Unlike most movies, the villain was perfect. Believable even. And the music! The music alone gave me goosebumps. People actually quit going to the beach for vacations because of this movie.

Jaws was the first “great” movie I ever saw. (My parents didn't take me to The Godfather, and I fell asleep in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid... don't act so shocked, y'all, I was only four!) I was ten years old for Jaws. The perfect age. Young enough that it scared the absolute bejesus out of me, but I still couldn’t look away. I am no movie music expert, and had to look up who did it, but I can remember the cold feeling I got from the Williams’ score, like there truly was ice in my veins, ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump, bump pa, bump pa, bump-bump-BAA!!! I just knew when I heard it. Hell, everyone did! People in the theater actually screamed! "Something bad is fixin' to come down 'round here, kiddoes!” And everyone stayed seated at the end of the movie! Not to read the credits mind you, but because we were all utterly exhausted.

But my favorite scene was the one with the three heroes getting drunk and telling war stories. Farewell and adieu ye fair Spanish ladies, farewell and adieu you ladies of Spain! When Quint starts telling about The Indianapolis, and being in the water with all of the sharks everywhere. Ohhhhh, but that was amazing fun. Dude sounded like a modern day pirate. I actually had a nightmare, and I lived 3 1/2 hours from the beach.

And the music was perfect, even when it wasn't shaking the theater with that BA-DUMP, BA-DUMP! Forty seven years later I can remember the song the guys sang as they got drunk... well, right up until the stupid shark interrupted them;

Show me the way to go home, bum-bum-bum, I’m tired and I wanna go to bed! Oh, I had a little drink about an hour ago, and it went straight to my head...

My wife and I, like most people, had a "classics fest" during the boredom of the pandemic. We watched a lot of great movies. Jaws has certainly stood the test of time with the best of them... maybe not as well as Butch Cassidy, but that's because it looses something on the smaller screen, and with smaller speakers, that Sundance doesn't. Jaws is one of those movies that has to be seen big and loud to really be appreciated.

I'm truly sorry for you youngsters who missed seeing it, and hearing it, in the theater, but I assure you it whooped tar out of Star Wars and ET.

3 Years ago, United States.

Charles Goodwell strapped in his seatbelt, motioning for his driver to move. From the radio came weather warnings, but it didn't bother Charles at all. it wasn't his problem. He was rich enough to pay someone else to worry about it.

All he wanted right now was to get home to his family… well, if he was being honest with himself, he wanted to go home to his hot tub.

Charles Goodwell started off as a good man with a good idea, as many rich men do. What his idea originally was doesn’t matter anymore, lost to time and a devil called progress. All that matters now is that he made money.

Every once and while the car would lurch, like a loser in a boxing match, the winning opponent the Wind.

He made it home safe. His papers were in order, his house spotless (He was very particular about keeping his house clean. Most were afraid to even try, but eventually he paid a large enough sum to convince some damned soul to clean for him. Often he grew angry and criticized some imagined flaw, but not today).

His wife was, as she often was these days, in bed. They’d had eight doctor visits in the last seven days, each specialist more expensive than the last.

None of them could identify what was wrong.

They’d ordered her to cease all contact with her family members or the outside world, but Magpie Goodwell had never been a listener. Today, though, she hadn’t left her room. Charles didn’t mind, didn’t care. He slept in the spare room, it was no trouble. He’d been doing it even before she’d gotten sick. Ever since their second child and the subsequent miscarriage, a rift had formed in their marriage, a rift that they tried hard (and failed) to hide from their kids.

Their oldest, Adelle, was 21. Moved out, gone to college, dropped out after a year and cut herself out of her family’s life forever. Every once and a while she’d ask for a check, but there were no Thanksgivings, no Christmas dinners.

Ricky was only 5. He’d grown up hearing legends of his older sister but had never actually met her. His life was spent in constant fear of ending up like Big Sis, even before he’d entered kindergarten.

