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Wolftown, Part Five
Wolftown’s wolf response was headquartered in Holy Trinity Lutheran Church and School’s gymnasium, ideal for muddy, wet people. The wolf responders stationed constantly in the gymnasium sandbagged the doorways between the locker rooms and the gymnasium. Expecting Wolftown’s water level to rise another two or three feet, volunteers prepared classrooms for flooded-out families. Somebody monitored the generator. The town plumber, Phil, and a church and school custodian, Gary, bailed out the boys’ locker room.
“What’s wrong with the sewer system?” Wayne asked.
Phil said, “Something blocked it all over town.”
“This didn’t happen last time we had this rainfall,” Gary said.
“I don’t think the sewers were inspected before the storm,” Phil said.
“They should have been,” Gary said.
Phil shrugged. “Try the restroom on the upper floors.”
“We’re muddy,” Wayne said.
“I spread plastic over the carpets,” Gary said.
Wayne changed his clothes and John hung up his foul-weather gear.
The responders napped in classrooms and ate in the combination fellowship hall and school cafeteria. Pastor Virgil Mickelson officiated optional, short church services.
In the gymnasium, Wayne and John sat at a folding table. John plugged his laptop into an extension cord plugged into another orange one, but, at least, Holy Trinity’s wall outlets had surge protectors.
“We don’t have internet access,” Wayne said.
“If you don’t use it, I won’t need to.”
“Why do you have it anyway?”
“Paula thinks computer technology will make conservation easier. I keep notes on floppy disks, write, copy files, and can’t do much more.”
“What about Y2K?”
“Thankfully, she didn’t need to reimburse anyone for wasting $2,000.”
Wayne shuffled through notes and papers left at his folding table seat. “The kid was a missing person.”
“Oh, no,” John said.
“No one said he was when the police asked us to identify him.” Wayne sighed.
“I forgot about the beaver trapper, but I bet he was one of the missing persons Mayor Dwyer mentioned. Search-and-rescue declared him presumed dead today.”
“Condolences,” John said.
“We kept an eye out for him while looking for the wolf.”
“Did a wolf attack him?”
“No idea. I don’t know if we will know because of the flood. The first rabies tests came back negative,” Wayne said.
“Good.” John inserted a floppy disk.
“Here’s a note from Schuster: ‘Megan photographed Zach’s wolf bites, wrote down the measurements, and made a few copies. She said to call if you had questions. Megan can say what she wants. I’m working on Barbara Luben’s evidence. You are authorized to view evidence of Zach and Mrs. Luben’s attacks. I’ll try to bring them to you but can’t guarantee it.’”
“Do you want to look at fatal injures? It’s hard.”
“And harder if you know the people or live in the same town. I need to.”
“Do you want me to start with the hiker or the official first victim?”
“The hiker if it is chronological. I can take notes out-of-order, but I have to put it in order sometime.”
“I know I said I could tell you about the hikers, but I forgot about the police,” Wayne said. “They haven’t found Sergio Vasquez’s body yet, and Miranda Vasquez’s story is a little difficult to understand.”
As one of the most informed people involved in the wolf response, Wayne considered classifying the wolf situation pointless at best and, at worst, prevented an adequate response. He released any data somebody requested; it possibly provoked Mayor Dwyer’s restriction of out-of-town journalism and non-communication with local media.
Wayne suggested the most useful people to contact. Via Sharon Smith, Mayor Dwyer’s secretary, Wayne pestered the mayor for permission to answer the questions or to contact another person. Within half an hour, Mayor Dwyer allowed Wayne to explain details he considered pertinent—except about the wolf which attacked Miranda and Sergio Vasquez. The police continued to investigate Sergio Vasquez’s death. Mayor Dwyer permitted details about how they encountered the wolf, how it attacked, and how it stopped. To John’s surprise, Wayne agreed without argument.
John typed notes and listed evidence to copy.
While Sergio and Miranda Vasquez honeymooned in the woods near Wolftown. On March 6 and 7, they briefly met Peter, a stranger. He warned them about wolves in the area and suggested camping a couple of miles west. However, they stayed at their campsite. They built a fire and bear-proofed their food, which coincidentally deterred wolves.
In the middle of the night, Miranda left the tent to relieve herself. She zipped up the tent, but the hikers woke to a lone wolf inside the tent.
John said, “Sometimes the zipper doesn’t catch the other side of the fabric, but it sounds like it zipped.”
“I asked her. I haven’t had time to find out if a wolf can tear through a tent, but I told her I would,” Wayne said.
Sergio fought the wolf and slashed an escape hole for Miranda. She brandished a burning branch, which ignited the tent. Somehow, Sergio and the wolf struggled out of the tent, as Sergio yelled for Miranda to climb a tree.
