In his eyes lies the wind

The breeze of my emotions

In his heart lies the love

The seed of my devotion

And when he speaks

With arms outstretched

Bound forward ever near

He says nothing but

That sweet “hello”

My ears stand still to hear

And when we lie, side by side,

In dewy nights that send

That passion found within the soul

And secrets without end

I will only dream of times awake

Without him by my side

And only wish for sunny days

Where time go slowly by

Yes, in his eyes lies the wind

The dream in which I live

And in his soul lies the key

Of my heart, to whom I give

(Originally written in June, 1991)

Macbeth had just finished her early morning patrol of the hallway upstairs, and the whole length of the stairway that dropped down; leaving tiny spheres of her fur behind her like bread crumbs. Then she hit the livingroom, and kitchen settling in nooks of bookcases, and tiny coves between furniture that allowed her passage, to let her elegant bengal circuitous tail (that was like a wisp of spiraling smoke from a bonfire of gold and black, seperating like steps that led into the sky) drift along the tops of cedar or graze the metallic stand that supported the record player. On the way back to her partner Dria and their hiding space in the cellar, she could hear the familiar creakings of one of her newest pet giants rising and grunting from their strange nightly slumber that was only once every night. How, she wondered, could any living soul only sleep once in an entire day? It seemed ludicrous and obscene in a troubling way, but she passed it off as another baffling mystery of these odd creatures. Dria was already there waiting at the top of the stairs for her. Her eyes were so fiercely penetrating that Macbeth couldn’t take it sometimes. She could only rub against her mate and purr to try and silence the unbearable tension that arose from those aqua green serpentine eyes of Dria’s that seemed to jump out of her black fur coat and demand some kind of venerable respect.

Macbeth was wrongly convinced that she was the Alpha of the house, and always made desperate attempts to prove it. After a long while of huddling and snuggling with Dria in their discreet balls of duel warmth on the third step of the chilly cellar stairs, Macbeth was feeling cramped and getting an awful kind of antsy. She knew the recently installed pet giant was out on the couch in the livingroom like some sort of covetous pig, hogging all that territory of couch that could of fit at least six cats to himself. Macbeth looked at Dria and blinked in a challenging and haughty way as if to say:

“You think I won’t do it, don’t you? Well I will, and you’re not stopping me. I’m the goddamn Alpha, and I’ll do anything I damn well please! Just you watch me!”

Dria looked back lazily, not entirely convinced of this heavy look of promise, but loving Macbeth all the same. Dria crouched on her hind legs and stretched her arms out on the stair as she yawned, as if to respond to the cavalier of Macbeth and her high horse respectively:

“You were planning to go stir up trouble, weren’t you? You made all this huffing and puffing, and for what? Well now, why don’t you go then and let me sleep you big blowhard?”

Dria then settled back into a casual paw dangling sleeping position and immediatly dozed. This infuriated Macbeth to the point that her fur rose on her back, making a little mohawk of spite. That wise black cat with brown drops, that were placed in an almost precisely artistic manner, could really get a rise out of Macbeth by just being her aloof self. Macbeth wanted to kick her with a dirty back paw but opted instead to just drool a bit over her, letting the saliva run down Dria’s well groomed back, and leave a split in her fur that made her look like she had a cowlick running down both ways all the way to her belly. It was a passive aggressive move to be sure, but achieved the desired effect. Macbeth stole off their perch on the steps and passed through the kitchen like a thief in the night. Her belly slid across the tiles like a snake, and before the giant had a chance to think, she had crept around the corner to stare with heated authority at the crowing presence of the male giant, who was examining some box-shaped thing with strange symbols and pictures scrawled acrossed it. The giant looked up from his book, and acknowleged Macbeth with a beaming smile. Macbeth was appalled and alarmed by this exchange, though she would never tell Dria that she had been scared. Macbeth could almost feel the gold within her black ringed spots changing to a lighter yellow as she circled back to an already awake Dria who was gingerly passing a felt mouse toy from paw to paw, and meowing in a queer way as she did so. Dria glanced unamused up at Macbeth, who was wearing the bluff of confidence in her walk, and half closed an eye-lid in a way that posed her inquiry with a sneer:

“I thought you were the Alpha? Do you want me to go and dominate for you? Is that what you really want you chicken-shit?”

Though this wasn’t really what Dria meant by her multi-faceted look, it was just what Macbeth saw. If she could have peered closer beyond her increasing well of fears, that were ever present, and stare straight past Dria’s elongated whiskers, she might have seen that Dria had on a happy playful look of a cat engaged in her own imagination and machinations, but regrettably that was not the case. In a mad rage, Macbeth dashed around the corner from the kitchen to the livingroom, and lunged at the reading giant with both arms and legs extended and claws flashing like a fiery throwing star of doom! The giant screamed as Macbeth sunk teeth and claws in his face and hands, causing the female giant to come clumping down the stairs in an outrage, screaming and prying Macbeth free of the scarred giants shuddering form while the she giant and the he giant threw threats at Macbeth’s back as she retreated in victory down into the depths of the house with her newly acquired sense of pride followed by tiny flecks of fear that blew up behind her like soft gusts of wind from an overhead ceiling fan.

