Tag Archives: surreal

The Other Side of The Wall

“Do you think I’m pretty? Do you think that you could ever love me? Would you ever look upon me as something to be desired? Even someone like me?”

And just like that, Martin started hearing her. It wasn’t right away, but it wasn’t long after moving in either. And it was with such clarity that it was like he could reach out and touch her: the ghost, the girl that was just a voice, the girl that lived in the walls.

It terrified him at first. Because Martin –just like anyone, really– was not accustomed to the unknown or something so…ghostly. Even spiders scared him, a lot. But the girl was not a frightening apparition. She did not seem to mean anybody harm. Even more so, she seemed to take no notice that Martin was even there.

Except who was the girl talking to? It was rather puzzling. That was why Martin started to listen, to really listen. While doing so, he couldn’t help but wonder what she looked like or if the girl was as lovely as she sounded when she laughed.

At first, she was disrupting Martin’s daily routine, and Martin was all about his daily routine. After a short time, however, she became part his daily routine.

After work, as Martin began to spend more time with a chair close to the kitchen wall where he could best hear her, the unseen spirit began taking shape in his mind. He began to picture her face, her oval wandering eyes, her lips lifting into a smile. Some sunny afternoons Martin could even hear her sing.

What is this? Where are you? Martin would wonder. Occasionally, he would even go outside and around the corner to the place alongside the house by the driveway where she should have been –but there were only shrubs, if you could even call them that. Martin did not consider that the voice came from the shrubs. He doubted that shrubs could sing.

This was a strange predicament. Martin was alone and even sometimes lonely. He had always felt as much, especially when in a crowd. It was like he was looking for something that was never there. So, these days even a voice in the wall became good company even if they couldn’t respond when Martin asked questions aloud in the kitchen and felt like the crazy old woman at the grocery store that always counted her pennies and then slipped and started over again when Martin was behind her needing to get to work.

Despite that Martin needed to know what was happening here in his kitchen, it gave him a fresh perspective, a new light. It made things exciting. It made days seem more than just an endless parade of eating frozen dinners in front of the television and trying to avoid the mailman’s incessantly dull conversations about the weather.

“Every time I walk in the sunlight, I am glad to be alive. Just feeling the sun, its glow, its warmth –it’s like unconditional love on my skin and on my soul.” The ghost girl had said out of nowhere one day as Martin was putting the kettle on, and it felt as though she was speaking directly to him as it was a gloriously clear and warm Spring morning filled with birds fresh with song. “Even when it hurts, even when things are so bad that all I want to do is cry, seeing the blue sky and the white glow of our perfect star makes me take a deep breath instead because every day is a blessing.”

“I feel the same way,” Martin returned, but heard nothing more. Still, he smiled and went about his day with renewed vigor. Ah, this voice, this spirit, this girl –whatever she was, it was apparent that she was not malevolent at all but soft like the summer rain that drummed upon the awnings and the dawns that followed when the morning light was just a whisper along the horizon.

But then there was her father:
“Cassandra, why are you so useless? I swear to God, girl…”
He was malevolent.

Now there were more of them in the walls to Martin’s dismay. He could even hear the dog barking and the TV muffled in the background. It was like they were coming alive on the other side of the old plaster.

“Turn up the TV and go get the paper, Cassandra.” And so the television was turned up as requested in Martin’s world as well but faintly –a flicker, a shadow.

Who were they, really? They weren’t neighbours; Martin didn’t have any. He lived in a fully detached house on a barren lot with nothing around but the old railroad station where decommissioned engines and carts, stacks of old rails and railroad ties, and a broad array of other abandoned equipment lay haphazardly around –all cobbled into something reminiscent of a giant child’s forgotten toy set.

It wasn’t a haunting either. According to everything that Martin was ever told, ghosts did not travel in packs. They did not bring their dogs or television sets back with them either. It was rather that the house remembered. The voices, the people, and the time that they had lived here was etched into the walls and the house had decided that it wanted to relive what had happened here. It kept what it had heard and now it was playing it.

It was playing it all back for Martin.

