Abyss part 1

Abyss
By: George Gonzalez
"EARTH IS AN INSANE ASYLUM, TO WHICH THE OTHER PLANETS DEPORT THEIR LUNATICS." --Voltaire (Memnon the Philosopher).

I open my eyes into darkness, wind rushing past my ears, my feet dangling in limbo as I fall. I flap my hands wildly and try to climb, into what I do not know, but to no avail. I glance above me willing some omnipotent dint to rip open the blackness and wrench me away from this hell.

Panic seizes my heart and surrenders palpitations to the wind as a hurricane of questions builds up within. I try to stay calm, try to rationalize but as I do I find myself shifting slightly to the left, rotating in midair. I claw frantically at invisible handholds flapping my hands, hoping to swim back to equilibrium. Instead all I manage is to completely disorient any sense of direction. I am falling diagonally, or am I falling sideways, or upside down or—

A whisper of color or maybe a light. I squint and call out for it. It moves towards me: a cloud of deep white grains hovering in the blackness. Two red dots circle within it in a constant cyclone round and round faster and faster until they become a solid circle of redness pulsating. I try to swim away; suddenly I don’t want it near me.

“Stay away!” I scream and immediately the words are swallowed into eternity. I may not have screamed at all. The words never come back.

The cloud eases closer, the red cyclone getting faster and faster until finally it and the cloud both stop inches away from me. The two dots move upwards and settle in at the cloud top on opposite sides about an inch apart. The bottom stretches downwards, pulling in the sides making it a thin, tall form exactly my height and width. A hole beneath the eyes opens into a vicious smile, cartoony in shape, jagged teeth line the top and bottom and only blackness can be seen within. The top of the cloud spikes drastically, the outer edges smoothed out leading to a point where grains shoot out and haphazardly find their way down. The grains move faster, trembling within the amorphous mist. It opens its mouth as if to suck in air and suddenly the bottom rushes upwards and shoots out of its sides forming arms bulging with muscles. At the end, where the wrists should be, ten snakelike appendages burst through. Its nails are long and sharp, about six inches in length and its fingers are long and sinuous, the grains here compact and vibrating. Its body ends in a wispy tail swinging back and forth, lost grains attempting to latch on.

Uggghh meehh! it commands its voice a gurgling noise. It opens its arms in a loving gesture, its fingers dancing.

“Ugh…what?” I flap my hands forward in an attempt to propel backwards.
Grains march like ants from the back of its head into its mouth and attach themselves to nothing, line up and stack on top of each other materializing in a long snake flapping insipidly.

Uve meh! The corners of its smile draw downwards, the teeth grow longer.

“What are you? Where am I?” I’m terrified; my legs kick out in an effort to run-a foolish habit from a foolish life.

LOVE ME! The words definite now boom and echo off of what I do not know. His arm suddenly cuts through the space between with mind-bending speed and a finger wraps itself around my throat. A cold cyclone of rough grain and rocks cuts into my neck.

It stares, the smile back and horrific, grains falling from the corners like rocky spittle. Its eyes are red strobes pulsing mercilessly.

Love me? No? I love you!

Its grip tightens turning my windpipe into a raw torrent of pain. I close my eyes as colors explode in my brain. I’m ready to die. Or is it too late for that?

The grains rush in a whirlwind and skin rips from my neck. My eyes fly open.

Lights explode and briefly I think, “I deserve this.”

Its finger-tentacles caress my cheek and move upwards finding the ridge of my nose. They undulate wildly crest after crest smacking against my face and disappearing.

One of its tentacles finds my right nostril and tickles it.

Love me! it bellows and suddenly all smiles are rescinded; without warning its grin collapses into a grimace. “Please…” I choke, “Please…” The word pathetic comes to mind.

I watch as its fingers come together forming one long, thick tentacle squid-like in its ethereal majesty. Its fangs come together vibrating within themselves.

It shoves its tentacle into my nostril and I watch as the entire cloud pushes itself into me, the grains tearing the inside of my nose. I can feel it wrap around my brain and penetrate it mercilessly.

A series of bright lights in quick succession and then a white screen saver.

The world disappears. A numbness and detachment so complete I might be dead.

I float in limbo, my mind struggling to connect. And then, just as quickly, another succession of bright lights. A tunnel, its walls lined with euphoria, its destination: bliss.

