Linear Vagabonds

The streets are filthy. Garbage is piled on the sidewalks like bodies after a genocide. Flies buzzing through the air like angry taxi drivers caught in traffic. The rotten smell of decomposing leftovers mixed in with paper products and spoiled milk. Jagged lines of used toilet paper alongside the sidewalk for tourist to hop over like some sort of child’s game. Dark figures leaning against buildings with grease dripping down from their hair and dirt digging mines under their fingernails. Malnutrition bodies hover down the sidewalks with flies making camp underneath their eyelids. The bloated bellies are as round as a globe and as firm as an oxygen-filled beach ball. Naked bodies are passed out in alleyways like sardines in a tin can. Their eyes shimmer a pale white and their wounds are the size of valleys. Vultures are screeching through the sky as if they were bats being evicted from their caves. A repetitive phrase is echoed throughout the city like a mantra inside a Buddhist temple. “Deliver me, for I am greatness.”

The masses carry torches in their trembling hands with sweat dripping down onto the concrete. Color-dyed human hair is wrapped around bones that were picked clean by the stereotypical vultures. The hair is dipped in perfume smelling of expensive leather being touched by gold-crested emperors. Matches are stolen from pharmacies and stashed in the pockets of the masses. The hair burns like a fallen city under the influence of arsonists and smells like Death taking a bath with his mistress.

The city is as silent as a pedophile entering a church for the baptism of the mayor’s son. The asphalt trembles like the body of an innocent man standing in front of a firing squad. Thousands of choreographed footsteps pound against the empty street like a meat cleaver. The masses file in using a circular formation like trained penguins at the zoo.

Kingdom Occupied

Where are the paper cups I bought last night at the grocery store? I left them on the counter and now they have disappeared. Everything ends up disappearing in this house. Maybe it was those damn little Irishmen that run around stealing everyone’s goodies. The ones with the exaggerated red beards that look like the backside of a fox. The ones that smell like a European bar after a victorious soccer match. They have heavy Irish accents like they were all raised in the lavishing mountaintops of Ireland.

What? I’m talking about leprechauns? No, no. I know what leprechauns are and I’m not talking about those amateurs. I’m talking about the elite Irishmen; they make leprechauns look like the offspring of Gary Coleman and green beans. They’re fierce and steal your goodies when you aren’t looking. Trust me on this one, OK?

The paper cups are not necessary, the guest can drink out of faucet for all I care. Tonight isn’t about paper cups, it’s about more than that.

The barbecue sauces are lined up on the kitchen counter, depending on which one the guest prefers. We have the mild spicy ones and we have the sweet tangy ones. Beside each sauce is a brush and a small container, that way the guests aren’t walking around with the entire bottle of sauce gripped between their fingers.

The cheap foldout chairs are downstairs in the basement, all gathered in a perfect circle. Some of them are brand new, with the soft cushion underneath your tender ass when you sit down. Other chairs are bare metallic and if you are wearing shorts, you can feel the coldness of the metal pressing against your delicate skin. The chairs are usually tossed aside after the first twenty minutes, but there is always one idiot that likes to sit down and watch. “No, no. I rather sit down and hear what happens.” The pros usually have a little surprise for these newbies that walk in thinking they can do whatever the hell they want.

I’m running around the house, making sure everything is put away in the correct space. You put everything away and out of view for two reasons. Number one, you don’t want guests to know much about your personal life. Number two, a lot of the folks involved in this are thieves and cannot be trusted. I’ve had my remote control for the TV stolen, along with some detergent for washing clothes. Two weeks ago I had a sock stolen, not even the pair, but just the left one. I never said they were intellectual thieves.

I sent out the e-mails two days ago, so everyone should be here tonight. Tonight is my night for hosting, which is a big deal to me. Last time I was hosting, it turned out to be chaos and I was banned from hosting for two weeks. I’ll tell you about that later. One of the things about hosting is that you MUST come up with a back up story, incase some curious neighbors start knocking on the door asking what the noise and cheering is about. On the front door, I’ve posted a flyer that I made last night at 3 A.M. to hopefully prevent those agog knocks. The flyer looks something like this (excluding graphics):

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SACRED HEART CHURCH OF CHRIST
“REDEMPTION IS POWER”

The meeting for adults addicted to Asian pornography with some Hungarian influence is being held tonight at 6 P.M. in the basement.

Tonight’s scheduled:
- Introduce new members, welcome them.
- Share stories about addiction and pornography
- Comfort those around us, we are all brothers and sisters
- Play “Spin The Cross and Tell The Truth” with a partner (cannot be the same partner from last week)
- Last thoughts and mass prayer for redemption

If you are reading this as a concerned neighbor, do not worry, the chanting and noise is for those that are a step closer to redemption. God bless you and your children.

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Going to church through my entire adolescence is finally paying off now. The flyer should keep the neighbors away, since everyone values Christianity and morals. You throw in the word “redemption” and “God bless” and everyone magically understands what you are going through. You could be addicted to porn stars dressed as civil war soldiers having intercourse with wild boar and people will pity you because you are a “Christian”. Do you love narcotics and smoker’s lungs? No worries, Christianity is here to save you.

The doorbell rings. They aren’t supposed to ring the doorbell. They go straight down to the basement, take a seat, and wait till everyone else files in. The doorbell rings again. I’m going to kill whoever is on the other side of the door, unless if it’s a cop, I won’t kill a cop. Well, maybe. I’ll kill a cop if I really have to, you know? It could be one of those life and death situations and the copper is in your way. You never know with these things.

The front door creaks open to reveal a short man with bushy red hair.
Me: Are you the fucking leprechaun that stole my paper cups?
Possible Leprechaun: What? Paper cups? Uh…you have me mistaken for someone else.
Me: I see your bushy red hair and that beer bottle in your hand.
Possible Leprechaun: It’s a bottle of water.
Me: So you’re a magician, too? How tall are you? Four feet?
Possible Leprechaun: I’m 5’2.
Me: I’m going to measure you later and if you lied to me, I’ll steal your gold and take back my paper cups.
Possible Leprechaun: I don’t have any gold or paper cups.
Me: What’s your name? Bogart? Calhoun?
Possible Leprechaun: It’s Frank.
Me: Go downstairs. I’m going to be watching you.
“Frank”: Alright.
The front door shuts on “Frank’s” face.

Don’t ask me why I decided to write the dialogue as if this were a play. Also, don’t ask me if I’ve ever seen a leprechaun before. There was one at my front door and he was the scariest little thing I’ve seen since those crazed Ferbys from the 90’s.

*****

There is chattering coming up from the basement. It’s ten minutes after the starting time, which means the majority of the guests are downstairs and ready. I gather my clipboard with a black pen and start walking down the steps.

The basement is originally occupied with boxes filled with junk I don’t use but refuse to throw out. Objects with memories, you know? The boxes are pushed to one side. There are only two lights and they are the ones that are long and look like some sort of medieval weapon. The lights are placed on either side of the circle of chairs. The chairs are perfectly aligned, leaving an opened circle in the center. In a dark corner of the basement are cages of all shapes and colors, rattling and shaking from side to side.

There are roughly fifteen men in the room. There are tall ones and short ones (the leprechaun from earlier). There are skinny ones and there are fat ones that look like they swallowed an elk whole. They probably use the elk’s antlers as bras to support their massive breasts (the men, not the elk). There are men in business suits holding a briefcase, there are men dressed as if they mistaken this for a homeless shelter. Tonight there are no upper and lower class. Tonight there are no judgment and criticism based on appearance (unless you look like a fucking leprechaun). Tonight is about talent, strategy, and savage beasts.

