Chapter One.

Read it.

 

 

 

       Every morning he wakes from the right side of his twin size bed at 4:44 am - sixty seconds before his sharper image alarm clock screams; painting the white walls of the modest room with a cacophony of single toned distress. An alarm that, like any alarm, demands shock, fear, and panic. With each signal he lifts and drops his eyelids - all dramatic and movie-like - the way a coma patient wakes up, grabs a few blinks, and the fuzzy hospital walls become clear. However, for this slothlike scum bag, he catches his blinks then falls back asleep to start his day.

 

Every morning he stumbles into the shower at 4:50 AM. He spends 30 seconds rinsing, 30 seconds with shampoo, 30 seconds with conditioner, 3 minutes with his genitals, and 30 seconds rinsing. With a towel wraped around his waist suspended on his half-hard brute, he shaves his face with a norelco electric razor above dirty brown tile and a single sink. In 2 minutes blood escapes from his penis and circulates back towards his vital organs; forcing his towel to the floor to make friends with hair, blood, and piss - the go ahead signal to urine in the sink, turn on the water, and prepare his teeth for a long day of illusions and trickery.

 

Every morning at 5:08, he doesn't ever floss.

 

Apathy: The absence or suppression of passion, emotion, or excitement.

 

You see, flossing with a thin strip of polyethelene ousts food particles and plaque from areas between the teeth and gums. A man bereft of floss finds a miniature militia taking seige on the gums, building baracks, inviting friends - constructing up a humble village called gingavitis, or the more infamous city, periodontitis. You see, the bacteria builds around the base of the teeth, the showgirls, and as the immune system responds too aggresively, the periodontium tissue inflames - causing progressive, and irreversible bone loss.

 

You might as well brush your teeth with tabacco or meth - so floss.

 

Every morning at 5:00 AM he takes three pills.

 

Three pills.

 

He takes a sip of water then drops 250 mg of breakfast, 200 mg of happiness, and 50 mg of pain inhibitors into his mouth. Three pills fall from his wrinkly hand, taking flight, battling wind resistance, tumbling through the air like bombs - to destroy an entire sanctuary - artificial contamination.

 

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

Swallow.

 

He washes away ground zero with one final chase of water.

 

He decorates himself up with designer pieces of cotton, polyester, and silk - His shirt is Kenneth Kole and his pants are Ralph Lauren. Standing in front of a mirror that mimics his upper body only, he meets a stranger and eye to eye they stare. Face to face they stares.

Every morning at 5:03 he practices his smile in the mirror - like an insecure school girl, or bag of bones model - flashbulbs burst !

 

Pop !

Recharge, pop, and flash !

"More of that ! Oh you're gorgeous !"

Pop ! Flash !

"Now beam, like a star - no like the sun !"

Pop ! Flash !

"You're happy now, be happy ! You're young and beautiful and your husband just gave you a diamond necklace !"

Pop ! Flash !

"Oh how it shines, how you shine ! Show me how you shine !"

Pop ! Flash !

"How beautiful and happy you look !"

Pop. Flash.

"Thats the money shot - it's a wrap. Pack all this s**t up, and lets get the f**k outta here. There's more money to chase."

 

Every morning at 5:05 AM, like a nicotine addict, he takes a long drag of disappointment, shame, and pity then slowly exhales.

 

He's a god damn theif; stealing and wasting oxygen and space. Murdering time. He keeps track of his victims with a Pierre Cardin automatic dress watch - oversized with its creamy white face, with its premium mocha leather band; its not a watch. It's a reminder of every murdered minute, mangled and bloodied, gasping for breath, victims of neglect, of apathy, of arrogance, of ignorance to the beauty of slow motion. A pool of blood on the sidewalk, lipstick red, seizes pavement like napolean land, as our suspect casually slips by to the places he won't go, the people he won't see, and the things he will never do.

 

He will die at my hands.

 

Every morning divided by miles of city, she wakes with the cars, the sirens - gun shots "crack crack !" and echo off the alley walls. Knees to ground, next chest and head; blood, s**t, and vomit always arrive at the scene before the officials. Every morning she wakes to the city, callous and real, then falls back asleep to begin her day.

 

The noises never leave. The screams and moans, like ghosts, haunt the city and the escaping footprints fade but their sounds resound in eternity. Where do the sounds go when they are used up and wasted - to the streets, the skies, or seas ? Or do they sloth miserably and tired to the bars to sit like statues. Faces burried in drinks untill its all a blur with no decisive beginning, middle, or end.

Like pollution, the sounds lurk in our atmosphere, so don't breath in too deep because the immorality of the sound will choke, and kill, knees to ground, next chest and head, but death speaks louder than words.