I find myself in a cocoon of velvet. The material envelops my naked body sensuously caressing me. I look up and stare into half-lidden eyes, clinging to her viciously I scamper up her body: a giantess Amazonian with fierce Beauty. “I love you mommie,” I whisper into her cumulus bosom. “I love you too baby,” she whispers back, kindling my passion. My legs wrapped around her, my nails digging into her back, I hear her say, “Let mommie love you.” Her nightgown is too restrictive…she lowers the neckline slowly as I watch with feverish delight. Slowly, slowly she reveals the supple surface of her left breast; slowly, slowly she reveals a pink areola surrounding a pink nipple; slowly, slowly until it sits against her pink nightgown: velvet flesh on velvet apparel. Slowly, slowly, wet with want, I lower my lips—

I find myself in a room, the walls a constantly changing canvas of colors. I’m staring at the creamy surface of her ass (another horny bitch with no more brains then a lobotomized shrew) my right hand squeezing it gently, its thumb lodged in her asshole. As she moans I yell at her to stop fucking moving this procedure is delicate ya know. My left hand holds a straw, cut in half, and as it finds the end of the uncut yellow grain road lain out beautifully on her left cheek I follow it down with a great sniff—

I find myself buried in white sand. With a start I pull myself up onto my hands and knees and spit out glob after glob of the grainy determent. My head aches dully as I look around the beach in time to see her fleeing, her brown hair all needles flying out behind her dragged by her desperate momentum. “The cunt!” I scream as I get up and run, my feet alighted briefly by a lantern sitting on its side. When I see the vibrant coating of blood evenly streaked across my toes I smile, a glowing monster of contentment collecting in my stomach. “Come back here you fucking bitch! You stupid whore!” I scream after her whimpers and pathetic limping. The blood forms a back and forth path I drunkenly follow, not really running anymore but strolling towards destiny. I know she won’t get away. She gasps and sputters as I nonchalantly jog after her. The blood spews between her fingers, down one fleshy, jiggling thigh and I think: “Wait for it. Wait for it.” Right on cue she turns, tears blubbering down her cheeks, her jowls trembling infuriatingly. I pray for God to enact his judgment and wait for her to stop in her tracks, encased in a sodium chloride coffin of divine justice. Instead she trips over her own feet and lands with a screech that’s drowned out by the roar of the sea. God works in mysterious ways my friends. I hunch over her, twisting my ankle in the process: a praying mantis about to devour its meal—

And just like that it’s all gone. Happiness pours out of my nose and materializes before my eyes reforming itself. It smiles mocking my pain.

“Please…do it again,” I plead. It answers by shooting upwards and out of sight. Only the darkness is my companion.

“Don’t leave me!” I scream, fear seizing me in its vicious, unrelenting clutches again.

“Come back! Please! Take me with you! Take me with you!”

In response a voice floats out of the blackness:

“I see you’ve met Iddy.”

“Iddy? What’s an Iddy?”

“The lustrous being you just finished snorting no less.”

I perk up at this. He knows of the wondrous seraph.

“Where did he go? I need him! I’m so alone here. Wait. Who are you? Where are you? Show yourself damnit!”

“I wouldn’t yell at the only other intelligent conversationalist in this world you know. It could be a very lonely eternity.”

“Eternity?”

“Now as to the whereabouts of our ever dissimulative friend I’d say he’s somewhere up there. At the top of this precipitous abyss.”

“Is talking like that really necessary? You’re sagacity is easily trumped by your pathetic plea for acceptance.”

“Oh, sagacious, don’t make me ejaculate with delight mister Don’t Use Big Words. These are all words you know of course. These are all words you’ve used. What’s the real problem?”

“You’re a pompous dick.”

“And it emerges! An inferiority complex no less! How very delicious!”

“Do you ever make sense?”

“Do you ever listen?”

I sigh and rub my eyes slowly. I’m falling into blackness with an elitist fuckhead and an insane pleasure-hounding ghost. Great.

“How do I get out of here?”

“Now that, my good friend, is a worthwhile question.”

“I’m not your friend. I’m a confused man swimming in oblivion.” A pause then: “Is this hell?”

“Sort of. I guess that would be the best way to put it. Maybe. More like Limbo I’d say. Not very much punishment just a multitude of monotony. Except both of those are mere symbols of moments in life, don’t you think? Haven’t you ever felt like your life was on rerun?”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying its all a metaphor. Life I mean. Even concrete things are given abstract names and suddenly we believe we understand them and know them. A rock is always a rock, the sky the sky, the floor…well you get my point. Except when they aren’t.”

“What the fuck are you talking about!”

“The mind my good friend! I am talking about your brain. It’s all associations and phobias. Emotions are merely a vehicle we use to understand them. Fear teaches us to stay away from corpses due to diseases and suddenly the scariest place we can conceptualize is a graveyard. Or the top of a building,. Or a dark enclosed space. Much like this one actually.”

“You tire me.”

“I’m merely trying to make you understand where you are.”

“You haven’t said anything!”

“I’ve told you everything if you’d only stop and listen.”

I roll my eyes and lay back, the wind rushing past me in a torrent whipping my balls methodically. Suddenly I’m very relaxed.

“What about that thing? The cloud I mean. Iddy?”

“Merely a phantasmagoric representation of your inner Dionysus.”

