It is a hard thing, to look like something out of a horror tale, but over the years I have grown used to people avoiding me, or looking at me with addled faces, and wide eyes. It is more unusual for a stranger to smile at their first sight of me than it is for them not to. It’s the scarring left behind after the surgeries that shocks them, or it could be the patchy hair, or my rough, poor clothing. My name is Gerald Harper, but I go by Possum. They stitched the name Possum onto the scratchy blue shirts they gave me to work in, shirts that must be clean when I put them on or else Ms. Leona will send me home to change. Because they sewed that name on the shirts, I am now Possum to everyone who stands in front of me. The name often draws a smile when my appearance cannot, which is ok by me. The name Possum is probably a joke, but I don’t know what the joke is, so it doesn’t bother me. I can’t let it bother me, because the people who call me Possum are the closest people left to me in this world.

I work at the First America Building, the tallest building in Macon. I clean there... a lot. I clean the floors, I clean the restrooms, the breakrooms, the offices, and I empty the wastebaskets whether or not they are full. It is a good job, and I work with nice people, mostly. One of those nice people is Ms. Leona. When I got a letter from the courthouse and couldn’t figure out the big words, I took it to Ms. Leona. She said I’d been selected for jury duty, that all patriotic Americans must take their turns doing jury duty, and that I might get to cast the vote deciding whether someone is guilty or innocent in a very important trial, and maybe decide whether or not they go home, or to prison afterward. That first day I took some pride in being invited to the jury duty, but then later that night, when I was alone in my apartment, it got frightening to consider. I looked at that letter until I got a nervous stomach, and I wished I could fold it back up exactly as it was and send it back to the courthouse.

~

The trial was about to begin. I was sitting in the courtroom’s jury box with the other members of the jury when she looked at me and smiled.

As I pointed out earlier, it it a strange thing for me to be smiled at. I was sitting in my seat when she smiled, seated with the others, but alone. I am most always alone. It had flooded me with relief though to find that I wouldn’t be alone in deciding whether or not someone went to prison, just as it was relieving to find that most of the others in the jury box with me were real nice, and mostly helpful, friendly people. Before we were escorted into the courtroom we all ate tiny sandwiches together at a big table where we got to visit with each other for awhile, although I mostly stayed quiet. I am usually mostly quiet. After that a man in uniform read us the court’s rules. We listened politely while we drank iced tea poured from a glass pitcher. It was all real nice.

She was pretty, the smiling woman was, with beautiful, straight teeth, but her smile was empty, and didn’t make it all the way up to her eyes. I knew that smile well. It was the smile of someone lost, of someone falling through life’s cracks. Hers was a familiar smile that made me think of my mother, a woman who had taken her fair share of kickings from life, even after she was down. I looked around to see who the woman might be smiling at, but there was no one else looking her way. Sometimes things take a little longer to register with me than they do with most people, but I am not dumb. The doctors said that I was “neurologically impaired” after my surgeries, which means slow, I guess. I pointed at myself by way of asking the lady if it was me she was smiling at. When I pointed, her smile grew all the way up into her eyes this time. It was a beautiful smile then, filled with kindness for another sorry soul. I soon enough learned that her name was Adrienne Harlow, and that she was the person whose fate our jury would be deciding.

After a lot of people talked for a long time it began to sound, even to someone who is a mite slow, that this lady Adrienne Harlow, the one with the smile, had killed her own husband by running him over with a car. The question was whether she did it on purpose, or was it accidental? And if she did it on purpose, what was the reason she done it? The gist of what they said, of course, was that it ain’t alright to kill people, least of all your own husband, but I kept thinking about all those times I heard my own Momma say when I would ask her about my absent dad. “If your father was here I would shoot the son-of-a-bitch,” so I expected it was something a lot of wives wished to do.

When the talking was over the judge sent us back to the room where the iced tea waited, so we could do some more talking it over. I drank my tea quietly, but my fellow jurist, Mr. Vernon T. Lund, had a lot to say about how evil Ms. Adrienne Harlow was, how she ought to be put to death, and that we should not let ourselves be fooled by the fact that she was a woman.

