"The Casket Crew: Folds" #Fridayflash

Photo credit: clarita from morguefile.com

They called us the Casket Crew in college, but we were something better than that. Janie was only seventeen, but she was a genius in biology. Thad was a brilliant surgeon in another life. I was just curious. I blame my dad for letting me get as far as I did. He’d slaughter the calves, and leave me the brains. Brains are mushy unless you do something to harden them. Like unset gelatin. Like cottage cheese.

We weren’t sure how long we’d have the formaldehyde so I conserved it the best I could. I boiled the brains, just like I did as a kid. We had to find the one person that wasn’t missing half his folds. Folds make you smarter. It’s like another ring in a growing tree. The ones we split had few folds. Opening them up felt like cauliflower. Pluck that glistening thing right out of the pod. If I cut wrong, the eyes would come out with it and I’d feel guilty in their dead stare.

Janie wore a lab coat. It had stains that looked like rust but it was blood. I think we all had permanent blood caked under our fingernails. It was part of the undertaking, only there was nowhere to take them to. They just kept going somehow, organic and melding with nature. Like a coma walking. They said nothing, ate nothing, and died after a few weeks as the body exhausted all resources.

It was like a death camp, but we weren’t responsible. We had to figure out why. We needed to find out how. I kept cutting brains, and Thad would toss the husks outside. We had to think of them as husks, not people. The only part that looked like people lay hardened in my hands:

Smooth and grey with no folds at all.

"Eulogy" #Fridayflash

Photo credit: kingofcoleslaw from morguefile.com


Death is a delightful hiding place for weary men. - Herodotus

It rained that day. Damp earth mixed with silvered tears from heaven; drops slithering over the skin of our raised umbrellas to form mud. The red-clayed result fell inwards beneath the hovering casket adorned with a shield of white lilies. Eulogy was cited. Family muttered and sniffled behind black-gloved hands. The breeze collected around ladies’ stockinged ankles and felt up their fluttering mourning dresses. Their heels sank into the muck around this receiving hole that would take him in for eternity. We stood sentinel to a lifeless shell; we stood as wraiths in the storm.


Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. From earth we came, to earth we return. Amen.


Two of us stayed behind. She was pale as moonstone, delicate as ivory. Eyes of jade, lips curved and soft as velvet pillows. She held an umbrella. I did not. I stood there, shoulders hunched, sopping with wet and grief at words left unsaid. Her approach elicited no response from me. She offered her umbrella. Blood filled my mouth; I bit my tongue to prevent a lash-out. How dare she be kind to me?


The only time before that I’d seen her was in the passenger side of my father’s car.

"Ruth" #Fridayflash

Photo credit: taliesin from morguefile.com


I remember my very first best friend. Her name was Ruth Smudrick. She was a lady ensconced behind her son's house in a pale burgundy trailer home. I discovered her one day at the same time I discovered her roses. We hit it off and after my parents approved of my visits, I would go see her almost every day. These were quiet times, when kids were pushed outdoors in the morning and didn't come home til it was very nearly dark. In time, I felt a love for this woman like my own grandmother, and learned how many different kinds of roses there really were in the world.

I remember the inside of her house like it was yesterday: dark, cool‑the gentle hum of the window unit as it ran non-stop. She played old-time radio and made fig preserves from our tree that grew on the property line between our yard and theirs.

Her son was flashy and drove a big black Lincoln. Shiny, with leather interior. I got to sit in it once. It was brand new, just like everything else behind their grand white two-story home. But Ruth's house was a modest place, everything in its place: a small table with two metal chairs predating the atomic age, a recliner that she said belonged to her husband. He was in Heaven, she said.

"There isn't a heaven like that," I said. "People wait, like the elders at church teach us." I was raised Jehovah's Witness, and they didn't believe in going to heaven, except for 144,000 people. Mom says those were the old ones, like Ruth maybe. She didn't know.

I loved to hear her talk. She was like a magnet for me. She wore flowered dresses and black orthopedic shoes. She said the white ones got dirty too easy. She kept sales brochures around, and wore an id bracelet that said she had diabetes. She made sugary treats, because I liked them, and I came nearly every day.

Then one day, dad brought home a big, big truck with the ominous "U-HAUL" emblazoned on the sides. Mom told me to tell Ruth goodbye, and that we would come visit. I hugged Ruth and cried. She always smelled good and her hair was always curled. She went into her bedroom, the room I never saw before. I followed her and saw pictures of her husband. I saw pictures of her flashy son when he was still just a kid. She opened an ancient oak trunk and pulled out a carefully-wrapped package. It was a quilt. She said she'd made it from scraps collected over a few years. It was warm, and she wanted me to have it.

