talesfromtheindigoghost

[talesfromtheindigoghost]

Ko-Fi Prompt Mini-Story: A Talking Dog

“My dog can talk, you know.”

The man silently grits his teeth as his new step son repeated this “fact” to him for the fifth time that day. “If he could, he would have said something to me by now.” he glared at the old, drooping basset hound that stared unblinking into nothingness with blind, milky eyes.

The truth was that the man despised this dog and its owner, the eight year old step son to be struggling to cut his own hotdogs. The gritting became less silent as he felt his patience wearing thin, his fingers gripping tightly into magazine he was flipping through. He squeezed dangerously, ruining the cover and partially tearing it from its staples.

“My dog says that it doesn’t talk to you because you’re a shithead.”

Flesh cracked loudly against flesh, a spoonful of mac n’ cheese and a morsel of hotdog the boy had finally succeeded in cutting to the size he wanted went flying from his mouth as the spoon clanged loudly against the floor across the room.

His cheek made the same strained sound as the magazine between the man’s cruel grip.

Neither of them said a word beyond the shuddering deep breaths behind the man’s hateful and crazed stare. A cold, challenging stare that seemed to dare him to cry, to react, to give him an excuse to take it even further.

Until the man’s cellphone caught his attention. The caller ID made him break into a satisfied smile, her contact photo was a trashy bit of amateur porn he had pressured her into letting him take after he popped the question.

“Yeah?” he answered expectantly, letting go of the shaking boy who was struggling with every bit of will in his body not to cry because crying meant being given a real reason to cry. And he always felt so guilty, being the simple kind of child that genuinely believes it’s hurting them more than it’s hurting him.

“It’s floppy.” her voice sobbed on the other end. The man was already rolling his eyes.

“The vet says his results came back terrible and he won’t survive the week.”

The man glanced towards where the stupid fat thing had been sitting only to be caught off guard by its disappearance, or rather its seemingly sudden appearance in the backseat of the man’s car. It stared dead ahead into the emptiness in front of it, a chill running down his spine as he felt some semblance of eye contact with those useless bowls of grey water.

“Try not to say anything but… can you drive him here? I’m out at the ranch.” Great, not only did he have to play cab driver for a dying pile of folds and droop but he had to waste the gas on an hour long drive into the fields.

He shoved the boy away, drinking in his strained whimper as he went tumbling out of his chair and onto the floor. Walking past, making sure the rest of his dinner joined him on the floor with a casually outstretched hand.

That left him with enough smug mirth to get him through the car ride without much frustration. It even made catching sight of the dog’s eyes staring into him through the rear-view mirror less of an annoyance.

Why, as he parked the car and hopped out he would even go as far as to say it had been a pleasant drive.

Until his phone started ringing again, his girlfriend’s haunted face came on the screen once more making him acutely aware that she was nowhere to be found at the ranch house.

“It’s floppy.” she wept as he answered the call, his frustrationed interrupted by a sudden metallic hissing blowing out the speaker of his phone.

He never noticed the thing made of folds and droop looming above him, maw gaping wide as its every roll and flap began to expose row after row of jagged saws.

But he definitely heard it say;

“I can talk, you know.”

--

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[talesfromtheindigoghost]

Good Intentions: Entry 4

The noise ringing through my mind was like trying to tell someone you were on the phone with about a movie, only to get tired of explaining and just held the phone up to the TV.

Screams of the thing in front of me’s regret rang through my skull, a hateful symphony of slammed doors and shattered lives pounding to the melody of a poorly tuned violin accompanying a macabre dance. Every demon I had imagined when I started shampooing my hair had made itself known to me with desperate hunger and empty hatred.

Before I could even begin to think of an appropriate way to react the thing closes the short distance from the door to the tub and sends me slamming against the freezing cold porcelain with an unintended shoulder tackle.

You ever get that moment of panic when you’re in the shower? That sudden sense of dread that convinces you that you’re about to slip and break your neck at any given moment? It’s usually inspired by dropping something or not feeling as completely sure footed as you expected to in that half a moment that feels exactly like leaning too far back in your chair and realizing you’re teetering over the edge.

My inspiration let out a horrifying and meaty screech as flecks of toxic bile and tar flew out of its dish water oatmeal mouth. An uncomfortably thick and hot mound of quivering mush violently ripped open, only to clamp down just as suddenly onto my shoulder. The dull pressure shocked me far more than any tooth or claw ever could, the thing’s obsessive jaw, or what’s passing for it, suddenly becoming a gross tourniquet as it kept me pinned against the wall.