I blow on my rape whistle (it’s not mine, I found out) to quiet everyone down and bring order. The chattering slowly comes to halt. There are still a couple that are still chattering. You can hear still hear random phrases if you listen closely.

“I left her there naked and thinking I was going to marry her.”
“ Did you watch MTV the other night?”
“ I punched him in the face and told him to send his mother to fat camp.”
“ He started accusing me of being a leprechaun and stealing his paper cups.”

Fucking Irish bigot that is good for nothing and deserves to have all this potatoes stolen. He thinks I can’t hear him when I’m standing three feet away from him, the actual height of his birth mother back in Ireland.

I blow on the whistle again and all chattering and side conversations come to an end. The fifteen eyes are on me, awaiting the match orders and the regulations for tonight. I clear my throat with an “ahem” and open my mouth in a loud, authoritative voice.

The following is a rough version of my opening speech:

"Welcome.

Tonight is Wednesday night, which means no leashes and BBQ sauce. I’ve posted the flyer on my front door and tonight is Asian pornography night with Hungarian influence.

All newcomers stand to the right and I’ll jot down your name and information. Have your license and certificate of ownership. We aren’t sloppy with this and we don’t allow those rotten bastards that steal to enter this ring.

Everyone else step to the left and take a sit while I take care of these new pricks. Have an idea for your challenger you want to take in. I’m jotting down suggestions and if you’re lucky, you’ll get your pick. We’re doing matches based on weight, so don’t think you can cheat your way into an unfair match.

I want to announce that our special guest will not be here tonight. He’s tied up in court hearings and we’re not sure if he’ll be returning anytime soon. May the falcons guide him through this mess.

Opening match is host versus newbie, which makes it me versus Irishman over there. Future announcements will follow. Let the good times roll and let the beasts have their blood."

The dogmatists stand up with their backs slumped and their heads tilted down. They walk towards left with their hands quivering and sweat dripping down from each finger. The rest of the elitist take seats and chatter about the weakest competitors. The room is filled with egomania circling the air above the guests, striking down every body that has a beat inside of their chest. You are no longer the CEO of the company. You are no longer the handsome attorney. Your reputation before tonight is nonexistent. Your reputation tonight is based on victories and failures. Your looks and social statues are as useless as a prisoner’s planner at the local county jail. “To Do List in August: rot away.”

The newbies, the fresh-out-of-the-oven kids step forward in a single file line. There are four of them, all looking more terrified than the kid behind them. The each hand me their driver’s license and certificate of ownership. Most certificate are damp from their sweaty palms. I run upstairs and make copies of each license and certificate. I place the copies in folders and the players name on the label. The clipboard is pinching a database with a few spaces near the end, to write down the players’ name and the weight of their fighter. I walk downstairs and glance over the staircase’s railing and see them standing there, huddled together like caribou hiding from a pack of wolves.

“Alright. One of you is going to be going up against me. Two of you will be fighting each other and the left over newbie will be fighting the winner of the host versus newbie match.”

They put away their driver’s license while the hands shake. They fold the certificate into a small rectangle and stuff it into their pockets. Besides the terrified caribou, the pack of wolves are laughing and chattering as if they were guaranteed a win. Most of these bastards are so cocky that they walk in here thinking they are going to win every match. When they lose they blame it on either their fighter or the host’s choice of regulations. The rape whistle is placed between my lips.

“Listen up. The first match is going to commence in ten minutes. The BBQ sauces are upstairs in the kitchen. Remember to laver up your fighter and opponents in matches MUST use different sauces. You use the same sauce and the fighters will just end up attacking themselves. Ten minutes.”

The chattering ends quicker than the audience’s perversion once they realize that King Kong wasn’t a porno. Everyone scatters around, most of them retreating to the rattling cages in the dark corner. Each guest grabs their cage with both hands and runs upstairs to the kitchen. I sit down in a chair (the one with the cushion) and wait for them to file out. I’m downstairs by myself and I take a look at the center circle. A few minutes from now, this basement is going to be a bloodbath. The chairs will be pushed to the walls. The chanting and yelling will erupt faster than Mount Vesuvius over Pompeii. Chaos will reign and the winner will be glorified.

*****

My kitchen is a mess. BBQ sauce is everywhere, as if a blind juggler decided to show up and prove his skills with opened bottles of sauce. There are handprints of sauce smeared on the refrigerator door. Fighters are running around with BBQ dripping from their bodies. They’re growling at each other, smelling the sauce on the opponents body. The smell is overpowering and it’s acting like a pheromones during mating season. I stand in my kitchen and watch them destroy my kitchen with sweet and tangy sauce. I feel a drip on my head and look towards the ceiling. BBQ sauce is dripping from my ceiling. Sometimes I don’t even know how these guests can be lawyers by day and acid-filled retards by night.

“Put your damn leash on your fighter and get your ass down there! You are acting like war veterans let loose with finger painting!”

A rush occurs through the guest and they all scurry downstairs. BBQ sauce leaving a trail on the carpet and dripping from every corner of the kitchen like it were a fucking cave. Bad choice for BBQ sauce night. Damn it.

*****
The match is starting in five minutes. I’m using my Akita tonight. I’ve been training him for five years and he’s a born killer (except those times he cuddles with me watching TV). He has five wins and one lose under his belt. We try to forget that one lose. He’s grey with a mix of black. His eyes are dark and full of hate (except when he is whining for some treats, they tend to become watery). He loves raw steak and will bit the head of anything that is moving (especially those squeaky toys you buy at the pet store).

I bring out my Akita out of his cage and I covered him in BBQ sauce before the guest arrives. He looks angry and ready to kill. He starts licking my hand while I pet his forehead and give him pep talk.

“Alright listen up, Gonzo. This leprechaun has been stealing our paper cups and he smells like Guinness. I don’t know what fighter he is using tonight, but you must tear him apart. Bring him down like Lassie did to those criminals.”

Gonzo starts barking at me and pacing back and forth. The leprechaun walks up and looks me in the eye. Once I catch his eyes and give him a stare to burn right through him. He tilts his head down and I open my mouth to ask the question everyone has on their mind.

“So Frank the Leprechaun, which fighter are you making your first lose with?”

A sudden laughter erupts around the basement, followed by several guests asking, “What did he call him a leprechaun?” The little Irishman walks back to a dark corner and brings out a fighter on a leash.

“An Irish terrier.”

That son of a bitch. “I’m not a leprechaun.” He’s trying to play like he’s never been to Ireland and he rolls up to the match with an Irish terrier. He comes to my house and disrespects me first by stealing my paper cups and now with this? Gonzo is going to rip apart that Irish, potato-loving family.

“You’re going to wish your ancestors died during the potato famine. The match is fifteen minutes long or until a winner is pronounced. The whistle blows and you take off the leash. There is no intervention. You can’t throw beer bottles at my fighter. You got that Frank the Leprechaun?”

Frank looks around at the other guests as if they knew the answer or some sort secret password to winning. He opens his mouth, but closes it right away. He opens it up again after stuttering for a few seconds.

“I got it.”

The other guest line up around the center circle and Gonzo and the Irish terrier stand on either side of each other. I can smell the spicy and thick BBQ sauce from the terrier. I went with the sweet and tangy, it’s easier to wash off afterwards. The basement is silent, except for the growling of the fighters. The lights are dim and the whistle is pressed in between my lips. I glance over at Gonzo, give him a nod, and blow the whistle.