Well, of course she was a woman. Nobody was being fooled by that! And of course she wasn’t evil, she only had an angry moment, which we all have from time to time, especially when we discover we’ve been cheated. Sometimes those cheatings can build up inside a person until they are like to burst. I couldn’t figure exactly what it was Mr. Harlow cheated her out of to make her run over him with her car, but it must have been something she held dear.

When it was decided by the loudest jury members that Adrienne Harlow was guilty, papers were passed around for us to place our “guilty” or “innocent” votes on. I scratched my X next to “innocent” on my piece of paper. I scratched it with a pen so fancy that I stuck it in my pocket afterwards when no one was looking. Across the table I watched as Mrs. Jenkins did the very same thing with her pen. I was startled to see her wink at me when she noticed me watching her do it, as though she knew I wouldn’t tell.

Mr. Lund‘s face turned to crimson when he pulled my paper out of his coffee can. I knew it was mine by the way it was folded. I felt bad that he was so angry, but Mrs. Harlow’s smile had made me feel a kinship with her that I didn’t feel with many people. At a time when she desperately needed an ally, without even knowing what she was doing she had reached out to the right person. That last ditch, last chance smile had been a cry for help that won her something that fancy words never could have... my loyalty. With that smile she chose me, “the freak,” to be her white knight, and she chose wisely. That smile was her standard, and her cross to bear. When she passed it to me, I determined that nothing bad would happen to her on my watch.

“I thought we were all decided! Who changed their mind?” Mr. Lund did his best to keep his voice steady, but in his anger spittle flew across the table and onto my only dress shirt.

I cleared my throat, digging deep inside for courage. “It was me that voted innocent, Mr. Lund. I can’t help wondering what exactly will happen to Mrs. Harlow if I vote guilty?” I didn’t think it was so much to ask, but Mr. Lund acted as if I’d dropped a cricket down his britches.

“Why, what would happen to her is she would get what she deserves, she would get the death sentence for killing her husband,” Mr. Lund stammered in his excitement! “Justice would be served. Don’t you understand that?”

“But what would ‘happen’ to her?” My voice cracked from fear of speaking up in front of the group.

Mr Lund was flustered now. “Why, she would die by lethal injection, like all convicted murderers in Georgia do nowadays. Now then, shall we vote again?”

“Wait. What is ‘lethal injection?’”

Mr. Lund was exasperated. “I don’t know, it’s drugs that they put into a syringe, and shoot into a body to kill it, I suppose.”

There was no more talk after that. The coffee can made its way around the table once more. When Mr. Lund pulled the papers from the can this time the most crinkled up one was still checked “innocent.” “Are you kidding me? What about this do you not understand? Are you stupid? I suppose the little retard is going to hang this jury!”

Ignoring his insult, I asked him in a lowered voice, practically a whisper. “Can you tell us what those drugs will do to her?”

A nice gentleman named Mr. Peabody answered my question this time. “The drugs will relax all of her muscles until they stop working, and finally her heart and lungs, until she is dead. It is not a nice thought, is it?”

“Does anyone know what that will feel like for her? I mean, while it is happening?”

Mr. Lund forced himself to stay somewhat calm. “Who cares what it feels like? She is fixing to be dead, and then she won’t feel a thing!”

My voice lowered even more, but I stood my ground. “I care. It will be me doing it to her, and you should care too.”

The coffee can made its way around the table once more, and we each dropped in our cards. This time there were three papers marked “innocent.” I looked over at Mrs. Jenkins, suspecting that one of those papers was hers. It was me who winked at her this time.

“Son!” Mr. Lund bellowed. “Don’t you see what you’ve done? Do you think it’s alright for folks to go around killing one another and getting away with it? What good can come from this foolishness?”

“I don’t know about all of that, Mr. Lund, but tell us, why do you think she ran her husband over?”

“It’s all in the evidence transcripts. It’s in that paperwork over there that you haven’t bothered to read! Or are you too dumb to read it?”

