There’s cowardice inside that refused to want to accept the reality- as it were, and for the longest time, I’ve been able to separate myself from the pain that sat dormant. It wasn’t an admission of the truth of what was happening, but the pure effects of life as it slowly leaked out of a man. Within the last four or five years, maybe it was only three, my Grandfather laid in my old bedroom, breathing, eating, and soiling himself. Not the most well-liked man, but my blood just the same, and I refused to go see him. Not to say that I hadn’t ever, but the second time visiting my Mother’s house, I’d glance at the door, which was almost always ajar, and think about the man that was slowly withering away. It just hurt, he was a rambunctious man- even at his old age, to see the once stocky short man nothing but skin and bones. His muscles had wasted away. The skin on his face sunk into the groves of his… he was sick. No matter what the cause may be or what put him in this particular state, he was not well, and I knew that- so within my grasp of cowardice, I implored myself to remain at arm’s length. Further, in fact- for no reason other than the feeling and need to avoid any responsibilities to my own feelings. To the memory of a person, a person that has been almost absent or abrasive for as long as I could remember.
Just a simple act to show a human being compassion, and I failed to do so for selfish reasons. I don’t know what he thought about me, and I always assumed the worst because there was no communication between us.
So, when I finally saw him, just hours before he passed, it was a shock. The emaciated man that seemed to be skin and bones was even thinner than I could have ever imagined, and he lacked color. A gray sliver and I could hardly stand there and look at him. His breathing was shallow, and his hands gripped tightly to a couple washcloths. He was just there, clinging to life for… I can’t imagine what there would be to cling to when movement and sensations dampened, let alone thought. He was alive. He could think, and he knew that there were people in a room with him- except I was not one of those people in the room that he could have seen. He could have even thought about who I was If I were there, but I hid away. I’m sure he could hear me, and maybe even recognize my voice as somebody who he once knew.
There is no changing that past, and visiting him wouldn’t have held him out longer. I just wish I would have been stronger to have given him some human decency.
The screaming didn’t stop, nor did the curse words, as Marco swerved around, over, and upon just about every object he could see. He felt the breath of his consequences just inches from biting him in the ass. The sweat profused to the point that it was becoming hard to see, and this goddamn woman is yelling in his ear. It was all too much to bear. He could have sworn that he heard somebody say, “Shut your goddamn mouth, bitch!” But he couldn’t be sure. The panic was consuming as it swarmed around him, and he felt that if this tunnel vision were to continue, he would pass out. The car drove through a white picket fence, and sadly, Daisy knew better than to expect a peaceful end of events. She thought about all the dead bodies that were festering in the sun- if she would survive this car ride, she would definitely not survive the brutality that awaited her. Right when she was about to start praying, she felt her temple crack under the pressure of Marco’s fist. The next sensation was the crack on the passenger side window as her head failed to go through the glass.
A million things ran through her head- it wasn’t until the garage door shut behind the car that she could smell the rotting corpses wafting in from the upstairs- she was back at Marco’s house. She found it difficult to contain herself. It was boiling in her, and it took every ounce of her strength to keep herself sane.
“What are we doing back here?” She asked as she dabbed the blood from her temple.
“I need to grab a few things.” The car door slammed behind Marco. The disgust was piling onto her psyche when he returned to the garage. They couldn’t hear the helicopter and the police sirens seemed to be off in the distance.
Daisy opened the door and asked, “What are-”
“Shut the fuck up! I’m trying to think! I mean, we can’t just leave. Not now.”
“With those bodies upstairs?” Read more…
Turbulent, is a proper adjective for a man who found solice in his silence. A man who was at arms length for all of my life- I find emptiness except for a few rather strange memories. He wasn’t that way, however, to everyone. I was a blip on the radar, benign as a being. A slight disappointment of my father- and a soft weakling to his. He had my respect, but hardly my gratitude. We lived in the same house for several years without a word spoken, which I am at fault, I know this, and I’m not sure any relationship would form if i could change the past.
The world waits, in a hush of chatter that suffocates the people of my life.
There’s no apology. Just silence. As my chest thumps with life and you exit yours. I see it. The glimpse of what seemed so important extends to a trivial plane of existence.
How my son will bury me, and I only pray that he has anticipated my death within years of expectations to finally see my burden perish in a flurry of love and a guilty relief that he can move on with his life without my burden.
I’m sorry I didn’t take the time to really know you.
It only took a few days for the wariness on James’ demeanor to begin to diminish. He was starting to feel his life go back to normal when an investigative team went to his grandmother’s house- she owned the Lincoln Continental. After a few awkward questions, it was apparent that the woman was in the beginning stages of dementia. The only information that they could gather was that her grandson James had been driving the car for the last few years.
Once James dropped his guard, he found himself running.
It was 9 A.M., and it was an incredibly warm day already. The guilt hadn’t perspired on James’ face in a while. This morning would have started in the same fashion. However, for the gut feeling that something was on its way around. He tried to brush off the guilt and attempt to live his life, but every time he spent money, he saw the blood on his hands. When he was trying on a brand new pair of shoes, it hit him like a bag of bricks.
Remember, you earned this.
He tried to calm his own psyche, but it was a moot point. He saw the value of human life, and for him, it was a measly 8 grand. The bills weren’t paid, but he was planning on getting to them eventually. Well, that was until he noticed a few men standing outside his house near his car. For all, James knew he was being followed. Life had just started to feel normal, but what was this? The outcome of a lengthy court trial shot up like a red flag in his mind. The only thing that he knew was that he had to get his black ass out of there. Read more…
You got this…
Just twenty minutes…
Think of the money. Think of… shit…
Dear Lord, forgive me.