Miranda tugged singed, bleeding Sergio from the tent, while the smoldering wolf rolled on the ground. The wolf retreated slightly, giving Sergio time to boost Miranda into a sugar maple tree. She hauled him up, but the wolf dragged him down. While Sergio stopped screaming, the wolf bit Miranda’s leg. The wolf’s teeth shredded her left leg, but Miranda tugged her leg out of the wolf’s mouth.
“How?” John asked.
“Adrenaline,” Wayne said. “But I’m surprised her the bone didn’t break, and he didn’t bite an artery or a vein.”
Wayne continued the chronological order, moving to the wolves entering Wolftown on March 8. Each wolf entered Wolftown on a different side of town by 2:00 PM, March 8. People treated them as a curiosity because sometimes wild animals passed the city limits.
Later, Wayne named the wolves Abel, Barker, and Charlie, although he initially thought Barker and Charlie were the same. Wayne said, “Abel looks like an overweight male, Barker is underweight, and Charlie is average. I don’t know Barker and Charlie’s sexes, but if the wolves are a pack, they are probably females. The wolves are about the same size, but people said Abel was big. Locals have a better idea of a wolf’s size than tourists have, but a wolf looks bigger in real life.”
“Probably more when you think it’s dangerous,” John said.
“And he was fat, and people called him fat.”
“He is.”
“At first, I thought the wolf was pregnant, but he is a male. I think he is bigger than Barker, but not unusually big.”
Around 3:00, Abel loped down Main Street into Holy Trinity Church and School’s playground. Barking and growling, he trotted, then cantered, then galloped. Kids scattered, and adults hustled children indoors, into cars, on top of the jungle gym, or down the street. Witnesses said fleeing felt like a natural response and thought the wolf could not chase everybody at once.
Playing hopscotch, Mallory Vaughn stood on one leg. Abel knocked her down; his paw left a smudged print on her pink jacket. Her older brother, Raymond, swung his stuffed backpack at Abel. He scooped up winded Mallory and dashed to the nurse’s office. On the way to the nurse’s office, Mallory accused Raymond of shoving her, even though Raymond babysat her. She merely skinned her knees, palms, and chin, and bumped her nose.
The wolf galloped out of the playground under a barrage of textbooks, lunch boxes, a ball, a copy of An Explanation of the Small Catechism, and a Furby. The playground monitor, Cindy Brown, slammed the gate shut and locked it.
As Abel wove through traffic, Maurice Williams nearly crashed into him; days later, he told Wayne he wished he totaled his car and killed Abel. The wolf caused erratic driving and two minor accidents. School-hour traffic and pulling over for the police cars complicated matters.
The wolf bounded through the grounds of the Sun ‘n’ Rain Childcare Center and the Giggling Forward Preschool. He circled the blocks and bounded again. Steve Taylor considered shooting the wolf, but the children were too close.
Throughout the town, people called 911 or Happy Howlers to report sightings. The wolves often left before anybody arrived—everybody focused on the schoolchildren. But the number of calls and the locations indicated two or three wolves roamed Wolftown.
Chief of Police Dennis Laufenberg was out of town. Until he arrived, Deputy Chief of Police Kurt Phelps oversaw the police’s response. He told officers to carry tranquilizers and fire a gun as a last resort.
Because a wolf could easily jump Holy Trinity, the daycare, or the preschools’ fences, Wayne recommended that the staff keep children indoors until their parents arrived. To his relief, quite a few adults and children came to the same conclusion. The staff and parents arranged impromptu carpools and pickups. Officer Jones watched for wolves and staff or parents walked the children to the cars.
Police officers patrolled for unaccompanied walking children and drove them home, and they offered rides to accompanied children. Officer Matthews escorted the school bus and officers or parents walked children to their doors.
Around 4:30 PM, one wolf disappeared, probably into the woods, while two others continued prowling Wolftown. Wayne still wondered which wolf fled and which wolf remained.
Raymond and the adults’ reactions scared Mallory more than a wolf running her over. Just as a precaution, Dr. Groves ordered a rabies vaccine. Wayne examined Mallory’s jacket and collected wolf hairs from Raymond’s backpack.
The police unjammed traffic, despite Barker’s presence.
While Abel wreaked havoc, black-and-white security footage tracked Barker and Charlie, either of whom could have also chased the school bus. The wolf walked and loped, stopping to howl or bark. If somebody tried chasing him away, he cantered or galloped. He loitered around Main Street, but neither entered the school grounds nor threatened the parking lot. Wayne supposed the cars scared him.
