Like a Bunny

“quick, like a bunny!” he half-whispers.

“what’s that from?”

“Fear and Loathing. Don’t you remember?” he asks the girl.

She sighs audibly going to great lengths to make sure the exaggerations are noticed. “I miss that movie. I miss any movie. I definitely miss Johnny Depp. I’d even watch him in late era Tim Burton films! Even Dark Shadows! Ooooooh, I’d love to watch Gilbert Grape.”

“Alyssa…”

“Yeah, yeah. I know Tim Burton didn’t do Gilbert Grape but that movie is awesome. I’d even watch 9th Gate right about no—“

He interrupts her with hiss. “You don’t want to do this, do you?”

“No.”

“What choice do we have?”

“I know.”

She knows what needs to be done. Of course she does. But that doesn’t make what she’s about to do seem any less daunting. That’s the way this world works. In a way, she supposes that’s how the world has always worked. Fighting to survive was always a part of the equation, right? But, now it was so much more of a literal take on things rather than a euphemism for trying to make it in a society that, by definition, always put a whole lot of people in the tar pits. A system like that can’t sustain itself forever though. Not really. Eventually when you take all you can from those beneath you, when there’s absolutely nothing left to take, things get messy. To say the least.

Things are pretty much beyond messy.

They need food. It has been a couple days since they had anything substantial to eat because they’ve been in the woods. It’s always safer in the woods than on the street or in a town even if all they have to eat is a few berries, mushrooms, and some dandelion shoots. Maybe a rabbit or squirrel if they’re lucky enough to catch one. Which… well, to be honest, neither of them likes to do. She always cries. To be fair, though, she cries a lot these days. Point being, they’re in the woods more than anywhere else. Alyssa, who never camped a day in her life. The irony of it all, situational as it may be, really isn’t lost on her.

After a few days of scraping together what they can gather, staying on the move, and having zero protein, though, the two of them were forced to leave safety and take some risks which brought them to this place, a smallish town near where they grew up. Over the last several months they’ve traveled from NYC where the food ran out quickly and looters turned murderous in a matter of days to try and go back home to find their families. Or, at least, where home used to be. They’ve been getting closer and closer to where their parents are in hopes of reuniting with people they trust and trying to build something like a normal life again. That’s the plan anyway.

The hope for now, she can't really call *this* a plan per say, is to scavenge enough from this town to get them through the last bit of their journey. There might be food here. There might be nothing. It's a gamble, and a dangerous one at that because there’s definitely some Others. They heard them talking loudly, unafraid of who might come up the road, unconcerned about danger which meant these Others are the danger. If you can be that unafraid in this world, then you’re the thing to fear.

The two of them have been watching in the shadows for a bit. There were a few Others guarding the road’s entrance into the town but mostly they were goofing off. Because they don’t have to worry really. Because they’re armed. If they’re going to make it into this town to do some scavenging they’ll have to be quiet. And quick.

They move from the road looking for a way in elsewhere that might not be guarded and find it through a backyard. They’ve done this before but only out of necessity like tonight. There’s no way they’ll make it home in this cold if they don’t get some food. Real food. A place like this with Others is going to have the food stockpiled in one building which is stupid, of course, in case people like Jamie and Alyssa come through, but it’s the way it always is. When you are the danger, when you’re the thing to fear, you stop being as cunning. You stop believing in anything except brute force.

The two of them stick to the shadows searching for the stockpile aware that it might be guarded but often it’s not. Just the main roads to town are. It's just a game of trial and error when it comes to what you'll find. Maybe this time they’ll be lucky and find it completely vulnerable. If not, they’ll move on and brave the cold another night. By tomorrow, they should be home.

Maybe.

If they can pull through…

There are no longer motion detector lights to worry about. The power grid went down in the first few weeks after the stock market crash and the government shutdown. So, moving through yards is ideal. Most of the dogs have probably either been eaten, starved to death, or moved on, but every now and then Others have used them to help guard their camps, so the threat is there but it’s small. Neither one of them could survive a dog bite though. They haven’t seen any antibiotics in a town in ages. As long as they stay quiet and there are no dogs, they should be good. And if they’re captured? Chances are good they’ll be part of the stockpile of food. At least that’s the way things have been going. The less food is available, the more people are willing to do whatever it takes. This isn’t going to be easy.

But they keep moving.

They have to.

Both stop at the edge of the property crouched beside dying bushes and wait. There’s no sign of any Others, so they move on to the next yard. And the next and the next until they reach the center of town. City Hall will be the place. Or it’s usually the place at any rate because for whatever reason most people seem to think democracy still exists and the best place to keep things for everyone to have access is the power center of the town. It’s sad that people still hold onto that kind of shit even while they’re eating other people to stay alive. It isn’t going to make a damn bit of difference in the end when things are already this damn bad.

The closer they get, the more she shakes. This part is never easy. There have been more than a couple close calls in these last several months. And that one time that she won’t talk about with that man…She can’t even think about it without getting sick. She used to think the world was a terrible place as it was. She was mostly wrong about that. It was terrible…it just wasn’t this kind of terrible.

In the darkness against the side of small City Hall building, they wait for any sign of life. They hear nothing, though. Not a crackle in the breeze. No sounds of life on or outside of these streets. Not even a cricket to be heard. Her heart rate should be slowing down while they’re still and lying in wait, but it’s on the final stretch of the race. She may as well be sprinting towards the finish line with her competitor close at her heels as far as her heart is concerned. She’s pretty fucking sure that as quiet as the night has become, the thump in her chest can be heard two blocks over.

This is the hardest part.

