He just had to stand
walk to the kitchen
open the fridge
get a can of beer
open it
and come back to the desk
sit down and lean back in the chair

was this something to
laugh about?
Cry?
Ignore?

He emptied the can
with gulps rather than sips
to get as drunk as possible
with a 4.5% alcohol concentration

He sighed
and opened the laptop again
Stared at it

double-clicked the internet browser
pressed Ctrl and then H

A history full of ****

on his widowed mom’s laptop

Of course it kept getting infected
with viruses
and she brought it over to be fixed

Those websites were from the
very shady family of **** websites

He would’ve grabbed another beer
but there was none left

Better just get back to work and
fix mom’s laptop
What else to do?
Fifteen or so years ago she surely knew
what he was doing with that missing
pair of ******* and that bra
She wasn’t dumb.

The wheel turns

Just like one of those titles from the
history list said:
“***** **** stuck in cart wheel gets anally ***** by hillbillies”

He clicked it

She walked on tiptoes around the
house and
bounced a few times and
spun like a ballerina
and sang, "Today I don't wanna diiIiIIie."

It was rare for her
but he sure
was glad to see it. Glad and now
a bit anxious
not to do something that would
disrupt her
happiness. It could be anything really

She grabbed a towel and wrapped
it around his neck
to bring his body closer to hers
and said, "Let's open a wine
bottle and make love."

He smiled and nodded
and instinctively brought a hand to
his head to feel the
scab from the last opened bottle of
wine

she had long
dark
metallic looking nails

and black lips on a very
pale face

the clothes too
were designed to make her look
cold and dead

but she was quite lovely
to her new boyfriend, the mortician

She was an artist, she'd told him
And she'd also
told him that she'd like
to learn more about
human anatomy for her drawings

"That one!" she said on
their sixth date in the morgue
"I want that one! Cut his head
open from forehead
to nape. I need to see
how the brain's
kept in there."

He sighed and prepared the
electric saw. There
wasn't much for him
to complain. He'd done
pretty well
at 47, hooking up with this
22-year-old

the phone rang at 03:08

unknown number

Well, the bleeding wound
on his forehead prevented him
from sleeping anyway

He picked up
"Yeah?"

"Hey," a girl's voice said. "Are
you the guy who
has a thing for crazy girls fresh out
of the psych ward?"

"What?"

"Am I speaking to the guy who's
very much into dating
**** girls with mental issues that
other guys refer to as red flags?"

"Who is this?" he asked

"Oh no, this is not
about me. I just wanted to
introduce you to my sister. I think she
fits the bill quite perfectly
with you. What do you say?"

He sighed. "Tell her I'll call back
once my current girlfriend
breaks up with me. I hope she's patient. It'll
take a good couple of hours. Bye."

He hung up

he deliberately chose
the nastiest
sound for the alarm clock

Zeeeehhweeeehhchhh

and there it went
again
Every four hours. Announcing that he
had to start the
engine again lest he
froze to death

The phone had 17% battery left. He
would need to visit
the library again
for a recharge but it was becoming
increasingly
harder as the smell of homeless
was growing more
potent on him

He checked the time again
turned off the phone
turned on the engine
wiped the windshield with his gloved hand
watched his breath leave his mouth
fumbled around for a cigarette

no luck

He took out the lighter and
struck it
and all it produced were sparks

It's been quite a lot of
no luck
lately

At the library he took small
chapbooks
with him to a desk and pretended
to be studying them
while the phone charged besides
him
but not having anything
better to do he
read some of the poems in
those chapbooks. He didn't understand
poetry, didn't know
how to read it to
make sense. He was simply not
a man of writing and reading,
didn't understand why
the lines were so choppy
and didn't go all the way
to the right margin of the page. Why did it
have to look so
intentionally wrong? Also
why didn't it rhyme if
it was called poetry? He resigned himself
eventually. He'll never understand
this part of literature

but still, there was
something
he read in one of those deranged
verses with words all
over the page. One poem that
ended something like this:

"then something else in me said, no, save the tiniest
bit.
it needn’t be much, just a spark.
a spark can set a whole forest on
fire.
just a spark.
save it."

His English wasn't the
best but he
understood the message well enough

the spark was
there
still

It wasn't looking good at all
the framed picture of Jesus
had cuts all over it
On the face
In the hair
On the hands joined in prayer
And the eyes were crossed out deep
and cut out

why would he
do that?
Why would a five year old do that
to the gift he got from
grandma?
Was the child possessed? Oh, God! Was
the child possessed by the devil?

They took him to church to
find out
and the priest
asked him why did he cut the Jesus
in the framed picture and
the kid said, "I wanted a bike, not a stupid
picture!"