“Cassandra, you’re as worthless as they come. Look at you! Who’s going to love you? Can’t even do the dishes right.”

Worst of all was that this was so familiar to Martin. He thought that he could understand Cassandra. He knew what it was like to feel that you didn’t deserve to exist at all and always be reminded of it. And things got worse over time. Fights became physical. Things would get broken. It would go on for hours, and all Martin could do was listen.

“Cassandra, get me a beer. Then clean up the kitchen and sweep the house.”
“You said I could go outside today. It’s such a nice day.”
“You talking back to me? Come here!”

It soon become apparent that her father was a drunk that liked to berate and beat on Cassandra day and night, and for whatever reason he could find. And Martin couldn’t do anything about it. It just wasn’t possible for him to interfere so there was no way to help her, to save her. Martin was irrevocably destined to helplessly sit there and listen to it play out from some distant memory that the house freely regurgitated like some asshole record player.

But what if it wasn’t? Martin began to ponder things that were in his mind best left to scientists and people on reality television. What if Cassandra lived in the past but also somewhere alongside of him somehow? Somewhere reachable perhaps. The possibilities nagged at Martin because Cassandra was there, wherever and whenever that was. There was nothing tangible, nothing concrete. But sometimes possibilities were enough, and in them he dwelled. Otherwise, what was the point of all this? Was there one?

Days became nights that became days again as weeks led into months and everything had remained as it was. When Martin wasn’t working, he was in the kitchen seated on a chair listening to Cassandra’s sweet, disembodied voice lost somewhere on the other side of the wall -maybe across the whole universe. It could have been another dimension for all he knew. The result was the same: as time dragged on, the hope that he would ever cast eyes upon Cassandra had greatly diminished. Martin felt hopeless in that he couldn’t help himself from falling for someone that was no longer there –just a ghost, an echo; just a breath and a million miles away. Somebody without a face. Somebody without a time.

Still, just to close his eyes and envision her in a summer dress staring out the same window he was as she spoke to no one in particular was something that Martin reveled in, breathed in deeply, obsessed over endlessly. It made everything else seem so distant, just a parade of senseless activities.

“I feel that you are out there, listening,” Cassandra had said. “So, I don’t feel alone, even when I am. Does that make sense? Are you out there, somewhere that I cannot see or touch, but feel?”

Was there a connection somehow, in space and time? It sounded crazy, Martin thought. Maybe it was. But what wasn’t when you really thought about it? Martin pondered what he did every day and how insane that would look to an outsider that did not understand how society worked.

“I can hear you, Cassandra. It’s me, Martin.” Martin sighed, but at least he did not feel so ridiculous anymore. “I know that you’re long gone or somewhere very far away, but I still can’t let go. I won’t. I don’t know how to. I also don’t know what to do or why I’m really here or even why this is really happening, but one thing is certain: I will not give up on you, even if it’s a lost cause. It’s all I have.”

Yet ever-present was her father like the shadow of a hammer upon a nail. And the torture of hearing their daily routine reminded Martin that the universe just was. It did not bend this way or that to follow some fantastical predetermined destiny. Martin was feeding his own delusion like coals into a fire. This was all for naught and he was going to make himself sick or worse from obsessing over what the house was doing.

But then the hammer fell.

It began as all the other fights did: Cassandra’s father yelling, words angry and slurred. He was drunker than usual and punching the walls. Next would be her. The dog was barking. Cassandra was sobbing, begging for him to stop. But he was only gaining momentum. This was the worse that Martin had ever heard him: Cassandra was lazy; Cassandra had let him down; Cassandra wasn’t the daughter he wanted. As furniture was being overturned Martin seethed and gripped his chair white-knuckled wishing for anything just to make it stop. But then it did…

Martin heard a bottle smash followed by a heavy thud, almost loud even through the wall. A body fell…Cassandra’s? His mind struggled at what else it could be. Something was very wrong. Martin had a fairly good idea of exactly what had transpired but still…he might have just knocked her unconscious. Then came a long, drawn-out silence. Not good. Martin could hear weeping, barely audible.