They circle the building looking for a side or back entrance if at all possible. A window, a back door…anything that isn’t locked or locked down well. Going in the front is never a good idea. It doesn't even take trial and error to figure that one out. If anyone IS in there, the front entrance will be guarded more than anywhere else. The windows on the ground floor are all locked or maybe painted shut. Either way, they’re not giving them a way inside. There’s a door on the far side though that appears to only be secured with an old, rusty padlock and fortunately, they scavenged some bolt cutters a few towns back…

With the lock cut free, the door opens easily and the two manage to get inside. Just as Jamie suspected, the food was stored right there downstairs in an office to the side of the main lobby. It’s not much food. Some unmarked cans. Beans. Tuna. Dry pasta. Bags of rice. Barbeque sauce. A few scarce packages of peanuts and cheese crackers. They’re only going to take enough to get them through the night. A couple cans of tuna and some beans will do. Maybe a couple packs of those nuts. They start loading up their score when a bright light blinds them both.

“Just what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” the gravelly voice on the other end of the light asks.

They can’t see a thing.

“Hey, Dan! Dan! C’mere. We got ourselves some fresh meat.”

The two of them hear footsteps. Jamie reaches over and squeezes her hand briefly then takes off charging in the direction of the light. “Run, Alyssa! Now!”

She takes off into the connecting office and breaks into the hallway before she feels huge hairy arms grab her around the waist and pick her up off the floor. She hears a thud in the other room and screams “Jamie!” She kicks back as hard as she can connected with what she hopes is a set of balls but feel s more like a meaty thigh. The guy gives a grunt but holds on tighter refusing to let go.

“Babygirl…?” he whispers.

She freezes. Her heart is in her throat as she tries to turn around. “Daddy….?”

“Don’t turn around. Don’t look at me. Don’t act like you know me. I’ve got to get this figured out. Act like you’re passed out or I swear to God I’ll knock you out.”

He throws her over his shoulder. She’s panicking. Maybe she’s having a heart attack. She doesn’t fucking know for sure but she does what he asks because being knocked out can only lead to bad things. She learned that the hard way. At least if she’s conscious she can figure things out. Could this really be her father? This man living with these Others? It sounded maybe like her father… That man called him Dan. Her father is Daniel. Who else would call her Babygirl? Who else would know to call her that? Who else has those gigantic ape arms that would call her that?

With her eyes closed, she can't see where she’s going but she's sure they’re moving back towards Jamie. The Other with Jamie says, “I got this one knocked out and tied up already. Whatcha wanna do with her? Time for a little of the old in and out?” He cackles madly like he’s just made the funniest joke of the apocalypse. Apparently even with a societal collapse, douchebags remain douchebags.

“We ain’t got time for that, Beau. We just ain’t. We need to get her tied up, too, and secure that back door. I told you that lock weren’t good enough and now look what we got to deal with. “

“What we got to deal with is food and playtime…everybody wins. Well, everybody ‘cept them, of course.” He cackles again sending shivers down her spine.

Jamie groans below her somewhere.

“Why don’t you go take care of that door while I get this one situated?” Dan, Daniel…her dad says to the Other.

“Why don’t you go fix the door if you’re so damn bent up on it while I have a little fun with that pretty little thang right there?”

“ENOUGH with the bullshit. You’ll have her here tied up to do what you want with when the time comes. That time ain’t right the fuck now. Get the door fixed, Beau. Now.”

Her eyes grow wide. Was her own flesh and blood father just going to tie her up and let this man do that…do that thing the other one did to her? What kind of hell is this?

She hears footsteps stomp loudly down the hall just before the arms swoop her down and softly set her on the floor. She looks up and inhales sharply, tears in her eyes.

“What…Daddy? What’s going on? What are they going to do to me? What are you doing here? Where’s Mama?”

“You always did talk a mile a minute, Alyssa. We ain’t got time for that right now. He’s gonna be back. And you ain’t gonna be here when he is.”

He unties Jamie. “You and that boyfriend of yours never should have come back home. It ain’t good down here.” He tries shaking him but Jamie only manages another groan. “You’ve got to wake him the fuck up and get gone.”

“But…what are…what about you? What about my mama?”

“Alyssa, your mama’s gone. She’s been gone. I ain’t got time to sit and cry and moan about it right here and neither do you. I can’t leave here. This is all I got. Get out to the edge of town and when shit settles down, I’ll come out and we can talk about it, but then you’re gone and you ain’t coming back, you got it?”

He reaches over then and slaps Jamie right across the face.

His eyes flicker open, then. Searching but not quite seeing, not focusing.

Dan picks him up off the floor while he struggles weakly. Alyssa takes his hand and whispers, “it’s alright, Jamie. It’s my Daddy. Look at him…”

Jamie turns his head and a look of recognition sweeps across his face.

“Shut up, boy. Don’t say a word. We’ve got to get you out of here. Now, I need you to punch me. We gotta make this look like you escaped.”

“I can’t---“

“You can. And you will. Or you’ll be food. As hungry as I am right now tonight, I can’t see my Babygirl end like that. And I won’t see her go through what I did with her mother if it happens to you. Now punch me, you little shit. And make it good.”

Jamie pulls back and let’s one fly busting Dan’s lip. Blood pours from the split and Dan howls in pain.

Jamie and Alyssa take off to the front. They hear a loud click before that gravelly voice croons, “Now, just where do you think you’re going?” They can barely make out his silhouette in the moonlight but he’s there between them and the doorway.

Dan charges into the lobby pushing past them and tackles the Other to the ground.

“RUN!” he shouts as the two struggle.

They head to the back hoping the lock is still broken, push through…everything they had is still back in that room but they keep going in the shadows looking for a way to cross to the next block trying to stay quiet. Trying to be quick. Like a bunny.

