The Last Wordsmith

The Hearts of Men.

2010-06-12T17:44:00.000-07:00

Antonio Giovanni watched his son, at eight years old, tear out onto the pitch. It was not a real soccer pitch. The neighbourhood they lived was afforded only one legitimate field and it was always in use by the older children. No his son, Dominic, was to play and practice on the loose and often treacherous gravel field of his elementary school. The boy already had accrued a great deal of scars and scrapes from the tenacity of his play upon a ground that gave no assurance to footing. It was all the boy had known though, and as such it was his domain. The gravel did not abate the child's passion for soccer as it was the only pitch he had known.

Even at the age of eight Dominic felt as though he was already a professional footballer. His skill was indeed staggering, though it had not come to him simply as a birthright. Countless hours had already been spent discovering just how the ball turned and spun when applied with force and direction. These times of discovery had cost Antonio a new window and several lamps within their cramped urban home and at the behest of his wife he had been guided to take his son down to the school nearly every evening so that the boy could be allowed that which he desired most. He knew the ins and outs of his footing and abilities, and it was this understanding of his limitations that made him such a powerful child. Understanding his limitations, he was constantly looking for a way to better his skills and ultimately himself. Antonio provided many things to his son including his knowledge and passion for the sport, having once been a formidable athlete before passing through the time when a career in sport may have been possible. For all his knowledge and ability to coach his son though, Antonio brought that which is far more important than all the annuls of technique combined. Belief. The unquantified energy that may pour forth from a parent to child. If anything it is the nurture, not the knowledge, that is required to help an offspring achieve anything.

The years passed and Dominic grew from the spitfire days of childhood into the weary autumn of adolescence. His father and the ever present distractions of soccer remained constants in the boy's life. Antonio, after Dominic had made the senior boys soccer team only his second year into high school, had chased his son's dream alongside him as if he were a much younger man. When he wasn't working or attending to the duties that a man of his generation feels obligation towards, he was there with his son always believing, always pushing. It was a standard breakfast conversation between father and son as to just how Dominic was going to elevate his game. He was considered the best player in his school if not the city, yet Antonio knew that his son's reputation came with more than accolades. It also painted a large target on his son's back. The other fathers, those with the same belief and drive in their sons, would be telling their boys that they had to be better than Dominic Giovanni. Dominic knew this as well and even though the thought of having others aspire to take him down a peg or two left him feeling insecure and alone, he never shared with his father these fears. The power of encouragement is a fickle energy and had now left a young man at odds with his path in life.

Dominic was the best there was no arguing that. The other boys wanted to be him. The girls wanted to be with him. So the story so often goes. It was as Dominic made his way into his final year of high school that something somewhere deep inside him began to tinker with the tumblers in the lock that had become his heart. He found himself wandering alone after practices and games, at the behest of his father to "run home, and then stretch it out". During these times Dominic would take to the parks, easily accessible rooftops or any other place that an adolescent male will naturally seek a moment of self imposed solitary confinement. He would wander and think of everything but that which he had supposedly committed his life to, soccer. He would think about his floundering grades and how no one seemed to care. He would think about how much he missed going to the movies instead of being in a running group. He would think about how in a city so large and full of such interesting people, he was entirely alone. But mostly, he thought about other young men.

He thought of them like most young men think of other young men. As buddies. Teammates. Classmates. Dudes. He also thought of them another way. He thought of holding their hands. He thought of having one of them hold him while he spoke all the million dreadful thoughts that he alone was left to obsess over. He thought of them cheering for him while he played. He thought of them naked. After all of these thoughts, he thought of how he could never tell anyone about them. He still understood his limitations, though there was no practice, no set of cleats, no team behind him helping him to push beyond the boundaries which were so heavily set before him.

A sad thing happens in the hearts of men as they grow into them. They find themselves hiding their rapidly growing heart behind the blurry definition of a man. Their natural needs to connect and grow with the world around them being stunted, as they are informed, so rudely, by the nurturing of those that would choose to take on the title of man simply based on their age. Too many boys lost to the hatreds and judgements of their elders, or worse still, the fear of them. Honor thy father becomes as archaic in it's message as it is in it's prose.

He would come home later than expected and receive a minor tongue lashing from his farther who was very suspicious that his son was not pushing his body to it's limits. Dominic would half heatedly make an excuse about stopping and talking to some girls, or going to shoot the hell out of the nets just down the street. These lies were easily swallowed by Antonio who would cheer on his son for his efforts at lady killing. As the year wore on the lies got harder and harder for Dominic to swallow and he found himself taking more and more lonely journeys to places that provided the best atmosphere for his life pondering.

He continued to do this until during the Christmas break of that year, when he was allowed a brief respite from training. He was invited by an older cousin of his to a house party thrown by a group of young college students. There was wine and good food to be found as well as the conversation of many young people, their hearts a float with their concepts of social insurrection and endorsement of philosophies that they had not yet come to fully understand. It was here that Dominic met Troy. Troy was a lumberjack looking fellow with few harsh words and an affection for Dominic that he felt, at first, was overbearing. Troy would, every so often, place a hand on Dominic's shoulder as he spoke, igniting at first a flurry of terror and then an overwhelming desire for it to continue, which it wouldn't. That night during the party the two of them got to talking about Soccer, of which Troy was an avid fan, and then unto the state of the European Union, which Dominic had never considered. When all the wine was drank, the food scarce and the party goers making their departures, Troy offered to continue to walk and talk with Dominic as he made his way home.

It was a clear night for the city in winter and the chill that cut through the air had opened the sky to reveal the softly winking stars. The two young men continued to talk until they reached the cross street where Dominic would have to part from Troy to make his way home. There was a silence that can only be found in the city around the holidays. No cars, for their owners already at home, and next to no foot traffic at such a late hour. It was during this silence that Troy reached forward ,with his hand once more on Dominic's shoulder, and left a strong tender kiss on the young man's lips. After their lips parted Troy pulled the younger man closer to him closing him in a colossal bear hug and pressing his whiskered face into Dominic's. Dominic did not want to let go of Troy, but after several minutes of the embrace Troy let go, and looked forward with a strong comfort in his eyes before handing Dominic a folded piece of paper and making his way down the alley. Opening his hand Dominic revealed a phone number.It was the best Christmas present that Dominic received that year.

So a secret relationship was started. When Dominic looked back on it he wondered how he was able to produce as many lies as he did over the next five months. Soccer slowly became less of the mainstay focus on his life, though he was forced to keep up appearances lest his classmates or, worse, his father become aware of his sexuality. He and Troy would often meet 'cross the city so there would be no risk of bumping into someone that he knew unexpectedly. They would go to friend's of Troys and socialize before moving on to Troy's apartment where Dominic found guidance and acceptance in his exploration of the male body. Soon he found himself counting down the days until graduation, and his inevitable freedom. This freedom would not come without a price however. Dominic spent many sleepless nights worrying and wondering how he could possibly tell his father that he no longer wanted to play soccer. He did not know what he wanted to do, but he knew that as much as he loved the world's game, he felt sure that there was something out there that he would love just as much, if not more. Yet before Dominic ever had to face sharing with his father, he had to face that which he already was.

A sad thing happens in the hearts of men, when they're made to face the truths of life. When a son is shown that his father, for all his strength and guidance is nothing more than a man. A man with limitations, reservations and failings. When a father finally learns that, 'though his son does carry all that he is and could ever be, his son is not him. That all his hopes, dreams, and ambitions of grandeur for his son are ultimately only the hopes and dreams of himself. When a failed or fallen man is asked to accept the second coming of that which he could not achieve in his own life, he is a man that will truly have to face everything he is. This often leaves little room to face all that which his son is, so scattered a man may be.

Antonio was on his way home from the old gravel soccer pitch just 'round the corner from their house. In the days since Dominic had disappeared more and more from the family home he had taken to evening strolls down to the place where he had first started to spend time with his boy. Sometimes he brought a soccer ball in hopes that his son would happen along. Dominic had never appeared through and most nights Antonio was left to just punt away at the net before his back got tired.On that night in particular the sun was just starting to fully drop, lauding shadows to the tight corners of the world. Turning down his street he saw the shapes of two bodies entwined near a lamppost. He shrugged off what he had assumed was two young lovers and continued towards them, intending to look away as he passed them. This was not to happen. As he began to make his pass of the two undefined young people wrapped in each other's arms the city's nightlights kicked in and at once everything was illuminated.

Dominic had been so very careful for so long. He kept himself looking as neat and organized as ever during his relationship with Troy. He never wanted to look as if he might have been involved in some sexual altercation as it would inevitably lead to questions of his whereabouts. But as time wore on, his attraction to Troy had begun to surpass his caution and he had taken to exploring the thrills that come with the fear of being caught. That night after a particularly bad movie date Troy had walked Dominic home and persisted that he kiss him. Dominic didn't really have to be persuaded to hard. What could it hurt? It was dark? No one he knew was going to be out and about at this hour. Yet as they continued to cherish each others lips for the eighth consecutive minute the lights of the streetlamp sprung to life, revealing them to the world. The world was only one man walking alone in the night, and it took Dominic a few moments to fully realize who it was. Antonio knew who it was instantly.

What followed was a hurricane of emotions, physical calamity and volume. Antonio, without even thinking, disowned his son right then and there. Stating that he was a disgrace, a failure, and unworthy of all that he had given him. In this moment Troy stepped forward in protest, but his balking was cut short by a quick firing of spit from Antonio, directly into his face. Troy moved backwards a few steps completely appalled. Antonio didn't stop. He started yelling homophobic slurs, first in English and then degrading into Italian. Dominic could do nothing but stand frozen and stammer at his father. Antonio told him not to come home. Told him that he had no home anymore. The streetlights flickered ominously before the scene faded to black and all players slunk into the shadows.

Troy and Dominic went back to Troy's apartment where Dominic was consoled by Troy for the rest of the evening. Troy held him close as Dominic wept into first his chest and then his pillow cases. He wondered if he would ever be able to go home again. What he would say to his mother. What his father was saying to his mother. Troy was largely silent. His protest to Antonio's rage having been so thoroughly disregarded and disrespected he had already decided that it wasn't in his lovers best interests to be a part of that world anymore. He didn't say this though, and allowed Dominic the room he needed to grieve and feel shame. It would be the shame of who he was and what he was in life that, months down the road, would cause the failure of their relationship.

Antonio was in tears himself. When his wife asked what was wrong, he could do little more than shake his head. Within the next week all of Dominic's belongings were packed tightly into just a few cardboard boxes. His son was lost to him. Lost from god. Lost from soccer. He was a failure as a father for ever allowing his son to succumb to the horrible temptations of the flesh of another man. The powerful belief that shone from him unto his son so strongly? Was now all but gone, the memories of better days all that kept an ember of his life alive.

In the week that followed Dominic came to the house to retrieve a meager amount of his belongings. Sitting at the kitchen table with his mother, he did his best to explain what had happened. She sat and took the information as it came and uttered nothing until he finally told her that he was leaving, and that she may not hear from him for a very long time. With tears in her eyes she hugged her son and watched him leave out the front gate of the house in which she had raised him. She did not mention his appearance to Antonio, and quickly put the remains of Dominic's belongings into storage in hopes that one day the boy would return.

Life went on from here. Dominic finished high school, living from the sanctuary of Troy's apartment. He got a job working for a sports retailer and began the shaky steps of post adolescence without ever truly saying goodbye to his teens. Word had spread around his old neighbourhood and the school he attended. His friends were no longer his friends. They looked at him with scorn and bitterness. Hurt, confused and angry in the way that teenagers are when something happens that they did not expect. It hardly mattered to Dominic at this point. His life, or what he had come to know as his life, was shattered. The remains? Only painful shards of glass that cut him deeply whenever he held one aloft to examine how he had ended up where he was. His own self loathing and anger at not being able to control himself that first night at the Christmas party clashed with the love and connection he felt for Troy. Eventually, it came to a head. Troy could no longer support the weight of his lover's pain and informed Dominic that he would be moving out of the city, for places unknown. Their love for each other dissolved and soon Dominic found himself very alone indeed, searching, and getting lost as he attempted to solve the riddle of himself.

The years passed on. Dominic found new relationships. Ones that helped him come to terms with his identity. Ones that found him being educated in the myths and misconceptions of homosexuality. He found lovers that cared and ones that didn't. Three years after the catastrophic departure from his family home, he too found himself moving out of the city. He traveled for a few years, sending his mother postcards that she kept secretly in an old shoebox beneath her bedside table. Eventually, after five long years of pain and guilt, he made peace with himself as everyone who is young and full of longing and questions does. He finally came to realize that his sexuality, while being a full and definite part of him, did not define him. The same determination and and exacting perseverance that had made him what he was as a soccer player was now being applied to his life as an adult. He was free. A free person who owed nothing to anyone save himself.

Antonio regressed from his life. He strayed from the heart and affection of his wife. He buried himself in his work. He stopped watching soccer. His anger at his son's choices subsided after only five years, but this emotion altered into a rage of self loathing that consumed him. He attempted to stop thinking about the son he once had, and when people would ask about the boy he would simply shrug and suggest that it was his son not him who had split the relationship. Time may heal all wounds but the scars that remain are constant reminders of all the pain there once was, and how it had not been averted in the first place.

So it came to be, ten years later, that Dominic walked down the streets of the city he once called home. He had not been within a block of his family's home in over eight years. The neighbourhood had changed, visually at least. There was no more crumbling city sidewalks, no more stray cats, no more automobiles that looked more like boats than cars. The air did not smell the same. The people were not the same. But the house he had grown in was the same. It had stood, as if dormant, waiting for his return. The paint may have been flaking slightly and the the front gate swung awry on it's hinges. But it was still his family's home. He could tell from the fastidious detail on the front garden that his mother still lived there.

He slowly let himself in through the gate, the way he had so many times before, and made his way up to the front steps and then to the door. Nearly a minute after he knocked, his mother answered the door. She had aged. No longer was she the plump broadly smiling middle aged woman he had imprinted in his brain from his time of departure. Wrinkles had set in and so had the tired look of acceptance that so often follows a long tired life. She recognized him immediately and moved into him with a hug so strong that were it not for her appearance he swore she may still have been a younger stronger woman. He kissed her on the forehead and held her close before she invited him into the house. She brewed a pot of tea and they sat and talked of what he had done and how he had reached his current place in life. It was a good talk. An honest talk, as Dominic had learned to no longer be afraid of his place and identity in life. His mother listened attentively until he asked about his father. Her face dropped from it's previous nervous excited energy and into a state of sadness. She told her son of all that Antonio had been through, and how he had chosen to go through it alone. He had shrunk from the man he once was over the past ten years. He was now smaller and frailer and lacked the drive, conviction and lust for life that he had possesed in such surplus in years before. She also told Dominic that he would be waking up from his nap very soon. At this Dominic smiled and told his mother that he should probably be going, but that he would be in town for the next two weeks and he would love to see her again. At this she teared up and held her baby boy in her arms once more before he kissed her and was out the door.

Dominic did not go back to where he was staying though. He strolled through the old neighbourhood. Down the alleys, up the streets and into a very familiar field, though it was no longer covered in gravel. It was where he had learned to do that which he had come to love so dearly. It was also the place he was meant to return to, the place where he was meant to face his past and allow the future it's release. After ten minutes or so he heard a voice that had not changed in ten years. Albeit it was slightly rougher, and perhaps, strangely, quieter, but it was still his fathers voice.

And it was there on the steps of his old school that the two men were finally allowed their release. Allowed their serenity. Allowed their tears together. Dominic explained how he had felt as a teenager and the fear and shame he felt for what he, at the time, had considered a great dishonour. Antonio wept as he spoke of his failures as a father, and how if he'd only been more attentive the entire homosexuality could have been avoided. In the past, as a teenager, Dominic may have allowed his father his allusions as to the nature of the gay sickness. But as a man, now fully formed into being and defined in who he was, he did not let it stand. He explained to his father how it wasn't his fault, how it wasn't anyones fault. How that's the way god had made him. He had made him to be different, to be faced with adversity and challenge so that in the end the achievements and fufillments of his life would be worth double that of those that had come easy. It had not been an easy road to Dominic's honesty and love of himself and he would not let anyone, even his father whom he had sorely missed, take that away from him. To this Antonio sat trembling. The words of his son's conviction rattling around in his head. He uttered only one statement.

"You could have...you could have been anything", he said his voice rising and falling, breaking and sealing.

Dominic looked his father in the eye with a strength that he thought he would never had and replied.

"Dad, I can still be anything".

A beautiful thing can happen in the hearts of men. When they allow themselves the solace of accepting that, for all their power they cannot control the world, nor other people. When a man can look another man in the eye and connect to him with his heart and have the ability to say, "this is who I am", it can bring that glorious fire of achievment at one of lifes greatest tasks, simply because it is finally being awknowledged. In the hearts of men you will find all that they have buried. Not to be forgotten, but forever preserved in fear that it will some day be lost outside this most powerful vault.

It was in this moment that the two men found that they had always possesed the key to each others hearts. For all the overrun emotions and years, they had always loved each other. It was this love that allowed one to forgive, and the other to accept. It was this love that gave them both the strength to grace that field yet again and knock back and forth a very familiar ball with nothing but a very new, very firmly re-established belief in each other.

The belief that a son comes to carry for his father. That he is but a man who will do but his best, as only he knows how.

The belief that a father carries in his son. The belief that he has created something greater than himself.

It is this belief that, no matter how deeply it is buried, will never leave the hearts of men.

The Strange Tale of Death and Cassandra Leigh

2010-05-31T16:01:00.000-07:00

The first time it came to Cassandra Leigh she was twenty four. She was young and pretty. She had nice clothes. Her hair cost several hundred dollars. She had brilliant white teeth. Her face was a strategic battlefield of cosmetics that always yielded victory.She looked great in heels. And she always left them wanting more. Such things are, as far as I have ever been able to reckon, normal for a twenty four year old young woman with a penchant to party, philander, and protest accusations of impurity. What is not normal, and I can say this a liberal amount of certainty despite the fact that I am not a twenty four year old woman, is that death does not come calling to most young women. And it most definitely does not come as it decided to that first evening.

Cassandra Leigh was out. With her girls. It was a standard affair for a Friday evening. The warm tickling hand of summer had just withdrawn itself from the trepidary sleeve of spring time and the ladies had thrown caution to the spring winds, deciding that any precautionary measures to ensure their warmth long after the sun had finished it's descent, were entirely unwarranted. As such it was now late and the group of young ladies were now being ushered to the door of the downtown nightclub. Bouncers with their ponytails widening their bodies and creating the wall that no weekend lush may hope to penetrate. Outside the club there gathered the usual arrangement of those who spent the burgeoning hours of their weekends in such establishments. Cigarettes being lit as the hands of their owners did tremble in the chill. Young men attempting a final attempt at masculine posturing, their crowing of superiority falling on deaf, often drunken, ears. Cassandra Leigh and her friends now stood in this mob waiting for it to be their time to hail a cab, or steal one from some unsuspecting waste case.

"Bitches, this night was a failure", declared Cassandra Leigh.

Her small posse of friends were too busy being cold and trying not to focus on their stomach's full of jagermeister and carbonated caffeine beverage to actually listen to her. This did not stop Cassandra Leigh from continuing on a drunken diatribe.

"I mean, we had to pay cover. Had to pay for our drinks. These heels are killing me and what was with all those faggots?", she said digging through her purse in an attempt to find her menthol slims.

It should be noted that while Cassandra Leigh used the term "faggot" often? She was not above utilizing the affluence and status of a crowd of homosexual men who wanted nothing more than to be her. The politically incorrect term for this is, I believe, "Fag Hag". The gorgeous young men, free in their sexuality, looked unto her as a dream long lost in the developmental stages of their existence. She was, and I apologize for perhaps downplaying this earlier, prettier than most. Her beauty was that which had drawn recognition throughout her entire life and as such was now so thoroughly part of her identity that she had little choice but to maintain it in not only appearance but demeanour.

"I'm never coming to this club again? Which one of you sluts said we sho-", she said but was timely cut off.

"Pardon me, spare some change?", asked the elderly homeless man who had strolled 'cross her path.

There would have been a certain degree of wrath for interrupting her no matter who it was who had done so, but the grubby man before her was pushing Cassandra Leigh's boundaries of interaction with lower forms of considered social hierarchies to the maximum.

"What...thefuck?", she said withdrawing her phone out of her purse and spinning away from the elderly man, his gaze dropping and his face wilting like a month old daffodil.

She started to plug away through the digital applications in her so called smart phone and pretended as if the man had never existed. She sent several text messages to her friends informing them that their nights had sucked considerably more than hers had before updating her status on her facebook page which read as something considerably obnoxious and intoxicated. From here she proceeded to refer to her friends as sluts and demand that someone find her another Blue Hawaiian because she was really fucking thirsty. It was then that the story takes a turn for the stranger.

It was then that a blue Aston Martin pulled up outside the club with loud music beating against the windows from the inside. The car's engine shut down but the music didn't and out of the driver's side door stepped a tall sharply dressed man with a very groomed moustache and a haircut that, dare I say it, looked as if it cost more than our dear Cassandra Leigh's. While such displays of wealth and frivolity are not out of place in any downtown club arena, what took our crowd of people by surprise was the immediacy with which the man approached the group of young women shivering outside. He made four deliberate steps, his stride long and his legs strong. In the wink of an eye he was standing nearly in the middle of Cassandra and her group of friends.

"You ladies look cold", he said his voice carrying the same chill as the AM air.

The girls that were not Cassandra all nodded in unison, transfixed by the dark blue eyes that peered back at them from the man. Inside five minutes the man had a limo out front of the club and had ushered all of the ladies except for Cassandra into it. There had been a slight altercation between the mystery man and another slack jawed club goer, prior to the limo arriving, but the man of mystery had simply done as such.

"Hey! ", said a young man with the jarhead haircut and black tracksuit.

"Yes?", turned the man of mystery.

"I know those girls", The Jarhead continued. It was true that he had met the girls in the evening but thanks to the tactile ability of Cassandra to make even the most skilled suitors feel like social reprobates he had not gotten farther than an introduction.

"Good job for you. Now fuck off", said the man.

His voice cut through the man like a sabre and if one was watching close enough they would have been able to see as his mind split into for a moment. Leaving him clutching at the remains of his thoughts like leaves scattering in the wind. He stood dumbfounded and was left to watch as the Mystery Man made sure all of the chilly ladies were in the limo before sending it on it's way. Cassandra Leigh was not in the limo. Cassandra Leigh was left standing with the man before her, for the first time in many nights unable to find a loose thread on a person with which to tear them apart.

"What about me?", she finally demanded.

"What about you?", he said.

".....I'm cold too", she mustered.

"How 'bout that", he said turning towards his car, his random act of kindness and seeming disinterest in her leaving her mouth agape.

"Can you....give me a ride?", she said in flailing, throwing the request into the air like a white flag.

"Oh, I'm sure I can manage something", he said, a sly smile cutting around the edges of his face.

What ensued was a short car ride, a long elevator ride and an epic fuck followed very shortly by a immediate catatonic sleep.

When Cassandra Leigh awoke she found herself in a downtown penthouse apartment. The man was nowhere to be found. Gathering her clothes from the floor Cassandra found a note in elegant scrawling cursive atop her bra which read as follows.

Cassandra Leigh so young and so free You live your live like it owes you. Demanding it all, renting to some. You lead them like lambs to the slaughter. Cassandra Leigh Your heart so empty Our fortuitous tryst may forever 'been missed If you'd just given that man but a quarter Cassandra Leigh Can't guess who I be It's wrapped up tight like a riddle It's a secret you see And is not yours for the knowing Cassandra Leigh It's not all destiny You still have time to change where you end Either broken and sobbing or thoroughly loving Sure is a tough one to call. But in the end, I won't say you're my friend For death has no friends at all.
And it was there the note stopped. It made little sense to Cassandra and, despite the fact that she would regret it in the future as she pondered the specifics of the message, she crumpled it then tossed it over her shoulder. She quickly decided that the man was nothing more than a lunatic with a lot of money and getting dressed she decided that the whole incident would be best left ignored by her memory.

Cassandra Leigh did not encounter death in any shape or form for the next ten years of her life. She had no close scrapes with mortality. No car accidents, though the potential for them was many. No friends lost to drug overdose. Her brother did not die by auto-erotic asphyxiation, but he did get caught several times. Cassandra Leigh lived her life with relatively little caution and it seemed to be suiting her just fine. It should be noted here that prior to Cassandra Leigh's first encounter with Death she had never been exposed to any of the concepts that concern shuffling off the mortal coil. Her family was a group of lapsed Protestants with about as much concern for their eternal souls as most people have for the different types of compost. She had never witnessed a cat, or dog in the final moments of it's life. Her grandparents had already been long gone by the time she was born. The very concept of death and it's need to balance the scales of existence in matters of morality, karma, and life itself was utterly lost on dear Cassandra Leigh.

This may be why, ten years later, when Cassandra found herself in the hospital that her mother would soon pass away inside she felt nothing save for the inconvenience it imposed on the rest of her daily schedule. She moved briskly down the halls of the hospital not bothering to hide her disdain for the pastel colours of hospital scrubs, the smell of disinfectant and how horrible the neon lighting made her ever worsening, yet ever disguised, skin. She approached the room in which she'd been directed to by a more Senior nurse who had not put up with any of Cassandra's bullshit. No there was no indoor smoking room. No there was no way she was going to get her parking validated. Yes your mother is here. No there is no bar in the hospital. No I'm sorry I don't know how long until your mother passes away. Cassandra was annoyed by the memory of her. The annoyance soon faded as she entered the room, her mother lying in bed suffering from stomach cancer. While the annoyance was gone, the emotion that replaced it is rather hard to categorize. It was somewhere between patience and pity but was thoroughly glossed over with a thick coat of ignorance.

"Oh mummy!", she said clomping into the room like a Clydesdale wearing heels. A Clydesdale that still looked good in heels.

Cassandra Leigh approached the bed and threw her arms 'round the shoulders of her mother who was, by now, quite frail and malnourished. Gail, her mother, was on the final legs of her life and was just now having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that her daughter was beginning to resemble more and more a failure as a human being. It was hardly the last thing she wanted to be thinking of before her final curtain call. This was not the first bought of cancer that Gail had been through. Ten years earlier cervical cancer had claimed that which, in science, decreed her a woman. Her children, especially Cassandra Leigh had not been present during any of it. The emotional scars had been properly dealt with through years of therapy.

Stanley, Cassandra Leigh's father, looked on from his seat beside the bed and did his best to watch his wife's grievance and acceptance for her failures as a parent and then considered smothering his daughter with a thick hospital pillow to atone for his.

"Oh mummy!", she repeated, "Can you see me? Can you hear me?", she said, her voice an unintentional mocking tone

Gail's eyes began to bubble out from her face her last thoughts on earth the exasperation for the falsities in character that so perpetrated her daughter.

"I still love you dammit", said Gail, her voice sounding like two pieces of charcoal being rubbed together.

But Cassandra Leigh had not heard her. Her phone had started to vibrate in her pocket and she'd stopped paying attention to her mother, instead wondering if it was that guy that said he knew that guy from that movie that she didn't go see last week.

Now turning her focus back to the body of her mother there was nothing left. There was a broken and beaten shell, out of which the last remaining sparks of life had ,only moments before, disappeared. There was a moment where Cassandra thought about thinking about shedding a tear for her dearly departed mother, it didn't last long though. She stood up from the bed and brushed herself off as if death was something that could be removed like stray crumbs from a bag of chips. Before doing anything else she checked her phone. It was that guy that said he knew that guy from that movie that she didn't go watch. After this she started to walk to the door of the room, on the way kissing her father on the forehead and telling him that she'd see him later before leaving him with his head in his hands and tears on his face.

Outside approaching her car she spotted what at first glance appeared to be a parking ticket. She cursed to herself and withdrew it from under her windshield. It was not a parking ticket. It was a note with handwriting that would have appeared familiar if Cassandra Leigh was capable of noting such things. It read thusly.

Cassandra Leigh you live selfishly Your life overshadowed your mothers You ignored her love now just a trail of blood your care naught for the lives of others Cassandra Leigh we've met once before Years pass without ever you knowing That you courted death Ignored it's behest That you could change just where you're going. Cassandra Leigh your soul is so terribly shallow A day might be where some depth it might it might see But for now your heart remains completely so fallow Cassandra Leigh learn life's never free Once enough time moves in passing Please take it from me, it's the truth young lady Your actions make a debt everlasting.

There was something in the back of Cassandra Leigh's brain that told her something about this was familiar. Whatever that something was was immediately bypassed by a need for a menthol slim and a coffee.

Fifteen years later Cassandra Leigh stood at the top of the stairs in her mansion in West Hollywood, California, deciding whether she wanted to go shopping for Tiffany's, Prada or both. She had become bored with her life. Over the past fifteen years she'd married into the money of a man who produced movies. She proudly regarded herself as a trophy wife and had made best efforts to make herself shine even brighter. While not quite addicted to plastic surgery she'd certainly tiptoed 'cross the line for a good many years leaving her physique and face altered so much that had her dear departed mother still been alive she would not have been able to recognize her. She still looked great in heels.

Cassandra Leigh had not produced any offspring of her own but had inherited the children of her husband. After the wedding the children had been sent off to Swiss boarding schools and had not seen her for seven years. She made regular excuses to retreat to the villa in Spain nearly every time they'd returned to the Hollywood estate. The children's father hardly noticed the absence of the step mother to his offspring as he himself was rarely in their presence other to provide endless financial support. In fact Cassandra Leigh had not seen her husband in nearly a month and hardly made efforts as to question his whereabouts. She simply didn't care.

While her life had cost her literally nothing financially over the course of her marriage she had accumulated a debt of addiction to the many prescription pain killers provided to her over the course of her physical reconstruction. She was, as she stood there that fateful day under the influence of percosets, oxycotin and some straight codene just to brighten the world around the edges. She had felt little physical stimulus for the past few years and it made her desensitivity to the world around her just that much easier.

The large staff which took care of the house had taken to hiding from her in the mansions many rooms and rarely visited hallways. When she did take notice of any of them she rarely had a kind word to say and would often threaten them with immediate dismissal over the smallest of annoyances, most of which were not even related to the employee's job at hand. Today was no different as an unlucky maid named Deborah rounded the corner into the front foyer which lay directly within Cassandra Leigh's gaze. Her cloudy eyes began to clear as she took notice of the young mousy woman and began to shout at her.

"Hey! Hey I'm talking to you!", she yelled through swollen lips fresh from botox.

Deborah appeared as a deer in the headlights, her head snapping towards the tirading lady of the house preparing herself for a tounge lashing.

"Why is the second floor bathroom covered in water? What am I paying you people for? I woke up this morning and went in there and the entire thing is soaked! The carpet in the hallways is wet. Do you know how much those carpets cost?", She barked.

Cassandra Leigh had forgotten not only that there were at least six upstairs bathrooms in the central wing but that she herself had overrun the bathtub in the middle of the night when she had felt an inkling to take a soak. Doped up as she was she often forgot that she had started to do something only minutes after taking the iniative to start.