“WHY DON’T YOU SPEAK ENGLISH!”

“You know the reference! If you’d only just stop to think-“

“Don’t you presume what I do and do not understand! You take some sort of sick pleasure in confusing me. You have no intention of telling me anything!”

A pause then: “Would it have been easier if I said Loci?”

“You are an incorrigible prick you know that?”

Only the sound of the wind rushing past my ears.

“Who are you?” I finally ask.

“I am Jiminy Cricket, my good puppet at your service!”

“So you’re telling me you’re my conscience?”

“What I’m telling you is that I’m a metaphor.”

“Created by who?”

“Now I know you’re not that asinine.”

I lay my head back and drape my hand over my forehead. Questions growing from answers as if some demented Johnny Appleseed had taken it upon himself to impregnate my mind.

“What do you look like?”

“I’m not sure if you’re ready for that just yet.”

“Stop assuming you know me!”

“But I do! I know you inside and out. I know you better than you know you. I am devoid of the cloudiness of emotion and insecurities, of wants and desires. I am the most unadulterated, rational portion of you my good friend.”

“I want to see you.”

“Obstinacy is such a pestilent human condition.” The disappointment in his voice makes me smile.

A second later a red light shines to my right blinding me momentarily. My vision triples, then doubles, then straightens out. The source of the light is above me, about ten feet away, at a forty-degree angle from where I lie.

There, smiling the biggest shit-eating grin I’ve ever seen is an upside down head. A squirt of blood ejaculates from his dismembered stump and seems to hang in the air, putrescent in its beauty, before disappearing above us. He has a broad, protruding brow, high set cheekbones, wide flaring nostrils and a thick black mustache with the slightest hint of gray. His hair is of the same debonair hue and hints of years of wisdom trapped within its follicles. It falls over his forehead haphazardly and drapes past his stump stopping where his shoulders would be had he any. His left eye is of a deep blue that contrasts deeply with the red strobe that shines from the empty orifice that should house his right eye. A section of vertebrae peeking behind jagged flaps of skin glares at me.

I’m surprised at how calmly I take this in.

“I’ve seen you before.”

“Of course you have. I’m merely a visual representation of an abstract idea. You see me as you would understand me.”

“You didn’t think I could handle looking at you. I’m looking just fine.”

“Because I fortified your sense of competition by offering that you wouldn’t be able to handle it. You prepared yourself for the worst-“

“I would have taken it the same way regardless.”

“—and were met by a rather benign image compared to the worst you could imagine.”

His stump ejaculates blood into the air once more with a rude, noxious sound.

“Why do you keep doing that? You weren’t doing it before.”

“”Sure I was. And its subliminal I’m afraid.”

“I didn’t hear it.”

“You weren’t listening for it.”

“Well…just try to control it okay?”

Silence then: “You know we haven’t gotten into specifics yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean everything we’ve talked about is fucking generalized. It speaks nothing of my character.”

“I beg to disagree.”

“The shit you say can be applied to anyone. What about me Jiminy?”

“What would you like to know oh inquisitive one?”

I throw my hands behind me and swing my legs over and into my chest in a kind of half-assed flip. Its purpose is to knock the superfluous questions to the back of my mind and, like a vicious churning, bring necessity to the front. It only manages to further sling me into the grips of vertigo.

“I don’t know where to start.”

“Try the beginning.”

I laugh and flip again feeling jolly all of the sudden.

“Pretty cliché for such an intelligent entity,” I tease.

“No need for self deprecation Calvin.”

A slap in the face, a punch in the gut, my head reels. I want to throw up. Memories laced with acid flood my body:

“Calvin! Come back to bed sweetie!” I shake off the last drops clinging to my penis and flush. I climb up on the blue Scooby Doo booster step and think about washing my hands but catch my face in the mirror. Plump rosy cheeks, brown unadulterated eyes, and messy black hair glare back at me.

“Calvin! Come back to mommie! I need you!”

I splash my hands under the water a few times and run out drying my hands on my checkered pajama bottoms as I fly into her arms. I wrap my arms around her and kiss her neck, eager for her embrace. Wanting for her love.

She throws me on the bed where black silk sheets envelope me. Her hair is luxurious and billowing. She wears a black velvet nightgown, her breasts overflowing and inviting. My heart beats faster and faster as she crawls towards me, her lips red candy, her eyes twinkling stars.

She crawls over me, her breasts drooping onto my chest, her blonde hair tickling my cheeks. I shiver with delight. I don’t dare move. Everything is much too perfect.

“Love me Calvin. Love your mommie like your daddy never could.”

Her eyes are beautiful green gems. Her skin is softer than any material found on Earth. Her chin is meek and her face is heart shaped. Her lips are soft as they embrace mine.