I have no idea who I’m so furious with, whose very existence drags me to the depths of hell and its boiling lakes of rage. I can feel every bit of the thing that used to be someone’s grudge, every idle thought of dark violence or worse tightens its inhuman vice grip as I let out my own howling screaming. I hear the bone in my arm splinter before I start to feel it a solid moment later.

The radio static in my skull hisses louder, an ear piercing electronic squeal resonates through my mind until the picture comes into the view. I can hear the person this thing used to be sobbing into a glass of water after their final meal. I can taste all of the chemicals and poisons the water washes down. I can feel myself swallowing my own hatred, seething from the very depths of my soul that my death poisons someone else with regret.

The crushing creaking of my arm snaps me back to reality with a sickening pop. I hear something heavy and wet slap against the edge of the tub.

I’ve been through a lot of physical traumas in my life. Fifty times back and forth, after all, I would say it’s downright reasonable to assume I have. They were always relatively quick and painless. Slow and quiet. The kinds of things your mind doesn’t like to let itself dwell on for too long or else it’ll just ruin your day. My point is that I’ve experienced pain and shock before.

I’ve never experienced losing an arm.

I don’t care for that shit one bit, now that I think about it.

We scream together, the noises blurring together with the crashing red river pouring out of where my arm used to be. I found myself lost in that indescribable haze of death I had gotten so familiar with over the years. Blindly feeling my way through the darkness and confusion of being confronted by the monsters of our mistakes, like a starving beast that stumbled into the open back door of a butcher’s shop during payday.

Whoever the person this thing used to be had died alone. I know his life story the moment I sink my teeth into its neck in sheer desperation. His poisonous entitlement flood my mouth with tar and the deep, hateful taste of his woeful sexual frustration. I chew through waterlogged grey flesh covering my prize, the demon’s intruding desires to flay and gnash the skin of the women that denied him.

I feel everything within me become violent disgust. I live through every excruciating moment of the person this thing used to be’s life and turn around to see reality coming to splash ice water down my exposed spine. I experience the sensation of being a monster. I feel the warm blood pour over me as I end lives after I’ve violated them. I feast on their fear as they beg me for mercy. I grow drunk on the power of denying it. I crave more, I demand more. I deserve more. They should be grateful that I they had the opportunity to make me feel good.

I feel my pride and power melt away as I read the letter from someone who knows what I am.

I realize that even in death this monster can’t help but violate people.

My stomach growls and I remember my hunger.

I bite through the thin, pathetically weak vine of black licorice and feel its entire body go limp and slide away from me. The haze of death lifts like rain clouds after a storm and lets the shining sun and rainbows of euphoria fill me with an inner sense of peace and balance as I understand that this accursed demon will no longer torment the innocent.

It felt great, right up until I noticed that I was being pulled down by the dissolving blackened carcass that no longer pinned me up against the tiles. It took me half a moment to understand that I no longer had an arm to catch myself before I fall and break my neck on the side of the bath tub.

I close my eyes as the second half of the moment is spent accepting what was about to happen.

I never remember how I get here. Not at first, at least.

It’s always the same, yet it feels like it’s the first time this has ever happened.

At least, I thought so at first. I’m not alone this time. The person that thing used to be had taken its place on the ground beside me, both of us climbing to our feet in front of that gaudy gated community and its obnoxiously overstated security gate.

I look up from the jarring sight of my whole, intact arm and notice that Peter is already on his walkie talkie with a look that shows he’s just as surprised to see me as I am to be here. My gut tenses, the lead weight of anger yanks my guts into my knees and spills the contents of my heart from my mouth in a bloody and furious geyser of righteous ire.

“What in the fuck are you doing here?”

I roar at the pathetic monster whose sins had just torn my arm off and broke my neck. I don’t even feel myself hesitate from marching up to Peter’s desk and slamming my fist down on top of the golden “Ring For Service” bell situated right in front of the nervous man awaiting a response on his radio.

“What in the fuck is he doing here?”

Peter stammered and fumbled over his words, his eyes darting back and forth between the monster and I in apparent confusion, weakly shirking the responsibility of an answer through halfhearted shrugs and another plead into his walkie talkie for someone to come to the gate.

I’m so insulted at the notion that this monster, this vile and unforgivable creature, is even allowed to approach what appears to be heaven. I’m so angry that I don’t even care that we’re both still completely nude and, even further unnoticed, whole and human once more.

Not even the soothing hymns floating serenely through the golden breeze, lighting up the clouds softly with its love and profound purpose could distract me from the overwhelming indignation of knowing the monster responsible for every single one of its horrific life experiences that I had been made to relive was being entertained the opportunity to plead for entry into what I can only assume is a peaceful eternity.