In preschool, there were accidents. From birth, Ricky had earned the label of “sensitive,” another word for “undiagnosed autism that his parents didn’t want to deal with.”

Charles loved Ricky, but he could be… a lot. And when Magpie had the miscarriage, she’d lash out at anyone and anything… especially Ricky. Their marriage just kept taking hit after hit.

Charles was tired. He was tired of being married to a sick, probably dying woman. He was tired of managing her mood swings. He was tired of dealing with Ricky and tired of regretting Adelle.

He was tired.

As soon as he allowed himself to think this, yells started from Magpie’s room. He couldn’t at first tell who the yells were coming from, his wife or her caretaker.

It was the caretaker.

Jenna Lang yelled for someone to come, because Magpie was dead.

And then, she began screaming for help herself.

When Charles made his way up the steps, he found Jenna locked in a position of terror forever, eyes glassy and throat dripping blood.

His wife, similarly glassy-eyed, had blood dripping from her mouth. But there were no wounds. It was Jenna’s blood. As she watched Charles, he watched her back. She was dead. Her chest did not rise and fall, her skin was pale and tinted with the stench of decay. There was a wet spot on her hospital dress where the bodily fluids had made their dramatic exit in her final moments.

This was the beginning of the end.

And Charles knew it.

Present day

“So you are the one they call Brun,” Charon says. “You’ve become quite the hot topic among the dead lately.”

Brun doesn’t respond, but he lifts his head at the mention of his name.

“Tell me, Brun. What is it you want? You’ve raided six of the zombie camps in the last week, and killed everyone inside. Your own kind. Why?”

At this, Brun can’t resist laughing, a terrible, mocking sound, deep and full of dark certainty.

“Everything must go.”

“This isn’t a liquidation sale, Brun. Lives are not for sale.”

“Why do you care so much, Charon?”

“I am merely a diplomat, trying to find a compromise.”

“Compromise is impossible.”

“Compromise is impossible, but only if we cannot find a way to unify. If we unite as one, we can show humans that we are a force to be reckoned with.”

“They’ll kill us all. And then they’ll keep killing themselves. Little by little. There’s only one way to stop the carnage.”

Charon’s pleasant demeanor slips for a moment.

“Peace?”

“Death. Everything must die. And it will. It will all end soon. The war is nearing its climax. Extinction is on the horizon. Brace yourself for the coming war, Charon. Because it’s coming. And you won’t survive. None of us will.”

Charon sighs.

Some people are just dead set on violence. Even the apocalypse can’t change that.

My biggest fear used to be death. I'm not afraid of the afterlife. I'm just endlessly curious and didn't want my light to dim before I got the chance to explore to my heart's content. I don't want to die painfully, but I can't imagine that most people do. Ideally, I'll go quietly in my sleep after reading The Fairytales of Hermann Hesse for the umpteenth time.

Now, I worry about things happening to my kid. One of the scariest things about having a baby was knowing that I could no longer protect her once she was out of my body. She is now part of the world, and subject to all its beauty and its horror. Experience is a double edged sword, and a sharp one at that.

She is so sweet, so friendly, and also endlessly curious. She is smart. She is beautiful. A giddy little spitfire with soft, wide chocolate brown eyes. I know that all I can do is protect her while she's young and give her the skills to protect herself as she gets older. Teach her, then trust her.

She will get teased. Her heart will get broken. Grandparents and pets will pass away. She'll meet kids who've learned all the wrong things at home. As she matures, aggressive men will suggest too much, and she'll hit many bumps along the road to self-discovery.

I'm almost thirty and have been unravelling the messiness of broken hearts and broken promises for the past ten years. My pets and grandparents (save one, my mother's mother) died in my adulthood, all under traumatizing circumstances. Too many of my friends have been taken out by tragedy, mostly by their own hand. Aggressive men suggested too much, and I was too naïve to know that attention does not equate affection. So many of my poems are written with scorn for their subject. I've seen too much true crime for my own good, and I'm paranoid most of the time because of it.