Deborah could do little but stare at Cassandra Leigh as she continued to tear into her for things that were entirely unrelated to her job.

"And the poolhouse? Why is there still that old furniture in there? I thought I told you to get rid of that a week ago? How am I supposed to make space for the Parnian's I'm bringing back next weekend if it's still full with last years Tufft Collection?"

Deborah had no answers to any of Cassandra Leigh's demands and dared not move, or even shrug in response.

"My god all you fucking wetbacks are the same, you just sit there and stare and leave your mouths hanging open. Si? Si? Espanol? Jesus Christ! You're lucky you even have a job!"

This was offensive on many levels. On of which being that Deborah was in no way hispanic and looked nothing of the sort. Cassandra Leigh had simply taken to referring to all of the help around the house as wetbacks and it would be a cold day in hell before she ceased.

Continuning to harangue the poor maid she started to take steps towards the stairs after digging in her pocket for a menthol slim. This would prove to remove the final lynchpin in her life. Her shoes, heels, were slick from walking through the wet of the bathroom along with the carpet, and with her mind thoroughly focused on the lighting of her cigarette, she failed to pay attention to her footing as she started to descend the tremendous granite staircase. In case you weren't aware, polished granite is a very slick surface, especially so when wet. Apparently Cassandra Leigh wasn't aware of this simple fact and as the heel of her two thousand dollar shoe connected with the first step her body was jilted by a coupling of poor balance and gravity. On any normal human physique the tumble may not have proved so damaging. Cassandra Leigh's frame, however, was so weak from the extensive surgeries, poor diet, and lack of exercise that it had been subjicated to that the first impact of her tumble shattered both bones in her forearm. The damage did not stop her as she cascaded head over heels her right collarbone folding like chicken wing. Next was her left leg which, upon impact with the sturdy and faithful granite snapped backwards twisting her leg in an unattural motion and splitting her kneecap directly down the centre. Finally as she reached the end of her fall on the first landing, was her face. The impact was so sudden and so hard that her precisely designed nose was completely obliterated, her teeth sent scattering and her orbital bone crushed.

Poor Deborah had to bear witness to all of this. The injuries that she did not see as she turned her head away though she heard. The shattering of bone and bursting of skin is hardly a pleasant thing to imagine and is even less appealing when it is witnessed in person. A tangled mess, a human pretzle, Cassandra Leigh now squirmed on the first landing of the stairs squawking unintelligibly and sputtering in her own viscus leakings. It sounded as if she may have been calling for help but with a nearly severed tounge and a lack of motor skills remaining in her face she sounded more like a bleating lamb than a human in crisis. This moment was made all the more terrifying for Cassandra Leigh due to the fact that the culmulative painkillers had left her body entirely numb and there was no pain, only an awkward tangled mess of limbs and leaking body fluids that resembled a poorly constructed lego kit. The sight would haunt Deborah for the rest of her life, but it would scar her vision no longer as she fled from the house the bubbling failed words of Cassandra Leigh cascading down the steps.

The trail of blood which leaked from her face did a strange thing in this moment. Twisting and turning on the granite it took a life of it's own as it became a flowing trail of a very familiar handwriting. It wrote these words before Cassandra Leigh eyes.

Cassandra Leigh now where are thee? Spent like a coin in the water That horrible step left quite a mess And now you're just material fodder. Cassandra Leigh needed it all So you took what you could Now you get what you should My what a horrible fall. Cassandra Leigh look how you twitch Your body so broken No more hate to be spoken My isn't that karma a bitch? Cassandra Leigh you were given those many chances Yet you lived like a pest So you failed the test Your life is all but forgotten no more requests shall there be No more mercy I have but one verse to be written. Your soul will go not high but low Left in my stead where the shadows so dread PS,this means you're dead If you weren't in already the knowing.

And it was there that the words stopped their steaming cursive and pooled back together into a puddle of blood that began to drip it's way down the stairs. The pool of blood in front of her now seemed to be stepped in by an invisible foot that left prints around her as if a large imaginary predator was circling her body. As the light faded from her eyes she had but a few fleeting thoughts as to her life. Given the choice now? She would have most certainly chosen Tiffany's over the Prada.

Her funeral was sparsely attended. Few words were said. None of them remembered later except for a comment made in passing by a tall dark featured man whom no one recognized.

"But my, doesn't she still look great in heels".

Terms of Service

2010-05-04T12:51:00.000-07:00

With all the concrete surrounding him the Senator felt as though he was in some secret subterranean refuge even though he was currently thirty one floors above street level. The man in front of him had escorted him since the lobby and aside from opening a variety of doors with several different magnetic key cards had said relatively little other than providing commentary on the weather and the state of the Mets outfield. Now they stood outside a large stainless steel door which swung open after the use of two more key cards and a multi digit password. The room to which they were led consisted of four chairs and one large desk with a computer terminal that appeared to be part of the table itself.

"Senator please take a seat", said the man gesturing to the chairs with a wave of his arm.

The Senator took a seat directly in front of the computer terminal and so did the other man. The screen was black until the man tapped on the keyboard and punched in what seemed to be an unreasonably long passcode. After this the display lit up and listed many different options.

Mugshot
Squawker
PhotoBin
YourSpace
FreeTube
BigSearch
PictR
Raspberry
Linked
WebLogger
LiveDiary

These were just a few of the options listed on the screen each represented by their name and logo.

The screen now lit up, the man beside the Senator traced the cursor around the glowing visage a couple of times before removing his hand from the control terminal. He folded his fingers together and turned to face the Senator with a pleasant smile on his face.

"So Senator, what exactly would you like to know?", asked the man.

"Well from what you told my assistant you and your associates have a proposition that the government might be interested in hearing. I wasn't informed of much more than that. Not to be rude but I do have a good many obligations and appointments to attend to today so I don't really have time to beat around the bush. If we could get right into it I'd greatly appreciate it", said the Senator with an errant tone of exhaustion in his voice.

"Right you are sir. First off I, you know what the Internet is am I correct?", asked the man.

"Of course"

"Have you heard of or do you use any of these utilities that can be seen on the screen here?", he said gesturing to the screen with the use of the computer cursor.

"I believe I've heard of most of these thought I don't entirely know what they are. If you'll pardon me I am largely ignorant of the inner workings of the computer world so you may have to boil it down for me", the Senator admitted.

"Of course sir, no problem at all. These icons and names represent what is known as a Internet utility. In the simplest terms these are essentially companies and tools that exist on the Internet and provide a service to the general public. For example, Mugshot is a social utility that connects all those that choose to sign up for it's services. It stores a users information as provided by the user. Name, age, sex, position of employment, likes, dislikes, opinions, pictures etcetera. People can chat with each other in real time via a text based utility, or they can post articles, internet links and even just general comments onto another person's "Wall" which is essentially a single person's page. Think of it as a information hub through which people all over the world can reliably connect with one and other. In many cases people have access to this through their mobile phones and have the ability to update, change and alter their profiles at any point at any time allowing for a near continuous flow of data. It has become conceivable for people to know your activities, and whereabouts within minutes. Are you following me so far Senator?"

The Senator, who had not truly explained his full ignorance as to the mechanics of computers, had progressively felt stupider as the man had explained the concept of this "Mugshot" thing. But in an attempt to hold onto his superiority and stature, he simply nodded yes.

"Excellent. Mugshot is currently the number two most visited website on the planet and is only surpassed by "BigSearch". You've heard of big search I assume?"

"Yes that's what I use to search for things on the Internet. I also believe that it's somehow linked into my personal e-mail?", said the Senator with slight trepidation.

"That's correct. Big Search is a corporation that started off simply providing the best search engine on the Internet but has, over the past ten years, extrapolated into a multinational company that provides everything from e-mail, to world maps, to photographic full reference for cities around the world. It also has applications, the slang term for which is "apps" that are used on not just computers but nearly every single smartphone."

"Huh", said the Senator, at a loss for words.

"The other utilities on this list include WebLog and LiveDiary which are online publishing services. Squawker which allows people instant connection and publication of thoughts opinions and activities provided that they can keep their statements inside the parameters of on hundred and forty characters. FreeTube is a website where users can upload nearly any video, provided it doesn't infringe on copyright, to the interent for mass viewings and exposure", said the man now smiling broadly as the Senator looked more and more lost.

"If uh....if you'll pardon me sir I'm not entirely sure with what this has to do with me?", asked the Senator after a few moments of staring dumbfounded at the screen.

"Of course Senator. Indulge me only a few more moments and then everything will be made entirely clear. What do you suppose all of these utilities have in common?"

"I'm sorry I haven't any idea", said the Senator as if admitting defeat.

"Well firstly, they are all owned by my employers. All of these companies while appearing to exist under their own banners and representatives? Are owned by a singular group of individuals. Based on my terms of service agreement which I signed for my employers I'm not permitted to divulge more than that. The second thing that all of these utilities have in common? They are all, at their base level, one hundred percent free.", he said his words trailing off like a dew drop falling from a leaf.

The Senator sat as this information processed. He had been a business man long before he had ever been a politician and the thought of providing services as grand as these seemed to verge on, if not insanity, then entirely irresponsible business management.

"Excuse me?"

"I know. It sounds crazy Senator but allow me to prove a point. You have a daughter am I correct?"

".....Yes I have a daughter she i-", started the senator but was cut off.

"Please, don't provide me with any information concerning your daughter sir. Just allow me to show you what our systems here are capable of", said the man raising a hand and then moving it over to the keyboard in front of them.

He typed in the Senator's daughter's name and hit return on the keyboard. Instantly the screen was filled with options relating to three of the utilities previously featured .

"For simplicity's sake I'm only going to show you what Mugshot is capable of sir", he said and then clicked on the Mugshot icon.

The screen was once more filled this time with the standard Mugshot page as the viewers saw it. The Senator's daughter appeared in her profile picture in the upper left hand corner, she was hugging her black lab and wearing sunglasses.

"This, Senator, is your daughters Mugshot page. It contains all the basic information as provided by her. You can see here the links and comments on her wall from her friends, co-workers and relatives. She has a certain degree of privacy set up on her account that allows only those she has confirmed as associates, or "friends", the ability to view her information".

The Senator looked visibly uncomfortable as to the ease with which the man was able to find his daughter.

"However these terms of privacy extend only to those who are a part of the Mugshot system. Visa vie, ordinary people. In the terms of use, which every Mugshot user must agree to in order to use the service of the website, full disclosure is granted to the company itself. Everything and anything that any user says or does on our website is recorded in seven different servers spread out across the country, each with a backup of the others. "

To the Senator this might as well have been all said to him in ancient Aramaic and he continued to look blankly at the screen as he read over the list of his daughter's favorite movies and her public declaration of being hung over from the night before. Her political affiliation was listed as, somewhat alarmingly to him, as none. The man sat back and was silent for a time allowing the Senator to soak up all of the information at hand and process as best as he could. After a few minutes the man sniffled a little and then cleared his throat before speaking.

"Now I understand if you're wondering what this has to do with you Senator, but let me make things a little bit clearer for you. We live in a time of uncertainty and fear. The United States is no longer the place you grew up in. Political instability. Economic strife.Terrorism both foreign and domestic. Anti American sentiment. Homosexuals. Now a few years back you gentlemen on capitol hill brought your Patriot Act into place. It's brilliant, it really is, you effectively turned spying on the average American citizen into something that is not just legal but more or less expected in this day and age. Investigation of e-mail, telephone records, medical documents, and all other sorts of personal information without a court order? That's the America I want to live in sir. But of course you're always going to have someone coming along and saying "unconstitutional this" or "invasion of privacy that". These people Senator are the ones that don't understand the simple fact of the matter that our freedom isn't free. Good hard working Americans have nothing to fear from the patriot act, while others hide behind the a constitution which just isn't very relevant anymore. But that is the beauty of the information age Senator. We no longer need to pass rules and statues which let us gather the information so desperately needed to protect our country. No, now it is all at our fingertips. Imagine a world where the government could have instant access to an individuals whereabouts, activities, affiliations, relationships, thoughts and beliefs? All without invading any one's rights, or leaving your prosecution open to criticism", said the man once more interlacing his fingers and staring the senator directly in the eye.

"I'm not entirely sure that the American people would be willing to forfeit that amount of privacy", said the Senator in question without looking at the man, his mind boggled by the pictures of his daughter at Spring break Daytona.

The man laughed and then continued to speak.

"Senator. They already have. As I mentioned before the terms of service for all of these, if you will, information locals of the Internet explicitly state that they release all of the information provided by the user to third parties. This includes advertising firms, and corporate research. But where this really matters to you Sir is in the area of national defense."

The Senator turned to look at the man for the first time since he'd been graced with access to the more intimate screen caps and text based communications of his daughter's life. He was pausing to make sure that he thoroughly understood what the man beside him was presenting.

"What you're proposing, if I understand this correctly and I'm not entirely sure that I do, is that we the government could have full access to any of these records at any point in time without infringing upon the rights of the American people?"

"That's correct sir"

There was a long pause.

"You'll have to pardon me but that is out fucking standing."

"I thought you might feel that way Senator", said the man his voice having changed from the smooth cream of a salesman to that of the sharp hard edge of a assassin.

"But, what is it that you want from me? Want from the government?", asked the Senator.

"Well sir of course first and foremost my employers would like to help Uncle Sam in the best way they know how, and if the government saw fit to propose and pass a few new bills that would, perhaps, alleviate some of the pressures and restrictions on the information laws that govern us? We might be able to provide our country with all the information that they'd ever need to keep our way of life complete and safe. And if a certain Senator was interested in pursuing higher office in the future? Perhaps on a safety and reform of national defense platform? Well who are we to fail to get behind such a leader? I'm sure my employers would be willing, no proud to provide the campaign with a significant amount of contributions. I mean if a certain Senator was interested in higher office that is."

The man no longer appeared human to the Senator. His smile had long since disappeared. Chin lowered, fingers still connected he had a serpentine air to him that left his words coiled in the air around him, lingering, retracting and constricting. This did not bother the Senator. He had known men,over the years, who had replaced their humanity for much less than this man had . Their pursuit of power and wealth leaving only the shell of a human while the range of colour provided by their hearts and minds had come to be replaced by shades of grey so shifting that they could never be fully defined.

The man licked his lips and then spoke.

"Senator? In time you will come to understand that money will always, at it's purest base of concept, be worthless. Information is the only true currency that has ever been worth possessing and with your help? We are going to corner the market. All you have to do? Is agree to our terms of service."

The Senator looked the man straight in his ghost opaque face, the colour of his skin long turned to chalk from days locked away in front of terminals such as the one in front of him. His face appeared to crack around the edges. The Senator turned once more behind him to the computer screen and took only one more furtive look at the range of life and colour in the face of his daughter.

Mr. Smith goes to Detroit

2010-03-30T13:36:00.000-07:00

"Janice! C'mon I'm going to miss my flight!", called Darell from just inside the front door, which was wide open.

Janice his wife, dreary eyed, wearing pyjama pants and her snowflake embroidered housecoat, descended the staircase.

"Darell, you know you didn't have to take the early flight. You could have found one at three o'clock just as easy as six in the morning", she said rubbing her face.

"Right, in this economy? You know how much cheaper it is to fly at unreasonable hours Janice?", he said incredulously as she pulled on a pair of sneakers.

It was early spring in Seattle and as Janice and Darell stepped outside the light seasonal rain began to fall to the earth like salt seasoning a meal. She put her hair up in a twisted bun, holding it in place with a pen withdrawn from inside Darell's breast pocket and let out a long sigh. Her face was tired though not just from her early awakening.

"This seasonal depression really is the pits hon", she said.

"Tell me about it"

"Oh whatever, you're going where this time? Florida? Cabo?", she asked.

"Detroit", he said letting out a sigh of his own.

"Detroit? Seriously? That's where they've got you going these days?", she asked.

Janice had a full and conscious understanding of just what it was that her husband did though for her own sanity and lack of interest she rarely pried very far into the particular details.

"There aren't any big contracts in Cabo, Florida or all the sunny places anymore Janice. Everything that needs taking care of are in places that were hit the hardest by the economic collapse. So that's where I go....where there's a mess to clean up and someone to answer for some sort of clusterfuck."

"Huh, I would have thought that your line of work would always...well that you'd always have a lot of options", she said her jealous tone subsiding to be replaced by consideration.

They both took a long hard look at the rain which had picked up and then in unison let out a huge breath before charging off the deck and towards their 2001 Dodge Caravan. The vehicle had served the family well since they had bought it hot off the line nearly nine years earlier. Their children had flourished in the back seat as the family embarked on many a road trip. Rarely had it ever broken down and when it had the fix had always been relatively simple. Now nearly a decade later with faded paint, interiors still infused with the smell of children and an odometer reading nearly one hundred and fifty thousand miles the vehicle had seen better days. The family's other vehicle a 1998 Toyota Camry had stood the test of time and then some. However as time wore on and the kids became teenagers a beaten minivan and a twelve year old sedan were no passing those same tests which they had aced in years prior..

"You want to drive?", asked Darell.

"Please....you can drive to the airport.", she said the tone of her voice alone showing that she had no intention of driving to the airport.

They climbed into their respective sides and Darell turned the ignition but stayed in park giving the engine a few moments to heat up. He scanned the radio briefly for something to listen to but once he saw the look on his wife's face he decided that the chatter of the airwaves was best left until later. Perhaps once the sun had come up he could indulge.

"Darell, I think we need to buy a new car", said Janice in a way that let him know it wasn't a suggestion but a requirement.

"Janice....we've been over this...", said Darell the topic of discussion in question having exhausted him for weeks prior.

"Look Darell, the kids need a car. There's no question about that. They're involved in so much stuff that they just need a way to be able to get around. With Kendra in every single sport she can find and Zach in baseball and having his job? They need a way to be able to get around that isn't dependent on us. Look if we fiance it right and budget for the next year, and yes I've been researching this, we can get them one of those new Aveo's or Cobalt's and it won't really put a dent in things too much. With the savings?-", she was going to continue but Darell cut her off with a raised hand, but didn't say anything.

She raised an eyebrow. It was something she did often when she was waiting for an answer, whether it be from her children concerning some sort of teenage indiscretion or in matters marital from her husband. It had become a joke around the household between the kids and their father and all three of them had the impression mastered.

"I'm not, I mean I can't support GM Janice....I'm sorry just can't do it", he said shrugging as he pulled out of the driveway.

"Why not? Look I know that they're a big reason that the economy is in the shits right now but they're practically giving away-", but he cut her off again.

"It's not that Janice. Really it's not that. Well it is but it isn't.", he said.

"Well what is it then Darell? If it is but it isn't that's got to mean something?", she asked wrapping herself tighter in her housecoat and turning the heating dials on the dashboard.

"Okay...so the contract that I'm going to Detroit for?"

"Yes?"

"It involves GM.", he said letting out a sigh.

"Really? Darell Really?"

"Yup, I haven't been informed too much about it, I'm supposed to get all the particulars when I get there, but from what I know it directly involves upper tier members of GM", he said turning out onto the highway towards the airport.

"So why have they got you going out there? I mean if it's something....I mean aren't they investigating everything over there? Most of this stuff shouldn't require you and the firm to take care of them...should they? And even if they do need you doesn't this put you in a higher risk bracket?", she asked, her tone of harsh inquisition changing into that of questioning concern.

"From what I've already been told I'm there because of something that's already happening inside the cooperation and they want me to take care of it. And you're right...'cause there's such a spotlight on the auto sector it is riskier, but it also pays really well.", He said trying to explain things to his wife without giving away too many of the details.

They drove on in silence for a few more minutes before Janice started to dig for more answers.

"So...who's they? You're just a private contractor Darell...this seems a bit larger than the kind of contract you're used to taking. This is top tier stuff.", she said still genuinely concerned.

"I know. It is big. But I'm fairly certain that's why they got in touch with me. I'm a complete unknown and don't show up in any of their databases, so it's really going to be hard for anyone to ever know what happened once this is all over. I've sussed out the risks Janice, don't worry I wouldn't do anything to...compromise us. You and the kids I mean.", he tried to explain.

"So who hired you? I mean I'm sure you don't know specifically, that's why you have that broker, to keep all information under wraps, but you've got to have some idea. You always do."

"I'm fairly sure this is government sanctioned", he said coldly.

"Are you sure?", she asked.

"I'm not a hundred percent or anything, but yea I'm pretty damn sure. That's why they've got me a private contractor out of Seattle handling this big deal. It's how government's usually operate. They use guys until they become better known and then the fade them out of rotation. This is good...I mean at least as far as my work goes...the economy collapses? What's always profitable? Cars, Oil and killing people...the cycle of the 20th century. Is it going to be a little bit more intense for a while? Sure, but there's going to be no shortage of work.", He said in nearly one large breath as if he'd been thinking on it for months.

"Well what do you think they're trying to do with this?", asked Janice

"I'm pretty sure it's a power play to get some friends of some guys in office into those cushy seats in the GM cooperate building. High level mafia protectionist concepts. Nothing we haven't seen before, but I never thought I'd be the trigger man for it.", He said.

"Huh....well...how're you going to do it then? This is a little different from going down to Central America and shooting a militia leader in the face from a quarter mile away. Don't miss your exit", said Janice pointing to the off ramp.

"Yeah it is different, but in a way it's a lot easier. I'm not even carrying a gun on me right now", he said opening the inside of his jacket to Janice could look.

"Really? Darell We've been married seventeen years and you've been carrying a gun since before we met", Janice exclaimed.

"I mean of course I'm going to have a gun once I get there, but it's just getting harder and harder to actually get the thing through the airport. It's just a big pain in the ass when all it's parts are spread out across four different bags. You remember that trip to Tahoe I made two years ago?", Darell asked.

"The one where you-", she was cut off

"The one where they sent my luggage, which contained my gun, to the other side of the country and I had to break the guy's neck while he was in the shower and make it look like he'd slipped? Yes that one", He said remembering the more than inconvenient three days he'd spent in Tahoe in the middle of February, "...I just don't need shit like that happening again...so it's part of my deal that they provide me with a clean sidearm when I land. But like I was saying I think this is going to be relatively simple. I'm not gonna have to get dirty. Most of these CEO guys are on four different kinds of medications, mix the right stuff in with their drinking water and their bum ticker will just give out on them. Thank god for chemically induced heart attacks.", He said with a shrug.

"The industry just isn't what it was in the eighties huh hon?", said Janice as if looking back on better days.

"No, no it certainly isn't. You can't just waltz into the middle east with falsified journalist credentials anymore. I imagine that all these journalists getting held prisoner these days are either hitters or information mercenaries in disguise . But anyway, I don't want to bore you with work stuff. While I'm gone y'think you could get Zach to clean up some of the dog shit off the back yard?", said Darell mind wandering from his job to the hygienic situation of his property.

Janice looked over at him with a smirk and that raised eyebrow which was also often used in cases of sarcasm.

"You really think that's going to happen? Just, get him to clean it up? ", she said nearly laughing.

"I don't know....I'm just sick of having to avoid a minefield every time I want to go read in the Gazebo", he whined.

"Darell....it's March...the only time you go out to the Gazebo is when you don't want the kids to see you smoking...reading my ass", she said scolding him.

They had pulled up to the airport terminal and Darell was unbuckling while he wide continued to speak.

"All I'm saying is that we need another car...doesn't have to be a GM product or anything, we just need one. Can you think about that while you're gone? You did say that you're going to have work for a good while to come...what's the point of these risks if we can't make the most of it?", she asked in the way that a wife can that makes her husband listen.

"...Look I'm not....I'm not saying that I don't agree with you...I just don't want to deal with GM...you know how I don't like shady business, right? Something about buying their product and then going in their and...well literally killing them seems a little wrong don't you think? Like a cop taking a bribe and then still fucking the guy over? ", he said tilting his head sideways and shrugging his shoulders, "But I guess that's my hypocrisy? 'Cause, we're all just hit men somehow right?"

She smiled at him.

"Yeah, I guess we are hon."

There was a small pause where they both looked into each others eyes and smiled before Darell broke the calm in the van.

"Ok...these guys aren't gonna kill themselves, I better catch that flight."

"Ok"

"Love you"

"I love you too, have a safe trip"

He leaned across the gearshift in the middle, planted a kiss on the lips of his wife and opened the door.

"Tell the kids that I'll miss them"

"Will do"

Is it Any Wonder?

2010-01-26T17:00:00.000-08:00

"I'm not asking Carol, I'm telling you", said John.

"Oh really John? You're telling me? I'm not some junior assistant to some fledgling agent. I've been with you for the past twenty years, you don't tell me shit", came Carol's stern voice through the telephone.

"Ok shit. Carol I'm sorry you know that I didn't...I mean. It's been a rough couple of years...shit make that decade", said John slumping down over his kitchen table his housecoat dangling into his bowl of granola.

"Yeah it has been a bit of a shit decade John, that's why you're not going to tell me anything. Y'now sometimes I think you forget that you once had the world by the ball sack. Top rated sitcom, model for a wife, good looks. Just 'cause you're big pile of shit doesn't stink as much as it used to it's no good reason to go biting my head off, specially when I'm trying to help you", her voice had flattened.

John pushed the cereal bowl in front of him away and leaned back in his chair. He ran his hand through his once jet black hair, which was now becoming more salt and pepper every week.

"If I say this script looks good, and that they're still interested in you? You count your lucky fucking stars that anyone is willing to give you another shot in this industry. You don't walk away from an interview saying what you said without slipping towards being a pariah again", she continued.

He groaned and moved his hand from his hair down to his face and began to rub his eyes while re-adjusting the phone headset. He was remembering the disastrous interview earlier in the year. Thanks to Carol's diligence at shutting him up and stuffing him into a limo the situation had not reached it's full potential to be fucked up. Since then he'd spent of of his days trying to do the New York Times crossword, failing, swallowing several handfuls of oxycotins and watching the DvD's of his once famous sitcom. On the in between days he'd still found time to get bombed and pick up one or two girls a week who were at least a decade and a half younger than him.

"Ok Carol I get it"

"You're goddamn right you do and anoth-"

"Call me when you know anything Carol", said John before hanging up the phone and throwing it across the room where it hit the wall but did not visibly break.

John got up and left the kitchen in the same way he'd found it. Looking like a Bosnian refugee camp. It got that way 'round Thursdays, the day before the cleaning lady arrived. It had long been a goal of Johns to keep his cooking area in some semblance of self repair though every week as his descent into pharmacopoeia deepened he lost more and more ambition. Rosie, his maid, had never visibly judged him for his hedonism and that was enough to keep him firmly rooted in his self wasting lifestyle. Wrapping his bathrobe 'round him he made his way into one of the many sitting rooms in his four million dollar home and rooted his ass firmly into the leather sofa which had cradled him for the past three months. He ate an oxy turned on the tv and sparked a joint wondering what Will Smith was doing and why his career as sit-com icon had transcended into action star status instead of following the same route as John's. The first two years after his show had ended hadn't been so hard. He'd rode the wave for a while being re-assured by producers that he'd most certainly be able to climb to the next level of acting. Motion picture icon. This might have been true, but for all his potential John had chosen to fuck and snort away his reputation . By the end of the first year since the show's cancellation he'd already accrued three DUI's, four possession charges and skirted dangerously close to a statutory rape charge. He had been deemed untouchable by the entertainment community and after a short stint in re-hab was reintroduced into the world. Comeback stories after drug abuse not being in vouge at the time, he'd been left to live off've the remains of his sit com fortune. Carol had advised him to try his hand at producing to try and get his foot back in the door, but to little avail. The synthetic heroin now coursing through his veins he started the DvD for season three of the sitcom he'd been a part of and tried unlock the memories of better days.

1993. We All Live Here season three episode twelve.

"Cut!", Simon called and the scene died, "Ok well that's a wrap"

"Thank fuck", said Bob as he lit up a cigarette.

"Mind if I snag one of those?", asked John.

Bob extended the pack of Marlboro's as they walked out of the blasting hot lights on set. The approached Simon, the director, and dropped into chairs on either side of him while the rest of the crew began to strike the set for the day. They puffed away, waiting for Simon to give them the notes for the show. Bob and John thought Simon was a joke. Bob and John knew that the show that they starred in despite being one of the highest rated sitcoms in years, was a piece of shit. The jokes weren't funny, the production values low, and their characters pale caricatures who were allowed no more room to breath and exist in real life than they did on the script. Simon hated the fact that both the actors smoked so of course they exploited their rights to air pollution when sitting next to him. It was the nineties after all. They sat and waited patiently for Simon to finish his notes. He explained that he wanted John to bring more life to his impressions and that Bob's catch phrase was necessary even though it appealed to the lowest common denomination of viewers. Twenty minutes later they were both in Bob's cherry red Cadillac convertible on their way out into the California desert. The dust kicked up behind them as bob dropped the car into top gear and tossed a beer bottle over his head and out of the car. John was fumbling with his sunglasses while he attempted to get an adequate spoonful of coke despite the high speed winds that where whipping around them. They exchanged jokes of hope that the full ziplock bag of cocaine would be enough to last them the evening. Jokes aside, it would not be enough cocaine.

"Fuuuuuck", said Bob through a lit cigarette in his lips, "What a shitty fucking daaaay"

" GAH! You can say that again. Just glad the kids weren't on set today. All that shit about us not being able to swear", said John finally managing to get a good hit.

"Fuck those little shits. Can you believe they're making almost as much money as us to exist? They just walk around and say little kid shit and get paid for it. Mark my words John those kids are gonna be fucked up, that's what showbiz does to you. One week I'm doing half ass stand up shows next I'm getting paid two mil a year just to act like some douche bag family man...wanna pass me a beer?

John reached behind the seat and pulled them both a bottle of half warm Bud.

"You sure we're almost there?", asked John

"Yea, you can't miss it. It goes up a little bit into the hills but then stops", said Bob pointing off into the distance.

Ten minutes later Bob pulled the car to a stop and went 'round to the trunk where he withdrew two handguns and three boxes of ammo. He tossed the smaller one to John and lit up a smoke before aiming off into the distance but not taking a shot.

"So you did this with who?", asked John admiring the pistol in his hand and lighting his own smoke.

"This is where I took Kelly, the chick from wardrobe. Didn't bring the guns that time, but I brought her out her to watch the sun set. Then we smoked a joint and I fucked her in the ass", said Bob his voice non-chalant, before popping open the long barrelled revolver in his hands to examine the chamber.

"Oh yea, Kelly, I haven't seen her in a while. What happened to her?", asked John putting the pistol down on the hood of the car while he went to dig for the coke in the glove box.

"She, hey what the fuck are you doing?", yelled Bob.

"Gonna have a bump? You want one?", said John looking surprised at the sudden outburst.

"Not that, what the fuck man? Paint job? Car? Fucking Gun? Metal on metal? Don't be such a dumbshit man. You scratch this shit you're buying me another one"

"Yeah yeah", said John picking the gun up off the hood and sticking it down the front of his pants, "look I'm ice cube"

"That rap music sucks dick", Bob chimed.

"I know. So what the fuck happened to Kelly?"

"I told the producers she was stealing out of my trailer, so they canned her. Bitch was getting all clingy and shit. Feels good huh?", said Bob pointing at the gun in John's hand.