Peter and I were so caught up in this sudden, unexpected confrontation that neither of us had noticed the sorry excuse for what may be considered human trying to jump the shimmering gold fence. It wasn’t until I saw it wobbling and threatening to bend forward under the murderer’s weight that I understood just how flimsy and decorative the fence itself was.

Whatever either of us were about to say or do was violently interrupted by the sound of three rapid gunshots as the monster’s chest exploded outward into a spray of meaty confetti across the clouds and its head simply ceased to be.

In the blink of an eye he, and any evidence of the scene that had just unfolded vanished. Out of sight, and just as suddenly, out of mind.

I turn just in time to see a cowboy proudly slipping a golden six-shooter back into an ornate fast draw holster around his waist. He shoots me a wink and tips his ten gallon hat with a knowing grin, the ringing in my ears easing and fading into an easily dismissed memory of annoyance. It’s easy to see that Peter is just as stunned as I am at how abruptly this situation has been forcefully diffused

I find myself holding my hands up in uncertainty, an unease I don’t think I’ve ever felt in the times I’ve been here. I take a bit of comfort in seeing that I’m not the only one here that’s uncomfortable as the tall, intimidating law man steps forward with both hands resting confidently around a huge, audacious belt buckle in the shape of a shining star emblazoned with a flaming sword.

“Well howdy there, fellas.”

Peter stands up straight and adjusts his suspenders and name tag, coughing lightly in an attempt to find his bearings with a stern, yet frazzled face.

“It took you long enough. I specifically asked you to try and be here before either of them got here.”

It wasn’t hard to see how little this towering cowboy cared about punctuality with the casual, yet shockingly firm way he clapped a hand onto my shoulder in near perfect time with the gate swinging open to welcome us both.

“You and I need to have a talk about the mess you’ve got yourself into, son.” His words hit me like a series of left hooks and dazzling footwork, sending me into a stumbling stupor and making it all the easier for the strange figure with all the charisma and commanding presence of the toughest sheriff in all of the wild wild west.

I manage to break the trance for a moment as we approach another office just beyond an unrecognizable wall of clouds that the obnoxiously golden gate were built into. I can’t seem to get the words out but thankfully stopping in your tracks with an expression of confusion is fairly universal, even here.

“Right, I’m gettin’ ahead of myself. Introductions.”

Before I know it, his strong and powerful hand is gripping me in a handshake that overwhelms me with its command for respect. The kind of strength that makes a man tremble in awe and question every single one of his life choices.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, I’m a fan of your work. You can call me Michael.”

--

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[talesfromtheindigoghost]

Good Intentions: Entry 3

Do you want to know the funniest part of all of this?

I’ve actually tried going to therapy to get help processing all of this. The more I think about it, the less traumatic and bizarre it sounds but that pretense just falls to pieces once I start talking about it out loud. That’s kind of the point of getting help, though, isn’t it?

The view from my patio isn’t as dazzling or profound as what I assume is heaven but I still love to watch the sun rise over the woods and bring its light and warmth to whatever might be wandering around the yard. Squirrels, raccoons, possums… plenty of feral cats, sometimes even deer, if I’m really lucky.

A fat, orange tabby cautiously peeks her head out from the window of the modest shed I helped build a few years back. I watched her squeeze through, despite it barely being ajar, amazed at how her drooping belly seems to pour out like dough out of a can of biscuits. I can’t help but smile as she turned and lets out a noise and, one by one, her four children slink out of the window and follow her to the food and water I’ve made a habit of leaving out every day.

I’ve done this since as long as I can remember, for as long as stray cats have wandered near. One of the times I had to go through all of that, the thing that used to be me managed to wander into the garage before I got back. That’s where I used to leave the food and water for the animals. I think seeing what it had done to that poor little kitten really messed with me, and what really pushed me into giving therapy a chance.

She was nice, and to be honest, I still consider going back but I always got the feeling she thought I was making everything up. To be fair, of course, I wouldn’t believe it either. Hell, I go through it, and I hardly believe any of it is real. Maybe the funniest part wasn’t that I went to therapy, but that I told the truth when I did.

Sort of.

I wondered to myself; how do you really explain this to someone? How could I possibly convey the sensation of dying to someone who’s never died before? In what way could I ever tell someone that by that point in my life I had already successfully killed myself more than thirty times?

The answer, it turns out, was a lot easier than I expected. I told the truth, but dressed it up as… creativity, for lack of a better term. My deaths became attempts, my journeys became colorful metaphors for how I was feeling. Weird how just being honest can be such a relief sometimes.

