toddgoolsby-blog

[toddgoolsby-blog]

The Will

    Doug sat on the porch of his mother’s farm house, watching the sun as it was close to setting. It was hot, and a windstorm in the distance turned the horizon from blue to a brown haze. Doug liked Kansas just about as much as his name. He had been bullied in school, all the way up to graduating college, because of the name Doug. He wasn’t named after anyone. His mother named him Doug the day he was born out of disappointment. She thought she was having a girl. He wasn’t. It took some years for her to get over that. It was about the time her husband, Doug’s father, walked out on her. Doug blamed her for it. He was an only child for a long time. His mother never remarried, but it didn’t stop her from trying to have giving birth to a daughter. A number of miscarriages as Doug grew up. A number of men in and out of his life, most leaving as soon as they got word Doug’s mother was pregnant. Never once did she blame him, though. Doug always felt like she would every time the man he grew familiar having around would never show up again. She tried to be a good mother, eventually, but Doug had entered high school and it was too late. He clung to the few friends he had. They all enlisted into the Army upon graduation. Doug got out after only nine months after an accident which shattered his left ankle. After making a full recovery he moved to Michigan and went to college. College was nothing but a means to an end, and escape from his childhood. He walked with a slight limp and was painfully shy. What advances that came his way by women there went unnoticed. He spent his free time drinking in his dorm while he studied. He passed his courses, but only barely. He never wrote or called home. There were days where he realized that he had all but forgotten about her. He didn’t know that she spent every day wondering if he’d come home. She didn’t know that he didn’t care anything about her. Doug thought about it as he sat on the porch, drinking a beer from her fridge. He looked out at the dead lawn, scorched by the dry summer heat. He was happy that it had gone this way. The funeral was nice, and he was happy to pay for it. Not many people showed up. There were no judgmental looks or comments, only generic condolences. These people didn’t really know her. It was easy to see that all they knew about her was how she treated her family, and her promiscuity after her husband left. They put her in the ground at the city cemetery and parted ways. There was a will, and Doug sat in the lawyer’s office indifferent. The house, all her worldly processions, they were all his. His first thought was have an estate auction and be done with it. Seal the past away and cash the check. But he sat there, still in his suit, collar unbuttoned, watching the sun set. It’s ugly. He thought. All of it is so ugly. He was tired from the flight, from the service, from his life. He walked inside the house and sighed. It looked the same as when he left so many years ago. The old couch, though clean, was the same as they had when he was a child. The TV, even the heavy corded phone, all there. The carpet had been replaced. The house had been maintained. He looked around at all the pictures. Most were enlarged pictures from Polaroids when he was in elementary school. There were dozens of them, on every wall. Doug’s face tightened and his eyes watered, stinging as tears formed. He down in what he remembered to be her favorite chair and cried. She had left him everything, everything she had. Including decades of regret.

[toddgoolsby-blog]

We Are All

    The debt collection correlates the rise of moons and lost paths that leads all directions but home. Touch the base of monoliths and pray with the ignorant. Taste the leaves of the gods and meet your nightmares unclothed and yearning. Sail those ships on seas of the sweat from the mattress of dishonest wives and lay waste to the harbors of your own soul. May your last wish be a trap. May your hope fall on Octahedron's betrayal. This is the time of the sixth. Love the pet you raised from birth. Saved from a negligent mother, abandoned by his many fathers. The sun rises revealing the leviathan you raised to consume you. Run from yourself. Trust no one who trusts you. Every mirror will reflect your failure. Every breath a chance for salvation. Save yourself from life. Consummate this marriage of pain. Impregnate your womb with the bastard, and reap the fresh from within. Be reborn. This child is you, yours to guide to the monoliths. Yours to leave learning at the feet of your gods. They’ll eat his flesh, violate his soul. He’ll grow from it, shaped in your image. He’ll crush the weak, and prey on the innocent. The leviathan will be his master. His hope will be in all that betrayed you. They will rise up blindly to rape what is to blame. Your home will be your tomb. Your mind a casket. Hide in that sarcophagus unknowing whom shares the secret. You’ll rest your eyes and lower your shield against what lies in wait. You’ll share in that eternal shame, echoing moans of acceptance. Legs open to embrace the reaper with your hemorrhaging depravity, looking for one last moment of affection. Touch the base, pray with the ignorant. Still they pray. Still they worship. Still they breed their enemies and raise them to slaughter to slaughter the elders. The Octahedron laughs in the sight of your afflictions. His lust is never satisfied. Again and again he returns to you filling you with his poison. Crawl into your hole. Suffer no more. Seal your tomb and rot. Cast yourself into that sea of sweat and bloat. Soften the skin. Burst into pieces. Become food for the swollen beasts kept in secret. The same beasts that feed your wife while you’re at war with yourself. She begs for them while denying you. She mocks you openly. Her promiscuity is known by all but your. She denies none but you. Run from her. Run from your offspring. Run from the monoliths and your leviathan. All is made to destroy you. All you built will betray you. Flee from yourself, for you can not be trusted. Escape your mind. Rend your flesh until you are free from pain. But you return. You always return. You come back to the touch the base of the monolith. You eat the leaves and pray with the ignorant. You feed the leviathan and welcome the Octahedron with open arms. You worship your wife. You sleep in her bed, still soaked with the fluids of her beasts. You bleed from the stranger in the shadows. You leak unceasingly, the poison of so many who seek your destruction. Soulless, unwanted, but not without worth. Above all, you are needed. They all need you. A hole will be left when you die that none can fill as you had filled it. No one can be used as you have. None can be abused as you have. There is no greater victim. No one they can focus their hate so greatly. You will be missed. Your memorial will be the legacy they shape for you. The memories of a worthless man. No weaker man has ever lived since or before you. You will be remembered as the pinnacle of depravity. Your son will deny you, and choose a father among the congregation of beasts who now share your wife openly. Her moaning can be heard throughout the city and delight your mother and father who have come to curse your name rather than bear your shame. So leave. Leave this world behind. You were born only to suffer and die. You have suffered greatly. You have carried your shame. You have fulfilled your destiny. Make way for another. He is courting his virgin bride this very hour. He has met with her father and asked for her hand. He wears your smile, that smile from so many years before. His heart races as the lie takes root in his mind. He lies awake dreaming of her body. He believes it is his until the end of their days. He goes to the monolith and prays. He feeds his pet he saved from that neglectful mother. He goes to the Octahedron for guidance. He saves his earnings for a ship of his own. Leave this world behind and open the path for him. He will never be you. He will break. None will come after as easy to betray as you, but the path must be cleared nonetheless. Let him unknowingly take your place at the whipping stocks. Let his neck slip into the shackle. Let his heart be trapped by the chains of despair. I beg this of you. Fore though you may not know me, I am the one who feels your pain and have watched from afar. I am the only one who feels pity for your broken soul. Do this for me, the one that loves you as a brother. For we are joined in spirit. My escape can not be yours. I can not save you as I saved myself. Your path is different, yet I can not know peace until you are laid to rest. So go. Go meet the maker who disowned you. Curse her name and spit on her withered breasts. Defile her being and take her dignity. Rend her flesh with your hatred, rip the hair from her head. Force her to cast you out into the darkness of the afterlife in anger and shame. It is only in that solitude you will find peace.

