THE WHISKEY WHISPERS TEMPTATION IN MY EAR

A farm kid with a bootlegging father gets caught up in an inter dimensional brouhaha.

            My nihilism was so recursive eventually I was too nihilistic to care about being a nihilist. It happened one evening late, in the bottom of a wooden cask. The syrupy drip. The walls were coated slick. When I tried to climb I had to stop. I sat back down and bay the moon with hurried gasps and rapid laughter. When you swallow laughter it settles in your stomach like a putrid brick of neglected fish. You have to hurry to try to catch the sine wave. It’s the next great escape to underworlds. Underworlds of heaven. The place that the angels talk about under their (breath?) whenever things are not in order.

         Out below me was the barn floor. Molasses, molasses. Before I leapt down from the barrel I raked my fingers across the chapped mulchy lip of the barrel. It did not help and I was not satisfied. So I pulled myself out. The balls of my heels flew above, they made no contact. Dressing this way takes eyes that can roll all the way back. Inside would be less lonely if I could find the switch. But sometimes if I try I can see into the folds of my private clasp of infinity. It’s a long walk. If I hold my arms up against the moon the molasses looks like a desert mountain range.

         Now I’m missing old death. When there was no meaning I could not find it’s weight. But today the snake finished its own tail, snapping it’s own neck. The tree trunk beams, the crab grass peaking through the gravel, the wet spot left after a kiss, the parades with golden open topped caravans, chocolate. When my knees are cold the joints feel sanded down.

         I see the fence and run. It takes practice to grab where the barbs are not. At the end of recess Ms. Maroney beckoned us to return and once more cool our hot freedom fueled tempers like a field of tumbling hot coals back into straight lines of cold frost, and we smelled of grass etched jeans. 

The cows stood together. Over their shoulders I could see our house as it sat like an apex of trees. Windows black. Porch light glowing. One summer I came with my father to the place where our house now stands. He showed me the plot where they were going to build. When I was alone with my mother during the next year I would ask and she would say he had gone to the new house to check on it and I would roll my eyes back and see my father at the business of persuading the trees to contract and extend and hold and retract, leaving in its wake an expression to inhabit. Every house in the woods is a summary of lumber. I’ve held a pencil between each finger, all at once. Weaponized. Every house in the city is a temple.

         The field is ending. Grass up to my ankles. Are there any more holidays this year? Halloween. It’s my gaseous heart. Nitrogen, radon, the fragrance of propane.

         The gate is made of tin. The forest is thick with its own hush. Whispering to me. My nostrils betray me.

         The shed, roof slanted. Black like charcoal, mysteriously stained after its first night unseen. I told her to wait there with nothing on if she loved me. The moon is generous with a slant of light. She stands with her pale flat stomach, hands crossed behind, her breasts round and lighter than the first true thought of suicide. Against the shed, roof slanted, she is an ivory piano key nailed to a black chalkboard. I taste the sugar from my arm as I graze it with my mouth. A cold line of spit remains. My nostrils receive. I have never drank it but I knew the smell from my father smiling with an open Mason jar. The shed, roof slanted, was born from our home and carried on the backs of my father and four other men. It was not a thing that the forest could dream up. Not like our home. The forest has no concept for profit. My father would say once a week that the town would come and swallow him up if I ever shared his shed, roof slanted. I wanted him to never leave, so I didn’t. The old weight of death. Except for her. 

         I leaned against her and smelled her skin. Inside her there was a piece of me. Gaseous lungs. We both take what we need. I saw no insanity in the men who called this land “new.” Her lips open and mine. Infamy laden shores. Fingers as gentle as typewriter arms. They loosen my belt. I step out.

          I don’t know why I had to be sure when I first met her. We said nothing now. Inside the shed the drum was empty. Whiskey is the water of life, my father said the Irish say. The twenty fifth crop, somewhere on a turnpike on a wagon covered with quilts and grain. There was no crop to keep safe at the shed tonight, roof slanted. Molasses, molasses. We lay on the quilt left by the last watchman. She lit the candle. Stacks of novels and newspapers and magazines. Distractions to pass the time spent in vigilance. Her quick tongue found a patch of dried sticky sugar tack on my chest. Smiling.

         “Molasses.”

         “Yes.”

         Her lips cupped again and her tongue worked for more.

         “Do they know Al Capone?” I had no answer. “How far is Chicago?”

         “Six hours there and back, seven if they stop to buy more grain and molasses.”

         “I love you.”

         The zeppelins, gaseous, I wonder how it all worked, how long until the canvas balloon was all filled up and ready to take flight. I saw pictures of one on fire. Ms. Maroney said it had the wrong gas. I hadn’t noticed the microscopic ants trying to escape the behemoth until she pointed to them. Running for their lives. Why did she smile as she saw me find them at the end of her bony finger, nail at the tip like a small speck of soft chalk? The sun was a ball of burning gas. The moon was a rock. I kissed her and she opened to me. We were working on the mystery. My hand sent a deep hollow chime through the ash caked drum. She had piled her clothes in the corner behind it. Our conscious intent fractured and for a timeless moment we rocked with a motion that we could not have reasoned. Her throat was a beautiful conch. Her pitch given to her by angels.

         We released and lay. Her body whirred against my skin.

         There was something missing. The whisper of the forest now was a long sigh. Little tones were clicking. One after another. All different pitches, like they were talking to each other. A calm conversation, muffled by the canvas tarp that was now filled with light, filling between the space of the threads. She still lay, breathing, eyes closed. I crouched and grabbed the candle. I pulled back the tarp… A man and a woman looked at me, I back at them.