“Maybe I am too dumb to read it, but those lawyers in the courtroom said it was because he was cheating on her. What would you do if your wife was cheating you like he was doing to her?”

Vernon Lund smiled now, sure that he had me. “I don’t know what I’d do son, but I sure hope to hell that I wouldn’t kill her for doing it.”

“No, of course you wouldn’t kill her. Why would you? You are bigger, and stronger than she is, so you wouldn’t have to. You could beat her, or cheat her back without worry... you could do just about anything you wanted to do to a weaker person, because you are a bully Mr. Lund. You would bully her just like you are trying to bully me. But Mrs. Harlow couldn’t bully Mr. Harlow, could she? She was angry, and hurt, and she only had the one thing to do if she wanted to get away from his meanness.”

With our points made, the can was passed around once more. This time there were six innocent votes.

“Jesus Christ! Are you people siding with this freak show? You can’t be serious?”

“Mr. Lund, the reason I asked how you think those drugs will feel entering her body is because I think I know. Have you ever been close to death before? I have. I’ve been so close to death that my fingers and toes stiffened with it. I’ve had my blood chilled, and my heart stopped while the doctors prodded around in my skull, cutting out the bad pieces they found in there. Those drugs feel cold going in, Mr. Lund. Not cold like that iced tea there, but a deep inside cold that’s trying to freeze you up forever, a cold that moves a little further through your veins with each pulse. You can feel it inching up your arms, pumping slowly, oozing up to where you live, and breath, and think, and you can’t stop it, Mr Lund. You can only lie there as you try to summon up courage. You can only pray that you are stronger than that drug is, that it can’t put you down. You try to hold your eyes open, afraid that if they close they will never open up again. You pray that maybe you will wake up after, and the nightmare will be over. I woke up from my nightmare Mr. Lund. I only hope Mrs. Harlow gets that second chance.”

Vernon Lund bowed his head. He was beat. He could see it in every face around the table, and he even felt it in his own heart. Our little group lined up, and we made our way back to the jury box. From across the room Adrienne Harlow’s eyes found mine, only this time it was my turn to smile.

My friends and I were cruising Grand that night like we predictably did every Friday night. Gone were the days we hung out at the mall, looking for boys and trouble, we had wheels now and life was so much more exciting for us.

It’s funny because when I try to share my teenage years with my son he can’t fathom why we enjoyed driving around in circles for hours at a time. I don’t think he will ever truly understand the magic of finding people through happenstance and not through the virtual world. It’s beyond his reasoning and thinking. He’s been brought up as generation Z, a generation of cyber babies. I wouldn’t expect him to get it. But I did. And I loved sharing with him long drawn out, eye roll worthy stories.

One story I hadn’t shared with him though was the night I lost my virginity at the mere age of 17 years old. I am not even sure if I will ever tell him about it to be honest.

It was a typical cold December weekend. I believe it was the weekend before Christmas in fact. My friends and I were jamming out to Motley Crue, head banging no less, when we heard a guy in a lifted bronco yelling for us to pull over. His lit Marlboro red pursed between sexy lips, pointing towards the Denny’s Parking lot. We circled around and found him sitting on his hood, eagerly waiting for us to come to him. He was everything you would imagine a bad boy to be. He had that slightly dangerous appeal that drove most girls wild. Especially me. My father had taught me to stay away from those heathens. And of course I wanted to do nothing more than rebel at his authority.

His name was charro. He looked like a cross between Billy Idol and Vince Neil. He didn’t even have to speak. He could have spoke a foreign tongue. I didn’t care. I didn’t even know what I wanted exactly from him. But I knew there was something about him I had to have. He motioned for me to come towards him, never letting go of his smoke in hand. He wore an unforgettable chain sleeveless shirt. I had never even seen anything like that before around my neck of neck of the woods. I asked him where he was from and he told me he had just moved here with his Latino girlfriend from San Diego. I had never been to California. I had only seen it in the movies. I was even more intrigued. And I certainly didn’t care if he had a girlfriend. I was naive and believed once he got his hands on me she would be history anyways. I mean after all. I was told more often than not that I looked like the girl from the Aerosmith videos. And that was definitely not a bad thing. She was hot or so I thought.