[toddgoolsby-blog]

Henry the Hitchhiker

“You can if you put your mind to it.” He whispered mockingly as he walked the shoulder of the rural highway. “You can be whatever you want to be.” He was repeating what had been said to him earlier that day. “What do you want, Henry?” He repeated the conversation over and over as he walked. He kicked the occasional rock or broken bottle. I guess they’ll figure what it is I want soon enough. He thought. The conversation evolved as he repeated it, resenting what should have been said, what he could have said. “Things go too far.” He said aloud. He heard a car coming from around the bend. He turned around and walked backwards, thumb out. His thumb was long and bent backwards. The red convertible sped past, not even slowing down to look at him. “Shitheads.” He muttered. He turned back around and kept walking. The highway began to incline and bend as it worked its way up the mountainside for the next fifty some miles. “I mean, ‘I can be anything I want’ sounds okay, I guess. Like I’m working hard to be something.” He continued to talk to himself for a while as his legs braced themselves for the uphill struggle. The shoulder gravel became more and more course, sliding easily under his feet. “But ‘you can be whatever you want’ just seems judgmental.” He slowed his pace. The grade just kept getting steeper, the shoulder narrower. He saw a few cars coming down from the mountain, but he didn’t “thumb” any of those. He was heading up, and over the other side. He knew what he wanted, freedom from judgmental people. “I can be free from that.” He smiled. “And that’s what I want to be.” His backpack had some junkfood, a change of clothes, but no water or anything to drink. He was thirsty. “It’s not like anyone ever really asked, not really. Asking me what I want after telling me I can be anything is a bad spot to be in. They’re already calling you a slacker, why not finish the bashing with making fun of your ambitions too?” Truth is, Henry didn’t have any clue what he wanted to be, he didn’t have much time to decide, but he did have time. “That’s a lot more than the people asking the questions.” He laughed to himself for a moment. “The whole question is a fraud anyway. I’ve seen others screw up and give them an answer. I’ve heard doctor, lawyer, teacher, air traffic controller, and that one kid wanted to be in a metal band. They put them down. They tell them it’s a lot of school, it’s really expensive, it’s a lot of hours, it takes a lot of nerve, you’ll never make it in a band… The whole statement is a set up just to put them down. ‘You can be whatever you want to be.’ It’s almost like there’s some magic job out there that you don’t have to be trained for that makes millions. All I’m hearing anymore is when you’re old, you settle. You dumped your time into one job, and even if you’re not working for the same company, you’re doing the same thing. This must be why people are complaining that school costs too much. I’m not even old enough to work. Too young for college. I hate school, and the teachers that made a mistake when choosing their major.” He came to a log and felt like it was a good place for a break. He sat down and placed his backpack between his feet. His mouth was dry and he was sweating, but he felt free. A few cars passed, he thumbed, and none of them stopped. “Shitheads.” After thirty minutes and deep reflection, he continued up the mountain highway. “I wonder if I’m going to have to drink my own piss...” he said aloud as he heard breaks squeak behind him. A man in an old farm truck leaned over in the cab and rolled down the passenger side window. “Where you going, son?” The old man said, “you look a little young to be hitchhiking.” “I’m nineteen.” Henry lied as he kept walking. “And I’m backpacking the states before going to college.” “That does sound like an adventure.” The old man said. “You need a ride? It’s a lot of nothing between here and the next town.” “Do you have a bottle of water?” Henry asked. “No son, I’m afraid I don’t. I don’t trust drinking out of those plastic bottles so much. I read they have some nasty chemicals in ‘em.” “Well thank you anyway. I’m going to keep walking. Stay out with nature and stuff.” Henry said. “Yeah, that nature stuff is a problem out here too. There’s bears and big cats out at night here, you know?” “No I didn’t.” Henry knew he had to get in the truck. This is the first and probably going to be the only driver to stop for him. The old man looked like he bought his story, but that might change if they keep talking. I’m not very good at bullshit. Henry thought. “Sure, sounds good. To the next gas station is fine, if that’s alright.” “That’s alright by me.” “Tell me about yourself.” Henry said. “Well,” the old man started… if he’s too busy talking about himself, maybe he won’t ask too much about me…

[toddgoolsby-blog]

The Good Doctor

It’s not often I find myself in a place like this. I can’t honestly say I’ve ever really been in a place like this before as a matter of fact. I can’t even remember how my day began. Last week has become a blur. Stress. Stress kills, I’ve been told. Lately, it seems, that I have been getting more than my fair share of attention by the killer. Life itself has been chasing some course of chaos or another. She never lets up. She’s addicted to catastrophe. I can’t remember where I was heading, but I ended up here. It’s like heaven. The scenery traded concrete and asphalt for trees and soft grass. Soft. I can’t even describe it. It feels like cool soft hair between my toes. The noise of life is a distant migraine. There’s none of that here. The empty eyes of all those other sentient beings, that look and talk like me, prying, accusing, are lost behind me in another world. Birds, colored blue, red, yellow, brown, white, look down at me from the trees. Their necks twisting and jerking in sporadic movements looking at me with one eye and then the other as if one suddenly betrays them. They don’t make a sound. They sit and watch as I lay in their grass. The insects have been picked clean, as clean as the unspoiled earth under me. I’m not delusional, I know what this place it.

Back there, in reality, I snapped. I didn’t have what it took to handle the stress I was under. This place isn’t reality, it isn’t where I truly am. This morning, early this morning, I took a bottle of pills. I don’t know what they where, but a woman at work takes them. She’s fucked up, I figured these were strong enough to do the job. I stole them from her purse and went home “sick.” I spent the night drinking, drinking hard, then I took the pills. I took them all. I figured they were strong. I thought I would drift off to sleep, like in the movies. I thought I would close my eyes and slowly die in my sleep. That’s not what happened. I began vomiting almost immediately. I couldn’t control it. I put my hand over my mouth. I picked up wet pills from the pools of vomit seeping into my carpet. My stomach wrenched and twisted inside of me. The pain in my throat was enough that I pictured ruptures. There was blood mixed with the bile. I kept picking up pill and eating them, this time crewing them and washing them down with more liquor. I was more angry than panicked. Nothing worked in my life, and now this wasn’t either. More and more blood was evident as my body rejected the drugs. The floor was soaked, my clothes dripped from vomit, blood, and pills. I kept searching, kept picking up the soft puke soaked pills, kept eating. Keep drinking. Keep feeding. I was dedicated to giving up. I must have made a lot of noise between the vomiting and cursing. A concerned neighbor did their duty and reported it to the authorities. I must have passed out before they arrived, I must have been close. I woke up in the hospital, such saviors in white leaning over me, saving a the life I didn’t want. I abused them. Called them every name I could think of and possibly created some new ones. I used words I had never spoke to another human being. I gave them no contacts, no family to call. They gave me a sedative and I screamed myself to sleep and began to dream of the grass and trees.