Several hours later, Dria was still staring at Macbeth with those owlish eyes, and Macbeth was trying to ignore her. She knew what Dria was saying though, it wasn’t that hard to guess.

“Why do you do these drastic things, Macbeth? Now you’re punished, and you probably won’t get as much food as I will. You know I’ll share with you like always, but it really doesn’t help your case when you act a fool like this. If you really want to be in charge you must be more like the cool and calm waters that gradually weather the stone. You can’t just take an eye out, and think that’s that, ‘I’m in charge’.”

Macbeth crept around Dria in a circle, and hopped on the dryer before leaping onto the heating system where she spent most of her time brooding. Dria shook herself and thought ‘It’s going to be another long day’, before following her reckless partner up into the dark recesses they called their home away from home.

The End

©

4/28/19

Bunny Villaire

(Edit #4)

Shattered

Sharp slithers of glass

Scattered

Behind me, as I walk away

Tattered

My heart, what’s left of it

Broken

I had no idea what I was doing, but it came so naturally.

I’ve spent my life in demolition, so construction was a surprise to me.

So just incase you come looking, behind these walls is where I’ll be.

For each brick that you created, I laid meticulously.

Novalie 2, 4568 (2:00 am)

I’m lying in my broken wooden bed unable to sleep for the billionth time and for once, it isn't because of my rock-hard mattress. No, this time it is because I have finally realized just how insane this world is. Everyone on Planet Delmira is a clone, all two billion of us. We’re all just copies of six humans, known as the Final Six. We don’t even know if any of our thoughts are our own. And yet, everyone is just going about their daily lives as if that isn’t a cause for concern. Or maybe we all just got used to living with that fact.

New Year’s Day has finally passed, and I’m bittersweet about it because it means that I have to return to work to fulfill the purpose of my creation. Now that the holiday is over, I will go back to doing my part in creating more clones to inhabit this absurd world at the creation factory downtown, which will be opening back up again later today. After all, it’s the only way to keep our species from going extinct, since we aren’t capable of producing offspring. I finally start to feel drowsy and drift off to sleep. Soon the sun will rise, and the sunlight from our red dwarf sun will shine upon the land.

Novalie 2, 4568 (07:00 am)

Red sunlight flashes through the window of my tiny cubicle apartment and onto my face. I wake up irritated that the government has yet to bring me the curtains I ordered last week. I get out of bed, brush my teeth, shower, put on my work clothes and exit the apartment.

The purple sky is clear and light wind from the east whispers across the coast. The city is busy, as usual. Despite the busyness, the bustling streets are mostly silent. I join the ever-expanding crowd as we all march in one direction. The only noise breaking the silence is the sound of our footsteps moving in unison. No one dares to look at or speak to someone else in the crowd. There is an unspoken collective agreement among everyone that awkward silence is best, especially with hidden government cameras watching our every move. One can only socialize when the government gives permission to do so. And the government only allows the public to socialize at certain times of the day. Now is not one of those sanctioned times. After a little while, the group begins to slowly decrease in size as we start to arrive at the buildings in which we work. As I walk lock step with the crowd, I think about the events of last year.

4567 had been a long year with the hen wolves and tiger pigs attacks. Hen wolves usually are about six feet tall, walk on four legs, have grey fur, a spiky tail tipped with venom and the head of a bird. Tiger pigs, on the other hand, are usually the size of a small building. They have pink skin, sharp clams, a curly pink tail that resembles a metal spring and walk on four legs. Unlike the rest of their body, their head has orange and white fur. They have sharp teeth and white whiskers. And can spit acid.

As if the hen wolves and tiger pigs weren't bad enough. There was the failed coup against our one world government by misprint clones that had occurred during the summer. Though no one is supposed to acknowledge their existence, misprint clones are real. Misprint clones are defective clones. They are considered defective because they don't look identical to any member of the Final Six. So they are banished to the wild due to their imperfection. And in this society, everything must always be perfect. Perfection means the everything looks the same, smells the same, sounds the same, feels the same, and even taste the same. It implies order, efficiency, and the balance of man with nature. It wasn’t always this way; elder clones would tell me.