I want to shield her from these things, but I don't want to rob her of the lessons she needs to become a well-rounded human. No one gets out unscathed and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I just don't want to have brought another life into this world only to lose her to its coldness.

Julie woke from a deep sleep. She leaped out of bed and greeted the morning with a smile. It's going to be another amazing day she thought to herself and why wouldn't it be. Everybody loved her. She was kind and thoughtful and popular. She was beyond reproach. Everywhere she went it felt like the world was giving her a big hug. She took the appropriate amount of time to adjust her appearance and then she was off to face the day but something felt off. She couldn't quite put her finger on it but what had happened was that the world missed giving her a hug to start the day.

On her way to school she noticed that there was something missing and then it hit her. At this point in the day she had usually received several texts from various people regarding various different things. She had always been "in the loop" so to speak but today was different. She checked her mobile device and learned that she had not received any texts at all. "That is so odd" she thought to herself. On a normal day she phone would be "blowing up" but today it's as dead as a door nail.

When she got to school it seemed like people were avoiding her. Even her best friend didn't have the time of day to give to her. "What is wrong with everyone?" she thought. Then the most worst-est most horrible thought ever hit her, What if she had been canceled? Being canceled is the worst-est possible thing that can happen to you. You are practically a non person at that point. She texted who she thought was her best friend. Usually when she texts her best friend she gets a response immediately but this time she didn't. In fact she got no response at all. It was at this time that the bell rang for class. She had to get moving.

When she got to her first class she noticed that someone was sitting in her desk. "Could I have my seat back please?" She politely asked the offending student. "I don't see your name on it." The student responded before laughing in Julie's face. "That was rude" thought Julie. She went up to the teacher. "Excuse me?" she said politely.

"What can I do for you?" The teacher asked matter of factually.

"That student is sitting in at my desk." Julie offered as an explanation.

"And you are?" The teacher followed up.

"Julie" Julie responded.

"You must be new. Just sit anywhere that's open." The teacher answered.

"I'm not new. I've been in the school district my entire life." Julie protested.

"I see. It looks like you're not feeling well." The teacher writes something on a peice of paper, "Here is a pass to go to the nurse." The teacher hands the piece of paper to Julie. Julie takes the piece of paper and heads to the nurses office. Julie had no idea what was going on. It's like the entire world had forgotten her existence.

She walked into the nurses office and sat down feeling dejected. The nurse noticed she was feeling blue and sat down next to her. "What's wrong?" the nurse asked in an extra sweet concerned sounding voice.

"I just feel like I've been canceled." Julie replied, "Nobody knows who I am. I don't even know who I am."

The nurse put her arm around Julie. "I get that a lot." The nurse responded, "But it's okay if you're not getting validation 24/7. It doesn't mean that you're any less important."

"Of course it does." Julie protested, "People only pay attention to you if you're important. If no one is paying attention to you that means your a nobody. You might as well not even exist."

"No one pays attention to me and I feel just fine." The nurse offered.

"I'm sorry to hear that." Julie answered.

"Look, I know it seems like it's the end of the world, but you're going to be fine." The nurse assured.

"What if no one ever remembers me?" Julie asked almost sobbing.

"Who are you anyway?" The nurse asks.

"Julie" Julie says slow and evenly.

"I've never heard of you." The nurse answers disturbed.

"I know, that's my problem." Julie confirms.

"Well," the nurse finally says, "You just rest for awhile and we'll get to the bottom of it. okay?"

"Okay" Julie says and she lays down to rest.

