00:10, Near the Docks

“When will you stop…” Detective Wu muttered, rubbing his aching hip as he limped onto the staircase.

“Not far from retirement at this rate.”

A splash. Someone tossed a bottle into the water.

“Stop right there!”

His hands were steadier than his legs, so drawing his gun and switching his eye implant to night vision mode was almost instinctive.

“Come out! I won’t fire a warning shot.”

Out of the shadows emerged a pair of raised hands, followed by a bloated man stepping into the dim light. A worn-out jumpsuit and a bag slung over his shoulder—Wu instantly recognized him. One of those washed-up divers who used to hunt for precious metals in the river. Now, with robots taking over, all he did was fish corpses out of the rancid water they still dared to call a river.

Wu sighed, lowering his weapon. People like this man worked for loose cash and had all the time in the world, meaning this was going to take forever.

“Knew I’d miss Tarlenn’s show tonight,” he muttered.

The bum slipped into an old wetsuit, grumbling under his breath, and plunged into the water to search for the body. Wu had a gut feeling—he’d find something down there. It always happened this way before trouble. Like an ice auger twisting his insides. And tonight? Tonight was no exception.

A few hours earlier, Wu’s informant had called, gasping, to report “something” dumped into the murky waters of Gray River. Wu had been about to settle down with his console and a stiff drink. But that damn intuition forced him into his pants and out the door. Sure, he’d tried calling his boss, but the lazy bastard never picked up on a Saturday night. So, no official divers were coming. Wu had to do things the old-fashioned way—find some lowlife under the bridge and pay out of his own pocket.

“Why do I even bother?”

It was a question Wu had been asking himself for 30 years until it faded into mere rhetoric. Deep down, beneath layers of cynicism and the filth he’d waded through in this job, an answer still flickered: I can’t do it any other way. But Wu had forgotten that answer long ago.

The diver hacked up a cough, donned his oxygen tank, and submerged. The surface trash shifted like a stripper’s chest when someone tosses a hundred bucks her way. Ah, thanks, sugar.

The man was underwater for fifteen minutes. Wu smoked, relishing the quiet. His mind wandered to what they might find—a middle-aged man? An old geezer? A woman? A child? Please, not a child. Gray River’s victims were usually the dregs of the cyber-city—drifters, homeless witnesses to the wrong crime. Sometimes prostitutes.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of an approaching car. An expensive retro model purred to a stop nearby, sleek as a tiger stalking prey.

“What the hell is this?”

Wu was about to approach and question the driver when the diver resurfaced, dragging a limp body with him.

Wu threw off his coat and helped pull the cold, slick corpse onto the pier. The first attempt failed, the body slipping back into the water, landing on the diver’s head. On the second try, Wu managed to haul it out, feeling something creak painfully in his back.

“Great. Now my spine needs a replacement too. This case is costing me dearly.”

A car door slammed. Someone stepped out. But Wu wasn’t ready to deal with that yet.

Catching his breath, Wu examined the lifeless form. A young woman, barely in her twenties. No visible wounds, no marks on her neck or wrists.

The diver clambered onto the dock, immediately demanding his payment. Wu handed him a couple of credits—plastic, old-fashioned ones. The man scowled, expecting more, but Wu ignored him, focusing on the victim.

The girl was stunningly beautiful. Her skin, not yet entirely blue, gave her an ethereal, mermaid-like aura. Long hair—a rarity in this city. Smooth, flawless skin. A slim figure. She wore a simple white tunic, no underwear. No belongings nearby.

Wu opened one pale eyelid, checking for an ID implant. Nothing. What the hell? Who is she?

The icy knot in his stomach twisted tighter. Something wasn’t right. Turning her over, Wu searched for implants. His fingers danced across her back, shoulders, collarbones, hips, feet—nothing. No modifications. She was completely natural. Impossible.

For a fleeting moment, Wu doubted she was even dead. She radiated life, not the artificial kind, but something real. He felt an old, buried sensation—compassion. Gratitude for witnessing such beauty, even if only in death. It was a gift he didn’t deserve but accepted nonetheless.

Wu reached for his comm device to call for backup, but the air suddenly grew still. He noticed the diver backing away, eyes wide with panic.

“Don’t even think about it,” Wu mouthed. But fear had already taken hold. The man bolted toward the bridge. A couple of gunshots cut him down before he got far, leaving a second corpse on the pier.

A shadow loomed behind Wu. He turned slowly, facing a figure with a blurred face—an expensive camo program, the kind only politicians or gangsters could afford.