The things that used to be me became reflections.

She had explained to me, after I had broken down and confessed how guilty I felt over the death of that kitten, that it hadn’t been my fault at all. That there was no way I could have possibly known that the kitten was sleeping under the hood of my car when I started it. That was the only way I could think to describe what I had seen without making it sound like I was some monster that had a psychotic break and mutilated an innocent baby cat.

The best I could do, she suggested, was to forgive myself for an unfortunate accident and that I could learn from the experience to take steps to ensure it didn’t happen again. That’s why I started putting food in the shed instead of the garage. Sure, it’s not as close and convenient, but I do have this perfect view to watch them live their happy kitty lives.

It was great advice, actually. I don’t know what I would ever do if one of my reflections were to hurt something other than myself ever again.

I started being more mindful in my attempts to resolve my situation. She helped me realize that I can take precautions without sacrificing my unique needs. Of course, as far as she knew I was just some suicidal weirdo struggling to make it through every day who uses far too colorful language.

I can see the kittens circling their mother excitedly. They’re just as that age where they should be learning to eat on their own but they would still much rather get a good knead of milk. I close my eyes, hoping to hear their mewling carried on the wind blowing in over the trees. I catch the scent of trees and mud, of black licorice.

I’m glad I survived.

It took me over thirty trips to wherever the hell I go when it happens, but I do find myself glad to be back every time now. A shiver runs through me as the breeze hits me a little colder than expected, roughly reminding me that I’m still in my pajamas. I think it bothers the guys at the gate when I show up wearing something dumb.

The red dude looked offended enough to puke the one time I had arrived wearing a “WHO FARTED?” t-shirt and cargo shorts. I’m not even sure if they can die over there but I could’ve swore he was about to have a stroke. These pajamas weren’t funny or anything, I just liked the cow print on the pants. I forgot to ask what they thought, damn it.

Maybe that’s just the euphoria of the sunrise talking.

I look back only a few hours ago and I remember weeping, beating on my own forehead in frustration while I tried to talk myself out of another suicide attempt only to turn around and cry harder as I forced myself into it. I felt the bottom of my stomach sink into the abyss before vanishing entirely as I tightened the rope and doubted myself, wondering if it was all one psychotic delusion, sweet talking myself into finally dying so I can��

I realize, quite suddenly, that I’ve gone there and back again fifty times now. I hate it just as much as I hated it the first time, but I need answers. I demand answers. I want to know why this is happening, even if it takes an eternity of passive aggressive visits to their front gate. I give my soda can an experimental shake, just to confirm it’s empty, before cautiously inhaling as it passes my nose on its way across the deck and off the side into the recycling bin down below. I thought I smelled licorice again.

Maybe I should get myself a cake. That feels right. What do you have written on a cake like that? Happy 50th? Congratulations? I could always just wait another month and call it a birthday cake but then I couldn’t really do anything too morbid without bumming someone out. I wonder if the things that used to be me go well with ice cream?

My mind recoils imagining the sensation of a thick rope of black licorice hardening as it touches the ice cream. Cold and hard, like trying to chew into gummi bears just as you take them out of the freezer. The kind of strong, resistant type of chew that leaves your jaw tired and aching to the point where it’s hard to focus on the flavor. Still, I always eat it anyway. The thick, sickening scent of black licorice causes a sensation that feels like a growling stomach.

I try to distract myself by going back inside after one last loving glance towards Mama and her band of mischief makers. I try not to think about the feel of black blood filling my mouth, consuming my entire world with its overwhelming presence. Even as I strip, I fight against its call. I fight to ignore it as it knocks on my front door, as the knocks turn to pounds.

I can’t tell if I actually smell it or if I simply want to. The water is too hot, nearly burning me as I stand with my head under the shower, hoping and hoping the pain will force me to forget that delicious scent for a moment.

“It’s okay to cry when you’re overwhelmed.”

A quick, painful slap across the shower valve shoves me abruptly from the boiling pot into the ice bucket. A sob bursts out of me from the sudden shock, and I feel the immediate pain of relief as I let myself cry under the cold water.

I cry, and I cry. I cry so hard I almost throw up but there’s nothing inside of me but bile and woe. My now shivering hand fumbles with the valve, regretting the impulsive decision to freeze myself out under ice cold water and carefully bringing it back to a more comfortable warmth. I feel it all. I felt the scalding flow turn to icy knives and then finally into comfort.