It is a big goddam cauliflower, a poor excuse for an ear, making me wonder who coined the phrase cauliflower ear and why. Those who know me inside out, like my best friend Harvey, my big sister Sharon and my parents, who think they know every little thing about me but really don't, I can hear them know. "Bradley is a big goddam exaggerator." If they cannot appreciate my creativity, I cannot appreciate their tight underwear. With the outside world, I sprinkle my word salad shit like candy without sinister premeditation. I can't help it if they eat it up. Like the other day when I was on the back of the line in the cafeteria I said, out loud, I don't know why, I guess I was in a mood, "Do not get the macaroni and cheese." Three or four unsuspecting heads within earshot turned around and one of them said, "Why not?" None of them looked familiar to me. They were all tenth graders and I'd never seen them before in my life. That's when I spoke back to them, deciding what to say on the fly in a whisper. I know how whispering can lend an air of credibility. "Bugs." I whispered, pointing towards the tray up in front of us. In my opinion, kids should learn to be less trusting and more confrontational about junk information from a stranger. Seriously, my intent was not to scare them or deceive them. No. And it was not my place to teach them a lesson in gullibility either. I was just bored after French class and I can't help it, dear cafeteria cook, if none of them ordered the macaroni and cheese.

"Exaggerating is the same as lying." Sharon says this almost every time I do declare just about anything at this point, and I vehemently disagree that exaggerating is the same as lying, cause otherwise exaggerating would not be a word unto itself. I'll just look that shit up on my phone again in front of her to prove a point. She knows I will, and she'll roll her eyes round and round like a surprised lemur in a tree or a dizzy old Auntie surprising a skunk. So when I said for the hell of it at the dinner table, "The dog's balls are literally dragging on the rug." I know I said it to get a rise out of my family intentionally, don't ask me why, and Sharon predictably hits right back, "Don't exaggerate you liar." Sharon seriously needs to undo her bun. My parents both sat there eating their peas and carrots as the don't-ask-don't-tell people that they are. And then, true to form, I hit up my phone again, as I always do, repeating the words I read to her in that up and down tone she hates on purpose, even though I already have the words memorized, "Exaggerating: A statement that represents something better or worse than it is." "Got it? Where is the word lying? Besides, Chomps is a goddam old unneutered Basset Hound for Chrissake." I remind her as if this is news. "Have you seen his legs? I've literally eaten egg rolls longer than them, so don't tell me that ball sack isn't dragging on that shag." Okay. She's got me on literally. Literally is an overused word of mine which may or may help prove Sharon's point, but if that ball sack is not dragging, it is damn close to a number measured only by millimeters. And the more Sharon tells me, "don't exaggerate, you liar" the more she feeds the beast, so excuse me Sharon, go suck it.

When I looked up cauliflower ear, I can't exactly say I was disappointed or maybe I can cause I am disappointed when there is a chance I could be proven wrong. The definition is rather specific: A deformity of the outer ear that may occur after injury to the ear. And I will find a way to use it, even if it does not exactly lend itself to the dilemma of how my ear felt when I got off the phone with Granny from Dayton, Ohio, not to be confused with Nana from Clearwater, Florida. It is fairly easy not to confuse my grandmothers. Nana from Clearwarer, Florida is literally about as tall as a giraffe and as skinny as a pogo stick. Her legs alone are a mile high and when I was little she always had to sit down before she could pick me up. Her hair is not silver, but rather blueish and she cuts it so close to her head it blends right in with the color of the spider veins running along her hairline down beneath her ear lobes. She wears nothing but dangly dollar store gypsy-like earrings and clogs in all colors and if it is raining she pulls out a color coordinated umbrella and vest to match, should the imperative need to venture out arise. These are just some of the things I know about her and more, and I can't exactly say why I know these things because I have not seen her since the fourth of July, the year before last or the year before the year before last. I often lose count of minor details and dates. But I do see pictures, so maybe that's how I know, or I just surmise. Surmising is definitely something I excel at, so says my math teacher. My other teachers don't say much of anything to me anymore other than, "Go to the principal's office, right now." Nana regularly sends mini videos to me and my sister and my parents via group MMS as if we care to know about her mahjong friend's heart attack, the price of chicken breast at the Piggly Wiggly and the number of people that did or did not show up for mass on any given Sunday. Even if she annoys me, I will still say she is kinda cool for an old lady. She knows how to use a phone. No kidding.