I can’t believe how crazy I was back in the day. I had no filter for my sailor infused mouth and I was in fact a relentless spirit that felt immortal at times as did my crazy friends. We were all a force to be reckoned with. I don’t know how I made it through some of the things I did and somehow managed to make it out alive. He was the most dangerous man in our little town and I was about to take him in like a shot of Jager. I lit my smoke up, a camel wide, and entered into what looked more like a garage then an actual house. He had little strings of lights hanging from the falling ceiling, drips of water made clunking sounds with each penetration into the buckets through out the room. A lamp lit up with a green bulb sat on his makeshift night stand ( a collection of shoes boxes stacked up on top of one another). His room with the green hue, little lights and Harley parked in the corner. I wasn’t crazy about the Goliath sized iguana sitting at the end of his twin mattress. I wasn’t sure how his steroid cut 6 ft body even fit on the thing but I couldn’t wait to find out.

He lead me to his bed without even asking me my name. I knew his though, he didn’t hesitate to tell me as he grabbed my hand with a forced grip. He was quite aggressive. Again. I didn’t mind. I knew that there would be a high possibility of that as soon as he grabbed the back of my neck and kissed me ever so passionately. I had been kissed many times by boys in the past. But never a man in chains. He pressed his heavy body against mine. I started to feel the affects of the alcohol kicking in over time and felt the room spin. I wasn’t used to Jager. I was more of a Boone’s girl but that night I felt like being a bad girl.

He was speaking to me in a language I wasn’t familiar with. It wasn’t Spanish. It wasn’t French. I had taken both of those in High School. This was seemingly unfamiliar. But honestly the thunderous roar of Metallica blasting through the speakers above his bed kept me from hearing my own screams. It was the cocktail of green lights, Metallica, ripped sheets and blood coming from my area that had my heart racing and my mouth looking for a way out as I began to salivate with great eminently, searching for the closest bathroom. No bathroom was anywhere to be found.

And It was over. Just like that. I had lost my virginity to a named Charro and his green iguana. And managed to keep from puking to save myself from humiliation.

The bad boy wound up being quite the gentlemen and offered to take me home. I took him up on the offer of course without hesitation, sneaking in at the stoke of a half. past midnight. He and I both saved one another’s phone numbers in our Motorola’s. And we did meet up a few more times later. He never did leave his Latin lover. They actually got engaged and I was a distant memory. I think they had a baby together. I supposed I will never know really. All I know is that Charro would always be my first and was the catalyst of many bad boys to follow.

Ripples in a tidepool, ripples in the pond.

Ripples in the river, you wallow all day long.

Wallow wallow wallow child, wallow all day long.

But wallow in the peace instead,

the peace of those you love.

For tgough you see that sadness,

for now, you rest on the brink,

it will never last forever,

for one day all that you now wallow in,

will be joy and happiness,

happiness with me.

@wabisabi

Is confusion an emotion?

I find I am rather confused.

You see - its a rather confusing concept,

one that disturbs me.

For what defines emotion,

Power? Vulnerability?

Or is it simply abstract,

to let confusion breathe?

Head pounds, heart aches, my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth. I need water. I sit up and the world zooms around me. Vast nothing. Sand. More sand. One tiny little bush sits thirty yards from me. Can i make it there? My legs have given up on me - why do my knees feel like ballons about to explode? Sand pours into my shirt as i army crawl to the plant. Probably more of an ordeal than just walking. There is nothing here. There is nothing here! Why did i expect this plant to have something for me? And now i left my comfy spot in the sand over there for this patch of sand... that is almost identical. i guess it doesn’t really matter.

nothing is making sense. my last clear memory, she was laughing in front of me, bold lips crying for me to kiss her. did i? my heart would’ve remembered. my eyes close and shuts my brain down. i wake up when the sun is pink and purple, telling the world goodbye for the night. my skin burns, searing red on the pieces that are not covered by my clothing, which is stuck to my body with sweat. i put the collar of my shirt in my mouth and suck, the salty moistness burning my throat. the sweat on my clothes is the only liquid i’ve found. i’m going to die soon. my hands dig into the sand. exfoliating. people pay spas good money for this, and it sits here for free.

a soft pitter patter of feet approach me. i can’t tell from which direction. the sun has long been gone and the moon is covered with clouds. not that there is anything for me to see other than this boring old bush. i try to make a sound. “heeeeeeee-”. too dry. if it’s an animal, at least it could make my death quick. or, quicker. more quick? why am i worried about my grammar when i’m about to die?