They hear a gunshot followed by a mad cackle and make a run for it.

Thanks for reading another installment of Sunday Confessions with More Than Cheese and Beer. Be sure to check out the other linkups this week and the facebook page for anonymous confessions! And, in light of my decision to possibly enter a short story contest in January...any and all feedback is welcome. Thanks!!

Negative Nancy

I’m finding out the hard way that there’s a tremendous difference between having an intense desire to get over insecurities and actually being able to do so.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve envisioned myself gagging that nagging little voice in the back of my head and tossing her and her self-depreciations, doubts, put-downs, wildly irrational reasons, and idiotic misconceptions down an abandoned well, but it never seems to work. Not for very long. That bitch is determined. And strong. And obviously an exceptional rock climber.

I started this year, this blog actually, talking about my insecurities and how this was it…I was done with that. I was going to learn self-acceptance. I was going to learn to accept a compliment. I was going to stop inherently doubting every single thing I do. And, I was going to learn to see myself through other people’s lenses instead of the ones I must have mistakenly picked up at the magic shop or been given as some kind of long-con prank that make everything carnival-mirror distorted. I thought, and still think, that seeing myself the way other people do might finally fracture the images of myself that my brain so stubbornly refuses to let go of... or at the very least, I’d realize some things I actually need to work on versus the everything-is-wrong-with-me mentality that lives inside my head.

But, here it is nearing the end of the year and I still can’t take a compliment seriously. And, I’m not just talking about compliments on my physical appearance. Even the compliments about the strength of my character fall on uncompromising ears that absolutely have no intention of letting anything positive absorb into my being and stick. I go out of my way to be a beneficial presence in other people’s lives who often don’t have that, not in the form of peers anyway. I write and I help where I can and I visit and I distract. For at least a couple of people I know, I am their only connection to humanity beyond bars and walls. I’m the only person who cares, truly cares and not out of some sick fantasy. And, what do I do when I haven’t heard from that person in awhile? I immediately assume I did something wrong or that something is wrong with me. Even when I try desperately to push those thoughts away and wait and be patient, my mind works a thousand miles an hour coming up with any and every reason, reflecting on every word written or spoken, analyzing every possibility. When there is nothing I can find that I’ve overtly done wrong, my brain works even harder to hypothesize what it could be. I am never able to just leave it alone and see how it goes and give myself the benefit of the doubt. And that's in times when there is absolutely no reason that a person I go out of my way to help would be angry with me. In any situation, I’m never able to give myself the benefit of the doubt and let those kinds of thoughts cloud my mind like poisonous gas that stifles everything but the negativity.

I know, deep down, that I am an entirely rational being. Except for when it comes to myself, my self image, and the way I believe I must seem to other people. The whole saying about what other people think being none of your business is all fine and good when you don’t give a flying fuck about those other people. But, when it’s personal, well, that changes everything. I realize that this partly comes from years of knowing people who did criticize and hold irrational ideals about the way I should look and act and be…from having a parent who only knew how to be hateful and living in a town where I’ve never fit in and was ostracized for being different. On some level, part of the problem is that I expect everyone to act in the same manner. But, even after years of actually receiving compliments from time to time and having people believe in me, really fucking believe in me, and try to build me up, things remain the same.

It’s not that I don’t know how to fix it. It’s something I work on. I’ve had a million conversations about it with a close friend who has the same issues and we constantly work on being open and honest with one another and share how we both see each other and the reality of our respective situations. We’re a voice of reason for each other. But, we both still find that no matter how reasonable we tell ourselves we should be, that little voice creeps back in when we let our guard down and the doubts submerge every last reasonable corner of our minds. The dam ruptures and floods everything in its path that might have been a rational thought with obsessive insecurity . Are we able to stop the torrential downpour of darkness? Sometimes. Sometimes we help each other through it. But, most of the time, it’s a futile effort…. because that voice keeps on going no matter what finding one tiny crack and splitting the dam wide open once again. I know that I need to find a way to stop the poison from spreading as soon as it starts one way or another or the doubt takes over and it becomes harder once again to stop it the next time. I feel like for every 2 steps forward I’ve taken this year I take at least 1 back. Progress, when it’s made, has been abysmally slow and painful.

I refuse to give up, though. No matter how hard it has been, no matter how painful, I can’t just roll over on this and let that voice win. Determined rock-climbing-queen or not, I will take her the fuck out even if it means a sucker punch to the box. Fighting dirty sometimes has its benefits. The progress may be slow, but it’s still progress, and it may seem like I’m trying hard to convince myself here that I can do it, and that’s true. That’s what this entire blog is about…me forcing myself to be frank and vulnerable and all too real because I can’t pretend like it’s a nonissue if I’ve been open about how big of an issue it really still is in public for anyone to see.

One day I’m going to be looking through old posts, and when I get to this one, I’m going to celebrate how I knocked Negative Nancy right down to the bottom of the well with a well-placed punch to the throat and sealed that fucker shut for good.

(and, dear friend, I hope you're able to celebrate with me, too)

Of course, since it's Sunday, this is another Sunday Confession with More Than Cheese and Beer. I hope you'll check out her page to see the other submissions for this week's prompt "Able" and look at her facebook page for anonymous submissions.

It's Not Always About the Apology

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week, 12 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

My prompt is: Who was the toughest person to forgive in your life? How did you bring yourself to forgive?

It was submitted by: http://www.crumpetsandbollocks.com

I’ve blogged about this once before, about forgiveness and this particular story, but having written about it previously doesn’t change my answer so here goes….