Our species weren't always clones obsessed with perfection. In fact, there was a time when not one member of species was a clone. Thousands of years ago, before the apocalypse occurred on Planet Earth, our home planet, years were shorter. Planet Delmira is a much larger planet than Earth, so it rotates even slower on its axis. While it took twenty-four hours for the Earth to complete one rotation, it takes Delmira twenty-six hours to do the same. And even though Delmira is closer to its red dwarf sun than the Earth was to its yellow sun, Earth orbited its sun more quickly. It took Earth three hundred sixty-five days to revolve around its sun. It takes Delmira three hundred ninety-five days to do likewise, despite Earth's sun being far more gigantic. As a result, Earth had twelve months in a year, while Delmira has thirteen. Earth had seven continents and four oceans. Delmira has twelve continents and seven oceans. Sadly, the days of Earth has long since passed for our species. Lost to time like a trail of footprints on the sands of a beach being swallowed by the sea.

Novalie 2, 4568 (8:30 am)

I finally arrived at work. One could be forgiven for not realizing that the building was a factory. Taking up twelve city blocks and reaching a towering height of two thousand feet, it was designed in such a way that it created a perfect balance between man and nature. The factory resembled a tiny mountain range. In fact, for many clones, it was difficult to figure out where the mountains ended, and the factory began. It even had its own artificial waterfall. Planet Delmira has fifty creation factories. Most aren't anywhere near this gigantic. The one I work at is only so massive because it also doubled as the headquarters for the Department of Creation. (Also known as the D.O.C.)

Before I can enter the building, I have to get past a security checkpoint. Once I reach the checkpoint, I am stopped by a security guard who blocks my path. She has caramel colored skin, green eyes, and long, curly, silver-white hair. She is clearly cloned after Mia, a member of the Final Six. Holding a tablet in her hands, the guard looks toward me.

"I'm going to ask you some questions. Answer them to the best of your ability. If caught lying, I am under legal obligation to kill you right here and now.", she says in a deadpan, matter-of-factly voice.

"Yes, ma'am," I answer promptly

"Please hand over your I.D."

I quickly comply.

"Clone type?", she asks

"I'm cloned after Aaquail.", I state

"Serial number?"

"4, 0, 5, 6 , 3, 7, dash 8, 1, 9, 2 dash 0, 1, 3, 9, 7"

"Date of creation?"

" I was awakened on the 25th day in the month of Exton, in the year 4544."

"Purpose of Creation?", she inquires

"The purpose of my existence is to help increase the population of our society.", I assert

"Lifespan Determination?"

"It was determined by the D.O.C that I am to live for 70 years."

"Date of expiration?"

"The 14th of Kasian in the year 4614."

She looks at her tablet and my I.D. to determine if I have deceived her about my identity. After she is satisfied, I am finally granted permission to enter the building. Once inside, I promptly take the elevator to the sixth floor. I read the digital clock on the wall. It's eight forty-five am. I clock in and get to work.

Novalie 2, 4568 (13:00 pm; Also known as Noon)

At the creation factory, I am nothing more than a faceless government bureaucrat who works for the D.O.C. In our society, one doesn't have the freedom to decide what they're meant to do. It's just too inefficient. Instead, overworked and underpaid, government bureaucrats like myself, assign to newly created clones their purpose of creation. We tell these new clones, why we allow them to exist. Failure to live up to your pre-assigned purpose of creation means that you're not a model citizen of our wonderful society. You're worse than a misprint clone. They're just defective. Presumably, if they weren't defective, then they would be perfect. By failing to live up to your pre-assignment purpose of creation, you become a constant reminder of imperfection. A constant reminder of the fact it is very possible to not be defective and sill be imperfect. And for that repugnant reminder, the punishment is deactivation, which is essentially an execution.

But now was not the time to dwell on such negative things. For it is lunchtime, and I plan on enjoying my hour-long break. I clock out and go to the factory's cafeteria. I go through the long line and sit at one of the tables in the back alone. Other employees sit with their fellow associates and eagerly begin conversing with one another since now is one of the government sanctions times to socialize. I'm not so eager to socialize because I don't like to mingle. People think that I'm anti-social, but the truth is that I just enjoy being left alone with my thoughts. Instead, I use this time to daydream about not being a clone and living in a society where people are their own unique selves.

Novalie 2, 4568 (6:00 pm)

It's quittin' time. As I am about to clock out, I hear people shouts of anger. I decide to locate the source of all the commotion. It isn't long before I do. It's coming from a small group of newly created clones. They have been informed by one of my colleagues about their assigned purpose of creation. It's not going well. Apparently, no one in the group likes their assigned purpose of creation. This rarely happens, but it isn't unheard of. It just means that the batch is inadequate. The faulty batch began demanding that be allowed to decide their own purpose of creation. I admit to being sympathetic to their demands. However, I realize it just isn't possible. It's far too inefficient. Clones being given an assigned purpose of creation is a large part of what keeps the system in check.