“Hay alguien?”

i know enough spanish to know that it’s not an animal. i don’t know enough spanish to know what is being said to me. no sounds can escape me. moon, please, shine on me; clouds don’t cover me.

“english?”

no, no language, buddy, im more dead than alive. the clouds crack and a diamond ray of moonlight shatters over my figure. a huge, shadow extends past my crumpled one, distorted by the sand.

“are you okay? estas bien?” the voice is concerned. the voice belongs to a man. the voice sounds like it’s been here before.

my head shakes. water touches my lips. i did kiss her. it stings. i need more. my tongue and throat are liberated from their dry chains. “where...”

“hush, hush” he cuts me off. softly, sweetly, “you are in the Copper Canyons of Mexico. About fifty miles from the nearest town. How did you get here?” soft red lips; rose petals. “Okay, im sorry, you aren’t ready for this. quite lucky for you, that i needed to be in town today. drink this water. slowly, don’t hurt yourself.” he refills the bottle from a pack on his back. im still unable to pick myself from the ground.

he sits next to my clump of body, in the stillness of predawn. silently contemplating my decisions, and how i ended up in a desert in Mexico. i can imagine the conclusions he arrives at, from my tight clothing to my hair and makeup that promise ‘i looked good before i spent a day in the desert’. he lights up his watch and shows me a time of 4:48 in the morning. “I’ve been here for almost a full day,” i say outloud as quickly as i think it. his brown eyes find mine, and he pours more water from the tube connected to his backpack into the bottle in my hands. his face is thin. wrinkled, but not from age. he wears nothing but a pair of shorts, some beat up running shoes, and an uneven tan that tells me he occaisionally has a shirt on.

“well, you are officially tougher than most ultra runners,” his eyes flickered. his mouth was dry and cracked, harsh mountains creating a quiet river of blood where his smile stretches too far. “the sun will rise soon, i will set you up in the shade while i run into town and get a vehicle for you. can you walk two miles?”

two miles. to the nearest patch of shade. the only thing that would keep my body cool enough not to implode while i wait for this stranger to come back for me. who even was he? would he return? he said it was fifty miles to the nearest town, how long will this take?

he left the backpack with me under some tall brush and took only his meager bottle of water. “i do this all the time,” he reassured, and those wrinkles found their home in his smile.

the sun rose, then set, and rose again when i realize the backpack of water is as dry as the sand it sits on. he isn’t coming. now, i get to die.

an engine heads my direction. i won’t die. not today. the sun, new in the sky, having just shaken its pink welcome. it sat confidently just above the horizon. shouting.

“hey, there is somebody over here! that must be him!” my head turns. three people are hurling themselves toward me from a white jeep, a makeshift stretcher in their hands. the world spins. questions in spanish and english are hurled at me, but i don’t have anything coherent to offer them. they leave me at a hospital.

“you are very lucky, gringo. few people can say your story with the same ending,” the R’s roll seductively from the foreign tongue. “Very rarely are gringos alive after a night in the Canyons. An angel was watching you.” the nurse visits me consistently while i drift in and out of reality. Am i in a hospital now? Fifty miles from where i was found? Where was the stranger who gave me the water?

Two black shirts with clicking shoes enter my room. “How did you end up in Mexico?”