I laid there in the grass remembering the night before, curious what drug brought me here, and trying to figure out how to stay. The birds came closer now, curious of this stranger. I offered no threat, no greeting, no motion at all. I just laid there, eyes half wide, barely looking at them at all. More arrived in the trees. No songs, no chirps or tweets. They all looked at me. Hundreds now, all looking at me with one eye then the other. As if one betrayed them. Time stood still. The sun didn’t move. This is paradise. I closed my eyes slowly, feeling the weight of comfort take complete hold of my body and slept. I could still feel the soft breeze blowing across my skin, the warmth of the sun beaming in the clear sky, the soft flap of birds’ wings as they gathered around this curiosity. Then I heard a snap. My eyes opened wide. The sound was loud, the sound of a small branch. Something had stepped on it from across the pond. I looked and saw a man standing there. We had met earlier, at the hospital. Doctor so-and-so. My eyes narrowed as the torment of anger gripped me again. His foot still standing on the broken branch. He came to steal my peace. He came to take away my solace. I opened my mouth to curse him I had no voice to command. I tried to stand but I was anchored by some unseen force. I just laid there, consumed with hatred. His eyes locked on mine. “Kill.” He said. His voice deafened me. In an instant I was surrounded by the mute birds, with their colorful wings, pecking and clawing my skin. I couldn’t fight back. I was paralyzed as they tore my skin. I looked one last time at the doctor, just to see him walk back into the woods. I exhaled slowly as I accepted my fate. He wasn’t such a bad doctor after all.

[toddgoolsby-blog]

Original Jokes (because I feel lazy this week)

Finding a girlfriend is like buying a rug. You shop all over town looking for the one that goes with your décor, something that you’re friends will envy… but at the end of the day you just get the cheapest one that’s the most comfortable to walk on.

The ideal woman is like a broken couch leg. Sure you want an exact match, but for now a can of carrots will do.

The average girlfriend is like a wobbly chair. You probably could have taken the time to tighten the loose screws, but now they’re stripped and it’s better to replace than fix.

You know why men can’t find ever find the perfect woman? Have you ever put all of your favorite foods in a blender? It looks like shit.

Years ago I was getting ready to go to the club with my girlfriend I had at that time, for what she called our three month anniversary. She asked me what she looked best in. I said “a rear-view mirror...”

I have mixed feelings about dating single mothers. I’m looking for easy, but not an easy-bake oven.

But, seriously. I mostly date single mothers… they’re about the only thing to do while my kids are in school.

Finding an attractive single woman in her 30s who doesn’t have children is like finding a unicorn. A batshit crazy, transsexual, unicorn.

It’s hard for me to treat you like a princess when you’ve fucked the entire kingdom before running away with the dragon you claim imprisoned you.

To woman on dating sites who say “my children are my world.” You’re world is moving out in 6 years.

It’s easy to know when a woman is lying. The best indicator is breathing.

Desperation is the first thing I look for on a first date.

I typically eat disappointment for breakfast in case you’re thinking about cooking.

When a woman says she’s looking for love, simple math dictates she’ll take any four letter word as a substitute... like “cock,” for example.

Do you have trouble breaking up? Before she comes over next time, put all your past due/final notice statements in plain view. If you haven’t been dating very long, you may have to forge some… she’ll leave.

The first thing a woman tells you when you get intimate is that your have a huge dick. The first thing she tells you when you break up is that your dick is tiny. Either way she’s a liar and didn’t deserve you in the first place.

When my friends ask the real reason I’m single I inform them that I can make my own sandwiches.

My last girlfriend broke up with me through a text message. I was sad for hours.

It’s not cheating if you’re both single. (That’s just something I made up if you need to justify what you’re doing)

Woman can do anything men can do, but not without posting it to their time-line.

Women are like a shingled roof. Once they’re 30 years old, they’re broken, prone to leaks, and need to be replaced.

I ordered a supplement that guaranteed happiness with my girlfriend for the rest of my life. It’s called cyanide.

I was at a bar once and a guy asked me how to know when you’ve found a woman worth dating. I told him he should just find someone he can relate to. He said he was already fucking his cousin.

The idea of a soulmate in life is attune to a checkmate in chess. It happens when you’re boxed in a corner and have no other moves to make.

[toddgoolsby-blog]

Robbing Banks Just Isn’t Fun Anymore

     Typical bank robbery, no big deal. We’ve been doing this for several months now and I’m really getting bored with it. I’m “Charlie.” I have all the stereotype criminal features. Scar on my face, hand and neck tattoos, large build, dark hair… So does my crew. But my heart just isn’t in this shit anymore. “Billy” is in the vault with the bank manager, giving him a real thrashing. We did our homework, made the plan. Paid off a guard. Bypassed alarm systems. It’s pretty elaborate, but it’s almost too easy now. I had better things to do today to be quite honest with you. We have all the time in the world at the moment. We’ll clear ten mil, but spent nearly a million putting it together. When we first started doing this, let me tell you, it wasn’t a good idea. After the beer started flowing though, we were committed. Drunk, we slammed open the first bank we came to and managed to get thirty-five thousand dollars. We thought we were big time, Billy and I, but as we started taking on more people in the crew, it became a business. These guys act like it’s a job. They’re taking money just to scout out places, as if sitting outside a bank for a few hours entitles them to some sort of per diem. They have no out of pocket expenses in these jobs. I’m not saying they’re not good, and “Pike” has become family, but “Nick” and “Gerber” are about worthless. Always asking for money. Constantly saying “what’s in it for me.” They suck the fun, the thrill really, straight out of planning a heist. I don’t really need the money anymore, but I’d like to sit comfortable. I’d like to have a good piece to leave my kids when I’m gone. Laundering the money is bleeding me dry. It costs me nearly forty-five percent to clean my money. I have a few businesses to do it, but they’re not as easy to run as they should be. I made a few mistakes at the start, we all did. A few cops found out and came for a bribe, then it became a monthly collection, then a weekly… Fuck the cops. Money for nothing if you ask me. This guard, the one laying on the cold floor with a bloody nose, he’s getting fifty-thousand for his help. His help. He’s actually done something for us. These cops? Nothing. I shouldn’t complain, but this isn’t as profitable as it use to be, and the comradery is gone. “Shut up.” I snap at a twenty-something year old woman laying on the floor. I spotted her as we came in. She was already crying. We made her bad day worse. I’m assuming she got turned down for a loan or something. She looks like she could use the money. Before I would have given her some, but now I could care less. I use to have sympathy for the bank’s customers that would get caught up in our jobs. The heroes, the mothers with crying children, I use to do everything I could to make them feel safe. No one has a good time at a bank robbery, not even the bank robbers themselves. But now? Now I just do what has to be done. I’ll probably end up kicking this one in the ribs if she doesn’t quit whining. She’s looked at my face, my ski mask anyway, right in my eyes, trying to remember every detail. She’ll describe everything in social media, before she ever talks to the police. They know who we are, but the detectives will lose too much if they ever catch us. So we go free until we decide to quit. I’d like to quit. Like I said, this isn’t even fun anymore. We’ll walk out of here, get in the van, take our masks and colored contacts our, and be home free. Later tonight I’ll drop off the other half of the security guard’s payoff, then get to the cash moving through our various businesses. I just want to drink beer on a beach somewhere. The girl quit crying. She’s shaking, but quiet. “Charlie” is on his way out, dragging bags. “Charlie” and “Pike” have a plan, I don’t like it, but it might get us out from under this endless cycle. They’re not happy that I’m wanting to quit the bank robbing business, but they agree with me when I say the joy is sucked dry. “Pike” gives the word. “Gerber” and “Nick” help “Charlie” drag the bags to the front entrance. I say something stupid, like “thank you for your business,” or something like that, and hold the doors open. We get the van loaded and “Pike” shoots the two in the face, “Gerber” and “Nick.” It had to be done. I finish them off with my shotgun, just to be sure. “Ron,” our driver, will just let it go. There’s no rush, no endorphins, no excitement at all. I feel bad about “Gerber” and “Nick” honestly, but they’d keep going. They’d get caught, and we’d be the first ones they’d finger. We drive out of the city, and keep driving until we see the border.