I got in the big truck with dad and we drove away, the monster burdened with our house-full of things. Mom and I visited her at her house once, but it wasn't the same. It wasn't just me and Ruth and mom kept telling me not to touch Ruth's things, when before Ruth let me touch her knickknacks as long as I didn't break them.

I wanted to visit again, but mom got a phone call. Ruth was in the hospital. Mom stopped at the store and I picked out some nice orange flowers. They weren't marigolds, but it was the closest thing I could find.

The lady in the bed didn't look quite as plump as Ruth had been. I gave her the flowers and recognized her by her smile. We hugged again, careful not to pull the tubes from her arms. It was the last time I ever saw her.

I hope she made it to heaven.

"Pale Horse" #Fridayflash

This was what came to mind tonight as I prepped to write something incredibly insightful. A heroin addict sometimes doesn't measure just right, then again it's a vicious drug and will change potency in your body at any given time. I've never done heroin but have lost people I cared about...if reading about that disturbs you, look away. Else, welcome to my improv thought process. 

"I have made the big decision

I'm gonna try to nullify my life


'Cause when the blood begins to flow


When it shoots up the dropper's neck


When I'm closing in on death


And you can't help me now, you guys…"

  Heroin – Lou Reed

I’m breathing and shutting the door behind me. Neighbor downstairs is shouting at his girl again and somewhere there’s a bird chirruping and

—I gotta find it. The bathroom sink is a fucking mess and I should’ve started the wash.

There it is. Oh sweet heaven you. I hid you and nobody found you, not even that girl, what the hell was her name

—oh yeah. Shelia. Shelia is some girl, man but I gotta think straight. Think straight.

There’s pain where there shouldn’t be and I’m digging, digging because I need. Need. Alcohol wipes above the kitchen sink over the pile of dirty dishes. Goddamnit she should've at least done those. I think I said I would.

—Found it.

I gotta make sure I hit the vein, you know. Gotta pull the needle out just a little and look for those blisters, Man those blisters take fucking forever to go away and burn. A little blood baby. Yeah. Just a little.

Just a little.

There’s roses on the walls; I don’t know why man. Stupid tv and and aww man. Yeah.

This shit is gonna rock me so hard. Gonna go back to that Circle K in a little bit and score some smokes before…what was her name...gets home. Yeah. I gotta girl. I gotta girl and she loves me. Wait a minute, just a little more. Heaven ain’t like this. Maybe that Either place, wow man…

I feel like I’m gonna just float away and hey baby. Hey baby. She looks at me and screams. Groceries on the floor by my head. How did I get here? I was taking a piss and…

Oh baby. Don’t cry. I don’t know your name but I’m alright, just let me get up and

—Shit. Man I’m messed up. So messed up.

I love you too baby. Can’t you hear me? I’m talking

—aww damn.

I think I fucked up.

"Fast Folly" #Fridayflash

I had a tail on the way to my apartment from the office one night.

A black-cherry Mustang in my rearview, twisting through traffic like a head-lit cobra snake, looming there. I cut a quick right, wheels cutting into the pavement when I gunned the engine. It was a strange sensation to see it there: the distance kept immaculate but intimidating.

My mind raced, spinning through all the names of those who would like to get a piece of me, and well there were a few. There was my crazy bitch of an ex-wife, my last girlfriend; her new boyfriend.

The feeder sprouted into view and I darted up on the freeway. The Mustang followed, sunset ablaze in the windshield reflection, giving it the appearance of being on fire.

I let the window down to get some air and heard it. It had a low growl, except when I sped up and then it'd snarl with unbidden power. I sped past a line of slower-moving traffic, cutting in-between a Winnebago and a diesel F-250 to hit the inside lane, where the road was wide open.

I stomped down on the gas, and watched the speedometer climb. The Mustang responded in turn until I surmised we were doing close to 100.

A low-flying bird came across the highway, but I hit it before I could even respond. The body exploded into a blizzard of inky feathers; deep carmine red splattered over the expanse of my windshield.

I couldn't see.

The steering wheel ripped itself from my grip, my tires screaming before I did as a semi-hauler disintegrated the front half of my Volvo.