"Makes me feel like it puts six more inches on my dick", said John after taking a snort of coke and leveling his gun like Bob

"Well lets fuck some shit up then, you big dick sumabitch", said Bob letting his smoke dangle from his mouth and looking off into the distance for gophers.

They had spent the rest of the time out in the sun listening to an Areosmith tape and shooting at tunnel dwelling mammals of the area. On the way back to the city lights they finished the cocaine and beer, already discussing how they could get more of both,

John snapped out of the memory and got up off the sofa moving upstairs to his bedroom. He opened up the walk in closet that had been his wife's. There were still clothes in it. High end gowns and shoes circa 1997. He reached in and pulled out a high heel by Prada and dipped his nose inside taking a large sniff. Still smelled like her.

After his brief stint in television production John had stepped away from actually working in the industry, but had still lingered around the few friends that would have him. That was when he'd met Rebecca. She was an up and coming super model for several high end fashion companies and since her exposure to Hollywood types was limited she had not been around to see John's initial self destruction. The evening that they met John had been on his best behaviour. Clean and sober over six months he'd been sipping on pellegrino with lime and regurgitating rhetoric learned from CNN about the LA social situations. She saw in him the pieces of a man who had been broken but reformed stronger. For the first time in years John did not have sex with a woman only hours after meeting her and it was in that he knew he'd found someone different. Their courtship was short and within a few months they were married. She became his chip of sobriety and over the next three years John managed to find his feet and begin to get his life back together. Through her admiration of him the rest of the industry began to see that John had changed. His bad boy image being replaced slowly with that of a man who had found redemption in love. Even if people didn't actually believe this they knew that they could sell it and soon Carol was calling John with inquiries as to his availability for a leading role on several TV drama's that centered heavily flawed characters. Rebecca had been supportive of John's decision to attempt acting again. This support and encouragement would ultimately result in John failing his at his commitment to both sobriety and fidelity in his marriage. The show became a breakaway hit in it's first season and John was lauded with critical praise for his ability to portray a seemingly amoral lawyer with a troubled past and a secret heart of gold. His self importance re-inflated he took to filling his puffed out chest with every narcotic he could find and not a year later John was once more thrown under the media spotlight surrounded by scandal. A weapons charge here. A possession charge there. And some more DUI's. Rebecca stood by him the entire way until the addiction broached their home.

It was a Sunday afternoon when she came home early from New York to find John chin deep in some young tartlet's asscrack hoovering back an eightball from the fleshy crevasse. She didn't scream or yell at the time but instead just vomited directly onto the floor. John turned see her as he heard the noise of regurgative hitting the ground. In tears she'd turn and ran for the door while powdered nose and ass naked John chased after her with little to say for himself. She stopped at the door and faced him, betrayal and hate in her eyes. High though he was John knew that their marriage was done and that the only time he would see his wife again outside of the lawyers office would be in the pages of Vouge.

The remorse only lasted a few moments and by the time she was out the driveway John had grabbed tight onto depravity, both past and present, and ran for a touchdown. After the finality of his divorce John expected the paparazzi to be following him for weeks in an attempt to get some shots of the freshly divorced and re-addicted star. That's not how it went though. In the fallout of their marriage Rebecca had not only taken half of John's possessions she had acquired that which meant the most to him, his celebrity. Until their union she had been nothing more than a pretty face and a bikini filler. Now after John's indiscretions becoming fairly public she was painted by the media as the tragic wife of a disgusting man. Her career spring boarded from that of supermodel to a leading lady in a movie franchise. John on the other hand was left wading through his own shitty decisions just trying to get a leg up out of it. Of course it had been Carol who rescued him, pulling him out and letting him dry off, even if the smell wouldn't leave him for years. Six months later the producers of his TV show had his character killed off and John was checking himself into rehab again.

Six years of sobriety later John had found himself a role on a long running network drama who tentatively agreed to give him a guest spot for six episodes. When his behaviour maintained he was allowed a place as a regular cast member, taking the paycheck and the work to keep himself busy. His addictions were kept in check by a twelve step program he didn't really believe in and careful monitoring of Carol . John spent a good deal of time on the phone with her arguing, simply because he had nothing better to do to occupy his time. Carol knew that this apparently grown man was simply eking out the strains of his need for attention and in pity she obliged him a certain amount of her time. It was announced only a year and a half after John's addition to the show that the long running drama would be air it's final episode in the coming months. This was what had led to the calamity of an interview and John's self imposed exile from public life.

"John! John! Can I have a few words?", said Rita Barker an interviewer for Red Carpet Entertainment.

John turned to look at her. He was attending the premier of Bob's new movie, "Dumber by the Pound" and had not expected to have a microphone shoved in his face.

"Uh, yea sure Rita, can we make it quick though?"

"Of course. I just wanted to ask you how you felt about Mercy General being cancelled?"

John stopped, and scratched his face for a moment while the young woman nudged her microphone closer. He had been thinking about the announcement that was for sure, but it hadn't been weighing too heavily on his mind. Carol had informed him that since he'd been doing such a good job the studios had started to eye him up again.

"I guess. Well it's been a good run and I'm happy to have been part of such a legendary show, with such an excellent cast", said John adopting his trademark smile which had, even in his times of degeneracy, charmed so many.

"What do you have to say to the allegations that the show is ending because of your abusive behaviour and addictions?", said Rita holding her red lips apart to show the teeth of a television shark.

John's smile was gone.

"Well Rita, I guess I can tell you to go fuck yourself, and offer up an allegation of my own. That you're a huge cunt.", the smile re-appeared though this time it was to please himself not her.

"Excuse me?", said Rita taken aback.

"No I don't think I will Rita. Now if you don't mind I'm going to go hammer out a few rails and find a prostitute", said John with thick sarcasm, only to immediately be grabbed by Carol and dragged into a limo.

However sarcastic John may have been in person, print media has a funny way of putting things very literally and before he knew it his name and crazy had once more become synonymous. This was when John stopped leaving the house. This was where he dragged out the pill bottle full of oxycotins, called a friend of a friend with some great bud and slumped down onto his sofa to make a big thick ass groove. He didn't believe it was a re-lapse. Least not the same as any he'd had before. A relapse into depression perhaps, but the drugs were no longer there to act as an accelerate to his destruction. They were there to preserve his slow agonizing state of despair, and bottle all of his feelings inside his gigantic empty house. Of course there were women, there had always been women but they didn't really matter. His hedonistic consumption of life had transformed into a masochistic reflection of self. Every pill was a reminder that no one liked him. Every fuck was the love story that would never happen again. And every episode of his once famous sitcom a part of the tapestry that told of his inevitable fall from grace. He blamed the, the people, the industry and the drugs.

The doorbell rang. It never rang. John lazily got to his feet and stumbled through the house to the front door, tying the front of his robe wondering if he'd gotten too stoned to remember that he'd called his weed dealer. It was not his dealer. It was Bob. The tall son of a bitch was standing on his doorstep with a six pack of beer and a half cocked smirk on his face.

"What? You don't return my calls you fucker?", said Bob pushing his way into the house and towards the kitchen.

John followed him but didn't say anything.

"Shit John, this place looks like shit. I didn't think you had it in you to make a mess of a house that has more rooms than an Egyptian tomb but...well you proved me wrong", said Bob setting down his six pack and looking for a bottle opener in the kitchen.

"Cleaning lady, tomorrow", mumbled John, but Bob didn't hear him.

"What? Speak up, Oh you're high huh? Oxy's right?", said Bob, "And where the fuck is your bottle opener"

John picked up one of the beers and braced the cap against the fine ceramic counter top before banging at it with the heel of his hand. The cap came off and so did a small chunk of counter.

"Hmm, gotta get me one of those", said Bob as John smashed open another beer.

They both sat in silence in the kitchen for a few minutes before Bob lit up a smoke and started talking.

"So, you're off the wagon again?"

"Yup", said John, half his beer gone already.

"Well, I'm not really gonna harass you about it. I just wanted to know what's up. I haven't seen you in like, a month."

"Just sitting here. Waiting for something to happen.", said John without feeling.

Bob snorted and waited for John to say more. When he didn't Bob let out a half laugh half sigh and began to speak.

"Ok John, look...I don't give two shits about the drugs. You're a big boy, you've been through it enough to know what you're doing by now. Seems like you've got a pretty good handle on the fact that you're wallowing in your own shit, and I'm not 'bout to tell you how to live your life. I just want to talk. So cut this, poor me life's so hard ,Mercy General got cancelled, faggoty ass shit and tell me what's really up. I know you didn't care that much about that show", said Bob his volume raising as he continued speaking.

John stopped for a moment, found his cigarettes in his house coat, lit on on the gas stove and then started to talk.

"Carol says she's probably got me a part. A good one too. This movie that they're putting together, big budget something or other. She says that hollywood comeback's are big right now and...well since I've been on the shit list for so long...I'm exactly the kind of guy they're looking for...but I gotta get sober..I just don't know if I want to.", he trailed off and ashed his smoked into the sink.

Bob looked up at him and twisted his face before speaking.

"What kinda pussy are you John?"

"What?"

"I guess, no you wouldn't really hear yourself would you? You sound like a big old sopping wet pussy."

"Hey fuck you Bob. You don't exactly keep your nose that clean"

"Never said I did. But you know what John? That's not what I'm talking about. What you're doing? I haven't done that since I was fifteen and having wet dreams all the time. I'm a fucking adult John, I don't go 'round moping when I put myself into shitty situations", spat Bob.

"Hey man, I've got an addiction problem you know tha-", tried John but Bob raised his hand and cut him off.

"Fucking spare me John. Addictions my ass, yea sure you might be pretty shitty at resisting temptation, lord knows I've seen it. But there was only ever one fucking thing that you were addicted to. It wasn't coke, it wasn't booze, and it wasn't snatch. And I've known you for fifteen years so don't even try to tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about.", said Bob dropping his smoke but into a now empty beer bottle.

"Ok professor? Then what is it? huh? We're not in an episode of "We All Live Here" Bob, you don't get to hand down some paternal advice that makes everything ok and then we end on a freeze frame. What is it that I'm so terribly addicted to that it makes all this and this", he pointed at the beer bottle and pulled the pill bottle from his robe pocket, "pale in fucking comparison"

Bob held his expression of slate and slammed open another bottle of beer while John lit another cigarette and pulled his robe tighter to his body.

"Fame John. You always wanted to be that little bit more famous. That little bit more attention. And when you couldn't get it through the conventional means, which are fucked up enough as it is, you'd go out and do something characteristically stupid and almost always get caught. There isn't that much difference b'tween you and me in terms of how the ninties went for us, 'cept for the fact that you got caught almost every single time. And why did you get caught John? Because you wanted to...because that spotlight is so much brighter and world pays a lot more attention to you when you're in deep shit. You know how many times I cheated on my ex wife before I finally just ended it myself? I don't even know ok? That's how high that number is John...it's so huge that I don't even know how large it is...but at the end of the day I didn't get caught. I knew what I was doing was pretty wrong and rather than have it all just 'ventually blow up in my face I just ended it.", Bob finished and took several large swigs of beer and waited for John to speak.

"I.....", tried John, but he couldn't manage anything else.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Don't sit here and tell me that it's the drugs. It's you John...it's always been you. Your downfall never resulted from the drugs, it was always that next big thing lighting you and and getting your dick so hard that you didn't have any blood left in your head. The second you get an inch you take a mile. Rebecca was the best woman you're ever gonna have a chance with, and it's really too bad that you fucked that all up....but who gives a shit right? Must be nice to be able to blame your addictions for shit like that right? No it's not me, is what you tell yourself, it's this horrible drug that I can't get enough of. You want this movie so bad you can taste it.", Bob finished and stood up making his way to the door.

John didn't say anything as Bob passed him, but turned to watch him reach the door. As he opened it he spoke one more time.

"I'm still your friend John. I just don't think I can take seeing my friend destroy himself one more time. Take the movie. Don't take it. I don't really care. Keep in mind though, you've been a redemption story twice before, and it wasn't the drugs that brought you down both times. A redemption story is only entertaining so many times. After a while? You just become a perennial fuck up"

And then he was gone.

John stood in silence in his kitchen for a few more minutes, his cigarette smoking silently in his fingertips. The phone rang. He let it ring for a full minute before picking it up. It was Carol.

"John, you're in. They want you for it. I swear to you this thing is going to put you right back on top. After this people are gonna be lined up to polish your knob. So what do you say John? Ready to be back on top?"

Are you there Margaret? It's me God.

2010-01-26T14:31:00.000-08:00

The "gift" came in a small, brown box and arrived at noon. This was just when Margaret Thompson had sat down to eat lunch. She'd been busy around the house all morning. After sending her nine and thirteen year old daughters off to school and doing the typical housework a mother may find herself with on a Wednesday. Laundry, dishes, paying the bills, and changing the litter box. Her lunch consisted of a tin of tomato soup, a BLT made with the leftover bacon from breakfast and a cup of tea. The kitchen's tv set was tuned to the noon news and she'd readied herself to learn about events both municipal and global when the doorbell rang.

When she opened the door, the box was there sitting on the doorstep. A little brown box taped shut. Though it certainly peaked her curiosity, she decided to leave it on the kitchen countertop until she had finished her lunch.

After the dishes she opened the box. Inside there was a small black spiral bound notebook with no branding. She flipped open the front cover to reveal a full page of neatly scrawled handwriting. Simple print, not cursive.

"Are you there Margaret? It's me God", was what it said at the top of the page.

She stopped for a moment and looked around the room with her brow furrowed. She continued to read.

"Pardon me, I've always wanted to say that. No, this is not a prank and there is no one watching you. This is God and I am speaking to you right now through this notebook.”, she snorted and then continued, "Don't snort, it's rude. Yes I know exactly what you're doing right now and what you're going to do. You might as well accept that right off the bat. I know everything that was and everything that will be. No surprises for me which at times is a bore, but I try not to dwell on it. Right about now you're questioning the validity of my words", she was, "If my knowing that you were looking around the room, or snorting wasn't enough then how's this? I know that in the sixth grade you accidentally pooped in your pants behind the school portable, took your panties off and threw them over the fence behind the school. You never told anyone about that right? Or the time in college when you and your boyfriend used your roommate's last condom, a result of which was him getting his girlfriend pregnant the next week. She had an abortion and only told you. I know that you secretly wanted your second child to be a boy, and that you're considering asking your husband, Bill, to try again.

Do I have your attention? Good. I am not your god, your Christian god, nor am I any other religion's god. Yet, I am all those gods at the same time. I created everything, yet living things have made it into something. I understand that this is probably some pretty overwhelming stuff but you don't really need to worry about the universal ramifications of it. Just know that right now, Margaret Thompson, I am talking to you. Before we go any farther you should probably pour yourself another cup of tea and get comfortable while you read the rest of this. Don't worry you're not going to have any unexpected visitors and even though the dog is going to pee in the house it's going to be on the linoleum in your kitchen, and will wait to be cleaned up."

Margaret filled her mug, picked the book back up, stepped into the living room and sat on the leather love seat. She put a coaster underneath her tea on the side table, and opened the book once more.

"There, that's more comfortable now isn't it?

You're wondering whether or not I'm going to send you on some grand mission or warn you of some upcoming flood. I'm not going to do anything like that. I've just been watching you and your life. Actually I've watched your entire life. It's a good life. The things you've done, seen and felt fill an existence that anyone should be proud of. You are happy for the most part. Though there's a small amount of fear for the future.

Despite the current financial crisis and the cutbacks at Bill's work he will not lose his job. Don't bother thinking about that anymore. Bill isn't cheating on you. He isn't having an affair with the secretary in the office next to him. You married a good man Margaret. He loves you and your family very much and would never betray your trust or the oath that you both made on your wedding day, which was beautiful by the way. He's spending a lot of time away from you and the kids right now because he's making sure that he won't lose his job. Your husband is, as we speak, is putting the pieces together to form a very large contract which will have him promoted.

Your thirteen year old, Jenny, will go through a rough patch in her teen years. Try not to worry about her too much, she's going to be just fine.

Iris has always had a slightly more level head than her older sister. That doesn't mean she deserves any less attention. She's a hard worker and smart as a whip. She just wants you to acknowledge that. She won't be near as troubled as Jenny in her teen years but when she tells you that she's a homosexual I hope that you can take the news without much shock and with even less judgement. I know that your church frowns upon this, but I can tell you that I don't care one way or another. I didn't make your daughter that way, you didn't make your daughter that way. That "way" is certainly nothing to be judged either. I apologize for the convictions that you hold, which are perhaps a direct result of the interpretations of my interference in the affairs of man. Faith in my existence is a lofty and certainly unstable yoke which holds many and yet benefits few. Human beings in life owe me nothing. The gift of life and what a being does with it is not something that can be evaluated by even it's creator. It is a gift, not a loan."

At this Margaret took a sip of her tea and re-adjusted herself in her seat.

"Despite your faith Margaret you are an inquisitive being. You’ve wondered how so many atrocities could have existed if I were such a benevolent God. The truth is that even with omnipotence I can only do so much. Oxymoron though that may seem, as I am about to explain it I hope it will make sense to you. Imagine if you will a world where you had absolute power. A world where you could change everything at a whim. All the disease famine and pestilence in the world gone with a wave of your hand. Would you change it? At first consideration of course you would. What noble creature would not rid the world of all it's plights? To quote a piece of fiction from Earth, “with great power comes great responsibility”. Was I to change everything into a pure and fashionable utopia what would be gained? Would human beings placed in a world of peace and understanding, appreciate it? No of course they would not. Just as a child who is given it's very first bike hardly appreciates this toy as much as when they have earned it. That old saying propagated by the Chinese tells it best, “Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime”. Until such a time comes when mankind has taught each other how to fish there will be no peace, nor enlightenment.

There are lessons to be learned in life Margaret. From extremes such as your holocaust to the perhaps insignificance of tieing one's shoes. The world grows and learns just as the individual does. A time will come when the human race can shed the confines of their fretting ego's to escape the notion of the individual and find sanctuary in being united. You are individuals, each with skills, that much is certain. It is when you decide collectively that these talents are not to be used to benefit solely the individual, but rather the entirety of the human race, that you will achieve true unity. I know that this is a lot to take in. That's all right, it will give you much to ponder throughout the rest of your life. Please note though, every experience is valuable. Every experience provides a lesson.

Questions you have for me? Why, if I love mankind so much, would I allow your grandfather to die of cancer at a very young sixty five years old? Because it is not my place to disturb the natural order of life. Life, though created by my energies, is not my toy. Death may be sad, but I cannot relinquish its necessity. Death has its place. Pain and suffering as well. All things in your kingdom exist for a reason. Faith in me or no, the only faith that a being should have is in life itself. Despite what your bibles may tell you there are no ten commandments, nor are there seven deadly sins. I refuse to be the one who impresses a strict code of morals on humanity. Nor will I punish them for doing what nature has led them to, even if what they have wrought is the harm of another being. It is not my place to judge, it isn't even my place to exist anymore. Yet I cannot cease to exist, and am left to watch. Judgement is for the weak, understanding is for the, dare I say it, divine.

Most of your life you've held non Christians below yourself. This is foolish dear Margaret. These people simply choose to believe something different from you. These people want little more than to find their own way of understanding. They want to believe in something. It simply isn't me. Be it science, religion, cultism, or any other number of belief structures, everyone wants to believe in something. Everyone wants to find something that sustains them and unites the mind, body and soul. Though I do not believe in human erected sins there is one transgression that rattles me. A disbelief in anything. Choosing the path of apathy over that of a faith leaves this world in ruination. Those that decide to find solace in egotistical self preservation, rather than passion, ask the rest of the world to carry them. Even those who pursue goals that threaten the existence of others move forward in the pursuit of a belief. These beliefs may be morally tainted, but they are still beliefs. Even these poisoned architectures of spirit can eventually be brought together by a common goal of a united consciousness. A harmony, if you will. Without the darkness what need is there for light to exist?

But of course now you're wondering “But God what of the nameless throughout history that have been killed in your name?” ".

Margaret was indeed wondering this as she read.

“I never asked to be worshipped. Is it so unbelievable that a creator would ask for little other than to have his creations flourish and prosper? Understand this Margaret, and I know it sounds elementary in its presentation, no one does the wrong thing because it's wrong. I know, a naive God I must sound like but it's true. Even those addled by mental illnesses who find themselves soaked in the blood of the innocent are not without redemption. Evil is a concept created by man with which to judge. Is a wolf that kills another wolf evil? Is a Tiger that eats it's young evil? Even rabbits, who most consider cute, are prone to committing infanticide. No, those are constructs of nature and as such are left un-judged by humanity. Can the same not be said for man? Are you not animals capable of the same actions? This is not an entirely original argument. But does it make any less sense? The humans who commit atrocities, are they not outside the cultural norm? The mainstream canonizes them as monsters. What is a monster? As your current culture may have you believe, it is something that is ghastly. Outside your establishment, refusing to stand with the rules of society. Simply consider this, these people are the remnants of a much more primal time. It stands to reason that not all strains of human evolution have reached the same point? That mastery of the mind and society would only be developed through necessity? If a society can function without entirely destroying itself what need is there for it to develop beyond the confines that it currently inhabits? To return to a point, good and evil are concepts of fiction. The pursuit of happiness is truth"

After this, Margaret was forced to put the book down and walk a couple of circles around her living room. Before returning to the book she checked the time, urinated, and cracked open a can of diet cola.

"Better? I apologize if I've gone on a maddening rant. I've been known to do that and I apologize if it's slightly more than your level of comprehension is used to dealing with. One minute your life is Honey Nut Cheerios, Mr. Clean and the BMW in your garage and the next I'm handing you universal structure in ball point".

Margaret laughed at this.

"Good, glad to know that you're still with me.

But again this all begs the question of, why you? Why just one person sitting in their home? Why not someone who could spread my word? Because I don't want my word spread. Too many people have done too much for themselves using the power of my word. Those that have? Well, you give a human being an inch and they'll create a system with which to control miles. Life isn't about control. It isn't about how much you have. It's about how much you can give. How much you can give to make your world a better place. You're wondering about heaven now. If you do this do you get to go to Heaven? Heaven exists. Hell too. But they're not where you go after you die. They're where you live. Heaven and Hell. Which one do you live in? Which one do you want to live in? Ponder this, as it is the last thing I say to you, after which this entire book will go blank leaving no trace of my communication. Life is my gift to you. Living is your gift to life.

And then the phone rang.

Where the streets have no name

2009-11-18T17:57:00.000-08:00

He was home now. He hadn't been home in such a long time that the prospect of facing everything had kept him up all night. A result of which had been him deciding, at three in the morning, that a run was a good idea. If it didn't tire him out at least it was something to take his mind off everything else.

Outside on the front stoop he tied the laces to his sneakers, not realizing he was sitting in the exact spot where he'd learned to preform the daily chore. The concrete was cold under his butt, though it didn't bother him much after standing and quickly rubbing his thighs and stretching out his quads. A few more stunted moments on his family doorstep and he was out and on his way down the street. The area of the town he had grown up in had sporadic street lights which were known to die for most of the night. Randomly springing their glow on unwary cats and dogs with a few drunken teenagers thrown in for good measure. His dad had always called their neighbourhood the "Streets with no names". Tonight was not an exception and beginning his jaunt into the night he took notice of the cavernous blackness he was about to embark into.

At first it was slow going as his eyes adjusted to the lack of light, but as his vision widened he started to pick up his pace and reach out to the night. It grabbed hard and pulled him off into his own mind, allowing his legs to carry his corporeal form so that for the first time in weeks his thoughts might be free.

The concerns he had were both strange and normal for a man of his age. A standard twenty two he had thought it immature of himself to still find pain in his parents divorce. He felt sure that his current relationship deserved far more state of mind. He knew that she was leaving. Soon she would no longer be a part of his world. Yet when his father had called him just two and a half weeks earlier, breaking the news, he had remained calm on the phone but after hanging up had lost his face in his hands sitting on his bed. Overwhelmed by the information. He was an adult now sure, but the news was still shocking. His parents had never displayed any sign of restlessness that he could remember. The ensuing weeks had provided him with calls from both of them providing their reasoning's, neither of which provided him with a clearer picture.

"We're...we're just not in love anymore", his mom had said, "We're just...we're in the same place in our lives but we just...we want different things"

"She's leaving me Jim. She's not happy and she's leaving, I don't know how else to put it....'cause I don't really understand", his fathers cracking voice came to him over the phone.

At the end of it all, she'd just packed her bags and moved out. The divorce papers would be coming in the mail. She'd taken what she thought she would need for where she was going, and with no further explanation, was gone. What had she left him? Everything. The House. The Car. The Dog and Cat. All of her antique china. The DvD player.Even the photo albums. But perhaps the heaviest of all, she'd left him with their life. A weight that has such a sheer tonnage that one person alone cannot shoulder it all. It takes a partnership and, with only one remaining there was nothing left but that primal burden slamming down on his father's mind. He would forever be left to wander the halls of the home that they had built together and know that she would never 'cross foot into it's humble frame again.

Running still, he rounded the corner on his old elementary school. He detoured from his current path in hopes of chasing ghosts of his childhood. He was there with his father. It was his first soccer game and while the coach was giving him directions his father had made sure his shin pads and socks were fitted securely. They'd lost the game. His mother had been there. Half time. Oranges. The field of light 'round the school began to increase, while his steps slackened as he came to a brief pause outside the front of the school. He was there with his mother. It was the last day of school in grade four. She'd brought him and his friend's popsicles and cans of coke. They were going to a party. No more school. The beach! A new Bike?! And then his legs began to regain their former pace and the school began to disappear behind him.

Back out on the street he made his way past the gates to the used car dealership where his dad had taken him to purchase his first car. His father had told him over and over as the date of his sixteenth birthday approached that he would not be buying him now, nor ever, a car. This seemed a harsh statement but Jim was none the less determined to own a car for his sixteenth birthday and spent the six months leading up to it saving his hard earned dollars and cents. On his birthday his dad had taken him down to this used car lot and as Jim began to look 'round his father had simply pointed at a battered old coup and tossed him the keys. The car had become his life, and with the money he'd saved with the intention of purchasing a vehicle he was able to fully afford insurance, gas and any nagging repairs that the old bucket seemed to require weekly. Now, the chain link fence closed, those days seemed locked away from him. Like the cars they were full of horsepower though they lacked the gas to really make them move the way they used to.

He was on the main drag near his house now. The big street, his mother had always called it, filled with little shops and cafes. The one main restaurant, Tortallas, where his family had held residency for years on those nights when his mother didn't have the time to cook. In ways it had been more of a family kitchen than the one at home had ever been. Him and his parents gathered round a small table while large platters of spaghetti and meatballs whirled above them in the hand's of the servers. There was usually company when they went for dinner here. Whether it was one of his friends or his grandparents cramming along the table with them. It was here he had seen his parents so happy so many times their hands always being held beneath the table, while they sipped their red win and asked him about his week. Even when he'd been in that questionable angry stage of his adolescence there had been something about the place that always brought the family together. There would be no more family gatherings here. He would never again face the chiding of his mother towards his father as he ordered his perennial meal of chicken parmesan. His mother would not remind him to place his serviette on his lap, and there would be no more sneaking sips of merlot when the waitress wasn't looking.

His mind began to wander back to his own relationship. It wasn't that she was leaving him. She was just leaving. He had made a home of his own in the city and built a life around it, and she had become a part of that life. Now a little over a year later she was 'bout to move on. Her world shifting it's eye on places east. He'd seen it coming though dared not speak about it excessively in case the words hastened the reality. They hadn't had the talk yet but he knew that it was coming when he got back home. She was waiting to put a period on the run on sentence that had been the past year. Waiting until she was sure that she wouldn't be near him in his moments of personal flailing. He understood. No one wants to be in the presence of pain that they have created. He started to remember the first time that she'd come home with him. It wasn't a holiday, there had been no good reason for them to be in his family home. She had just wanted to meet the people who had raised the man she had fallen in love with. His mother had cooked the most delightful meals for their three day adjournment from the big city. Beth spent the evenings playing cribbage and drinking the family red wine. This was followed by the inevitable unearthing of family photo albums. He'd grimaced, she'd grinned, when the standard pictures of a smiling little boy on the potty had been found. His father had told stories while she listened with earnest. From the origin of the home's grandfather clock to the near disastrous family trip to Decatur, she had made a decision to engross herself in parts of the family continuity of which she was now a part.

The street lights were still dark as he crossed the concrete line back into perimeter of his old neighbourhood, the shadows no longer a stigma. Now they held him as he continued his locomotion, the dark a canvass on which his mind continued to paint the tapestry of his life. His mother helping him take the training wheels of his bike while his father was out of town. His dad nearly sending himself up in flames while lighting the BBQ in the back yard. The first time he was allowed to use the ride-a-mower. That marvelous tire swing. Dragging Christmas trees 'cross the front yard into the house. Trudging down the narrow paths and trails in the woods near home in search of that untouched toboggan hill. The failed attempts to sell lemonade, drawings, and other paraphernalia of childhood to community. His childhood had been a wonderland of adventure, his parents always appearing along the road to offer a band-aid or a juice box when it was needed. Things had not actually changed that much, as he thought about it. His parents were still there in his grand adventure but, because it is the way of life, they were about to reembark on their own quests. Their emotional capital now allowed to be invested in something other than him. In the case of his mother it was truly an experience of longing. Pushing beyond that construct of family which had led her to a crossroads. The signpost forcing her to choose between dissatisfaction in stability or the unpredictable and less ventured trail of independence. His father's adventure would be the kind of which there is no choice, and in that lay a challenge. The challenge to move forward when the constant comfort of life will no longer sustain itself. If properly completed, Jim knew, a quest like that could yield the greatest treasures if one only wants to find it. His own life, much like his parents was about to take a turn. It was both necessary and unwanted. He didn't want Beth to move forward, but he understood that anything else was a step backward and began to prepare himself for the journey that comes with the letting go.

At these thoughts and the rounding the corner on the house the streetlights began to flicker and then came alive. Their absence had left his vision rested in the shadow and he was now momentarily blinded settling his pace to that of a gentle trot while his pupils readjusted themselves. When the world returned to focus he saw him. Sitting on the curb just 'front of the house was his father. He was wearing a thick wool sweater and pyjama pants with his slippers. His head rested in his palms. As the footsteps of his son approached he raised his head to reveal swollen eyes and bitten lip. He didn't stand as Jim finished his run at his father's feet and took a seat next to him on the curb, still huffing and puffing a bit. His father spoke.

"Y'now, you should really keep moving...'least stretch out...this cold? Your legs r'gonna sieze up."

"Yeah, I know Dad", said Jim.

He put his arm around his father, an act that he didn't consider until he'd done it. His father took his hand and held it tightly just around the corner of his shoulder. Father and son. They sat there for a while longer before the father spoke once more.

"I...I don't know what I'm going to do Jim. I've spent...I've been in love with that woman for the better part of a lifetime, and I...I don't want it to be over. I've never wanted it to be over...it's just...", and he trailed of his voice falling into his sweater as he lowered his head.