[toddgoolsby-blog]

A Stranger’s Tale Part 2

     “Many years ago,” the stranger began, “I left the region far south of this very place for no reason other to see what was here. I came bearing tales, just as I do now, and settled for a short time. I fell in love with the daughter of a local businessman and we bore a son together. Our happiness was unmatched by any who had ever lived, but I wer’nt faithful to her despite all of this. She knew the truth of it, but shared her knowin’ to no one until one day she confronted me and I swore to all things I would change if it meant keeping her love. And change I did. I quit my profession of farming and learned the mysteries of medicine, and worked to help the village...

     His face was shadowed by the ragged hood, and I felt the hooks of his mystery pull at my curious nature most naturally indeed. But now it was my turn to spin a tale. I thought for a moment, pondering possibilities of unlocking his secrets without payment, fore I myself am ner’y as poor as he.

     “I too am a traveler,” I began, “and, too, came here from the southern region of this country. I braved the great river, tracked mine own path through forest and valley. Like you, I too bought stories with me which many brought coin to procure a small plot for farming. I raise chickens that I sell and trade for a meager living. I, as well, know the affections of a businessman’s daughter, though it not lend its ear to undying love I’m afraid. That is where are similarities, as startling coincidental as they may be, end. Another, though, like you, has told a tale that goes unfinished. By day he sits, wetting his hook and bait, in hopes to catch his next meal. He, like you, makes a small living providing cures to the village sick. His skills fail him from time to time, but the village is generous, and donates coin and ration to his wellbeing. But that, too, seems to be where the similarities between both end.-”

     “Is there a tale to be told?” He interrupted. “Fore this game requires a story in reply to mine own. I see not wonder or curiosity in your telling. Tis this the end or your rambling? Have I won so easily that ye try to extract my tale without payment promised?”

I cleared my voice and shook my head. “No.” I admitted. “What you say is true and, being a poor man myself, have attempted to swindle your tale from your lips without keeping my turn of the bargain.”

The man laughed. “I suppose you wish me to continue?”

“With haste.” I mumbled in humble embarrassment. “Fore while feel I need to know tale’s end, I wish most to learn the truth of your identity.”

“You carry eggs and a hen your sack.” He said. “I would like three of those eggs in payment for what you care to learn from me.”

“Are you some trickster?” I snarled. “Fore that is just which I carry in my sack.”

“Tonight you go to the tavern and lay with the eldest daughter. She will tell you of your child she bares inside her womb. He will be a son.”

“A fortune teller then?” I snapped.

“The eggs.” He said holding out both hands. I reached into my sack and delivered payment. “Now, share with me your knowledge.”

“This child shall be a boy, and he will leave to start his life as a man before he speaks his first word. You will suffer in secret, and this suffering will lead down many roads of disgrace and shame. But your wife will-”

“This is your tale, not mine.” I shouted.

“Do you not recognize my voice?” He said calmly as he pulled back his hood. “Do you not know my face?”

He looked like the old man on the shore, and he looked like me. “Father?” I questioned the thought aloud.

“Try again.”

“You must be the old man’s apprentice.”

“Try harder.” He scowled. His anger came like a flash, just as the old man’s did at the mention of the this, presumably traitorous apprentice. I thought for some time. He nodded his head as he saw the riddle clearing in my mind.

“Me.”

“Yes.”

“But then the old man...”

“Also.”

“How?”

“Do you know his name?” He mused. “Do you even know thine own?”

“No and no, not mine true name.”

“Nor will you ever speak it when it is learned.” He looked into my eyes and continued. “You will learn your true name when your woman gives birth and you name him. It is at that time, and only time, which ye shall utter the name, and the cycle continues anew, and ye would do best to remember these words ‘elst you go mad.”

“But I do.” I said solemnly. “You do, n’ forget this tale and all before it. You do and know nothing but your life after and this village. Your story keeps within these borders as though you had never left.”

He nodded slowly. “It seem that which is fate will come to us as destined before time.”

I nodded and took up my sack and wandered as if in a dream to The Taken Hook and traded my stock for a bottle of wine. I drank half fore I met with the eldest of my lovers. She told me of our son, and I shook with terror as I lived my future as foretold. At that moment I realized that I could never love as deeply as the love I had for her…

[toddgoolsby-blog]