*****

The BBQ sauce on Gonzo is dripping onto the concrete and leaving a trail. The chanting is increase and the anticipation is growing. The Irish terrier is looking at Gonzo like he was a Nazi turned social worker with horrible intentions. Gonzo is using a warrior’s tactic and baring his sharp teeth. Wet drool is dripping down and sticking to anything it’s flung upon. If he has rabies than every sucker in this place is walking away with a consolation prize.

The bets are being placed in a dark corner, with a man wearing a bowler hat and a faded jean jacket. An opium pipe is fashioned between his lips and the smoke rises towards the ceiling. He is counting the money, jotting down names, and thinking about which drug he’s going to indulge in next. His hair is greasy, as if a fast food restaurant decided to rub their famous burgers on this poor man’s head. I’m a few feet away from him and I can smell his pungent order. I’ll slip him a bar of soap after the match.

Gonzo takes a bit into the terrier’s neck. The terrier squeals like a pig being tossed onto the buffet table at a cheap restaurant filled with greedy, fat Americans. Gonzo is biting down hard. Blood is oozing out of the neck and encasing Gonzo’s white teeth. The terrier begins shaking violently like a fish out of water by the hands of a seven-year-old boy fishing with his grandfather. The chanting is fierce, piercing through the sound barrier.

There is a smirk on my face, the kind where you feel this rising satisfaction that you accomplished something important. Whether it’s winning a match or lighting someone’s house on fire, you feel that your life finally has purpose. Seeing Gonzo dropping the body of a limp terrier is like watching your child walk towards you for the first time. It’s like winning the lottery and not having anyone else know. The satisfaction is yours. The means of satisfaction are unimportant. You roll around in your glory like it is a pool filled with money and immortality.

Frank the Leprechaun kneels down and wraps his arms around his Irish terrier. His arms are covered in blood and his face is lifeless. I look at him like a king sitting on his throne looking down at a pleading peasant. As he looks at me, my smirk is in position and ready to attack. Something changes. He’s silent. His eyes are watery like a translucent dam holding back gallons of water. His arms are shivering and his terrier is limp, with the eyes rolled back like an out of order slot machine. The blood is dark red and slowly creeping onto my shoes, like a burnt pasta sauce spilling over the pot onto the kitchen floor.

Gonzo stands next to my side and I look at his face. His tongue is rolled out like a carpet at a Hollywood movie premier. The look on his face is the same look he has everyday. The same look when he is playing with a tennis ball, the same look when he’s drinking out of the toilet. This very moment, with blood covering his teeth, he has the same look he has when we’re laying on the sofa and watching primetime television.

He’s the civilian in a small third world nation run by a dictator. He’s the mentally disabled child placed in a specialty center because his parents don’t want to deal with him. He’s the handicapped man strolling by in his wheel chair while society looks down on him. He's the puppet and I’m the puppeteer with strings attached to his limbs.

I look around the room and the man in the bowler hat is standing on a chair, collecting money and shouting over the eager to feel the green bills against their palms. I’ve lost my train of thought, I’m wandering through empty halls. I hear someone shout my name from upstairs and I return to back to the power hungry host of the night.

******

“What do you want?”

There is a teenage boy standing in my kitchen, nervously looking around and his arms folded across his chest. He’s wearing dark blue jeans with small holes over each knee. His t-shirt is solid red and the V-neck exposes his bare, hairless chest. The boy keeps pacing back and forth, as if he has just murdered someone and doesn’t know what to do with the body.

“At the front door…I didn’t know what to do. They knocked a few times and started yelling. I….I tried calling you but everyone was chanting and I guess you couldn’t….well, I guess you couldn’t hear me…”

This boy is extremely nervous. I want to run down, snatch the opium pipe from the bowler collector, and give this kid a few hits to calm him down. I want to slip something in his drink later and make him loosen up for once. I try keeping my voice clam, as if I’m trying to get a very valuable secret out of a two-year-old.

“Listen kid, calm down. No one is going to know where the body is if you chop it up and then stuff it down the chimney.”

The boy’s eyes widen as if Bigfoot himself walked in the front door wearing an expensive suit, holding a bottle of whiskey, and yelling “Party time starts now!”

“Wh…what body?”

I step closer to him and he steps back. He presses his back against the kitchen counter. His t-shirt is probably soaking up several different kinds of BBQ sauce. He’ll need a good excuse to explain that to his parents. Maybe a cookout with a friend, maybe he couldn’t find a napkin while eating BBQ wings. A fist bangs against the front door. I step closer.

“Who’s knocking on my front door? Tell me without stuttering this time.”

The boy swallows, takes his deep breath, and cleared his throat.

“The police.”

*****
I’m rushing towards the front door. I look through the little hole dripped in the door. There is a cop standing on my front porch, looking directly at the flyer I posted earlier. He is wearing the typical blue uniform, not very fashionable if you ask me. His head is completely shaven, like a pale, white bowling ball with wrinkles. I look passed him and see a police car pulled up in front of my house with a cop in the passenger seat. The cop in the passenger’s seat looks bored. He’s holding a newspaper in front of his face as if he’s calming sitting on the toilet without single worry.

I make a quick turn and shuffle myself over to the nervous teenager with the confidence of a blind person at an art show. I get as close as possible I can to the boy without leaving him with the thought that I could possibly be seducing him.

“This is what we’re going to do. I’m going to go to my room for a second. Make sure no one opens that door. If they keep knocking, ignore them. I’ll be out in two minutes. No one touches the doorknob. Are we clear or do I have to get Gonzo to bit your ankles off?”

This kid is sweating balls of salty sweat that could refill the Atlantic. He swallows, making that “gulping” sound. He looks at the door, he looks at me. His eyes are lowered and his mouth opens as little as a professional ventriloquist performing his act.

“Yes…yes, sir. No one touches the door.”

This kid deserves a round of applause. He’s obedient and follows orders. He does what he is told and doesn’t question it. He is the mafia boss’ shaky secretary that empties the body bags into the shredder. He is the butler that cleans the vomit stains off his master’s designer suits after a midnight rendezvous with a woman of the street.

If I come out of my room and there is a cop standing in my messy kitchen asking questions, I’ll have to make sure Gonzo rips out his liver. As I’m holding the bloody liver that looks like a dying fetus, I’ll look over at the curious cop with a gentle smile and ask him, “Have you eaten yet?”

I walk towards into my room and push open the door. There are clothes everywhere. A monkey with a head full of acid must have come in while I was downstairs. He’s delirious. I can picture the hairy little narcotics beast now. He comes in with his tongue sticking out. He’s wearing boxers he found at his last victim’s house. His eyes are full of anger and laugher. He’s angry the horrible drug is taking hold of his functions, but he can’t help but smile about the entire ordeal. He begins in my closet. Close hangers are thrown on the floor. The clothes are tossed to the four corners of the room. Piles are building up towards the ceiling. The damn money is probably hiding in one of the clothes piles waiting to leap out and sexually harass me with his jungle language.

I’m searching in my closet for a little black box. The black box is tough, as if it’s made out of alligator skin. It has two solid clips on the side to make sure it stays closed. I find a box filled with old magazines, with topics raging from computers to hunting. I lift a pile of hangers and throw them behind me. I find a half eaten bagel with enough mold to infect a nation. I move a pile of clothes and underneath it, hiding from me, is the black box.

This is one of those moments where your common sense goes out the window. You’re depending on basic motor functions and mental processes. Everything is a blur. Your heart is beating fast enough to have it explode out of your chest. You make a decision and you go with it. You don’t sit down and think about it. You don’t put common sense or go through a mental list of your different possibilities. You convince yourself that you’re making the right choice. You think you can trust your mind, but your mind turns on you. It revolts and it hates you. The mind cannot be trusted.