It isn't long before security arrives and takes the faulty batch away for deactivation. That's what they get, I tell myself with half-hearted belief. I clocked out and head home knowing that today's events will more or less also happen tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that, until the date of my expiration like a cog in a machine. Such is life, I guess. There isn't anything I could possibly do to change it. After all, I'm just a faceless government bureaucrat.

Nash definitely overdid himself last night. In space, whiskey tasted more like a Halls lozenge splashed by semen that had seeped through a tear in one of those musky, and awful white hospital gowns that show the ass hanging out. The numbing feeling was still present though, so every few moons Nash had to up the ante just to get a good buzz going. It wasn’t advisable, however, because ever since he’d been locked up for pushing some disagreeable tourists out the bay door of the ship in a drunken rage his body had been equipped with an electrifying alarm clock. At one time he had been one of the first appointed wardens of this stinkpot of a ship. Now, just like clockwork every time at seven o’clock, If Nash hadn’t vacated his cot on time, an electric shock embedded in his circulatory system would be adminstered throughout his entire body. The process had begun to happen this morning; starting from his trembling toes, the waves of electricity began to pulsate, growing with a feverish intensity as it spread up into his groin area, tingling his shell-shocked berries that rattled together like hammered glockenspiels. Nash rolled awkwardly out of bed, and crawled the length of the room, leaving little puddles of piss here and there, to the far right corner of his drab flat, swearing the whole way about his wounded privates.

“It’s so...fucking painful...I can still smell...my balls cooking...”

The wall screen had switched itself on, and a fit looking arrogant face was staring back at him with a challenging dip of the eyebrow. The instructor’s whole face was riddled with smirky asinine attitude, and filled the entire length of Nash's screen. Nash could get a glimpse of a pimple starting to develop near the corners of the instructor's left eye. The twenty something year old teacher had a bandanna wrapped around his head, and a plastic looking goatee. The standard oxygen tank that everyone was wearing on this ship was grafted to the instructors ribs, but Nash didn’t get a glimpse of this until the camera panned out in an effort to frame his whole body for demonstrational purposes. Behind the instructor was the United Planetary Flag that showed all four recently united planets connected by a flowing violet ribbon.

“Alright, convict #2357-89-0006, are you ready for your daily sixty minute workout? It’s per government regulations, and there’s really no excuse I can think of that would exclude you from today’s activities, so I’m just going to proceed if that’s ok with you. Let’s get started. Now I want you to squat down in the position you would take if you were to evacuate your bowels. Convict #2357-89-0006?...Convict #2357-89-0006???...Are you there???...We really have to get moving...”

Nash was busy retching his lungs out into the nearby toilet bowl, and at the moment he couldn’t be bothered. After ridding himself of the internal sickness, he stumbled towards a hanging towel device that he buried his whole head in. Nash then pressed a grey button, and let the draping towel completely immerse his damp skin, as the piping hot gusts of air rose up from the floorboards. Behind the curtain of towel, tiny robotic fingers probed and massaged his face. Exiting the machine, Nash stared up into the shaving mirror to his right that was fixed into his wall, and searched the pits of his long face for outcropping spurts of hair. Finding a bit of scruff with wandering fingers, Nash yanked his cell off of it's pedestal, and enacted the Swiss Army Phone ap that swiftly transformed his phone into a electric razor. He ran the razor over his face while the wall screen behind him continued to demand his attention. Suddenly, the mirror that Nash was gazing into began to grow foggy and dark like a storm cloud. Nash sighed, as the nebulous mirror swiftly revealed his excercise instructor again who looked a bit more agitated then before.

"Convict #2357-89-0006!...Have you been taking proper care of yourself?...It doesn't look like it. You look like a dog's chew toy, or one of those pranks from the Earth world where children would light bags of fecal matter on their neighbors lawn, and run away. Perhaps you haven't been reading the required literature of this galaxy? 'Downloading a Galaxy Required book a day keeps the cobwebs away.' Remember Apple guru Steve Jobs proclaimed that recently from his newly erected cryogenic speakers."

"Yes...your probably right...Right you are, and I'll be right as rain as soon as I can have a swig of boxed water, and a few GBD pills to give me that extra edge I need. I just need a few more minutes to freshen up."

"Ahem...um...don't you think your forgetting something?..."

"Oh, yes of course..."

Nash positioned himself right in the center of the mirror so that the camera could catch his good profile. He presented his cheesiest, most toothy grin, as he began his daily required Advert Diary. The script was already on the screen waiting for him to rattle it off.

"Galaxia, Galaxy Required Reading for the Incarcerated. Who needs the time to read with our patented designed system that slips in the ears, adhering to the inside of the ear-lobe until our precious messages are acknowledged? Galaxy Required Reading by Galaxia. The future of information."