“Easy,” Wu said, his voice steady. “I’m with the police. Name’s Wu. Let’s talk this out.”

The stranger shook his head, gesturing for Wu to step away from the body. Wu complied. The figure approached the maiden.

Wu caught the diver’s movement out of the corner of his eye—a desperate crawl away. “Don’t,” Wu whispered. But instinct won over reason, and the man made a break for it. Another shot rang out, leaving him crumpled on the dock.

The figure pressed a gun to Wu’s temple.

“Turn around.”

“Alright, alright. No need to get heated.”

The figure cocked the weapon. Wu closed his eyes, memories flashing—his cramped apartment, his dog, Tarlenn’s show. But the trigger didn’t pull.

Instead, the retro car roared to life, vanishing into the neon fog. Wu turned. The maiden was gone. Only the diver’s body remained. A strange trade, though not surprising. You don’t abandon treasures, but someone like that diver? He belonged here.

Wu lit another cigarette, pulling his coat tight against the damp night air.

“Hell of a day.”

A short story about how a relationship can change in a flash...

And there was a place for him at the bedside, where the picture frame sat and the Zippo lighter leaned on the desk lamp’s post. She was busy cleaning the top of the table, leaving the small knick-knacky things on the bed—the dust particles transferred from the lamp’s cover and metal coating onto the clean comforter and pillow casings. All he noticed was that she had moved his brown slippers to her side of the bed, rather than the usual spot next to his dresser where he left them every day and night. It had been a long day and he wasn't going to use their few minutes together as an excuse to start a meaningless argument. To be fair, that had not stopped his feeble mind before. So the slippers had moved, and she was squeezing the spray bottle onto the wooden slat that made the top of the nightstand. It had been her idea to pick it up after a late lunch one March somehow ended up on the wrong side of town; and the houses were rough-looking. There was a collection of wooden furniture planted against the mailbox of a smaller looking house—it was, though, one of the larger houses on the block. There were cinder blocks stacked messily around the mailbox’s rotting wood beam. Evidently, it had been the victim (on several occasions) to a few swift innings of “mailbox baseball.” Next to the pile of furniture was a cardboard sign, withered from a few rainy afternoons, then the sun evaporating the water back out of it. FREE was spray-painted on the sign in bright neon purple. Before we traded in the four-seater for a two-seater, there was still room in my car for something besides two people and the occasional plastic bag of leftovers from an inexpensive restaurant. She had kicked her feet down from the dashboard and slapped at the window lightly—there was a shallow ticking sound that her ring made on the glass. Sometimes, she would switch the wedding ring from her left hand to her right when she was thinking about something enough to forget; he thinks it’s her envisioning her life if she had married that wad of paper from Terre Haute that she went steady with for a while. He meant to bring up the ring habit from time to time, but regardless of it being on his mind for long periods of time, He’d always forget to say something.

“Hey…hey!” she yelped, tapping and pointing at the mound of wood furniture. He was purposefully going slow because the roads were bad and he wasn't sure what kind of kids were raised around those parts. Whether it be the type that throws broken nails and rock clippings under their neighbor’s tires or the type that have parents that let their kids get hit by a long Cadillac. Always the babies that wander off down the stairs, grabbing onto the railing like their mothers did out of habit, and graciously work their way down to the concrete footpath. Their onesie’s grippy feet were grinded slowly as the baby shuffled its feet. A minute walking, a minute leaning forward to crawl and rest, and then back up to work again. Fortunately enough, the baby’s hands were made of the same stuff that Jell-O came from—at least that was what the baby’s older brother thought. And he told his friends such on the school playground when they inquisitively asked about the new kid brother responsibilities. Naturally, the metal gate was propped open from earlier in the day when the father had come home, half asleep, half drunk, and stumbled up the stairs, forgetting to latch the gate shut. Ironically, the baby had more stability from less than a year of walking than the father did from an unstable, disgusting forty-three years. The baby would make a cooing sound like that of a raccoon scratching a tree’s post for something to fall from it. And worse yet, the car would stop a few feet after impact so the baby would be pushed into the clear sky, making contact with the ground seconds later. And the onesie was no longer one piece of clothing.