Calvin, a Happy Howlers’ employee, tracked down Barker or Charlie at approximately 5:00. The wolf saw the car, turned around, and hid in a residential area. Suzanne backed up Calvin, and they almost cornered him. He jumped a fence at 6:00, but they tranquilized him. He headed for the woods and the Happy Howlers employees followed on foot at 6:10, plenty of time for the wolf to pass out. Neither wanted to chase the wolf on foot or search thoroughly for a trail, so they gave up a couple of minutes later. The wolf escaped. Wayne defended Calvin and Suzanne’s decision.
Around 6:30 PM, a wolf mauled Jill Vogel’s off-leash dachshund-Yorkie-miscellaneous mix. The wolf picked up Button and bolted out of the park. Button’s death eventually indicated Charlie existed.
Sightings halted after the attack.
The Happy Howlers administrative assistant, Rebecca Austin, sent information to the local media, which reported the wolf sightings for the evening news or morning paper. Other people heard rumors or they told their friends.
Happy Howlers intended to tranquilize the wolves and ask Dr. Jodi Richardson to examine them. If she declared the wolves healthy, Happy Howlers would tag, vaccinate, and release them. Employees nursed ill or dying wolves, except for rabid ones.
John disagreed with euthanizing animals for any reason but understood the reasons behind killing a rabid animal. Paula and the Nature Protection Society thought rabies and other diseases justified euthanasia. Because of that and Wolftown’s sensitive situation, he felt uncomfortable mentioning his opinion. He thought Wayne guessed, but they did not discuss it.
Wolftown’s nightlife consisted of McDonald's, the Old Wolftown Restaurant, and the Wunderbar, but they were quieter than normal.
“What’s the Wunder Bar?” John asked.
“It’s the only bar in town. One word, W-U-N-D-E-R-B-A-R.”
“Thanks.”
Mayor Dwyer made town officials, his family, and close friends to eat out, buy gas at the BP Gas Station, and play in the park.
“I told him it was a stupid decision,” Wayne said.
“Did something happen to him?” John asked.
“No, but it’s like living in Jaws! Would you have gone outside?”
“I’m a homebody.”
“And you already got into a wolf situation.”
“I had an escape route.”
Wayne sighed.
“You do it,” John said.
“I’m armed and keeping an eye out for the wolf. I don’t want to kill the wolf, but I want to survive.”
Seven businesses and the police station had security cameras. Four businesses had taped over their footage before police requested copies, and two showed barely any wolf. The police refused to turn over their videotaped footage but copied the low-quality time-lapse tapes. Wayne borrowed the school’s TV and paused the footage when necessary.
The security footage showed the wolf returned to downtown Wolftown at approximately 8:30 PM.
A couple of anonymous teenagers snuck out of their houses to buy junk food at the BP Gas Station and eat it in Sugar Maple Park. They noticed wolf tracks in the playground sand. Button died on the opposite side of the park, so Wayne suspected they found the first overnight tracks. The teenagers looked for the wolves because wolves would deter tourism, which their families depended on.
Schuster spotted their flashlights. He told them that Laufenberg ordered the police to send children and teenagers home, regardless of their parents’ usual rules, if the children walked or rode bikes alone after dark. Apparently, the teenagers had sneaked out. They could either go to the police station and give a statement about the wolf or go home without any mention of the wolf. The wolf howled behind the teenagers, too close. Schuster hustled them into the car, but the teenagers went voluntarily.
“I bet the parents found out anyway,” Wayne said.
“I won’t identify them,” John said.
(Part Five coming on August 9 or 16, 2024.)
All Too Well (First Love version)
I remember a bus stop.
I can picture it- seven years later.
It was cold, so it must have been fall.
I remember your little bounce- you were cold. Already wearing a hoodie, so I couldnt offer mine.
I remember the glint of your teeth off the stop lights. Driving felt so far away then, waiting for the bus.
I remember your laugh on the wind- sharp, deep and cutting. I felt my own lips turn. I remember it was a tie between a grin and a frown-
because I could not openly love you then. And I was too sick to know how, anyway.
But nobody knew- not how I kept you sacredly to my chest. Not my quiet murmuring of worship. They didn't know the same altar I prayed at for your love that they prayed for your salvation. Or mine. Who knows?
Seven years. So many hours lost to thinking of you. So many poems. An entire book.
So, I know. I don't know you now, just as you don't me as must as you like to think you do from what I heard of you saying about me.
Despite it, I love you. Or maybe I love late, cold nights at a bus stop,
and awkward fumbling and hidden, anxious kisses.
I smile and swallow bitterly until im worried my face will stick like that.
And then I know it isn't true.
If soulmates exist, it is you. Because I cannot be rid of you though I try.
I don't remember your smell, or your touch, but I remember you.
I remember it all.
Aunt.
She is her.
Mostly noun, given,
And she is an English teacher and shall berate me should she find this;
but she is her. Beyond grammatical repair, or rule of prose.