____________________________________________________________________

The thing about forgiveness is that it’s never just given. It’s not something we just decide will happen and so it does, simply and easily, especially when you've been extremely hurt by someone…when that hurt runs deep into the core of your very being, when an apology doesn’t really cover it, when an apology was never really given, when forgiveness is more about you than them.

I learned that the hard way.

In March of 2006, my father was given 6 months to live. With treatment. Without treatment, that gap of “living” would have maybe been a couple weeks or maybe not depending on how badly his brain

continued to swell from the tumors that had metastasized there from the late stage renal cell carcinoma that was taking over his body. When I got the call that carried that news, I wasn’t really sure how to feel. I was shocked, sure. And on some level, I was grief-stricken. This was my father still, after all, and aren’t Daddies always invincible to their little girls? Even Daddies with a penchant for hard drugs and hitting?

Mostly, though, I was numb. Confused. Completely blank.

We hadn’t had the best relationship in my lifetime to say the least. Even as a little girl, my mom tells me I didn’t want to have much to do with him and would cry if she left me in his care. She has to tell me these things that happened because, for the most part, I can’t remember it on my own. The first 12 years of my life up until my parents divorce is pretty much a collection of hazy snapshots that look much like polaroids taken by a drunk man with parkinson’s

disease. There really aren’t many clear memories and the ones I do have involving my dad are things I wish didn’t exist inside my brain.

From everything I’ve read, and believe me I’ve put a lot of effort into trying to understand why I don’t remember, a child who lives in a high stress environment simply doesn’t store memories like other people, like other kids who were allowed to be kids and not shrinking violets scared to move or talk or breathe. Basically, the brain is so often in fight or flight mode that storing memories takes a backseat to survival. Those blurry captures of time exist because my brain was too hypervigilant about what mood the man was in, what he was doing, where he was, and what I could do to fly under his radar. I do remember that...the way he was...even if I don't have my own pristine stories that verify it.

After my parents’ divorce, I lived with him for awhile, and things then were even worse. He had young girlfriends, a bigger coke habit, was drinking a half gallon of whiskey daily, an occasional crack habit, started selling more drugs to pay for the alcohol habit, and an even bigger temper. He went to prison for awhile for trafficking and came back worse than ever. Of course. And, at that point, it was either move out or he was going to kill me either in a drunken car accident or out of sheer, unadulterated, black rage.

We didn’t speak for a long time after I moved back in with my mom, and even when we did, it was tentative. Forced niceties. Awkward. Devoid of warmth and kindness and love. I couldn’t even hug the man without feeling slightly nauseated just because of the fear reaction that he always caused. Like Pavlov’s theory for abused kids. Beat a kid enough, cause enough fear and those reactions occur without the child even being hit. For life. I still flinch a lot of times when someone swoops in to give me a high-five.

My son was 6 months old at the time my dad got his diagnosis. Dad had genuinely been trying to be a decent grandpa. It’s not like I would have ever let the boy spend the night there. (oh fuck no). But the first time my dad saw him, his face lit up…I’ll never forget it. It’s something I’d never really seen before in his eyes—a mixture of joy and awe that a life he brought into the world had created a life herself. He made more effort to be part of my life, and I didn’t put a stop to it really. Realistically, he already had the cancer by then, but none of us knew it. We didn’t know he would be dead in less than a year, buried on my birthday in September 2006. We didn’t know if he had just gotten to the doctor sooner instead of being stubborn and numbing himself with weed and booze every day he might have made it longer.

So, when I got the call, I knew, consciously knew, that the thing I wanted to do most for him before he left this world was to forgive him… I needed it as much as he did. I needed to forgive him for the hurt and the lies and for choosing drugs and alcohol over his family. I needed to forgive him for all the namecalling and the emotional abuse because I would never be okay in my own skin unless I did that. I absolutely couldn’t fathom a life with all the pent up resentment I had for this man, the scorn, and, if I’m really to be honest, the shades of hatred I sometimes felt for never having anything close to resembling a normal childhood, the hatred for him blaming me when I was raped at 13 because of his own failures instead of supporting me and admitting he was wrong to leave me alone for days at a time at that age.

It didn’t happen.

His death came and went and the more I wanted to forgive, the more I felt desperate for it, the more frustrated I became until I convinced myself that I would never feel the sweet relief that a release from all that stifled darkness would bring me. I even got a tattoo that symbolized my badge of courage for making it through what I did and coming out relatively okay…something I thought would bring me closure. It was from the cover of a book I was reading at the time that had so much to do with similar themes—a child abused. But it didn’t. Nothing did. Nothing gave me a sense that I would ever be able to make peace with it all so I gave up.

Sometime in the year following his death, my stepmom called us, my brother and I, out to his house to give us some items of his that she didn’t want. Believe me she kept the lion’s share for herself and

had already burned anything and everything from our own childhood except a few bowls of photos, so it wasn’t much. A couple of hats. A shirt or two. And a box of records… The music note on my wall in my bedroom is made from 45s that were in that collection. I won’t say it happened the first time I listened to his records. I won’t say it happened while I lovingly made that music note. But at some point after walking into my room each day and seeing it, listening to the kinds of music we both loved (classic Southern rock), and not trying to force it, I forgave him. When I listened to those songs, I could see him singing along and fist-pumping at the best parts… I could remember times when he would tell a sorry son of a bitch (that’s what he called his friends. I know.) to listen to that fucking part right there and he’d turn up the sound system at his home bar and let the song speak for itself with his swimmy-red eyes closed and his head tilted back a bit soaking up every single bit. Long nights of hearing him drown his sorrows in a bottle and good tunes would come back to me. Along the way, I suppose I figured out that the man I had come to loathe for breaking me in so many ways had also given me some of the things I love most about myself—the way I love music, the freedom I find in a good song, the way I love to share it with others so they know what I know, and the way I love it when I listen to a song with someone (a song I picked for them to hear) and watch their face totally change in awe. From there I figured out other things…my feistiness and assertiveness, the fact that I tell it like it is without sugarcoating shit, my quick wit, my take no bullshit attitude.