So he reluctantly flashed his hazard lights a few yards away from the cinder blocked mailbox. Getting out of their four-seater, she was ecstatic placing her flattened wedges against the road’s rough patches. She could tell a car had been parked on that side of the road for a while because a few spots were sunken in and blackened from the skid marks. It was a miracle weeds hadn’t latched themselves onto the tires through the asphalt. Along with the battered nightstand, there was what appeared to be the top and bottom half of a china cabinet, a chair and its severed legs, pieces of an extendable dining room table, and a few wooden slats that had screws in their sides, so he assumed they were bedroom shelves. The pile looked more like a scrap heap for firewood rather than a petty charity giveaway. He wasn’t impressed and tried to visibly show it with his hands in his pockets, sticking out his thumbs like the orange flags in cones when you’re trying to find a parking space at a football game. The collar on his furry brown jacket was pointed forward, with the smoothness of the inner circumference hugging his neck hair. He swayed his head from one side to the other while his neck slowly popped in and out of place; it was one of those hollow cracks that breaks the tension inside, but can easily make someone’s head turn around to make sure your head has all of its wires still attached. However, she was uninterested with her husband’s bodily functions at the moment. Forgetting his manners of opening her door, and also because she practically shoved the door’s latch open, he traipsed behind her while she galloped to the mound, stopping as her shadow provided an overcasted shade to the wood pile. The pile was as dilapidated as the house looked from the end of the street. It was a one story house that was longer than it was wide. A window each flanking the glass screen door and a smaller, rectangular window tucked close to the rain gutter pipe: a bathroom window with the uncleaned frosted glass filtering the sunbeams hitting the ceramic tile. She leaned forward, almost with her knees scraping the concrete curb, and examined the pile: she went back and forth to the nightstand because [a] it was seemingly the only piece of furniture that was completely intact and [b] it was the only cleaner looking piece. There used to be rubber feet on the bottom to keep it from sliding too much and there were also drawers missing because the metal tracks were still drilled in the sides. The husband and the wife glanced a bit for the drawers but were greeted with no luck; and the wife was upset, but she put it past her and began to pick up the nightstand on her own. She felt that the back of the nightstand was held together with a microscopically thin slice of plywood, while the two pieces on the sides were thicker than any of the pieces of wood there. It was definitely handmade, with some chips on the top and sides.

“It needs a home, Chris,” the wife said to her husband. She looked at him as if he would miraculously just say no and walk back to the car. What he really wanted to say is that he didn’t want a trashy piece of termite-infested wood in his new house, much less her keeping those Neanderthalic ideas of taking old things and making them old things taking up new spaces. She talked about it like it was a lost puppy smothered in caked mud and didn’t have a tail anymore. It was lighter than she thought, but she still wanted to pick it up without either stepping on the wood, nor the grass. The grass was yellowed: there was a sprinkler next to the spigot on the side of the house, but from the naked eye, it was rusted closed. The sprinkler was over a foot long, but all of the rubber-ended holes were faced down in the ground and smushed closed, preventing any water from coming out. It was a new sprinkler from the hardware store, but all it knew was the dry dirt of a shady side of town and the cold reticence of the house’s shadow. Chris could also see long streaks in the grass from where a lawn mower had begun to cut the grass, but stopped in the middle, leaving it to grow unevenly. He pictured the entire lawn like a body covered in ingrown hairs: the cells just bubbling at the surface, putting pressure on the hair to just sprout out of the follicles.

“Don’t you think we ought to come back with some towels or something?” Chris said, “I mean who knows where and for how long this junk has been sitting here? And I don’t want dirt in my car, Grace.”

Out of all of his reasoning he attempted to do, all his wife, Grace, heard was him complaining about his car…all about his car, his car, his car.

“And that’s different from the containers of old drink cups and McDonald’s wrappers, how?”

A diabolic shot in the dark, and Chris was flattened and called out by his own wife. He thought it was a bit unfair, but he wasn’t going to argue with logic. She motioned him over, claiming that it really wasn’t that dirty, just dusty from the pollen in the grass. She smacked the back of it lightly to get a feel of the amount of pressure it could handle. He actually walked in the grass, around the dining room table pieces, and helped his wife take the nightstand to the car. It felt inhumane to just take it and leave, but the sign said for him to feel otherwise. Briefly stuck in a piece of wood, Chris unhooked his foot that was too close to the pile and managed to lift the drawerless nightstand to the right side of the car, hazards still flashing. The rigid corners of the nightstand slid, with inches to spare, in the car. They tipped it over on its left side, careful to not let it rock back and forth when they turned corners. As a safety precaution, and because Grace was a month pregnant, she got into the habit of buckling the seatbelts when something was in the back. Chris remarked on her doing that with the bags of groceries, talking to them like they had spit out their pacifiers and she had to clean the cat hair off of them. She buckled the passenger side and middle seat belts inward and secured the nightstand tightly. Chris managed to grab Grace’s hand as she began to make her way back over the pile for a possible round of seconds. He casually guided her to her door and closed it for her, remembering his taught manners at the opportune moment, drifting further away from a bad sense of disposition.