"I know Dad", said Jim waiting nearly a minute before speaking, "I know....Beth's leaving too....It's...that doesn't really...I mean. I'm here for you right now. That's why I'm home"

His father turned to him and this time it was his turn wrap his arm around his little boy's shoulder, a wave of pride and love washing over the pained sand in his eyes.

"Thanks Jim. I'm here for you too. Are you? You doin' allright?", he asked.

"I'm...I'm pretty messed up Dad...to tell you the truth. You and mom? Beth and I? I..I...I don't know what I'm really doing right now...I don't really know how to?", his words trailing off leaving the skin of a young man in doubt and confusion.

He was seven again. It was one of the last days of fall before the final onset of winter and there he was in the waining daylight. Sitting on the cold street next to his bike lamenting that final day when it would be relegated to the garage until the seasons once more made their change. His father had sat down next to him while the sunlight faded leaving nothing to replace it.

"What's going on Jimmy? Your mom wants you to take a bath", he'd said.

"I don't want to take a bath! I want to ride my bike! It's not fair! I don't want it to be winter!", the boy said crossing his arms.

"I know, only a few days left before winter but it'll be spring before you know it"

"You're just saying that"

" No, seriously Jim. Eventually things get cold and dark for a little bit that's just the way the world has to work, but you know what?"

"What?"

"The sun's always shining somewhere. That means that sooner or later? It's going to be shining here. Besides, if it's too snowy to ride your bike that means what?"

"Sledding", the boy said the words hanging like a star in the cold air.

"Too right bucko, now c'mon or I'll get in trouble with your mom".

The little boy wrapped his arms around his father and let him pick him up, leaving the bike on the curb. His father would come back for it later and put it in the garage. Out of sight and out of mind. It would be replaced by the gleaming wood and steel of his sled just inside the door to the house.

"You're getting a little too heavy for me bucko", said the father as they made tracks to the front door.

"One day? I'm gonna be able to carry you dad!"

"I hope so. It's hard work packing these old bones around"

And they were back to the present. They'd stood up and were walking now. Father and son carrying each other towards the only lit house on the streets with no names.

Rural Macabre.

2009-10-30T15:02:00.000-07:00

Macabre
ma-ca-bre
adjective
disturbing or horrifying because involvement or depiction of death and injury.

It's nine thirty in the morning and I'm on a bus to the middle of nowhere. I'm going looking for my sister. She hasn't responded any of my efforts to communicate for the past three months and I'm left wondering just where she is and what she's doing. Is she safe? I don't know, and that's why I'm on this bus.

I'm Tom. I grew up in the city. The big city. With skyscrapers, subways, hot dog vendors and more people than I care to know. My sister did not grow up in the city. When we were eight years old my parents separated. Never divorced though. We're twins, my sister and I. We kept in constant communication over the years. She went with my mom and me with my dad. Diane and my mom moved around a lot, always from one small town to another. When we'd talk it was usually her on a pay phone and my dad waking me up late at night to take the call. Now we're both twenty seven and the last time I talked to my sister was two months ago. It was a garbled call at three in the morning. Few words were understandable other than "don't" and "looking for me". I'd decided to let it sit for the time being. What else could I do? I didn't know where she was. I have a job, a girlfriend. A life that needs maintenance. I'm not an idiot. I know that she told me not to come looking for her. Doesn't mean I'm gonna listen. When someone says something like that usually means their in trouble, or about to be.

Then 'bout two weeks ago I get this e-mail from my aunt mentioning that she'd bumped into Diane in Tuskula while they were there for my cousin's baseball tournament. My aunt didn't say much other than that Diane looked tired and that she was there with some of the local riff raff. She asked me if I knew much about what Diane was doing these days. I was ashamed to admit to myself that I did not. I decided that weekend that I was going to go to Tuskula and find my sister. Another week went by where I anxiously waited for the day to come when I'd climb on the bus and take myself into the wilds of the rural areas around me in search of Diane.

I get to Tuskula at around three in the afternoon and book myself into a shitty little side street motel and begin to plan my next move. Where would she be? I check the phonebook for a number and address. Of course there isn't one. I take a shower and try to scrub off the eking smell of sweat accrued during the bus ride. I'm sure that a lot of it isn't mine, greyhound seats having a propensity to act like an odour sponge. The motel bathroom is small with yellowing outlines tracing all the fixtures. I get dressed and leave the musty little room ,which is lacking a decent paint job and a reasonable amount of square footage, in search of food.

The the town's streets are nearly empty. Ghostly whirlwinds of dust spin past and I find myself wondering why , with so many cars parked outside, there aren't more people on the street. The most prominent features are the Autumn leaves and biting air that coils 'round my neck as I shuffled down the street to a neon lit diner. A small murder of crows land on the street behind me as I open the door to go in. Scavengers searching for any remnants of sustenance. I feel like a scavenger, though I'm searching for the leavings of my sister's life.

Inside the diner a short squat waitress instinctively brings me a cup of coffee, slaps down a frayed laminated slab of manila, and rattles off the specials which I am sure are always the specials. The coffees bad the way you'd expect it to be in a small town diner. I don't even bother adding cream or sugar. It's thin enough that any extra condiments would completely mask the flavour. It's easy to tell that until very recently you could smoke in here. There's that sickly spat of nicotine lining the AC covers in the ceiling and most of the windows have taken on an opaque sheen. It also has that stale cigarette smell. This place has seen more cancer than I'd care to imagine. I order bacon and eggs and pretend like I'm reading the newspaper. The diner's few tables are seated with old people. Crumbling sandstone slabs of human beings. I focus on an old man wearing a cowboy hat who appears to have begun falling apart from the inside out. His features collapsing in , the different quadrants of his face delineated by degrees of elevation. He peers over at me for a moment. His deep brown eyes hover at me 'cross the restaurant, holding their place on my face long enough to make me feel uncomfortable. I break the connection and return to my paper, hoping that my food will arrive soon. The waitress arrives with my plate and this time I take notice of her face. Much like the old man's it has begun to succumb to the weight of her life though it is certainly not at his advanced stage. Several of her teeth are blackening and I shudder to think of what micro bacteria is shed from her mouth as she speaks to me, lowering my plate with gnarled tree roots for fingers. Each of which is adorned with bright cherry red nail polish. I've lost my appetite but try my best to put the meal down. I manage a piece of bacon and toast. I don't trust the eggs, the gelatinous gloss on their sunny sides begins to make me gag as I begin to notice the thick sheen of dust and grease that's formed on the edges of my table. I call for the check and when the waitress brings it over I ask her about my sister.

"Excuse me?"

"Yes, what can I do for you hon?", she says.

Despite her cadaverous appearance she is not impolite nor imposing. She smiles and inside my mind I shudder. Her blackened teeth still retaining an impossible shine. Whens she speaks her voice is a thick wheeze of sound trying to make it through years smoke buts.

"I'm looking for someone"

"Really? Don't know who you'd be lookin' for in Tuskla? We ain't much more than just a pit stop 'tween places unknown", she says

"I'm...I'm looking for a girl, I don't know I heard she was here and it really isn't that big of a place so I thought I'd ask", I manage. I feel sure that it's something I should be going about delicately though I don't know why.

"Well? Can't help y'none if ya don't give me a name now can I?", she proposes crossing her arms over her stained and fading blouse.

"I'm looking for a Diane, Diane Roth?"

"Hmm, don't er....nope. Don't ring no bells for me hon", she says though I'm sure she's lying. Maybe she isn't?

"Well do you know of any other Diane's in town?", I say my impatience apparent, though weak.

She goes to walk away from the table just as I'm asking the question. She stops and turns back to me uncrossing her arms and pointing at me.

" Why're you lookin' for this girl? Huh? Why don't you know anythin' else 'bout her? You go lookin' for somethin' doesn't wanna be found boy, you best expect trouble. I ain't seen no Diane Roth, and I don't care too neither...s'why don't y'just pay yer check and I won't have to be botherin' none more with it .", She says falling on her crutch of poor english to hide the rattle in her voice while she walks away.

Seconds later she's gone from my sight and into the kitchen. The door to the kitchen has a wide window embedded in it and peering towards it see the waitresses arms waving around and several faces of men peering through the window. I pull fifteen bucks out of my wallet and drop it onto the check before quickly pulling my jacket on and heading outside. I scoot around the corner of the restaurant where prying eyes inside can't see me and stop to consider my next move. The sun's going down and the town of Tuskla is caught in a twilight without shine. It is the dampened light and sound of the countryside, the only feature that displays itself with any prominence being the cold wind that cuts cross the marsh to the back of me. Gravel on the sidewalk grits under my feet as I turn, but it continues when I stop. There is someone else there with me. Someone just 'round the corner.

I take as sharp breath in through my nose as the footsteps round the edge of the building. It is the old man from inside the diner. His craggy face slightly masked by his own breath mixed with the trailing of a king sized cigarette. The bags 'round his eyes droop deeper in the shade created by the brim of his had. He looks up at me, unsurprised knowing that I had been there, and letting out another breath of smoke he begins to speak to me.

"y'lookin' for someone huh?"

I'm not frightened by this man physically but his tone is carries a wayward spell of a small town heretic.

"I'm...yea I'm looking for Diane Roth...do you know who that is?"

He lets out a sickening cough and spits of some entrails of his lungs. I follow the glob as it leaves his mouth and spatters on the dirty sidewalk.

"I don't know any Diane Roth. N'ere heard of her, but I heard of a Diane...she spends her time with them Sharkey boys, the brothers. They're usually 'round the Brushfall bar most nights. Y'gwan in you'll know who I mean. There ain't no one else in the bar that'd you'd pay attention to. I mean, n'one else you'd need watch out for. Rest of them folk jest drunks and the like, but them boys? Them boys run it 'round here, and they don't take to kindly to anyone gettin' in there business", He says his words a creeping murmur from a disturbed tomb.

"Uh, why are you telling me this?", I ask, "I mean...the waitress inside she seemed pretty...I don't know she didn't seem to want to tell me much. And what do you mean they run it?"

" They run it. j'est what I said. And I didn't tell you nothin' boy, jest remember that whenever you find who yer lookin' for", he says beginning to turn.

"Hey!", I call and he turns around to face me his nearly finished cig jammed into the corner of his mouth smoke running upwards into the cracks 'round his eyes, "Is there?...I mean is there anyone I can go to? Anyone I should trust?"

His face splinters and I half expect to see a smile on his face but instead his expression falls to sync with the cold around him.

"No one", he says and then is gone.

I go back to the motel and try to get the chill out of my bones by turning up the heat in the room. Despite this I can't shake the cold edge that's cutting through me. It's five thirty. I don't want to go to the bar too early, worried that I might try to quell my nerves with booze and end up a few too many drinks deep by the time the Sharkey boys arrive. I don't know what to do with myself. I try to watch tv, but there isn't cable and the reception off the bunny ears on top the tv is horrible. I try to read but my mind has the evening ahead tattooed 'cross it's face, leaving me with little options of thought other than it.

As I leave the motel at nine the street lights in the small town have gone up, the cold mist coming off the marsh fully illuminated leaving glaring blank spots in my visibility. I can only see four or five meters in front of me as I make my way down the side street of the motel towards the Brushfall bar. There are sounds around me as I walk. Cars and trucks, raccoons and even some people. We are all only ships passing in the night and the only acknowledgement I receive from any of them is the impersonal glow of headlights busting through the mist. I am alone.

The front of the bar is a full stable. Trucks mostly fill the spaces out front. They range from fully loaded F-150's
to small scrappy back roads beaters. The Bushfall's sign lights up the sky and it's beams are enough to burst through my previously small circle of visibility. Getting closer to the place I see the deep rich colours of wood and sparse tasteless decor from the inside. Country music is playing yet many of those that move inside the giant fishbowl 'front of me are dressed in urban thug garb three sizes two big and two seasons out of style. Those that don't are decorated with wranglers wrapped with plate sized belt buckles. They look happy, or maybe they're already drunk, I can't tell.

There isn't a spotlight on me when I enter the door but for all the attention I'm getting there might as well be. They're not direct stares. Half glances, double takes and sharp peripherals soak me up and cut me down in as many seconds as it takes to cross the room to the bar. I think that I should have thought out my clothes better. A pea coat doesn't exactly scream local in these parts. Based on this mistake, I decide that I am not to be further exposed with my choice of drink. I get a beer. A Miller. The room is, for the most part, silent other than small chatter of conversation and a creaky copy of "Achey Breaky Heart" coming from the jukebox next to the battered and stained pool tables. The groups are separated that's for sure, and their truce is a silent one. Roughnecks on the left of me gangsters to to the right, here I am stuck in the middle.

My first beer goes by a little to quickly but it doesn't stop me from ordering another. Someone's smoking. You can smoke inside here? I doubt anyone gives a shit. The bartender is doing his best to ignore me, only sparing a cautious glance every few minutes to see if I need another beer. Between this he pops bottle tops and spends his time whispering with other patrons farther on down the bar. The men in the seats beside me droop, their seats feeling heavy under their weight of beer and bad tavern food. I only spare myself a few glances at the groups behind me and curse my poor line of sight as I do. Shouldn't have sat at the bar, it's too noticeable whenever I turn around. I'm wondering who the Sharkey boys are. Damn you old man. I have no idea who the Sharkeys might be. Two groups to choose from. It's not like I can wander up to either of them and say "Hi there I'm Tom, just looking for my missing sister Diane...heard she hangs around with the Sharkey boys? Would that be you?". I snort in laughter at this and the man next to me turns and with raised moustache snarls at me.

"What's so funny?"

"Pardon? Oh, I was just thinking of a...joke I heard earlier in the week", I offer.

"yea? I like jokes, y'feel like sharin' that there joke?", He says, his voice rougher than I had even expected.

He's wearing a beaten jean jacket with a red plaid shirt on underneath. As he speaks to me he tips up the front of a thick brimmed trucker cap and peers into me with hard brown eyes.

"Well it's not...I mean", I say. Shit Shit Shit, I think.

I'm wracking my brain, digging, searching. I need something fast he's starting to get impatient. Shit shit shit. Take a swig of beer, pause. Shit shit shit. Ok got it!.

"What do you do when your dishwasher breaks?", I present to which he shrugs, "You hit her".

He looks at me with eyebrow half raised 'long with his beer and then after a couple of seconds that feel like hours he bursts out in a thick gravely laugh which only lasts so long before being followed by a thick guttural coughing fit.

"God damn boy! That's 'bout one'a the best jokes I heard in months. Jim? Hey Jim you hear the shit that just came outta this kid?"

He starts nudging, Jim the man next to him before retelling him the joke. I hear Jim laugh and then the man next to me turns again, this time with a smile on his weathered mug.

"Jayzus, shit with yer jacket and all I figured you for some kinda faggot", he says to which I quickly reply.

"Nah, not a faggot, just surrounded by 'em", The words taste like shit in my mouth, and my skin begins to crawl as I force myself into the skin of a less tolerable and more relateable man.

"Heh, s'you from the big smoke then huh?", he says a noticeable rivulet of beer descending down his chin.

"Yea, well...not from...I live there though grew up just outside Mossdale", I lie.

"Shit Mossdale, thats four counties over...what're y'doin' round here then?", he asks waving down the bartender.

"I'm uh....I'm a sales rep for Safeway. They sent me out to try and hock some new piece of shit product...but damned if you people, or anyone really needs it", I say finding myself more comfortably slipping into the lie I've created.

He snorts and nods, before ordering two shots of Jack Daniels.

"So what's yer name pal?", he asks and I'm pushed deeper into my lie.

"Bill, Bill Barton", I say extending my slender city boy hand which is taken hold of by the tough hewn mitt of a hard working man.

We talk about college ball for a bit and then to back up my bullshit I create a conversation about the product that I'm here to sell. A new mopping unit that pledge is putting out to compete with the swiffer. He doesn't know what a swiffer is so I explain that until he becomes thoroughly disinterested. I then ask what he does and he tells me that he's heavy duty mechanic and works at the mine just outside the town. Lest my knowledge of the area fail me I avoid adding too much the conversation until it peters down. The shots sit in front of us and as the conversation lulls he offers one up to me. We shoot the Tennessee whiskey and as I'm wiping my mouth I attempt naturalism as I begin to verbally creep toward my big question.

"So what's the deal with these guys behind us?", I ask jutting my thumb but not turning 'round, "One of them definetly looks like their from Tuskla, the other not so much"

He lowers his face to the bar and speaks softer than I'd thought he'd been capable off.

"Well them boys o're there? The ones dressed up like niggers? They're just the shitthead kids from 'round these parts. Too stupid to leave, not ambitious enough to get a real job. Most 'them just live with their parents and fuck off to the city every now and then. Pretty sure some of 'em 're just growin' and sellin' dope, but they don't make to much of a stink. Jest hang 'round gettin' drunk and drivin their shit jap cars too fast.", He says.

"So, those other guys? They're t'Sharkey boys?", I ask.

I know as soon as I speak that I've gone too far too soon. He doesn't sit bolt upright, but damn near that fast. His face folds around the edges and he squints at me lips pursed before taking another swig of beer.

"Where'd you here 'bout them?", He asks calm and reserved.

"I uh...I'm pretty sure I heard someone mention them in the diner where I was having dinner", I say and then continue to speak the words that would unravel my neatly threaded lies, "Someone was saying something about them...I don't know I didn't really hear what they said but it sounded like they're kinda a big deal 'round here and I was just wondering....uh..ah...about them?"

His squint fades and his face returns to it's static pose, his wrinkles now only traces on his face.

"Well Bill, I doubt that. Y'see, no one 'round here even mentions Sharkeys 'less they got a reason to be involved with 'em. How do I know that? Well...Bill Barton, that's 'cause I'm a Sharkey and I'm 'bout damn sure you're not in town jest to sell of some of yer piece of shit mops", Hey says no trace of anything but calm on his face as his raises his bottle in signal to the bartender for another.

"I'm...no really I just heard", I try but he raises his hand to stop me.

"Can it. What's g'nna happen now see, is that I'm gonna drink me another beer...y'might as well have one too, and then we're gonna go for a little drive. Y'wanna know 'bout the Sharkeys? Well M'gonna take you to find out 'bout the Sharkeys. I don't know who yer with and I don't really give two tugs of a dead dog's cock, but seems like you're gonna find what yer lookin' for. Now shut the fuck up and drink your beer". He says, not looking at me.

There's a string of lumps in my body now, starting in my throat and trailing down into my stomach and legs. My feet feel like they're covered on concrete. I wonder what would happen if I got up and tried to leave. Part of me is saying that I'm in a very dangerous situation, a smaller part tells me that I'm getting closer to finding my sister. I realize now I don't know the man's name, and now that I know he's involved with the Sharkeys I doubt he's gonna give it to me. Can't blame him I didn't give him my real name, though I'm pretty sure he knows that by now. The beer only takes about ten minutes for him, though I'm hanging onto the remains in the bottle like my life depends on it. Who knows maybe it does?

"Ok princess drink up", he says standing up and tossing some money onto the bar.

I guzzle down the last of my beer go to do the same but he grabs me by the arm and starts to pull me towards the door.

"Consider it my treat", he says as I sputter in protest and then we're outside.

It's gotten even colder outside, and the night's mist has started to clear leaving the broad and barren landscape available to see under the lone light of a half cut moon. He drags me a good ways in the parking lot and then shoves my arm away and points over to an old GMC truck and tells me to get in. I hop in the passenger side and almost immediately do up my seatbelt. The truck smells like grease and sawdust and I try not to think about what I might be sitting in that crumbles under my very tense ass cheeks. Before starting the truck he lights up a smoke, but doesn't even bother cracking the window. We're on the highway now listening to AM radio without ever speaking.

We drive for a good half an hour before turning off down an old dirt road that doesn't have any sign markings at the end of it. The truck rattles and bounces as we move deeper and deeper into the woods . Every now and then I peer into the thick groves of trees and catch the eyes of a deer or coyote lurking in the underbrush. I wish that I could dissapear into the night like them, but such is not my fate. After ten minutes on the dirt road I spot a faint light off in the distance and we continue to get closer and closer to it. It's a house and it's coming into focus. It's not an old house like I expected it to be. It's newer, and fairly large though only one floor. It's covered in aluminuim siding and there's a good number of pipes or little chimineys protruding from the ground just at the perrimiter of the building. They're all eaking out smoke that looks like unnatural steam.

What the fuck? I think. Where am I? What's going on? Who are these Sharkey guys? Is Diane even going to be here? What if she isn't? I am so far up shit creek with only a turd for a paddle that it's not even funny.

He parks the truck and motions for me to get out. I do and my foot lands in a thick tire tread moulding of mud. I ignore it knowing that I've got bigger things on my mind to worry about than having my feet covered in mud. We walk towards the house, the man right beside me the entire way. He stops at the door, which is a tall tempered steel fucker with a sliding plate peephole. He bangs on it with the butt of his hand and still does not look at me. The peephole slides open with a sharp sound of well oiled metal on metal. A set of thick brown eyes stares out at us and then, just as quickly as it was opened it snaps shut. There is the thick churning of a deadbolt and the door swings open to reveal a medium sized man wearing carhart overalls and sporting a large beard.

"What the fuck are you doing here?", he says in a tone that I can discern as neither angry nor happy.

"This guy here, this guy was askin' 'bout the Sharkeys", my escort says as he shoves me inside.

"Where the fuck did you find him asking about the Sharkeys?", says the man in the Carharts.

"He was at the Bushfall, says he's some kind of salesman. Don't buy it though, y'think he knows the O'Briens?"

"This skinny ass fuck? Fat chance", he says and then turns to me and grabs my by the face violently, "Who the fuck sent you here? huh? What the fuck are you doing askin' for the Sharkeys?"

His grip is tight on my mouth and his thumb and forfinger are jammed into the spaces between my teeth. I'm unable to speak due to this and as I start to mumble something he throws my face to the side and yanks me by the shirt father into the house.

"I'm...I'm not with anyone", I stammer as I'm sent reeling 'cross the room. I trip over a chair but manage to stay on my feet and turn just in time to see Carharts with a thick crystal ashtray in hand, his fist bearing down on my face.

I see white. I'm hurt. I see white again before I feel the thick trickle of blood pour out of my nose which is now most certainly broken. It takes me a few moments to regain my vision and by then I'm on the floor bleeding quietly while they talk.

"What the fuck did you bring him here for Roy? What y'think we don't have enough shit to deal with, what with bringin' some greenhorn motherfucker in here? Y'think I wanna deal with another dead body? Shit! He dun't know shit about us. This asshole probably just heard some shit somewhere and now what? Jesus fuck...now y'brought him here?! ", The man in the carharts exclaims.

My eyes are barley open and I try to take a survey of the room. One card table set up with several lawn chairs around it. There's a fridge to the right of me and an open door with a staircase leading down. The floor is particle board and unpainted. There's more blood on the floor than just mine I realize seconds before a large boot catches me in the temple. There's another sharp kick to my head and then blackness.

I come to with my head ringing worse than after a three day bender. Dried blood is stuck to my face, which hurts like hell. I'm alone for the time being and am tied to a chair. The rope 'round my arms is so tight that my fingers have lost all feeling. I'm cold. I'm hurt and I'm tied to a chair. Fuck. Fuck shit. Goddammit. It takes me a few seconds to notice that they've stripped off my button down shirt and tied it 'round the bleeding head wound which is no doubt a result of the several kicks to the face. It doesn't feel good. The pain aside, the coagulated blood in my hair makes it uncomfortable to move. I'm not sure but it feels like my left cheekbone has been shattered and I try not to move my face at all. My undershirt is caked in my own blood and I'm trying to think but my brain doesn't give me much more than patchy levels of understanding over my current situation.

You're hurt. How to get out? You can't get out. You could force the ropes. You're hurt, you're hurt really fucking bad. Shit fuck goddamn. Where am I? Take notice. Stop. Collect yourself. You're not dead. Take notice. Where are you?

I look 'round the room I'm in. It's filled with flourescent overhanging lights. The room is hot. Really hot. I carefully look 'round the room and begin to understand where I am. The smells. Chemical. Acidic. Unpleasant. There are makeshift beakers and vats of chemicals, all being heated and left to rest. There are large pots on hotplates and a sink filled to the brim with many more of these pots. I'm in a meth lab. I'm tied to a chair, beat to shit in a meth lab. Without a good reason I start to wonder how being in a meth lab will affect my lungs. Shit. Get it together. What's going on? The Sharkeys? Are they here? Where is here? I'm fucked. I'm so fucked. Diane? Is she even here? Was I even on the right trail? Did I just bring myself to my death without reason? The bubbling of chemicals and the smells settle around me. I can't get used to them. My head hurts a lot. At least the bleeding stopped. I hear footsteps above me and voices speaking out. There are more men than before and I hear them arguing now. I start praying. Praying that somehow god will let me out of this, that he will let me find my sister and go home and never have to be a part of this again. Please God.

The door to the basement where I must be cracks and hear bootsetps descending. Three men move down the stairs and towards me. One is Roy, from the bar, the others are Carharts and a man I have not yet seen. The new man masks his face from me with his sleeve and sidles around behind me where my vision is obscurred. Carharts starts to speak to me.

"What do you know about the Sharkeys?! do you know anything?", he bellows.

"I'm justh", I try to speak by my face hurts bad. My lip is split in two I now realized and my articulation goes out the window as I start to lose my composure.

"He doesn't know shit Jack", says Roy.

"I'll tell you what he knows Roy. He knows your name, he knows my name now, and he knows if he's not a total fucking retard that he's sitting in the basment of a meth lab. That's what he knows. So why don't you just shut the fuck up and let me do the talking?", says carharts, or now I suppose Jack.

Roy slinks off farther into the shadows before me and says nothing more. I start to shake uncontrollably. I wonder if it's the cold or the blood loss or even the stress...if not all of the above. A fist comes in from out of nowhere and hits me in the side of my face rattling my teeth together and making me lose focus in my vision. It's only seconds later that I recieve another such blow and I hear the broken bones in my cheek grate together providing me with a maddening pain. I decide to just let my vision go and close my eyes. As I do another set of steps makes its way down the stairs but I don't bother looking. I'm done, I've let go by this point. The footsteps silence the room and make their way round behind me.

"So what the fuck do we do then Jack? Huh? If he's here and he knows what we're doing' we not left witha lotta options?", says Roy's voice.

"What the fuck do you think we're gonna do Roy? You better go get some of the garbage bags from upstairs. You got your tools in your truck? Get the hacksaw and...shit you better get the sledge too 'cause I'll be goddamned if we're gonna have bones and shit poking around", says Jack.

I still care that I'm about to die but I have no energy left. There's nothing left in my tank and I just hang my head and start to cry. The tears have a hard time making it through all the blood thats stuck to my face but 'ventually I feel them curl around my lips their salt mixing with that of the blood.

"You're gonna kill him right here?", says a third man's voice. Must be the other that came downstairs with them.

"It's raining outside right now Gary. You're fucking crazier than I give you credit for if you think I'm hauling this piece of shit outside to die. Fuck yeah I'm gonna kill him right here. It's a fucking meth house, y'think that bloodstains on the floor are gonna be be the 'least of our worries if this fucker gets busted?", says Jack.

"Well how are we gonna do it?", asks Roy.

"I don't know, I don't much feel like beating the fucker to death but 'less you got any better ideas than caving in his scull we're 'bout out of options", says Jack.

"It's ok", says a woman's voice. Must be the last to come downstairs, "I brought a piece"

The voice is familiar and different all at the same time and a creeping feeling of recognition tip toes up my spine and into my brain. The sound in the room is all washed out. Is it 'cause of the beatings? I don't know?

"Shit wheren' the fuck you get that?", asks Roy.

"None of your goddamn business. Don't even bother with the garbage bags, just get the bleach from the back room and a mop. We don't have time to be dealing with heavy cleanup. What're you waitin' for Roy get it?!", The woman's voice says. More and more familiar.

I open my eyes which are still streaming forth tears and try to sit up and turn 'round to see the woman behind me. Crack. I'm hit in the face with the side of a pistol and the barrel of the gun snaps off my two front teeth. One of them scatters onto the floor the other lands in my lap while my mouth begins to bleed and all ability to speak is lost from me. I hear the hammer of a revolver cock back. A sound I've never heard outside the movies until now. Jack speaks.

"Shit Diane, you're jest a lil bit too into this shit"

The name drops in the room like a bomb and an overwhelming rain of memories hit me. Playing on the swings in my grandmothers back yard. Fighting over crayons. Sneaking candy out of my mom's purse. The first time we caught my dad smoking cigarettes. Pretending to vaccuum with my mother. Our first bike ride. All of it comes flowing back in technicolour and I don't even realize that this is my life flashing before my eyes. I try to speak.

"Dia-"

Boom.

The man's face has exploded 'cross the floor in front of me. It's a straight shot to the back of his head and it sends his brain matter scattering onto the floor. Those little bits of scull and skin are gonna be a bitch to clean up. I don't give a shit. It's not my job. Jack will do it. Jack loves me. He'd do anything for me. He's still pissed right now.

"Jesus fuck! Diane! What the fuck, little warning next time?", he yells turning to me half crouched from the surprise of the gunshot.

The little .32 is hot in my hands and I turn it over a couple of times before putting it onto the table next to me. Roy's a little stunned by I wave him over the the back of the room where the rags and bleach are. He's just surprised is all. I remind him not to forget the mop. The hand I was holding the gun in has a little blood on it. Spatter from how close I held the pistol to the man's head. I wipe it on the countertop next to me. Of course it doesn't get rid of all of it, but a smear I can deal with later. Just needed the excess off right now. I begin to examine the body.

It's gone limp instantly. The face? Unrecognizeable. A .32 may be a smaller caliber but it sure as shit leaves a bloody fucking mess of a man's face. The bullet came out his right eye socket and the flesh and bone 'round there is shredded all to hell. I want a cigarette. We can't smoke down here, too many fumes in the air. Took a risk already with the gun shot. I tug open the knots holding the man to the chair and give the seat a tilt dropping the body onto the ground where it crumples and scatters like an open bag of loose change.

My name was Diane Roth. I don't go by that name anymore. I'm Diane Sharp. I'm married to Jack Sharp, or 'least we pretend we're married for all it's worth. I manage a meth lab and I'm damn good at my job. Outside Jack I don't need no one or nothing. It's twelve thirty at night. I'm surrounded by blood and bones. There's a good deal of stray hair too. It doesn't bother me. All I'm thinking 'bout is where I can hide a dead body. Shouldn't be too much of a problem, even if anyone finds it? People in a small town 'tend to know everyone's business but don't got shit to say 'bout it.

I laugh to myself.

"What?" asks Roy as he begins to clean up my mess.

"Nothin'...jest...jest thought he was gonna say my name s'all", I say before picking my gun back up and walking upstairs.

What an Age we Live in

2009-10-18T15:42:00.000-07:00

Joel Rodregueiz sat in front of his twenty four inch Imac and and started to slog his way through the seven hundredth video of the day. The window loaded instantly and the little red bar at the bottom of his screen began to fill and progress. The images appeared and began to play out while he watched with little interest but undivided attention. A scene involving some guy wearing fruit of the loom briefs in his living room playing a power version of Wonderwall on his acoustic guitar unfolded before him. Joel let out a sigh and slouched in his chair by now knowing the song so well that he was tempted to sing along but dared not.