Finally, “Cassandra? CASSANDRA?!” Her father shouted. “Oh no, no…my baby girl…”

When the drunken man started wailing, Martin’s stomach dropped like a lead weight to the bottom of a dark ocean. The man had trapped himself in the cycle of his own violence and now he was sorry, now he was the victim. Martin couldn’t even be angry anymore; his heart knew what had happened before his mind could accept the finality of it. Whatever the case had been the result was the same: Cassandra was gone. For a long time after, Martin sat in the dark kitchen listening to the father’s sobs and the rain falling outside, softly.

And then everything just stopped. There was no father, no television, no dog, and no Cassandra. It was as though it had never happened. Martin was shocked to numbness but eventually the numbness wore off and that’s when things got bad. Martin had never had his heart broken before and would have felt better if it was gone completely. If only he could have felt nothing instead. And so Martin let himself go into that dark place alone until he was fully immersed, finally breaking down beneath the weight of his sadness, but that’s not all he did.

Martin stopped sleeping. And he never left that kitchen chair. He stopped eating and was withering away and didn’t care. His work stopped calling. Envelopes piled up in the mailbox. Food went bad. He was completely lost, barely conscious anymore, slipping away as there was nothing to hold on to. This was the end. Martin’s sorrow had become a creature, had become his best friend. Hello, Old Chapo! And this was the end…the end…the end…

Everything was over. Nothing was ever over.

“Martin…”

That voice. Martin had heard it so many times through the walls. But this wasn’t through the walls. Martin lifted his head from the kitchen table, slowly sat up in the chair, turned around and there she was: Cassandra. Standing there. So terribly beautiful. Not a ghost in the wall. She was there. Not a crying, singing, or sobbing invisible entity in the never ether. She was right there in the kitchen staring back at him. There was something in the way that she looked at him. Martin melted. Reality shifted. Something strange and new and everlasting was here. Right there. With her. As alive as the sky. As real as his breath.

“Martin.” She was smiling. Cassandra ran her hand along the wall as she turned around the corner and was gone but for the sound of her feet on the floor echoing down the hall.

Martin had finally cracked. Had to have been. It was just too much for him in the end. No other explanation but…

Martin knew…he knew that this place was special. And that he was special. And that maybe the house had been calling to him all along. And maybe he didn’t have to love her from afar.

Martin scrambled out of his chair, heart beating in his ears. This can’t be real. It can’t be….

Please let this be real…

It’s Back

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Sonya was out back gathering dead leaves when she saw it standing in the schoolyard watching her, hands clenched at its sides, still and silent as a tomb, staring.

Sonya went into the kitchen where Frances was washing dishes.
“It’s back,” she said.
“What? Really?” Frances dried his hands and went to the window. He knew exactly where to look. “Shit. What do we do?” Frances started pacing like he did last time. It was happening all over again as though someone pulled up the needle on a record and dropped it back to the beginning of the track.
“Fuck…fuck…fuck…” He muttered like a broken robot.

“They did say it was possible,” Sonya interjected.
Frances stopped and gave her a look that could dry paint. “I know what they said, okay?”
He walked over to the counter and picked up his phone.
Sonya planted her hands on her hips. “Who are you texting?”
“Ellis.” Frances thumbs were working overtime when a simple ‘It’s back’ would have sufficed, but that wasn’t Frances.

Sonya laughed, “yeah, cause he’s a big help.”
Frances finished up and gave her the look again. “Why do you have to be like that? Honestly, like…fucking why?”
It really didn’t take much time for things to fall back to the way they were the last time they had to deal with that…thing.

And sure enough, when Sonya went back to the window, it was still there, staring. The thing was that it was stuck. It couldn’t move right now. She didn’t know how it had made it that far into the field except through sheer will; it was probably that pissed off.

But tonight, once the sun set and the stars came out -then it would be free to go where it wanted. And guess where it was heading? They needed a plan. Fast. It was only a couple of hours before the standing silent figure in the schoolyard would become mobile and therefore a major fucking problem.

“Come on, Ellis. He’s not answering.” Frances seemed to say it more to himself than to her.
“I have an idea,” said Sonya, trying once again to be the problem-solver. She held this conviction that if she started to say something the rest would just come out, would fall in line organically all on its own -but this time there was nothing.