A Stranger’s Tale Part One

     This is a story in the age of fantasy and sorcery, where wielders of magic and heroes of mystifying strength are legend to deeds as if they were gods. Their stories spread throughout the land, as evil warlords and witch kings die under their blades and spells. Unfathomable wealth and treasure plundered, unholy artifacts smashed under their heels. But this story isn’t about that. Sure, I live in that age, but I am neither wizard nor knight. I serve no king, nor quest for a princess’ favor. I’m what’s considered a vagabond, a wanderer, a waif of this world, lost to purpose and unclaimed by any of worth. I’m sure I once had a name, given by my birth-folk, but I hadn’t use for them nor their care. I left as soon as I could walk, I suppose, or perhaps I was abandoned. My earliest memories consist of relying on no one but myself, dredging though the murk of forests at night, resting my head on the broken bricks of forgotten roads. I’ve seen the evidence of horrors and honor of this time, nigh did I ever hold interest for such. I imagine no great purpose for myself, just a bite to eat and a bottle of wine to ease my stomach when it calls. I’ve seen the open plains, the seas to the east, the desert far north. For three seasons now I have settled, some my consider it so, in a small fishing village of temperate climate and customs. I traded stories for coin and bought a small shack just on the end of the village markers. I raise chickens. What I don’t eat I sell in the market. What I don’t sell in the market I trade for drink at the tavern. It’s ne’er enough to fill my want, but the owner is fair, and his daughters keep their blushing secrets from him. I became friends with an old, bearded practitioner of the more mystic arts of alchemy. He makes medicine for the townfolk that even sometimes cures their ailments. He spends most of his time sitting on a tall rock, line in water, hoping to catch his next meal. He refuses payment for his medicine, with good reason which lays at the root of its inconsistent effects on its prescribed illnesses, so many leave a bit of coin on his stoop. He pays the children of the village to go into the forest or along the banks for herbs and roots or whatever else he believes he needs for his concoctions. I ensure to spend time with him daily, sometimes only as a greeting, other times at great length. I find his stories much more fascinating that my own even though he hasn’t journeyed from this village even once in his entire life, and a long life it has been. He sometimes talks of an apprentice, a young man whom name, apparently, the old man has sworn to never speak. I spend very little time pondering what scandal surrounds the reality of their relationship, but it is enough to darken his otherwise whimsical demeanor considerably. Ne’er did I see his anger emerge than when the thought of this young man surfaced in his mind. I had just left him there at the rock mere moments ago on my way to The Taken Hook, the village tavern, with a sack of eggs and a butchered hen, fat and tender when I heard a haggard voice call my attention. A man in torn robes, hood over his face, sat on the ground in the village square. “Do you have time for a story?” He said. His voice was luring, and I heard his words as if from the past, spoken from mine own lips. “The real question is, do you?” I challenged. “I will start a story and if it pulls at your curiosity, even a little, you will owe me something in return for it’s ending.” I nodded. “That seems fair enough.” I smiled. “Dare I tempt you the same bet, sir?” He nodded. “I will start...” He insisted.

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Dew on the Grass

     It’s not as barren as it looks, this desert. It’s wide, sure, no vegetation. An endless horizon so flat that one can almost see the curvature of the Earth. I’ve seen it all. Every square inch of it. I’ve lived here all my life, born in the shadow of cracked clay and clod. I’ve named every rock, marked the graves of every seed that never took root in the poisoned ground. I lay in the sun. I count the stars at night. Each have a name that I have given them, and they have given me. The animals have left this place hundreds of years ago. The humans, even, abandoned it aside from the occasional plane flying high in the clear skies; a blink of polished metal miles above. I alone live here, sustained by the spirit of the soil. She talks to me, comforts me. I am her lover, and she is my provider. On the hottest days, she brings the cool breeze. During the coldest nights she guides me to shelter.

     I took to my feet one day, and walked where they lead. I felt a pull at my chest, a voice calling from a vast distance. I wandered in a precarious fashion. I ignored the warnings from my love. The blasts of heat beating against my face. My lips bled and split from the dry attacks, the torrent of scorching air. My hands dried, my feet burned, the soil boiled hotter and hotter with every step. The desert, my provider, fought to protect me, keep me. Or is this something else? I questioned for the first time. Her struggle was fierce, our battle, our first, was more than I thought I could bare. I pressed on. Chips of clay and dust started to pierce my skin. She is keeping me from something.

     The sun was close to setting, but she refused to let it dip below the horizon. It sat still in the sky, looming over my path, blinding. I looked behind me and watched the moon rise. The smiling disc followed his path, only the brightest of stars came to watch my journey, I heard their encouragement from their great heights. Cyclones of winds attacked me, the desert’s will began to spurn my arrogance. The sun stayed in place, just above the flat. Rocks beat and bruised my body. I stumbled, putting my arms over my face to protect myself. My skin blistered, broken. Blood clotted by sand and wind over my wounds. The moon was now overhead. Large and white erasing my long shadow as I moved forward toward the sun. I couldn’t see but a few of my bright stars now. The wind kicked up sand and debris, turning the sky brown, yellow, and red. The sun only glowed through the dust cloud. Red tornadoes stretched down out of the sky. I pressed on.

     Everything suddenly stopped. I fell to my needs to witness a sight I had never seen before as the moon came down to swallow the sun. The stars flocked to their positions in the looming twilight. The sun fought back, bursting her light against the moon as he moved over her slowly, delicately. They merged in perfect place. As he got closer, the moon lost his calming white glow. Darker and darker he grew as her descended upon her. The storms had stopped in an instant, and the stars all watched as the moon turned on the sun. The desert, too, turned her head away from me. I gripped the soil beneath me. I felt panicked. Something is off. The dark moon began to eat the sun, the sky was growing darker and darker. Finally I saw nothing but millions upon millions of stars over head, and movement beneath me. It was cold, and slick like saliva. Something was coming out of the soil. I jumped to my feet and ran. I lost all direction as the moon completely engulfed the sun. I ran blindly in the darkness, the sky meeting the Earth in terrifying display. I ran on soft, black soil, the stars shining above and below me now. I ran till I could run no more. My lungs felt heavy, and full of something other than air. The air itself weighted my movement, and I fell to the ground again and met with thousands of sticks, soft and slick. The ground was covered with these small sticks. I couldn’t escape them. I pulled my will to stand and run only to slip and fall again.

     The moon began to move and the sun slowly began to shine again – he had his fill of her. My eyes adjusted to the blinding sun and I found my desert destroyed, eating by colors of green. My desert, I could feel her dying, my heart was breaking. She had been covered up, suffocated under this blanket of green sticks. I cried out and cursed myself for what I had done. She fought to keep me, and I didn’t listen. She called out, I ignored her. Her love stopped the sun, and moon took away its power. I felt betrayed despite that I am the betrayer. I sat on my knees and cried out for forgiveness, but my love was dead, buried under the green bright greens that reflected the sun who’s weakness against the villainous moon had betrayed us all. I coughed and wheezed under the weight of the air. My lungs attacked me, too, in vengeance of this air I was forced to breathe. There was no escape, no reprieve as I lay drowning in the humidity. The mysterious plants continued to grow around me as I coughed and choked, suffocating on the air around me. I gripped my legs and pulled myself close as I took my last strangled breath, completely entangled by the sea of green.