Joel worked on the sixteenth floor of an office building in the middle of Santa Fe New Mexico. Him and twenty other people were employed by Google to monitor all videos that were uploaded to Youtube. It was his and the twenty other's job to make sure that the videos found on the side didn't infringe upon the regulations and agreements found inside Youtube's terms of service. Prohibited videos, according to the terms of service, contain things that are pornographic in nature, breach copyright laws, defamation, or criminal behaviour just to name a few. The office complex in Santa Fe was one of many scattered across thirteen states as part of Google's attempt to bring jobs to area's outside their central headquarters in Menio Park California. Joel was required, as stated in his contract, to watch at least twenty five hundred videos a day or put in a solid eight hours of work, whichever came first.

His day had just barley begun and after the power ballad ended he lowered the brightness level on his screen and took a sip from his third cup of coffee of the day. Through his headphones Joel heard, from the cubicle behind him, Darcy grunt and mutter to himself something about needing another cigarette. After his video ended Joel swivelled on his chair to face Darcy who did the same to him.

"Well? Catch any rule breakers yet?", asked Joel.

"Nothing yet, absolutely nothing", replied Darcy.

"What kind of stuff you getting today? I've keep getting a ton of acoustic music sets filmed of the isight's in people's Macs", Offered Joel.

"Recut movie trailers man, really badly recut movie trailers. Like...not even creative funny ones, it's these guys that are so stoked for Iron Man 2 that they just take-", started Darcy but Joel interrupted him.

"The ones where they take all the clips from the first move and re-cut them to try and make it look like a new movie?"

"Yea"

"Fucking hate those. Those may be the worst thing to watch ever. 'Cause they're not even clever or anything it's just..."

"A big fuck around and a waste of my goddamn time. Fuck it I'm going for a smoke you wanna come?"

"No thanks, I'm only at seven hundred and if I'm gonna be done anytime soon I'm gonna have to power through at least two hundred more before noon. I swear to god though, if this lineup of people in their living rooms with their dad's old guitars doesn't stop I'm gonna lose my shit", said Joel wiping his face with his hands.

"Ok, you want anything from the Sev? I need something to chew on", Asked Darcy.

"Nah I'm good man", replied Joel as Darcy stood up and made his way to the bank of elevators.

Ten minutes and three Death Cab for Cutie songs later Joel stood up and stretched his arms and back. He picked up his coffee cup and walked around the edge of his cubicle towards the pot of drip near the back of the office. He filled his mug and stopped just outside Nina's cube on his way back to his own. She had shut her screen off and was windexing it for what was probably her thirteenth time that day. Nina had a propensity to touch her screen often which usually left residuals from the fritos that she consumed by cubic foot.

"Anything good today Nina?", asked Joel

She didn't turn to look at him instead focusing heavily on a particular blotch that had the pattern of a dried sneeze.

"You know that they're making LOL Cat's into slideshows now?"

"Hmm"

"Yea, you know how many fucking LOL Cat's there are?"

"A lot?"

"You're goddamn right. Shit! Joel this job fucking sucks! I didn't spend three years studying the burgeoning field of information laws to end up in some concrete shitbox in the middle of Santa Fe! Not to mention I'm addicted to those goddamn Fritos now, and there's probably more shit in them than Darcy's two packs a day!"

Unlike Joel, who's background was in lowly IT monitoring, Nina had spent six years at the University of Phoenix studying the affects of the information age and how it related to the general information right's, privileges and freedoms. Her degrading employment to the office complex had been forced upon her when a history of bad credit had caught up with her ever increasing debt of education. After declaring bankruptcy she'd been left with no other alternative than to move to Santa Fe to live with her sister. The job had been offered by a long time friend who had turned his internship at Google into a very lucrative career. By her own admission she'd shamefully ballooned in size since starting the job while her own self worth had shrunk. No longer the top of her class, she'd become a garbage man of the information age. She spent every day longing for the time to come when she'd be free of the internet realm and all it's self proclaimed talent.

Joel tried not to laugh at her ranting, which he always found insightful.

"Darcy's spent the past two hours watching re-cut trailers", offered Joel as if the agony of Darcy's task would some how console her.

She didn't say anything to that, but continued to rant, glad to have an audience.

"It's just...ok don't get me too wrong there's some stuff on here little gems you just stumble across where you're halfway impressed that someone made that video, but for the most part it's just people that want recognition for doing stupid shit. Why the fuck would you expect people to give a shit that you scared the crap out of your dog...literally! Yesterday I watched a series of twenty seven clips of this guy just sneaking up on his dog scaring it and then it would shit....it would actually shit! Who the fuck does that Joel?"

He shrugged not having an answer.

"It's this whole fucked up society where fame is the new currency man. That's the basic concept that Youtube operates on! It might be a place where you share videos but really it's just a gladiator arena for the retarded!"

She'd finished cleaning off her screen, and at the end of her latest rant she tore into a fresh bag of fritos and began mawing.

"I'm more surprised that people keep on trying to upload full tv shows onto the site. After all that stink with NBC and Viacom went down you'd think that most people would have a clue. Outside Google's corporations with other network's you can't really find more then thirty second clips of most shows, yet the most consistent searches are for tv shows. The general population doesn't really have any idea how to use the internet.", Joel said.

"Well that's 'cause the general population are largely uneducated about the information superhighway. There's so much more out there than you'd ever fully know unless you dug for it.", Nina replied.

Joel laughed an then spoke what he was thinking.

"It's like the way most people go places in life, they just want to go from point A to point B. Like you said it's an information superhighway, but there's back roads on the internet, all those less travelled places"

"I like the idea of the seedy underbelly of the internet, and not just the porno. I wouldn't even classify porno as the seedy underbelly anymore it's pretty much the most mainstream area of commerce in global media. Everyone jerks off. But yea, I get what you're saying if you look at it like a country or something. You make all these pit stops checking out all this other stuff that exists completely outside societal consideration. Like blogs right? You look at blogs, those are people's lives little pockets of existence. The rural america of the internet if you will. Some lady in the middle of Arkansas that writes a blog about quilting? How many viewers does she really have? It's like stopping at some roadhouse diner when you're on a road-trip. How many people actually eat at that place that don't live near it? Sure you get the random person who stops by, but they never stay long enough to take notice or really understand the place.", said Nina.

Joel rested his coffee on top of Nina's cubicle and stuck his hands in his pockets hoping that the conversation would continue so he wouldn't have to return to work. When Nina didn't say anything right away he launched into a topic that he'd been saving for an occasion such as this.

"Remember when everything on the internet was free? Like when the internet was first coming around and it was like one big library. You just went to a website and there it was. Barley any advertising and you certainly didn't have to pay for shit. It was a barter world of information where people came to trade and share and if not express themselves at least market their business.", He said.

"Yea think about when every website looked like shit, a time when it was all just text. Before photoshop, and graphic imaging and viral videos. It's like you took the renaissance and inside ten short years it became Vegas. Vegas mixed with an encyclopedia. Any answer to any completely irrelevant question is at your fingertips. Think about how many times you say, or even think 'I'll just google it' in a given week. It's sickening."

The conversation died there and Joel picked up his coffee cup and was about to leave when Nina spoke to him again, her word's made his ears prick up and despite his mountain of work for the day it was a topic that needed to be discussed.

"I hear that Ryan got a redball the other day"

A redball was the name the cabal of youtube monitors had given to snuff films. Joel had often pondered that the only reason his job existed may have been to filter the existing online media searching for these very videos. A few tv shows illegally uploaded here and there on the internet was an inevitability that seemed hardly worth the twenty four hour supervision of teams spread out across the nation. However surveillance of the constantly incoming flow of information and exhibitionist perversion of individuals seemed a more focused goal. Every few months a redball would appear and the local detachment of FBI would appear, question whoever had seen the video and with their crack team of internet detectives would utilize all the clues in the video as well as it's electronic encoding in an attempt to solve the case. More unnerving than any normal redball was one that had clearly been filmed years previous and had only recently surfaced on the internet. Grainy home video footage of a teenage boy being strangled to death with a garden hose had been Joel's first encounter with a redball, everyone got one eventually, and the image had never left his mind. It's age and lack of digital signature had made it nearly impossible to track and, Joel found out later, was soon deposited in the FBI's cold case files probably never to be looked at again.

Joel was slightly rattled by what Nina had just said to him. Despite the fact that he had experienced a redball himself , the exposure had not dulled him to the fact that he had watched someone die. He spent a good week awake all night wondering if the new age of internet celebrity had garnered a new kind of psychopath. The kind that demanded attention from the world. The kind that within a few double clicks and a high speed connection could display his destruction in glowing high definition digital.

"Oh yea? How's he doing?", asked Joel.

It was common practice after encountering a redball for the video monitors to undergo some psychological counselling. While not mandatory most employees were not so stubborn as to avoid something that could possibly help them come to terms with the horrific event they'd just seen on screen. Joel had spent three sessions with the counsellor and afterward had felt much better about the video he'd seen though he still feared coming across another redball.

"He's fine more or less...but I think...y'now between you and me? I think Ryan's a little nuts anyway? I always hear him muttering about hacking into the pentagon and stuff", said Nina in whisper.

"You think he's that good? I mean from what I heard he got thrown out of MIT for getting into the code that they were using for the biological chemistry....like he was just trying to fuck stuff up...but that doesn't mean he can beat pentagon cyphers and firewalls", said Joel

"Where did you hear that?", asked Nina surprised that Joel would have such inside information.

"He told me, last year at the Christmas party. He was all wasted on drambuie and sprite and started rambling about stuff. I mean he was drunk and, you're right a little nutty, but I mean he could've been telling the truth", said Joel with a inconclusive shrug.

Nina thought for a moment, her nose wrinkling along with her brow while she did.

"I was told when I first started studying information laws that I was on the cusp of the newest law field and as such was smart for getting into it. But when you think about it? It's one of the most abstract ideas ever, having people to regulate and police something that doesn't even really exist? I mean sure we see all this stuff on our screens, we know that someone writes the code that makes stuff appear on the screen...but for the most part...none of it actually exists. We're training people to become investigators for something that is so artificial. It's not tangible! We fully created world that has so much going on inside it that we need police. And where do these boundaries begin and end? Plus who defines these new laws? Shit...how would you define internet law? I went to school for it for three years and I still barley scratched the surface. The structure, the cage, if you will, that holds it all is artificial, but the information? That's real...the information is the fuel that powers the internet. Without anything there, without porno, recipes, maps, directions, netflix, Pitchfork, Apple....without any of that stuff the internet is just a skeleton of programming and networks."

Nina took a large breath and looked slightly shocked. She appeared to not have known any what she had just said until after it had come out of her mouth and the look of epiphany was now dripping out of her eyes. She was on a roll though and put her train of thought back on track before she lost it.

"And it's the government and the corporations Joel. Like you said the internet used to be free...it used to be a free place...you only had to pay to access it...now people want to control it like it's a natural resource. The flow of information being monitored by us and we just watch videos....I mean shit Joel think of how many other little offices all over the country there must be where people just read or watch or listen to shit looking for those little flares of anarchy. I'm not saying that redballs are cool, or acceptable or anything and I don't feel bad at all when they nail those guy's asses to the wall....But information? They just want to control all the information-", she was now stumbling in her words, her convictions crumbling into a wooden and irresponsible rant. Joel held up his hand to slow her down.

"Ok, ok easy there Area fifty one.", she looked up at him shocked and began to open her mouth but he raised his hand again, "I know, it all makes sense and it's freaky...but some stuff? Shit, we're never gonna know. A few years back I got really dug in with all this stuff and spent like nineteen hours a day online just digging for information...in the end though? I started to realize that I will probably never know the truth about most of the stuff that we're talking about here. Does the man want to control the information? Sure...but that's hardly anything new right? Since the dawn of time it's always about control, or power...whatever you wanna call it. It's all the same though right? Same shit, different technology. Hell they used to control what books we could read for chrissakes.", He said with a reluctance in his voice.

"Thought police", said Nina

"Thought police", echoed Joel.

They both laughed and Joel smiled before taking a sip of his coffee and making his way back to his cube.

Six hours later Joel was finishing up the last ten videos in his que and hoping that his girlfriend wanted to go out for sezchuan for dinner. He'd gotten lucky and hit a patch of video's in the middle which were actually chapter by chapter readings of Harry Potter. He wasn't sure how much this breached copyright law but decided to let it slide and simply fall back and listen to the world of Hogwart's for a while. The last video rolled to a close and Joel cracked his knuckles then shut down the computer system. The luminescence of his screen dying and his pupils adjusting to the glare of the office's neon lights. Nina was still working when he walked by her cubicle to say goodnight. Darcy had power watched all his videos and had left the office an hour earlier. Joel stepped into the elevator and after stopping on the ninth and sixth floors to allow others in he was on the ground floor, eagerly stepping around people to get to the lobby doors.

Outside the fresh air cut into his nostrils and poured down his throat expelling the remnants of freon from the buildings AC. The sun was just starting to dip behind the cityscape before him and it's warmth was a welcome reminder of a world that not only existed outside his computer screen, but a world that actually existed. There were no blinders to his peripherals unlike in his cubical and all the windows out here were made to see through, not stare at. Taking another large breath of unrecycled air he started walking towards his car feeling glad to let his feet, rather than his fingers, do the walking. He was looking forward to baseball practice that night, the dense ash bat in his hands and the wonderful grit of grass and dirt around him. Immersive experience though the internet may be, it had nothing on the smell of fresh cut grass.

After getting into his car Joel dug a napkin out of his glove compartment and wrote down something he'd thought of on the way to the car.

"The internet may surround you, but reality includes you"

He liked that. A hardcopy of an idea that didn't need backing up or saving. He just had to hold it.

World's Worst Coach

2009-10-18T15:27:00.000-07:00

Bill Goodkind zipped up his jacket, rubbed his hands together and looked out onto the ice. The puck was almost always being dug for in the corners, only to have no one come up with it before it was hurled off. The players traveling in a pack to chase. It was not what you would call traditionally good hockey, but that was hardly to be expected from a group of nine year olds. His daughter was out there, doing her best to try and get a play going the way he'd gone over and over in practice, yet her skill was not such that she was able to do so. Her teammates and herself more enthralled with the open ice than that little line just behind the crease. This was the scene that played out Saturday after Saturday.

Bill was the coach of the Titans, a youth girls hockey team. He had not taken on the responsibility lightly and in fact had barley managed to allow himself the position. Bill liked hockey. He liked watching hockey, he liked talking about hockey and he loved that his little girl liked hockey. Dinah would sit with him on the sofa while he watched his Toronto Maple leafs receive habitual thrashings from the rest of the Northeastern conference. The general chatter of dislike surrounding the leafs in western Canada didn't bother him, and as such it didn't bother his little girl. They had been his team his entire life and, like most leafs fans they would be his team until the day he died. It was during one of these father daughter appointments on the sofa with popcorn and cola that she had expressed her desire to play Hockey.

"Daddy. I want to be a Maple Leaf", she'd said with childlike possibility.

He'd smiled and shrugged it off as a childlike desire. Throughout the rest of the game, which he lost interest in, he watched Dinah ooh and ahh at the display of sport on the screen in front of her. After it all ended and Don Cherry was giving his final wrap up concerning the good old boys in Tarrana, he'd popped the question.

"Dinah, do you want to play hockey?"

The question seemed to have been on the tip of her tongue yet forever out of the realm of articulation. When finally proposed with it she replied with the enthusiasm of someone who had been asked if they wanted a flying car, for free.

"YES DADDY YES!"

And so it had begun. It was already too late in the season for Dinah to join the league but every day from then on she would count down to the start of the next hockey season. That summer was a week by week assembling of gear for his daughter to use in her upcoming campaign. Girls interest in hockey seemed to be at an all time high that year, while there was certainly a lack of support in the coaching department. When presented with the opportunity to coach his daughter's hockey team Bill found himself sitting at the kitchen table with his wife discussing the choice.

"Bill, and don't get me wrong here, but do you know enough about hockey?", asked Linda his wife.

Bill let out a sigh.

"Probably not."

"Ok, I didn't want to hurt your feelings or anything but I mean you never played as a kid and your involvement with sport is limited to you, your buddies, and the lazy boy most of the time", Linda verbally shrugged.

"I know, it's just...Dinah wants to play hockey, and i never got the chance to when I was a kid 'cause money was tight and my parents....and I know this sounds like I'm just trying to live vicariously through her...but that's not it Linda. We always said we'd be the kind of parents that supported our kids in whatever they wanted to do, and I guess in this case it means that I'd have to coach Dinah's team", He said.

"The early mornings? You at four in the morning Bill?"

"I'll manage. I was talking to Dan Pellman down at the league office and they just don't have enough volunteers. Either I do this or they won't be able to have another team, and all these other players will get farmed out all over the city where they probably won't get any ice time or real coaching. It's the same thing as school from the way I look at it, too many students for one teacher", He said doing his best to sound reasonable, when he was in fact terrified by the prospect of coaching the team.

"I just....I want to make sure you understand what we're getting into with this one Bill. This isn't something where halfway though if she loses interest we can just go and be on our way, like those jazz dance classes. If you're the coach...well...we're committed then...in more ways than one"

"Linda. If Dinah wants to play hockey she's going to get a chance to play hockey, and I'm willing to take whatever comes my way to make that happen"

And with that, despite the large lump in his throat, Bill made the call to Dan Pellman telling him to sign him up as the new coach of the Titans.

There were of course days when Bill found his alarm going off at three in the morning that he cursed that kitchen table talk. He cursed it the entire way through his first two cups of coffee, the drive to the rink and underneath the weight of his daughter's hockey bag. Though, these mental expletives fell away from him though as he stood outside the teams dressing room. Every game, every practice, he entered that room with naught more than his overwhelming passion to help those young athletes do exactly what they wanted to do. He knew that he wasn't a great coach. He didn't understand the levels of the game the way lifetime players and connoisseur of the sport did. But he tried. The month before the season started he'd stayed awake reading the rules and regulations of minor hockey hoping that they would aid him in the coming season. He didn't drill his players hard and had little to offer in the way of concise skills but what he lacked in knowledge and experience he made up for in encouragement and support. Linda helped, she helped a lot. With all those little things that a partner can bring to the table that can make a difficult challenge just a little easier. Back rubs when he was stressed, fresh coffee while the girls played, packing up the bags in the morning. And making sure that all his notes, forms and other extraneous clipboard assortments, were all in order. The quantity of reward for his job was sparse, though when he did receive an emotional paycheck the dollar amount was enormous.

The titans had lost their first game an abysmal six to nothing. The girls had left the ice dismayed, silent and in some cases crying. Bill had not seen their failures on the ice, perhaps this is what made him such a lousy strategist. This fault was at the same time, his saving grace. When he saw the Titans play he did not see the same pack of undisciplined ex figure skaters and ill footed children that the rest did. What he did see was an inspiring display of courage and, he felt most importantly, fun. The girls sat and waited for their coach in the dressing room after that first game, their loss more apparent on their little faces than ever had been on the scoreboard. They didn't know what to expect as Bill entered the room, so they hung their heads and attempted to avoid his glances. Dinah especially steered away from the eyes of her father expecting, if not scorn at least overwhelming disappointment. Had they decided to meet his expression, rather than avoid it, all of their fears would have ceased for there was nothing more to display on his face than a look of utter triumph. He felt like a sports movie cliche as he then spoke to the girls with an exuberance that was entirely un-fabricated. He told them how proud he was of all of them, but didn't let it sit there. Sally Doyle! You were there at the net! Blocking passes! Tina Carter, you fell down when you had the puck but still managed to hold onto it when you got up! Kiera, you were the fastest skater on the ice today! And so it went on. Boggling his own mind Bill did not allow himself to leave the dressing room until he had presented each player with a point of excellence. Everyone save for Dinah who he would speak to later that night while they watched the Leafs game. In his life there had been few moments of pride that matched up to the explosive power he felt now, and he knew then that he'd made the right choice to coach his daughters team.

That night around the dinner table, cured of her fear in defeat, Dinah couldn't stop talking about the game that day.

"And then I was behind the net and the puck was there and that one girl?! That really big one?! She kept on trying to take it from me but I kicked the puck and then I chased it and passed it to Becky!", she said her hands shaking with such delight that her peas had no hope of staying on her fork.

"I liked the part where you won four faceoff's in a row", said Linda speaking to Dinah, while watching a smile creep farther to the corners of Bill's face.

Over the next month the Titans progressively lost ever game they played, often times by very large margins. This didn't dishearten Bill though. Nine year olds whatever, to him they were all the high octane of the NHL distilled in smaller packages. Bill was now reading books about coaching strategies as well as the consummate details of hockey itself. All this aside the fundamentals that he stressed in his practices and games were not deft puck handling skills, strong forecheck or even basics of skating. They were the principles of sportsmanship and honor which he had always found the most pride in observing in the professional players that stood out to him. His girls may not have been the fastest, strongest or most skilled team but he knew that they had a deeper understanding of the respect and love for the game than any other player in the league.

Bill found his own pride and inspiration tested in that month, and the ones ahead. It didn't take long for most of the guys around the office to learn of his extracurricular activity let alone the impressive score of losses that he'd chalked up. Bill worked at one of the city's main newspapers as a web master and system manager for the paper's website. His colleagues for the most part were impressed with the dedication he was displaying for the team, though this didn't stop a small band of jackanapes from the sports department from presenting him with a mug that had the words "Worlds Worst Coach!" printed on the side. He had taken this in stride swallowing the anger and annoyance in his throat with a difficult, though managed, smile. Despite his small band of detractors there were many that admired his passion, most namely the parents of his team. The women gushed at how good he was with the girls and would often surround him after practice. To this Bill would chuckle and make idle chit chat, always keeping Linda in the corner of his eye in case he needed saving from his would be harem. Linda found it very funny to watch her husband, now beyond the ballsy bravado of youth, fumble in the folds of the bleating mothers. It wasn't just the female parents though. There were a good number of hockey dads who gave Bill an enormous amount of respect for the job, knowing that they didn't want to do it. There were even a few instances where, despite the unfavourable outcomes of the games, the fathers would pat him on the back and tell him that they couldn't have done any better.

Oh and six for the titans they were heading into their last game before the thanksgiving weekend break and Bill was feeling good about it as he climbed into the family suburban. Dinah was very awake on this day in particular, having eaten an extra slice of french toast with extra syrup.

"Daddy?", she asked

"Dinah?"

"Do you think we're going to win today?"

"I don't know, do you think you're going to win today?"

"Daaaaddddy....I. I don't know? You know who we're playing right? I heard the other girls talking about it at practice", she asked her voice on eggshells.

Bill did know. He had known for three weeks coming and, his positive attitude not withstanding, he was worried about it. They would be playing the Panthers. Unlike the Titans the Panthers had a six and oh record, with only two goals against them in the entire season. Their coach Ron Millbury had enjoyed a stretch of time in the minors as a player but had never capitalized enough to make that last leap into the NHL. When he wasn't coaching his daughters team he was busy being owner of four electronic centers spread out across the lower mainland of British Columbia. Ron was as successful coach, and this fact had been well documented. The parents of his hockey team had seen his years of dedication to the game radiate out of him. First when he had coached his son's team and now his daughter's, Vicky and Katrina, team. They had won the league championship the year before and Ron was hellbent on building a dynasty out of these little league girls. The Panthers were precise, fast and were known to sneak in a few hits even though the league dictated that forbidden for the age range of the players. These things had Bill slightly worried. His girls were used to losing by this point in their season and he felt that was okay, as long as everyone was still having fun. They were not used to being humiliated. Ron had been known to put his opposition at such a deficit that they might as well have had their legs cut off. Bill had yet to formulate a plan for dealing with the results of which, off and on the ice.

"We're playing the Panthers Dinah. And I know what other people having saying, yes they're a really good team..but that-", he was cut off by his daughter.

"I want to win Dad. I just don't want to lose anymore. I love hockey and...it's just hard to keep loving hockey when we lose like every time....but I guess...even if we lose again I still love hockey I...I just think I could love it even more?", she said in her best attempt to sound grown up and strong.

Bill looked over at his daughter and gave her one of his broad smiles before kissing her on the forehead and turning on some music. It was his pre hockey mix full of Trooper, Queen and AC/DC, and Dinah loved it.

Before the game started, while the girls were getting changed, Bill was approached by Ron Millbury. He was not a colossal man, but Bill supposed that in the heyday of his hockey career he had possessed at least fifty more pounds of muscle. He had the appearance of a classic every man, though when he spoke his voice was full of self elevated status.

"It's Bill right?", he said extending his hand, which Bill took only to be greeted with a knuckled crushing squeeze.

"Ron?", said Bill

"That's right. Look I just wanted you to know, that is I mean...I hope you don't take anything personally today. I know it sounds well, typical hockey dad, but I want our girls to win and to be the best at winning.", Ron said having not let go of Bill's hand.

"Glad we've all got goals Ron", said Bill with a smile, his voice unimpressed but not aggressive.

Ron laughed and let go of Bill's hand before going right on talking.

"It's just that, I wanted to make sure, Bill, that you don't do or say something that you might regret later. In the heat of the moment well, we all just tend to get a little caught up in it sometimes. But it's just a game right? Huh? Am I right?", He said giving off a vaseline smile and several unwanted slaps to Bill's shoulder.

Even though he held a bit of fear for his team, Bill was not scared by this man. He had learned long ago that the aggressions of men, even passive ones, were largely something that should be ignored. Ron gave him one more slap on the shoulder and began to walk off down the corridor towards his own dressing room. After Ron had taken a couple of steps away Bill called out to him.

"Hey Ron"

Ron turned to look.

"Good luck", said Bill.

Ron produced some small laughter and turned with a wave, continuing off down the hall.

Bill did not make any grand speeches before the game. He treated it as if it were any other weekend competition that he and his team embarked on. He gave the same encouragement as every weekend prior, and didn't mention a thing about the difficulty of their upcoming challenge.

His best efforts to maintain a feeling of consistency for his team were largely ineffectual and there was something different in the air of the rink that day. When the puck dropped that morning there was a gleaning heat rising off the chill on the ice. However apparent the tension was in the faces of his girls in the locker room there was little apprehension on the rink that day. They were no longer just a group of nine year old girls draped in jerseys and pads chasing a puck, they were a team. Working the boards, chasing down pucks, dumping it out of their zone and coming up with shots. The Panthers seemed, by and large, surprised by the display of sport that came from this "worst" team in the league. These were not the Titans they'd heard about. These were not the silly girls with the coach who didn't know about hockey. By the end of the second period all parties involved were drenched in sweat and barley carried on their tired legs. Thanks to outstanding goal tending by Lisa Dewitt of the Titans the game had remained scoreless. While the Titans trailed in shots, their battle for a W now did not seem out of the realm of possibility. In the dressing room Bill said little other than to keep it up and give an extra ten percent in the last period of the game. He didn't feel that he needed to say much more, his team already having more fire in their guts than he could have provided them with.

It was four minutes into the third period when the first marker on the score board was put up. Annie Holm, assisted by Dinah Goodkind, put a unexpected soft shot right though the five hole of goalie Parker Sutton. Bill had watched every Stanley Cup final for as long as he could remember. He had seen some of the most spectacular displays of athleticism in his years of hockey interest. Yet there had never been a feeling more triumphant than that displayed by his team as they scored the first goal of the game. They erupted around each other, charging back to their own net and embracing each other while jumping up and down on the rough hewn community center ice. Bill never sat down while the game played out, always standing, and as such had no other way to display his elation for the goal other than to leap as high as he could in the air with a tremendous whoop.Many other men may have taken this time to allow their eyes to dart to the opposing bench, so that they might revile in the anger wrought face of the other coach. Ron's face most certainly displayed these qualities, but Bill didn't care, he didn't even look. He instead called his team over to him at the bench, using a time out in the process, and allowed them the extra minute to celebrate the score together as a team.

From here the energy of the game continued to mount. The Titans stealing the momentum of the game without ever considering it an act of larceny. It was their game now. Even though they were incapable of putting another puck in the net, much less gain many more shots, the Titans had the Panthers on their heels. The third period flew by the with speed of the Rocket Richard himself and in the final moments Ron made an choice to pull his team's goalie for the final attacker. Little sense that it made in such a minor league it was the only thing his desperate mind could come up with. The additional player may as well have not been there. Although the ideas of coordinated play was understood by the group of youths the execution of such was simply unachievable. And in the final seconds Patricia Thiery let loose a hard shot from center ice which found it's meandering way to the back of the net. Triumph was in the air as the Titans once more collided with each other in celebration. Bill restrained himself this time and simply crossed his arms and beamed. They had done it, not only won their first game of the season but against the best team in the leauge, and with a shut out at that. The final whistle blew and while the Panthers slunk back to their den of a dressing room the Titan continued to stomp all over creation, bellowing louder than one would expect nine year olds to and suddenly feeling a little too large for their tiny skates.

Did you see? I can't believe! You were awesome! She's really fast! You stopped every puck! My dad said we're going to the movies tonight! They are really good! I wish we were still playing! I can't wait for next week! D'ythink we're going to win more games?! I love hockey!

The girls were electric. Bill stood in the corner of the dressing room watching his team celebrate, the broad grin on his face being only slightly restrained so as to not take over his entire face. The team's words of glee running rampant with all the rock em sock em of the great hockey spirits of above. Bill wondered if he should say anything, but couldn't admit as to what he could bring to the table that these girls did not display themselves. In the end Linda had come up beside him and taken his hand, allowing him to squeeze it. While it may have been his victory too, he wanted it to entirely belong to his girls that day.

Outside Bill was walking towards the car, going to get it heated up while Linda helped Dinah finish changing. He noticed ahead of him that Ron Millbury was already outside, loading up his SUV with his two daughters standing idly by. The girls hands were empty and their heads hung low while their father cursed and shoved the hockey bags into the back of the vehicle. Bill detoured from his path to his own car moving towards the three of them. Ron had finished stuffing the duffles and now turned to see his competitor moving towards him. A look of disgust eaked forth and he opened his mouth about to say something, which Bill would never heard as he bypassed him and spoke directly to his daughters, twins.

"You two were playing today right?", asked Bill

They nodded at the same time, their little lips out and their eyes visibly red from crying.

"I'm sorry but I can't tell which one is which! But I do know that one of you is definetely the fastest skater that I've ever seen, and the other one has the hardest shot in the leauge. My girls were just talking about it. They'd think that you were each other and not know what to do because you're both good at really different things!", said Bill, watching their faces slowly rise.

"Did your dad teach you how to skate that fast?", Bill asked.

It took a few seconds, but Vicky spoke to him.

"Yea, he says that if I want to be on the Montreal Canadiens I'm going to have to be faster than every boy"

"Well, if you keep on like you are now? I'm pretty sure you can do it. You're a Canadiens fan huh? Dinah, my daughter, likes the Leafs...so I guess we've got a real rivalry on our hands!"