I do not care, for she is why I am me.
And if she does see this- you are her.
My aunt- a woman more mother then extended family,
a woman who's heart can break and bend.
A human so giving nobody notices until her efforts are missing,
a human so sweet the earth cried the very day she got sick.
I remember it too well. I remember about her more than myself, like a broken bone.
It aches now, her pain- my bone.
Her feelings are mine- only I feel them.
I feel them miles away, and do I feel them deeply.
I react how she cannot, due to her heart.
I react when she is not sure how to.
I bow my head at her anger, and revel in her praise.
If my grandmother is the queen, my aunt is her heir beyond birthright.
She spent the last of her serotonin on my laughter.
She spent the last of her smiles on us all.
And I gasp from the severity of the loss.
She is still with us- which is why I reflect her pain.
She is sick. But she is her.
Within my scar tissue exists her- within my flesh,
within whatever is good to me is given by her.
Love is her. She is love.
Mudpuppy
This party was an absolute rager!...
I wouldn't dare shit you!...
I could tell by the mad hustle of
Frenzied feet,
And spidery legs that stretched above me
From the incoming guests as they filed in...
Bruna, and her partner
Troy
Had invited the bulk of them...
Many they had met on the beaches of Brazil...
Some were from the office Troy worked at making
Post cards...
Still others Bruna had drummed up from her dance
Classes...
I, with the view of a slug,
Had front row seats of all of their goings on
Down below,
As they leapt to and fro...
I could see the men:
The crotch of their pants or shorts bulging
With their throbbing clutches of liquid lust...
Some looking like the outline of smiling tropical fruit...
Others barely visible disguised bunches of
Runaway manhood...
The women:
Many of them not wearing any panties at all...
Some unshaven...some with full bush...
Their splashy dresses flashing me as they casually whip
Their bolting legs over my head...
Their pussy lips almost crying with anguish out to me,
Red and swollen,
As others remain tightly seized like choking corsages
On a shyly repellant wrist...
Still others snug in differing colors and stylings of lingerie
And panties, announce their presence in the evening...
While a few more just wear Plain Jane slacks or shorts,
Choosing to languish in a muted silence...
One Transvestite playfully tickles me with his
Orange feather boa,
And wrinkles his painted face into a smile
As the boa drapes down to the wooden floorboards
In which my body has been partially ensconced
In the center of the living quarters,
Save for my pumpkin shaped brownish shaved head,
My fingertips, and my
Flaccid cock;
Which guests are politely avoiding,
(For the most part)
With the casual aversion of one
Not wishing to see
A rather repulsive bug be squished
Thus causing a mess during their discordant soiree...
That is not a fair description, though...
They have occasionally tried to be inclusive,
And have occasionally made a game out of disposing
Lackluster party hors d'oeuvres into my welcome mouth...
I guess I am a bit of an eyesore,
But not many men are irrevocably
Fused with the foundation of the foyer...
I'd like to say I didn't choose my lot in life,
But name one who can claim
A lily-white spick and span
Interior of the everyday
World weary soul...
Bruna commands a heavy presence
With her rock-hard jaw and muscle bound physique...
Her tits more like pectoral objections against
Slovenliness, and lazy decorum of attitude...
Her perfection of the material even intimidates her herself
Ironically, and so she is quite meek in character,
And often let's Troy do much of the mingling,
While she trails behind him while all those that witness her
Reflect her in a prison of their
Deferential gaze...
Troy is the American import with wire rimmed glasses,
A seductive gaze,
And a mouth like a jackrabbit,
Always hopping from one thought to the next...
When the guests have finally become comfortable,
Settling like leaves on a restless Autumn day
Upon the ottoman, and the divan,
Or just sprawling out near me, by the glass
Coffee table
I finally feel more at ease...
Some play cards
While others chat in English, Portuguese,
Spanish, and Italian...
I only speak English and know a little
Bit of Spanish and Italian,
But it is so exciting to hear the fluid
Tongues mix and mesh and tickle my hungry ears
While the party dips and sways like a
Pleasant ocean wave
On a balmy day, as I fantasize of floating on my back...
It brings me back to how things use to be!...
Back when I was free and upright in my teen years...
I most often would ride buckled in my parents car
To and fro during Choir recitals, and
Interchangeable sport practices;
Be it Basketball, Footvolley, Judo, or Capoeira...
...Aye, but in between these structured jaunts
I would experience these ecstatic detonations
Of unbridled freewill
That propelled me into altered states of consciousness;
By simply sitting still or staring at a tree for twenty minutes
In a pronounced state of attention...
I wonder if any of these jaded party guests,
Who occasionally glance back at me with sympathy,
Or reviled expressions of disgust,
Have favored life so very much
As I did back in my glory days of yore...