As if it were a prize to Nash for completing the ad, a rectangle-shaped boxed water sprung out of his wall cubby, along the left edges of his shaving mirror/screen with the white screwable cap pointed towards him. Soon after, a platter with two cream colored capsules arose from the tiled table right in front of him. Nash washed the pills down with water, and deposited the bottle in the recycle chute with the red circle on it, to the left of the table. The chute made a loud whoosing noise, as Nash wandered back into the livingroom on a hunt for his worker's badge. They wouldn't let him back on the site this time if he didn't find that fucking thing. He'd probably get another demerit too, which would mean another night cooped up in this rat hole again. Snaking headphones leapt out of the wall as if anticipating him to download a book, as Nash ducked from them, and scooped up his badge from the floating couch. He headed towards the door that lead him to the endless lines of busy people outside his room.

Sector 119 was the work site on one of the moons nearest to the ship that all the prisoners worked their tails off at, until the electric lights embedded in the canvas that shielded the workers from debris began to dim, signalling the end of another workday. This day was far from over however, and Convict #4788-90-1111, or Hunter, as Nash knew him, was already starting to dick off and make jokes while he pretended to look busy with the pick axe and the wheelbarrow. Nash usually appreciated Hunter's lust for finding a bit of fun in everything, but right now didn't seem like the right time. Spy Droids were hiding everywhere, sometimes disguised as yellowish spiders at their feet, and other times peering through cracks in the canvas. Nash could have been just being paranoid, but he elbowed Hunter in the gut anyway, and tried all he could to get him back on task, which was a task in itself.

"The fuck's wrong with you, Nash? Nobody cares if we half-ass it. In fact, they've grown to expect it from inferior oxygen-breathers like ourselves. Fuck them, anyway! I need a drink."

Hunter dipped one of the dangling tubes streaming downward from his helmet into a vial that he'd produced from a hidden compartment in his pocket. He took a big gulp just as a alarm went off somewhere and startled him. In a flash, he had plugged up the vial and hid it back in the folds of fabric in his outfit.

"Always behind the eightball, eh Hunt?"

Though the scenario had seemed very risky, and tedious, Nash now wished more then anything that he'd have asked for a drink as well. He looked back at the extensive excavation job that the crew had been working on the last month and wondered what the fuck they'd really been doing. They were standing on a site twice the size of a football field on earth. There were dig spots all around them, as if they were crazed dogs digging up a forgotten bone. Noone ever explained anything to them, yet they all recieved a check for sixty points every week towards provisions and the ship's two bars that were on the ship. Nash wished he wouldn't have even thought about those bars because now it would encompass the rest of his agonizing day of back bending, and lifting. Beer, beer, beer...he'd sell his soul for a glass of hot beer. Striking the flinty surface with his pick axe, Nash continued to imagine the brown liquid with the charateristic foamy top that often obscured the beer's contents. Nash stared into the beer in his mind, until the foam began to disipate and reveal a human face. It was Phoebe's face. A girl he had sworn to forget, though he was having a hell of a time doing so. Digging further into his designated dig spot, Nash tried to free his mind from Phoebe's exotic, and tan complexion, as her haunting image winked at him before vanishing. He tried to think about the bar experience afterwards with Hunter. His aching mind kept wandering back to the job, however, with the unanswered question of why they were digging these pits hovering over his head like a menacing Droid. At this particular instance, a Droid was indeed hanging over him, and began shrieking it's high pitched wail signalling that a prisoner had gone off course and gotten too wistful. 48 volts of electricity surged through Nash's body, and woke him out of his trance.

The shock lasted only a minute but it proved it's irritating point. Nash didn't slack from the task until the shrieking whistle sounded at the end of the day, finally alerting the workers that their work was done. Nash and Hunter shared a relieved look, abandoned their tools, and docked the ship along with a hundred or so other prisoners. The remaining three hours before sleep that remained were there's to do with how they deemed fit. Nash could feel the fleeting sensation of freedom rushing through his bloodstream as he swam with the crowds of people towards the recreation rooms that awaited them.

(To be continued...)

©

2019

Bunny Villaire

(Edit #3)

For a tall while, Buck Holland was known in his town as the old shit-kicking grump with a bad hip. Putting folks down had nearly always been his way. Many days in the past you’d find him spitting from his balcony at the ant crowds down below. He was an ex-cop with a grudge at the ever-changing world, and now with his bum hip and the Trypanosomiasis it was changing him from the inside out. Trypanosomiasis had been his lifes’ cross following a crucial trip to Sandals what might has well have been Hell last month with an ace gal that wouldn’t be a returning customer. Now he’d been scouring South Beach for shells which stood for answers he sorely needed owing to a fractured mind that could barely compartimentalize.