Now it was Katrina's turn to speak.

"I like the Leafs too! Mom doesn't let us watch the games when they play each other, because she says that we get to rowdy!"

"I can understand that", said Bill, "My little brother and I are just like that. We still can't watch those games together!"

Through this entire interaction Ron Millbury had stood dumbstruck. There had been no gloating, no snide remarks, not even a smirk out of Bill. There had only been interest and encouragement for his daughters who had gone out and played there hardest that day.

"Well ladies, I have to say that we're gonna have to watch out next time we play you. We barley squeaked by today and who knows maybe we got lucky? But I will see you girls in the future, I hope you had fun today", said Bill in closing reaching over and lightly shaking both of the girls hands.

While his daughters clambered into the SUV Ron snapped out of his funk and turned to look at the still smiling Bill, who simply waited for him to say something. Instead of speaking first he reached out his hand to Bill who took it. This time there was no bone crunching, their was no prolonged hold, there was simply a solid firm handshake followed by sincere and humbled words.

"Good game Bill"

"Good Game Ron"

After a few seconds Ron's stony demeanour was cracked and he let out a smile and a laugh while he headed towards the driver's seat.

"I'll see you in a few weeks!", he said waving out the window of his truck.

"You know it", replied Bill.

Back in at his own car Linda and Dinah were waiting for him. As he got closer Dinah began to speak to him.

"Daddy I decided something today!"

"Oh yea? What's that?"

"I don't want to play for the Leafs anymore"

"What?!", exclaimed Bill in embellished shock, "Who do you want to play for then?!"

"I want to start my own team! And it's going to be the best team in the whole NHL! And only girls get to play on it! And we're going to beat all the boys and I'm gonna hold up the Stanley Cup!", her words like lightning.

"Tell me more! Tell me more!", said Bill as the family piled into the car, the words of a nine year old carrying them the entire way home.

Freshmen Week

2009-09-15T17:13:00.000-07:00

Deborah Mitchell was a small town girl. She grown up in the interior of British Columbia, having moved only once from her small town of birth to an even smaller town in which she would grow up in. Deborah was average height, average weight, had chestnut hair and green eyes which were perhaps her only defining feature. She hadn't grown up poor but her family was certainly less well off than most, living hand to mouth and year to year. Her mother a nurse, and her father a mill worker she felt that she had lived a normal life for the most part. She'd never been the most popular girl in school, nor was she the least. Her grades were above adequate but not high enough to gain any real notice by the academic faculty. She played some sports but had never fully excelled, participating mostly to engage and interact with other teenagers and take up the time when she was not at a school. She had only a handful of real friends, the kind you spend your weekends with, yet none of them considered her a best friend and vice versa. She got along with her family about as well as any other teenager, passing through adolescence largely unscathed by parental ridicule.

Having lead an entirely average existence what Deborah did after graduating from high school was considered a surprise. Not all of it was surprising. She applied to colleges and universities, she planned to attend post secondary for a couple of years and spend several thousand dollars attempting to figure out what her path in education might be. Her part time job became full time a full time job after high school ended. She occasionally got drunk or stoned with her friends, and pretended later that it hadn't happen. She argued with her parents about the stresses of moving away. All these things were to be expected of a young adult on the cusp of independence. It was what Deborah decided to do with her new found freedom that most found puzzling. She decided to move to the Vancouver, live on her own and go to school. This may sound completely normal, even Deborah'esque, but bear in mind this. Deborah was the only person from her graduating class that was moving to Vancouver, to attend school or otherwise. Others had decided to start in smaller cities, most notably the Kelowna, Prince George, or Kamloops. And all of these people were either moving in with or staying in very close touch with all of their friends from high school. As summer came to a close Deborah had not said one final farewell to her friends, and barley was her passing from childhood acknowledged by her family. She had simply gotten on the bus one day and arrived on campus ready to start her new life, entirely unaware of what it might hold and with little support other than a weekly phone call to her mother.

She was now sitting outside the library of her University having just completed her second Psych 101 class, feeling very alone and out of place.The sun was shining and it was a hot fall afternoon filled to the brim with the percolating energy of young people in a place of learning. Most shuffled 'round with little apparent focus. So much to see. So much to take in. Where to start? Who's that girl? Who's that guy? She smokes? I wonder where she got those shoes? Those people must know each other! What if they don't? That guy is in my Lit class. That girl has huge boobs! I want some friends. I want to meet new people. There's a squirrel. I wonder what I'm going to do tonight? What should I have for dinner? I can have whatever I want! Should I go into the city? What if I get lost? I won't get lost. Was this worth it? I want to go home.

Deborah uncomfortably shifted in the sun. She was sweating beneath her hooded sweater but didn't want to take it off having worn a, even she knew, very uncool t-shirt underneath. She hadn't guessed that Vancouver could get this hot in the afternoon. Besides it was fall? What business did it have being this hot in the fall? She continued to look around, drawing in the clothing of the city kids, feeling like she was stuck three years behind them for fashion sense. She now felt that her brand new skateboard shoes, which she'd been so proud of upon purchase, were bulky and unhip. No longer were they glowing symbols of status the way they'd been in her home town. No, here they might as well be tissue boxes. All the girls here wore flats, or sandals, or anything else but skateboard shoes. And if they did? They looked like punk rocker girls, not dumpy country girls with last years jeans and a hastily purchased university sweater. Deborah shrunk a little bit more into the concrete on which she was sitting, and while pretending to read her psych text she mulled over her decision to move to the big smoke, which now seemed entirely stupid.

"I could have just moved to Kamloops with Becky and Kendra. I could have just gone to TSU and lived with them and things wouldn't have sucked at all. I'd still be gone from mom and dad. I'd still probably meet some new people. Shit! Why am I here? This place sucks. I don't know anyone. I don't know where to go. The food in the cafeteria sucks too. I'm sick of drinking pop out of vending machines. I can't spend too much money. I need to get a job. Where am I gonna get a job?", she thought.

She repositioned herself again and dug through her pockets for her newly purchased cell phone. There were five numbers in it. Mom. Dad. Grandma. Lisa. Kendra. She snapped it shut and forced out a sigh. Sad, that's how she felt. Not emotionally sad, but pathetic. She wasn't entirely sure what she'd hoped to get out of her decision. It had been a big one to make and there was little rhyme or reason to it at the time she'd made it. Nothing other than "that sounds good" was ringing through her head when she made the commitment. Now it sounded anything but good. An empty cellphone, an empty dorm room, and an empty space in the middle of the grass.

Would she become one of those people? A loner? The first year of her independence idly floating by the wayside until she became comfortable in her loneliness? Until that was what she knew? The idea of anything else becoming less possible or even, god forbid, less wanted? Maybe she'd latch onto some local band and start following them just to take up the hours? Buy a leather jacket and start wearing ripped jeans after her apathy took over, and she vented her desperation and angst through appearance. Or join a school club that she had no interest in. A feeble attempt to gain friends? Maybe it would go the other way even. 'Stead of floating maybe she'd plummet into something that fulfilled only in it's instability. She'd be that girl who smoked a lot of pot and sat alone in the library going over eastern European philosophy for the millionth time. Not wanting any friends because they just didn't "get her". Or she'd get really into the environment. Lots of young people were into that these days right? She'd become a vegan, and take up yoga. Only used recycled paper products and show up for Greenpeace rallies. What was she going to become? The prospect was utterly terrifying.

"You're in my Psych class right?", said a girl's voice.

Deborah's head snapped up from the bland pages of her textbook and focused on the questioning face of a girl that was definitely in Deb's Psych class. She was tall and raven haired, wearing a multicoloured scarf a tank top and jeans. She smiled, while Deb's mouth just hung open for a second before responding.

"I uh....yeah. I mean yes I think I am?", said Deborah.

"Cool, wow are you already that far into the text?", said the girl pointing at the book spread open 'cross Deborah's lap.

"Uh well..I mean...", she stuttered before she was cut off

"Go get 'em huh? I'm 'Lica by the way", she said extending her hand down to Deborah.

"Deborah"

"Nice to meet meet you. You mind if I sit? I'm supposed to be meeting a friend but he hasn't shown up yet", 'Lica said.

"No, go ahead. I'm not really doing anything I guess"

"Cool"

The girl dropped almost immediately onto the grass beside Deborah, letting her backpack fall beside her. On the ground sitting for only a few seconds she lay back completely and just flopped on the grass.

"Ugh...so damn hot!", said 'Lica

"Yeah, I'm freakin' boiling right now", said Deborah airing herself out through the top of her sweater.

"Why don't you take that sweater off? It's gotta be at least plus twenty five or something", replied 'Lica.

Deborah paused before she spoke, looking 'round from side to side embarrassed but checking to see if anyone else was listening.

"I would but I'm wearing a really really ugly t-shirt underneath. Like, it's one of the ones I've had since grade eight", she said.

"Really? You've had a t-shirt that long? If you've had it that long it's got to be on of your fav's right? I want to see it!", said 'Lica now having propped herself up to look at Deb more intently.

"No you don't, it's really...it's just ugly."

"I don't give a shit if it's ugly, and I bet it's not. C'mon I want to see it!"

"Who was this girl? Where did she come from and why is she talking to me?",Thought Deborah.

Nervously and with another look around Deborah pulled off her sweater, smoothing down her now disrupted hair with immediacy afterward. The shirt itself was orange with a large Tigger face in the center. The Disney decal had faded and begun to flake since the original purchase though the character was still unmistakable.

"Tigger?! The wonderful thing about Tiggers? Tiggers are wonderful things?!" exclaimed 'Licia

"Uh yea. Yea that same Tigger", said Deborah not sure if 'Licia was making fun of her or not.

"That's a kick ass shirt! Why wouldn't you want to show that off? I wish I had a Tigger shirt"

"Well thanks, I guess I never really thought about it. Just...it's Tigger right? Seems kinda little kid?", said Deborah

"Pffft! Little kid whatever man. People take themselves too seriously. Anyone who doesn't like that shirt must take themselves too seriously. ", said 'Lica with a weak toss of her hand, "So what do you think of school so far? It's your first year right?"

"It's...yea It's good I guess, most of my classes are alright....so far. And yea, I'm first year"

"Yea, I'm second year but I didn't go here before. I just moved from Winnipeg...it's cool you can make the joke if you want", said 'Lica.

"What joke?", asked Deborah

"You know? Like the Weakerthans song "I hate Winnipeg"...that's not the title of the song but it's the main lyric"

"I don't know who that band is", said Deb apologetically.

"Really? Oh right...sorry...not like a judgement thing or anything...they're just one of the most Canadian bands of all time and they rule", replied 'Lica.

Deborah had little opinion about music, having little exposure to anything but top forty radio. Her friends had never ventured farther than the summer's pop hits and mainstream country music, and as such neither had Deb.

"You like the Hip? Like the Tragically Hip?", asked 'Licia.

"I've heard of them, but I haven't really heard them", said Deb

"Oh man! Ok...give me your number, I'm going to call you later and you're gonna come over and put some of my music on your Ipod. You got an Ipod right?", asked 'Lica.

"Yea! I mean yes I do!", said Deb, thankful of her last minute purchase just prior to moving to the city.

"Ok killer what's your number?"

Deb offer up her number and watched 'Lica plug it into her phone.

"Ok I'm gonna call you and, you got call display right?"

Deb nodded

"Ok yea, I'll call you and just save the number as mine", said Alicia, "Yea first year sucks a little in the beginning, but you'll get the hang of it. Plus this is kinda like my first year too. I don't really know anyone here in Vancouver, 'cept for my friend Spencer...he moved her last year.", said 'Lica.

Deb was still a little stunned. If this was 'Licia's second year of university that would mean that she was at least one year older than Deborah. In Deborah's home town, the only reason the older girls would talk to you was if you were dating an older guy, and even then it took a lot for them to be truly friendly to you.

"So, you doing anything later tonight?", asked 'Licia

"Uh no probably not...got...some...uh...no I have nothing to do", said Deb.

"Sick, ok. Well we're probably gonna pick up some booze and go over to Spencer's friend's place. They're in a band and having a jam sesh. You wanna come? It's not gonna be much but we're probably gonna get good and drunk, smoke some weed...god the weed here is so much better than in Winnipeg you don't even know", said 'Lica in one of her now patented high strung sentences.

"Yea that sou-", started Deb but she was interrupted by 'Lica.

"Yo! Spencer! Hey Spencer", she called waving her arm in the air.

A tall medium build boy with freckles, brown hair and a whit collared dress shirt heard the call and began to walk towards them. He smiled when he caught sight of 'Lica and stopped just short of them but didn't sit down.

"Dude? Sit, seriously you freak me out when you're up there like that", said 'Licia

"I've been sitting all fucking day, give me a break.", said Spencer his voice slightly higher than Deb would have guessed.

"Spencer this is Deborah. Deb Spencer.", said 'Licia.

"Hi"

"Hi"

They waved at each other, before Spencer turned his attention quickly back to 'Licia.

"I don't want to interrupt your chillin' but we gotta go. I told Reese I'd pick his bass up from Devon's for him, and Devon leaves for work in like twenty minutes", said Spencer.

"Oky doke", 'Licia said, and hopped to her feet before reaching down and grabbing her book bag, "So we're on for tonight right?", she asked Deb.

Deb nodded.

"Sick, ok well call me in like...an hour and a half?", said 'Lica already walking away and making the "call me" gesture with her hand.

"uh Yea, yea I will", said Deb, but they were already gone.

Deb jammed her psych text into her bag, zipped it up and flopped onto her back with her phone in her hand. Flipping it open she shuffled past Mom, Dad, Grandma, Lisa, and Kendra before highlighting the name 'Lica. She allowed herself a small but shining smile and snapped the phone shut.

REALITY

2009-09-09T16:12:00.000-07:00

Mike Evans sat in the waiting area of his therapist's office. It wasn't lavishly furnished in rich woods and expensive draperies. There wasn't an abundance of reading material. And the seating was at best purchased at Ikea and put together poorly. It was essentially a concrete box. Mike had been surprised by it's appearance the first time he'd been to see Dr. Drake, but after the results of their session he felt that poor interior design or no, he would continue to see the psychologist.

It had helped, that was certain. He'd been building up inside like a hot water tank in a house where no one ever took a shower. Boiling and sitting there. It wasn't with anger that he boiled with though, it was desperation and guilt. The stress of his job was simply too much for him and as a result of such he'd begun to alienate his friends and family, spending more and more of his free time in solitary watching reruns of M*A*S*H and repeatedly reading old scripts from TV shows such as "Cheers", "Seinfeld", "ER", and "Magnum PI", just to name a few. His diet consisted of only freshly procured produce and meats that he knew for a fact had been butchered within the past two days. While it was not unusual for a man of his age, twenty six, to rebel against the modern consumer system it was strange that he refused to acknowledge that he was doing it, as most modern rebels revel in the chance to speak about their cause.

The door to Dr. Drake's office opened and the middle aged balding man invited him inside, and asked him to take a seat. Mike obliged choosing the fat easy chair rather than the traditional therapist's couch, sinking into it and wrapping his arms 'round the rests. Dr. Drake took his own seat and after a few moments of shuffling through his notepad to a clear page he looked up at Mike and smiled.

"Good afternoon Michael, how are you feeling?", Dr. Drake asked.

"Paranoid, full of shame, and a little bit gassy to tell the truth...it was the beets I ate last night, full of enzymes and stuff...been reading a lot on plant biology in the past week", Mike said. His voice a stutter step.

"Well Michael, perhaps you could tell me a little bit about why exactly you're feeling full of shame? Not that everything else isn't important, but, well I hardly think that we came here to talk about plant enzymes"

Mike let a small forced laugh before he looked around and took a large breath holding it and then letting it out in a tremendous whoosh, which was followed by a tight clenched jaw.

"Michael, I'm sorry if this is hard for you but it is why you're here isn't it? To talk? To me?", said Dr. Drake.

"I'm just...it's not an easy thing to talk about and...well to be frank, I'm not supposed to talk about it publicly...legally...I don't know if that's something that...I just don't know if I can talk about it with you is all", Mike said.

Dr. Drake leaned back in his own seat and raised a hand to his moustache, stroking it thoughtfully before speaking.

"Michael, if you have done something to physically harm someone or something that is in any way very illegal you cannot be protected by doctor patient confidentiality. If someone's life is in danger then I have no choice but to inform the authorities. That being said...if there is something that does not affect the areas I just mentioned then you are free to speak with me about whatever you chose", said Dr. Drake with a firm confidence in the coverage of his statement.

Mike's eyes stopped darting around the room and settled on the Doctor, a look of fevered relief spreading 'cross his face.

"Really? Ohmygod. Thank christ! It's nothing...nothing illegal like that, i just I signed a contract, through my work, saying I wouldn't talk about stuff like this. It's confidential stuff, but if you're not going to tell anyone I said anything I mean...that won't really matter right?", asked Mike hopefully.

"That is correct."

"Ok, well it's just this thing...that's always making me feel like shit? It has to do with my job"

Mike paused and Dr. Drake raised his hand for a moment to politely interject.

"Right, the job. To be honest I was hoping we'd get to that one of these sessions Michael. All I really know about your job is that it's in the television industry. From what I could tell it was a key source of your stress, but until now you'd never really mentioned it"

"Yea well, it's 'cause of the contract thing but...well now I'm cool with talking about it. I guess you want to know what I do then right?"

The Doctor looked up from his notes and smiled, reaching out with his hand in a waved gestured as if to say "please go on".

"Ok well, I work in reality TV. You watch reality TV?", Mike asked.

Dr. Drake nodded.

"Ok well, you know how on reality TV there's always those one on one film booths, or interviews? Where the person goes to talk about how they're feeling with the show or the contestants or their own personal feelings?", Mike continued.

The Doctor nodded again.

"Well I'm the guy who talks to all of them while they're on camera. You never hear me...you never see me...I'm just there talking to them...while they're being filmed".

"You just talk to them? What do you talk to them about Michael?", asked Dr. Drake.

"I ask them questions...questions about the show and their feelings about it and the contestants...and I know that's really simple but...it's not. It's not simple at all. These people that are here on this show, they're real people...they're just on TV and they're just in these crazy scenarios and...all we do is feed them disaster and emotional turmoil and...it gets to me", Said Mike the energy in his voice rising and falling as he spoke.

"And they're there and they're upset and all they want to do is talk to someone who can listen, who can be there for them. They're away from their friends, and family and...they're alone and stuck in a cut-throat competition...you get to see these people when the cameras aren't rolling and...they're just people. When they're on their own they're just who they are, and they're scared and they're confused and then they come to me and I sit there and I have to...it's so fucked up", Mike trailed off.

"What is it that you have to do Michael?", asked Dr. Drake

"I set them up...in conversation and with provoking statements to just spill their guts. I practically just...drag their guts out onto the camera."

Mike had collapsed forward. Hands open his elbows resting on his knees and a stark look of absolute pain on his face. Dr. Drake simply leaned back in his own chair and raised his expensive looking pen to his lips before speaking careful in his words.

"Now, Michael, why do you suppose that is?"

"What?", said Mike not looking at the Doctor.

"Out of all the jobs that you were perhaps suited to do in this world, and even the television industry, why do you suppose it is that you have chosen this particular line of work?". asked Dr. Drake.

Michael didn't look up, now hanging his head between his knees. There was a long silence before Drake spoke again.

"Michael, you're a bright young man who clearly cares for people, and feels for them in the deepest ways. Even these strangers whom you've never met before these...TV shows?"

"Yes"

"Even these people you find a connection with, yet you chose to delve deeper into their hearts and minds than you were perhaps intended to. What I would like to know is, despite your giving and open heart why do you torment these people so? Why do you use your gifts in a way that reduces their human emotions to the lowest common denominator?", said Dr. Drake his voice unbiased and simply in it's questioning.

Michael sat looking forlorn, unable to focus on anything in the room his gaze shifting back and forth without reason. He was searching his memory. Searching for something in his past anything that would lead him to a conclusion concerning his current choice of employment.

"Michael, these things often take root in the childhood. A fleeting moment when an individual is left with a feeling that they cannot shake. It's not necessarily a good feeling, but a feeling that leaves an indelible impression on that person. Something that they at once recognize but are never quite certain of it's origin. The feeling eventually runs concurrent through relationships and events in a persons life without them ever fully realizing it.", prompted Drake.

And then he had it. The moment that he had never been proud of yet it's wonder and exclamation had run through his brain every so often, never leaving him be and never being allowed to let go.

"There...well. When I was twelve, I grew up in the country see and when I was twelve my parents, my Dad I guess, they bought me a pellet gun. My Dad was going to take me out hunting that fall and he wanted me to know how to shoot a smaller gun before I was allowed to shoot anything that might kill something...and so one afternoon I was shooting cans in the back yard. I would set up rows of cans and just shoot them down, I was practising, I wanted to prove to my Dad that I was ready to go hunting. I would sit for hours and just punch holes in all these cans", said Mike his voice levelled out and his gaze steady.

The room fell silent for a moment and Dr. Drake crossed his legs, then sniffled a little and returned to looking over at Michael who was now closing his eyes as if to help envision the past a little better.

"Then the neighbour's cat, I think his name was Elmo, or Eyor or something E, but he strolled out 'cross my sights. Like this cat just walked through all the cans that I'd just shot and he just stood there, staring at me. I like animals, I like cats so....I just...I don't know why I did what I did next...but I shot him. I just raised my gun and took a couple of seconds to aim and then, bam. Shot him.......when I did? I immediately felt that it was wrong, I mean I was twelve...I wasn't a total idiot and I knew that it was wrong...but...I didn't...I mean there wasn't anything else in me other than knowing it was wrong?", Mike stopped. Speaking in question of his own words.

Dr. Drake uncrossed his legs, repeated the maneuver of the pen to mouth and then began to speak.

"Then what Michael. This animal had wandered into your domain? Is that why you shot it?"

"No, it was just...it was there and I...could?"

"What happened next Michael? What happened to the cat?"

Mike lost the ability to make eye contact once more and dropped his eyes as he once more began to speak.

"I..I went over to it. It was a good twenty metres, which is far when you're shooting with a pellet gun. I went over there and it was just lying there. It was still alive, I could hear it making noises, yowling I guess...and as I got closer to it...I crouched down to see it and I'd.....I'd shot it in the face...in the eye. It was bleeding really badly and as I got closer it started to make more and more noise, but it couldn't get up...it was I don't know paralysed. It started rolling though when I got closer but all it could do was flop back and forth...like a dying fish or something. I felt like I should just kill it, just be done with it...but I didn't...I just sat there and kept watching...just watching this cat bleed out of it's face making more and more noise...but I didn't do anything...I just watched", said Mike his own voice degrading more and more into a yowl of it's own. Tears welling in his eyes yet never falling beyond the proscenium of his face.

Dr. Drake licked his lips quickly, scratched something on his notepad before speaking.

"You hurt this animal Michael. You brought it great pain, yet you knew it was wrong, and when it was hurt you didn't have the strength to put it out of it's misery. Instead you stood and watched, marvelling in the creatures pain, knowing it was wrong...yet doing nothing. I do not judge you Michael, this is fascinating and entirely normal at the same time. Many times children do things which they do not full understand to satisfy some deep yearning for a desire that they cannot, nor would they ever, fully embrace. Somehow the behaviour you exhibited then, as now, are linked very closely to a mutual Sadism/Masochism conflict in your personality. You desire the feeling of pain, and loss and guilt yourself yet only when it is delivered to you through acts of wanton sadism unto others. You are essentially addicted to your own self loathing after you've wronged another individual. Remarkable", Dr. Drake said entranced by his own thoughts, "Take into account, if you will, your last relationship. The one with Lisa? Where you were unfaithful to her simply because the situation presented itself, yet as you explained then you knew it was wrong. Yet you followed through with it. Afterwards you felt this intense desire to tell Lisa what had happened though you knew that it would not only end your relationship but hurt her very deeply. You ultimately knew what would happen when you told her of your actions yet there was no hesitation to tell. Your atoning heavily for your sins is a subconscious action of your addiction to guilt and the pain it provides.

Michael had drooped father, if that is at all possible, after hearing these words. There had been a brief moment of enlightenment while the Doctor spoke, followed by despair. His eyes still welled with unrelenting and un-releaseable tears, turned upward.

"Well....now what?....what...do I do from here Doctor?", Michael said his desperation so apparent.

"Michael, it would seem that you've already solved that yourself... now perhaps you never realized it before...but this is a safe and ultimately free expression of your own desires. A very real manifestation of your, pardon the expression, personal kink. You are able to reach your desires in a very real way, yet without actually truly hurting anyone. Unlike your relationship with Lisa this is a more free form, and ultimately victimless crime. These people, on these television shows, do they ever get mad at you? Do they ever yell at you or speak out against your position?", asked Dr. Drake

"No...they don't...they never have...which I find...I mean that's strange isn't it?", said Michael.

"Consider this Michael, within this world of "reality TV" these people understand the confines of their world, they understand the rules, and they understand your position. Getting mad at you is no more logical or productive than getting mad at your toaster when it burns your toast. Yes they may harbour feelings of anger towards you, but in our society? And the society created on these shows? Those feelings are not allowed to manifest in actuality. They use you near to the same way you are using them. They need someone to ask those drawing questions, those leading questions. Someone to bring it all out, and help them lose their apprehension. Your television producers require it for the "Entertainment" provided by the show, and the people need that prompting to express themselves. And you? As long as you are aware of this, aware of your addiction, you can cope with it effectively, through channels which will not affect your personal life at all. Do you understand Michael? In your job you do a great service to these people, because without you to draw out their pain, they have nowhere else to go with it.", said Dr. Drake.

Michael sat up in the chair for the first time in a while, his face beginning to clear of anguish, a levelled calm understanding replacing it. The tears drew back within his eye sockets and the thinnest smile began to appear. He began to feel safe. Safe in himself and his environment, in a way that he'd never born witness to before.

"Goddamn Carter. We're going to be fucking rich", said Thomas Church.

"I have absolutely no idea why no one thought of this sooner", replied Jacob Carter.

The two middle aged men stood in a large dark room behind a large one way mirror that looked into Dr. Drake's office. Beside them there were several monitors which displayed a varied amount of camera angles from inside the faux Psychologists office. Church and Carter were television producers, for a network that will remain un-named. More importantly, they were producers of reality TV.

"Funny twist of fate that he happens to work for us isn't it?", asked Church

"Slightly, but that will only make it easier to get him to sign the consent form. I think it's funnier that no one ever considers the possibility that Drake isn't a liscenced psychologist. Barley even a doctorate.", chuckled Carter.

"I still think it would have been better if he cried.", lamented Church, "I mean you could see the damn tears just sitting there in his eyes... he just couldn't let them out"

"Don't worry too much about it Thomas. He's still got six more episodes with Dr. Drake, we'll crack him by then. Besides? Don't want to blow your wad too soon eh?", Carter said giving Church an elbow.

"You're so right. Tears, that's where the big money is. Tears is where the entertainment is.".

Rider On the Storm

2008-10-16T20:47:00.000-07:00

The coming storm gave away much of the man's character. His stout resolute stance in the crumbling snow 'round his boot, and the weary but strong posture that held the shoulder's of his thick australian leather jacket at a uniformed standard. His hands wrung together mitted in leather and fleece, brisk footsteps tracking their way from his pickup truck and it's rapidly cooling engine.

His wife, still at home, had told him to go. Not in such certain terms, though it had been suggested. Not that he wouldn't have otherwise had he known. In his mind there was little as important as the vital, though certiainly unasked, service he was on his way to preform. The home was in the distance, a hundred meters or so. It's few glowing lights piercing through the distressing cloak of snow that began to flow rapidly. His breath brushing back against him in the minus twenty air, clinging to his un-wrapped neck and two day stubble. There was little evidence with him and his case, and even less proof that this was any of his business. But this was who he was, the lone body beating his way through the storm for the lone reason of what he knew, unflinchingly, was right. As his steps beat into the ribbiting cushion of winter gorund he re traced what his wife had told him.

Diane had been to the quilting circle. She was never known to miss it for any reason. She had been there allright, her face swollen though cloaked in the best makeup that the avon services of the northern lights could bring. Her cheek puffing and holding tight like the hand of a child to it's mother, and her lip butting forward as if a crooked tooth leaned behind it. All the women had noticed and in fact all, save for Jo, had kept their lips tight shut. Dignitaries of the polite equity that policed the north with such ablomb that one wondered into which stone they had been written. Perhaps the most apalling to the Jo was that this was not the first, or even second time that Diane had appeared with her face straining outward from it's slender and otherwise beatiful skeleton. Jo was wrapped by dual bonds. By what she felt was an unshaking duty, and a cold and simple general opinion of the north. And with little conideration she brought comment to the swollen fatiuige of Diane's face as they both sipped their tea after the general assembly of the meeting. Diane shied away and brought forth some excuse that was at best laughable. This was in a day when domestic disturbance calls were about as common as a household telephone, which is to say not at all.

Home that night Jo prepared a pot roast, characteristically overdone, with green beans and potatoes. Fredrick was late, characteristically. He believed it was his duty to be the first man at work and the last to leave, the job sadly taking precident over so many things in his life including his wife and children. Yet, much like his wife he was filled with the same unshaking duty as he later stood in the snow, the blades of the winter clashing 'round him. At dinner the children stayed fairly quiet, perhaps sensing the trepidary way their mother plodded around the conversation, which was not her way. Fredrick devoured his meal and several beers, and then shifted himself down to his study to pour over the most recent enginneering periodicals and smoke the second half of his pack of cigarettes. He had sensed his wife's silence yet had chose to say nothing about it, calously accepting the calm reprise from conversation for once.

After the children had been put to bed and Jo had finished the dinner dishes she padded her way gently down the steps peeking her head in on her husband, a plume of smoke overhead and a rough aura cloaking his broad shoulders and aching back.

"Fred"

"Mmm", he grunted without turning 'round.

"Fred, this...I don't really know what to-", she stumbled around her words which was typical even when they carried less meaning than they now bore.

"Christ, Jo spit it out!", He bellowed.

Before going any further it should be made clear. Fredrick was by no means a perfect man, as it has already been alluded. It was not beyond him to get drunk and yell at his wife or children with mishapen scorn or even, perhaps worse, ignore them entirely. Lost in his job and his own trigonomirtal thoughts. He was an opinionated man. A stubborn man. An emotionally lost man. And, for all his successes, an insecure man. Yet for all his failings, he was a indeed a man. A good man. A man who lived in black and white.

"It's about Diane"

He didn't say anything, or still yet turn around.

"Diane Pherson?"

"I know, what is it Jo?"

"Well, it's...about today at quilting. She was...Well her. Her face was...bruised and her eye was swollen shut", Despite being an english teacher in the past and a self proclaimed human dictionary Jo was running through the pages in her mind searching for the words to project what she meant.

She needn't search hard though. Fred pricked up in his seat and turned to his wife his stern brow folding over his eyes. It was as if his typically serious expression had descended three levels into an even more somber depiction of human emotion.