...But now I am a creature of the floor,
And as the world continues with it's spinning
I speculate on how many more
Days of this existence I
Dare lead...
This static stationary life
Mostly so hard on me
Because I live with my heart planted so firmly
On my sleeve...
...If only I could deceive myself into perceiving
Life as dull as a butterknife and
Let it all slip right through my porous
Sewer grates...
...But that is not
Within my nature...
The party lasts all through the night,
And on into the late afternoon of the next day...
A bored couple even fondles my Rumpled
Stilt Skin, but they fail in their haughty attempts
Of arousal...
One taking me, and then the other,
Until in forlorn disgust
They dash me to the floor
Like a broken toy,
And move on...
The get-together was
Undoubtedly a success, though,
And I am quite excited for more in the future,
As I continue to sink further into the confines
Of the floorboards;
Another doomed debutante...
A sacrificial lamb leaning forward in anticipation
Of the modern age...
7/23/24
Bunny Villaire
What’s in the Phone? : A Short Story
The first time I ever had any real life experience was when I first bumped into Montgomery Clift at a bar, down in Burbank. What the people said about his eyebrows was true, and I resisted the urge to laugh my ass off, until I could wet my pants. He was a slim fellow, smoked a lot during our half hour conversation, and seemed down in the doldrums, sulking like a miserable Hollywood snob, I’d say. The pair of us drank a couple of Manhattans, no rocks, and covered in three large red cherries, with the systems still attached like it was a chocolate sundae. He showed me this trick where we could tie a knot with the cherry stem in his mouth with his tongue; I was partially impressed and the rest, disgusted. In being perfectly candid, he was a fruity song, yet I was intrigued almost as much as when I played a chess game with Humphrey Bogart in the thirties—this was before he was the Humphrey Bogart of the silver screen, married to a woman twenty-five years younger than himself, and got away from a hysterically insane wife who did the beating of the family. After my conversation with Mr. Clift, I was left drunk, and blatantly pulled my pants down to piss on a fire hydrant just outside Paramount Pictures, and left my hat on top to claim the territory as rightfully mine alone. The hydrant never did what it was supposed to do, much less look good in color like any typical snobbish woman of the valley. I turned my head and saw Mr. Clift walked in the opposite direction of me, seemingly just starting his trek after a second of staring at me doing my dirty work; it was the last time I saw his face before he turned up dead a couple of months later, in the Times of the West coast. Poor sap, I thought.
Passing the corner of the city limits, I walked past a pay phone, hanging off of the wire, and I heard the faint dial tone; reluctantly, I picked up the receiver and hung it up, almost flinching to here the change drop down in the slot, but no change was there for my taking. After a few steps, the phone rang and broke a ring of silence due at any time—unfortunately for me, that time was in the broad darkness of California, where all there was was a selection of good clean turnpikes, and a couple of street lamps sprinkled in every ghost town. The ringing was like a throbbing heart, the way it filled my ears coherently. I heard myself move my feet, then reach for the phone; I hadn’t been in control of my body since I saw Clift’s cherry stem gimmick. It was all a revelation of a turning point—am I really capable of harnessing such a power as the control of my body? An operator greeted me with a rough how-do-you-do, and asked if I was accepting the call. I burped and said yes, feeling dizzy, and grabbing my temples as if ascertaining the dizziness with immense pressure can solve the problem of my irresponsibility to myself. The beginning of the phone call was a soft breath, eagerly wanting to say something, yet the voice was distant, immersed in a bleak facade of themselves. As if they were looking in a mirror for the first time, and hardly finding the words to describe the dangerousness they see—I was the first to respond to the breathing, feeling only obligated, and for it being tasteful. I said “hello?” about as clearly as the way I could see my feet in the darkness.
“I lost the baby, Pierce,” a woman said, dazed with spasmodic morose. I loved the sound of her voice when she was upset; it reminded me of a school teacher I once had—Oh! how I loved that school teacher like a girlfriend. And lo, the dense fog became an entity, shielding me from responding to the woman’s remark. I was in charge of answering for Pierce, whoever he was and wherever he may be. There was a little souvenir in my pocket from the hardware store just three blocks away: a pistol-shaped lighter capable of scaring some kids and lighting their smokes too. Fishing it out, I lit myself two: one for me and one for the woman, which I casually set lighted on top of the steel box the phone lived in. “Do you want a cigarette?” I kindly asked the woman over the phone. I was entirely aware of how loopy I sounded.
“The baby is gone, Pierce,” she cried, “floating with the Heavenly Father, if my prayers worked.”