         They stood in a room with walls as high as city hall, everything as white as an oyster shell. Every surface glowed. Large boxes with shining and blinking ember and jewel covered bricks, all in rows and sections. I looked up. Above was a massive gray shingled disc, slightly bigger than the shed, roof slanted. The man and woman stood behind a white rectangle. Their clothes were strange. Shining thin fabric with single lines from the throat down the chest, the woman in blue, the man in red. Somehow I felt I was less frightened and perplexed then their blown back faces were. The air was filled with the little blips. The sounds reminded me of when I had once scratched a taut piano wire with my fingernail.

         “F*****g Hubbard,” the man said with a squeak. “Ohhh this is…”

         I was still naked so I remained behind the tarp. The room was warm, but in a cold way, in a way like when the water in a bath would cool to my skin temperature for a few minutes before it continued to descend further. The smell. It isn’t unpleasant. It has no words besides “medicine.”

         The woman finally blurted out. “Revert the process. Revert the process send it back!” The man jumped and fumbled with the top of the white rectangle, both their skins starting to match the color of the room around them. He looked like a preacher at a sermon that just got a surprise visit from the lord himself.

         “What is this?” I said.

         “You speak English?”

         “Yes…”

         A door behind them gasped as it opened and an older bearded gentlemen with wild eyes wearing a shiny silver once piece suit with the line going from his throat to his belly button stumbled into the room, out of breath.

         “What are you doing in here!” Tension, no answer. “God damn it guys you just chopped an ancestral node, 40,000 descendants of the node were just reported vaporized who did you pull?”

         “Uh it looks like a boy sir.”

         “Well Ron f*****g Hubbard send him back now before the continuum burns up!”

         “Well sir… I’m sorry I have to do this it’s worth a try while we have it here.” The woman grabbed a piece of glass that flexed like rubber and walked over to me.

         “What the f**k were you trying to do anyway?”

         “Hi my name’s Corinna.”

         “I’m Nick.”

         “Did your Dad go to Chicago today?”

         “Yes.”

         “Is this your Dad’s signature?” She held up the wobbly glass, inside was wrinkled yellow paper with a list of names, dates, prices and times. She pointed at my father’s signature. I nodded yes.

         She spoke back over her shoulder “the ledger’s correct he dropped the booze in Chicago. Nick, when did your Dad leave?”

         I peaked back behind me, she was asleep, curled in the quilt, I turned back.

         “I don’t know, say, round right before noon.”

         The man in the red suit said “Ask him if there’s any left!”

         “Nick, is there any of your Dad’s whiskey left in the still?”

         “No.”

         The old man said “Corinna please don’t tell me you conducted a Stage 4 quantum rip for booze.”

         The man in the red suit exploded at the man in the silver “This isn’t just booze Cap, William f*****g Faulkner went out of his way to talk about it, it might be the best whiskey ever made!”

         “Well if you hadn’t calibrated for the f*****g night time then maybe Cap would have never had to hear about this! Just shut up Kirkeil, send them back.”

         “Expect an interdimensional mining ethics panel audit over this you jackasses.”

         The woman turned to me and grasped the canvas and began to slowly close it on me. “Alright, lay back down, try to sleep, this was all a dream.” The canvas pulled shut. I sat back down and the light faded and the sound of the forest seeped back in. I laid down beside her and closed my eyes. Before I did however, the candle light caught a glint of a Mason jar behind the pile of her clothes. I retrieved it, the sweet aroma filled my nostrils and stung my eyes. I took a sip, holding back a cough so as not to wake her, nearly choking to death in the process. With a few more sips the still grew dark, and I woke to her fingers tracing shapes on my side, the light soaked smell of fresh dew, the canvas alight with the golden sun. 

Author's Note

I had fun writing this. Not trying to prove anything with it. Just got an idea and went with it, hope you enjoy it.

Reviews

[Edward Martin]

Nice. I enjoyed it. And you're a fellow masshole - i'll gladly continue reading your submissions. I'm currently writing a novel, would love to have some literary cohorts to help in the final stages. I'm only posting prose and poetry currently. Message me if you'd like to exchange manuscripts or screenplays. I may be able to provide assistance with other publication interests if you'd entertain the thought of collaborating on a collective short story fiction.

[IvorySunshine]

You had me perplexed the first time, aha. I enjoyed this though, many metaphors, and I love the tittle. Very well written, almost a stream of consciousness. Baffling/Intriquing read. Spiffing job!

[John Ryan]

I don`t think i have ever read something with such metaphors

really really well done and written. The prose is clean and well written. I had fun reading this and look forward to your future work.

[Wolf]

I really enjoyed this, it really kept me on my toes and I liked that a lot if all your writing is like this than I am sure that I will become an avid reader. keep it coming and good luck in your future works.

[John E. O'Brien]

Thank you sir! Hopefully there will be more coming soon

[MoriartyMesa]

I loved this, so many hidden clues and hints. Please tell me that was the intention...

[SquinklaPsyOps]

Brilliant, with baffling metaphors and full of profound insights that do not fly over most person's heads will read it several times, there is something interesting in all this

Is the title about spirits whispering in your ear

[ZackOfBridge]

The ending was really unexpected and the story was unbelievably well written

[John E. O'Brien]

Thank you sir, that is much appreciated