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element one: snow day

1/27/2015

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Forecasts running on every network, weather and government agency website declared it the largest, most powerful hurricane since climatologists started tracking. Brightly colored, dramatic logos centered in the eye of animated swirling clouds exploded on screens accompanied by thunderous timpani beneath minor chord screaming brass sections. Deep voiced anchormen scowled next to deer-in-the-headlight-fresh from grad school acu-weather team members. Short straw pullers in knee high snow drifts wearing heavy weather coats emblazoned with their station name fought failing battles against looking cold. Wind whipping them into fences or trees or parked cars. Whatever they stood nearest. Each station’s message the same: “Stay inside. Stay warm. Make sure you have enough bread and milk for a few days. Don’t drive if you don’t have to. Make sure you have lots of candles. Don’t burn down your house if you can help it.”

Everyone bundled up in layers of thermal underwear, sweaters, down coats with hats and matching gloves. The kids celebrated schools closing across five states. Store shelves emptied of everything from batteries to hot cocoa mix. Farms brought animals into their barns locking them up tight for the duration.

Coach Bern rolled the cart carrying the television into the gym. Three hundred twenty nine students filled the bleachers waiting on the roads to be cleared for buses to travel safely. Thirty seven faculty members alternated between keeping the children occupied, well behaved and distracted enough not to panic. Some held cell phones to their ears whispering to family members already protected from the weather in houses or apartments.

I stood in the doorway of the parking lot. The smoke entered my lungs spreading heat from the cigarette. Principal Merritt shot me the stink eye without saying a word. There wasn’t anywhere else for me to smoke unless I ventured into the cold and wind outside. I tipped my Mets cap to him and threw the cigarette into the nearest snow pile.

“Thank you Michael.” He returned my smile with apparently no recognition of the annoyance piled eight layers deep beneath my surface.

“Of course Mr. Merritt.” I let the door shut behind me following him to the main hallway. “Any word on the plow situation?”

“No.” He grunted over his shoulder. “The kids are getting restless, phones are going non stop with parents…they better hurry up.”

“Safety first sir.” I smiled knowing the jab would only upset him more. “At least we have movies they can watch. When I was in school we didn’t…”

“I know Michael.” He spun around glaring through his half cut glasses. Nearly a head shorter than me, he didn’t intimidate me physically. His power held sway over my job more importantly than a black eye or cracked nose. “Back in the good old days we all would walk home. This is not those days. We have higher standards of safety for these children. I am responsible for their well being. Unlike you…”

“Yes. I only drive the friggin’ bus.” I caught his eye before he looked down to the floor. “No responsibility for these kids at all.”

There might have been an apology under his breath following me through the hall.

I followed the stairs down to the boiler room. Other than the maintenance man Jeremy, nobody went down there. My cigarette smoke virtually untraceable, I lit the second one before finishing the first. I opened the boiler and threw the half smoke inside.

“Yo Mike. What’s up bro?” The voice crackled and popped. “Before you flip out, I’m real. I’m in the boiler. Yes, I live here and I’m dad gum sexy.”

I slammed the door over the whoosh of gas in the boiler. The latch flipped up swinging the door wide open until it smacked into the side of the enormous iron machine.

“Now that is rude man.” The flames roared licking beyond the edge of the hatch. “Do you slam doors on folks being friendly all the time? All I did was introduce myself. Damn. No wonder you’re single.

I’m the Fire. In case you’re wondering.”

“The Fire?” I pushed my back into the wall hoping the concrete would somehow absorb me.

“Sure.” The voice climbed to a high pitch. “Who else would I be?”

My mouth hung open unable to find any words befitting an answer. A thin flame lapped at the boiler openings edge. Bright red in a the center blending through orange and finally yellow tips sharp as blades. I pushed harder into the wall while it stretched closer to me.

“What do you want?” I whispered. The panic rising took hold of my lungs forcing more air into the next words making them a crisp bark. “What do you want from me?”

“Easy now fella.” The arm of flame stretched upward evolving into the shape of a hand. Palm forward and fingers up, it halted me in place hushing my voice back into my throat. “No need for shouting. We’re all friends here.

I’m hungry Mikey. It’s cold outside and they’ve got me working over time heating up this big old building. Do you realize I haven’t had a break in three days? Keeping those carpet crawlers warm is a full time gig. Don’t get me started on the ungrateful d-bags you work with up their either. I mean, come on.”