 

She showers if she can, but the water will not be wasted, so often times she goes without.

 

Save the world my young cavalier.

 

Every morning black is the choice pastel to decorate her creamy white face, tired eyes, tired and sad, and broken smile, broken and half-assed. She hides her hair under a green beanie, with thick strands of green, clinging to the back of her head the way a candy wrapper charged with positive electrons clings to skin.

 

She brushes her teeth every morning with a bright lime-green standard toothbrush, starting on the inside of her teeth, moving to the top, and finishing on the outside with a circular motion - a trick her dentist taught her to avoid damaging her gums.

 

Every morning, she doesn't ever floss.

 

Saving the world, she drives an old beat up 2010 Prius - the vehicle of humanitarians, protecting forests, whales, and the ozone, one tank of gasoline at a time. It mows lawns, wipes asses, and collects signatures for environment related petitions - fake solutions, for real problems. It's white, with grey interior, the back seats stained from bags of recycled bottles and cans that collect rust because she can never find the time to take them to her neighborhood recycling center; or the time to leave them on the side of the curb for the sanitation crew. So, in her little crusade, she takes them out of recycling circulation, in hopes that one day she will find the time and earn her government reward of 5 cents per can. Soon she'll be able to purchase cigarettes she doesn't like to smoke, subscriptions to magazines she doesn't read, and food she won't keep down for more than minutes.

She's a faker and she knows it. That's why she needs pills to sleep and cigarettes to stay awake, boos to love, and her father to hate, to blame, when it's her own fucked up fault. Like a hat she sits upon others to become something more than a tiny abyss of empty space, a waste, pollution, and she knows it.

 

One time, she tried to kill herself with a handful of happiness pills and the boos of her choice. She passed out and cracked her head on the corner of her bathroom counter top; blood rushed from her mind to the dirty tile floor.

 

"And if everyone looks to the left, you'll see the Red Sea - infamous for its foul stench, but ever so enjoyable for its crimson tides and low density, making a fun family adventure for everyone ! So make sure you buy your season pass today ! Heck buy two or three !"

 

It's always the god damn bathroom. How cliche? If I kill myself it's going to be in a kitchen.

 

It was too much poison for her body to handle and while the ambulance was on its way, she floated somewhere between everything: the falsehoods, the lies, the cliche's, the happiness and sadness, the boos and cigarrettes, the noise, she floated in a giant oversized victorian bathtub, like a lonely row boat in a mountain lake. She was surrounded by prodigious white walls that towered over her for miles, the way scientists in white coats gawk a freak fetus. There was no roof above her, only a picture perfect blue sky with clouds like wall paper. She drifted like driftwood, numb to every distraction of life.

 

But then, things changed.

 

She fell for miles and miles and miles and the blue sky above grew smaller and smaller and smaller untill it was only a dot and then it completely disappeared as the white walls moved past her, faster and faster, and she fell lower and lower untill she neared the bottom of the tub with a dark hole, darker than night, darker than space.

 

The whip, whip, whip, of a foreboding fan lie within the hole, reverberating thunderous noise, as she cut through like carrots in a blender. Her head was dethroned from her body and she watched her intestines shoot out from her stomach that floated several feet away from her. There was no escaping soul, only a mush of guts and blood, a blackened lung off to the right, her butchered quadrecept out to the left, dripping with blood.

 

Completely lacerated and dismembered her body parts continued to rain down and down through the dark room that held no sound, falling, frightened and hopeless, she landed piece by piece in the palm of a wet hand, that smelled like vomit, blood, and s**t. Beginning with her heart each piece of her body began to shiver, cold, alone, teeth chatter, body blue, shiver, cold, alone, eyes go blank and shiver, shiver, shiver, untill the hand slid out from under her and she smashed onto a metel floor and shattered like thin ice.

 

When the ambulance found her a man said, "It's always the same."

 

It is always the same. Too many pills. Too much boos. Sometimes they pass out and choke on their vomit. Other times, they fall and split their head open. Either way, no one's body can handle the poison, and either way, in the end, there's always some sort of dog, licking the victims a*****e or cleaning the linolium floor of last night's microwavable dinner as the suspect slowly regains conciousness. Upon return, she sighed, and took a long drag of disappointment, shame, and pity.

 

When sheep flock, unless they're at the front, and no sheep wants the pressures or responsibilities of the front, they always stare at a dirty furry a*****e directly in front of them. They also trust that the sheep behind them trusts they have an a*****e worth trusting.

 

Sheep, are really just misunderstood creatures with a unique infatuation and gullibility for a******s.

 

Her mother says that she just finding her way.