He may not have known what it meant to be a good father, and I may have had a fucked up childhood but somewhere along the path to growing up and raising my own son, I figured out that he loved me in his own way, and he definitely passed down the kind of things that make me a better person. At least by my own standards. And that’s all that counts.

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts.  Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

http://www.BakingInATornado.com                          Baking In A Tornado

http://themomisodes.com                                       The Momisodes

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/                          Spatulas on Parade

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/                      Stacy Sews and Schools

http://dinoheromommy.com/                            Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com                         Climaxed

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com                   Someone Else’s Genius 

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com/              The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/             Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://www.silenceofthemom.blogspot.com                    Silence of the Mom

http://www.crumpetsandbollocks.com                       Crumpets and Bollocks

http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/                             Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

Locusts

Most of the time, people seem less than solid.

I don’t mean that in an I-see-dead-people, M. Night Shyamalan type of way. It’s not that I see ghosts

all around me. No apparitions. But it may as well be true. When I stop to really consider how well I know everyone, I’m mostly left with locust-husks. The transparent outer layer that is regularly discarded…the part that is completely unnecessary to life.

Is it that we live in a digital age?

Maybe. Probably. I don’t know for sure. All I do know is that it’s not very fulfilling to be surrounded by dried up, human-shaped shells that never fill out. There’s no satisfaction in getting the disposable bits, the discarded refuse that isn’t really part of who they are. We get 140 characters at a time of daily activity or ironic insight. We get a flash, a moment. A political statement. A religious rant. A host of complaints.

We see photos angled to hide who we really are. Snapshots in time that offer no discussion. There are no questions about what our goals and aspirations are. We don’t talk about why we cry and what makes us scared. We don’t talk about what makes us tick. Our passions. Our shame.

It’s all smoke and mirrors what we do with each other. There’s no flesh and guts and teeth with people that I can tell…not most of the time. No real connections. Instead of solidity, we get wisps that we can never really grasp. Plumes of smoke that almost take shape just before dissipating again. We flip through Facebook feeds liking a comment here and there to satisfy a need to connect that never really shapes into a true picture of the person we’re supposed to be friends with. When it comes down to it if you were asked to describe even 10% of the friends you have on social media, could you do it? Could you pass a test on who your friends are? Do you know more about the people on your friend’s list than what their kids look like and what their generic political stances are? Do you even know that much?

I don’t. I couldn’t pass that test.

That’s part of the reason I enjoy writing letters as much as I do. The conversations are different. There’s no hurry. No hidden agendas. No urgency to squeeze a caricature of who you are into a few characters in a little white box. I value that immensely…getting to really know people in a way that doesn’t exist in the natural world anymore unless sex and marriage is involved and even then it’s far too often that two people never really know each other fully. There’s a romanticism in writing people, in putting your heart and soul onto paper and watching someone else’s form before your eyes in every return letter you read. Should it be that way? Should it take letter-writing to people who aren’t allowed to socialize with the outside world to figure out how to make connections?

No.

I want solid friendships. I want my friends to know who I really am and care about who that person is even if they don’t agree with that person. I want to know your loves, your passions, your fears. I want to know the solidified form of who you are not the watered down, applesauce version of you. I want the fully ripened apple down to the dark, tough bits in the core. I want it all, baby. Because that’s the way it should be.

You say you want a revolution. Well, you know. We all want to change the world…..

 You say you got a real solution. Well, you know. We’d all love to see the plan….

It’s simple, really. It doesn’t take destruction or money. Reach out. Reach out to other people in a way that opens you up, that opens them up, that fosters a true connection instead of a collage of hazy snapshots. Reach beyond the husk, the translucent shell hiding the true meat of the person standing there before you. Make the apparition, shimmering and easy, into something more real and yes, more difficult to manage. Stop filling in the gaps with fantasy and turn your reality into a communal sea of real fucking people.

It ain’t that hard. Just hold my hand. I’ll walk you through it.


j

Today's prompt was Solid for Sunday Confessions with More Than Cheese and Beer. I hope you'll check out her page to read the rest of the link ups and the Facebook page for anonymous confessions, and maybe next week I'll crank out some more fiction. Thanks for reading! 

The Couch

I've had fun with fiction lately, so here's one more....

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“Are you satisfied, now?” she screamed at me before the cops took her away, her hands cuffed behind her back as they forced her head down to get her into the backseat of their sleek black car, grimaces on their faces and a haunted expression in their eyes.

No, I thought. No, I’m not and this is not what I really wanted. But, what choice did I have?

Angela is my mom. Angela, the woman who had just been arrested and taken to wherever they were taking her… Yep, that’s her. My mother. The person who brought me in to this world and who is constantly threatening to take me out of it. Jokingly threatening. I think.

Angela hasn’t ever really had her act together. I mean, does anybody every really have it together? We all thought Martha Stewart was the model of female perfection or some shit and even she went to prison, so I try to reserve judgment… But, let’s just say that Angela has seen her fair share of trouble at least in my lifetime. Check fraud. Identity theft. Shoplifting. Possession of methamphetamines. Solicitation in some of her worst times. Assault. Battery. Car theft. Larceny. It’s a long list.