Not cops, border patrol. Immigration. I had no idea how, and they understood. “It was a bar in Texas, I was celebrating a friend’s engagement,” i explained to them everything i could remember. The bar closed down and the after party was with some men in leather. Leather jackets and cowboy boots, one of them had a horse. Cowboy boots that were dancing, kicking up the sand in a cloud. My last memory was the fringe from one of their jackets tickling my thigh as they took us for joy rides on the back of the horse. I told them of the girl I kissed. The younger officer flushed when he thought of two girls kissing. The older one looked down solemenly. He knew something.

“You’re pretty lucky, Eva. We don’t have many stories where white people escape the Sinaloa cartel. You’re lucky you’re a woman,” I had never heard that sentence before, and felt rather tossed.

“If i were a man, wouldn’t I not have been picked up by the Cartel?”

“If you were a man, and kissed one of their woman, we would be looking for you in limbs.” It took several severe moments of introspection for me to understand what was being said. Of the full danger of that night. Where was the rest of the party?

“A man helped,” i stated, even though i was more concerned for the friends who I last saw in America. I felt more lost in the hospital bed surrounded by cops than I did in the desert surrounded by death.

“He was at the bachelorette party with you?”

“No, in the desert. He gave me water. He was the one who got me rescued. I need to thank him.” The words were honest, and i felt a new drive within me. Find the man. Thank the man. If he’ll allow it, befriend the man. What was his story, anyway?

The suits exhanged unsettled faces. Eyebrows furrowed. Spanish poured out of them as they bickered over something. Only two words i heard: “caballo blanco”.

Because I’m smart, I interrupt to ask “what does a white horse have to do with this?”

Their faces fall hard. The younger one grabs a remote and turns the television on. I cannot understand what the News Lady is saying, her beautiful smile and lovely chest a distraction from the tiny English words on the bottom of the screen.

″... renowned for being one of the world’s greatest ultra runners, and is notorious for disapearing for weeks with no notice. His body was found this morning miles from the nearest trail, in a canyon.” The screen changes to a photo of the man who gave me his water. His brown eyes beam life. His cheeks are cracked in a smile, the reason for his wrinkles.

I find myself holding a woman who wails loudly and shakes uncontrollably. Her face pressed against the window of a white jeep; a white jeep acting as a hearse for the man she loved. Still loves. Deeply.

The body inside of it looks tiny. Not like the shadow that loomed over me three mornings before. That face - the face that folded so effortlessly into a beautiful smile - looks weird with flaccid lips. His cheeks waited for a smile. His eyes closed, he looks calm - despite being covered in a deep stain of blood. An arm bends unnaturally over his chest.

I never knew him. I don’t know her. No one even understands what happened; Micah was one with this land, and knew every sand dune and rock better than his own body. How did he get so far off course?

He ran off his usual trail to a nearby canyon to refill his water. A canyon he’d never seen in daylight: A canyon he only saw for fleeting seconds while he lost his footing; A canyon he would’ve loved as much as he loved every other change in topography; A canyon he loved despite his body crushing itself against the rocks. A canyon for him to explore for eternity.

His wife begged with the Gods to take him back in time, to before he left, and remind him to bring his backpack. “He always thought he was invicible, the fool! Why didn’t he have his backpack?” She pleaded with the fates. When did God become so cruel? Fists hurling at the sky. Desperate tears, a chest crippled with memories.

I couldnt bring myself to tell her that I had the backpack. That he gave me his supply of water. That I, the arms attempting to comfort her, was the reason her love would never say her name again.

(in loving memory of Caballo Blanco - https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/sports/caballo-blancos-last-run-the-micah-true-story.html )

Submissions for our Summer 2019 Issue are now open! We are accepting art in all its forms. Send us your prose, poetry, and visuals arts for consideration in our upcoming issue.

You can find any and all guidelines regarding submission on our website: http://muditamagazine.weebly.com

Send us a message or comment down below if you have any questions! We look forward to recieving your submissions!

Geraldine didn't like to be talked to disrespectfully, but she also knew it came with the territory. She knew she was an old, broken down, battle-axe of a bitch that no one could stand for more then thirty minutes at a time. That's why she didn't flinch when her son Mick bad-mouthed her before he ran out the door a few minutes prior. She was also aware that if she didn't get her pain meds. soon she was going to cut somebody, and that was not a lie. Her fucking son was off using her scooter; most likely on a drug run. The scooter was her only chance of getting those meds she needed so damned badly. What the hell was she gonna do with that lil' shit?