I love her. I want her. There is a fire in my belly: a congested ball of happiness, of completeness, my soul is spooning with itself. My pajama bottoms are much too tight. The room is too hot. My clothes must go. As always she reads my mind and begins undressing me.

“Be mine forever Calvin,” she whispers as the straps of her nightgown fall and I stare with amazement into the eyes of God.

“I love you mommie.” I realize too late that I’ve spoken out loud.

“I love you too sweetie,” Jiminy whispers and immediately bursts into frantic snickers.

“FUCK OFF YOU…YOU…PRETENTIOUS ASSCUNT!”

“A sense of humor is learned Calvin. As is humility. Learn to laugh at yourself. But let us descend, for a moment, into the pits of gravitas. Tell me, what were you thinking about?“

As he squabbles off mindlessly I slowly swim towards him.

“I can’t remember. You jarred me out of it. Something about my mom.”

“What about your mom? The key to freedom lies in your mem-“

In midsentence I grab him by the hair and pull him towards my waiting fist. A satisfaction tantamount only to the ecstasy that is Iddy erupts in my brain as his face flies towards my fist, eyes wide.

This lasts less than a second though. As if caught in a cyclonical paradox suddenly my vision is blocked by my own fist as it rushes towards my face and with a sickening crack pulverizes my nose underneath it. The bones shatter and give way to a geyser of blood. The pain is unbelievable, more so due to the surprise of it all. I cup my nose, unaware that I’ve let go of Jiminy. I am flipping through darkness, blood squirting out between my fingers, my nose pounding with swelling indignation.

“WHAT THE FUCK!” I finally scream, though not as manly as I hope. It comes out a warbled screech. My cheeks are wet with tears and flushed with embarrassment.

“Why are you so self destructive Calvin? Where do you think it originates from?”

Embarrassment replaced by anger. No. Fury.

“Why don’t you just leave me the fuck alone! I was fine without you before I’ll be fine without you again! Send Iddy back! Do it! At least he makes me feel good!” I don’t really know what I’m saying but I’m aware of how pathetic it sounds.

“Amazing how people use emotions as a microphone don’t you think? No matter the irrationality it produces. I’m sorry to tell you Calvin but you can’t get rid of me. Might as well get used to the idea, I’m here to stay. Until I don’t want to be that is.”

I remove my hands from my face and watch with amusement as blood flies upwards and is swallowed by darkness. My hands are slippery with drying blood. I rub them on my naked thighs leaving behind long streaks of crimson. My nose is still throbbing but the pain is now manageable.

“How can I get rid of you?” I whisper with what I hope is a corroding tone.

Laughter bellows from above me. A fetid stench fills the air as he ejaculates three times in quick succession. Finally his merriment subsides.

“Tell me Calvin, what happened to your mother?”

“I don’t want to talk to you. What part of fuck off don’t you understand?”

“I think it’s best we talk a little first.”

“Why?”

“Well you need to get out of here, don’t you? Don’t you ever want to see the outside world again?”

At this my ears perk up. Grudgingly I take my anger and annoyance and pack them into the basement of my mind.

“How can I get out?”

“Why, self actualization of course.”

I groan as the words connect to meaning and form a bias ripe with conviction.

“That’s impossible. Self-actualization takes decades. I doubt I have decades before I reach the bottom of this abysmal abyss.”

“Assonance does not disguise stupidity Calvin. Remember that.”

Silence…then: “God I fucking hate you.”

“I’m sure you aren’t the first person to say such to the likes of me. By the way on this zany game board where self-actualization lies on the horizon eager to accept you into its court you’ve just managed to knock yourself back two spaces.”

We sit in silence as I stew in hot, scorching fury. I contemplate spending the rest of my life here. Alone. With only Jiminy for company. Forever.

“My mom died when I was twelve.” I hesitate as I remember this, scabs mercilessly ripped off within me.

“That’s not what I meant Cal-“

“Could you just let me finish?! Fuck!”

More silence in which I peruse the dry blood on my fingers and flake it away.

“My mom died when I was twelve. I don’t really remember much about her. I never knew my dad so I guess she kinda played both roles ya know? Playing catch with me in the backyard but yelling afterwards at my carelessness as she scrubbed away at the grass stains. None of this is important is it? What I mean to say is…my mother was everything to me. I remember she always smelled of cigarettes. Marlboro Lights. And she loved buying me sweaters. There was this one…it was red and green I think. No! Now I remember it was purple and blue with dinosaurs!” A pause as I remember and smile.

I chuckle and say, “I use to chew the ends of my sleeves. It was an incessant habit. And I never liked standing up in the middle of class to blow my nose. All those eyes staring. Judging. She’d yell at me at times holding out a frayed, mucus covered sleeve. ‘Look at how you destroy your beautiful clothes! I slave away every day to buy you these things and just look at it! Do you like walking around like this! Its disgusting Calvin! I am not raising a bum, okay, you hear me!’ I’d apologize and then she’d hug me and take me to the bedroom and…”

Here I falter. My memory enters the bedroom and then it all goes black.

