as well as city councils were absolutely unprepared for the legalization of marijuana. With the variety of stores and individuals increasing at shocking rates the lawful marijuana industry is basically running itself, with lawmakers trying ever-so-hard to reach the huge snowball that is collecting dimension and also rate daily. The pharmaceutical industry has not seen such an extreme increase in the requirement for medicine since Jonas Salk designed the polio vaccine.

According to a regional information channel in Denver, the state was receiving greater than 1,000 applications for a clinical cannabis certificate daily. According to the station, as of August 26, 2010, the state had a backlog of in between 60,000 and 70,000 applications.

What were every one of these bad suffering souls taking in the past clinical cannabis became lawful therefore available? As soon as you have your ""medical cannabis card"" there are numerous places you can most likely to discover your ""medicine"". If a dispensary such as ""CannaMart"", ""Selection Organics"", Nature's Wonder"", ""Flower Power Botanicals"", ""Premier Wellness Center"" or ""Marijuana Depot"" is not within a brief drive, just inspect online through Google.

With the federal government making a decision to step back and also states completely unprepared and unclear exactly how to manage this industry, it has fallen into the hands of specific areas. Many city councils like those in Aurora as well as Broomfield, Colorado has actually banned dispensaries from their towns. Certainly, these cities will face legal actions from prospective owners and needy individuals who discover it tough to drive 10 miles to obtain their ""medicine"".

The cities are starting to get even more help from the state degree. In Colorado, those with a criminal record are no more allowed to have a dispensary. The attorney general of the United States are starting to take an active take a look at exactly how to manage the stores. While this is a good idea as well as has forced many locations to shut, the industry still appears to be spiraling out of hand.

Controling the sale of this industry is vital. It is wise to begin with the people that have the shops and also function their means down. Then, maybe the most significant difficulty of all will be to deal with those just how as well as who obtain prescriptions for medical cannabis. That is a topic for the future.

It is important to keep in mind that like alcohol and also cigarette, marijuana is a drug. If you or someone you recognize may be addicted to cannabis or other medications, it is essential to seek help. There are numerous alcohol and also medicine understanding programs one can participate in, as well as a variety of support groups like Alcoholics cbd oil for sale near me Anonymous (AA). For those who would certainly choose to take a program in the personal privacy of their own residence, there are likewise online alcohol courses as well as alcohol and also drug courses."

[juliusrrsi597]

Optimizing Return

"Colorado people elected to pass Amendment 20 in 2000 unlocking for an increase of brand-new lawful clinical cannabis dispensaries. Over the past a number of years, the Colorado medical marijuana sector has actually ended up being the fastest-growing sector in the state. It was reported in 2010 that the number of Denver dispensaries has actually grown to outnumber the variety of Starbucks in the city.

With this overwhelming variety of brand-new marijuana dispensaries opening up throughout the state, it's hard to recognize where to begin. So if you have your Colorado clinical cannabis pc registry card and you're asking yourself just how to discover the most effective Colorado dispensaries, then maintain checking out for some handy ideas ...

The initial step in finding a new clinical cannabis dispensary is to recognize all the dispensaries that remain in close proximity to your place. Google maps is a great device for this task because it will actually overlay location pens if you do a search for something like ""Denver Dispensary"".

As soon as you have a checklist of a few dispensaries in your area, you can start researching each by doing one more Google look for their details name and also keywords. So search for something like ""Denver dispensary evaluation"" or simply ""the most effective Denver dispensaries"" as well as you must get you the suitable outcomes. I advise making use of the research from these outcomes to additional refine your note down to regarding 3 of the extra fascinating dispensaries.

You've done the proper research and review the evaluations, currently it's time to check out these top 3 medical marijuana dispensaries to see for yourself. One point to keep in mind is that considering that this market is still so young there really isn't a sector requirement when it involves just how private Colorado marijuana dispensaries run. What this suggests for you is that every Colorado dispensary that you go to will certainly be a distinct experience!

While many Colorado medical cannabis dispensaries do not require appointments to access the medication seeing rooms, it's possibly a good concept to call ahead and see if there is mosting likely to be a wait to be seen. When making your personal assessment of a new Colorado marijuana dispensary, there are a few things you will wish to pay very close attention to on your preliminary see.

Your first impression will usually be the waiting space area where you will require to supply your Colorado medical cannabis registry card to the person at the counter. Afterwards, you will either be immediately required to the bud area or you will certainly need to wait until your called back. Wait times are normally very short, usually just taking a few mins. I have actually found numerous Denver dispensaries have no wait in any way throughout none top times.

One of the most important part of examining a new clinical cannabis dispensary in Colorado is your experience in the bud seeing room. For many people, their first time strolling into this room can be frustrating. With row after row of glass jars loaded with the finest Colorado grew medical cannabis, patients simply don't understand where to start.

Well, right here are my tips for dealing with this first cbd oil near me experience. Start with the best. Ask to see the A quality, leading shelf, red dot or whatever they call their best cannabis stress. This will immediately provide you a concept of the best that they have to use. Also, don't neglect the reduced grades of bud ... occasionally you can locate the very best value for your buck right here.

Likewise, make sure to remember of their prices structure. This can be a significant determining element when picking a main caretaker in the future. Most Denver dispensaries supply different pricing structures for participants as well as nonmembers, so make sure to ask each for specific information.

After visiting a few areas you will start to see just how the basic decor and environment of Colorado cannabis dispensaries can commonly vary from area to location. Some dispensaries offer a raw professional atmosphere that resembles a doctor's office while others will certainly feel much more like you're strolling right into a buddy's comfy residence. Whatever your preference, there's a Colorado clinical marijuana dispensary that's right for you.

This post is not an endorsement for marijuana usage. Cannabis is still a medicine but it is very handy in dealing with many people with different conditions. The medical marijuana world is rapidly transforming so I highly recommend reading the main Regulations as well as Rules for Medicinal use of Cannabis from the Colorado Department of Health and wellness before making any choices relating to the medicinal use cannabis. In the long run, the best choices are informed decisions, so make sure to do extensive study on any type of subject including your health before acting."