Seeking her own a*****e to follow.

"That's life you know, she'll get back on track."

 

It's funny though, because she will be dead before she gets back on track.

She ran track when she was younger, before the great trade, cigarettes and promiscuity, and until the last few laps, she always ran paces ahead the main pack of runners. With bounding strides, a steady head, relaxed shoulders, she raced. She seized the track like scholars books, like explorers seas, land, and space. Each moment in time was home to a different motion, nuerons fire, muscles twitch, legs extent, feet pound, and like ripples in a pond muscles shake, nuerons fire, and each moment in time was home to only one action.

 

A clear sky free of clouds, like an ocean, each wave mirrors each action, for these short moments, she was owner of her own mind.

 

Calm and peaceful.

 

But, it was always during the pivital points in the race, the final laps, like clockwork, she was seized by the group, the way floods sieze the river banks, the way a man seizes another man for greed or power, used, abused, thrashed, chewed and spit out - stabbed in the back, kicked in the ribs, left for dead - it was here where she struggled like a drowning child, to hold on for a few hundred meters, gasping for air, for life. In the final lap, she'd fall of the back of the pack, hard. She was last place. Always.

 

Pop ! Flash !

 

As she stands in the bathroom and masks her face with dark colors, she steals a glance out her the window that stands three panes long, directly above her sink, taking place of what normally would be a mirror. It's the only window in the bathroom, and one of the few windows in her tiny apartment. Like an eclipse, slow motion, the morning light breaks through the glass and edges across a portion of her face, leaving just one eye and half her mouth in the dark. She stares past her ghost like reflection in the window, empty and tired, and rests her busy eyes on the bus stop on the far side of the street. An empty gaze scans the haggard mishaps of society, the leftovers, the wasted heart beats, as the homeless wait patiently for 7:30 AM stop.

 

A man with a mop for hair, and a combination of bed sheets and trash bags for clothes, hides his face behind a mask of dirt.

 

His shirt is Glad and his pants are Martha Stewart.

 

He tucks his brown eyes down at the gutter because they have no place better to hide. The man to the right of him, looks the same, and to the right of him, the same. Like a factory the world spits them out and they're pushed here, lifted there, spun around in every direction, and on the receiving line the men file into a white bus, and are redistributed to the places they would rather not be, the people they would rather not see, and the things they would rather not do.

 

They too, will die, someday. Not murdered, but die. I suppose they could be murdered, you know, the clean up though, the clean up will make the murder, the deed, the chore, the game, the murder, the fun, all for not - because who likes to clean up blood, s**t, and urine. Regardless, they aren't worthy of my time.

 

After the men loaded the bus, like ammo a gun, that was the moment in time, gone so soon, the moment, that she caught my eye. That big green empty eye stared right through me as she forced her discontented face to evolve into something she could persevere. It was sad. It made me sick, to watch such a faker, fake it, every single f*****g day.

She too, will die at my hands.

 

A murder. A murder so delicious, so delightful and bloody, the blood, the blood will squirt out her pores, like a sponge, like a sponge I'll use her carcass to paint the streets sanguine red, because, black, well, isn't black just so mundane ? A bore right ? Murder though, such a dirty dirty word. I'd rather call it a dissection. Take some home made tools, devices, form a hypothesis, an experiment, a method, a conclusion ? Does our little sweetheart have a soul ? Does she !? I think, I think she does, she did, but it's dead now, a few years back it died. She spread her legs, and it was rammed to death. She opened her mouth and it was poisoned by boos and drugs. Hypothesis. Check.

 

I'll hold her, at gun point, so powerful, a gun, I love it! So I'll hold her there, and I'll make her take off every piece of her black clothing, so boring for such a beauty, and I'll toss her clothes into a metal bucket, so raw, that metal bucket, cold and empty, and I'll make a salad with clothes and gasoline, I'll do a real number on the environment, lock her in a closet, with the bucket, and make her ignite the flames. Ha! Perfect! As she inhales the dark dark smoke and loses conciousness, as her connection to reality is severed like a hot air ballon taking flight, as she drifts away, I'll place her naked body on the bathroom floor, so carefully with a ball point pen, I'll make some marks for incisions. One goes right on her throat, an "X" the size of my thumb. Then I will take that same pen, I'll take it, and I'll lodge it right into her throat.

 

She'll cough up some blood, yucky and gross - I know, then open her eyes, and that f*****g b***h will look at me. Not through me, but right f*****g at me. No longer empty she will open her eyes filled with with horror and fear and she'll see the world one last time. A comforting smile, i'll give, and I'll run my fingers through her hair- then i'll fold my hand on top of itself, and wave good-bye.