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Chill day. Beautiful weather. (at St. Charles, Missouri)

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The Book (or, With Great Purpose)

I had been waiting for the this moment for nearly thirty years. I stood out in the cold rain, a miserable thing under any other circumstances, but not tonight. Tonight it was a thing of prophecy. I had already lived this moment, hundreds of time, in dreams. I looked at my watch, only ten minutes more to wait. The man would be there. I had seen him before. Tall, middle aged, thin. His name is Harold, from northern England. He would bring me what the thing that has both tormented my dreams and inspired greatness in my life. Every moment has lead me to this moment. Every opportunity, promotion, scholarship, loan, gift, every second of every day, every moment that has brought more and more wealth into my life. It has been a blessing knowing that these things were for a purpose. I watch my colleagues squander their fortune. I pity their lack of purpose, their non-importance in life. I, however, have been called to a higher purpose. All of which has lead me to stand here in the cold, soaking in my suit, in the darkness of night. I see headlights in the distance. This is Harold. He is coming to deliver what spent a lifetime to amass. I am making him a millionaire. I will be left penniless. But what I am buying is beyond riches. It is life itself. No one truly understood its power, other than the one who wrote it. This book, the object of terror and wonder, was sent to me all those years ago in a dream. Tonight I hold it. I feel its pages. I read the ink. So many books have been written since the invention of literacy. So many dismiss the power in the written word, and use it to create frivolous novels and biographies of people who are merely dust in the desert of history. I alone understand the true power of words, the power of the written text. The truth of this is in this action alone. I am to obtain the book, to purchase what can no be bought, with money. Harold, the man who possesses it, has no respect for what he has and is so willing to rid himself of it for something as fickle as money. Money only has value when you no longer have it. It means nothing in your pocket, in your account. They're tickets to what you need. I will soon have what I need. My life truly begins tonight.

The car slows and stops next to me. The passenger door rolls down slightly and a voice tells me to get in, just as in my dreams. I open the door and slowly slide in to the passenger seat, soaking the cushioning. I don't look at Harold, not yet. That moment hasn't come as I have seen in my dreams. We drive. Harold speaks, I listen. “It's been tough finding this place.” He says. We make the bend in the road, overlooking the city I live in. We're alone. No traffic. He puts the gear into park and shuts the lights off. He has his money. I paid in advance. I knew he was good on his word. “Why didn't we meet somewhere else?” He asks. “Why here?” “Because this is where I live now.” I say. “I have given you everything. I sold my houses, my cars, my clothes, emptied my accounts.” I cough lightly, shaking off the cold. “My payment represented a lifetime of work, liquidated to the purchase of the book.” Harold smirked. It was subtle, but I saw it. Just as I had seen it over and over all my life. “It was an offer no one could refuse.” He said. His eyes became blank, sullen. “It was far more than what I had done to obtain it.” Just as in my dreams, the moment I had been waiting for, as if a queue, I drove a knife into his throat. He didn't resist. He knew the true cost. I could hear it in his voice, see it in his eyes, just as I had seen it in my dreams. His head tilted slightly. “I am sorry, friend.” I admitted. I felt no remorse. It was the true cost of the book. It was the price he had paid to obtain, and the cost to relinquish. “Where is it?” “In...” blood flowed slowly from his mouth. “In the backseat.” I reached back and felt the warmth in the cover, the tightness in the binding. “I knew.” He said. “We all do.” I answered as I opened the clothe wrap in my lap. “Don't be afraid. Use it.” I looked at him finally. He was just as shown to me in all those dreams throughout my life. “I intend to.”

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A Night in 1862 Dakota (or Alone in the Snow)

     I have spent the majority of this winter reading all the scientific journals of this time. Stacks and boxes litter my small, rough cut cabin in the north-most region of the Dakota Territories. I’ve begun burning pages from the weeklies. Page after page, trying to light the pot-bellied iron stove in the center of the single room lodge. There’s little left to do as far as my own research that lured me our to this wild land in mid-summer. Rumors and obscure stories, often spread by Indian traders and slaves, claim there is a peculiar creature that inhabits the most desolate plains of this unlawful land.

     I had my problems as Autumn turned her back at the hint of Winter’s coming. Bandits, savages, thieves, all came to take what was mine. My own band of hired mercenaries, too, took what they wanted before leaving just after the first snow. They left food, water, and what little of my research equipment they felt wasn’t of value. They left me a gun, however, and twelve cartridges. The rusted barrel of this lever action seemed as though it would serve me little use in the event of a life threatening event, but nonetheless it did serve as a peaceful reminder that I do have a fighting chance in the event of one.

      I sat bundled in fur blankets, slowly blowing on the embers, trying to light the frozen wood. A storm blew through just a few days after that first snow. Freezing rain that soaked my winter’s supply of wood. The wood became saturated with water, then froze to the core as temperatures dropped below temperatures I had ever experienced. The wind howled through slits and cracks in the walls. Whistles so sharp that it often caused me to wake from my sleep in a panic. My work has been all but halted. I came to search out this creature, but I am bound by the white cold to this dwelling.

     I had struck my last match weeks ago and now wrestled with flint and steel. I am no survivalist. I am fully convinced that if I was, I would already be dead from the curses that come with confidence in situations like these. A dependence upon my own intellect and specialties may have hindered my over-preparation. This waste, as it was call as I made my orders to the University who funds my expedition, has shown to be nothing more than the bare minimum than what may be required to survive this cursed Dakota winter storm. I tear pages from the periodicals and strike the flint. Sparks smolder and die out. I curse under my breath and tried again. My hands feel like swollen leather, my bones like glass, as the cold penetrates the walls of my shack. Blankets line the walls in a failed attempt to block the breaches of the walls. I catch myself shivering, nearly shaking, and tighten the fur blanket around me. I’m not entirely uncomfortable, but I know once sleep seduces me the cold will take a firm grip on my condition. The paper smolders and dies out. The wood, frozen, thaws and puts out the flame. A wisp of smoke lingers in the cold room before my own visible breath erases it from memory, swirling then disappeared.

     I rise from the wooden chair in disgust. In my mind I tear the room apart. Push over stacks of journals, destroy my precious research equipment, rip blankets from the glacial cold hemorrhaging walls. I kick the supports and cave in the roof, destroy the floor joists and turn the foundation to ash in my rage. But I just stand there looking into the darkness of the pot bellied wood stove.

     I walk to the small pantry of dried meats and fruits I had in boxes, burlap sacks, and jars. I take a piece of dried salmon and few pieces of fruit, peaches I think, and look at the cot in the corner of the room. I won’t freeze tonight, I think to myself as I move the dusty cot to the center of the room. I gather what blankets I haven’t tacked to the walls and bundle them around myself, still wearing my woolen coat, trousers, and hat. I wrap my face up with my scarf, leaving enough room to slide the small morsels of food into my mouth. A few candles burn on a small table in the middle of the room. Shadows sway on the blanketed walls, pushed by the small breeze that softly gave through the cracks in the walls. I begin to sweat. Moisture gathers around my towel, making my socks itch. I pull the furs tighter and close my eyes, chewing slowly on my piece of dried peach.