Most of the time when I was younger, I was in and out of foster homes while she was in prison or rehab or wherever she ended up to try to “fix” whatever it was that is broken with her, that made her do these things and choose that lifestyle over being a mom. I used to resent her for it--for showing up at my school randomly with her stringy bleach blond hair wearing tube tops and reeking like an ashtray that hadn’t been dumped or cleaned in a year, for never being there for me when I was sick with the flu, for always being focused on the next scheme instead of trying to get a real job and take care of me the way mothers are supposed to. There were some nights when I absolutely hated her especially those nights when I would cry and beg one of my longest foster fathers, Jim, not to hit me anymore and still go to bed hurting so bad I couldn’t even stand the covers touching me. There were other nights that she was the only person in the world that I wanted and the less she was there for me, the more empty I felt and the more I despised her…

The older I got the more I understood that there were times she really tried to do her best, but she was fucked up from the start. She wasn’t hardwired for a normal life and the drugs just made that worse. I don’t know if she really could have stayed inside her own head for too long without killing herself anyway. From the bits and pieces I’ve been able to put together over the years, her life makes my own look like a fairytale sitcom full of punny jokes and rainbows and silliness and ponies.

You know how they say that if we all put our problems into a big pile we’d gladly take back our own after seeing everyone else’s? That’s exactly how I feel about Angela. After understanding more about what she went through as a kid, I could see why she couldn’t be there for me. Knowing that the only reason she got pregnant with me at all was because she was raped by one of her junkie friends made me understand even more why she never really felt that motherly instinct towards me. How could she? I don’t even know that I could have done the same thing in her shoes….having the baby, staying clean for the pregnancy, making that effort…so somewhere down in that tangled mess that was her soul, she wanted me and she fought like hell to bring me into this world, as she would say. She had to’ve. There’s no other explanation for my existence. There’s no reason why she wouldn’t have pulled one of her quick schemes to at least get enough cash to have an abortion. That would have been the easiest solution, right? So on some level, she and I were bonded from the beginning…I just couldn’t see it back then.

I didn’t really come to that realization until the last couple of years. I’m 24 now, so I spent a lot of time, too many years, angry about it all. Confused, hurt, pissed, full of hate, depressed, unable to cope, barely functioning. And, I knew that if I ever wanted to get past it all, I needed to figure some things out or I was going to be just like her. That’s when I started asking around about her, talking to my grandma (who wasn’t really much of a mom herself) and then to the social worker Angela had as a kid when she was in and out of foster homes herself. I finally understood. After all that time, I finally got it. I got why she was so fucked up, and it made me sad for her. For the first time in my life, I stopped feeling sorry for myself and felt it for her instead.

So, I reached out. In a moment of pure emotional vulnerability, I reached out. Like a fucking idiot. And she took advantage.

At first when I found her again after not talking to her for a couple of years, we’d do lunch every now and then. She didn’t seem high. She’d be clean and dressed at least semi-decently. She would definitely still qualify for People of Walmart, but it wasn’t as bad as when I was a kid, so I overlooked it. I didn’t want to talk much about the past, but she did….she would always ask me if I remembered times with her like the day we went to the park in a thunderstorm and all the rain washed out the cheap dye she had in her hair until it pretty much covered her face. I wouldn’t come to her for hours and ran screaming from her until another woman at the park called the cops thinking my mom was trying to kidnap me. I guess she was trying to point out that they weren’t always bad memories, but even the good ones were pretty fucking horrifying. I did remember that day. Well. I really thought a giant monster was after me and had already eaten her face…but all she could do was laugh. And even all these years later she was still pretty clueless about what qualified as a good memory. Sure, she was still laughing about it now, but even the thought of it still made me squirm in my seat and made her laugh even harder.

Still, I felt like I was getting to know her for the first time, and I felt bad for her, but at the same time, I thought I saw a glimpse of who she could be, and I wanted to help her. So, the lunches became more frequent, then it was dinner, then I was taking her grocery shopping, then she was coming to my apartment and sleeping on the couch here and there and then a few times a week then more often than not. She was a walking fucking disaster, but she was still my mom, and I felt like if someone finally just accepted her for who she was and showed her unconditional love, it would fix her. It would finally just fix her. What I didn’t realize is that Angela couldn’t be fixed. Angela wasn’t really broken…she was no longer human, not in the sense that I am or that the lady in the downstairs corner apartment that volunteers at the homeless shelter is… There was no humanity left which meant there was nothing left in Angela to repair.

I started noticing some strange things around the house especially when I’d try to clean up Angela’s clutter. Digging through the couch cushions was a nightmare. Seriously. Food scraps, unidentifiable wads of gooey fuzzballs, her bras—still sweaty sometimes, dirt, cigarette butts even though she didn’t smoke in my apartment…all manner of grossness. But, then I’d find someone else’s driver’s license. Mens’ licenses. Pocket watches. There would be a random shirt that I knew wouldn’t fit her thrown in the mix. But, she hadn’t had any men at my place. I never allowed her there when I wasn’t to the point that I got up early before work just to drop her off wherever she needed to be. I mean, she was still Angela, right?

I asked her about it. Of course, I did. And she said she didn’t know what I was talking about. She denied ever having seen them. Of course, she did. So I dropped it. I think, at the time, part of me didn’t want to know what it was about because I wanted to believe that I was having a positive effect on her, and I didn’t want to see that she was back to the same routines. So, instead of facing it and really questioning her about it, I just let it go and pushed it to the back of my brain.

And now I have to wonder if I could have stopped it sooner if I’d pressed her harder…I have to wonder if I could have saved lives. If I could have prevented a child from losing his father, a wife from losing her husband…

Right about that time, there were several stories on the news about missing men in the area. A preacher, a salesman, a truck driver… More would go missing before it was all over. Bodies turned up at rest stops and along the Interstate. I didn’t put two and two together at the time. I should have, but I ignored it all to be honest. Angela was bringing me gifts every now and then and she just seemed happier. Better. Almost like a real mom. She even took ME out to dinner once or twice over the next few weeks.