I hate the clarity of it all. My thoughts are clear, thorough, even as I stand here bawling my eyes out in a desperate struggle to understand the existence I’ve been cursed with. I can feel the sadness and despair pulling me into an unknowable abyss abandoned by any and everything that can possibly existence. Uncertainty tears away at the very foundations of my mind as I wail and sob, begging the universe for some kind of final answer.

My heart aches with lost love. I find myself lost in a sea of emotions over the pain of rejection. I scream and curse her name, that horrible, vile woman who left me. I pine for her beauty and touch, a deep and powerful bloodlust growing in the hateful depths of my broken heart. I’m determined to make her regret what she’s done, even if it costs me my life.

My cries grow heavier, angrier, and the boiling acid of my hatred burns through the walls of my soul and drips corrosively onto my bones. I grind my teeth, craving the sensations of her delicate flesh submitting to my bite that I may consume her as I so rightfully deserve to.

The cloying stench of black licorice and its profane, irresistible temptations flood my world and swallow my very being. I’m not sure when I stopped crying but I’m far more alarmed by the violent, growling grunts exploding out of my body as I start trying to break a hole in the wall with my forehead again and again.

It wasn’t until this moment that I remembered that I’ve never been in a relationship before.

I don’t recognize any of these thoughts.

Nor do I recognize the dead thing shambling through my bathroom door, a thing that used to be someone, shrieking out its black, bloody hatred through a grey, blackened maw of fleshy mush.

This one isn’t mine.

--

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[talesfromtheindigoghost]

Good Intentions: Entry 2

I found myself thinking back to all of the others times I’ve had to do this. Confronted, quite literally, with the horrors of reality and its sickeningly grey malice.

I was only eight years old the first time I had made this trip and had to deal with the unfortunate thing with my nametag on it in the luggage carousel. I can still remember feeling as if I could never feel any worse, any hungrier, than at that exact moment.

I can still remember taking just a moment too long to process who the drowned boy limping from the bathroom towards my room was. I was so scared, so worried over who this poor little boy was, what could have happened to him, I cried to myself. The moment had faded as quickly as it had appeared as soon as I noticed he was wearing my favorite pajamas and I began to remember being told I was too young to handle what was waiting for me by a man in red.

My despair and sorrow had turned to hunger and the overwhelmingly human urge to survive.

I tell myself what I told myself then.

Whatever this is, it’s not human anymore. I stumble out of bed with all of the finesse and grace of someone who has had ample time to practice but convinced themselves there’s always something better to do. My heart is beating with the rhythm of my unspeakable impulses towards this demon that’s finding its own identity as it looks less and less like me.

This must be what happens to children when they’ve been rejected from every home they’ve ever known.

It twists them. It twists their dead, lifeless arms into rigid clubs of meat and bone. It ruins their heart, and spoils their guts until they all simply slough out of the body like leftovers poured right into a paper bag and onto the tarp I’m so glad I remembered this time.

The crying little boy couldn’t help but notice the boy in his favorite pajamas smelled like black licorice, even when he lost his heart to the brand new carpet.

The thing in front of me smells the same way.

I’m so hungry.

I thought about that little boy trying his hardest to talk to the shambling thing in his favorite pajamas as if it were a little boy like him, a scared child going through something unspeakable and unfair like so many other children do. Even when that thing lunged for his neck, he screamed that he was sorry as he stabbed it with the hunting knife he had be given for his birthday that he left proudly on his dresser.

I remember an older child doing the same thing with a katana he had bought at the mall, apologizing as he broke the blade inside of its ribs.

I don’t apologize this time. I drive that same broken piece of mall junk into the side of the thing that looked like me’s skull and twist its face away from mine as I lunged for its neck before it can get mine.

It’s always so quiet in this moment. That moment where I fail to understand anything that I’m doing as I feel it gnashing and gnawing into the air, desperate to feast on me yet denied at the very last possible inch from using its dangerous cavern of jagged chunks of bone and teeth to, well, something I don’t want to imagine how it feels.

I’m thinking clearly, but coldly. I don’t feel human. Not yet.

Something inside of me tells me I’m imagining it but the hunger speaks over it, encouraging me to bite into its neck, this hunk of drained, greying flesh at the side of its neck. I don’t apologize as I bite and tear through the flavorless meat to find what I’m looking for. I can feel it resisting, somehow becoming as tough as vinyl that began to hang loosely from the bone as if it weren’t even attached to the chattering skull trying to win this struggle.

The older child had just learned that it was called the carotid artery just a few days earlier in school. He hadn’t realized why that information had stuck out as so fascinating, but he was glad to know it all the same.