     I didn’t quite make it to a dream state. There was no reprieve, no escape, from my predicament. The piercing whistle of the wind cut through my rest. I slowly opened my eyes to see that the wicks of my candles had burned out, likely forever. I had been burning them down to the last end to conserve, but now, with no matches and no fire in the stove, I worried about my ability to light, or even find new candles, in this darkness. I laid their with my eyes wide open, listening to the whine of the storm as it bend my small cabin. What is that? Something new, something lower than the growing wail of the wind. Low, heavy. Soft, but crunching in the snow. I made the sound of snowshoes, that I frequently used in my studies out into the woods until my stove became a constant need for attention. Snowshoes, but heavy. The weight sank them deep into the snow. I heard scraping at the door, not like an animal, the wolves that had finally stopped tormenting me weeks ago, but inquisitive, methodical. I wanted to run, but where? There was no escape, not from this sound, not from this place. I no longer felt the safety of my cabin, but felt as bait in a cage. The cage door was soon to be open. Softly, I heard the steps walk to the corner of the cabin and stop just outside the window. Furs hung over them, a failed attempt to block out the storm, and I hear a sound of smooth friction upon the glass. A hand, or even a finger. I held my breath, trying to see anything through the totality of this darkness. Is this he? The creature I came out here for? I thought to myself. My heart beat inside my chest, as if it too wished to escape. I could hear the pulsing of blood flowing through my own veins. I slowly sat up as curiosity took hold of me like a master sending a slave out to the fields. I was to reap the crop of this field, or feel the lash of failure. The cot creaked as I sat up. A slow groan of wood, nails, and tarp. My regret was simultaneous with the rain of glass that showered every wall of the cabin. The cot cried out into the darkness, and those things that horrify cried back. There was no moonlight, but I could see a faint outline come through the window, an in turn the wall, before I screamed out and tried to hide with no embarrassment of my cowardice. I held my knees to my chest, tangled among fur blankets in the far corner behind the pot-belly iron stove. It was the stove I felt first, smashing into me with violent force. My boots filled with blood as my entire body was consumed in sharp agony. I screamed, a scream equal to my pain. As soon as my own voice fell silent, I heard the scream of the creature. Feral, but manlike. It’s shriek, however, was not one of fear, but hatred. The room filled with the foul odor of its breath. A nauseating silt of halitosis, decay, and infection. The pain shooting through every nerve of my body did not deter the dizzying sickness that came over me. I could hear it rushing close to me as my body convulsed. My mouth produced a flow of watery vomit of digested dried goods. An acid taste leaving my mouth chalky and dry. I felt the warm of the vomit seep into my clothing as the creature ran toward me on its hind legs. It grabbed me, screaming, breathing into my face, and beat my body against the wall. I couldn’t fight back, my terror had completely consumed me with pain and sickness. My cold hand hit the barrel of the rusted lever action as the creature continued slamming my body into the wall. I heard the gun fall to the floor as the creature, with me, broke through the wall. I could see the faint glow of moonlight breaking through the thinning clouds. The creature threw me out into snow thick snow, which had drifts well over ten feet.

      The wind howled and swirled around me and embraced me with freezing arms. It is now I can see the creature, still standing in the new opening of my little cabin in the woods. Even in my pain and terror, I can appreciate this rarest of horror. It was a man, at least in shape, no where near the estimated height the legends had suggested, but still tall. Its body was covered with thick, black, matted hair, from its head down. Even in this darkness its eyes reflected the light. On its head it grew four horns, like a ram. We stared at each other in the darkness. My body shaking from fear and hypothermia. And then it turned its back to me in silence. It disappeared into the darkness of the cabin. I could hear it removing the blankets from the walls. I heard the creaking of the cot as, I assumed, it laid to rest.

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The Shack

Steeped high on a knob of a hill, was a crooked old tattered house. It was once home to a family, name long ended, and even longer forgotten. The land, owned by one who did not live there, over grown with ferns and pines. I found the place once, in my wanderings of the country side. The place intrigued me, for this forest was in the midst of the prairie. Perhaps a hundred and fifty some acres, if I had to guess, imprisoned by a sea of grass that went on as far as the eye could see. We were always told to stay away from this place, not with warnings of ghost stories or folk tales, but merely out of the privacy and respect for its distant owner. I ignored signs stating ‘No Trespassing’ and ‘Private Property’ as I hopped over the rusty barbed wire, fore I was not here to steal anything but the satisfaction of my own curiosity. I caught a chill as the sweat on my skin cooled once under the canopy of this small forest, and my body shook briefly in protest of the stark contrast in climate from the prairie. Soft moss deafened my footsteps as I walked my own path through ferns and navigated between the narrow trees. I stopped and sat on a slick rock to eat an apple I had brought with me for my adventure, which had been rather dull, but rather comfortable, thus far. I looked up, leaned against a tree that grew near my rock, and saw that the sun didn’t penetrate the canopy at any point that I could obverse, and that the air was heavy with moisture to the point that a thin mist hung just under the forest ceiling; a nice reprieve from the dry heat of the prairie. There were no birds chirping, or any signs of life, giving an eerie stillness to my surroundings. I pocketed my apple core and pressed on, not knowing which way I should go but knowing that I could lost if I did not keep my bearings. My wits, more or less wandering in wonderment of how such a place could grow and sustain itself in the heat of its surrounding environment, seemed doped, and it was then when I saw upon the ground, rather embedded in it, a square stone, coupled by others in it’s likeness under my feet. Upon further inspection, and further discovery of an on-stretch of many more similar stones, I realized that I had indeed found a path. I pondered the find, and in pattern with my inquisitive nature, implored myself to follow it. It was a laborious task which I had found myself retracing my steps many times in order to catch hint of where the path had left to when I found myself astray. This was when I came upon a clearing, in which was a small, knob of an elevation of soil, which someone had built a shack atop. The shack was constructed of heavy planks, now gray with the look of petrification, leaned slightly no doubt caused from a sink in the foundation. I strained my focus realizing that this shack had likely stored more than tools and supplies, but most likely a family long ago. I walked out from the coolness of the forest and was quickly, almost rudely, reminded of the dry heat which that forest had reprieved from me. It took a short time to catch my breath, which the heat, the same heat I had been born and raised in, had taken from me as I was reacquainted with its relentless embrace. By the time I reached the stoop of the shanty house, I was already soaking with perspiration which soaked through my hair and clothes. I leaned against the exterior wall, amazingly it didn’t budge. Whoever had built this house knew his craft well. I thought. The door hung slightly open, jammed with a pile of dried pine needles that had no doubt blown in from the forest a few yards away. I opened the heavy door wider and peered inside. A back door was constructed opposite of the front, no doubt for circulation during the hot, summer months. A rough table and chairs sat in the center of the floor and two more chairs, identical to those around the table, were beside a simple stone fireplace. Pillows and a couple blankets had covered the two chairs by the hearth long ago, but only decayed threads and goose down remained. A small bookcase rested against the north facing wall. Upon further inspection I saw that only one book had survived the tests and ridicule that time had perpetrated on this place. It was a book of herbs and their medicinal uses. When I placed the book back on the shelf I felt a disturbing feeling of deja vu, which froze my body to the core. I was locked in a ridiculous pose staring at the old, simplistic bookshelf as I was wrought with not a discovery of discomfort, but complete horror. Upon the bookshelf, was no ornate frivolity, but a small, framed picture. I felt faint and slowly fell back into the near chair. A cloud of must and decay clouded the air, almost outside of my awareness, as I focused on the picture, which had found the key to unlocking a tidal wave of unrelenting, unbridled anxiety that I was oblivious existed in me, fore I had never known these feelings before, never understood them. Tears flowed from my face and I felt cold, shivering, from some internal frost, who’s intent was consumption. I terrorized my focus, pleaded to my senses to ignore the impossibility of the truth which stared back at me from the small, rusted frame. The photograph reflected back a familiar face beholden soft, caring eyes, curled hair that flowed down her back, when she didn’t have it put up in her blue ribbon, high check bones and a slender jaw line. I knew her name, because I had married her. There were no improbabilities, only impossibilities, but this was my love, captured in print and placed in a frame countless generations in the past. I argued with myself, screaming that she was at home, with our sweet, newborn son. It was then I looked up and saw another object in the corner. A rotted, yet unmistakable, frame of a bassinet sat next to the closest chair to the hearth. I bolted from the chair, stumbling over the chairs and table as I ran for the door of the shack, horrified by terrible revelations. I stormed blinding into the woods and its cool air. I ran with speed beyond my abilities and quickly lost my footing, slipping in the wet moss of the forest floor. I felt an electric shock as my head hit the ground. Weak, I tried to steady myself to stand and continue my escape from the ancient house and its terrors, but my arms shook under my own weight. I looked at the ground and saw a wet stone, red, with chips of broken white bone, sticky with some form of matter, littered sparingly across its surface…