Mick put his hand over the lighter, as Emma lit his cigarette, smiling at him. Mick stared back at her, remembering her red bush as he thrust inside her, clenching her wrist together as they fucked on her Queen bed. Afterwards, she rolled over nude, and smiled at him over her bare shoulders. It was the same smile she was blanketing him in now. Finally turning away, Emma pocketed the lighter, and mounted her light blue Vespa. Mick waved at her, and mounted his Mom's Yamaha scooter that was parked across the street. His bitch Mom no doubt wanted it back tonight, so he had to get back into the 5 o'clock traffic, and turn at the nearest exit to Vorhees street.

He was now behind a 'wide load' truck that made him feel uneasy, yet allowed him to not crank the speed of his scooter over the top. The truck was starting to slow him down too much, so he switched lanes behind one of those horse carrying vehicles without any windows. It had a large white trunk, and looked to fit about eight horses or so. Mick couldn't see anything inside it though, he could only imagine. A pounding sound started to come from behind the left door to the horse truck, and it echoed on the steel walls. It seemed like the door was loosening from some force on the other side being forcibly applied. Mick started to get nervous, but there weren't any openings in the second lane. He tried to get his bike on the right side of the door in case anything happened. Another minute later, everything did happen. The left door whipped open, and catatonic bodies with no expression tumbled into busy traffic. Mick screamed, and attempted a dangerous swerve. Nude bodies, male and female, with electric probes on their shaven skulls, continued to fall face first like firewood all around Mick. Mick tried to pull off the road, but he couldn't. He was forced to endure death after death as he watched these unknown people get fed into the wheels of the speeding traffic. Car horns honked, and people screamed behind him. Finally, after almost avoiding an extreme traffic pileup, Mick found an exit, and pulled off to the nearest curb. He leaned over to the side of his bike, and spit up into a sewer drain. Mick had no idea what the fuck he had just seen. Did any of it really happen? If so, real life was definitely stranger then the shit they showed you on TV. When he got home he immediately went to sleep, and upon waking, assumed it had all been a dream.

*

Leanette was sitting in her bra, laying back in the heat of her apartment on her green, fluffy couch. She was taking a break before going to the bathroom to start working on her puffy mess of curls again. Everything was a fucking chore on days like these! She wondered why the fuck people got so damn excited for the summer in TV shows when it was just like this every fucking time. Sitting there, her sweaty ass sticking to every damn place she sat. Ass too fucking tired and miserable to ever leave the damn house. What the fuck was the point? She forced herself up, and aimed herself towards the bathroom like a bomber on auto-pilot. What she needed to do was some serious relaxing with her hair, because it was getting out of hand. She was too damn tired right now, so she opted for the natural look. Fuck the chemicals anyway. It was White America that wanted her hair to look like some dumb blonde bombshell and rob her of her identity. The doorbell rang, and she hobbled over to it with her cane. Laid out for two damn days ever since she tripped and fell 'cuz Isiah left his shoe right by their front door, and their damn door happened to be at the top of a set of steep fucking stairs. Now she just had to wait, and hope that her leg got better fast. It ached something horrible, though. She couldn't make no money this way, and being a single mother was expensive as fuck. It was pretty nice to have time with Isiah though, she had to admit. He had almost become like a stranger to her, what with her working two jobs. She whipped open the front door to her apartment, and her jaw dropped. It was two cops. A red haired lady who looked too young, and a fat faced, bald-headed, gopher looking prick with buck-teeth that must have always looked angry even when his Momma was proud of his ass for shooting some brother for stealing bread. Leanette didn't know why these two cops were standing out here on her stair-well with veiled expressions. It was really starting to scare her though, the more she thought of her son Isiah not home. In shock, she waited through the painful silence for someone, anyone, to say something and make it all right.