The words emanated in the cabin of the car. He knew that there was an injustice, but that didn’t necessarily mean that he knew that he was doing anything for the right reasons. The car sat there, unknowingly being watched by a sickly woman and a reluctant partner.
Daisy looked to Jim and asked, “What the hell is that guy doing?”
From a distance, it looked like he was shaking off wet hands.
Jim nodded and said, “I have no fucking clue.” The two sat in their car and just watched as James cracked just about every joint he could in his body.
You got this. You got this, and oh! You got this!
The mantra continued in his head right as he pulled out a pistol from a holster under his armpit. He kissed it and returned it to its proper place. The door closed behind him, and he made his way to the front door of the cop with the Impala’s house. He knocked and waited… then knocked again… nobody answered.
Them Changes by Buddy Miles emanated from the classic Lincoln Continental as it slowly made its way to the police department. A man, who looked to be at least six feet and some change, sat scrunched as he waited for the light to change. His head slightly nodded with the music despite being nervous. He had a snub-nosed revolver in his breast pocket and a myriad of uppers and downers that he couldn’t decide whether to take or not. Dammit, he thought to himself as the light turned green. The car slowly turned into the parking lot. The window was down, and he could hear the gravel shifting underneath the tires. The man parked, and he got out of his car slowly with disregard to anticipation.
His shoes were immaculate, and so was his wardrobe- he had a blazer on, a shirt that had a shine to it, and a pair of pants that seemed to go on for miles. He checked his hair, but as his friends would say, his hair hadn’t moved since 1997. After taking a deep breath, he walked into the police department and found that it was more of a disaster than he had anticipated, The place was packed with women and men pleading to see their loved ones, but the officer on duty stated that he had no record of anybody by any name in their precinct. Bullshit, he thought as he introduced himself to the officer a mere forty minutes after arriving.
He placed his right hand on his chest, and as civil as he could, he said, “Hello, my name is James, and I am looking for a man by the name of Marcus Mueller. He was taken several weeks ago and-” Read more…
Just beyond the entity of despair lies a vast blank plain that stretches far beyond a fathomable thought. The lights, which are long dead, twinkle their way to the disinterested nature of man. The large masses that circle these glowing specks in the sky just are, they exist unbeknownst to the masses. They just accept that something is there and that there is a purpose, but nobody seems to know why. A lack of existential continuity, along with the starvation of selflessness allows humanity to half-ass a meaning for what is best described as a trifle little thing- that is life.
“Where should we go?” Daisy asked with concern to the dead bodies that inhabit the upstairs.
“We can’t go to your house.”
“Rub it in, much?”
Marco hung his head for a second and apologized, “I didn’t mean… I… dunno. Sorry.”
“It’s OK.” Read more…
The day exhausted and dwindled away behind the mountains. It was a devastatingly harsh summer, last year, and this year seemed to yield into something livable for the inhabits of the Earth. The doom still sat in the sky, and the people started making up doomsday clocks just to attempt to anticipate the destruction that loomed over upon the horizon. The feelings of the undistracted seemed to share sentimental explanations of rudimentary expressions of love, while the distracted went on with their narcissistic whimsy.
Daisy woke up groggy and still a little drunk on a couch with several discarded cans strewn about. When she stood up, she knocked a few of the cans over, and without panic, she collected them and placed them on the coffee table that sat in front of her. She didn’t remember much, but she did feel a tad closer to normal than she had in the past few weeks.
“Marco?” Daisy called out softly to the sound of silence. She looked around the room, and despite it slowly throbbing with her brain, she saw that he must have gone to the bathroom or something. The room was how she left it, except for a big ass bottle of whiskey that seemed to be half-full and an empty glass that must have held said whiskey. Just then, a noise of a woman made its way down the stairs, Marco was up there- Daisy knew it- but who was making that sound? After a moment or two, Daisy had concluded that Marco must be fucking somebody up there, which made her uncomfortable. The room was dark, and the TV seemed to just stare back at the poor girl. A few more grunts and moans wafted their way down the stairs. “Alright, I’m going…” She thought about her home and her father. What had she been doing here? Wasting valuable time? She didn’t know, but she knew that her father would be disappointed in her. Read more…
Daisy, in her withered state, sat in the car with an angered look on her face. She had thought about the people who were missing, and then she thought about the man that tried to bike his way to her home just to see how she was doing. There was a lot wrong with the situation, and she felt frustrated that she couldn’t figure out what to do. Ronnie and Jim had left the woman alone and returned to the mountainside where they lived to retrieve clothes for the woman. It would be another few hours before they returned and she felt a need to take action, but she was just wasting time as she couldn’t decide what to do. As the moment began to fade a text chimed on her phone, and before she could look down, she knew what it was. Jim and Ronnie couldn’t figure out what to bring back. For some reason, they began to argue about going into her underwear drawer. She stared at the asinine text and simply asked, Can you just bring me what’s in my laundry hamper? She figured that she could find a laundry mat and wash her clothes herself.
Just then a car erupted out of the garage of the police station and before Daisy could make heads and tails of it, she was following the vehicle. The car took careful sharp turns down alleyways and long rural roads until finally finding itself into a ditch by a small hangar in Redlands. Daisy had let the car take a substantial lead, so when the driver walked out of the car and waved for a ride, Daisy felt a need to oblige. Read more…
Inside Wedge 