All his clumsy nodding off back at his apartment might fly if his bud Jamie shot junk, but no luck of that sort in store for either of them. For Jamie, it had become a godawful drag to hang with Buck now more then ever. Buck bitched about his death, he bitched about his living, he bitched about the horrible haunted times they now lived in in comparison to the good old days, and he bitched about modern food with all it's perservatives. There wasn’t one thing that settled well with Buck, and this proved perplexing for one as simple minded as Jamie. Jamie would be happy with a McDonalds McGriddle and a 40 ounce, and he couldn’t understand all the unending shit that Buck went on about High Fructose Corn Syrup this and Gluten that. That and Buck’s foul flatulence brought on by drugs for the Trypanosomiasis killed all their fun flat. They could never get a decent card game going through the thick green clouds of heinous gas!

A mad array of sights’d flash through Buck’s mind while he was day-dreaming, or “sailing” as he called it. An implant of an additional world sprung up with the authenticity of reality in his continual drifting vacancy from his real life stint. It only came to him briefly, but these frequent flooding dreams of sorts were a happy and spacious oasis from all the dirty doubts of the day, and endless worries that plagued him on the reg. He'd imagine being surrounded by huge, mysterious castles with jutting turrets, surrounded by woodlands disappearing far off into the untamed wilderness. Birds from a distant past would sing each other love songs as he reveled in the crystal clear scene which only stayed visible for a short while. In the beginning, how he would achieve these nearly comatose states of bliss were by playing his old Lawrence Welk or Neil Diamond records when he was alone. More, and more, he was still managing to slip off to his dream world when people were in the same room with him. It was beginning to be a thing he felt that he was losing the will to control.

Sweatier, and sweatier each time, with darker rings around his eyes, Buck would pop up like black toast from these enigmatic naps! He’d wildly snatch a scratch pad; or anything that floated in the realm of his manic orbit to better illustrate his spirited flights of fancy. His vision wouldn’t stay lucid all morning though, so like a failing boner Buck would have to chase it, but boy, did it blow Jamie’s mind the following day when Buck would share! Variably it often seemed like it was by unseen malignant spirits that his hopping hands had unconsciously been summoned from some distant world unknown. Buck felt akin to a begging child dipping his wooden bucket in a questionable stream that was always rich with rations of glistening enligtening life that nourished him thoroughly through and through. He wanted for more out of his life, and he didn’t care where he got it, except at night sometimes, when it wouldn’t rush out from Buck’s pen, and he wondered how he could harness this incredible feeling of flirting with the all mysterious Goddess of Creativity herself. He’d been scrawling drawings lately that were his link between the two worlds. His franticly manic drawings conveyed dark, and dizzy works of a lost soul who’d passed over a minefield of sorts, and quite possibly not made it over the threshold to the other side. The brush strokes were thick, fantastic, and at times irregular, but they perfectly revealed the torments of a specific locale somewhere in this universe or the next that had previously been untapped and unmarked by man. Buck’s growing addiction to his tormented hobby of self realization through art begged him to hone the ability better. This had been what had pushed Buck to finally enroll himself in Scientology courses in the building next door to his complex, starting with the ‘Personality Test’, despite his friend Jamie’s dogged protests against joining the mysterious and controversial church.

“It’s a fucking cult, man! What the fuck are you doing? All that New Age shit is just after you’re last cent. What you oughta do is just keep drawing your damn doodles, and send ’em everywhere! God willing, a publisher will catch wind of them, and poof, people will gobble that shit up like it’s a shark feeding frenzy.”

“That’s not why I’m letting myself be a vessel for this shit though, Jamie! I’m doing it to shine a light on a world that I can’t see, but only get vague snippets of from time to time. If I could reign all this crazy nightmarish shit together in a pile under the lights of a good and sound philosophy, I could better understand my crazy dreams, and see if it’s some sort of vision that I’m dialing up, or if it’s just a damned neuron firing in my brain somewhere.”

“I think you’re wanting this too badly, man. I wish you would think this over.”

The most frightful trial of all was on Buck’s first day of ‘Auditing’ by the church. After exploring the spacious and well manicured grounds of the Church of Scientology in Los Angeles, he was probed by the most fiercely disarming steel-blue eyes of a gorgeous women in her twenties with blonde shoulder length hair, dressed in a blue uniform that resembled someone of elevated importance. She appeared so professionally made up like she was in the Navy or a Coast Guard of some sort. On her shirt, she had a tiny gold pin that resembled a snake swimming up her blouse. Underneath the whole ensemble, Buck had a real hard time reading her though. Her eyes were like hermetically sealed man-hole covers that had been well secured against letting any outside forces in. As he faded in and out of consciousness due to an oncoming dream, she immediately inserted two steel bars, in each of his hands, that were connected to an automated unit in front of her that was supposed to read his bad reactive thoughts, or so she claimed.

“Am I supposed to hold these things in a tight grip, or can it be loose?”

“It would be better to hold them tight, but a little looseness in the grip should be ok I think. Remember, Scientology is only as true as it is for you, and what is true for you is what you have observed yourself. LRH said that.”