Safest cars in the world, and that's why I survived.

The Mustang passed, and kept going without the slightest lapse in speed as I sat there agape, the dash pinned against the knees I could no longer feel.

"Sketchy Connection" #Fridayflash

Bones has Season Three on Netflix now. I minimize the screen once the opening score starts and focus on my resume. Keywords are important to get noticed by The Machine. I called an office once for an update on the status of my resume with their firm. A woman answered and told me that "The Machine will pre-select your resume for our consideration." It came down to The Machine to read my carefully-composed work, and The Machine to decide if my hobbies and interests interfered with The Company's Vision.

This is not to be confused with The System. The System is down, I can't access your records to calculate your Unemployment benefits. The System doesn't make mistakes. Your last paycheck has to be right—The System doesn't lie.

I wonder what large nameless entity I'll become acquainted with next. What monolith I'll have to scale. I change a couple of keywords in the document and return to my show. The connection is sketchy, and pixels show like they used to when I had satellite cable. My phone rings on the seat. Just another bill-collector.

I attach my resume to another well-thought out email including my salary requirements and sigh at the jet-taking-off sound. It's unavoidable. I've lost my confidence.

As long as this connection stays up—

I'm deep in Dr. Brennan and Detective Booth's conversation when I hear the soft thump of a car door. I snap the laptop screen shut, and turn the key in the ignition.

A flashlight taps my window, the shine reflected by a golden badge.

"Instant" #Fridayflash

"Repugnant is a creature who would
squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven;
conscious of his fleeting time here."

Right in Two - Tool
____

The sky flashed, illuminating thick, rolling underbellies. Veins of red and deepest black traced those surfaces like a fatty vital organ. Bilboy peered out the rain-speckled windshield up at the magnificent display of nature’s wrath. An old-time country song crooned to itself on the AM radio. The Ford sputtered, recapturing Bilboy’s attention.

“Just a few miles more,” he muttered to the rusted behemoth.

There was this reoccurring dream: It always ended before his inebriated mind could wrap its arms around the true significance. Clouds overhead. Weak headlights stabbing vainly at the gathered night. Indescribable shivers puckering the old Semper Fi tattoo on his right forearm.

The reflection in his big-faced Timex watch, then the old Ford would sputter, just like that. Bilboy’s mouth twisted downwards and he rustled a bagged beverage clinging to the driver’s side door sill in one of those plastic half-circle cup holders you could get at the Speedy-Stop outside of Wilmenco.

This night drew up viscous memories of cold fluorescence, the stench of spilled gasoline and the tight red-burn of rope-bound wrists. It wasn’t too long ago that those scars’d faded  to silver, just under the deep chestnut hairs. Spiderwebs skittered over those bones and canvassed the tops of his hands where the skin peeled back, like an old dirty sock.

Thunder announced just behind the cab making the old man jump in his seat. No seat belt—a ¾ Tonner didn’t have those kind of rules. He took a bitter swallow of piss-warm beer and fumbled in his breast pocket for a Camel, thumbing the lighter in the dash. It never worked; he never remembered that until it’d pop over and over again, only to hold it in til he could feel the heat radiate outwards from the inch-diameter hole.

The spiral of bright orange illuminated the end of his cigarette and guided the lighter back home. The Ford dipped two tires off the paved road onto the shoulder, and Bilboy corrected with a reflexive jerk of the gigantic steering wheel. The other two tires screeched in protest as the empty bed of the truck swung around to meet the front.

Bilboy growled as he attempted to hammer the brake into submission, spilling his beer down his leg and finally the floorboard as both hands clamped on the steering wheel.

Lightning flashed over the slick pavement, strobing the scene as it unfolded before his eyes, but it wasn’t this moment in time.

It was the dream. That same damn dream that jerked him awake, sheathed in chilled sweat and trembling like a newborn calf. The dream of what happened when the Ford really did leave the pavement and fall afterwards.

Snap of thunder. Blaze of fire. Gasoline.

It was his time, but he didn’t believe in that kind of thing. He didn’t believe in anything except Pearl, (who’d gone on fifteen years before) Pabst beer, Winston-Salem and that number 45 car, whose driver was a distinct asshole but he sure did get the job done.

Bilboy threw his arms up to cover his face, but the glass melted through his skin. The old 302 wormed into the cab to greet him, partially severing his right leg in a searing instant. The rain saturated his dry skin as he stared up into the face of his Maker.