“I can get you a sandwich from the cafeteria…if you want.” I slid closer to the door. The fire hand stretched a finger leaving me no option but to stay put.

“I don’t dig PB&J Mikey.” The finger wagged side to side. “You can definitely help me find what I need though. If you’re willing that is.”

“Please don’t kill me.” My knees cracked against the rock floor.

“I’m not going to kill you man. Jeebuz creebus. Stop being such a pansy ass.” The hand turned lay flat on the ground next to me. The heat coming of pulsed in waves along with the colors intensity rising and fading. “Quiddy pro quoey broham. You help me…” The finger pointed to the boiler. “I help you.” The finger pointed at me.

Without thinking, I leaned my head questioningly to the side like a puppy.

“Do you like your life Mike?” The hand turned its palm upward. “I know the glamor and sexiness of a middle school bus driver must know no bounds. Dealing with that mungle munch Principal Merritt is crystalline ecstasy every minute of the day too. Why would you ever ask for anything more out of life?”

My world tilting on its axis, I didn’t feel the hand stroking my shoulder at first. Made of glowing fire, I squirreled away on my hands and knees expecting nothing less than bursting to flame from head to toe. The fingers closed firmly around my chest. Warm. Not burning. I experienced the comforting of my mothers arms cradling me as an infant fresh from a bath.

“Let me help you Michael. We can make an incredible team.” Thin tendrils slipped between my hair massaging my scalp. “I promise you a better life. A life with respect. A life filled with everything you ever dreamed.”

One tear dropped from each eye. Both etched straight lined down my cheeks at exactly the same speed. They angled inward, reaching the corners of my lips. From there they blended together at the tip of my chin. The fire caught the tear before it fell, raised it gently on the tip of a finger holding it in front of me.

“Together we can have everything we want Michael. Everything.”

I nodded.

The tear spread flat absorbed by the flame. I watched it split in two as it moved to my chin. My skin tickled at the heat rising along the lines to my mouths edge. It flowed upward along the tears path up my cheeks to my eyes.

The world brightened, filling everything hidden in the shadows with light. I felt my legs carry me to the boiler. Flames wrapped my brain in a hurricane of light. Veins mapping my body boiled with new blood made of heat and lovely pain. Energy forced my bones into raging weapons of lightning. Acid spit from my mouth screaming the agony of starvation. Hunger consumed every part of me from hair follicle to cracks in my toenails.

“Food.” I understood the words deeper meaning. The existential requirement for more than satiating an empty stomach. Survival.

“Yes Mikey.” The Fire spoke inside my head with me. “We need to eat. Let me teach you to stoke those embers into a bonfire that reaches the stars above bro.”

“Food.” We climbed the stairs. Feet boulders glued to the bottom of our legs. The higher we went, the heavier each step pulled against me. “Food.” The door flew open in front of us. Crossbar glowing red orange, smoke rising in swift streaks around every edge of the frame. No longer able to lift, the floor bubbled in wide streaks under each dragging step. “Food.”

“Michael.” Principal Merritt rounded the corner ahead instantly assuming a position of annoyance. Hands on hips and head cocked to the side. He sneered, eyes squinted slits ready to launch into a frustrated rant against a lowly subordinate. “Where have you been? The roads were cleared a half…”

Fire wrapped around his head. Thin sprouts launched as daggers into every available orifice. Eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth, pores and hair follicles were mercilessly invaded. What did we do? We ate him. We feasted on every morsel of energy in his body.

Drained, his hollow shell fell to the floor. Ash in the shape of human skin dressed in a cheap, Sears suit drifted ahead of us in the hallway.

“More.”

“Hey Mikey?” Fire laughed to us. “He likes it!”

“Yes. More.”

“There is always more.” The energy surged through stronger than any line of coke or needle filled with adrenaline straight mainlined into the heart itself. “Wait until you have a building. A village. A city!”

“Yes. Yes.”

The bell echoed through the empty school. We turned our head to the glass double door. The bus filled with shouting children eager to go home, honked for us.

“How about a traffic accident?”

We jogged through the doors, feet lighter than the surrounding air. Eager for the taste of diesel, steel, rubber and fear.



