And I want to be the king of my castle And I feel like a pauper in my home And I need to be master of my domain And I believe no man should be alone
And I want to flit about on empty floors And I feel the scream of doubt that clogs my pores And I need cold water to wake me up And I believe no answers are found in a cup
And I want my friends to know I am here And I feel my family hold on to a tear And I need a fresh face without a mask And I believe no answers to questions they ask
And I want to find words that aren’t in a book And I feel too much pain will allow me to look and I need a new name to reflect all these changes And I believe no pen is worthy of these exchanges
A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.
by Marcus Jonathan Chapman
Her razor blade was still on the nightstand, dried brown with blood. There was water running, the shower, she must have turned it on to hide any sound. What sound, I didn’t know, but then again suicide is often uncharted territory if done correctly.
I put her clothes from the hospital in the hamper and sat on the bed. What were all those forms I needed to fill out? What were those phone numbers I had to call? Why did I put her clothes in the hamper?
I stood up, compelled by the only instinct, I knew. I headed down to the cellar and grabbed the first bottle of wine on the rack, not bothering to read the label. I suppose it wasn’t instinct, simply learned behavior.
I pulled off the label, twisted into the cork and popped it open. Red wine. Whiskey would be better but I was able to hide my learned behavior behind a hobby of wine collecting. Maybe that was one of the reasons that compelled her to leave. One of many, I guessed.
I went back to the room. No glass, just the bottle. I laid in bed. I need to fix that baseboard it’s loose. She had pointed it out. I never got around to it. Probably never would. Perhaps that was one of the last remaining forms of communication between us. A shared responsibility for the house. Without that, what was the house?
I turned and saw the razor blade still poised on the edge of the night stand. I imagined it had just been used and looked down to see the crowns of blood on the floor below it. What had that felt like? Sitting here, hiding from me, wanting to escape, not just this home but everything. There wasn’t a single place she would have rather gone, could have gone other than to that unknown place that hovers like a stick behind us. Or maybe in her case, like a carrot dangling in front of us.
A deep emptiness seemed to push all else out of my stomach. A pit so vast I couldn’t drink fast enough to fill it. The emptiness forced tears out of my eyes and shaking so violent I double over, gripping my pillow. It pulled my face in all directions, contorting my mouth into ugly cries. There was a deep hole and would not be filled again. Never.
What did it feel like to sit here, shower running and cut into the veins of the wrist? To cut so deeply that the blood rushed out like a crack in a dam. What sort of emptiness was that? Or was it exactly like my own. An agonizing look into nothingness.
I grabbed at the razor blade, spilling my wine. What sort of emptiness did she feel? That woman, that once called herself mine. My woman. A woman. What did it feel like?
I step outside and look around at all the legs and torsos around me. I can’t see too far because of the fog around my head. Everything is monochrome, it’s always been monochrome but I have a feeling that I’m missing color. It’s a dull ache and I suspect that the heads of those around me, attached to the necks, torsos, and legs of those passing me in the fog, poke through the clouds above. Others breath fresh air, they see colors above the fog, they feel and express those feelings.
I stand on my toes and crane my neck, willing my head past the clouds to something else. I never seem to be able to reach it. I’ve stacked crates, books, climbed ladders, but I can never get high enough to see past the monochrome.
Sometimes, I’ll go to a bar and some old man will push a glass full of gold with bubbles in my direction. I drink it and I catch glimpses of brightness, take deep breaths and feel something in my chest, rattling at my rib cage. Some moments there’s a tiger biting at the bars and other moments there’s a mouse passing freely throughout the world of my body. The bubbles in my glass fizz and pop but my head is tilted toward the sky.
There must be a reason young men look up at the sky and shake their fists while old men stare at the ground and rub their tired hands. I was born to die but while I wait I wave my hand in a long, slow goodbye. My eyes see but I think I’m blind. Ropes are for tying down and swords are for cutting but love is for those still waving goodbye.
Seduced by the plump arils offered up in the hands of Hades. Those tempting seeds spilling through his fingers and falling over the edges of his hands, stained red. Twelve devils surrounded the king of the underworld each a different shape, size, color and vice. They whooped, coughed, choked, laughed, cried, screamed, roared, cut themselves, masturbated, penetrated their orifices with objects that stretched their cavities. They pointed their chipped fingernails at me with one hand and spread blood, oozing from their self-inflicted cuts, over their skin and hair. Macabre wrestlers making their bodies slick with blood instead of olive oil.
