"She'd have preferred the electric chair," Melanie said.
A half grin sat on her lips as she stirred the crinkle fry in the ketchup far longer than anyone stirs crinkle fries in ketchup.
"You know when they were discovering the electric chair, they would like pay kids to bring in stray dogs and cats to electrocute to get the voltage just right," Beloved said.
"That's horrible," Melanie replied and she dropped the crinkle fry. "Why would you say that?"
"They finally tested it on an elephant!" Beloved said.
"Wait, who is they?" Melanie asked. She lifted her nose in the...
Heating nothing as I refrigerate.
Eating nothing as my body preserves.
We eat and are ultimately eaten.
Preheated, chilled and given to grubs.
We are products for sightless feeders.
Put a tag on me and ship me in a box.
Deliver me to the earth, to be opened up.
Reclined, collapsed, softened and served.
This oven of nothing is heated anyway.
I stare at the flames to assert my intention.
I am alive for now. For now.
I had to bind myself together. I could feel pieces of me falling away, an arm, my left toe, my sense of grace under pressure. My lips struggled to speak as my tongue became unattached, my teeth loosened in my gums. My heart threatened to beat itself right out of my body, and I feared that it actually would.
The curse of unbeing is a cruel one indeed. I thought this as I wound the linen around my eyes, working to keep them in my skull. I wondered what I could have done to anger someone of such great power....
He laid back, eyes closed, a smile stretched across his face. Summer never felt so good; the sun beating down made him relaxed, and he felt like he could sprawl out on the grass all day long.
With eyes closed, his mind drifted to summers past, lying on the grass with his dog Buddy after catching a frisbee back and forth. His mind was in another place, somewhere peaceful, simple, romantic even.
A place where the sun rises and sets with beautiful colors, where the grass is plush and Kelly Green. A place where the sailboats against the sunset have...
Lange onboard sweating it out, Lange onboard getting cold grits, Lange in his bunk in those pitiful few hours to himself when he could think on his home, on the vast seas between him and it. Reciting lines--fragments--from those books his sister Rachel used to read aloud. The carousing above over and only flatulence angry growling left over.
And when the crew came alongside the _Steadfast_, and murdered the husband in plain sight of the wife and the girl, whom they took below, Lange mopped blood and chummed the sea with the husband's body for the sharks. It was then...
Thou wanted to enjoy his iced latte
Thou wanted to bring the mood down in this joint
Thou wanted these tourists to be gone
Be gone tourists!
Thou forsakes thee!
Tourists
Poseurs
Wanna bees
Beardos
Thou is the grumbly heart of your demise
Thou is real
Really real
So frightening
So fucking real
Thou is not on tourist maps
Pamphlets
Brochures
Thou will burn away all this fake tourist bullshit
Thou will bring the mood down
in
this
joint
He sat in the truck parked on the gravel drive, his arm hanging out the window, a cigarette dangling from his finger. The radio was on and Bon Jovi's Bed of Roses was blaring.
She watched him from the behind the closed screen door.
He lowered the visor so she wouldn't be able to see his reddened eyes. Def Lepard's Pour Some Sugar On Me came on next, and he tweaked the volume nob. He could tell she was still looking at him.
He finished his cigarette and flicked it out the window. He took a long drink from the...
I cannot be old as were, but I'll be as old...
No springs, no machination, no burn, can retreat the circle
but the circle will come round
--not old as were
Along the shore they did not remember
Walking until their flesh and their ligaments
Wasted
No mercy for the parched
And she stood staring from behind pa(in)
And he paced
And he destroyed
And he ripped--because
This is not the girl I wanted
This is not the girl I knew
This is not the girl I ordered
Custom made behind a pa(in) of glass
Darling or darling oh darling...
He heaved a sigh as he walked down the hallway. The revolver hung heavy in his hand. He had no idea what model or brand or whatever the gun was supposed to be. He'd gotten it at a pawn shop for $15, along with a little blue soldier toy for a mere 50 cents. It was cheap. The paint on the toy was chipped, but its expression of determination haunted him.
He was exhausted. He was done. He couldn't take this any longer.
"Hey, kiddo..." He called. He'd reached his son's room. This was probably the first time they'd talked...
I'm dead. It wasn't part of the plan, but I'm really dead. The plan involved Scotch tape, 10-gauge wire, and a grey kitten. It ended me, though. And I guess that means the plan didn't work. Because me being dead wasn't part of the plan.
I'm dead and it's no one's fault but my own. The bridge was a last minute addition to the plan. So was the kite. It was one of those kites from the drugstore--cheap plastic, make in China or Poland or somewhere. There were thin wooden dowels. Not quite strong enough.
I'm dead and I think...