Granny, on the other hand, is nothing like Nana. At least she wasn't as far as being placed in the annoying category up until today. She is short, not short enough to be considered a dwarf, but short enough that she needs a step ladder for anything above the height of a first shelf. The last time we visited her I took notice of all those shelves she had in her kitchen, rows and rows of them; I did not understand the point of all the upper cabinetry, especially since she bought the house long after Grandpa Dayton, Ohio was dead. That man had some legs, but definitely not as long as Nana Clearwater's. I think. I only know him from the lopsided pictures of him taken besides Dayton Granny at their wedding, at a picnic, at the lake and then there is my favorite of him alone standing upright in his rookie Yankee baseball uniform. He coulda been one of the greats had it not been for the bone spurs, or his astigmatism, or some other minute hindrance known to smash a guys dreams. Details. Details. That minor fact alone does not stop me from bragging about my roots when a bunch a guys are hanging around shooting the shit about the playoffs. "You know," I say, cutting in without an invitation, my Grandfather was a pro ball player. Yankees. He played with the greats, ….DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra. Big names always gets em. "Yeah, yeah?" They all say, as in, "Hell, yeah. Yes. Do tell us more," yeah. Then I keep on walking like I got something more important to do when I really don't, it's just that I have nothing more to tell them. The only thing I know about Yankee baseball history are the few names I just quoted, who may or may not have ever set eyes upon my Grandfather in any uniform.

I surmise it was my mother who pulled out the rug and the chair, causing sweet Granny to become a turn coat. Why does my mother have to play us like that? Does she have nothing left up her sleeves? Does she even answer the calls from the principal anymore? Or has the principal stopped calling her? Beats me, cause she could have said something at the table instead of looking down at her plate as if it was a crystal ball. Why oh why does she have to go and mess up my thing with good old Dayton Granny. Before today, I'd literally hear from her twice a year, on my birthday and Christmas, asking me if I got the check she sent out to me in the mail. That's about it. Not today. And it's not even a holiday. It's friggin '4 p.m. on a Saturday in March and I've got better things to do than to listen to her voice on the other end of the land line, going on and on, Bradley this. Bradley that. All that crap about me not showing empathy, about me not applying myself, about me being disrespectful, about me exaggerating, please Dayton Granny, all the things that I had hoped were off your radar; please just stop before I hang up on you, but not before I do declare, even if it is only to the back of my right hand, that you literally just made my ear blow up as big as a goddam cauliflower.

Early one morning we took our dog dog to the beach for a good romp in the sea. I was still tired so I went looking for a nice drift log to sit on. There were dozens to choose from along the beach but, because I'm a tall person, I set my eyes on one that was partially elevated. But as I started to sit though my wife yelled at me to stop! Was something wrong with the dog? Was something wrong with her? Oh no, what was going on?

As I sat down I realized the issue. For, you see, of all the dozens of logs to sit on, and of all the places to sit on that particular log, I somehow chose the spot with a large pile of dog poo on it. Seriously!? How did I not see that? Then as a large mammal I flattened the pile, all over my own tush and caking my jeans.

Now, I'm not a bashful person but there was one slight issue that day. Rather than putting on my normal boxer briefs that morning, I opted for the booty shorts my wife had purchased for me. I'd have no problem walking back to the car (a long way) in my boxers but the booty shorts made it all the more embarrassing.

Of all the logs to choose, of all the spots to sit, of all the underwear to have on...it seemed the world was working against me that day! Yeesh.

Had she been me,

and me been she,

this might have gone a bit differently.

Had me been she,

and she been me,

do you think it could have gone more carefully?

With her and I,

still side by side,

with no clue that knowing might change the tide,

to protect oneself,

is to project oneself,

in another's mind can only truly help.

Had she been me,

and me been she,

the fact is I'd be dead and she'd be free.

A needle,

Titanium.

Little holes

On something beautiful.

When you use the special needle

you can see the light, right though them.

On a candle,

little patterns.