A scene designed by the lord of the underworld to make his outstretched hands appear the most enticing choice. To grab those seeds and feast in the face of excessive debauchery would be a triumph.
The revolution, however, is only won by turning to a demon, lathering myself with the blood from my own wounds and wrestling until each one in the circle is bested. I feel the gash in my stomach, poke two fingers inside and slowly wipe them over my face. I feel the cuts along my legs from the thorns they pushed aside and wipe them around my neck, shoulders and arms. I wipe the blood dripping from my forehead, and rub it all over my chest and legs. I take my pointer finger and push it into the deepest cut in my chest. I slather it over my waist and buttocks. I rub my hand over the open wound in my chest and put it to my lips.
In a dream I heard the words whispered, “Her essence is so old it no longer recognizes the shadows of life.” I don’t know what it meant but the voice was musical in my sleep but I woke up with a familiar pain. One for which I no longer have a name.
It was the ache of having lived a life uncharted, with no direction, no map. The aimless wandering of a fool searching for any glint of recognition in human or animal. Wild animals are becoming more familiar, trapped in their loneliness, distrustful of anything outside their instincts. My base desires becoming needs.
I no longer live like the others. I understand those mysterious untimely deaths. They are of habits known only to the deceased, leaving everyone living to wonder why. Close relatives believing what danger surrounded their loved one is something that used to be not knowing that the danger is. Always.
Can it be contagious? Does it become an itch to which their is only one scratch?
Janine’s phone was off. It was never off. I
only found out because eventually her father answered the house phone.
“She cut her wrists with a
knife or razor blade or something. Anyway, she’s fine she just needs some time
away from everything.”
I could have crushed his frail ribs with my
fists. That naïve–
“Where is she?”
I didn’t care to filter my anger. Sometimes
reality forces its hand despite our best efforts.
“At the BMC”
I hung up. No more wasted breath.
#
I walked in the front entrance of the
institution where crazy lived. Outside crazy was called normal. Inside it
smelled like rubbing alcohol. In the waiting room, everyone’s hair was shiny
and thick. The bags under their red eyes reminded me of how I felt every
morning.
I walked up to the plate-glass window and
spoke softly.
“Is there a Janine Ibsen
here?”
“Yes, may I ask who is
asking?”
I faltered. I imagined one of her parents requesting to see her and the
nurse saying, “you’ll have to wait until her boyfriend is out.” I chose the
path we had already paved.
“A good friend.”
“One moment, please.”
Janine and I had been dating for over a year,
but the situation felt so foreign.
“Put this on, walk through the
double doors all the way down the hall and when they ask for a number tell them
0147.”
I put the fluorescent green sticker on my
shirt and walked. I thought about what I
might see when I found patient 0147.
Jesus! It’s Janine. I almost vomited at that thought. I pictured her
feigning a frown at me after one of my farts. I really got a kick out of that.
I should have treated her like a lady. Then I thought about her tiny wrists
looking like raw hamburger meet. I
reached the locked doors and the buzzer spoke.
“Patient number please.”
“Um, hold on.” Shit. “Oh yeah,
0-1-4-7.”
The buzzer sounded and I jumped at the door.
Janine’s mother was crying in the hall. She
looked up and came over to hug me.
“It’s okay.” I said hugging
her back.
I felt awkward for telling such a bold lie. I
knew how she was feeling but I didn’t give a shit. Her sadness started to make
me angry and I asked her where Janine was. She didn’t answer.
“Can we pray together?” I
ignored her and walked to the nurse’s station.
“Which room is patient 0147
in?”
“Her name?”
“Janine Ibsen.”
Why give me the fucking number?
“She’s in room 31 down the
hall on the left.”
I thanked her and started down, passing her mom, I heard her again.
“Can we pray together?”
What the fuck was pressing our hands together
supposed to do? I picked up my pace acting as if I was anxious to see Janine.
The pounding in my chest told me I wasn’t acting. Sometimes reality really has
a way of forcing its hand.
Room 27…
…29…
…31.
I took a deep breath and knocked softly with
one knuckle. I didn’t wait for an
answer. I brushed the door open. Their she sat, in a chair with her arms
bandaged and facing upwards. Her black curly hair twisting all around her head.