Sonya didn’t have an idea at all.

And the clock was ticking…

The Dark Beyond The Parking Lot

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I grew up here.
All this time the dark has been watching me,
waiting until I could understand it.

Now, it was calling me out.
It was time to collect.
And that’s why I was back.

I was walking to my car
across the lot behind the apartment building when,
“Hey!” Came a slippery voice
from beyond the trees.

“Hey!” I said back.
After a moment’s pause it said, “you used to live here.”

I stopped. “How’d you know that?”
Instinctively, I opened my car door.

“Remember Jinny? She used to knock on your door
after the streetlights came on.
Your parents did not approve.”
A slight rustle through the trees sounded like quiet laughter as I thought, for the first time in ages, of what happened to Jinny. I thought that whatever was out there knew that and was using it, taunting me.

“Is that so?” I went to the center console. Found the old zippo lighter my father had given to me long ago. It still worked. Like very few things in life, it always worked.
“This is a special lighter, Son. Use it sparingly.”
“How will I know when, Dad?”
“You’ll know.”
That was one of the last times I ever saw him. That day, in the garage, when the afternoon light after the rain dressed the sky in an otherworldly hue.

“Remember the first day you moved in here when you were ten?” The voice moved to the other side of the lot now, just behind the thicket –a coaxing, melodic string of words. “Teddy and Carol wanted to be friends. Not with you though, with your older brother. You were in your new bedroom unpacking your Star Wars toys.”

“Yup, I was there.” I put the zippo in my pocket and closed the door. Teddy didn’t last too long after that, maybe a couple of years. Carol too. Nobody had seemed to make it out of here. Nobody except for me.

“And little Timmy. Oh, what a beautiful bastard! Made you wash his bike. Want to know what he’s doing now?” The voice actually did laugh this time, like it was a little inside joke between us. Timmy had probably long rotted away in the back out there somewhere beneath the gravel and thistle.

I stepped to the edge of the parking lot. “Why don’t you show yourself and we can talk?”

Everything stopped then: the buzzing of the caged light, the night birds, the insects, cars on the streets, my breath.

And then the dark beyond the parking lot groaned, shifted –even seemed to sway.

I could see the darkness stretch…
I could hear the darkness yawn…
I could feel the darkness move air and night and nightmares with its being,
as it awakened…
as it was now getting ready to finally swallow me too.

“Do you really…” The voice came out differently now that it knew we weren’t going to be friends. It was Carol’s.

“…think that…” Timmy’s voice now.
The lights flickered.
The air grew colder and the cracks
in the pavement widened.

“…that lighter is going to help you…” Now Teddy’s, ending his sentence with a laugh just like always.

“…out here?” All of them now – whispers falling into whispers surrounding me, invading me invisibly.

I held out the zippo to the wall of blackness and flicked the flame alive. The landscape before me could be heard more than seen, but could be seen enough to know that it was moving in different places as though it were one living, breathing entity.

“This is all I need. This is all I ever needed,” I said.

And with that
I stepped down the embankment from the lot
into the trees and
into the darkness,

if only because I was so tired of hiding away from it
and from myself.

Now it wants to know what I’m going to do about it…

and so do I.

Dream Phone

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“I know it’s been a couple years since lockdown…but I heard and I’m so sorry about Beth, Man. I really am.”
“Yeah, so am I.”
“You still think about her?”
“Every single minute, Martin. Things like that don’t just go away.”
“Fuck cancer.”
“Yeah, fuck cancer,” I said without conviction, staring down at the table. Still the same Martin then. I never quite understood how someone as empathetic could be so socially tone-deaf. And why was I here? What did he want?

But really, what was I doing other than sitting in a room with the drapes drawn staring at a television that wasn’t turned on?

Someone at the other end of the coffee shop coughed. I looked over to see an old man in a checkered shirt frowning at me.
“Oh, check this out.” Martin reached inside his jacket. “Got this phone on Amazon. It lets you take pictures of your dreams.”
“Bullshit.”
“No, seriously. All you have to do is make a clicking motion with your finger –like this, and it’ll take a photo of what you’re doing right inside your dream. But you have to remember while you’re dreaming to do this. Harder than it sounds. Took me a while to get the hang of it.”