 

This is going to be so much . . . fun.

 

I'll take that pen again, work it back into her throat, and scrape down to her naval. Skinned alive she lay there, and within her chest lie a sleeping dove - heavenly white and naturally beautiful, I'll gently steal the dove, and release it into the dawn.

 

Experiment. Check.

Method. Check.

Conclusion. Check.

 

Well, tell me, tell me this, and answer this one question: does my hypothesis stand ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

This a sort of intercalary Grapes of Wrath sort of chapter . . .

Reviews

[Rick Puetter]

Dear Zak,

Okay. You can write and write quite well. The style of the chapter is captivating and fresh. It is charged with energy, as I suspect is part of the personality of the narrator (the central characer of the piece?). The pace is extremely rapid. In fact, it might be a bit too fast. I think the reader can keep up with this for maybe a chapter, but then will need rest. If the second chapter starts out calmer, without knowing the mind of the narrator for a bit, that would be good. But you might consider more frequent rests for the reader. The bright, sparkling mind of the narrator is excellent for painting your character (this you've done very well), but the reader needs some calmer passages. Perhaps I'd use a second, non-personal narrator to color in the story. In fact I might suggest that the chapter open with something of the character or situation of the main character painted by the impersonal narrator so that the reader is more prepared for what comes next.

In summary, though, the style is great. I see great potential here. Now help the reader. He's the most important character in the book!

There are a few minor technical issues such in your line "...chore, the game, the murder, the fun, all for not", should be "...all for naught", etc., but generally these are minor and you'll fix them up given time.

A great read. Let me know when chapter 2 becomes available.

Best regards,

Rick

[RainyDay]

Whew. Haven't read something like that in a while. The guy down there says fresh but I don't think that word covers this. It's about as fresh as a gale force November wind! Your story is excellent, passionate, slightly satirical and accurate. Characters portrayed with just enough detail to let us in, but also make us wonder. I have no doubt that you have plenty of writing talent, and it's clear your mind is imaginatvely fertile but perhaps you now need to show us a more clarified direction for the story? A suggestion, but as with all stories that are this good, the writer knows best. No typos that I could see either. So well done.

[No]

absolutely wonderful, distinctly original, graphic, lovely in a deranged sort of way, i'll use every letter of the alphabet and every word in the dictionary trying to describe how close to home this hits and just how incredible it is to read words thrown up on the page.
i love the change of characters throughout the story, and the (semi) unexpected plot twist at the end.
i believe it could be transformed into a novel, in and of itself, though chapter two has the potential to be even more enjoyable....
if it does in fact, exist.

[shoepolish]

I just think its so ironic, he brings her back to life only to kill her again. Then again, was he acting on his own morbid curiosity, or did he genuinnely wish to save her. Perhaps he did save her, yes he killed her, but her life had already ended. She was trapped inside her body, and he finally released the dove. I enjoyed this story.
luv
shoepolish

[SamBug]

I really really really really really really liked this. It was a great story with a great form and idea. I loved how you put it in like that. YOu should definately keep writing this no matter what. It's an amazing thing and now I"m just rambling. I think I 'll stop now but I will tell you this, you're amazing at writing. Congrats! I loved it! :)

[Prophet224]

Wow. :) Well, first, yes, you I agree with Rick that the style is excellent. I like to break things up (and I like lists) so let me do it this way:

PROS:
- Excellent style, very strong and invoking emotions all over the place.
- Descriptions are very non-standard; no cliches or stock ANYTHING! :) Without using direct sensory words, you nevertheless can see/touch/smell/feel/hear everything.
- The style also strongly conveys the mindset of the narrator, excellent, but see below re: narrator

MIDDLE GROUND:
- I'd consider making the hypothesis stand out more... it's a bit lost in everything else that is happening, and in your descriptions (which again, are wonderful).

CONS:
- Some minor spelling and formatting errors (hyphenation, "booze" (alcohol) as boos)
- Unclear connections... that is, I'm not sure why the man we start off with is included at all. Does he come back in at some point?
- Flow of time ; this might be intentional, but at the beginning you have 4:50, then 5:08, then 5:00, then 5:03. Generally, for the reader's sake, you should consider keeping the timestream sequential, at least over that short a span.

Potential issues that could have been me:
- Lost on a few symbols like "to destroy an entire sanctuary - artificial contamination."
- I wasn't clear on the narrator. That probably has something to do with the nature of the chapter.

Overall:
Excellent work, beautiful style. I get the sense that this is the inside of a fascinating mind, but I need more about the narrator to figure out how some things come together, and I come away unsure of how the first character fits into things. I'm curious about the future of this work, but particularly the chapters on either "side" of this one.