“She always…I can’t…When she died…my world fell apart.”

“No!” screams Jiminy, his face contorted and purple with frustration.

“No! You will not change the subject! Not this time! What happened in the room, Calvin?” His eyes are huge and bloodshot and the veins in his neck throb.

I try to remember. I search and prod my brain establishing connections I never knew were there, but all I get back is a feeling: extreme, unadulterated happiness.

“I don’t know. I can’t remember. She hugged me. And we…slept.”

“Think!”

I close my eyes and clench trying to flex my brain and jar my memory. I see us tumbling back and forth, laughing.

“We wrestled sometimes. I know! She…she used to cry a lot. And I would hold her. I don’t know why she cried.”

“What else did you do?”

“That’s it”

“What else Calvin?!”

“I’m telling you that’s it! What the fuck do you want from me?!”

“YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER!”

I reel back again. Pain as synapses fire explosive memory bullets.

“He has to forget again, Kristin. He has to. The impact of that much memory recall on his psyche…it could be devastating. He could go into total regression…if we’re lucky. Most likely…well you know how he gets. You can’t do this to him. It’s not fair to either of you. Let it go.”

“I can’t and you know that and I wish for fuck’s sake that you tried for a second to not talk out of your ass! You and my dad have been fucking with his poor brain for years! Poking and prodding in there like he was your own personal fucking Frankenstein! I am fixing him! And I’d appreciate it if you remembered for a second who works for whom here!”

I’m in blackness again but now the privilege of mobility is denied. I hear two voices, the first hoarse and raspy, the second high and more than a little shrill. As the second voice rakes through my ear raping my eardrum a warm feeling of security builds up within me. I want to go to the voice. I want to embrace the voice.

“I love him!” it whispers with an inflection that could deafen a dog. “I can’t let him continue like this. His outbursts…they’re getting worse. He’ll do something terrible soon. Or…rather…again. I know it. We can’t protect him forever. He has to know.”

“You sound like a mad woman you know that right! Fucking insane! The procedure is experimental at best! The risk is too high that we’ll push his mind too far. Listen to me Kristin at least give it a day. Go home. Sleep. Think. The mind is not just a computer you can reboot. It needs to be handled sensitively. What you’re attempting will break him. You will forever destroy the man you say you care about so much. There’s just too much at stake.”

“I will do whatever it takes.”

“But you know it’s fucking useless!”

A crash as something is flung across the room and shatters on the wall to my right.

“He cannot possibly remember what happened! The drug insured that! The three hour rule remember?! He’s fried, Kristin! Baked! Those memories are gone forever. Accept that!”

She’s crying now and for reasons lost to me my heart begins to break for her.

My eyes fly open as tears rush forth and leaning against the far wall directly in front of me nonchalantly is a woman in a black shirt and khakis. She stares at me, her face ripped open into a maniacal grin flashing giant, glistening teeth, her eyes bulging.

“Welcome to your memories Calvin, I hope you enjoy your stay,” she whispers, her voice matter of fact billows forth like smoke dissipating as it hits my ears. She never opens her mouth but I hear her all the same.

Her hair sits short against her shoulders layered brown with blonde streaks. On her head is a safari hat dirty and scratched in places.

I try to respond: ”Who are you?” but my mouth is sealed shut by invisible cement.

She hears me nonetheless and answers: “Does it matter?”

From somewhere behind me I hear movement. The voice named Kristin has ceased its crying.

Her voice calm and collected still falters and shakes slightly.

“Is everything ready? EEG up and running?”

No audible answer comes back.

“Is she ready? Has she been rehearsed her lines?”

Still no answer. All this time I’m lost in the deep green jungles within the eyes of the woman who I’ve come to call Chessy.

“Excellent then roll him out. We’ll be starting in twenty minutes.”

“I’ve come to the conclusion that you are insane,” the hoarse voice whispers every word coated with hot, sticky disappointment.

“That’s probably accurate,” she whispers back. “How long till he wakes up?”

“Any minute now.”

Chessy shuts her eyes tight as a shadow falls over her and I follow suit. The hard bed I lay on begins moving and lights flash as they bleed through my eyelids. I’m only rolled for a few seconds when the bed stops.

A large hand presses against my chest a few times, shoving me into the metal. “Wakey wakey! Time to get up Calvin.”

My eyes flutter open.

“He’s awake. Lets go.”

Footsteps then a slam as a door closes.