And there was Chris, acknowledging that his slippers were in the wrong place, and his wife cleaning the top of the nightstand promptly before they went to bed. He moved the slippers back, brushed his teeth, and exited the bathroom while his wife put the knick-knacky things back on. She kissed the picture frame, hoping her husband wasn’t looking, and placed it under the lamp’s light—it was a picture of their son, John. He was a baby in that picture: a curious, mindless baby that liked to walk more than crawl when he wanted to. The reflection made her grimace, noticing how blue his eyes had been early on. Once the lights were off, she was there, cradling her warmth in the fetal position, wanting to reach out and hold the picture to her heart until one day she would be in that picture with him. Chris was there to wrap his arm around her waist, feeling her heated pulse beating…beating…beating through her thin clothes. And as the people who were like clouds without rain gave away that free wood on that day with the clear sky, they were there to watch. A half dozen figures were watching in the dark while she rocked herself to sleep, making her body numb and her head spin like a colorful mobile above John’s crib. It played the music, whistling through the stillness of the house, breathing that dry, wooden air from the nightstand. The nightstand breathed right along with them, feeling and seeing things. And John was there with it, keeping an eye on his parents for a while…until things passed over. But how could he truly watch them when they were the ones that were twice dead. They would have been more careful had John given them a second chance to be.

(February 2024)

The party was like a snake, slowly wrapping around the guests until they could no longer move - the dance floor empty, the balconies sparse. Maybelle let her sandals dangle off one finger, tired and unwilling to move.

Cassidy, Taylor, and Daysha were still gathered around a cocktail table, empty glasses pushed to the side to make room for a tarot card reading. Maybelle had gone to the bathroom then decided to wait here, near the doors, instead of making her way back over. Her feet hurt and her head felt muddied a little as she leaned against a pillar and admired the ballroom.

It had been a surprise that her friend group had even been invited. Chelsea and Brian had gotten engaged, which had been the absolute talk of campus, for the seniors at least. Maybelle couldn't imagine being engaged; hell, she'd never even had a romantic partner before. And then they'd thrown the most grand engagement party their college had ever seen, thanks to Chelsea's family fortune. Campus was small, and pretty much all the seniors knew each other, but Maybelle still hadn't expected the little champagne-accompanied invitation at her apartment door. Maybe Chelsea left one at everyone's door.

The party was held in a historical building just off campus, only a ten minute walk for Maybelle and her friends, but they'd never been inside before today. It was once a grand hotel, according to the plaques, and standing inside it now, Maybelle wished she could time travel back and see it in its full, bustling glory.

She imagined butlers holding leather suitcases in their gloved hands, trolleying them up to the rooms that now held snack tables and offices. Women wearing pearls and little hats would walk into the ballroom, short heels clicking on the marble floor. They'd watch the men at the bar across the way, adjust their lipstick and pretend they didn't notice when the men watched them back.

Maybelle looked up into the sparkling chandeliers, across at the staircase winding up to the balcony, watching two people she vaguely knew flirt with each other, bumping shoulders and suppressing smiles. The ballroom was almost empty now, just a scattering of people at its edges, hidden partially by the large flower arrangements - pink roses and massive fern leaves. Chelsea and Brian were long gone now, and the warm lighting was dim, the pop music replaced by generic Muzak drifting faintly through the room.

"Still here, Maybe?"

Calvin stood just on the other side of the pillar she was leaning against. She was surprised he hadn't brought his friends around with him. They'd been lingering around her table all evening, making jokes while the rest of them rolled their eyes. At one point Maybelle had to pull Taylor away from body-slamming Seb, who kept telling her that her red dress made her look like a crab.

"Still don't know how to tie a tie?" she quipped automatically, peering around the pillar at him. He'd shown up with a knotted tie that, while maybe technically correct, looked horribly uneven. Now it hung over his neck completely undone, pulling her eyes to the unbuttoned button on his dress shirt.

She moved at the same time he did, and they ended up toe-to-toe, looking at each other. Maybelle didn't like that she was close enough to see the beginning of stubble on a face she considered to be always cleanly shaven. "I didn't realize you'd care so much," he said, looking down at their feet. His were in worn tennis shoes, despite the rest of his outfit being formal, and hers were bare. "Forgot how to wear shoes?"