I open the black box and take out what’s inside. I stand up, take a deep breath as if I’m mediating on the hilltops of Tibet. I step through the open door frame. This is it.

*****
“What are you…what are you holding underneath your shirt?”

The boy’s face is covered with a greasy layer of sweat and dried BBQ sauce. He’s trembling like some fierce drug is taking hold of his motor functions. The drug is fear and his motor functions are limited. I walk towards the boy with my hand underneath my shirt.

“This has to be done. There is no other way. I’ve thought about it and this is it. You go downstairs and you tell everyone to sneak out the back door. Tell them to hop the fence and run as if Frankenstein himself was hungry for their blood. Don’t turn back. Keep forward and save yourself.”

The boy stands there, with nothing to say. His eyes look at me, they’re as wide as a New York style pizza. He blinks. We stand there for a second, looking at each other without saying a word. This is my last moment of peace. This is the last interaction with another human being before chaos infiltrates my house. I snap out of it. Time is running out.

“ Go! Are you deaf? Go!”

The boy runs downstairs as quickly as possible. He almost loses his balance on the third step descending. He’s clumsy, but he sure as hell follows orders. He disappears in the abyss of the basement.

I turn towards the door. My right hand is gripped around the handle that is hidden underneath my shirt. It’s time. Gonzo is probably outside in the cold night air running with the others. Is he thinking about me? Probably not. The BBQ sauce is hardening against his body, forming a cocoon of commercialized sauce and owner abuse. Is he going to miss eating and watching TV with me? The food, yes. Spending time with me, no. I take a deep breath. This is one of those moments I never thought I would come to.

*****
The front door opens to leave a little crack and I place myself in between the crevice. The officer is standing there, looking extremely annoyed and ticked off. He focuses his eyes on me. I fake a smile at him.

“We’ve had complaints about noise from this house the entire evening. There are rumors of illegal activities occurring in this household. We could do this the easy was and you can let me take a casual look around. Or we could do this the hard way: I call my partner, we break down this door, and make sure you spend the night in a cell. Make your pick.”

I smile at him and give a quick little laugh. I’m attempting to pull the whole “there must be a mistake officer” scenario. I’m the friendly neighbor that is simply watching the TV too loud. I’m a liar.

“Officer, there must be a mistake. What can of a man do you think I am? There are no teenagers inside of my house getting drunk off cheap beer and sniffing cocaine off the kitchen corner. There isn’t a naked teenage girl standing in my living room playing with a stolen ape. Hold on a second.”

I turn my head towards the inside of the house and yelling to an invisible teenager, “Give him the banana and he’ll stop biting you. Billy, you sniff from LEFT to RIGHT!”

I rotate my head towards the cop once again. He’s gripping his gun in his right hand. He has a stern look on his face. His forehead is wrinkled. He’s stepping towards the door.

“Sorry Officer, some kids never learn. But what is that you were saying?”

The officer unclips the holster holding his loaded gun. He looks behind him at his partner. His partner is still holding the newspaper in front of his face.

“You are going to open this door this moment or you’ll find yourself on the ground with a grown man pulling your hands behind your back.”

This is it. I take my hand out from underneath my shirt and I push the door open. I hold out my right hand and pull the trigger. A blast erupts. A tiny smoke cloud rises from the end of the barrel. The officer holds his chest with his palm as red as a grapefruit. His eyes open, as if he saw Death appear with a look on his face that exclaims “Sorry buddy, just doing my job.”

The officer is down. A puddle of a blood orange liquid stains the concrete in front of my door. His arm relaxes, his eyes stop blinking. The cop in the car throws down the newspaper and opens the door like an action hero kicking the door down to a secret gang hideout. He begins rushing towards me.

I slam the door and lock the main lock. I turn the deadlock. I slide the chain. I throw a stool from the kitchen in front of the door. I run towards my room and slam the door behind me. It’s locked. I slide a small bookcase in front of the door. I slouch down against the wall. The gun rests next to my leg on the ground. My palm is sweaty.

There is a continuous banging on the door until to comes to a sudden halt. Bullets penetrate the door and bookcase. The bullets soar pass me and it’s as if times slows down and I can see the bullets looking at me and saying “I might have missed you but my buddy back there in the clip is coming for you rotten bastard.”

If you happen to see a grey dog with a mix of black covered in BBQ sauce, that’s Gonzo. Wash him off and take him home. He’s friendly and your family will adore him. He eats any brand of food, as long as it feeds him. He likes those squeaky toys, but the small ones. The big ones scare him. He’s trained to piss outside, but leave a small container in the house just in case he has a midnight urge to piss. Take good care of him.

The door smashes open. Remember when I said I would never kill a cop? Well I guess this one was one of those moments, you know, life and death situation. I’ve already killed one and it doesn’t feel too great. I mean, the gun going off made me feel like some badass in a R-rated film, but other than that, it’s not something to look forward to.

I grip the gun in my right hand and it’s loaded, ready to fire. My heart is beating faster than a cocaine-addicted celebrity playing the bongos in the nude. The officer steps into my room. Time stops and silence enters. This is it.

The Nausea

The cold air is escaping the vent and roaming freely in my room. It’s brushing up against my skin and making it shiver. My skeleton is shaking inside of my skin. My eyes are watery like flood gates. My hands are lifeless. My legs are odd appendages that bend at the knee and support my body. My toes are miniature skin-covered claws. My heartbeats are irregular and fragile, but isn’t everything else?

Four walls enclosed around my body, each representing a different aspect of my ego.

The wall to the right is covered with bogus images taken from music booklets. The day it was put together, I found myself thinking I was some sort of an artistic genius. I would gather images and put them together according to color and essence. I am not color coordinated or right to judge the essence of an image. It takes up space, just like everything else we do. We see an empty wall and we paste it with objects that appeal to us. Just incase a stranger comes into our room; they could look at the wall and question us about what they see. We always want to open our mouths and tell our greatest hits and shy away from our biggest flops. We see something untouched and we want to rub our fingerprints all over it. Our mark must be placed on whatever we witness. We are dogs pissing on every tree we come across. Our words are the poison to infect the rest of the population with our disease. Our disease is our lives and the plague is our ego. A stranger is another opportunity to know our name. We glorify ourselves. We are our own idols. I am not an artist.

The wall behind me has a few more images and an object given to me by a friend. It represents a friendship in my life that diminished for unknown reasons. The friendship is dead and I’m still holding on to a silly artifact of the past. There is a window underneath the object and it sits there with the blinds drawn over them. In the morning, the sun shines through the window, and in the night, it’s just another wall to isolate me from the outside world. It’s an escape. Looking outside gives me the sensation that a world filled with terror and beauty still lives. We place ourselves in environments where we are easy sailing through stagnate currents. We continually place ourselves in these environments because it allows us to become lazy. We sit back, recline in our favorite chair, and let laziness take over our lives. Nothing wrong can happen, we are in our comfort zone. The minute we are uncomfortable , we begin to realize that we are only small, minuscule beings in a world where we have no control. We must become paranoid and over analyze our safety. We must consider other human beings that have a different way of life that might collide with our path. The drug addict might grab our arms and beg for spare change. The alcoholic might stumble in our path and tease us with insults and angry words. The mugger might see us as a potential target and our wallet might be stolen. To live in comfort and laziness is to not live at all. Uncomfortable means that we are no longer in control. Someone else can ruin our day, someone else can determine our lives. We are fanatics of ourselves and control is our virtue. I am a sloth and an egotistical.