"Ma'am. Your son has disappeared from South Central today. His teachers were wondering if you came to pick him up early, or if you had a friend take him for you."

*

Now, slowly creeping to that naggingly ugly stage of every dying relationship, they arrived with a snap of the gears. Fixed in their seats, and gaining speed with each bumpy realization, they rolled down the rickety track to the most loathed spot on this fated Death Trip. They were entering the destination where love starts to swiftly fly out from the swiftly flattening tires, before quickly replacing itself with the abject horror and desperation that shoulders loss. The band-aid had been finally yanked painfully off, and they were left staring into the absurdity of their own existence without any buffers. Pinkman now knew for certain that Aja no longer loved him, and as he grabbed for her flickering warmth in the shadows, he found himself fondling her flinty limbs of granite rock. Aja had used these to barricade her chest with from his needy brand of love. It was definitely over.

Even the tears in Aja's eyes weren't for him, they were for her. She had been a stupid shit, and felt like a dumb-ass for ever sleeping with Pinkman's uncircumcized nightmare. Now she had to talk to Carlos, and everything would be different from then on. Pinkman would definitely never be allowed back to their house again. House? It wasn't even her house. Carlos would probably torture her with his projective jealousy for at least the next several years, if she even wanted to stay at this point. This was her horribly fucked life now.

Pinkman felt a hard, red brick swiftly replacing the hole that had blossomed in his heart. He let go of her fist, and for the first time, looked out towards the street, beyond the wheel-chair access ramp that they had inadvertedly decided to have their final showdown break-up at. Everything was over, no more sex...no more passion...no more getting to know each other. All that was left was the harsh pain of loss now.

As if in answer to his agony, a homeless beggar suddenly appeared from the North-west corner of the building where they were both huddled. He staggered into view, his body bent forward hideously like the Hunchback of Notre-Dame, torn bits of clothing clung to his dirty, raw skin. The beggar's sudden striking presence surprised Pinkman. It oddly calmed him, as he watched the poor wretch stumble off into the approaching darkness. To know that there were others falling apart all around them, outside this selfish bubble of exclusion they'd constructed, made his mind gasp with relief. Now that he was face to face with the realization of his pain Pinkman really needed a fucking joint.

Some low alarm from the North, also started to grow, and intensify. At first Pinkman didn't have a clue what it was. He thought it was just the world coming apart at the seams, but it was an alarm of some type. As it grew louder, he was almost sure that's what it was that was going off. The shadow that Aja's presence cast upon him was swiftly swallowed up. He sat up in a hospital bed, and instantly had a look at himself, reflected in a mirror that was positioned in front of him. His head had a bandage on it, and wires poking out everywhere. There was a eye-patch over his right eye for some reason. He was too drugged to think too much of it, but there was still lots of questions swarming somewhere in the deep of his mind. He turned his head to the right so he could see what was going on better with his left eye. It was the comatose boy with the afro from the van who he remembered staring off into space. They had him strapped to a hospital bed like Pinkman's. It looked like a couple of guys in lab-coats were checking his I.V.'s, and the big computers, as off to the left, in the corner, there were some bored looking guys in black suits and ties. These guys looked like they could be F.B.I. or something official. One was leaning against a table, and enjoying a Twix bar. The other was digging for diamonds up his nose, and trying his damndest to look like he was just scratching the outside of it. It was quite the shit-show to be sure. Pinkman's gaze returned to the zoned out child on the gurney who continued to stare blankly at the ceiling. Pinkman tried to follow his gaze, and like a spider, crawl up the ceiling where the boy was permanently locked in. He was surpised to find a screen on the ceiling that played various children's films by Disney on loop. It was so shockingly surreal. Here he was watching Mickey Mouse run around with a fucking magicians hat on his head, covered in stars. Pinkman had never watched this one before. He never had time for cartoons, even as a kid, but the more he watched, the more his mind started to remember having watched it. He felt his emotions soften, as he became strangely sedate while watching the colorful antics flash to and fro from the projected screen above.

©

2017

Bunny Villaire

(To be continued...)