"If you keep staring I'll assume you have a fetish," she told him. "At least I tried." Maybelle held her small pastel pink sandals in between them, brushing them against his stomach and causing Calvin to take a step back.

He narrows his eyes, a familiar expression to her. "Oh, wouldn't you like to know?" She knew he was referring to the fetish comment, but she didn't engage. Boys were predictable, and predictably, he trailed after her when she said nothing and walked around him.

When she reached her table of friends, he was just a step behind. What she hadn't noticed was Seb had squeezed himself between Taylor and Daysha, and Cassidy was explaining his tarot cards to him.

"Basically it means you're gonna die," Taylor interjected melodramatically.

Daysha laughed, and Cassidy shook her head. "No, it doesn't." Cassidy's long fingers splayed over the Three of Swords, and she directed her intense gaze on Seb. "It means heartbreak; you think you've found what you're looking for but it falls through your fingers, lost, leaving you feeling isolated. Not necessarily over a person, even."

"Heartbreak over something other than a person? Sounds like Seb. He'll probably lose his last save in a video game or something," Calvin laughed.

Seb held both index fingers up in front of him. "Whoa, man. As if you have any more game than I do. All that Magic the Gathering is like girl-repellant."

"I'm actually extremely sought-after," Calvin tried to say, but Taylor drowned him out with, "At least he's actually nice to people sometimes." Even though she was a foot shorter than Seb, she was still the most intimidating person Maybelle knew. Luckily for Seb, they were all well aware that Taylor would actually rather sleep with him than strangle him, despite the way she acted.

The rest of them let Taylor and Seb argue, and Cassidy spun her arms around, her long, bat-winged sleeves almost knocking over an empty glass. "Calvin! Your turn for a reading."

He picked up a card suspiciously, moving in towards the table, brushing up against Maybelle's side. "I don't think so."

Cassidy deftly took the card back and shuffled the deck. "If you play something called Magic then I'm sure you'll survive this," she told him breezily.

He made a grim but thoughtful expression, and Maybelle laughed into her hand. He turned at the sound, pinning her with eyes like a hawk. "Fine." Lower, he said to Maybelle, "But put those away, or I'll be too distracted to pay attention." He glanced under the table at her feet, and she huffed.

"Yeah, right. You could make an effort to just not look at me at all, how about that?"

Calvin snorted. "Easily." And Maybelle accidentally caught Daysha wiggling her eyebrows at her. Cassidy had a more subtle satisfied smile on her face. Her friends thought that Calvin and Maybelle's bickering actually meant something, but Maybelle was less convinced.

Calvin was an ever-present distraction, Maybelle knew that. They shared three classes this semester, and each one felt like another opportunity for him to show her up. He was stupidly smart and wildly good at debating, whereas Maybelle was good on paper and couldn't speak when other people looked at her. She'd endured his presence since freshman year, when they'd gotten to know each other during a group debate in a philosophy class. Despite being on the same side of the debate, he had successfully humiliated her by writing out an argument for her to say. It had been riddled with nonsensical and pretentious phrasing, and when she stumbled over her words he'd swooped in like a savior. She wished for every moment after that that she had just broken from his script, but her mind always went blank in moments where she most needed it.

From there Maybelle had poured all of her energy into what she was good at: thinking ahead. She let him have his debates, but she aced every written test and paper. They continued to play this game in their classes today - the two of them consistently had the highest grades in every one of their classes. She knew there was a good chance he liked her, but now that the end of senior year was approaching, what was the point? And besides that, did she like him?

Cassidy was beckoning Calvin close, whispering something as he bent across the table to hear it. Maybelle was jostled by Taylor, who had come around to the other side of the table after calling Seb a dickweed. Maybelle had completely zoned out and missed Calvin's reading, and was beginning to feel the full weight of the night. It was late.

She saw the cards on the table: Seven of Cups for the past, a reversed Eight of Wands for the present, and The Lovers for the future. Maybelle didn't have any of the meanings memorized, but the last one felt self-explanatory. She pushed away from the table, fairly sure Cassidy was in control of the cards, not that she'd ever accuse her friend of that to her face. But in this case it seemed likely.

Taylor took this opportunity to pull her to the side, nearly poking them both in the eye with ferns. "How does my makeup look?" She peered through the leaves back at the table, now a few feet away.