I giggled manically, then coughed like a sick, wild animal thrashing around in a zoo cage, being mocked and given a casual middle finger—I would present them with a likewise altercation. That school teacher’s voice—and large bosom—filled my imagination with Independence Day fireworks, gleaming like the end of wartimes, sparkling like the top of a sugar-crusted creme brulee. Her patriotic lipstick was the color of freshly pricked blood from a rose’s thorn, dripping into her palm, and pooling. Her eyes were gumdrop-colored green, with a hint of fluorescent blue around the center of the irises, and she always wore a long sundress—even in the winter. I winked at her everyday when I left her class, constantly under the impression that her and I were unconsciously going steady. I found her crying once, with a Kleenex bunched up in her hand, and a smudge of lipstick where she wiped her nose. The last bell of the school day had rung, while I had left my textbook in her class, and I found her. She acknowledged me by name when I asked what was the matter. She embraced me like an equal, and I went home to write her a love poem, confessing my undying pledged fidelity to her, hath come the day we wed and create a family; I was widely delusional in the days before all things that are now considered serious. I switched ears for the receiver and wondered how melodramatic women could convince themselves of being—was it sane for them? Was I in the wrong for being the seemingly insensitive one?
“All right, doll, let’s take it slow,” I said, working up an edge, “what’s your name, and all that?”
“You know who I am,” she said, repulsed.
“I’m afraid you don’t strike me as distinctive,” I responded. “How do I know you, per say?”
“You’re the one who’s put me in this mess, you cowardly bastard,” she said, ominously calm—it was like chatting with a congregation of poets: all dull and understanding and having a putrid complexion.
“How’s that?”
“I blame your antics, you wet piece of slime-covered rubber, and that ain’t news to your sore ears, is it?”
“I think you better take it easy, doll,” I said, keeping a relaxed composure. “You’re slightly in over your head. Have you been drinking?”
I heard a wail of crying after going a few seconds without a response, clearly getting the idea that this woman was mentally insane. I lit her cigarette for her, yet she still wants to point fingers at the innocent one. It was all too unreal.
“You sound drunk yourself, Pierce.”
I froze, making a harsh realization… How did she know my name, and why did she speak it as if it were an inconvenient thread on her shirt? Was I really that loathsome to a woman? I hadn’t noticed her identifying by name until now.
“You left me this morning! And you didn’t even think about my well-being!”
“Paula?” I asked, repenting.
“Halle-fucking-luyah!” she cried.
“What’s going on, hon?”
She frantically started sobbing into the receiver, imploring me to come home and look at what I caused.
“Paula, you had better settle down…It’s not good for you to get hysterical this soon after.”
“How would you know?”
I didn’t respond, except for plucking the cigarette from the top of the box and having it for myself; it tasted like the people of the city: wet, malnourished, odorous, and sexy all balled and rolled up into one.
“Paula, what in God’s name is going on?”
She breathed unsteady, causing another loud feedback buzz from the receiver in my ear, to which I pulled away and looked at the dark outside surrounding me. I was alone.
“The baby, Pierce, he’s gone.”
“What does that mean? Gone where?”
I was unequivocally conscious of something being worse than how Paula was putting it on to be. Her voice was shrill, and harshly butchered by the connection of midnight. Blood pumped towards my brain like a railway station, fleeting in the glimpse of a second, making me light-headed with anxiety.
* * *
I had to hitch a ride from a speakeasy owner a quarter of a mile past the city limits; he was a poly-roly of sorts, yet drove like a racehorse. It was around one when I found the apartment in the glazed reflection of my thick intoxication—the key was indecisively not wanting to enter the keyhole, as if shaking its head no. After a few fumbled attempts, the apartment door swung open and I was greeted with an aroma of rusted pennies. There was a light on next to the kitchen, which was the bathroom’s. I threw down my coat and took a few large steps over to the light, cautiously avoiding the inside in case I didn't like what I saw. I cocked my head at an angle and slowly pushed my body in the light, and saw a puddle of water next to the pile of towels. I moved my eyes forward and saw Paula draped on the tub, feet on the ground and head in the water. Her back was bony, with her spinal buttons poking out of her nightie. A few steps closer, and there was the body of our baby floating, face down, in the water, bumping the side of the tub like a buoy. A half empty glass of some alcohol was sitting on top of the toilet’s water tank, with a pink toothpick umbrella balanced on its side.
“Get up, Paula!”
I screamed and aimed my pistol lighter at the back of her head.
“Get up!”
I reached for her back, and felt the coolness of her cold-blooded body—I glanced at the body of my baby again, wondering if the death was quick or slow.
“GET UP, YOU BITCH!”