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in shadow

1/21/2015

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Remedios Varo
I follow you here. You aren’t looking. I make no effort to hide sliding along behind each step you take. I listen in on the phone call with your mother. You aren’t alone checking the account balance at the ATM. If you feel the need to change your password because somebody is looking, that’s me. I won’t take your money. I don’t need it. Whether you believe or not makes no difference to me. There is a slight pressure inside your left temple. Your hand comes up to massage the spot. On it’s way down, it reaches for your keys. Trying to change it’s direction doesn’t work. It only makes the pain in your temple spread deeper into your head. You insert the key into its designated lock. The click echoes across the empty brick patio. You open the door you never paid much attention to. At the rear of the small alcove you want to decorate with an assortment of tulips or roses. Pinks and yellows would have looked nice in here. There is a small window near the top. You see it for the first time. I’ll tell you a secret, my friends and I put it there while you were asleep last night. We get around much more freely after the sun goes down of course. I am not alone. There are more of us than you know. There are fewer of us than you might expect. We will never meet, not how you expect anyway. I can’t look you in the eye and you won’t hear my voice speak the word “Hello.” Trust me when I say I know you about as well as you know yourself. That’s why I have no qualms completing my intended task. Don’t beg or waste energy pleading for mercy. I took part in every cruel event of your existence. Each knife thrust and bat crushed skull, I assisted your arm in its swing. None of these were my idea, that part was all you. I remained a passenger for the ride until today. Enough time traveled that I definitively know this is the right, the proper thing to do. Can you hear the lock latch home? I made the window for you as a kindness. This is for your soul to look out on the world and remember. The rest of you will follow me. My passenger. My witness.



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A Chorus of Wolves
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off the cuff

1/13/2015

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I broke ranks with the throng of voices. The grand revolt against myself jumped shark after the third set of murders. I’ve since heard that during fugue states, only the present personality remains aware at a conscious level. Unfortunately I wasn’t aware of that bundle of helpful information until recently.

I, unlike most sufferers of the disorder, watched every moment as it played out. A three dimensional television program populated by faces wide eyed and blood painted unready to die. Quivering voices pleading for a mercy they would not receive. Small explosions of gunpowder throwing their metal projectiles forward at supersonic speeds. The sound of impact and subsequent perforation. A handful going so far as exploding into the walls behind.

I did best to convince myself they were all dreams. Nightmares. I’d wake tangled in sweaty sheets and blankets, heater warm despite the winter I witnessed in falling white flakes on the other side of my window. No evidence on my person to indicate any of the atrocities playing through my head existed in the real world.

I massaged sore muscles under the hot shower water. An oval shaped bruise fit in the crook of my right shoulder. Soap ran down my body, covered my feet and sank between all ten toes into the multi-holed drain. The shampoo pierced my nose with a crisp tang. I assumed it was kiwi/lime since that’s what the label on the bottle said.

Scrubbing the towel over my back, water descended in slow, cooling streaks down the inside of my legs. Atop the laundry basket behind me reflected in the mirror, the lid angled slightly open. I couldn’t think of why it would be full having just done a wash load the day before.

Rubbing the towel swiftly over my beard, I turned around. The basket lid closed, it’s empty innards patiently awaiting more soiled linens upon opening. I flipped the light off and strolled into the bedroom to finish my morning rituals.

White button down shirt from the closet freshly pressed. Solid black tie and sanded belt. Matching slacks and sport coat lined with white pinstripes so thin they are near invisible without close inspection. Orange socks because nothing rhymes with orange. Shoes at the foot of my bed shined before going to sleep the night before.

In the top dresser drawer was the small case where I kept my cuff link collection. Finely polished mahogany seamed together with no nails or glue. My grandfather constructed it by hand, measuring and cutting each piece to fit in place and never move once hammered into place. Layer upon layer of lacquer applied with a horsehair brush he also made using hair from the tail of his very own horse Majestic Marge in 1906.

Dad inherited the box from Grandpa Johnston when he died in the Pastor University chemical fire of 1961. He in turn gave it to me on the day I graduated from the police academy. Placing it in my hand, Dad gave my shoulder a firm squeeze. His eyes dry, focused some place beyond the top of my head. There was a cold shiver sent from his strong fingers deep into my muscles.

I looked up to thank him, but he already walked away. I followed him to the parking lot, watched him climb into his black Volkswagen Scirocco and drive away without saying a word.

I never saw him again.

I kept six pairs of cuff links in the box. One black. One white. One silver. One gold. One shaped like eighth notes and the last pair is made from two actual bullets from Jesse James’ .45 Colt Peacemaker revolver.