I drummed my fingers on the table.
“Bullshit,” I said again. I mean, believe this guy?

Martin laughed, “Okay, I get it. But tech these days? And this phone? I got it a week ago and you should see some of the shit that it can do. Unreal. I don’t know who made it, and I even looked.” Martin then leaned forward and whispered as though what he was telling me was a grave secret: “Listen, this is so much more than just a phone. It’s like a line to the other side of the universe; a bridge to beyond and back. Something happened soon after I got it…so…I had to show you it.”

“Okay, Martin,” I clasped my hands together and looked over at the old man again. He was still frowning at me. “First off, what the fuck? Why me? And what do you mean ‘other side?’” This was when I started to feel something begin to crawl around the inside of my stomach, something cold and unfriendly.

“Alright, alright…” Martin smiled. He has always been a decent enough guy, but this conversation made a quick right turn and went a little too far down the yellow brick road. Maybe Martin was a few gumdrops short of a gingerbread house. Who knows? Either way, I didn’t like where this was going.

“Don’t freak out. Okay? Promise?” Martin didn’t wait for an answer. He slid the phone over and I found myself staring at a pic.

It was me and Martin leaning back against a beach bar with Chinese lanterns filling the sky behind us. Somewhere tropical. Sailboats and gulls. Even though I was never there, it did look like an actual photo. But the only thing that I really saw was Beth, my dearly beloved and departed, standing on the other side of me in a white flowing dress with her arm around my waist.

“What?” Was all I could muster to say, and I could hear my own voice begin to choke. I didn’t know what I was looking at, at first. But it hit me, hard. My vision began to blur. I wasn’t expecting to see her today. It changed things. Memories came flooding back: watching her live, watching her die.

“You fucking photoshop this?” My hand started to shake, so did the phone. I felt tears begin. Fuck, I thought that I was getting better for a while, but obviously I wasn’t.

“Whoa, Man.” Martin looked around. “Let’s just chill for a sec. You’re not seeing the whole picture.”

I actually began to laugh, “I’m not…whew!” I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and looked at the pic again; brought it closer to my face.

Martin shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “You need to listen to me, I…”

“You Sick Fuck, you think this is funny?” I said it softly, my voice quivering. I could barely make out Martin sitting across from me. My face felt hot. Holding the phone anymore was no good so I lay it down on the table, gently.

Martin’s eyes widened. “Easy, Man, just give me one second to explain.” He seemed just as unnerved as I was. Maybe he wasn’t a complete asshole, just hopelessly misguided. But by now he had certainly realized that this was a mistake.

That’s when the phone lit up with an incoming call and I stared at it in disbelief.

Back in college, when we were starting off, Beth and I had made a pact. We made it because deep down inside we knew that we were meant to be together. We would always be in love; there was no question. And we would always find each other no matter what. That was the pact. There was a song that was part of that pact. It was playing when we made it. It was forever, just like us. We adopted it. Sang it to each other. Stupid shit. It was a silly, young romantic gesture. One that I had almost forgotten until now.

It was a collection of flat eight-bit tones, but the ringtone the phone was playing –it was mine and Beth’s song.

Nobody else knew that. When the song then began to play over the radio in the coffee shop it felt like somebody had just tapped me on the back in an empty, locked room. It brought back the nights I lay alone in our bed after she was gone, having conversations with her in my head, wishing to God that I could have went as well and not be left here, like this, grown-ass man crying in the dark like a lost little child. What I would have gave to speak to her again, if only for a minute.

What I would have gave.

Martin put both his hands up like he was under arrest –only to show me that he was non-threatening. He then slowly reached over and answered the phone.

“Hey. Yeah. Thank you. Here he is.” Martin handed it over across the table. As though in slow motion and like in a dream itself, I slowly reached out, grabbed the phone, and brought it to my ear.

“Hello?” I said.

Can You See Them Yet?

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Sometimes I hear people
right behind me,
and I don’t know who they are.
All that I know is that
they’re not really there.