Without thinking, I stopped shouting, put down the lighter, flicked the lightswitch off, and went into my bedroom—it was a time of procrastination of the highest variety. I started to jump on my bed like a child, screaming childish verses from nursery rhymes—I didn’t smile, but yelled to fill the uncomfortable silence. Yuck yuck yuckety yuck yuck—all my father claimed I did in a time of simplicity. I collapsed on the bed, and turned to lay on my fat stomach; I was dog-tired. The silence rang like an anxious doorbell, hanging out to dry, then never really letting out for a break until you’re comfortable.
As always, I wished my wife, Paula, and my baby goodnight, and went soundly to sleep like I was meant to do. Towards the third hour of the early morning, I heard a baby’s cry from down the hall—it was muffled and dry.
Evensong
There is a whispering wood...
At a breakneck speed,
I am...
Weaving through stacks
Of trees, and tracking
An enigma that can
Not be seen...
...It's calling...
"Are you there?...O, can you hear?...
...For so long I felt your presence
From the back vaults
Of my eyes..."
Now on the hunt
I cannot seem
To upend or to capsize
The ponderous stone
That is
Your dwelling
In this hinterland
Of half-light...
Leave me with a chip or shred!...
Something I'll
Take home to bed...
Saturate me to the bone...
Heed my plea, so I can strive...
7/22/24
Bunny Villaire
Hated Ones by the Ori and Lack-Sensation Federation
"I am scared, I feel so despered, I can see no meaning to live anymore" and blabla...
Empty words with no emotions except the pride of putting on air with our depressions.
So silly...
We are just doing agitation and making melancholy stuff to get more attention from the people.
Always checking up our phones to see if how much guy liked our posts.
It is like an inescapable routine and another victim hung on the captivity.
We are screaming for help to look different than the others, the normals and healthy ones mentally.
But those loud noises are just creating voice pollution on people's ears.
It spreads like a venom and hypnotize the naives or really "emotional" ones and they look at you with a "pitying" eyes.
We can never get enough so we wait for them to be reposted by the ones who has more followers.
We hate to admit the rights always,
Saying that wishing for death only because of the burden of life and the hatery that this life has towards us.
Phony cryings and falling weak in front of the harsh truths..
We have no due to complain or die but we can just bark at the unfair reality and stay silent in front of rhis mobbing.
People around us always hold the gaslights on us such as showing our faults and whole problems in front of us like slapping them.
We believe they are enlightening us, can't even see that they are just creating more stuff for their channels.
We always use others' pain as contents for our talking topics and critisising this horrible life and shouting more to keep people'a depression at a higher level.
Seriously who do we think we are?!
We are nothing but just narcissistic selfish content creaters.
We always have this race between each other:
Who is more depressed?
Who is more troubled?
Who needs help more?
Who is more pathetic?
We are just waiting for pitying eyes again instead of a helping hand.
We really need help but refuse to accept and just try to seem good to people to create a good image.
We think if more loves, less aggression or disgusting noise in self lives.
How silly we are
Loving lying a lot
We use contradictions to mess our and readers' minds up more under the name of contrast.
We are using our "literature" skills to manipulate and pull more people around us...all pathetic just like us.
We are creating a can't-helped, lack-of-sensation federation.
Lots of rhymes for nothing but just to read faster and throw those meaningful words away in seconds because no one is there to read or feel them really.
It is just an aesthetic manifestation.
The chorus in there just screams "Don't read me, you stupid!
Leave your fucking ego for once!
Take care of your real emotions and real self instead of this fake profile of yours that you are showing miserable face only or a marsh-merriness expression as a lie!"
I hate this selfishness and ego..
I hate saying "I wanna die" again and again...
It really hurts but this just increases the pain.
I feel so ashamed because of what I wrote for you all.
I am just tricking your all minds for nothing but just to feel more proud of myself by being such a dramaqueen and pushing you throught this anxiety ways.
Because I am selfish and if I suffer from something, someone will share this suffocating days of mine with me.
If you would like to, eat this sweet looking salty-sour fruit and the bitter cheese decoration on it.
But you'll never get enough taste or enough satisfaction.
Ori always made me do such silly stuff.
I do still care emotions and the origin of this life but I do not want to trick them with literature.
I am emotional and really naive.
I can be used always but I never minded.
I just wanted to care anyone I can and this always made me feel proud of myself.
I felt like I am a good person and I am something for others.
I always expected a thing but I could never admit the expediences.
The favours...the whole stuff...
I love it but I feel a pang of guilt in my chest.
I am nothing but a tool for people I make myself.
I can't stop it..
I feel like I am always dramatizing or i do not know...is there a word like that?
I am blaming anyone who shares their orientation of death because it is nothing but just a non-sense and blindness.
No need for lack of aims and motivation to feel the desire for passing away.
We are all getting bored of monotony and being arrested between the chains of this captivity while screaming for freedom.
We believe freedom is real but we are all the slaves of ephemerality and we forget it while unable to know the 5 minutes ahead, how selfish.