The wall to my right is where the bed is, followed by the nightstand. The bed is where I escape from reality. I place my head on the pillow, shut my eyes, and wait for the rapture. The dreams commence and my body is lifted. I’m sailing through clouds, I’m being chased by an angry nation. I’m in a theater with zombies roaming freely, I’m falling in love with a beautiful girl. The rapture of dreams is a realm that is untouched by others. The creation of images and visual stimulation is the build up of contents in my mind. There are those experiences where I feel my body tremble and the walls are closing in. I want to wake up, but my own body is in control and won’t comply. Some mornings I wake up unaware of where I am. I don’t know what day it is. I don’t know what just happened. The sensation is priceless. It gives me a rush of panic where I’m racing through mental files to answer my own questions. Nighttime is my reclusive escape and dreams are my hallucinogenic drugs. I am powerless in sleep, I am drifting away.

There is also two doors that lead to my closet filled with attires from the last couple of years. Shirts and pants with designs on them to place over my delicate, naked skin. The clothing is another item sewed into our ego-driven lives. We feel the need to buy expensive clothing, because it shows the world that we are wealthy. We wear clothing that others don’t have. It yells “UNIQUE!” and the world’s eyes are placed on our keen fashion sense. Color coordinated outfits are a plus. We wake up daily and stagger over which outfit is going to showcase our mood the best. There are different outfits for different groups of people we surround ourselves with. If we are spending time with old friends, we throw on dirty clothes and we recite, “ I was too lazy to look good.” We were not too lazy, we just knew that we didn’t have anyone to impress anymore. We are meeting someone new, we must impress. We are going to be around the opposite sex, throw on our best outfits and strut the sidewalks like our own red carpets. Our clothing is another layer of the skin. Except with this one, we can change it as many times as we want. I am a clothed, color-coordinated fanatical of myself.

The wall in front of me has a desk leaning against it. It has a white bookshelf with rows and rows of books perfectly lined up in descending size order. I look at these books I’ve read throughout the years and the information I’ve taken from them. Some of the books have made me hysterically laugh to myself. Some of the books have made me an insomniac with my own thoughts. We are centered around ourselves and we are own worshipers. We are our greatest fans, yet we search for escape routes from our lives. We can talk for hours about ourselves, but we can also search for hours for a way out of the boring lives we live. I’m constantly searching for ways to step outside of my handcrafted box. I’m relentless in ways to expand my mind, but I get excited when someone wants to know about me. I am bored with my life, I am a self-educated escape artist.

What is it that we are so desperately searching for? The quickest way to become a millionaire. The easiest way to find the love of your life. The best way to lose weight while still being able to eat that fatty chocolate cake. There is always a search going on in our lives and it’s always to better ourselves in the quickest, easiest, best way possible. Are we truly happy with who we are? Everyone has a story to tell and an experience to shout the world’s audience. We open ourselves up to strangers because we want to be heard. We want to fool ourselves into thinking that people are almost as fascinated with us as we are with ourselves. The stranger becomes the listener, yet the listener becomes the betrayer of trust. We are tiny thieves running around stealing everyone’s spotlight because we feel that we deserve it more than they do. We complain about not being able to trust anyone, but we are willing to stab anyone in the back as long as it benefits ourselves in some way. We are hypocrites. We extend our arms and point the fingers at others. We pick at each others’ flaws like vultures picking bones clean. We are afraid of being humble and vulnerable. We push aside our flaws because we’ll deal with them later. We are scared of ourselves. We are terrified of the people we are becoming. Glorification doesn’t make sense but it’s the only thing we know how to do. I am a work in progress and the progress is headed in all directions.

My body is still cold and the air is still rushing past my face. Nothing has changed in the last couple of minutes. My skeleton still needs a blanket. My hands are still dead and my legs are still pointless to look at. My heart beats at different patterns. My body functions and my thoughts are wicked.

The strangeness of this room is overwhelming. I do not live in this room, the objects in this room live for me. My life is in the objects surrounding me. I’ve been too busy pouring my life into objects, that I haven’t had enough time to tell myself who I really am.

The sun will be rising in a couple of hours. The sunrays will shine through my blinds and warm my exterior. I’ll wake up just as self-indulgent as tonight, but maybe I’ll be taking a step forward towards the loss of the ego. Maybe I’ll wake up realizing that happiness lies inside of me, not in the materialistic society we live in where our bodies and thoughts are commercialized. Maybe I’ll wake up a different person with a different name and a different set of ideas. I’m contemplating sleep and wondering about the dreams that will visit me tonight.

The world around me continues to exist and breath in the toxics we feed it. I’m going to continue to live my life in the matter that fits me best. I’m going to strip each day of enjoyment and embrace those around me. I’m going to share my flaws with strangers and beg for guidance. I’m humble and flawed, but the world is telling me that I’m not alone in this. I exist and life is beautiful. Goodnight and tomorrow will be another day to find the secrets we seek and the beauty hidden inside of each and every one of us.

Enlightenment

The sun is warm against my pale, shivering body. I feel the warmth and I feel the uplifting. I close my eyes and see a blood red color slowly turning lighter. As I sit there with my eyes close and looking directly into the inside of my eyelids, I see the color start transforming into a beautiful white. The sunrays are penetrating my skin with the UV rays rejoicing in the lack of sunscreen. I can feel my skin begging me to run inside. They tell me they don’t want cancer as a neighbor. I place my quivering finger on my lips and hush their pleads.

My body is on fire, with embers falling on the ground. The sun has gripped my body and chased away the shaking and bitter coldness. I open my eyes slowly and my vision is distorted. The landscape is still there. The trees are still standing straight. The grass is still thirsty for a few drops of rain. Realism is still in the sky and I close my eyes in retreat.

Eyes closed and now I am transported, no longer in the complicated realistic nature of life. It’s me and the sun beaming down my body and sending his greetings. It’s the essence of simplicity and feeling as if the world has diminished. The traffic has been silenced. The words of others have been muted. It’s as if God has paused the world for me to take a few minutes to feel his warmth.

I’m pleading for an uplifting; an uplifting that will reach inside of my head and begin altering with my brain. After finding the right spot on the brain, a smile will run across my face. After pressing hard enough, I will begin to stand straight up, without that pathetic slouch I have inherited recently.

I find myself in between moments of shivering and utter steadiness. The shivering is remarkable and it shakes me from side to side, whispering “Never again”. The steadiness holds me with its invisible arms and yells with enthusiasm and gratitude, “Have faith!”

The shivering begets coldness, which begets wreckage. The steadiness begets warmth, which begets order. The shivering and steadiness hate each other and they fight for my attention.

Let me stand up straight with a smile across my face, the sun peering down at me, and hope gently gripping my hand, while whispering, “Trust me”.

Uplift me. Uplift me. Uplift me.

Release and Repeat

My mind feels like it has been hammered into concrete for nine days straight. My body is weak like a soldier crawling back to base after having his legs blown off. The cars driving past me are in slow motion. The sky is overcast and a sudden downpour is expected. The silence is overwhelming. The silence begets thoughts; thoughts beget the treacherous instability of the mind. It’s nine-twenty in the evening and my mind is turning on me.

A simple fix is a gathering among complete strangers. The fix utilizes the humanistic nature of wanting to be surrounded by others and never experiencing alienation. We dread being alone because the minute we are by ourselves, our mind begins ravishing through our thoughts. We begin to convince ourselves of ridiculous scenarios. We begin to believe the slightest fiction and we write it into our lives. Yet, we surround ourselves with strangers and our mind falls into a coma and the thoughts are silenced.