I didn’t care what it was called, I was sputtering out violent grunts as I fought this thing to stay on the tarp, a burst of awkward laughter erupted through the thick black blood that was filling my mouth. It was the kind of sudden, strong laugh that makes everyone in the room feel uneasy simply because it was louder than anyone, most likely including themselves, had anticipated.

I couldn’t help my excitement, I had just felt it catch gently along my teeth.

It feels just like biting into a black licorice vine but with the satisfying sensation of some sour, tasty fruit flavored liquid filling pouring from its hollowed center.

The quiet fades away as the volume on the sleep machine inside of my head is steadily cranked up. The crashing of waves, the gentle hiss of white noise static, thunder, rain, a pod of distant whales. My mind was aggressively playing every relaxing sleep aid CD it could find at once, hoping its combined efforts would force me to sleep through the next few minutes.

I was thankful that I had gotten back before this thing broke out of the noose. I had hoped it would keep it in place this time.

My brief sense of gratitude slipped away from me just like the rest of the world.

I tore more and more of its sweetly scented flesh away to let its blood spray unnaturally into my mouth that drooled out hateful growls like an angry stray dog that had found its very own steak and had strong opinions on anyone entertaining the idea of taking it from him.

I found myself thinking back to all of the others times I’ve had to do this.

I used to feel guilty. This was a human person, I would tell myself.

I remind myself that’s not true, drinking through the pang of sadness and quenching it with a mouthful of what I can only think of as black licorice syrup. Whatever this thing is, it’s not human anymore. It used to be me. It was the thing I used to live in until I had to go through all of this again.

It took a couple minutes of violent, yet controlled resistance to bring it to its knees and finish my feast with the thing splayed out onto the tarp I was so thankful to have remembered this time. I pull my broken mall sword, and myself, away from the now motionless demon I had just had my fill of. My knees were killing me, this was such an uncomfortable position to lean back into but I couldn’t help but scream in furious victory as I fell onto my knees and threw my head back in a roar.

I feel ridiculous as I suddenly remember having the engraving kiosk at the same mall engrave what I had unfortunately assumed was the japanese symbol for life. It wasn’t great, but it was something I could laugh at, at least. I tried to tell myself yelling like that was embarrassing, nothing is this dramatic. Then I remembered what I was doing and laughed.

I closed my eyes and felt content. I could feel the taste burning brightly inside of me, reminding me that I’m alive.

I am alive.

I opened my eyes and it was all gone.

The only evidence anything had even happened dangled from the rafters above me and crinkled under my feet as I stood up and wiped the back of the hand holding the trinket my teenage angst phase had left for me to defend myself with across my mouth. Nothing there, either.

I tend to forget how much I hate this part of it all. I tend to forget that I absolutely despise the entire situation until I remember everything and it all comes crashing in like an avalanche of razor sharp and icy cold snow and hail. I remember, clearly, consuming myself. I remember being thrust from hell, and heaven before it. I remember tying the noose.

I remember why I tie the noose.

The only person I’ve ever tried telling about any of this told me it’s healthy to cry. I trust them.

I cry.

Why shouldn’t I? I’m in mourning. I feel a part of myself die, figuratively and literally, every time this happens. I don’t understand why I’m being forced to decide between this or whatever I face if I ever let one of these things get me first. I’m too afraid to find out what happens when it wins. I never get answers any time I make the trip.

Peter can be nice, in his own way, but I can see him fighting the urge to vomit from sheer anxiety any time I bring it up. The other guy, whatever the hell his name is, he just giggles like an asshole because he knows something that I don’t. Of course, it’s not like the things that used to be me say anything.

I mourn the thing that used to be, and I mourn the death that spawned it.

I remember that the broken dangerous toy in my hand has the japanese word for “big tits” written on it and start laughing again.

I truly am alive.

The cool midnight breeze hits me like a much needed breath of fresh air as I open the sliding glass window that leads from my bedroom and out onto the second floor patio. Even after something like this I love to come out here. I can see trees as far as the eye can see off to one side, and the comforting glow of the city in the distance to the other.

The air has the gentle kind of chilled moisture to it, the kind that let you know rain was going or coming. The pleasant scent lets me remember how to smile, while the subtle wetness of my patio armchair that I never remember to throw the tarp over reminds me how to scowl the way one scowls when their ass gets unexpectedly wet.

I used to pray, surprisingly. I prayed for a lot of things. For people to be safe, for people to be happy.

For people to come back.

I pat around blindly on the small table next to my chair and find what feels like an unopened can of cherry cola and just as clumsily pull the tab, my hands shaking gently from the tremors of thirst and hunger, real normal people thirst and hunger while my eyes focus on nothing in particular in the cloudy night sky, the moon shining its dull, stolen light through a curtain of thinned raincloud.