Maybelle did a once-over of her friend. "You literally look like you did at the beginning of the night. Still stunning." It was true, not even a hair was out of place on her blonde head. She must've used a lot of hairspray. Taylor waved a hand. "So my face isn't red or anything? Seb's such a bastard."

After a sigh, Maybelle said, "Yeah, you always say that."

Crossing her arms, Taylor looked at Maybelle. "Alright, Sassy. I hear you complain about Calvin all the time so I don't wanna hear it. Speaking of, why didn't you dance with him?"

Now Maybelle frowned over at the rest of the group. Calvin was still talking to Cassidy, pointing at his cards. His hair was kind of mussed. "He never asked."

Taylor let out a prolonged groan. "This isn't the fifties. You guys have rom-com levels of sexual tension. You could have asked him."

Scrunching up her nose, Maybelle turned back to Taylor. "I don't think that's accurate. And what about you and Seb?" Immediately Taylor's chin jutted into the air, but she said nothing, which was a telling sign. "Taylor? Did something happen?" It would be a relief.

"I might be going to his place tonight. Maybe."

Maybelle internally squealed and externally couldn't stop a grin. "Oh my god, finally."

Taylor was two inch shorter than Maybelle even with her heels on, but she managed to still give the impression of looming over her. "Not a word. It's totally casual, but just, feels right."

Daysha was calling their names, so Maybelle just nodded back, grin still in place. Taylor smiled a little too, contrasting it by saying, "But I might not. Just maybe."

"Maybe, maybe, maybe." The rest of the group was wandering over, minus Cassidy, who was putting her cards away. But it was Calvin, who was behind Daysha and Seb, who had spoken. 'Maybe,' his nickname for Maybelle.

Her eyes skimmed over him, but she then pointedly ignored him. When Cassidy joined them, Maybelle noticed how quiet the ballroom had become. Nearly empty, as it was probably approaching 2 AM. When they opened the hotel's large front doors, a gust of cold night air hit them, sending goosebumps down Maybelle's bare arms.

Maybelle watched Taylor mutter something to Seb, who had to bend down to hear her, then they parted, Seb going left and Taylor going right. Daysha and Cassidy turned right and called goodbye to the boys. Maybelle was last to descend the hotel's stairs, and she watched Calvin, tie almost lifted off his shoulders by the wind, turn left with the barest wave of his hand. Without saying goodbye, he walked away.

Her bare feet hit the cold sidewalk, damp from a little rain, and she turned right to follow her friends back. But she did turn back once, just to look, but he was just a shadow in the night by then.

They call it autobiography because it the story that writes itself.

It is never about you, really, but about the somebody adjacent that made the plot possible.

It is like rendering a parabola; the bio requires two points, mirroring every interval. There is the vertex, the focus, the directrix, and the axis of symmetry, that links the entirety.

I don’t remember how I was born, and I suppose none of us truly do, except by the stories told to us, and these become integral, as having certain prospective truth; that which will shape us. Along the same line, I recall vaguely what I did yesterday, but not as well as I recollect certain fiction that I’ve poured over; and it makes me incomprehensively sad that these tales won’t be read the same way, as we tread into the future.

Each book itself an incarnation, a character. I remember my Cervante’s Don Quixote, an ochre cloth bound double volume boxed set, the print so intricate and fine I could not parse through the bundle, succumbing to fatigue, and I surmised that it was a part of the plot, quixotic. I remember, my beloved Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground. I covered this one in old brown shopping paper, like might be used at butcher shop. The cover crumbling, and the pages so deeply nicotined they made a tobacco chewer’s smile seem merely ecru. And I remember too my old charming French existential story collection, whose pages were so lacework brittle, that a little triangle remained in the hand if a corner was inadvertently dog eared. I had proffered scotch tape to bandage, but the new material resulted in three breaks instead of one, and so repair proved futile.

I wonder how many of you are left, reading, even if scrolling down with a finger, rolling along paragraphs, on a cold plastic screen. I want you to know, if I were a book, I’d be warm white fine-tooth vellum with the letters so emphatically pressed that they’d left an indent on the page, with serifs.

Life, I’ve learned is about accepting the wasting of time.

I am cynically honored that you are making this observation with me— that way we can both reassure each other that it is only partly true.

We have this dilemma at the outset in our autobiography: I will write what flows from synapsis to fingertips; You will read it, and what backpedals from retina to the conscious, shall be an entity almost entirely unique to yourself.

We can agree in this way to some sliding-scale co-authorship. This is the first moment of our past, present and tomorrow. And now what to do with this space?

Fill it, of course.