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Moonlit Refusals

“Uncommonly known to all though none, cleft pallet signaling the setting sun. She sits aloft straddling jagged mountains capped black, scorned white, soon blanketed in blue moonlight. We spoke of none, and told all. Those of us on the rise were only born to fall. Plead with me, dear, fore the moon knows no known mistake. Escape with me, love, like two thieves on the take. I called out for you, but you’ve not your own ears! Your’s are missing, another body appears. Hers is touched by the cusp of desire. You’re eyes grow bored of old love retired. I long for you, not this one before me. Does she hold tight your ears? Can she be trusted for messaging? I will fall through the sun, if it means I can fall again for you. We’re creatures of habit, though our tricks are few.”

“I hear you, lover, but I’ve long lost all love for you. Grow bored? I have! fore you’ve forgotten me to! You’ve said all those words that I have heard once before. You’re nothing but the others that I’ve learned to ignore. I never wanted this, it was an accident in truth. You made me feel the ways that I had felt in my youth. Confused, I’ll admit, but your charm, your wit. Enchanted with your energy, your company a gift. But what I want is what you can’t afford. I need a lover near me, for all time, to adore.”

“I hear you, my love, and do you words tear my heart so. If these are your true feelings-”

“they are.”

“- then I’ll go. Through jagged mountains and bogged plains. Turn coats of dearest friends just to spite my own name. Before now, if I had only knew, I would have left you so. I would have left before your heart had turned so cold. I would have left you our memories untainted by your scorn. You would have remembered me in fondness, wondering whence did I go?”

“But I will, truly. You were good to me, my love. For that I will always love you, what you once were is gone, because you have given me all you could give. But I am a woman of needs, and you are a man of good deeds. Yet I have taken you whole, and drained you so well. I need a new love, one that is full. Fore I need more, fresh, and bountiful.”

He stood in the darkness, in front of this strange body with familiar ears. It caressed him in the dark, and they lingered for years. The moon never set, and the sun never rose. He knew that life always holds back more than it shows. The stranger would hold him tight, until the last light inside would subside. His love was gone, this play to repeat. Another gone now, running without feet. His head rests on the shoulder of the stranger,  with the body of desire, and nothing but a husk of this man to inspire…

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Cat Allergies

     It’s easily the hardest thing in the world, but we do it so easily. We trust. We trust people because they’ve earned it. Or we trust them because we’ve never been hurt by them. It’s easy to trust what seems safe, like a feather. A feather is something you can trust until you choke on it. I’ve never put myself in a position where I’ve trusted something as it’s letting me down. But here I am, trusting. I guess you can’t see me. I’m hanging from a rope, it’s wrapped around my leg, twisted around my arm, and loosely tied to a limp. The limb is creaking, the knot isn’t very good. Trust is hard. I was tying a ladder, making it more secure, so that I could free my neighbor’s cat from her predicament. She was crying for nearly three hours. No one was coming to save her. The neighbor was out of town. I need sleep. I pulled the ladder from their backyard in the early morning and promptly slammed it up against the tree, mere feet from Cat. She, after seeing the ladder, climbs higher in the tree and begins to cry again. I realized at that moment that I was to physically rescue her. Long story short, she scratched me and ran down the base of the tree with finesse. I, on the other hand, slipped from the ladder at the moment of the attack, and now dangle upside down, roughly eight feet from the ground. The ladder tilted beyond risk of attempt. The branch frequently reminding me of its strain. I’ve been here for about fifteen minutes now. Cat ran from the tree as soon as her paws touched the grass, but she’s back now, staring up at me. Fuck you. I think to myself. “You wanna get some help?” I breathe slowly. She just stares. Her tail flicks back and forth slowly. The branch complains again. I feel like if I swing toward the ladder, the branch will break, but if I hang here, all the blood will flow to my brain and I’ll eventually die. Saturday morning. If it was a weekday someone would have found me by now, but we like to sleep in on the weekends in the suburbs. I like to sleep in, like this cat should have been. I watch the sun as it begins to rise. I hadn’t given up hope yet, but it felt strange that it might be my last sunrise I’ll ever see. Cat stares, flicks we tail. “Come on.” Why don’t dogs get stuck in trees? I look at the ladder angled just off the tree. If I can swing and push the ladder against the tree at the same time, I think to myself, I might not break my neck? I think about it for a minute. The branch cracks a little more. “Fuck it.” I swing. The branch cracks loudly and I feel my body falling, but toward the ladder. I look up just in time to see the branch hit the top of the ladder. The ladder jumps to the side, legs coming off the ground as I grab it. I look down, Cat runs.

     I’m not sure how it happened. I couldn’t see everything, and it all happened a little faster than I probably experienced it. My arm, that is tangled through a rung in the ladder, is twisted backwards, bone exposed. I can’t feel my legs, but I can move my head. That’s a plus. I can feel the warmth of the morning sun on my arm, the one that’s not broken. The compound fracture is on fire, which is also a good sign I suppose. But my legs? I can’t feel a thing. The ladder has me pinned, arm twisted behind me, through the rung, my back laying across the bent aluminum frame. I try to scream for help, but my mouth is dry, my voice cracks. I hear purring above me. Cat’s returned. She sniffs my face and circles me. “Please don’t.” I can barely whisper. Cat puts her paw on my chest then gracefully leaps up, lays down. Her eyes peer into mine before hers close. Her tail carefully folds around her body. She’s warm. Her purring grows louder. Trust. I’m allergic to cats.