"She was, well...she didn't say much about it...and the thing is. It's not the first time", Her voice trailed off into a mumble, which would have normally aggrivated Fred, though this time he needn't hear the words to understand his wife's meaning. He stood up and made his way briskly past Jo, and up the stairs.

"Fred? Fred?"

He had already made it to the main floor skipping several steps as he went. Jo followed in toe and went to the door to see her husband pulling on his boots.

"Where are you going?"

"Pherson's", he muttered as he stood and pulled on his jacket and hat.

"This late?"

"This late", he pulled on his gloves and was out the door.

The Chevy rumbled to life and his breath pushed out in front of him, and without giving the engine adequate time to heat he was out the dirveway and down the road.

And there he was steps from the house, the storm beggining to cover him, the truck and the house just above. There was no sound from inside, though he didn't expect there to be. But there were lights though, most of the lights were on and the smoke, dreading the cold, pushed its way from the chimeny. Despite being a man of enourmous stature Fred ascended the front steps with a stealth that he usually reserved for hunting in the fall. Though some might say he was hunting now. Next to the door he now heard sounds. The gutteral ramblings of a man with too much drink in him. He raised his heavy mitted hand and thumped the door, the sound echoing back behind him. The sound stopped for a moment and then there was a loud clumsy resonance of accusation behind the lumber. Footsteps made their way to the door and pulled it open.

"Fred..."

"Charlie"

His voice was bathed in rye and the look in the man's eye's oozed forward as did his off kilter shoulders.

"Can I help you Fred?"

Fred didn't respond, his face remaining resolute and unfettered by Charlie Pherson's accusatory though slurred tone. Instead he peered inside the door. Diane leaned against the kitchen counter in the back of the room. She was crying. No harm in crying. No harm in just crying. But she wasn't just crying. Thin trickle of blood ran from her lip and as she saw Fred peer in she made a quick movement with the sleeve of her blouse in attempt to wipe it away, but simply smeared the crimson 'cross her chin.

"Can I help you?", Charlie repeated himself.

Fred's face shifted from it's methodist stern calm into a curling snarl that over the years few had born witness to, and even fewer had forgotten. He grabbed Charlie by his front and pushed him backwards through the door, his legs losing the ground and stumbling as Fred verily carried him. Charlie being the smaller, and certainly drunker of the two men was left with no recourse other than to remain transfixed by the rage in Fred's eyes as he was slammed onto the kitchen table sending his bottle of rye to the floor where it hit with a thud but did not smash.

"You son of a bitch", snarled Fred leaning his weight and height onto Charlie's chest.

"Fred...f-Fred....this is none, none of your goddamn business", sputtered Charlie.

Still wearing his mits Fred hauled back his right arm and hammered Charlie squarely in the soft flesh of his side sending the air from his lungs and the flecks of whiskey from his lips.

"Charlie, I swear to god"

He hit him again.

"Hitting that woman", He used his left, which still held Charlie down, to rifle his head up and over towards his wife, "is none of your goddamn business".

Charlie made a vain struggle to get up but his legs just flailed. Fred dropped the hammer and hit him square in the face this time. Charlie now sported a bloody lip, and Fred's gloved hand came back sporting a little red. Charlie groaned and sputtered again.

"Charlie, I know you work for me. But right now? I'm not here as your boss. You were never really my friend either so right now I'm certainly not here as that either. Right now I'm the guy who will kick your ass square through the street, even if I have to throw you in the back of my truck and drive fifty miles to find a real street, if I even so much as hear a rumour that Diane's got a sore throat", He pulled Charlie's bleeding face closer to his as he spoke and then slammed him on the table as he finished.

Charlie had god limp, his eyes closed and lips quivering in a dull whimper. Fred shoved him against the table again and then let him go, making his way across the room and picking up the bottle of rye that had fallen to the floor. He unscrewed the cap on the bottle which sat at only a quarter full. He proceeded to empty the bottle onto Charlie's face, then tossed he to the floor behind him.

"And the next time you want to drink? You remember right now. You remember just what happened right now when you feel like a drink"

Fred stood up from his crouch over the table, and looked over at Diane. She stood in horror, her hands still up by her face weeping and cringing so delicately that it was barley audible. Fred's expression had reverted to its formuliac stern.

"Diane"

She couldin't take her eyes away from her husband rything in pain and liqour.

"Diane", Fred spoke louder and her eyes darted towards him, wide and trembling.

"Are you allright?"

She shakily nodded and Fred turned completely towards the door and, now free from the fetters of sneaking, thumped his way down the steps. As he left Diane rushed from her post at the kitchen counter to her husband, sprawled 'cross the kitchen table bleeding and shuddering as the storm's cold hit him through the front door which Fred did not close.

The storm was now in full swing. The spittle of god's sneeze descending upon the top of the world. Fred pulled up the collar of his jacket and climbed into the truck, this time giving it plenty of time to heat up. As he put the pickup into gear he let out a crumbling breath and lit a smoke.

At home he pulled of his boots and gloves, rinsing the blood off the mits, before descending the stairs to his and Jo's bedroom. The lights were off and she appeared to be asleep until she spoke.

"Fred?"

"Go back to sleep Jo"

"..wha-"

"Go back to sleep.", His stern tone was not to be ignored.

Fred pulled himself into bed and rested his head on his pillow. The storm outside raged in parallel to that released that evening by the man now in bed, and much like anything this storm was soon to be weathered before it passed.

Accept.

2008-09-28T23:54:00.000-07:00

But that's all anyone wants. Acceptance. From parents from friends, and perhaps even from enemies. I think that's what it comes down to with a lot of people. You spend long enough looking hard in the mirror at yourself and the only thing you can see are your imperfections, but that's because you're the only one that spends that long looking at yourself. Even our parents the people who have been there for us since day one don't tend to look that hard or deep. And even if and when they do It's been in my experience and belief that rarely is it with the same malicious loathing scrutiny that we place on ourselves.

These people don't understand you, and 'course how could they they aren't really you. And it's because they don't understand you. Because they don't fully understand us they can't really cater to our feelings and needs. Sure it be can communicated it all we want but that doesn't mean that they understand it anymore and that's the point. People accept each other, that's something I've learned as time goes by. They don't have to like each other, but in most cases somewhere down the line, specially when they don't understand, they accept each other. Their lives so deeply entwined that there isn't much left to do other than let a person be themselves and let their choices shape their own life. Doesn't mean you or anyone else has to like it in the long run, in fact it's usually the opposite, but again this is what goes hand in hand with the acceptance.

It was a day much like any other a week before thanksgiving. I had gone home for a week to put away my parents food and spend time among the countryside that had sired me. It's always a shocking coming home, the small vestigial differences between the town and country. For me it's always the smell, the hard lined sweet odors of my youth. Sawdust, chainsaw gas, fresh churned dirt, hundreds of poplar trees dying together and the winking chirp of sour the leaves make while they rot. I was sitting in an old battered lawn chair on the back deck smoking a joint, the older of my families two dogs curled up beside me. I was wearing a sweater and jacket, the crisp scrape of British Columbia's Autumn reaching for the small of my back. I took another drag and rolled onto my side peering down what my siblings and I still referred to as the toboggan hill and further on into the swamp. My mother had never approved of me calling it a swamp. "It's a pond", she'd say. Clearly it wasn't. Sticks, mud, slime and algae everywhere. Frogs, toads, newts, salamanders and ever other type of fauna one would expect to find in the green pool of sludge that rested just at the edge of my family's property. Arguments with my mother over such pointless subject matter was a regular occurrence my family's household. Whether I was the one doing the bulk of the arguing, or my father, or even siblings, there was always an argument to be won by my mother. 'Course that's just the nature of a family with such will, no one is ever going to admit their wrong, but that doesn't mean that anyone is right.

I was home. It always felt strange to say, even think it. The home i had grown up in. The home that despite it's new foundation and strong architecture had still been strained by the years of resentment and malignant feelings that my family was constantly party to. Sitting in the same spot outside I had sat for years when the cusp of winter was about to roll in. It had been six years since I left home, and so far was the only child home for the holidays, and the only one at the house other than the dogs. That changed though, as my dad came rolling up the driveway in his '94 dodge. What he called "the last year of a real man's truck before they went all pussy and started being rounder than your aunt Doris". He had just finished another day on the site, the log home site where he had worked for the past sixteen years, being paid considerably less than he was worth but still toughing it out. He got out of the cab of the truck and dropped his chainsaws on the back porch, I could hear him, and then strolled around the front to where I was the dog pressuring him for attention and getting covered in the sawdust that always coated him from head to toe.

My father and I's relationship growing up was what I would call, straining. At absolute best. I wasn't much for following rules, and he wasn't much for cutting me any slack after I'd broken the clearly laid out rules. The cycle continued and there were days when I vowed my hatred for him eternal. Those days were past though. As they are with so many families. The distance in years and and geography had proven to be the remedy needed to heal our deeply sick relationship. We had bonded in the years past over an eternal source of frustration. My mother. Her belligerence and blind faith in her own actions directly countered what he believed was the greater good of the family. In any event they were both wrong most of the time, searching out new ways to spite each other. Their relationship endured through a strange need for confrontation that I had never really understood.

"How was work?", I asked as he pulled up a seat on one of the chairs next to me attempting to dust himself off, giving up and then stretching out on the chair anyway.

"merh", He grunted. The question was loaded of course. Too many years of hard labour and not enough recognition had left him indifferent to his employment.

He reached out of the joint which I held in my fingertips, and I passed it over.

"That good huh?", I asked.

"Lets not talk about it", He said before taking a few quick hoots on the now roaching joint, and held the smoke in his lungs.

I lay still and kept looking down the hill towards the pond the ducks of fall paddling around, the way they always do for a week or two before making the next leg of their journey towards warmer climates.

"So Dad, what...are your plans now that the house is finished?", I threw it out there.

My parents had been waiting for the house to be finished. They had bought the property when I was five years old and had since then been constructing what they felt, at least at the time, was their dream home. Time had passed, I had left, then my siblings then there was no one left in the home 'cept my parents and their odd symbiosis of conflict. It was a day that we felt would come, my siblings and I, but we never really had a line on just when it might happen. A divorce i mean, of course.

" I don't really know. I was thinking, 'bout going to the island be closer to your grandparents, your aunt too"

"What would you do there? I mean there's not much log home stuff on the island is there?", I asked reaching back across for the joint.

"Y'now, believe it or not. I didn't always make log homes. I used to do a lot of stuff. I'm sure I musta told the stories a few times", He made what for him was a sarcastic face but still rested to steadily on the lines of serious. Aside from family it was always hard for people to tell when he was joking.

"Yea dad I know, the tug boats, and the fishing and all that but is that what you want to do?"

"....y'now to tell you the truth, I haven't had a serious thought much about what I really want in a long time. It's always, it's always been about responsibility. To the family, to you kids and to your mother and the house and hell. I haven't really had anything I've wanted for a good long time".

The words were heavy like they'd been waiting for years just to have him finally find the strength to push them out. There was a look of relief on his face, and he shifted his glance from me to the dirt and then focused on the dog whom he began petting.

"Coulda shoulda woulda right?", he mumbled and continued to avoid eye contact.

I had known this probably for a long time. I knew what my dad had sacrificed to be there for the family, the life he hadn't led because he was a man of principle and responsibility no matter how flawed he was in any other way. It were these principles that had indirectly taught me how to be a man. My father never taught me how to shave, or drive or anything about girls. But he did teach me how to be strong. That's what all those years were about. Being grounded. Being yelled at. Told to get my head out of the clouds, or even more appropriate out of my ass. Long ago I had accepted him for all his flaws, and the trials we had ran with each other in my youth, but I had never found a time to face him with himself. Just because I came to accept it all, in my twenty four years of living. It didn't mean that he had reached that juncture with himself. The choices he'd made and the life he'd so willingly put on hold in the name of love, he was now wrought with facing it's worth near the end of the family's journey.

What was I to say? There was nothing. The man before me was not doubled over in anguish. He was not angry. He wasn't even really scared. He was just a man once more, his life back in his hands. The reigns foreign and weathered but cold and cracking from years without being held, or maintained.

"Dad?"

He looked up, and I sat up.

"You can have whatever you want. Now, I mean. Anything".

He didn't really smile and he didn't really frown or anything, but he just got up and put his hand on my shoulder for a moment before going inside the house stomping his heavy dusty boots on the deck as he went.

Acceptance. In those forty five seconds, that's what he had finally felt. That nagging reel of line, was finally drawing itself back into place after all those years. Parents. Children. Family. Friends. Enemies. Strangers. Whether they accept, it hardly matters. The life worth living is the one that is lived, despite it's failings, , it's traps, it's successes, it's dead ends and especially it's rebirths. Accept life. Live.

The Man of Tomorrow

2008-09-06T00:15:00.000-07:00

"So you saw him"

"That's not what I said"

"Yea it is, you said you saw a blue and red blur and then the cops went past, that's what you said, i just heard you say that Brian"

Brian rolled his eyes and readjusted in his seat avoiding eye contact by looking around for the waitress.

"Yea, that's what I said Mark, but that doesn't mean it was him"

"Are you kidding me? What else would it be?"

"Shit, I don't know. Coulda been a new one? That happens right? Or don't you know?"

Mark stuffed a couple of french fries into his mouth, ketchup sticking to his stumpy soul patch. He looked confused.

"Don't I know what?"

"That one shows up they all start showing up", said Brian crossing his arms.

"Oh right, yea...sure that makes total fucking sense Brian. This guy is so amazing that we don't stop to be stunned by him for thirty seconds, we just move on and expect there to be more....what, what do we even call him?"

"Superhero"

"Don't say that. We don't know he's a hero, christ how do we even know how super he really is? He might be a robot, or an alien or something"

"Doesn't make him not Super, even if he is a robot or alien...you've got a little...", Brian motioned to the ketchup clinging, lifting his own chin.

Mark pulled a couple napkins and made a gratuitous display of cleaning his face before turning back to Brian with indignation.

"You're such a nerd man, seriously."

"Where the hell's that waitress, my coffee's not gonna refill itself. Nerd? Just because I know about shit that is now a total reality? I might as well have PHD now dude. All us comic book nerds, we're totally exonerated now Mark. Guy like this shows up, and who the fuck are they going to look for for answers? Us that's who".

Mark made a sharp exhale through his nose, and waved down the waitress who was standing behind Brian.

"Bullshit man, they've got physicists and shit out there to study this shit. They're not coming down to Oregon to see Brian and ask him why the fuck there's a guy out there flying around in tights"

"Hi, yea, can I get some more coffee? That's great thanks", he smiled sweetly at the waitress until she turned her back and then checked his watch with a grimace, "bout time. I'm not saying me, I'm just saying us goes that know about this stuff. Yea sure physicists are gonna study the how, but we know about the why and the where and the what....I don't give to shits about the how man. And, just so you don't make an asshole out of yourself when you're talking 'bout this later, he doesn't wear tights or didn't you see that picture in the paper?", Brian spoke matter of factly as he added sugar to the steaming fresh cup of coffee.

"Oh thank you, you're so right. I wouldn't want to look like an asshole when I'm talking about a guy who can fly and punch a hole in a Buick....'cause it's so goddamn strange, no out of the realm of possibility that this guy you're calling a superhero would wear tights and a cape. And no I didn't see the picture. Dick."

"And I guess you don't watch TV at all either then huh? He's wearing a black leather jacket with all these red and blue sections on it, and these black pants, they're....I don't know can't really tell what they're made of...but they're just covering the top of what look like combat boots, this guy is on bad mo fo Mark. He doesn't even have a logo on his...costume? I don't know uniform sounds better. The picture and footage are really blurry anyway."

"No mask? I thought superhero's wore masks", Mark leaned across the table eyebrow arched and pointing at Brian.

"Superman doesn't wear a mask"

"So this guy's superman?"

"Again not what I said. Clean the shit out of your ears. Superman doesn't wear a mask, and from what I've seen this guy's a superman archetype."

Mark made an indignant and puzzled face.

"Archetype? What the fuck does that mean man?"

Brian raised his palms upward and rolled his haughtily in continued angst at his friend's ignorance concerning superhero lore. lore

"Seriously, did you never read a comic growing up? Archetype the model, the concept, idea. There are lots of superheros that follow the superman archetype but that doesn't mean they're superman. Flying, super strength, completely morally black and white. He's the god hero concept, then there's anti hero's like Batman who are darker, and villans which are the morally black end of the spectrum"

"We don't know he's morally black and white man. Shit we don't even know what or who he is. Do you think he's working for someone? Like the government?"

"I don't think so?"

"Why not?"

"If he was working for the government, why would they waste him on all this domestic shit? Like, we've got a war going on overseas and this guy could potentially, I mean I don't really know the extent of his powers or anything, but he could put an end to the war in like a week or something? And the government wouldn't just have him waltzing around in the open like that, they always keep the coolest shit secret"

"Whatever Mulder. But if that's the case, and he is an independent, then why isn't he overseas doing all that stuff of his own accord? I mean Just end the Iraq war and bring in all those terrorists and shit?"

"....I don't know. The war or terror and all that Iraq stuffs a total load anyway, but that's just me. I don't know maybe he doesn't think he knows the whole situation? I mean who does? Maybe he's staying out of politics, and things like that? That makes sense doesn't it?"

"Yea but at the same time, it's pretty selfish. I mean if he wants to be a public servant and all that why doesn't he run for president, specially if things are so black and white for him."

"Christ man, that's against the whole concept of a superhero, there has to be someone that stays above all the bureaucratic bull, otherwise Batman coulda been president fo sho by now."

Mark crossed his arms not sold on Brian's reasoning's for this superhuman shouldn't be president. He opened his mouth to speak but Brian interrupted him.

"Besides, would you rather have him stuck behind a desk or out there on the street kicking ass?"

".....ok point taken"

They went back to their meals for a few minutes.

Mark was the first to speak while they chewed.

"Maybe he's god, or a god."

"Christ...no pun intended, that's a whole fucking can of worms I just don't even know how to start into"

"What? Why?"

"'Cause to call him a god, we'd have to define god, and prove an existence of a higher power and there's charts and pie charts and all that shit"

"Bullshit, you just don't know. I bet he's a god"

"Does that mean you think he should usurp the Pope instead of running for office now?"

"Hell yes, that guy's a supervillan if I ever saw one"

"Amen to that"

"Wait, so you said that there was gonna be more of them? Like hero's, if that's what we're gonna call them...but what about villains I mean I see the movies and shit. There's always some crazy ass villain."

"I don't know. I mean the law of superhero logic goes that there's an equal and opposite villain for every hero, a yin and yang thing, Batman and the Joker, Lex Luthor and Superman, Flash and Zoom, Sinestro and Green Lantern. But shit, I don't know Its pretty amazing we've got this guy doing all this good. I don't really think in the real world there needs to be a villain."

"Well duh, there never needs to be a villain, unless you're telling a story or something, but I don't know the way you're talking about it, it sounds like it's a law of nature...that there has to be a villain to balance the equation."

"Finally you're talking some fucking sense dude."

"Ok, so he's not getting involved in political stuff but does that mean he's not doing international stuff? Like I don't know massive disaster type shit? For that matter where the fuck was he when nine eleven or Katrina happened?"

"I don't know man, maybe his powers didn't develop until then, maybe he's not even from earth and didn't get here until then. Shit. I wonder how long until we've got other powers popping up, like to get me some of the speed force"

"What?"

"Y'now, speed force...it's like an energy stream that the Flash taps into to go really fast....?"

"Uh yea, how 'bout you tap into the growth force. I don't know many five foot nothing superheros"

"Screw you man. Don't think you're gonna be getting any powers, degenerates are automatically off the list"

"Whatever. So is he here to stay?"

"Who knows. I'm not sure we know if he can be killed by traditional means yet...well we don't know...government might, might not"

"Bet he gets laid like a motherfucker"

"Well..."

"Well what?"

"That means secret identity kinda goes out the window"

"Why? I never got that, why wouldn't Superman go around slammin' broads as Superman? Who could say no to that?"

"Well I mean, 'cause he's Superman he doesn't just go 'round bumpin' Ho's....and this guy? who says he even has a secret identity, he could just be a superhero twenty four seven? I don't know maybe he's addicted to prostitutes and if no one knows what he looks like 'cause he moves so fast then he doesn't really need to worry at all? Shit what if he's like a serial murder but he does all this other good shit so people would never suspect him"

"Dude, that's screwed up, like what? He's the Antichrist in some screwed up disguise as our saviour?"

"I don't know for sure, I just-"

There was a large screech and a thundering of metal scraping metal from out in the street and both men leapt to their feet, Brian knocking over his plate as he suddenly jilted to the side.

"What the fuck was that?", said Mark looking side to side.

"Man, out in the street what the fuck is that?"

Both ran from their seats and charged out into the street where they bore witness to something truly amazing. A Escalade had plowed into the side of a smaller economy car, or at least that was what had appeared to have happened. Grating sounds of metal on metal was heard and then the raw Detroit steel of the caddy being bent backwards and snapped like a aluminium pie plate. The front end of the SUV was torn in half by what appeared to be a pair of large arms and hands. There was already the sound of sirens in the background as a large humanoid shape pulled itself from the wreckage of the two motor vehicles and began to dust himself off. He was tall and broad with a black crew cut. He was dressed as Brian had described him 'cept for the part about there being no logo. On his back there was a now tattered but none the less still visible embroidered red lightening bolt. With speed but dexterity he turned first to the smaller car and after examining the door for a moment tore it off it's now irreparably bent hinges, pulling out the crumpled body of an older black woman who was curled in a ball. He set her down gently on the sidewalk and beckoned for some people to come and help her before turning back to the steaming Escalade. He made his way to the driver's seat where he punched through the still intact window and dragged out a young man dressed in a baggy baller's kit. He then tore the Escalade's door off it's hinges as well but didn't cast it aside so easily. He tore it in half a couple of times as easily as if it had been made of construction paper before twisting it into long metal coils and wrapping the young man in them. He dropped the body to the street with a thud before miraculously flipping the car on its side and tearing out the gas tank. After digging inside the innards of the vehicle for a moment he withdrew a large package wrapped in brown paper and masking tape. Shoving it into the hands of the Escalade's pilot he turned to face the now sizable crowd which had formed. His expression changed from that of stern and scolding anger to a calm and open eyed smile.

"Everything's going to be ok now", he said in a charming baritone waving to the crowd.

Then in an instant after a quick and gentle hop he took off into the sky with a quick thunderclap following in his wake. The sirens approached and the calamity on the street continued, but all those that had been there could not see anything worth paying any attention to save for the now vanishing speck far off in the distance of the sky.

"Don't care what you say man, that dude deserves to get laid", said Mark in awe.

"Word man, fuckin' word".

Bound

2008-06-06T15:31:00.000-07:00

The ring was never a permanent fixture. It was meant to be outgrown and passed much like the nomer that went with it.

She turned it over in the palm of her hand. The smooth gold garnered scars much like the marriage that it had been party to. She drifted it back and forth on the ring finger of her left hand. It felt heavier than it had since the day she had first accepted it and it's responsibilities. That new noticeable weight that comes with any glittering adornment, it's burden fading over time as one becomes accustomed.

Despite the fact that the divorce papers had fully gone through over a month ago she had not removed it from her finger until now. Sliding it off as she sat in the bath, her hands wrapping her face wet with the steaming bathwater and a perhaps a little of her tears. Without fail for years she had taken a bath nearly every night at nine pm. Back when the kids would have been in bed by now or, as they grew on, capable of caring for themselves. One of her few indulgences, in a world overcome with duties and chores that naught but mothers truly understand. Now even even in her waters of escape she found little solitude or balance to the deft backhand that had been dealt to her some hours before.

Her sons would be home soon, having heard the news and returning from the city immediately. Her younger daughter had been there for the entire event, it still being summer and her having not left for university yet. Her oldest son had sounded profoundly calm when she had repeated the news over the phone, though that was to be expected. He had always carried himself with as little discernible emotion as possible, choosing instead to internalize his pains and lash out later when he found it more appropriate. She had not spoken to the younger of the two brothers. They lived together and she trusted the eldest to competently relay the news. Her daughter had not been so calm, falling back on instincts she had inherited from her father, the precenium of her eyes welling quickly and then dousing her face with a quick stream of tears. As far as she knew had not stopped even then. She'd stayed with her daughter for an hour before she had asked her to leave.

She'd eaten a modest dinner of salad and drank three bottled apple cider's before running the bath and crawling into it's embrace, the only she'd had for years. Now she sat balled at the head of the old claw footed tub. Fetal and rocking gently creating small waves that rode back and forth around her. Her face rested on her knee as she watched the ring turn over slowly time and time again in her hands. She was truly alone in union with a partner now, though now it was not by her own choosing. Beginning to wonder if this is how he had felt when she'd asked for the divorce. Frightened at the prospect of a separation from a coalition that, while certainly holding no more intimacy, carried a symbiosis of sorts. They had survived for so long with each other that near the end she had even considered not divorcing him. That their lives would be as a common-law partnership, even though the holy matrimony was gone. In the end that had not been her choice. Her will to move on a live a new life separate from him and his ways was too strong. Had she not, her conscience could not be clean as she began new relationships still vowed to him. But how clean was her conscience now? Blotted with a toppled bottle of India ink was the vision that came to her mind as she rocked back and forth in the bath. No matter how much hot water and soap washed over her, there was no removing the stain. Whether she had provided the catalyst for this result she couldn't and would truly never know, but forever she would be muddied with that taintful thought of it. The unconscious pock mark on her soul that for years to come would drain all love from her eyes leaving only the limpest signs of humanity.

Her boys made it there that night. Three in the morning, but they made it. The younger had driven, her eldest always afraid of cars, much less the open highway. She often reflected that perhaps this had to do with his choice to live in the city, despite having no real pitons to hold him there. The younger had followed the older their friendship and brotherhood so strong. They hugged and kissed her, the grim clinging on their still young faces. She put on a pot of tea and they brought their bags to their rooms, long deserted for their new city digs. Sitting around the constantly cluttered kitchen table, the neon bars above the kitchen island buzzing erratically, clutching their chipped teacups of the every day varietal. Arrowroot cookies on a plate slowly devoured by the boys as words slowly bubbled to the surface none of them sure how to tip-toe 'cross the still barley realized truth. After the cookies were gone and the tea nearly finished, the younger of the two boys spoke. He had always been the quiet one, speaking rarely in public, but always with meaning and direction when he did. He was the first to say it completely out loud in such bold matter of fact that only a typewriter could have placed the words any clearer or more tangible. His father was dead. His father had killed himself. There was no outburst of emotion. No tears. No hugs. No anger. No denial. It was plain as the daylight sun which now peaked it's nose over the eastern wood adjacent to the house. Though no one said it, and never would, there was a crutch of relief that they all clung to. Had it not been like this. Had it not been now. When? They, at least they at this table, knew that his sanity had been wrought to it's thinness by the marriage itself. The eldest brother had often wondered at night just what would become of his father if his parents ever did finally decide to untie the knot. It saddened him that his earliest suspicions were in fact what had come to fruition. He simply had never been able to believe that his father was still strong enough to continue all on his own. His will had long ago been withered to support only the concept of his family, even if the family was itself a facade. They hadn't been a family for years, not since the daughter was still breast feeding, the boys were scraping their knees and sword fighting in the yard with baby poplar tree's cut before maturity.

She told the boys she had to work the next day. They protested, agreeing that an event like this surely made her exempt for her chores of financial toil. She waved this off telling them that if anything it was the best for her to focus on something that was still within her realm of control. The body had not truly been identified yet, though in a small town there was little doubt, specially when a body is found in it's home with all pieces of identification there neatly for display. The youngest volunteered to go to the morgue to see what he felt his mother could not. The eldest saying he would stay home with the sister and attempt to help her make sense of her father's fate while also making the necessary arrangements for his funeral. After this they wordlessly climbed into bed. Her children all under the same roof and in their bed's of growing for the first time in years.

She worked at the hospital. Providing care to the elderly and incapacitated. The thought did cross her mind that somewhere down in the basement below them her ex husband's body lay cool in the steel cooler. Word had not fully leaked 'cross the community so there was little chatter among her co-workers yet. No platitudes of sympathy and support that were sure to come in the weeks that followed. She held it to herself until her last round of the afternoon. She was a friendly woman to be sure, never an unkind work to be said of her from those that knew her. And even those that spoke any criticisms were those closest to her, and as such had seen the worst that went 'long with her best. As said, on her last round at work she finally spoke the words to someone that was not her family.

The elderly lady was bed ridden and trembled she she attempted to move. But there were still reminders the experience and beauty that her life had been witness to before being struck to a wheeled bed at the service of women generations younger. When She told the aged women of what had happened, the elder of the two women had reached out her hard slender knuckles bumping the hand of the much younger woman before they took a firm grasp of her grieving junior. She spoke of things past, and loves that forget that they are even love. A lifetime of emotion placed on top the past twenty four hours. It was a warm blanket, fresh out of the dryer on a cold winter's night. For the first time since hearing of the death she allowed herself to cry without holding back. Held in the rail thin but, at this time, such strong arms of someone who was there for her as she finally allowed herself to descend into remorse. She did not have to be strong for this woman. This woman who had been strong for such a long life that now she once again felt s'though she was needed. Holding the still young woman who had cared for her as she let the small yet still powerful torrent of tears streamline her angular face.

It had never been the family's way to put someone in the dirt. So when the eldest called the funeral home he arranged for his father to be cremated and placed in one of the lower end casks. While it had never been the family's way to be frugal either they had certainly not believed in extravagance for the dead. The daughter remained in bed most of the day, leaving her room only to sip some tea with the brother and eat lunch with him. The younger boy had indeed identified the body as his father and then gone to lunch with some friends who thought his visit as nothing more than a whim. Things moved quickly after that first day, the funeral placed the weekend after the death. Family began to congregate around the household like wayward drifters looking for a place to stay. There's little rest when a death occurs, as if to suggest that there is no peace 'cept that in the great beyond where the loved one has found permanent recess.

The funeral itself was modest in presentation, though broad in scope of those that came to pay their respects. Never a religious family it was up to those present to provide the sermon, each speaker with a eulogy tailored to the deceased's memory. Words of admiration were placed unto the dead. Not all of which were true, but certainly all were accepted out of politeness if nothing more. It was held on the dock of his favourite lake to fish at during both winter and summer. The ashes were not spread in front of company, that was left to the family themselves who clambered into his old bumble bee yellow boat. The eldest cranked the outboard motor to a start and the three children and mother made their way to the centre of the lake. There was silence. No other boats dared near or even start their engines out on the open water. She drew into the pocket of her black sweater and withdrew the ring.

Cold and familiar she held it out in her hand palm up. The children stared knowing full well what it was. They sat staring at it. It represented more than the dust that sat within the simple brass cask in the hands of the daughter. The gleaming symbol of the union that had brought them into existence as a family. She briefly thought of offering it up to either of her sons, but knew that they would not withdraw it from her hand even if she did present it as a token of the family's continuity. Instead She took the cask from her daughter and unscrewed the top. After looking with doe eyes into the remains for a few moments she dropped in the glorified gold washer and re-fastened the lid. She looked from the children to the cask and then leaned over the bow and let go. It sank quickly and within moments was gone from their sight. No words were exchanged only a brief embrace before the outboard was once more fired up and they retreated to the shore.