We recall these for any misery we feel and we take it as a huge burden.
Lots of hards and struggles...
I am sometimes scared to admit but we are never alone even if we are physically.
Because our selves are always by our sides.
Even if we have problems our heart always shows the correct way if we can hear the beats correctly.
Even if our heart cannot catch our brain's informations or the things it detects...we can always count on it to go on more and further.
Enough of this dramaturgy!
Stop daydreaming about dying!
This is the life that hates us but we can't cause of not having that due.
Please
Let's do not follow the reasons or aims for once!
Let's just live this life for nothing!
This eternal bliss is just a lie that hedonists created for their own benefits
Satisfaction is just a black hole that swallows us deeper and deepere and then turns to an addiction.
Please
Let's stop screaming for help or saving ways!
The sollution is already inside us!
We are just living for nothing but we do not mind it.
Because we can smile phony or not.
We can be happy, why we know or not.
We already lost our freedoms when we borned.
Always searched for the perfects but please stop it for once!
Let's just live this life without finding a reason or a motivation!
It all comes by itself when we do not think.
Stop pitying your emotions or words.
We need those words for our justice but not for our fake depressions.
Do not just trigger the gun while holding it on your forehead in steady.
This was never the reason enough to die.
Death comes by itself again..
Nothing we can do about it so do not overthink it.
Leave that ego away!
Live
Just live
Lost in the Wild
Why did I agree to go?
The question taunts me with each uncertain step I take through waist-high weeds in a sprawling field. Thick woods lie ahead. The foreboding sea of conifers and evergreens stretches to the horizon. Gone is the azure firmament and noonday sun, replaced by dark skies and ominous black clouds.
I am alone somewhere in Michigan’s eastern Upper Peninsula.
My cellphone is dead.
And I am lost.
Why did I agree to go? Why did I let my friend convince me, a certified urban adult, into taking part in an orienteering meet for his Cub Scouts? I had never heard of orienteering. Mark, the troop leader, told me, “You’ll have fun. It’s a scavenger hunt, only you’re looking for topographical clues like depressions, elevations, that kind of thing.”
“Of course,” I lied to Mark when he asked if I knew how to read a topographical map and a compass.
At this moment, I’m sure those two things are sneering at me from inside the pocket of my cargo shorts, along with the list of topographical clues I was supposed to hunt for.
Now, I am tired and hungry and desperately hunting for a way out.
It seems like hours since I last saw one of Mark’s Cub Scouts. We all began the meet together, but one by one they vanished into the woods, each searching for different clues.
I trip over an old log. The bark skins my shins, but I arise, limping through the weeds and into the darkness of the woods.
Why did I agree to go? I had a chance to speak up when Mark told the kids and me at the outset: “If you get lost, follow your compass west and wait by the railroad tracks; someone will come by in a pickup.” But which way is west? Is north the black half of the compass needle or the silver half?
I break off twigs to get past dense trees and cut my hands on the sharp ends. I am bleeding as I finally leave the woods and enter another field of deep weeds. A green valley lies between two large hills.
The wind is picking up. A thunderclap jolts me. I hear creaking.
There is something in the left side of that gap amid the weeds and trees. It is not moving, but I approach with caution. I see it clearly now. An old screen door with torn metallic webbing is standing upright, flapping in the wind. A crash startles. The screen slams into a thick, moss-covered wooden door.
I reach out and touch the screen door. I stop it from flapping.
But I cannot bring myself to touch the dirty doorknob on the other door.
I peek behind and see a wall of dense trees and weeds. I let the screen slip out of my hand, leaving a bloody palm print.
“Is anyone here?” I summon a yell.
The only response is the creaking screen door flapping again in the wind.
Heavy rain begins to fall and a dazzling lightning bolt strikes the door with a monstrous crash.
When I come to, the screen door and its wooden companion are still there. But there is a deep black streak and smoke is rising. The wooden door seems to be ajar; brightness emanates from the crack. I approach cautiously, pull back the screen, and try to peer into the fissure. I cannot see a thing, other than light. So, I push the wooden door open.
I step inside and find myself in an open field under calm, blue skies. I can see the sun and feel the warmth on my skin. And directly ahead I see a thick yellow arrow resting on the weeds. A hallucination? I take a few steps in the direction the arrow is pointing in. I am no longer limping. My hands are not bleeding.
I see railroad tracks and break into a run. I fall on my knees on gravel and kiss the rail.
“Hey!”
It’s Mark’s voice! I look up and see a pickup truck heading toward me. It stops and Mark jumps out.
He grasps my right hand with both of his and says, “My buddy, we thought you were lost!”
I laugh and reply, “Me? Lost? You’re kidding, right?”