You will walk down these same steps. Careful! They are deteriorating on the left-hand side, and there is only one rail. By luck it is on the right, going down. The steps are generous, four feet wide and walking alone there is a reasonable sense of confidence. Walking side by side, together, it is best to hold hands, just in case. On the dilapidated edge, is the appearance of wilderness…

There are blackberries, the uncultivated kind that are hard, bright red, and small, but these will ripen in the fullness of summer sun into juicy purple capsules of C vitamins and sunshine. It’s a promise of health in the impulse to forage. Pushing beyond the briars, there are exposed areas of packed dirt and half buried rocks, promising uncertain footing. A tangle of vines obscures the way, but it seems as if a warm marshy clearing lies just a bit farther. Pausing, we can hear the soothing pulse of running water. Maybe a creak or deeper stream. It is deceptive we know because calm waters run deep and small waters are likewise quiet. There is a temptation to cross the tattered edge of the stairs, that Nature is trying to reclaim, and ascertain what is what...

To the right lies a manicured garden. It has a pebbled path, and the lawn beckons into a maze. It’s manmade, but its structure inevitably replicates the order of the cosmos in neat compactness. One component of the design chains to another; and forms layers like skin, arteries, and substructures, to hold it all upright. The branches of the thorned hedges have been bleached in the afternoon sun into stark blanched living-skeletons, one on top of another, ornamented by fairly uniform little leaves with marron veins and serrated edges turning from yellow to green. These are variously sized yet arguably identical to a mother pattern. Each new branch birthing more tiny leaves, eventually crowning them with rosette blossoms of gradient pinks and purples, blushing in the morning and all the more so in the evening. The hedges are precisely clipped.

At the top of the stairs, we look again, from the right to the left; and we agree to explore them both, separately.

* * *

Tomorrow, we will...

He met his moment

of defeat

with a quick stare

of disbelief

as the ghosts slowly

gathered at his grave

they welcome him there

with nothing to share

only to witness his transition

behold the ferryman with

a blood red bang

and so his fate was sealed

he lost his head

and now he’s dead

yet thanks

you for

your solemn

disposition

Walking opposite the moon

our hopes inside its fleshy pockets,

spotlighting teeth and the whites of eyes, wide and vacuumed.

All while the city below dissolves in its particles overnight…

Composting the garbage dumb Govindas.

Dumping its shadow into the sewers we created out of shaving cream, pet fish and semen.

I’m standing outside my outline

drying my heart out in the pages of a spineless book.

Wringing chicken blood from kitchen rags with arms cut deep in seasoned salt.

As rats bathe in the shadow of the Redwoods- anticipating angelhood.

I am spitting broken teeth like stars onto the soil,

planting love into the dead grass, I am meat fooled into repose.

Flies in the kitchen of heat and stink…I am your substance…

Walk along my curves and corners ingesting crumbs and morsels that fall misgiven on my clothes. Bloating, the puddles of nervous ants drowned in the quiet of oak tree worship.

And it’s all a familiar comfort, an easy dream, teaching me the dark of its corners…

like this hole in my sock.

And I think I’ve been here before focusing on the cardboard box of whatever punched out winking its flaps at me…

Knocking on some memory in an eternal midnight page.

Flicking away a spent cigarette looking for the sun to come on stage again tomorrow.

Illuminate my dimming thoughts, my beads of sweat and knuckle scars.

An ecstasy hangs in the mind, tricking darkness upon my dream wall.

There's a fire settling on my shoulder blades, cracking under the weight of the white sky.

And there hasn't been a city yet where we haven't met.

We're on this bloodless highway sprawling like tentacles of thoughts forming out your mouth

every word is a delicacy,

even here in the desert…

Where an ocean labored to fashion life out of its sand

eaten up by the sun upon the take of a first breath.

And I'm left trying to turn this heat into a single sun ray, tuck it deep inside my eye for later…

Holding onto petals of flowers I've murdered to press inside a book…

So later we can know this again like we did today.

And there I stood silent

in a vast empty field

with the East wind

flowing steady

against my brow

And there I

swallowed memories

of past horizons

every emotion

illuminated by the sky

in teal blues

emerald greens

And there I heard

your voice

echoing gently

on the skin

of the black sea

whispering

eternity

to the lost

believer within

On the 49th day of my bardo I'll climb into an ugly womb to be expelled with all the sticky things, my histories flushed down the drain. And I'll enter this world again just as I have at least 913 times before dressed in waxy skin belonging to the wind.