I’m not sure what to do. I lay staring at Chessy once more, green flames flickering in her eyes, this time leaning against a bedpost. The room flickers with shadows cast by large red candles on giant wooden poles. They smell of cinnamon and wrap their long wiry tendons around my heart squeezing tight. The bedposts are made from mahogany and the sheets glisten black shiny and resplendent. Somehow I know they’re silk. Large black flowers burst against the flickering of the light. I remember this room. The smell is unmistakable.

“Come love your mommie Calvin,” she coos beckoning with her fingers, her lips pulled into a ridiculous pout. “Touch me baby.”

“No! Please no! This didn’t happen!”

The screaming is mostly in my head. I still can’t find the strength to move. On the bed is a woman sprawled, spread eagle, her tits pulled out over the top of her black night gown and reflecting flames, her eyes have curtains of red glitter pulled down over green crescents.

Her right elbow props her up as her left index wiggles methodically. Her hair falls before her eyes; black bangs tossed and unkempt creep down her forehead.

She wears no underwear proudly presenting her pink petals. Her finger goes to her open pussy and tickles her clitoris gently, her hips pivoting fierce with sensual want, and she begins to moan. The sound is echoing and echoing. I feel a pressure as my cock pulses against the hard metal.

“Let me the fuck out of here! Let me out!” Silent screams sit like so many incubuses upon my chest. And suddenly I can’t breathe. My stomach constricts and begins eating itself impetuous in its rage. The pain is excruciating. Throw up oozes out of my nose and the corners of my mouth. Tears stream down my face. I can do no more.

A crash as the door flies open and a man and woman in white lab coats crouch, hands on their knees, in front of me blocking the horny harlot. The woman’s eyes sparkle green behind spectacles, the right one encompassed by a plump purple bruise, freckles flickering in and out of sight magnified by wandering teardrops. She puts a hand over her mouth to stifle a sob and runs out of sight.

“He needs the fucking drug Kristin!”

His face is jagged with ravines of wrinkles likely carved by Zeus himself. Blue eyes pierce through mine, disgusted. Blonde hair illuminates a halo of false intentions above his head.

“No! Never again! He’ll get through this! Let him be! This is psychoschmatic! No more than a Pavlovian response to your fucked up methods!”

“He’ll die!” A silence thick and mucky falls. The only sound that of my inner agony.

“Be reasonable dear child. He Has To Be Weaned Off. Let’s lower the dosage instead okay? Just give me the drug and let me take care of him. He needs this. It’s what your father would have wanted.”

“Fuck my father! This is all your handy work! You and him and your lies! I shudder to think what else you’ve made up. What other lies you’ve instilled in poor Calvin! Did his mother ever know what it was you were giving him?! What fucked up experiments you had in mind? The addiction he isn’t even aware of?! Fuck the both of you!”

A gunshot and the man falls to the ground blood pouring out of his forehead.

My eyes brimming with tears, I implore Chessy for mercy.

Her voice pours in and out of my ear: “Not having fun?”

“Please. It hurts. Make it stop.”

Still smiling, her head moves to the left as if her neck were on a circular hinge. I can hear fits of sobs and screams splashing against the shadows— shrieks of unrelenting grief.

Her eyes move last, staying on me till the last possible moment. Somehow her grin widens eating her entire face. Her neck creaks back, her eyes swirling with vicious vortexes of color. “More fun to come Calvin. Tons of it.”

I close my eyes, the agony wrenching me out of my bed, twisting me in space as if I were some crooked picture being reoriented by the hands of god, and sitting me down with my head in my hands, feeling very small and insignificant.

My insides inflame and a tidal wave of lava rages against my stomach lining. I raise my head and my hands come away dripping with sweat.

Staring back at me is a familiar face attached smugly to an unfamiliar body. My vision doubles and swoons as I attempt to look around and am met with another familiar face, this one with severe blue eyes and a filled, restored complexion. A younger corpse.

“Calvin this is my associate Scott Townsend,” the man in front of me says motioning towards the blonde man from my previous memory. “For the basis of this interview I will introduce myself as James Timberlawn, but you already know me of course.”

He attempts a smile weak and tractable, which immediately collapses into a retrospective glare.

“How are you feeling today?”

I stare up at their faces; tiny hands pressed against the extreme inferno that is my forehead, trying not to cry. “It hurts,” I pant.

“We know it does. We know. And we’re very sorry Calvin. But, well, given what you did, we have no other choice right now. We have to have this conversation first. A dialogue concerning what you did to your mother.”

“What I did?” my mind searches for explanations. For answers. It comes up blank.

He rubs his eyes slowly and lets out a huge sigh. Behind him a two-way mirror reflects a red baboon ass where my face should be. Somehow I know Chessy is watching me.

He stares into my eyes, swimming in and out of focus, and shuffles through some papers.

“How long have you been angry with her?”

Reasons for these questions I have none.

“I was never angry. You were. I loved her.”

