Short story writing and creative fiction, essays and non-fiction stories.

I.
His hands touched her breasts but they weren’t really there. See, she believed that the human touch could evaporate without reason and beyond the possibilities of eternity. But, when she told this to others, they refused to look at the marks on her breasts. But didn’t want you want to touch her? Didn’t you want to see inside her head and wonder how God made naked bodies that hide behind foggy windows? And believed that if she had pushed herself hard enough, she might have floated away to Neverland and never had to do anything imagined.

II.
His eyes made her cry but they didn’t speak at all. See, she believed that if we could make words from not speaking anything at all and she cried while the world dropped tears from her eyes. If this had not happened, she might have had nothing to look at when staring outside. She might not have told their secrets, yes, theirs, without ever having made a telephone call. Just lied in bed and dared someone, anyone to knock on the door. That would have brought us to the center of the stage but the lights were off and she didn’t care to turn them back on. But not that it would have mattered, she wouldn’t have opened the door. She wouldn’t have moved past the cheap floral bedspread to the television. Nor would she have turned on the television to watch old wrestling shows from the ‘can’t-kill-me-80’s-era.’ No, but she wouldn’t answer the door if anyone knocked. She’d rather run and hide from him. She’d rather make him believe that she had flown away. Those eyes that she imagined about when she sat and waited. She would rather do anything than watch those eyes over and over again. Didn’t you want to destroy her? Didn’t you want to not say a word and wonder how the hell God made bodies that won’t float, eyes that won’t cry and knees that won’t plead? And you didn’t believe her when she said that she pushed herself to stay. She suffered. She fell. She bled. Everyone else had known but you. Everyone else had watched and waited.
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When things are illuminated, life is beautiful. Luminosity is, indeed, a wonderful thing. You are anchored in your body and that body is easy to please. You only have to honor the integrity of your senses. The bad smells bad, and the good is to be luxuriated in. You feel your senses acutely and realize you were blessed with them because they make you into a deep participant in life. Others have their senses too and you share yours with them. Social intercourse is your way into earthly heaven.

You are not alone.

Life belongs to you. Life can be shaped according to your vision and by the grace of its better possibilities. You love life and intend to affirm it by being a co-author in the shaping of a destiny you have faith in: it can only be for your good.
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I watched my mother, once, holding a corpse the size of a honey baked ham. Late evening. Corner of our old street. From my seat on a cloud I recognized its form; watched its tissues dissolve like blood sausage on her just-manicured nails; the spoils of its bloody clots lingering over her lacquered loveliness. Eyes dry. Cheeks sucked in, she buffed her nails, turned on heels that hurt the pavement as the ignoble puddle sizzled, frothed, burped and then congealed into her story.

This, of course, is a dream. But most of my ghost stories, which are often nightmares, occur inside my head. I’ve never been afraid of the real ghosts because they are shy and scurry away as soon as they’ve been spotted. But they remain lodged inside our heads and make their pre-Broadway appearance night after night in our skulls. That’s what dreams are—ghosts playing hide and seek inside those craniums.
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With his head bowed, and the pit of his stomach boiling with unrest, Hector stood within the gloom of his master’s chamber.
“It is done,” Graymar’s voice echoed. “You have rid the world of the savage who killed your precious Alice. Now, it is time for other matters.”
Graymar held out a small piece of parchment, hoping it would attract his servants eyes - it didn’t, they were still fixed on the floor and far from the present.
“Hector? Please, this is of the utmost importance. The name on the parchment is of a local villager who has been in debt to me for far too long, and I-”
“It is not over, master,” Hector said through the thicket of his black beard. “There is still another,”
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My legs feel heavy and I want to go home. My ass is numb, and I want to go home. Alcohol and nicotine pulsing through my brain, and I want to go home. I wonder if anyone’s ever overdosed on nicotine. It seems unlikely but not impossible. I’ve been sitting on this curb for 3 hours, trying to sober up, and I want to go home. People still shuffling in and out of the house from where I’d just come, still trying to reach the mystical plateau. That tiny cliff at that top of the giant hill that is just enough but not too much. Everyone chasing the light while hanging out in the dark. Everyone on the same fabled conquest of substance; trying to get it without letting it get you. Isn’t it funny that we all go out and push, push, push to get to the point that I’m at now, and then all we want is to go back down, walk backwards down that hill so we can get back to the familiar?

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