It’s a matter of time before I start convincing myself I’m mentally insane. I attempt to occupy myself with tasks that will drive away the thoughts. The tasks are temporary and last until my ego grows weary and unimpressed. Sound stimulation becomes repetitive and falls into the category of annoyance. Visual sensations embrace an hour of my time, but afterwards fall short of enlightenment. There is no cure except the one that I can manufacture.

I touch the bars of the cage and the rusts flakes off like a molded cheese on a hamburger. I’ve been sitting Indian style for several days and I feel as if I may bring offence to the natives. There is no room to situate myself or shift positions. Starvation is only hours away and my stomach is begging me to escape. My pupils are dilated and my eyes are the color of rotten strawberries. My fingers look like wooden sticks, shivering when the temperature is not even cold. I’m extremely limited.

I woke up in this cage on the twenty-six of June. The night before I was in perfect condition, but the fear of something terrible was engaging. The “something terrible” is manufactured, fictional, and unrealistic. It doesn’t have to exist. I’m the creator of this cage, yet I cannot fully understand how to escape. There are no guards watching my every move, waiting for me to complain in order to strike me on the head with their club. There is no alarm system rigged to the mechanical device holding the cage shut. There is no key except for the one I can invent. There is escape or insanity. There is freedom or limitation.

I feel as if the entire world is plotting against me. The world wants to convince me that I have no trust in anyone around me. The world wants to persuade me that nothing good comes in life. Everything negative is thrown in a duffle bag and attached to my ankle. The only way to make the load lighter is to empty the bag little by little. The more I empty it, the more negativity escapes and enters my existence. Do I empty the load so it can be easier on my back or do I carry the negativity until I find it’s destination?

The line drawn between reality and fiction has been erased at nine forty-seven. The cage door swings open and I leaped out to freedom. The cage door was never opened and now freedom is waving goodbye to me, laughing at my inability to result my issues. I’ll pick slavery over this. I’ll pick a POW camp during World War II over this embarrassment.

I’m deteriorating and my bones have wrinkles in them. My eyelids are like theater curtains held by an obsessive-compulsive stage manager. The audience doesn’t know when they will open; the playwright has no control over the opening scene. A gravestone appears in front of me. It has a rounded top and cracks running down the center, like glaciers breaking apart due to ever-changing weather. It’s blank. It’s a reminder like death is in Hamlet to the deranged antihero. The gravestone refreshes the balance between what is morally right and what is absurdly wrong.

I close my eyes and envision myself on a mountaintop. The scenery is majestic and surreal. The trees are endlessly tall and reach towards the blue, cloudless sky. The green leaves are waving in the air when a sudden gust of wind rolls by. The wind is strong enough to present its presence, but soft enough to wrap you up in nature’s blanket. The flowers are arranged by color and they emit an essence that enters your nostrils and tugs on your sense of smell. It’s the smell of everything beautiful in the world. It’s the smell that many of us never have a chance to inhale.

A drizzle falls from the heavens and forms a cocoon of wetness around my body. The water runs down like children riding bicycles in a park. The water washes the imperfections and drains them into the dirt underneath my feet. The sun emerges behind a parallel mountain. It’s like reaching the top of the world and realizing that worrying was just an illusion created by the fearful. The top of the world is unlimited and the air smells of gold.

I open my eyes and the cage settles around me. The rust is still peeling and the limitation is still haunting. A cold draft runs by and sends chills up my spine that pokes against the skin. If one were to run their hands up and down my backside, they would think they were touching a miniature version of the Alps. I look around the outside of the cage and a flashing light appears in the distance. It flashes a yellow light several times until it changes to a pure white. After flashing a white light twice, it flashes an image of the mountaintop. The mountaintop with the endless fields of rainbows transformed to colorful flowers. The bars of the cage are cold like an Icelandic popsicle. The cage taunts me like a civilian taunting the town drunk.

I so desperately want to reach the mountain top that I continuously rack my brain with illusion and mental manifestations of worst-case scenarios. The mountaintop is the only hope I have in my life and losing it would be like losing your favorite child at the county fair. You are shown a glimpse of a lively atmosphere that is brilliant as it is magnificent. The sneak peek is so influential that you begin thinking of every way possible to not reach it. You’re not a pessimist, you’re just scared. Scared of losing the one aspect of your life that makes you feel alive. That mountaintop is the cherry on top of my ice cream, the finishing touches on the wedding cake.

In the realistic judgment of the present, the mountaintop is one hundred percent reachable. The cage is the place where I go when my mind wanders and I throw the duffle bag of negativity over my left shoulder. The cage drains me like leeches attached to a baby calf. It creates illusions that interrupt the climbing of the mountain. It creates instability of the worse kind and it ties me up with its bandages. Insanity smacks the cage. Depression rattles the lock. The cage must not contain my ambitions to reach the top of the mountain. The mountaintop is beautiful and everlasting.

I take a deep breath and my lungs expand. The rich oxygen enters my system and the blood bounces from enchantment. The nervous system is on alert, but reclining on a comfy chair. My arms are dangling by my side. I lift my hand towards my head and run my fingers through my silky hair. The atmosphere is inviting me for brunch. The sun is returning my phone call for movie night. The moon wants to wrap her arms around me and sing me to sleep.

The mountaintop is weeks away and I can smell the flowers, see the rainbows, and feel the drizzle. The wind will lift me up in a gust and form nature’s hammock for me to rest in. I will drift towards the mountaintop. The limitations are endless and the hope is empowering. Beauty is knocking on my door and I’m leaving the cage to embrace her.

Memento Mori

The streetlight is flickering like a firefly in the hands of a curious child. The night air is dense and I can feel the moisture precipitating and running down my face like a jogger in an abandoned town. The smell of gasoline is entering my nostrils, attacking my weak sense of smell. There is a humming sound from the abused engine taking its last breath of contaminated air. My body temperature is decreasing and my hands are shivering like naked babies after their first bath. I move my right hand and reach over the cup-holders. It’s 11:20pm and I’ve never felt so alive.

As soon as spectators roll by in their luxuries automobiles, they will feast their eyes on the following scene:

- A car with its emergency lights flashing like the eyes of a teenager with Tourette syndrome.
- Grey smoke escaping from the elevated hood of the car like a Native American ritual.

- A 1987 Toyota Camry flipped upside down while having its hood smashed into a black streetlight covered with advertisements.
- Four bodies altogether, two in the front and two in the back. One of them is alive.

There were no drunk drivers involved in this car accident. There was no black cat that crossed the street at the last minute causing me to swerve my car into this pleasant streetlight. There wasn’t another car with their high beams on that blinded my vision. I did not fall asleep and begin counting sheep at the wheel. I was not applying make up, shaving my facial hair, reading a newspaper, or any of the ridiculous activities people partake in while driving. This accident was premeditated and fueled off new sensations.

As soon as police officers begin tearing apart my car, they will open the trunk and find the following contents:

- Nothing because everything I own was thrown in a river before the accident.
- Now that you think about it, they might find a grey sweatshirt with purple lettering reading “My son is a dancer at the Erich School of the Arts.”
- I have no children and the sweatshirt was a generous donation from the Goodwill.

After hanging upside down for several minutes, the blood starts to rush to your head. A sensation takes over your body and you feel like you are getting high for the first time. After brushing up against the concept of death, life breathes into your bloodstream in the form of a gasoline scented, smoke filled car accident.

I was never enrolled into any school clubs or after school activities. The closest thing I had to a group gathering was when my family went bowling and even then my father picked me last for his “magnificent and overpowering” team. If I were to jot down a list of friends, the list would look similar to a list of the weapons of mass destruction found in Operation Iraqi Freedom. I still think they should change “Freedom” to “Oil”, but that’s just my opinion.