She knew she had made the right decision. The ring was never a permanent fixture. It bound. And It bound well. Doing it's job as well as any person could have expected. In the end, it was mean to be outgrown, as all bonds are. And those bond's that don't expand around that which they secure tend to break. But this is natural. And with the puttering of the outboard She choked on her new freedom before tightly swallowing it. She knew that the only bond of her marriage that she need ever carry farther were her children, and their love. A ring that cannot be broken.

The Sirens of the Downtown East Side

2008-04-24T00:10:00.000-07:00

Their flirtation is such a sub structure of their personality that one could not help but wonder if it was instinct or merely a conscious and completely maligned aloof action.

The scene of these women is set within the dark auburn of aged and gnarled mahogany bars and pillars, who have seen many blood, sweat and tears over the years. So much so that one can often wonder of the fables they could recount of only they spoke. Schools of the ageless many flounder about, sticking to those of a similar scale, straying only when their environment permits. The clack of the pool table's spheres and the primal reverb of hip barroom disco is their soundtrack as they shift throughout the crowd conversing and drawing attention like the sirens of the Iliad. All sipping their vodka waters through long slender straws, and a look of distinct malcontent within their tasty glances. Like an electromagnet of military grade, their curving and elegant figures draw the glances of men. Their attention is not tempted to those simply interested in the realm of hetero, females distinctly giving them elevator eyes wondering what they carry beneath their thinning clothes and loud features that they themselves do not posses. Through the thick plume of conversation muddled by the liquor drenched breathes of adults to be, they carry the room upon their shoulders though the weight is not nearly enough to make them feign.

The chairwoman of the principle trio has all the charm of a circus ringleader. Knowing the thoughts and desires of all without ever having met them, though she does know many. Her brisk quick gate with legs of buttermilk smoothness is accented by a pair of run down cowboy boots that give an edge, with an echoing clip clop, to her walk. Gentle paws clench her drink tightly to her face as if to add mystique and uncertainty to her friendly warm features. From suitor to suitor she passes with kind words and eager eyes entrenching the men of the room with her passing atmosphere until she has made them drunk beyond their booze on her aura. In giggle and and transit, a small gaggle of men follow her to the front of bar where she makes a brief exit. Four lighters lifted to her deliberately held cigarette. No expectation on her face though she knows an eager cadre will surely appear to ignite her tobacco much the same way she's lit up their libidos. Always with a pick though. She, as a hunter inside, has her pick long before the night has even reached it's median. Knowing that, at a whim, she can turn her attention to this one particular boy and swivel his head without even lifting a finger. His fate sealed within a gentle smile and easy going conversation that spreads like warm butter across a hot piece of toast. Perfection until it is devoured, leaving only wantings. Almost unaware of her distilled beauty and tactics she goes along leading without dictating, simply having a following in toe.

Her second in command a delicately understated pixie who holds a resilient confidence much like the dandelions of spring. Continual and persistent without trying, though none the less beautiful for it. Unconsciously, without the fetters of bosom supports, she is comfortable within defying the societal norm and taking her style and highlights to the street with a deft and indifferent confidence. Her wardrobe is that with method, though without compromising the comforts she has known so well. Despite the fact that her feminist and ,frankly, lazy nature leaves her legs feathered with hairs, she still lures independent males into her personal bubble. Trapped within, these men succumb to her brilliance in both body and mind. Like an opiate of sorts her conversation carries inspiration and unbolted thoughts that leave the fellows with starry eyed wonder. Heels beyond her persona clickty clack with each step she takes. The rapping of heels could easily be mistaken for the popping vertebra of the necks firm affixed to the heads she turns unceremoniously. Her attentions are not such that she is capable of intense multitasking, picking a single Joe early in the evening. Fixated much like an artist sculpting a masterpiece of emotions she plys away at the layers of character and thought digging to the glowing and fragile core 'till satisfied. Nary is a gentleman capable on entrapping her within his charms, 'fore he hits every single snagline and pitfall she's already laid for him. With men set in their respective traps she retreats to solitary black her heels firmly snickering as she retreats. She is off the market, as it were, though she still enjoys shopping.

The third, though certainly in no way the least is a delicate fairie who carries herself as sophisticated dilettante beneath the light brim of a hat long lost in the annuls of ladyhood. Loose and flowing garments, one is left wondering what delicate intricacies lie beneath the crisp bundles of her clothes. Her ignorant modesty perhaps is her most attractive trait, refusing any and all compliments as they were a flagrant display of failing voodoo . Would be woo'ers tremble in lineups as they approach but are shrugged of by the affluent hand of the girl. Her eye without specific preference always wondering just who is at the back of the que. Glowing dark amber globes of vision sit on the precipice of her face conveying all the energy of a coiled feline. Surveying the room for herself and drawing the glances of those within her perimeter without endeavouring to do so. She is plainly only looking at the art 'cross the room, though the stomach's of those in her eyeline are now hugging their throats after a compelling leap. Simple flats allow her a ballerina's stroll through the crowds. Her sway and candour, the enablers of guys with the ambition and balls to approach her fragile gorgeous ambience. How they fail though. Her tastes undefined though certainly broad are the same keys to her perpetual solitary visage. No man may be an island, but among the crowd she floats lost at sea, ignoring those that would find her.

Their layers of character and fortitude spread thin, they wind them into strands of comfort and retreat into the night, partnered or no. The last song played and the bane of conversation at a reeling end, the grit of the street beneath the feet of many they turn their wandering steps off into the night. Temptress, vixen and tease. Names laid to all, though none land on mark, as few know them true enough to unerringly make any shot coming close to accuracy. They are the darling spirits of female entrapment their features and fluttering words the double edged blade of alluring bliss and banal heartbreak. As they go, no traces left save for the firm and indelible footprints left in the minds of the men who have met them. Long till they fade away and even longer before these men are to be again graced with audience. As shadows in the night they fade to black.

Thursday Part Three-

2008-04-03T23:19:00.000-07:00

“Okay, so do you just want me to wait here?”, I asked

"Well, yea? I don't exactly have any other way of getting home do I?”, he was halfway out the door looking at me kinda surprised.

"Okay, yea that's find. What if I need to leave for some reason?”

"What? you're gonna go get a drink? Another pack of smokes?”, his exasperation floweth over.

"Nah, fuck it. Go i'll steal some off one of these little shits if I need some.”

He shook his head at me and headed off towards the front entrance to the school. It being LA and Glen having the money his kids went to a middle ground private school. No uniforms or any shit like that, but a decent education. I rolled up the windows and cranked the air conditioning.

xXxXxXxXxXxX

Iisac may be a prick but he's right. At least in this instance. My son is inside that school and until i actually go in and talk to whoever it is that's holding on to him I 'm going to know what the damages are. Once I reach the front doors I turn around and looked back at Iisac's Beamer sitting calmly in the visitor parking lot. There's a thing trail of smoke streaming from the driver's side window. Fingers reached out and shake at me. Asshole. I turn and made my way into the school.

I pay this much for tuition and they can't even afford air conditioning? This is LA, what successful anything doesn't have air conditioning? Fuck this my kid's can go somewhere with uniforms for all I care, as long as it doesn't cook their brains. I make my way to the visitor information desk, where a pudgey black receptionist greets me with a gleaming crooked smile.

"Hi there I'm Glen Reuben? I'm Demetri's father?”, I ask my face less than confident. I realize this is my first trip to my son's school.

"Yes Mr. Reuben, I was informed that you'd be here sometime this afternoon you're going to want to follow this hallway down and then make two lefts. There will, well there should be at least, a door that read's “Neil Proctor-Principal”, just knock and go right on in.”, She was friendly enough pointing me in the direction I need to go before smiling and returning to her paperwork.

"Neil Proctor? What the hell kind of name is that? Was this guy born a principal? Sounds like it's got sharp edges. Remember that, you can use it in the script. Need an asshole name use Neil Proctor. Wonder if he really is an asshole? I keep going down the hallway. Funny how high school hallways seem so small after you've long outgrown them. The pale blue lockers lining the walls and the smell of teenager and photocopying assaulting my senses. The first day of school always smelled different, until everyone had a chance to get used to it. I start to daze off remembering my years in high school but am snapped back to attention after almost running into a shitheel looking teenager. He sneers and i barley pay attention. I make it to the door of Neil Proctor, his name spelled in black on the thin frosted glass. I knock.

"Yes come in”. A narrow but deep voice answers me.

I go in.

Apparently the budget of the school extends to the administrative faculty's offices.

"Hi Mr. Proctor?”, I extend my hand as I cross the room, only just taking notice of Demitri sitting in one of the two chairs across from.

"Mr. Reuben, nice to meet you. I only wish it was under better circumstances”

"I agree, oh...excuse me, pardon me I'm terribly sorry about this”

My phone had begun to ring playing the theme from Magnum PI. I looked down and checked the caller ID. Rachel. I held my hand up as if to say just one moment, and turned around flipping it open. Goddamn I love Magnum PI.

"Hello?”

"Dad, hey”

"Hi sweetie, what's going on?”

"I uh, I kinda need some help?”

"Did you get a flat? If you got a flat you know you can call triple A right?”

"Ya, i know that dad. I didn't get a flat.”

"Well, what's goin' on...I'm kinda busy right now?”

"shit....Um...Dad, I'm...don't get mad Ok? I'm at this guy's house and stuff is happening and my...the car is blocked in and they won't move their cars, and I can't get out and I just need someone to come get me. I'm freaking out”, Her voice is nervous and scattered. I'm not sure if I need to be mad or worried or both.

"Ok. I can't...fuck”, I look over my shoulder. Proctor has his arms crossed and looking at me suddenly impatiently, “I can't come but I'm going to get someone over there as soon as possible...ok? What's the address?”

I fish out a pen from my pocket and quickly scratch the address into the palm of my hand.

"Ok, you hold tight, just wait by the car”.

"I hang up the phone, and then immediately hit the first number on my speed dial.

"Hey what's goin' on?”

"Iisac, I need a favor”

"...am i going to hate you?”

"Probably. I just need you to do this and I need you to do this now”

"Fuck, ok tell me”, I hear him rustling with his pack of smokes and firing another up as he rolls down the window.

"I need you to go to...977....Granito drive”

"That's way the fuck out on West Hollywood!”

"God dammit Iisac, it's Rachel ok? I need you to go get my daughter. Just do it ok?”

"Oh, shit. Ok yea I'm going right now”

"Thank you”

I hang up the phone and put it in my pocket turning back to my Son and his principal. Demitri is barley concerned with my presence. He's either scared and doesn't show it at all, or he doesn't really give a shit and is wondering how I'm going to react to this. Either of these options puts him in the same boat as me.

"So what seems to be the problem Mr. Proctor?”, I ask.

xXxXxXxXxXxX

"That's way the fuck out on West hollywood!.....oh,shit. Ok yea I'm going right now”.

I hung up the phone and fumbled with the smoke in my hands for a few seconds before starting up the car and backing up out of my parking spot making my way out navigating the quickest route to West Hollywood.

People cite LA as being an urban wasteland. A morally ambiguous sheet of crumpled paper with different currents of ink flowing through all the cracks. It certainly is. I can't think of any other place that I've been where the rich and poor run such separate lives which still being parallels. Everyone wants to get high, everyone wants to get fucked and everyone wants to get rich. And quick.

I drove the car up and down the back streets cutting my way across the city in the most timely fashion avoiding the dense ripe traffic. Car jackings aren't the big deal that everyone makes them out to be and in fact rarely happen in the poorest neighbourhoods. Still this being said I didn't feel bad about locking my doors as I passed a couple of young hispanic guys wearing black bandanas. Pulling back out onto a main street I put foot to floor and carted off to the address that Glen had given me.

It was a goddamn pornstar mansion. Big empty villas in the thick of high class suburban sprawl that the adult film industry bought for the sole purpose of filming. On the outside they looked completely normal, but on the inside you've got several big cocks and a variety of fake titties conglomerating for the sake of en masse nut busting. The residents near by these dens of sin were either usually completely oblivious to the goings of of their neighbours, to self obsessed. God bless America. There were three large SUV's parked in the driveway as well as a Catering truck, all of which were blocking in Glen's Audi sedan. The second chorus of “sympathy for the devil” died as i cut the engine in my car and opened the door, muttering something about how I wished I'd had another drink.

Does one simply walk up and ring the doorbell of a porn mansion and request the freedom of a sixteen year old girl? Fucked if I knew, bu it was really the only thing I had in mind. I approached the house taking a good look around, wondering what the resale value of the place was after they used it for something like this. The high vaulted ceilings and bay windows, which were covered, were pristine and free of typical Californian sun bleaching. The place was probably brand new, maybe even constructed for it's purpose. I walked up the front steps and ran the small pearl doorbell. After about a minute someone answered it. He was a tall but severely thin bald black man with a silk shit halfway unbuttoned. He spoke in a marked gay accent.

"Hello?”

"Uh, hi there? I'm looking for someone?”

"Yes? Who's that?”

"Rachel? Is there a Rachel in there?”

"Sweetheart I don't know, today if feels like everybody's in here”

"Um...can I come in?”, I had turned my head sideways completely unsure as to whether or not this was an appropriate question.

"Suit yourself”

I entered the house and made my way past the empty foyer, following the slighted and unnerving groans which appeared to be coming from the living room which was open and adjacent to the kitchen. The catering crew was cleaning up the remains of the lunches, mostly salads and a little bit of Sushi from the looks of it. They gave me looks of despondance, just another day on the job for them I supposed. Something didn't feel quite right. This was not the menacing hard edged porno production I had assumed it would be. No coked out whores lying spread eagle on the floor, no abusive looking guido director, or even a single mullet. This unexpected peace and prosperity still didn't sway my weary feelings and nearly parental fear for Rachel. Any second I might find some muscular hammer cocked jag off defiling her for the gratification of the camera. I turned the corner on the living room and was treated to the sight of a pair of spread ass cheeks being delved into with the lapping tongue of a burly hombre. It took me a second for the initial surprise of this to pass before I realized that the asscheeks in question was that of another male. I suppose it was the pristine baldness of the O ring that threw me from determining this in the first place that or the fact that it was bleached. There was significant groaning from both men. The ass licker being jerked off by the lickee, and complete silence among the rest of the crew who massed around manning lights and mics. The guy getting his ass spackled was considerably younger than the other guy, eighteen at a stretch. Rachel was sitting in a folding directors chair a few feet away from the camera man, arms crossed looking sullen. All my nerves and fear washed away by her petulant glare of disgust at the two men's activities. I started laughing. All eyes in the room turned to me, including Rachel's which increased in size by about triplefold.

"CUT! What the fuck? Who the fuck are you?”

A normal looking white guy wearing a baseball cap and faded blue jeans stood up from his place next to the camera and turned toward me, indignance across his face. The two guys in the scene had stopped and leaned on their sides. The ass licker was taking a drink of water handed to him by a PA.

"I'm, Hey I'm sorry. I'm just here to pick her up?, I jutted my thumb towards Rachel who was now covering her face.

"Ok, but who the fuck are you?”, his hands were on his hips and he jutted his chin forward at me.

"I'm, I'm a friend of her dad's, it's a long story, really I'm just gonna get her and then we can get the fuck out of the way, oh and I kinda need someone to move one of their cars outside? It's blocking in that Audi, which is actually her dad's”, I stumbled along not sure if there was any proper etiquette I should be presenting myself to this guy with.

He just stared at me dumbfounded not entirely sure what to make of this strange guy who had seemingly wandered onto his set in search of a teenage girl that wasn't supposed to be there anyway.

"Ok...fuck...ok everyone take five I'll deal with this!”, he had turned back to the cast and crew throwing his arms up in the air.

I spotted a boom mic man lighting a smoke after removing his headphones and lit up my own smoke. Rachel stood up and walked over to us sheepishly for a second. But the director still wasn't done with me.

"Ok, I'm glad you're here to pick her up but seriously man, did you have to interrupt my shot like that? You know how fucking hard it is to eat an ass and get jerked off at the same time? It's like playing fucking Tetris while reading War and Peace! Can I have a smoke?”, rising up and down like a seismograph's etchings, his voice had settled at a low level complacency as I handed and lit him a smoke.

"Listen I'm really sorry, I work in the movies too and it was totally unprofessional of me, it's just she said she was in some kind of trouble so I had to rush over here, and I walk in here expecting it to be like some scene from Blow and instead I walk in on that guy chin deep in a chocolate starfish...it shook me a little”, I shrugged and made a meshugeh expression.

He straightened up from his hunched over stance of beratement and looked at me slightly taken aback.

"Oh you work in the industry too?”

"Yea, well...not the industry industry...like not porn, but movies yea”

"Me too! Well, that's the dream...but you know fresh out of film school and I realize that my certificate doesn't mean dick and I'll still be running coffee for three years, so I decided to make some money...y'now? Pay off the student loans?”

"Uh yea, that...that makes sense”, I said shifting my glance back towards Rachel, raising my eyebrows trying to get her to move, “She's not high or anything is she?”

"Her? Shit no. Despite what you'd think the people that work in porno aren't really coke pigs anymore...I mean we've still got it around, a little hit every now and then is fine, fires you up but for the most part nah”, He spoke in a way that suggested Rachel being high was laughable.

"Oh really? I mean that's one of those bad myths?”, I asked gesturing with my hand beside me for Rachel to get going. This guy was going to pop the question any second now and then I would be trapped forever.

"Yea, I mean Porno's too lucrative these days. You can't shoot a movie in one day if you're all burnt out and shit. So what movies have you worked on?”

Fuck.

"Uh, not really anything that big. I mean I'm a writer and stuff so-”, I had only dug myself a bigger hole by bringing up my status as a writer.

"Oh really?! What have you written?”

"Rachel had stood up and was now making her way towards me, her head slumped down as if she was embarassed. She stood waiting next to me while the director waited for my answer.

"Uh...just some stuff, you've probabl-”

"C'mon don't be so modest just tell me”

"You see Hammer Down?”

"You're fucking kidding me! I love that movie! That part where Dom shoots the crocodile?! AWESOME!”, His eyes had gaped and his hand was half extended as if he might try to shake mine.

"Yea, well. Glad you liked it. Um listen who do I talk to about getting those car's moved out front? It's just blocking in the Audi and that's actually her car and it'd be nice if we didn't have to leave it here”, I pointed out to the front.

"Oh shit, yea she was saying something about that, Lenny was just in the scene and y'now can't really break the actor's method, but yea sure I'll send him out there right now. LENNY! Where the fuck are you?”, Forget just moving the cars the guy probably would have sucked my dick if I asked. He shouted into the air making a makeshift megaphone with his hands before turning back to me.

"So what are you working on right now? Is it another horror? your horror was tight holmes!”

"Uh yea thanks, where do I?”, I akwardly held up my hand with my smoke butt unsure of where to ditch it in the house.

"Here! yea I'll take that”, He snagged the sad stubbing filter from my fingers and momentarily held it aloft the way one might examine a diamond to the light.

This creeped me out a little and I stared at the oblivious guy, eyebrow raised.

The young pornstar who had been getting his salad so rigorously tossed approached us a towel around his neck and a scraggy pair of boxers around his waist.

"Hey Rachel are you leaving?”, he spoke towards Rachel his voice sounding like that of any other teenage male, his smile that of a set in the mold douchebag.

"I turned my head eyebrow still raised from the increasingly fanboyish director to Rachel who now had re-crossed her arms releasing a “harumph”.

"Yes Dennis. I'm leaving. Like I would have left an... hour ago if.... that guy...Lenny! If Lenny would have moved his damn car!”, The youthful inexperienced candour in her voice would have normally produced a laugh from me but the situation was just getting entirely too weird. She knew that guy. What the fuck.

"Woah, why are you so pissed off?” the guy was defensive holding the towel out between his hands still wrapped around his neck.

“Whatever forget it, Iisac can we go?”, Rolling her eyes she turned back to me.

"Yea that's probably a good idea, is Lenny moving that car?”, I turned back to the director.

"He will be. LENNY!”, He walked off yelling and I watched him pocketing my the butt . I sure hoped that it didn't end up on Ebay.

Rachel, what? what's so-”

"Back off Junior”, I said turning Rachel towards the door with my arm.

"Hey fuck you man! She came here with me!”, I turned back to see him indignantly puff out his chest.

"Sit down, your ass probably needs drying off more than your neck”

Rachel sniggered.

"What the fuck Rachel!? This is bullshit”, His hands were now in the air above his head.

"Don't bother calling me”, she said not bothering to turn around.

"What?”, his voice cracked.

I sniggered.

Outside Lenny wearing his own pair of boxer shorts moved his Lincoln SUV as Rachel pulled out from behind it and I attempted to ward of the director's further attempts to get into my good graces.

"And that's my card, but I don't really use the Fax, it's probably just best to e-mail me, ok? Can you do that?”, He shoved the thin and poorly made business card into my hand as I made my way down the front steps.

"Yea that's cool man...”

He grabbed my hand and brought his face right up next to mine and whispered intensely.

"No seriously. If I have to do this much longer I'm going to hang myself in my closet”, his frantic tone caused me me to involuntarily turn and look at him with a uncontrolled expression of disgust. I took a few more steps and had to yank my hand away from his.

I walked up to the car where Rachel sat in the driver's seat tensely gripping the steering wheel.

"I'm not going to tell your dad about any of this, but for me...for how goddamn weird that was...you have to tell me what the fuck just happened”, I lit a smoke.

"Iisac, really?”

"Really”

"I don't...grrrrmmm...shit, ok like....Dennis, he was all like hey you want to go hang out after school, I've got this really cool thing we could do. I was like sure, I mean I thought he was cute, and we might just end up-”

"Yea Ok, yea I get the picture there”, I raised my hands to stop her.

"But then we got here, and there's all these people doing fucked up shit, and then Dennis starts going off about how if you do gay for a while, what...what did he say...if you pay your dues? If you pay your dues you get to do strait shit? Like he'd get to have sex with girls?”, She stumbled through her memories of the past hour looking more and more confused every second.

"Ok. That's fucked up”

"Where's my dad?”

"Probably having more fun than us.”

Green Dust

2008-03-24T17:53:00.000-07:00

Jeremy turned the coin over in his hand. Flipping it over the underside of his knuckles. It was a large coin. Certainly at least the size of an american silver dollar, with perhaps a slightly larger breadth and far more detail. Perhaps details weren't the most appropriate way to describe the extremities of the small golden disc, but none the less I cannot find a better word.

The edges were smooth as if finely polished with first an expensive file and then made to gleam with a metal brush. It was the central body of the coin, however, that was the most curious. At the quarter marks surrounding the edge there appeared to be fine thin lined valves inlaid into the metal. These were barley discernible to a keen sense of touch and only visible to the sharpest of naked eyes. In the centre there was a mounted sliding cylinder, like the piston and cranks of a train engine. Unlike the valves these stood out and were keenly visible. Directly above the central shaft two letters were inlaid into the gold in flowery curvaceous lettering that suggested Victorian sensibilities. They were simply “FG”. The flip-side of the medallion bore no markings save for a faint outline of a hand-print that bevelled out from the surface.

It was, overall, a very puzzling trinket. Jeremy had found it dangling atop a sewer grate on his way to work and, after rescuing it from the bowels of the city, had pocketed it only to forget about it until arriving home. Now, slumped in his favourite brown armchair, tie loosened and sleeves rolled he turned the coin in his hand wondering what the origin of such a peculiar object could be. He had certainly never heard of any nation which employed such a drastically strange design of currency. Valves and hand prints? How peculiar, he thought.

Coin still in hand he made his way to the fridge reasoning that it could not be a nation's form of currency. Responsible country's tended to label such things as legal tender, and whatnot. Returning to the armchair a bottle of beer firmly in his left mitt he flopped down and let out a great sigh.

Despite the fact that it was winter in London, Jeremy felt oddly warm for not having adjusted the thermostat in his flat. In the chair ,while thinking about women that might have been, the larger TV he wanted to own and other such things he would do with money he didn't have, he absent mindedly began to flip the coin. They were slow lolling flips, with only one or two tumbles per flip, the way one might flip a dollar of salami before popping it into one's mouth. He did this for several minutes before the coin landed back in his hand, noticeably warmer than any coin should be after any length of time in a person's palm. It actually hurt a little.

Jeremy muttered a curse and looked down astonished and slightly disbelieving at what he saw. Firstly the coin was no longer it's rich golden hue but a white silvery matte. Secondly the handy print symbol had descended into the body of the coin so far that one could be sure it was no mere trick of the light. Thirdly, and perhaps most surprising of all, the piston shaft was slowly ocelating back and forth while the valves intermittently released small spurts of what at first glance looked like steam but were actually jets of emerald dust.

Jeremy, from all accounts took this rather strange, and frankly unbelievable site rather well. After pinching himself twice to ensure that he had not been drinking skunked beer, he chose to accept that he was indeed holding a hot, colour changing coin with a piston which emitted tiny spurts of twinkling green dust. Stranger things, he was sure, had happened.

While he studied the coin in his hand it slowly began to cool down and revert to it's original colour, emitting its last coughs of dust seconds later. He became annoyed. If something is doing something extraordinary it has no right to simply stop doing, was his feeling. After several more minutes of studying the now inanimate object Jeremy took another swig of his beer and once more went back to considering why it had done what it had done i, and if it would ever do it again. After he did this for five minutes he left it on the coffee table and promptly and unreasonably forgot about it.

A couple of hours later after checking his email, showering and eating a large bowl of spaghetti he strolled back to his large brown armchair and once more picked up the golden disc. Holding it in his hand he turned towards his bedroom, and wishing that he were in that pretty girl's bed, from the disco he went to a week prior, he flipped the coin hard and fast. There was a loud pop and Jeremy found that he was no longer standing in his sitting room but atop the douve of a king sized mattress in a bedroom he did not recognize.

Now, having accepted the fact that he was indeed in possession of an unruly dust spouting steam engine coin a mere hour ago, it is understandable that Jeremy's attitude to his sudden appearance in a foreign place rather lax. Although, this was not to say he was not surprised.

Eye's agape he shifted his feet back and forth on the bed which, even though he was merely standing on it, he could tell was much more comfortable than his own. The walls were lined with hand drawn charcoal pictures, but the rest of the room was completely barren save for a dresser that sat at the wall opposite the bed's headboard. The blue carpeted floor he thought bare until turning his attention to a row of shoes that lined up just next to the dresser. Among these Jeremy recognized something. A pair of delightfully saucy red pumps, of the variety that often makes women feel competent, sexy and full of mysterious cheek. Jeremy didn't know this about the shoes, he only recognized them. They were the shoes of the young woman he had lavished attention on at the disco the week prior.

Now Jeremy for all his other traits was no genius but he had certainly seen and read enough science fiction to understand what had just happened to him. And in understanding he knew that he should probably be leaving fairly soon 'lest he be discovered gawking awkwardly barefoot in the bedroom of a woman he really didn't know. As previously established Jeremy was no genius. It didn't take a genius to figure out that by simply concentrating on this woman and flipping on his flattened golden bauble he had transported himself to her home. While he understood that it had happened, and the basic principle of it's happening Jeremy possessed no knowledge as to why it happened.

To those wondering about these particular how's and why's I suggest you don't think about it to hard and accept that it has to do with neuromotive links and matter transference particles which is more information that poor Jeremy was privy to.

While just barley scraping the surface of understanding, Jeremy heard the front door unlock and click open. After his eyes nervously darted around the room for a moment they focused on the coin which which was still in the palm of his hand. His gaze quickly shifted from the coin to the bedroom door, and back. He let out a quick sharp exhale and turned so he was facing the way he had when he became tangible in the room. Focusing on his armchair back home he once more launched the coin from the nook created by his thumb and forefinger. The thin cylinder thrummed through the air. However as the coin landed back in Jeremy's outstretched palm, hot and buzzing with activity, but there had not been the expected pop and sudden change of location. The coin hissed and whirred in his hand as he stood looking rather stupid on the strange woman's bed. The valves and piston face up at him. More noises from the adjacent room, and Jeremy began to sweat. He licked his lips and prepared another attempt. This time he closed his eyes again and concentrated even harder on his wonderful easy chair. The coin floated through the air again and landed with a very gratifying pop in Jeremy's hand. He slowly opened his eye's, still not entirely sure the coin had worked but was relieved to find that he was once more in his room, and was indeed standing on his brown armchair.

He opened his hand to look down at the coin to see that the “hand” side of the coin was now facing up at him. The hand, sunken into the coin now carried one word in the same floury cursive as the “FG” on the opposite side. Home. Jeremy at once began to question why the coin had worked this time, and after several minutes of puzzling decided that it was possible that the coin could transport him provided the “hand” side of the coin landed face up in his palm.

Eager to prove this theory Jeremy began focusing on another place to teleport but stopped after he came to a quick realization. He had to make sure he focused very hard on where he was about to go. Making sure to have no fleeting thoughts of a place like the middle of the sun or somewhere else equally unsavoury. He felt he had been lucky not to end up inside a wall on his two previous jumps. After this Jeremy poured all possible concentration into the image of his kitchen, flipping the coin hard and fast once more. It landed in the palm of his outstretched hand the piston side facing up. There had not been a pop, and Jeremy was still standing in the sitting room. He felt a pang of pride at his hypothesis being accurate, thusfar. Again he flipped the coin and as it landed he heard the familiar snapping in the air and he stood suddenly in his kitchen. The hand-print in the coin now had the word “kitchen” embossed into the silvery glowing face.

Elated at uncovering the mechanics of the coin in under a half hour Jeremy decided that it would be prudent of him to attempt a teleportation of distance, preferably to somewhere nice. Go on a little vacation, you know...for the weekend.

He packed a bag, and after first making sure he could teleport with the bag, thought of the places he would most like to go. He quickly realized that, rationally, he would only be able to go places he had already been otherwise he could imagine and focus on the locals to which he wished to travel. He began to remember a wonderful hotel he had stayed in in Paris the previous year. Feeling quite assured that there would be a vacant room at this time of night in the middle of October he set forth imagining the hotel lobby as best he could. When he was sure that it was securely locked in his mind's eye he gave the coin yet another flick and watched it tumble through the air for the last time.

As the coin began it's descent the telephone rang and, on instinct , Jeremy turned his head towards the noise losing his concentration on catching the coin. It bumped against his fingertips and fell to the ground disappearing in a puff of green dust coupled with the now all to familiar pop. The phone still ringing Jeremy instantly realized what happened and stood perfectly still almost too stunned to be completely furious with himself, not to mention the phone which now re-directed to the answering machine. The caller left no message and promptly hung up.

Still stunned and furious Jeremy put down his suitcase in the middle of the living room and crawled into bed where he didn't fall asleep until four hours had passed, so overcome by grief, disappointment and his own stupidity.

It was around the time Jeremy fell asleep that Raoule trod on a strange looking coin in the middle of his hotel's lobby. He picked it up and deposited it in his right hand jacket pocket where it was quickly forgotten about until he withdrew it a week later back home in Spain.