“Don’t be a smartass Calvin! I’m not saying she didn’t deserve it after what she’d been doing to you-“

“Stop it! She loved me! That’s all-“

“She hurt you Calvin! Every day!”

“You were jealous! Always! She loved me more! And you couldn’t fucking stand it.”

“You stupid little shit-“ James/Jiminy suddenly stands his face contorted with rage.

He lunges towards me teeth bared and grabs me by the front of my shirt, shaking me viciously. The world swims out of focus in a whirlwind nauseating me. Finally he stops when Scott pulls him off screaming: “Jimmy! If arguing with a child is what this meeting is all about then find yourself another fucking partner.”

I bend to my left and vomit into a corner. My guts scream and protest: a rebellious parade of misery.

Through watery eyes I see James with his head in his hands, panting heavily he croaks: “I’m sorry. Goddamnit I’m so sorry this all happened Calvin. I should have seen it coming. I should have known you’d break. And I let it happen…I…I let it continue. I think that kills me most.”

He wipes his eyes as shudders shake him. “Why’d you do it Calvin? Why’d you kill her?”

“I, I…I, I didn’t…” I look down at my hands and find them covered with blood. My cheeks feel hard with it.

I shake my head and beat it against the desk screaming, “I DIDN’T I DIDN’T I DIDN’T I DIDN’T I DIDN’T I DIDN’T-“

Arms wrap around me and his voice is soft and cushiony in my ear. “It’ll all be fine dear sweet Calvin. I promise you. We’ll make it all okay. We’ll help you forget all this mess. That I promise. We’ve already begun with some rudimentary associative therapy. This pain is cleansing. Let it bathe you with its majesty.”

“Stop it now! Please! I can’t handle it anymore!” I scream and Chessy answers, “One last stop for the Pain Train. All aboard!”

I am reoriented in space again and dropped into a feverish nightmare. Voices and images climb out of the blackness, tear me to shreds, and disappear.

They scream as I battle consciousness bouncing off the walls of my disturbed mind like sugar-hyped children. I kick the sheets away and pull them on again, never comfortable for more than a second. My throat burns raw from long heaved hurls. I’m vaguely aware of a hand clenched in mine, crying as I tremble.

“Kristin stop your foolishness. You sit here crying for that monster after all he’s done? He killed him Kristin! Do you understand?! He’s dangerous! If it wasn’t for your father and his blind curiosity we’d have been rid of this…this cancer long ago!” It’s the hoarse voice belonging to the blonde man again. Every word drips corrosive acid.

“Leave us alone please. We don’t need you anymore.”

“You can’t possibly expect me to just-“

“LEAVE US ALONE!”

More screams from the people that aren’t there. Memories within memories. Voices long dead tugging at my sanity. I tuck my knees up to my chin and dry heave three times each leaving a puddle of digested memory in its wake:

“He never sleeps James. There has to be something you can do. Anything. Please.” My mother’s voice is soft and silky as it tiptoes about the edges of my mind.

“The drugs you’re asking for are just too extreme. There are side effects. Dependency issues. Possibly…health issues. Are you sure this is what you want?”

Screams reverberate in the background as this random dialogue is filtered through images of James standing in a black shirt and blue jeans, his brow glistening with sweat. His left arm is covered in blood that drips from the end of the kitchen knife he holds.

“He almost died today James! You didn’t see him in the bathtub. Shaking, spitting, screaming. A seizure! A fucking seizure AT HIS AGE! I’m scared. He’s stopped eating. He’s like a zombie around the house. Never speaks. He falls asleep at random moments in the day, and he just…he looks dead James! Give him back to me please! I’ll do whatever it takes! What other choice do I have? We’ve tried everything else! He needs something stronger.”

His hand comes down repeatedly stabbing holes in a beautiful, slender mass lying in the middle of the bed. Specks of blood stain his face as he thrusts again and again into her pelvis, his face pulled into a heinous snarl. He’s trembling and shaking his head spraying a fine mist of sweat and blood with every toss. Every muscle tight and coiled he looks back at me, reminding me of a mid-transformation Bruce Banner bulging with rage.

“You asshole! Dickless fiend!” The words are caught in my throat and never relinquished. My little fists curl tight around Beary’s, my blue teddy bear, neck and my nails dig into the seams.

“I fucking loved her Calvin! Why did she do it? Fucking tell me! Why?! She was all I had! And she chooses to do this to me! To me! Oh vile strumpet thou hast absconded with my very sanity! Fuck my daughter, fuck my job, fuck my patients, Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck-“

With every word he brings down the knife and I watch as it penetrates her eyes, her breasts, her neck, her thighs, her-“

I throw up where I stand, toss Beary, and dive into my own sick, resurfacing on the bed I never left.

“What’s happening to me?” I implore the emptiness.