I never received any phone calls asking me for advice on relationships or what to wear to school the next day. I never was asked to go to the movies, sit in the back row, and make out with a girl I’ve never met before. I never went to a party, but I heard a great deal about them. The drinking and the sexing and the laughing and the arresting. Everything was a social myth to me. Everything was a fossilized, extinct creature that I wanted to get my hands on, but could never find in the open field of adolescence.

Are you beginning to understand? Are you able to see the big picture now?

While hanging upside down and feeling the seatbelt dig into my intestines, I reach over and grab the stiff hand in the passenger seat. I grip the hand harder, as if I was trying to crack a frozen water balloon.

“Everything is going to be ok. I’m here and I will save you.”

I manage to twist my head to look at the backseat and I see two figures sitting next to each other. They are looking straight ahead with blank expressions on their faces. They sit together like children watching a public hanging for the first time, holding onto each other because the fear is too gripping.

“Hang in there for a few more minutes. Trust me and everything will be fine.”

At the office, everyone shoves me aside and looks down when they pass by me. I’m the mirror and they are the vampires too terrified to see their nonexistent self. I am the bucket of water and they are the fire that doesn’t want to be put out. I walk from floor to floor pushing a little metallic cart that squeaks every time I make a sharp turn. I hand out their mail and they can’t even conjure a “thank you”. They are the high-ranking officials and I’m the low level employee that doesn’t have a face.

Is everything becoming clear to you? Does it all make perfect sense?

The only people that know I exist are the tax collectors who bombard me with threatening letters. When the telemarketers start calling after noon, I pick up the phone and ask them how their day is going.

“Are you interested in receiving gifts and unlimited spending accounts with a MasterCard?” I tell them no, but I’m interested in their stories and what they are doing later that night.

“Are you interested in donating a few dollars to save the lives of endangered animals throughout the world?” I tell them I hate animals, but I rather meet up with them later for some coffee and a nice chat.

They hang up the phone after telling me I’m a worthless piece of God’s creation. Either telemarketers hate coffee or they have a social life that I don’t know about.

The minute the car flips and the airbags go off, you start to become a somebody that someone else will care about. The minute you inhale gasoline and realize the possible dangers of a fire, you are the last hope the other passengers have of getting out safely. You are the beacon of rebirth from the car accident. Without the beacon guiding them, they are as helpless as the inferior race in a national genocide.

Are you catching my drift? Do you understand the reason for this?

A car rolls by and the tires come to a complete stop. The driver’s door opens and a newly configured hero pops out of the vehicle like an anxious baby dying to get out of the womb. The hero starts yelling while running towards the scene of the accident.

“ Call 911! There are four people in the car and one of them is moving around!”

He’s yelling out to the passenger in his vehicle in a loud and desperate voice. For the next five minutes, he will believe himself to be a hero and I will be the most important person on this street. The next five minutes is the greatest moment of my life.

The hero starts banging on my window like an angry father catching his daughter with an older boy in her bedroom. His words are inaudible through the rolled up window. I move my left hand up and signal that the door is opened. The hero opens the door and his breathing is heavy. This is the moment that he has been waiting for, the moment he pictured in his head. Saving someone from an accident and being remembered for something. We are not so different after all.

“ Are you ok?”

Those words I’ve never heard before, except the time my brother was pushing me down the stairs and we both tumbled to the first floor. My mother walks up and asks, “Are you ok?” with tears in her eyes. I catch my breath and answer “Yes, but my back hurts.” My mother’s tears stop pouring out and her hyena laughter erupts. “I was talking to your brother.”

I nod my head, while pretending I just woke up from a coma. My eyes are rolling around in my head. Sweat is mixing with blood and running down my forehead.

“What happened?”

The hero steps back for a second, looks around, and crotches down again to my level.

“ Some jackass put a shopping cart in the middle street and you must have not seen it. The car flipped over when you hit the guardrail and you smashed into a streetlamp.”

I don’t appreciate being called a jackass by the man that is saving my life.


“Is everyone else al---ri---alright?”

He stumbles over his words when he glances around in the car at the other passengers.

“Why do you have three mannequins in your car?”

There is no good explanation, at least none he would understand. I couldn’t grab his shirt collar, pull him in closer, and whisper in his ear with my warm breath. I couldn’t tell him that these mannequins made me feel like someone’s life depended on me. I couldn’t tell him that I envisioned myself as being the beacon of hope in their near death encounter but didn’t have enough guts to fill my car up with actual living creatures.

“ Save me.”

The hero looks at me and blinks repetitively, as if trying to shake off an acid flashback that doesn’t make sense. He tries unbuckling my seatbelt but it’s jammed. He takes out a pocketknife and cuts away. He slides both arms under me and lifts me out of the car. I look down at my legs and one of my bones is peaking out the skin like a baby blue jay peaking out of its nest.

I’m a man with a face and a head full of cuts that need stitches. The accident was the stitches and I was the wounded skull.

He sets me down in the middle of the street and I wrap my arms around him. I close my eyes and I hear the sirens approaching from a distance. In the last five minutes, I’ve changed this man’s life and given myself something worth feeling.

He rocks me back and forth like a grandmother holding her grandson in her favorite rocking chair. He whispers in my ear, “Everything is going to be ok. Just hold on.”

Oh No He Didn't!

I woke up this morning with a boulder on my chest. This boulder seems to weigh at least eighty pounds and it crushed my chest like a flat pancake (also known as a crepe). I began looking at it and the sight was shocking. I could barely wrap my arms around it, it was as if I was trying to hug Akebono, the 1997 sumo champion of Japan. The boulder was grey in color, like the color of Mount Rushmore. The texture was like touching a cat’s tongue after licking granite. Enough with descriptions, why is there an eighty pound boulder on my chest?

I began eliminating the possibilities. My father was most likely asleep or getting ready for work, so no time to roll in a boulder into my room. My sister is eight years old and if she happened to lift this boulder onto my chest? Well, let’s just say we would have something to worry about. My mother is probably making my lunch or wondering why on earth I’m not getting ready for school. She does enough as it is and placing a boulder on my chest is not on her priority list. There are only two other organisms left in my house. The bird hates me, he laughs at me when I’m on the computer and hisses when I get too close. As enormous as his hate for me is, I don’t think his little wings can do much lifting. The rabbit eats, hops, and lies down. This rabbit is more laid back than the audience at Woodstock ‘69.

Maybe there is a new spree of burglars. You know, the kind that break into houses and place boulders on sleeping young lads. Maybe it was a hate crime, the kind where people decide to do something against someone else that has nothing to do with anything. Or maybe it was an amateur terrorist act, the kind where the terrorist is too inexperience to attack any political buildings so he places boulders on unsuspecting, sleeping boys.

After deciding I was a victim of a terrorist attack, I began brainstorming on how I could get the boulder off. I could reach over to my cell phone, call the White House, and ask to speak with the President. Once the President says hello, I’ll ask him how his day is going. He’ll tell me that he hates his job and I’ll cheer him up with a few jokes. I’ll tell him that I just found weapons of mass destruction in my closet and I need back up. The President will send over 10,000 troops to my bedroom and once they arrive, they’ll be confused when no weapons are found. I’ll smirk and say, “False alarm guys, but there are puddles of oil under a pile of dirty clothes. Help yourself. While you are here, can you remove this boulder from my chest?”