It all started with Alice.
That wasn’t her name.
It was what she was after…or who.
She wouldn’t shut up about it.

I take long walks, you see.
One day her voice caught up to me
and out of thin air came:
“Alice wasn’t home today.
I want to show you where she lives but
I follow you. You don’t follow me.
You can’t. That’s not the way it works.”

“What? Hello?” I turned around and saw no one.
“Is anybody there?”

“Don’t be a lunkhead. I was fucking telling you about Alice.”

From there it didn’t stop.
Next came James,
“Alice always wears green, but don’t tell her I told you that.”
Then Marcy,
“Alice isn’t as nice as she comes across. Her kindness is a charade.”
And Sean,
“Alice pretends that she doesn’t want me. But that’s all it is, pretend.”

I don’t know what they look like
because I can’t see them
but they are right there
and nowhere at the same time.

I started walking faster, but it didn’t help
because the voices were always
just behind me:

“Alice is being a real bitch.”
“Oooh, I just love your skin.”

It wasn’t just one place, one walk, one road.
It was at the mall, at the bank, the bakery,
on the street or in my shitty apartment
as I sat on the recliner watching TV.

“What’s he doing?”
“He’s just sitting there staring at that talking screen.”
“Does Alice know?”

I don’t know who they are
(who the fuck is Alice?)
or what they are or where or
how they can see me or if they only see me
or a million other things.

The only thing scarier than this being all in my head and that
I was going batshit crazy
was the possibility that this wasn’t
-that this was real and
what that implied.

Two weeks later I got my answer
from once again, the unlikeliest of places
because our expectations of life
and all that it entails
are meant to be smashed, obliterated,
run over and then set on fire
every single step of the way.

So, there I was on a Monday
at the shop when
Marcus (the mechanic)
nodded me over, wrench in hand.

He wasn’t working on my vehicle just yet
and I didn’t really know him so
I approached with caution
because humans were dangerous.

As Marcus went back to changing a tire he said,
“Alice’s friends have been telling me about you…”
in a happy, sing-song voice.

“Alice?” That sounded so familiar that it was painful.
It still took me a second to process because,
“you mean the voices in my head?”

I wanted to grab Marcus and shake him
and scream and cackle madly
but I just stood there staring at him…stunned,
because none of this seemed real.
I could smell the oil, the exhaust, the lubricants, the cold air outside.
The lighting was harsh and glaring as usual. Nothing was out of the ordinary.
But yet, everything had changed forever
in one casual conversation.

Marcus shook his head and laughed.
He slowly turned to me,
set his wrench down on the cart
and with excited eyes said,

“Can you see them yet?”

The Dealer’s Apartment

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The text read: 122 Hamilton Street. Apt 42. Bring a flashlight. Get the stash and go home. Easy.

I arrived at a six-story apartment building that was completely dark. All windows were black squares. No lights in the parking lot. No cars.

Was this place completely empty?
It looked like a utilitarian tomb, but that was under closer scrutiny than I would have given any apartment building on any of these streets. Hidden in plain sight, there was something definitely wrong here. I could smell it.

Bring a flashlight. So, the dealer knew about this. Of course he did.

I opened the front door to silence. No dogs barking. No babies crying. No life. I pulled the flashlight app on in my phone and held it in front of me as I went up the stairwell to the fourth floor. All was still. Eerie. A night museum.

I shone my light upon each door until I came to the right one and knocked.

“Get your light off my door.” I heard someone say from behind it.
“What?”
“Put your fucking light down. Do you understand English?” The voice sounded gruff, tired, angry.

“Okay.” I complied. The door opened to an apartment I couldn’t see as it was pitch black except for the echoes of light my phone reflected off the linoleum floor.
“Keep your light down. Don’t shine it in my face, so help me God.”
“No problem.” My hand was shaking slightly, causing the light to bounce around. I steadied it, but everything about this situation made me extremely nervous.

“Wait here,” he went into the bedroom and slammed the door behind him.
I heard the distinct sound of somebody sucking up a rail of cocaine (or whatever) up their nose. I heard a female’s voice.
“Shut the fuck up,” he said, almost at a shout. “Nobody fucking asked you.”