And then today I found a driver’s license for a name I recognized. Henry Dern. The news had done a quick mention of him being missing just this morning. It’s Saturday. I’m off and thought I’d catch up on my cleaning. I watched the news this morning while I had my coffee then put on a record, The Kills actually…ironically, and went to work. The couch reeked like her. I had pretty much resigned myself to getting a new one eventually when she got to a point where she didn’t need a place to stay anymore. IF she ever got to that point. I cleaned out the cushions while she was in the shower, and there it was. The man whose face I had just seen on the news. Middle aged. Gray hair at the temples but otherwise ruddy brown hair. Pock-marked skin but clean shaven. Brown eyes with deep crow’s feet at the corners. It was him. Henry Dern. And my mother had his driver’s license.

When she came out, towel wrapped in her hair, I jammed the license in my back pocket and put the couch back together. I was done cleaning for the day.

Why did my mother have a missing man’s driver’s license? What about the other licenses and the stuff and the money? It didn’t take long to put the pieces together. I had saved all those licenses, all the stuff. I don’t know why I did, but I guess something told me I should, so I went to the bathroom closet and pulled the Ziploc bag full of these things from behind the Tylenol and Benadryl and started looking up the names on Google. Every single one of them had been reported missing. Some of the bodies that had been found had been identified as these men. There were at least 7 licenses here counting Henry. 7 men.

I called the police still sitting on my bed staring at the laptop screen. I told them everything I knew, the names of the men on the licenses, where I’d found them, who my mother was, what I had, where we were. They transferred me to the detective working the case, and I had to repeat it all over again. And then again before he finally said he was on the way. When I hung up the phone, I immediately ran to the bathroom and threw up.

My mouth still tastes like bitter bile.

Angela came to check on me, and I said I was fine, but I’m not fine. I ran out of the bathroom holding the license that had still been in my back pocket, tears in my eyes, and I screamed at her, “what the fuck did you do, Angela?! What the fuck did you do?”

She took off then, and I chased her, but neither of us got far before running into the detectives working the case.

I’m sitting on the sidewalk outside after watching them take my mother away waiting on the crime scene people to “process” my apartment. My space. Because I was letting a serial killer sleep on my couch apparently.

Am I satisfied? I bark out a laugh thinking about what she asked as they took her way. Satisfied? HA. My mom was just arrested for very likely killing at least 7 men. I called the police on my own mother and not for the first time. I watched her being arrested. Again. The only satisfaction I am ever going to get out of this is being able to burn that fucking couch.

Thanks once again for reading my Sunday Confessions contribution. Head over to More Than Cheese and Beer to read the rest of the submissions and check out the Facebook page for anonymous confessions as well. 

Red

This is another little flash fiction piece inspired by my all time favorite Halloween costume. Tis the season and all. The prompt for today was Close.

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Red closed the basket full of food for her grandmother. It was time to get going. Finally. It had taken her forever to get the soup finished and like always she was running a little behind even getting it started. But now the brightly colored Rubbermaid containers were filled to the brim with vegetable soup—her grandma’s favorite. It’s the least she could do. June had always been there for her after her mother was killed by her father when she was just a wee girl, and now that June is sick, it was time for the roles to reverse.

Sick? Who was she kidding? June was dying. Slowly and horribly and eventually painfully. And, it would push Red to her very limits. She didn’t know how she would handle losing the one person she could count on, her confidant, her everything. June was all that Red had ever had, and she would never be the same without her. When it came to watching June suffer through her last few months…well…she couldn’t even think about that.

Red started the drive to June’s place already frustrated that she hadn’t yet been able to talk June into moving in to her place. She’d told the stubborn woman a million times that she didn’t need to be alone in that tiny little cabin when she wasn’t feeling well…that it would take too long for help to arrive if she ever needed it. Of course, June would have none of that. She wanted to be in her own home, and she damn sure didn’t want someone trying to coddle her. In her own less than eloquent words, June’s sentiment was that as long as she could wipe her own ass she would be fine and dandy on her own.

The drive to the countryside was peaceful. Humbling. The bright pixels of orange and red leaves rushed by surrounding her in a warm, amber bubble. Nothing could beat Maine in fall. She knew that was part of the reason that June was so adamant about staying in her own place. The beauty of it had a way of making you feel small but never insignificant. The foliage, the brittle sound of dried leaves crunching underfoot, the crispness of the cool air…if anything it built you up and made you feel connected to everything. Maybe June had the right idea.

She pulled into the driveway and immediately felt something was off. There wasn’t anything wrong that she could see…nothing out of place or out of the ordinary. The small, squat cabin was as still and sturdy as always. June’s old station wagon was parked under the carport. Everything appeared as it should, but that didn’t stop the oddness from crawling over her skin like an unwelcome arachnid.

When she stepped out of her car, the little blue Volvo she had worked so hard to buy on her own, she was hit with a wall of silence. No leaves rustling. No birds calling to one another. Not even a fly buzzing. There was absolutely nothing but weighty silence to greet her, and it was fucking awful.

Panic gripped her firmly. She ran to the door and found it unlocked—also out of the ordinary for June. That sent her panic into a state of terror. What if June had died waiting on her to show up with soup? What if she’s been laying there all this time needing help and here is Red late again… What if she fell? Red raced into the house calling for her grandmother and frantically searching the small space. The kitchen was clean. Her collection of cow figurines were hanging out cheerfully on the sunny shelves like normal. The living room was clear. The TV was off, but that’s to be expected. June wasn’t much for the boob tube and preferred to read for her entertainment even though reading was increasingly difficult for her these days (something she refused to admit).