“O, he did, did he? Now what do you want me to do?”

“Take a deep breath, hold it for a moment, and let it out through your mouth.”

Buck sucked air up through his nose, and then let it tumble out of his mouth. He felt a little obstruction in his right nostril. The Scientologist turned her head quizically, as she paid attention to the device that was hooked up to the two bars in Buck’s hands. It was obviously producing some unseen results.

“Are you well fed, and well rested?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a present time problem?”

This question caused some trouble for Buck, as he had to turn it over in his mind for quite a bit before answering. Sure he had problems, but a ‘time problem’ had never occured to him ’til just now.

Suddenly, Buck had tumbled and been thrust into some version of farm country, and he was without a stitch on at night in the wildness of this foreign, yet familiar scene. His noctabulistic stupor drug him by his balls into an empty field, and then cast him away just as quick. Naked, amongst winds, howling down at him like razors on his skin from many points, so as to imagine that the circle he was in was more like a star of living energy, Buck suddenly became aware of a Big, Black Thing that seemed serpentine in nature. He could hear owls hooting in the trees. He was aware of a worm crawling along the ball of his heel. And now, suddenly, there was a hissing wraith that was squatting on top of his body and supping on his vital juices. It was pinning him down in the living dirt through shadowy strips of the ever night as Buck tried unsuccessfully to fight against it’s ever worsening grip. It had a hold of his neck and was impossible to grab hold of!

What was this Snake-like being that couldn’t be beat? Buck continued to fight, valuing it’s strength, as it hungrily drank of him. It had slithered out of somewhere or something. Buck watched a group of owls that gazed down on him from a evergreen tree as his vision waned. Could it have come from a hole in a tree somewhere, or a shaded bush nearby? Now Buck had to ask himself the big question, was this a lax part of his soul that he’d never came to terms with? If he relaxed would it relax? Buck tried to calm his muscles, but his fear had gotten the better of him. Was this some sickly cousin of his psyche, or had it come from outside to finally end him with a fatal poisonous bite? Whatever the case, Buck was fading fast, and there was no coming back from this. No chance of saving his soul from this ever consuming dream that fastly proceeeded to swallow him from the inside out.

The End

2019

Bunny Villaire

Pt. II

‘Too Close to Home’

(Edit #2)

(Based on a true story. Names and certain situations have been changed to protect the innocent.)

Jim Hudson was studying the wall of TVs linked to cameras that were surveying the outside perimeter. He was trying his best to show interest in the claustrophobic survelliance room with the sterile light blue walls that were devoid of any charm. It looked like a men’s bathroom for a public pool in here. Being a security guard in an office the size of a closet might have felt like a totally meaningless job with no mobility, but Jim was the only one in the staff that was trained for this position now so it wouldn’t help anybody if he all of a sudden up and quit on his company. The security job consisted mostly of scanning the sidewalk around where the parking lot owned by the company was located for suspicious activity. The parking lot was only open during the day, but Brunswick was a small town with little to do but dream, and the kids were always fucking about in the lot, smoking reefer, and finger-banging each other on the top floor of the ramp. Jim was expected to wear a security guard outfit, with a blue suit and hat, with a hard plastic badge. The outfit seemed excessive, as he never left the survelliance room for anybody to actually view his official looking uniform. He was glad for this, because security guards weren’t as feared as police officers, in fact many teens thought they were an stupid joke and asking to be fucked with for choosing such a profession, (and sometimes proved to be right) when guards like Elroy Peterson, who was 51, and in the employ of the same company as Jim, would buy beer for the little shits when off duty, or have ’em over to pass a bong around.

Jim was praying he wouldn’t get another middle finger in the face again today from the passerby, but this was what is was like manning a camera that was not an extension of himself, but of societies increasing paranoia and totalitarianism. A man, with a black jacket, and raised collar that cast shade over his face suddenly passed into view under one of the cameras that Jim had eyes on. Remembering his work, Jim willed himself back into attention, and tried to forget his increasing hunger pangs. The man in the jacket came onto the stage, from the left with his back to the camera. Suddenly, he swung around and stared directly into his lens. The stranger’s eyes gleamed at Jim like they were made of glass. He drew up closer to the camera, almost entirely filling it with his body that was encompassing the lens. The stranger seemed to be inspecting the camera throughly, like a thief who is calculating how to steal a safe with the smallest risk.

“The fuck is this guy doing?,” Thought Jim, as he felt a chill pass through his body.