The man came back out and put something on the table. I shone my light on it. Pills in a Ziploc bag. I could see his stained white shirt momentarily before pulling my phone back down. I thought that he was going to berate me for shining my light on the table but, “go on, take it.”

I stepped forward and shoved the bag into my inside pocket.

“Get the fuck out. Keep your light down. Don’t shine it on anyone. You’ll be sorry that you did. You Shitbags never fucking learn. Scram.”

I gladly got out. In the hallway, from the opposite end towards where I was going, I heard a door close and footsteps start to come my way –heavy, awkward ones. I did what my immediate instincts told me to, shut the light off and plastered myself back against the wall until they passed.

Once I was outside, I could really feel the cold in the air. I punched in an Uber and waited, thinking that my problem –my whole new fucking situation– might have been a little understated.

And I wasn’t sure about these pills anymore.

I SAW GOD IN HER LAUGHTER ON A GODLESS NIGHT

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Standing outside the warehouse
3:30 a.m.
on a Monday night
buzzed as fuck because
my life was
completely out of
control but
the world was always ending
anyway.

I was waiting for the
whatever man:
the Space man
the Big man
Blast man
–fucking Spider-man.

And I was there to pick up
whatever it was called
this time:
Blue God, Ice
Cloud Dream
Dark Light
-Elvis’s Last Shit.

We label things and
name ourselves
to make it all seem
so much more than
it really is and
have been doing this
since we swam up
on shore
and started walking.

It’s just drugs, man.
Just fucking drugs.
It makes people so crazy
but so does booze
romance
religion
children’s birthday parties
being around other people
and being alone.

A silhouette approached
almost melding with the dark
and I almost didn’t see it,

but her voice was
both exhilarating
and frightening and
alien.

“You’re here for Magic Man?”

“Either that or I’m really fucking lost,”
I said.

She laughed like
wind chimes
breaking a long silence

like glass shattering
every fragile illusion

like the rarest escape of
perfect harmony
in a world full
of mediocrity
of spiritual poverty
of holes under carpets
of monsters under beds
of floating garbage
and drowning people
of empty spaces
between empty spaces
of broken bottles in
endless alleys
of fools and ghosts
and miles of pain.

I knew that she was
beautiful
and I couldn’t even
see her face.

And just like that
I had to know
everything about her
but I just quietly followed
her
from darkness
into light
towards magic
man.

MAN IN A HOTEL ROOM WITH A GUN

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Taking it all in
one long moment

sitting there
on the edge of the bed
with a gun in your hand
blood on the sheets
a brunette laying across them

naked
pale
stiff
like a mannequin

you don’t recognize the gun
the room
her
your clothes

You don’t know how you got there
at all

so you lie back
upon the bed
your head close
to her hip

taking it all in
one long moment

staring at the ceiling fan
spinning
a quiet shadow
across everything

before you close
your eyes

and try to wake up.

THE MARVEL SUPERHERO ON PARK STREET

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I was walking by a large Victorian house on Park Street when from up on the top floor balcony I heard someone calling out. I turned to see a girl –maybe ten years old– leaning over the railing so that her long hair hung straight down.

“Hey Mister, do you want to see a trick?”
I shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

“Okay!” She shouted and clapped her hands excitedly. Smiling, she turned and went back into the house only to appear at the front door three floors down not even a second later. She opened it, came out onto the porch, spun around with her arms held out and went back in. Next thing I know there is a knock on the top floor window where she waves and turns away. Again, before I could formulate a thought she reappears out the front door and this time she walks down to where I stood on the sidewalk.

“What do you think?” She asked and folded her arms across her chest. I didn’t even have the do the math; there was just no way was she faster than my eyes could travel from the ground floor to three stories up and back down.

“You have a twin. Throw the same clothes on and have fun with unsuspecting strangers.”

“Nuh-uh! NUH-UH!” She whipped her head back and forth viciously enough that the ends of her hair threatened to blind me and then shot me a glare like I was the biggest dipshit ever.