Even when it isn’t cold, and just a little chilled, it still tastes great. I take another hesitant sip, praying I won’t taste blood. A relieved sigh sneaks out of it as I enjoy the sweet taste of something bad for me. My free hand pats around the other side of the chair’s arm, pulling a chocolatey protein bar from one of those things you see in the impulse buy section at the check out of most big stores. You know the ones, those pockets you can drape over the arm of an armchair that has pockets on the sides?

It’s hard not to feel a little silly using my teeth to open the package after what I had used them for earlier, but I’m grateful all the same as I take a large, satisfying bite out of the bar that had become a little too tough in the cold.

I smell black licorice in the air.

[talesfromtheindigoghost]

Good Intentions

I never remember how I get here. Not at first, at least. 

It’s always the same, yet it feels like it’s the first time this has ever happened.

It’s heaven. Maybe. If you took any little kid out of sunday school and asked them what heaven looks like this is probably going to be about it. You would probably get an even better idea if you handed that same kid a package of crayons and a blank piece of paper and asked them to show you.

An enormous land of clouds, existing right in the middle of an unbelievably vast blue sky. The sun shines in the distance, brightly, yet softly. It’s a warm, secure kind of light. Golden rays of god’s love illuminates a land of angels and goodness. Honestly, even with the way I feel about everything, it’s breathtaking.

Nature, in its most mysterious form.

Until you spot the clearly man made gate made of shimmering golds and silvers, spun into the gaudiest, flimsiest fences you’ve ever seen. Next to it, and far more disappointing, is the small booth labeled “ENTRANCE TO HEAVEN” in even more unnecessary, self-congratulating dazzle.

The light sings, filling the air with its musical splendor only for it to resonate uncomfortably along the hollow metal structures and decorations.

It’s alarming how familiar it is, despite it being the greatest single mystery man can never solve without a dire commitment.

The man in the booth and I meet eyes as I approached the booth. I can’t tell for sure, but he gives me a look that immediately tells me we’ve met before and that it wasn’t a good experience.

“Hey Peter.” I don’t know why I said it, but it feels right and it comes out of me with all the casual ease of greeting the guy that works at your post office. I’m sure of it now. He recoils at first, but then catches himself and stays firm.

“SAINT Peter. Saint.” He corrects me. I’m not sure why, I KNOW why, but I don’t quite know why, but I grin like an asshole. I nod, of course, of course. “Lucky I was Catholic, huh?” The proud agent of heaven, grand and noble arbiter of whether or not you get through the obnoxious gates, adjusted his blue polo shirt and vest and pulled a small walkie talkie from the pocket of his khaki cargo shorts.

He brings it to his cheek and lets it press against it for half a moment, he gives me the kind of glare you always get any time a retail worker has to call their boss. We both know it was inevitable but it’s still such a hassle. “It’s different for everyone. This is what you know.” Saint Peter exhales the words out like a tired sigh, one moment of freedom before they have to pretend to be a perfect professional.

I already knew that, I thought, but it felt like I learned it for the first time.

The small toy chirped as he pressed down the button.

“He’s here. Yes, HIM.” We locked eyes as I heard static crackle from the speaker. “Yes, again. Yes, the same way.” I wiggle my eyebrows as I jokingly adjust the noose around my neck. “He was turned away, as I SAID- ” we both catch him getting angry, I shake my head. “- mentioned. Mentioned in my previous memo.” it chirps a final time as he lets go of the button.

We’re both waiting for a response, but I can tell he’s sweating. We both know this is a tense situation. I can already tell by the look of future regret on his face, the strained exhale and closed eyes, what his boss had to say.

That’s alright, I told myself. I knew this was a strong possibility.

“Sorry.” I can tell the guy means it by the way his shoulders slump and the word seems to weigh a ton. He hooked the walkie talkie back onto his pocket and sighed. “The boss says you’re not allowed in and you know why.” I should be pretty pissed off, but I gave him a pretty tired smile and waved it off.

“It’s alright, I get it. I’m not gonna shoot the messenger.” Watching him relax a little after I said that made me feel a bit better about the situation. I hold the dangling rope for a moment so it doesn’t hang as I lean over the desk and spot a mini-fridge right by the corner of the booth.

He shoots me a grin and bends down to take something out of it, a single cold can of cherry cola that tings quietly as he sets it in front of me. I popped it open and took a grateful sip as he opened his own can of ginger ale.