Withdrawing from his extreme close-up with the camera, the stranger pulled away, and looked at the camera with a tilted head. It was as if he was trying to see through to the other side, but there was no telling his true motives, as his face was still shaded by his collar except for the eyes that were a piercing grey. To the left of the camera, and behind the stranger, there was a long black shadow which at first glance seemed like a small door on a building, and then with further inspection, revealed itself to Jim to be a person hanging in the background like a gargoyle. Jim was almost certain that the original stranger wasn’t aware of this more recent onlooker. The first stranger thankfully gave up on investigating the camera, and went on his way into the oblivion of the night. The one that was hovering in the background continued to stare into the camera for the next hour like a terrifying owl or possum with the black eyes that go on forever. The stranger was cleverly positioned at a spot that was out of range of the company’s property, but still eerily fell under the eye of the camera. Halfway into the standoff, a kid passed in front of the stranger, and stopped to dig a prize out of his nostril. By the time the kid had made his way out of the frame, the stranger in the background was gone.

Jim glanced at the wall clock and realized that he only had twenty minutes to kill and his shift would be over. After calling his house and checking his answering machine, he heard a message from his pal Bernard who was doing a private investigating gig for some lady that was being harrassed. It looked like Bernie wanted to know where to get a good two-way radio so his client would have a way of contacting him during a break-in. Jim called Bernie back and recommended this place up on Third Street while he pulled his coat on, and offered to pick it up for him on his way back home from work if Bernie could have some beers waiting for them.

*

Danielle had been a constant on Bill’s mind since the incident, and he couldn’t help but think that the attacks would continue. Such a pretty young woman, an ex-nurse, and a good cook to boot, all these traits should have equaled the perfect roommate. Now she’d gone missing right after her attack in the dead of winter, had been gone for two days, and Michelle and him were beside themselves with worry. They had both agreed to live with Danielle after her divorce, and they thought their pleasant family life would rub off on her, and make her feel that life was worth living, but the responsibility of living with a person who was constantly under the gun seemed horrific. Bill was always looking over his shoulder, and gazing out the window, trying to be on the look-out at all times. His was a middle-aged man in his fifties and this was starting to burn him out. When he should have been reading the paper, he was found smoking cigarette after cigarette by the window, and playing his Vivaldi records too loud. The records were the only thing that came anywhere close to soothing his taxed mind.

Michelle was past being fed up with Bill’s nerves, and Danielle’s disappearance. She had plans to go and stay with her aging mother in Portland until this whole thing blew over. This was a testament as to how stressed she was because her mother was Hell to live with. She tried to talk Bill into it, but Bill seemed obssessed with being there for Danielle when she turned up. It was like he felt responsibility for her disappearance.

“Bill, honey, she’s not our damn child!”

“We told her folks that we would stay with her, and that’s what I aim to do.”

Later that night, Bill had been boiling tea in his teapot, while reading a John D. Macdonald crime novel in his study. He was following the exploits of the Terrance Mcgee detective and admiring his bravado and free-wheeling life. The Mcgee character was right in the midst of chasing down a suspect on the run, when Bill realized the teapot must have been going off for an hour or so. He ran downstairs, and saw that the pot was indeed black, and that the flame was still burning under it. He heard a crash outside and ran out to the side of the house where he found Danielle crouching by the kitchen window. It was freezing outside, and she was dressed only in a negligee. Her hands were red from the cold, bound, and there was a nylon tied tightly around her neck. There was a piece of tape on her mouth that Bill carefully removed.

“What happened to you, Danielle? Where have you been?”

Danielle took a long time to speak, but at last she finally found the words.

“I saw...white tennis shoes...I was going to get that box that Mom had given me before I moved out...and then a person hit me from behind with a block of wood...I think he had tennis shoes on ’cuz I saw them in front of me before it all went black...”

“Why were you gone for so long? Do you remember where you were?”

Danielle didn’t appear to have anything more to say, so Bill went inside to phone the police after getting Danielle something to drink. He was happy to have her home, but still very troubled. After the cops came, and took her sparse statement, they agreed to do a 24 hour 'Watch and Search' of their residence on Berkley Street. The survelliance was supposed to begin the following night. Officer Mindy and her partner Chip O'Flannery would be in charge of the case. Bill remembered Chip from grade school, and the memory didn't make him feel any more safe. Chip was perpetually the class clown and skirt chaser. Bill made himself a drink of scotch, and went upstairs to check on Danielle. He was surprised to find her on the phone in her room. Her face had lost all of it's rosy coloring around her perky cheeks. Her skin was the same color as her nightgown, and it seemed like at any moment she could just disappear forever. Looking like a mime that had just been robbed, Danielle dropped the phone, and it bounced up and down on the pink coiled string. She stared right through Bill, and Bill felt a chill shoot through his body like a ghost had just passed through him.

“Who was that on the phone, Danielle?”

“It was them. The one’s that kidnapped me. All I could hear were their whispers, but I know it was them. They were telling me all these bad things that are going to happen to me. The ways I was going to die, and the ways they were going to make sure it was clean, and that no one could help me. I think they’re trying to scare me to death.”

(To be continued...)