“Phantasmagoria: a state of fitful sleep and semiconscious hallucinations common as a physical symptom to extreme dependency withdrawals,” chimes Chessy matter-of-fact as always.

“I don’t care! Fuck this pain! Make it stop! Make it Stop Make it Stop!-“ the phrase loops around in my brain and I cling to it like a blind man eager for familiarity.

“Why didn’t you say so?” I can almost see the cunt’s grin flash in my head cavernous with insanity before my brain shuts down.


“Come on baby. Kiss me. Please?”

She presses her lips against mine again, caressing them, slathering her tongue all over my mouth. I just lie there and take it; my eyes shut tight, my lips tucked within my mouth to where she can only kiss the skin of my chin and my moustache.

She finally gives up and leans back in her chair, green eyes no longer sparkling with amusement. She crosses her arms over her stomach smoothing her black tank top down over the upside down silver monkey hanging from her bellybutton, its tail piercing through the skin at the top, its eyes staring inches from her navel.

“I don’t find this amusing Calvin,” she says with a hint of a smile leaking out the corner of her mouth.

“Come on baby.” I stare past her as a man in a wheelchair spewing obscenities at the top of his lungs is pushed past my door. “You gotta say the magic words.”

She cocks her head to the side and squints her eyes slightly in a classic Kristin Are-You-Fucking-Kidding-Me look. “Seriously? We’re doing this now?” Her words are oddly punctuated by the life support beeping away to her left.

“Please baby? C’mmmon. You know you want tooo.” I wince as pain explodes in my head and struggle to retain my smile.

“Fine! I swear to god. You ready?”

“Mhm!”

She leans in close to my ear and I smell lavender lotion and stare at the pendulous slope of her breasts as her top eases lower.

“Mon amore!” she whispers her breathe tickling my ear lobe.

“Kristin, that’s French!” I scream and grab her right arm in both my hands feeling dozens of tugs as tubes are wrenched around haphazardly. I plant a kiss on her fingertips and quickly work my way up: her wrist, her lower arm, her upper arm, her shoulder a dozen wet kisses dotting a path till finally I reach her neck where I nibble and tickle her till she’s crushing my head with her shoulder all the while laughing and screaming: “Stop it! Stop it you fucking weirdo!”

I pull away and lay back, the headache growing and pulsing, eating away at the few memories I have left. I feel hot and flushed and my heart flutters as I stare at her, chewing at the end of a long, brown braid.

“Seems you’re feeling much better,” she says through a mouthful of hair.

“A little. The headaches are coming back. Riders on the Storm right? Typical fever symptoms.”

Silence as she stares at the floor.

“Baby?”

“Right…” she whispers, her eyes still downcast.

“Pretty fucking ridiculous Ole Scotty forced you to bring me here. Intensive Care for the fucking flu?! Senility’s left the man with cottage cheese for brains.”

“He didn’t force me Calvin. We were scared. Don’t…don’t you remember what its been like? Three days you’ve been under baby. Three long, terrifying days.” She strokes my forehead tenderly.

“No,” I lie. “I don’t remember a thing.” Except for the screams, I think, those I can’t forget.

“You’ve been talking…whispering…apologizing, for what…what happened.” Her eyes finally meet mine again, pupils swimming behind rising curtains of tears. Her chin trembles violently turning her words into a mumbled, scattered mess.

I’m confused again: a motif running the length of my disjointed life.

“You know what happened right? Before the fever hit? Don’t you remember? You were there for fuck’s sake!”

I search but find only darkness. Nothing important.

“I was talking to James. Then…well then I was here wasn’t I?”

She looks back at me and bites her lip. She shakes her head twice, stands up and turns her back to me, her arms crossed over her stomach again.

“My father’s dead.” The words hang in the air and fall to the ground one after the other, rolling like giant bowling balls, and come to rest at the foot of my bed.

“What, how? What happened?! James…dead?” Disbelief and a sharp, blinding pain in my guts quickly doused with a surge of numbness.

“He was murdered,” she whispers, her back shaking.

A million questions race through my head. Knives stab holes in my heart my brain attacks with gusto, repairing each with a dose of quiet serenity.

“Who…who did it?” I finally choke out.

A depressing, heart wrenching hell fire of sobs rain down on me.

“I…I…I don’t know.”

She turns back to face me, her eye shadow and mascara sitting thick against her cheeks. She stumbles towards me and falls into my arms.

I stroke her hair as I wonder why she’s lying to me. Somehow she knows, of this I’m sure. What I’m not sure of is what she knows. And why she’s hiding the truth.

Briefly I wonder if anybody ever tells the truth. If, maybe, the world lies perpetually, without end, always. Who can I trust? Parents? Lovers? Teachers? Myself?

“Oh god baby!” she sobs, “I’m so alone!”

“No, you’re not. I’m here. I’ll always be here. I promise.”

And, suddenly, I’m stroking air.