“It’s different for everyone.” He said again, but much sadder this time. I closed my eyes and took another sip. The pleasant taste turned sour as the crisp chill of cold bubbles was replaced by the warm, flat taste of some kind of beer I’ve never cared to get too familiar with.

I opened my eyes to find that the radiant clouds of comfort were now the toxic miasmas of suffering. The gentle music dancing in the air distorted into an unease that vibrated through your very soul and rattled you from the inside out.

I spot a red, handsome young man sitting on a stool next to the kind of podium you see at the entrances of fancy restaurants of night clubs. The pretty jerk with the incredibly important job of checking a list of names to see if you’re on it and who would never let you forget how socially important his job is. I knew he was smug incarnate before he even opened his mouth.

I double check the can in my hand and see it’s the same cans I remember seeing littering the whole place after any given sleazy party. I take another sip out of sheer spite as I approach the guy in front of a shattered portion of an old brick wall, blocked off by a single velvet rope suspended between two poles made of flesh and stone, much like the wall itself.

He locks eyes with me, pulling a rose gold encased smartphone from the pocket of his trendy suit with one hand and raising a finger with the other as if I’m too stupid to understand the concept of someone needing a moment to make a phone call as they’re already making the call.

He gives me a silent expression of “Well? Don’t you see I’m calling?” along with a headshake before he looks down and notices the can in my head and curls his lip in disgusting. I take another sip, just to appreciate the disgusted look he gives me.

It tastes like blood.

“Yes, sir? He’s here, just like you said.” He smiles brightly and his voice has that same forced kind of asskissing tone the smile does. “Right like always, sir! You truly are smarter than God!” He shoots me another dirty look, as if he’s daring me to say something about his obvious brown nosing. I scoff and raise my hands in that universal gesture of “I didn’t say anything.”

He lowers the phone and cocks his head towards me. “Do you know why they sent you down?” I loosen the rope around my neck. “No idea.” He starts to say something but then realizes I’m messing with him. I can tell he’s pretty pissed off that I got him with that, even just for a moment as he gives me a venomous smile.

“Yes, same as last time. No, I’ll tell him, but we both know he’s not going to be happy about that.” I laugh a pretty snotty laugh, slipping the rope off of my neck and casually tossing it towards the red punk just hard enough to gently slap across his face as it went over his shoulder.

“Yes, sir. I will let him know.” He says the words through clenched teeth and annoyance, the call comes to an abrupt end. I catch a brief glimpse of an older, more powerful looking man in a much finer suit leaning from behind the open door just beyond the broken wall. He disappears the moment he notices I’ve seen him.

I take another tip. It tastes like blood.

It’s alarming how familiar this is.

The pretty little twerp squirms in place, acutely aware that he’s been left alone out here with an awkward message to give. “Boss says you’re not allowed in yet. He doesn’t know how this is all going to play out just yet, so grats, you get some more time to mope about it.” There’s something about the way he says it all that tells me that me showing up here just ruined his chances of a promotion anytime soon.

“Whatever.”

I look down at the can again and shake it just enough to see how much is really left in there. By the sound and feel of it, just about a quarter full of whatever it was at this point. Without even thinking about it I suddenly found myself throwing the can at the foot of the podium hard enough to splash all along it and most of the man’s pant leg.

I turned around, closing my eyes before he has the chance to say or do anything in response.

I wake up in my bed a moment later as if I had simply caught myself daydreaming, the tang of blood and the cloying aftertaste of off-brand cherry cola reminds me what I was just doing.

As far as I can tell I’m alive and well, save for being intensely hungry.

I look across my bedroom and notice my corpse hanging from one of the rafters along the ceiling. I watch his arms swinging weak as his dead, white eyes weep thick tears of tar like blood.

This reminds me that everything was real, as it always has been.

My heart beats faster in fear, an indescribable sensation of terror and anxiety that can only be felt by seeing your own dead body. The kind of unknowable horror that can only be experienced by watching as your dead body twists and distorts into something less than human. Its fingers turning into claws of splintered bone and tar, its jaw turning into a maw of blades that clatter in grostque threats.

To watch as its flesh blackens and corrupts before your very eyes.

I stand helpless as its newly reshaped feet plant firmly onto the ground, allowing it to tear the noose from its neck and let out a deep, vibrating noise from its rumbling body in a feral hunger.

I should be terrified of the monster in front of me, the monster threatening to put an end to this story for good.

I can’t think straight. My heart beats even faster as he begins to awkwardly lumber towards me, each step seeming to teach it to walk better, faster and with more purpose.

It occurs to me that I should run but something seems to be stopping me.

I’m so hungry.