Next idea. I’ll somehow manage to text every college student in Virginia with the following message: “Beer. Girls. In my room. Word? Bring friends.” Once traffic calms down from the congested highways filled of SUVs blasting the lasting hip-hop sing-a-long about nothing, they will arrive at my casa. I’ll tell my mother to decorate the downstairs with trash and ask the neighbors to pass out in my yard, giving it that authentic atmosphere. I’ll get the rabbit to poop up the stairs, leaving a nice trail for the students to follow into party heaven. Once they open the door, I’ll tell them the beer is in the boulder. They’ll remove it and run out of my house like a pack of male wolves seeing a female for the first time in months.

Next genius plan. I’ll call the producers of such shows as The O.C. or Laguna Beach and offer them some cash. After accepting my generous bribe, they’ll go through the plan as I mapped out for them. A new episode of The O.C. (and/or Laguna Beach) airs across the nation. Millions of pampered, doll faced girls are watching. The stud on the show is holding a lovely young lady while they watch the waves crashing against the shore. He looks into her eyes while flipping his hair in the summer wind. Key the acoustic, indie musician in the background. The stud says with a deep, almost enchanting voice, “You know what I would love more than anything girl?” The girl blinks her eyes a couple of times, as if prince charming was knocking on her door. “What would you love, big boy?” Go to commercial and build up the suspense. The stud is lying down on the beach with a boulder on his chest. The girl is on her knees next to his body. “Remove this boulder from my chest and I will love you forever.” The girl begins crying and she wraps her arms around the boulder, but she cannot move it. She grabs her purse that is filled with a curling iron, make up, tanning machine, bagel bites, eyeliner, and two saltine crackers. She smacks the boulder with the purse and it rolls off gracefully. Every girl in the country will be dying to push boulders off the chests of males. I will begin accepting “thank you” cards from Hallmark next week.

Breaking news. According to my Facebook Mobile news feed, the very boulder on my chest requested to be my friend last night. I accept the boulder, thinking I would see my name under the “Favorite Quotes” or even “About Me“. Nothing. I’m trembling and feeling rather ill. There is a photo album that I manage to click on by ‘accident‘. That son of a boulder. The pictures are of the boulder lying on top of other people. Not just young lads, but young ladies too. I’m outraged and disgusted. I thought we had a bond that was special; you know, the kind where you tell all your comrades that you met this new friend that is way better than they will ever be.

We were close and we are sharing this morning together, when obviously tomorrow night the boulder will be with someone else, drinking martinis and chatting about the latest Croc fashions. That’s it, I’m putting my foot down and standing up for myself. I’m going to delete the boulder from my friends on Facebook and Myspace. I’m going to spread rumors about the boulder and tell everyone how the boulder that pretended to be friendly is actually an alcoholic ball of rock that is good for nothing. I’ll give the boulder away to a blind amateur sculptor. The sculptor will turn it into something horrendous, something no one will ever look at. If the boulder were a contestant on American Idol, everyone would vote for Sanjaya before they vote for the baldheaded boulder. Now to decide how the hell I’m going to actually get this boulder of my chest.

Nonexistent and Aristocratic

It’s a cycle. It’s the washing machine spinning in continuous circles, and we are the dirty laundry. The dirty laundry pushed in by mysterious, dark hands that skips soaking, and goes straight to rinsing. We are clustered together, interwoven in each other arms and mixing with dirt, trash, sand, and small pebbles. The soap is a beverage with 70% alcohol content. The fabric softener is a sheet of broken glass. The water begins to fill in. We can’t breathe, but it feels so good. The cold, alcoholic water entering our nostrils, falling straight down to our lungs. Our lungs are filling up, pass the “max” line engraved by the creator. The swirling of the washer begins, and we are holding onto each other. It’s a cycle.

When I was young, a picture of me was taken while I played in a baby pool, with the sun reflected off the water and into the lens. On my back was an etching, the kind you find written on the plastic dolls at the local store. The kind where you flip the doll over and there it is, what developing nation manufactured it. I’m not a doll made out of plastic; a human with flesh and bones. On the lower part of my back, where the hem of pants wrap around, reads the following: “ 97% humanity, 3% manmade.”

I’ve hit the developmental stages of life, each with new tribulations and malfunctions. The textbooks have taught countless amount of researchers the way the human mind interacts with the world around us. Theories have been written, lectures have been recorded. Professors have stated that the interaction with others has evolved throughout the course of existence. There has been no evolution in the human mind’s capacity to understand each other. The goals once thought about in the beginning of time are the same goals attempting to be fulfilled today. Wars are still waged, violence is still fresh in the air. Technology has evolved and changed, but we are becoming manmade products of our own cycle.

A continuous cycle is one that fails to end; circulating its contents with no sign of seizing. This lifestyle we live, where we are drawn to violence and wars are waged over the greedy hands of elites, is beginning to get old and wrinkled. We have been selfish for all of our ancestors’ existence, we have been benighted to admit that we are addicts in destruction of our peers. We are addicted to competition. We betray, we lie, and we cheat like savages in a hidden colonial establishment seeking a way out. We speak of peace, yet we are willing to slaughter anyone that gets in our away or does any form of damage to us. We speak of giving, yet we take away from anyone that sleeps with an open palm. The cycle has been rotating since the Earth began rotating on its axis. Is there no hope for a mass awakening and reflection of invisible cycle?

Every year that comes, there are the same media-driven stories about the same issues touched upon in the 1900’s.A modern civilization with poverty, wars, hatred, violence, sexual abuses, and anything to make us feel less humane. Crime watch programs are created, sexual offenders websites are uploaded, news articles are written. Thousands of responses to humanity’s criminal history, yet it gets worse every decade. There is no seizing our addiction to violence and our urge for destruction. We pray for disaster more than we pray for miracles. We strive to cinemas where films about murder, rape, drug addiction, and abuse are being replayed and we pour out our wallets each time.

We are content with chaos, we are satisfied with destruction. It’s as if our ancestors threw in the towel centuries ago and we just follow in their footsteps. It’s a cycle, our lives and the way the human mind functions. We still let our egos run our decision, and we still ignore the issue that deserve attention. We have placed black blindfolds across our eyes, living in this world blind and unaware of our murderous ways. A mass awakening is desperately needed, for if an awakening doesn’t occur, we will find ourselves in this endless cycle for centuries to come. Progression will not be in sight, and our children will suffer. A reflection of our actions, a recap of our consequences. We must awaken ourselves from this profound coma we have indulged ourselves in. Our lives are hospital beds with a machine beeping our heartbeat every second the clock ticks and tocks. Our coma is keeping us strapped into this manmade cycle with no endings, unless we awaken with clear hearts and open minds.

By the way the warmth feels on my back today, I’m not sure if it’s coming from the sun or a heating lamp placed over my head. The grass feels artificial, as if an overseas manufacturer is gently picking cloths and materials to closely depict realness. The clouds are not condensation build-up, waiting to pour water on our delicate heads. The clouds are build-up of pollution from our machines, running daily and killing hourly. I clasp my hands together, but even that feels inhumane. I take off my shirt, getting ready to soak my body in grey, murky water. I turn my back to the mirror and the etching is still there, still haunting me. This time, the etching has shifted numbers overnight, without my conscious letting me know a change was occurring. I run my fingers through my hair, which feels like tiny wires implanted into my scalp by a surgeon that was paid well. My eyes are black mirrors, no color, no sign of humanity. My heart beats and clicks, like a ticking bomb waiting to explode. I press my cold hands against my chest and I silence my breathing enough to hear the clanking of metallic gears in my chest. The water is cold, leaving minute icicles on the side of the bathtub. The mirror is beginning to crystallize, but before it does, I notice the etchings on my back. “ 5% humanity, 95% manmade.” I am a plastic, metallic doll with no flesh and bones. My life is the cycle.