“Okay, then you’re a Marvel superhero.” I returned.

Behind her, a lady opened the door. “Who are you talking to, Cadence?”

“Absolutely nobody, Mother.” The girl stuck her tongue out at me and crossed her eyes before running back inside. “Noooboooodddyyyyy!!!”

“Hey!” I called to the mother as she was closing the door. “She has a sister, right?” I asked, curious.

“What sister?” The lady looked at me like I was a meth-fueled derelict and when the door was half closed she held it there and scowled at me as though I were the world’s most active pedophile.

“Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have asked that.” I said to myself as I continued on down the sidewalk. “This is why I try not to go outside anymore.”

And this was the second house I couldn’t walk by in this neighbourhood. The first one? Now, that’s a strange story…

THE INCUBUS OF IRVING ST.

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Tina was pulling grocery bags from her trunk when she spotted Bono walking across the street. That’s right, U2’s very own Bono looking like he had just stepped out of the ZooTV tour with the shiny black suit, chest-open shirt, and fly sunglasses. There was no mistaking it because nobody else looked like him. Tina immediately dropped what she was doing and began to follow the singer with complete abandon.

Ireland was a long way away; what was he doing here? Who cared? She wanted to ravage that rock god sex beast right there on the curb. Tina may have been pushing fifty, but she still hit the treadmill and had some bang to her buck –never mind the late afternoon Chianti’s.

Tina kept calling his name, but other than slightly turning her way and showcasing a broad, cocksure smile, Bono kept on walking like he owned the planet. What a tease! Tina became so distracted in watching that hot ass rattle and hum down the sidewalk that she must not have been paying very much attention to anything else as it seemed so sudden that they were all the way down Irving Street to where it met the railway beside the overpass.

Tina never ventured into this area as she had always thought it to be a haven for vicious hobos and violent meth addicts, but now there was no one in sight. At the dead end right before the sidewalk ended into a wall heavily laden with graffiti, Bono finally turned around. Tina only then noticed that there was something different about Bono’s face.

He wasn’t smiling anymore.

Beth was in the process of unlocking her niece’s front door when she heard a knocking sound on the trunk of her car. She turned to see Jim Morrison smile as he patted the taillight and wink as he walked away. There was no mistaking it. No way that wasn’t Jim Morrison. He didn’t look like anybody else.

Wait, wasn’t he supposed to be long dead? He was so hot. Who cared? Beth was freshly divorced from Asshole after twenty-seven long-suffering years of dull and dry nothing, had only a stuffed bank account to show for it, and was dying for something that didn’t sag all the way down. She dropped everything that she was doing and began to follow him.

The Lizard King strutted down the sidewalk without a care in the world. Beth could tell by the fit of his tight leather pants that it wasn’t just his face that looked like it was sculpted by Michelangelo. Where was this iconic piece of deliciousness taking her? What was he going to do to her when they got there? She shivered thinking about the possibilities. Beth must have been thinking about them so hard that they had walked all the way down to the end of Irving Street and she didn’t even notice.

As they came to the abrupt end of the walkway, Beth stopped and realized that she had never been this close to the bridge before, mostly because it was an isolated area that she didn’t consider safe, even when walking Poochie.

There, she found a huge wall covered with painted eyes of all different colours and sizes staring down at her with strange words streaked across them that looked far from English. It all seemed so…Far East, Hindu maybe.

Something shiny on the ground caught Beth’s eye. She leaned down to inspect what was the silver buckle on a black purse. She looked around and quickly discovered that there were other purses of all colours and styles – some modern, but mostly outdated– scattered haphazardly across the lot.

And shoes too, some new but others looked old, very old –as in falling apart and completely colourless, old. Noticing how strange these items were, Beth leaned in closer to examine the pebbles that crunched under her feet and to her growing horror she realized that those weren’t pebbles at all, but teeth –along with piles of jackets, fabric, clumps of hair, and other things that sprang into clarity that her mind almost would not accept, almost. The whole area was covered with this…people residue in every direction.

Beth looked up with a sinking heart, arms and legs frozen in fear, as the singer turned around.

And Jim wasn’t smiling anymore.