I chose the bullets and a pocket square to match my tie. I closed the box and immediately opened it again. A splotch of black caught my attention. The unfamiliar stain spread in the top left corner where previously had been nothing but the shimmer and reflectiveness of the polished wood.

I ran a finger over the spot. Nothing seeped away on my skin. Leaning closer, I sniffed the air. Above the crisp, familiar tones of the wood there was a slightly sour tinge. The back of my tongue curled down. Gag reflex nearly triggered, I stumbled backward, my head swirling inside the tight confines of my skull.

His face stretched long in my mind. The man screamed sounds I couldn’t hear. Teeth cracked and broken. Fingers twisted at impossible angles. Left leg at a ninety degree angle to the side below the knee. Nose crushed One eye swollen shut, the other socket empty.

I breathed slowly through my nose swallowing back the bile. Calm, I stood in front of the mirror. I watched through myself as the man slicked back his hair. The brush soft. Short bristles tickled at the skin under the beard.

The case slid out from under the bed. Opened, the large gun, old but well cared for fit into his hand as if built to his palm’s measurements. He twisted the bullet cuff links to the left. A soft click and they released leaving a small, flat circle through the button hole. He opened the chamber then slid the bullets home.

Arms slipped easily through the shoulder holster. The gun fit perfectly in place. Jacket worn over leaving no sign of the weapon. His eyes looked through the mirror into mine. He smiled and turned out of the room leaving me there waiting for his return.

Though I felt no fear, my heart thrummed out of control. I fought to slow breathing, to hold consciousness. The blood would come. He would return and the blood would come. It always did.

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eye spy

1/6/2015

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Perfect circles of black. Every morning I leaned into the mirror staring through my eyes. An unblinking meditation. Before thin images of work or politics could thicken into the infinite tentacled relentless squeeze of life’s daily distractions, I’d refocus. Small muscular twitches redirecting both the external and internal gaze. Every light in the apartment switched off to provide a clear, empty background. No images allowed in peripheral vision to relay additional diversion from the exercise. In searching for myself, all the time worn old books taught to remove myself.

My heart rate slowed. The powerful squeeze and release gently eased the blood flow through veins reaching like branches below my skin. My cells breathed in the necessary oxygen, replenishing themselves on the food lungs provided.

I was aware of the cool tiles under my feet. Aware of the round edged porcelain sink pressed against my palms. The towel slipped from my waist and freshly showered, damp skin quivered and turned goose pimpled. In reaction, I turned from the mirror and reached down. With the towel tied and covering my damp skin again, I looked once again into my reflection to meditate my existence again.

He stood slightly to the left of my pupil. I blinked and turned around. Other than the shadow below the toilet paper rack, no one stood there. I rubbed my eyes and looked into the mirror again hoping I would be alone inside my eyes.

My twin other than in size. Shaved head and two week beard. Too small inside my eye for more detail to be examined. I really didn’t want to spend that much effort looking at him anyway.

Switching focus to my left eye, he wasn’t there. He stood in place only occupying that one small spot in my vision. I covered my eye and all I could see was emptiness of shadows. Removing the hand, he re-appeared above the deep brown vessels of my cornea.

Shimmering from the glow of a hidden light source. He glared at me without any sense of compassion or joy. Below his eyebrows, the semicircular crevasses of his eyes were buried in a black vacuum. All of the peace and mindfulness I’d achieved in my morning meditation was pulled away from me into those two deep pits. As despair grew, he encompassed more of my eye.

The tip of his head pressed through the iris edge into now red branched and bloodshot sclera. My chest strained against each pulse of my heart as it pulsed louder in my ears. His arms slowly lifted to shoulder height stretching from one corner to the other. I squeezed my eyes closed.

Small fingers with sharp nails clawed between the lids pulling them open. His foot gained toehold in my tear duct shooting blades of agony through every nerve of my face. Vision blurred making it impossible for my hand to find him.

I slapped at my face hitting only skin. My cheek throbbed, teeth gnashed together. I whipped my arms in all directions. I smashed my head forward in an attempt to crush him against the mirror, to hell with the myth of seven years.

I bounced back. No crack of glass. No blood or sound of any kind.

He looks in the mirror. Me here, in his eye. He smiles. As he turns away I watch myself retreat inward to the shadows.

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    i live. i breathe. i write.
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