It was when she started down the hallway to the back bedroom that she heard a noise. It wasn’t a June noise. It was…she had no idea, but it wasn’t anything she ever heard before. It was meaty and guttural and absolutely terrifying.

She stood paralyzed at the end of the hallway unsure of what to do next. She had nothing on her but a small teal pocketknife she couldn’t even get open without a massive struggle out of fear she would cut off her pinky. She had to get to June, though. Whatever was going on, she knew June wasn’t okay.

Red snuck down the hallway on tiptoes moving slowly and hunched over listening for more noises. The closer she inched to June’s closed door, the more she noticed a strong metallic smell and the more dismayed she became. It couldn’t be a good thing, that smell.

She paused at the door listening but she heard nothing. Not a peep. That smell was even stronger standing at the door. She braced herself, grabbed the knob, and threw the door open expecting the worst.

What she found, though, was quite the surprise. June was sitting on her bed, covered in blood. Her nightgown was nearly brown from it all. Her knitting needles were sunken into the chest of a wolf-man thing lying on the floor at her feet—a wolf-man thing covered in puncture wounds and barely breathing.

“Grandma! What the fuck?!!” Red asked her.

“Watch your fucking language, Red. Jesus Christ, I’m your Grandmother,” June managed to get out between the panting and heavy breaths.

The two stood in silence staring at the thing for a long time neither quite knowing what to say or what it was. June finally spoke after catching her breath a bit, “I don’t know what that thing is. I don’t even know how it got in the house. All I know is that it tried to rip me apart, and I’m not ready yet to leave this world. My time may be coming but not yet. Not yet.”

So, Red did what any granddaughter would do and cut the head off that motherfucker just to be sure.

Nobody fucks with June and lives to tell the tale. 

This has been another Sunday Confession with More Than Cheese and Beer. Check out her page for all the other linkups and the facebook page for anonymous confessions and don't forget to check out the Halloween giveaway that ends tomorrow!

I Theme Therefore I Am

Sometimes I get so lost in sharing the world that lives inside my head, the inner dialogue that needs to be spilled forth into text, the stories that swirl around begging to be told that I forget to share my reality at times.

I have my passions as evidenced by what I write. Feminism, rape culture, politics, privilege, love, relationships, the death penalty, the justice system overall... so many important things needing change and attention and impassioned voices. If you were to walk in my home, however, you'd see more of my other obsessions--music, movies, retro decor, gaming, the macabre. Every room has a theme and theming is apparently what I love. I can't say I'm the queen of interior design, but it's all me. You see part of me in every nook and cranny.

The living room is all about film. Prints from my favorite movies, vinyl soundtracks from movies, pop culture prints that are mashups of film and other elements line the walls. My tables are all collages of old VHS and DVD covers. The throw pillows are shaped like VHS cassettes, retro televisions, and the bride of Frankenstein. My favorite movies are on display on the entertainment stand, and the lamps were handmade by me in tribute to two of my favorite films. When I theme, I go all out.

can you guess the films the lamps are tributes to???

my first album 

My room is music...I sleep, breathe, live it, and for my room, it's totally fitting. The walls are covered with records, music note decals, and concert posters. Every single thing on the walls is related to my love of music. When I inherited some records from my dad after he died, there was a box of old 45s in the mix that were already damaged after being stored in the attic and were unplayable. I knew that I had to put them to use though...There are some great ones among the bunch. Bobby Fuller, The Beatles, Elvis, Bread, The Who, The Monkees... So, I used them to construct a music note on one of my walls amidst all the other music related wall decor. It's pretty killer. I can't imagine ever doing anything else with my room. When I'm 80, I'll be the baddest Grandma in the land, I suppose.

The kitchen is all retro mushrooms and owl. I have vintage mushroom decor and lots of wall decals. I even have a John Entwistle record on the wall that has an owl on the cover. And, I also took some vintage shelf liner paper covered in mushrooms and covered my lightswitch covers and found some vintage light globes in an abandoned house that belonged to some of my best friend's family. I couldn't believe my luck when I found them... the house has been broken into and damaged from stupid kids in the area but there were these awesomely retro globes untouched and gorgeous and perfect. I still have plans to do something more with my cabinets and possibly retiling the floor to something with a more vintage vibe, but for now, I'm totally in love with it. Oh, and I also have some plans to do a backsplash behind my stove using some pieces of mushroom tiles that are often
available on Etsy.

The master bathroom is a work in progress. I've begun a sort of macabre theme in there after some

trial and error with past decor. This time, there's a zombie cameo shower curtain, apothecary style jars, and even a skull toilet brush holder. I'm hoping to do a little more in here... paint the walls a deep gray color with some bright accents like bright teal rugs and light switch covers as well as some bright accent paint. I have some wall decals for this room too and am really looking forward to getting them up. I've even found a skeleton cameo decal on Amazon that will look perfect with the shower curtain.

The kiddo has his own tastes which are just a mashup of everything he loves in the world--minecraft, adventure time, star wars, and mario. And he's just recently asked for his bathroom to change from silly little monsters to pirate-type stuff. So eventually every room will have it's own perfect little theme and it will be awesome.

So that's the actual physical world I live in day in and day out...Seeing it laid out here and talking about it makes me realize it's just as magical as the worlds I live in inside my own head. I've done a good job making this house an extension of my personality and I have to admit I'm pretty in love with it :) It's just as unconventional as me, don't you think?

Today's Prompt was Design for Sunday Confessions with More Than Cheese and Beer. Please check out the other link ups from great bloggers over on her page and stop in for anonymous confessions on her Facebook page. Thanks for reading!