Her eyes squinting slightly, shifting back and forth. She looked as if she were
trying to solve life’s mysteries. I melted.
“Hi baby.”
I walked over and sat on the bed next to her
chair.
“I love you. How are you?”
I had asked this question in passing to
thousands of people but for the first time I meant it.
She answered slowly. I was aware of my
silence and touched her leg. She looked up at me, then right back down at the
floor before making her thoughts audible.
“All of the questions are just
distractions. The deeper the question, the cleverer the distraction. What’s on
TV? What should I wear? Who am I? Is there a God? If life were just a fart,
would death be the wind?”
A burst of air shot through my nose. I squeezed her leg and realized that I had never loved anyone more.
The little bitch whined all night. A heavy sigh with a whimpering high c-note at the end. If it wasn’t for the fact that I had just quite smoking, the dog would still be alive. That incessant whimpering crawled into my ears, clamped down into my brain and roared into the area that inspires rage. You might call what happened next cynical.
“STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPP! SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Spit flew all over the kitchen. My vocal cords vibrated, and squeezed together, forcing me to cough. For two, maybe three seconds the dog lay quiet. Then started its whine again. With each breath a whimper, so soft and pathetic but each one built up a wave that lapped at my sub-consciousness. Until I whipped around and stood up, lifting my chair above my head and slamming it down next to the sad beast.
Now it shivered. I shivered as well, holding two splintered legs of my only kitchen table chair. I was blind with anger.
The fucking dog kept whining. I picked it up and shoved it outside, into the snow. Then I grabbed the lighter and began touching the flame to everything that would catch. All around the house, I danced and paused, kissing the lighter to the corners of paintings, books, magazines, towels, jackets, shirts, anything reaching out its pursed lips to make out with my lighter.
I no longer shivered as the house glowed with oranges and reds. I tossed the lighter into the dirty clothes hamper and grabbed an un-kissed jacket from my bedroom chair. I threw it on and went outside to keep my dog company. It’s whimpering no longer affecting my mood but reflecting them. Its whimpering echoing the same hopeless sadness and anger I felt every waking moment of my life.
Now that life was burning 10 feet from where I stood in the snow, keeping me warm and melting the billions of frozen flakes around my feet.
I patted the dog on the head, who seemed to stop whining when I joined it outside, and watched that little bitch of a life filled with empty things burn. I patted my dog and we stayed warm.
Through the sliding glass door, I heard something hiss and gush, something that sounded juicy. Then I heard a shriek, followed by a pop. Shit, I forgot about the cat.
The morning arrived in a gradient of orange, purple and blue across the sky. The sun hadn’t pulled itself over the mountains and the moon was enjoying a glimpse of the day. The girl with the pearls in her eyes wept.
She wanted to hide from the noisy events playing in her mind. The potions from the previous night had not completely worn off and, more troubling, she couldn’t find her underwear. Buried, she feared, under the snoring ogres sprawled over the couches, chairs, tables and floor.
A thing of beauty she had wanted to glimpse. Not a thing, a feeling. Grabbing her knees, she forced her thoughts into the present. What’s next? No, that was the future. Where am I? She turned to look through a window but couldn’t recognize any of the fixtures through the glass. Her glassy eyes took in the room in front of her. The sleeping creatures around her were familiar in her flashes of memory from the night previous.
Where is my underwear? A chill shook through her as her questions probed deeper. Why aren’t I wearing them?
One of the ogres stirred, opening its eyes for just a moment and locking its gaze with hers before passing back into unconsciousness.
Could he know what had happened? Her mind fixated. She had a feeling. That question, and any answer or lingering doubt, would haunt her, either way. Where is my underwear?
She was realizing that something inside her would become stuck, no matter if she left this place or not. Her consciousness screamed at its daydreaming brother for details, but she was answered only with a feeling. More likely, a mixture of emotions that stirred in her a macabre feeling.
Anxiety, depression, sadness and darkness, if that could be called an emotion. It felt like more feelings were to blame but she had to force herself to become unstuck from that place. Her underwear was missing, she would not be. The front entrance was only a few feet in front of her, though sleeping giants lay in between.
She forced open the window and climbed out. Her skin tightening from the cold of the morning and the pearls in her eyes shining even though the sun was still hiding behind the mountains.
Whilst making a living... 