This is the door I'll choose: orange like the angry sunset protests over times neglectful motions- chased behind tall buildings of a city gone betray me.

I'm painfully enlightened by its cracks, my fingers trace in spiraled patterns spelling out my old discarded names.

I'll enter the doorway knowing to forget the sea and leave its mystery for someone else to worship.

I will never claim to be a saint mostly because it's a bitch trying to conceal my very conspicuous devil horns beneath my low-key halo. However, there is one moral wrong that I just cannot see my sinful nature enthusiastically wallowing in, and that is infidelity. Now, because of my extensively documented addiction to reading stupid shit on the internet, I have come across a lot of stories about people engaging in infidelity. The surprising thing is that in many of these stories the cheater suggests that they, and sometimes even the person they cheated on are better off for the experience. Far be it for me to suggest that I am an expert on human nature, but this seems to be either delusional thinking on the part of the cheater or there has been a drastic shift in what qualifies as douche bag behavior.

One cheating story commonly featured involves a brother/sister hooking up with their siblings spouse. A person might expect this kind of betrayal would result in heartbreak followed by the cheated on spouse finding the rabid wolverine equivalent of divorce lawyers. However, if the stories are to be believed, the end result is that somehow all parties involved realize that the infidelity made everyone's lives' better. Maybe the cheating parties finally have a partner that shares the same interest in anal penetration with power tools. Conversely, the spouse that got cheated on, now free from their coupling, can now go off to realize their dream of becoming a full time underwater basket weaver.

I also read a story where a terminally ill spouse asks their current partner for permission to bang their ex because, "While she loves me more than anything, her ex used to fuck her until she, the next door neighbors, the astronauts orbiting the Earth in the International Space Station, and her future ancestors, all walked funny for a week." Okay, maybe I paraphrased a little, but how exactly did the terminally ill, yet still horny spouse bring up this carnal desire? Somehow, "Hey, honey, you're the love of my life, but you can only make me wet, where my ex can create a veritable vaginal Victoria Falls between my legs" seems a bit cruel

Now, I can hope that these stories are fake, but even imagining such betrayal is so all kinds of fucked up that not even the writers who queef out those Lifetime Movies of the Week would stoop that low. So, am I wrong in thinking that infidelity is still a horrible thing to do to someone you supposedly love and have committed yourself to? Or is infidelity just another way for people to drift apart, get separate places, argue over who gets the cum fruit when, and eventually settle into passive-aggressive and snarky comment filled coparenting ?

I have to wonder if these stories aren't ways for the cheater to somehow justify bumping uglies with an unfamiliar ugly instead of the ugly they are committed to. After all, adults can't pretend that infidelity is a harmless accident. Dropping a dish is a harmless accident. Inserting throbbing naked tab A into equally naked, wet, quivering slot B is in no way shape or form an accident. Also, contrary to just about every fucking Country Western song ever written, being under the influence of alcohol isn't a good excuse for cheating either. Being under the influence of alcohol is only a valid excuse for getting impregnated by one of my relatives. It in no way can be used to, "Oops, my bad" away doing the tube steak boogie in a strange Wonder Bread bun when you have a loving Oroweat bun at home.

I can't help but think that there just isn't an excuse to cheat. If you have feelings for someone who's not your significant other, it could be argued that maybe you should be honest and get out of your current relationship because your feelings aren't as strong as you thought. Sure, it will hurt, especially when your significant other righteously kicks you in the baby maker after you've told them, but cheating would hurt worse and that kind of hurt can lead to a lot worse than getting kicked in the fuzzy-bumblies. (Please see the previous reference to rabid-wolverine divorce lawyers in paragraph II, for an example of what's worse than having your no-no place receiving a firm and justified boot-leather bopping). No matter what, your significant other deserves an honest break. Besides think of any children involved. Do you really want to cheat on the co-pollinator of your cum fruit? Think about it. Cheat on the other parent, your kids find out, and twenty years down the road your children are placing you in Dr. Kevorkian's Home for the Elderly because you couldn't keep your Tab A or Slot B at home where it belongs.

So, maybe I'm an idealist when it comes to relationships. Maybe, cheating has become just another of life's event we should all just assume we'll experience. I hope not because life is hard enough without being cheated on and then having to get tested for gonorrhea. Personally, I hope those who're so insensitive and focused on getting their yippee parts tickled that hurting someone who loves and trusts them isn't a big deal have a prison bitch experience with karma. The end result is that karma viciously renovates the cheater's corn-hole in such a way that a youth soccer league could use their rectum as a regulation sized goal net.