"He is definitely possessed," said the priest
"You'll have to bring him
to church every Thursday and Sunday. And I
will give you further instructions."

Grandma fainted
mother broke down crying

Father got him a bike actually. But mother
and grandma made sure it
won't reach him. Because father left
mother and went
away to live a life of sin with another woman.
All ties had to be cut
with that sinner.
The bike was donated to a foster home where
the nuns pasted a picture of Jesus
on the basket to protect the
rider from accidents
But the first kid who rode it fell off while
climbing a ***** and
the bike slid across the asphalt
leaving deep scratches into the face of Jesus

The last time they visited him
in the hospital,
mother made the big
announcement

She was once more
pregnant

at 44

Hoping for a second son
of course

Because the first son
aged 21
was such a failure, of course

He will never become
anything worthwhile
Not from this hospital bed
with a broken hip
and spine

It wouldn’t have happened
if his dream
wasn’t to make it big
in the gang

But his dream was to
make it big in the
local street gang
Serving the ******* goddess and
hustling his way to the top

Well it was all fine
until that one deal that
went horribly wrong

People die when they stop
dreaming

Now he dreamed to just
die already

Surely his brother will choose
a better dream. He
had to

You don't need the
employee of the month
badge to know
that you're it

He knew he was it

The other day he asked the girl
who called whether she
had any family

She said no
"And I don't want any. I don't want
to hurt them with
my going away. So it's better that
they don't exist." She
sounded so tired, so drowsy,

so helpless

He started tearing up
and told her. "If you do it... If you
do it then I'm gonna cry. I will
remember you. I will never
forget you. I will be the
family you're leaving behind if you
go. You will leave me in
great pain, I tell you that. In great pain! I
will cry every day and... and please don't
do it. Please let's talk about it. I'm
here for you. Let's talk. Please." He was
crying into
the receiver

And the response was
a loud bang
from the other side. It was over.
The caller was gone

He hung up
wiped his tears and
awaited the next caller

There was no win
or fail in this job
but still
he did a fine work

He smiled to himself

he takes his old wrinkled
notebook
and the black pen

and finds a
spot from which he can observe
the people
and write down what he
imagines to be their inner
conversations

It passes the time

and it takes away
attention from his own
inner conversations

It’s like a prescription drug
he has to take for the
rest of his life
and the twenty-nine bookshelves
filled with notebooks
he has at home stand as proof of that

But this will be
the last one,
he promised himself
as he closed the notebook and
walked up to the bridge

they were having another one
of those heated
arguments on the porch
when the kid ventured
into the
street and got run over by a car

He didn’t survive

And there was no
getting out from under this guilt

“He tried to run away from
our screams.”

“Yes. He did.”

“And we can only…go after
him now.”

“Yes. We’re going after him.”

She circled her arms around
his neck and pulled him
in for a kiss
while holding the revolver
against his nape, thumbs on the trigger

It was the sweetest kiss
of their entire
marriage

The bang ended the problems
for both of them

always cold in the north

perhaps coming here
was a
mistake after all
It's not so much the weather as
it is the ever gray sky

It favors depression

Lack of sunlight
lack of vitamin D

He walked his dog around the
block
and counted zero smiles
out of sixty-three faces seen
and passed by

The block was no fun
so he followed the dog into the
back alleys. It
picked up on
some
smell

and the smell grew potent enough
that even he
was beginning to feel it

Not pleasant

He expected a dumpster

But found two dumpsters
and a homeless
old man huddled between
them
Ragged to threads
holding a dead raccoon on his lap
eating from its flesh

raw
and ******

Aw ****, he whispered.
Maybe this place
ain't so bad
after all

Wasted years

What do they look like?
Can you show in a picture?

He nodded to himself
as he thought
about it

Of course
who other than him to know
what wasted years look like

After 45 years spent inside
a box he was qualified to
judge. And it wasn’t
even prison. It was the office.
Accounting.

45 years

And today...
Today he was the 65-year-old
photographer
who raised the camera before
the mirror and snapped
a selfie
and said
“I am wasted years.”

Here we go
open the beer can
bring it to the lips
have a sip
and...
There it is
that PSA starts running on TV
about a great part of the population
caring for nothing but how to get high
The numbers are alarming
Getting high has become
as much a science as it is an art
and a banal thing
Everyone seeks to escape reality

with desperation

therefore
the strongest drug of all
is suicide

so potent it can get you high
even if you just think about it

I had my share
but managed to change my mind early
I no longer think of suicide
but make others do it
and that still counts as getting high
since they're all characters in my writings

Some things can never
be put back together
after they’ve been
taken apart

No matter how much
willpower is involved

One of those things,
she now knew for sure,
was a marriage

Like the one
she was presently fleeing,
flying down the highway
like a fiend or a bat out of hell

Another such thing
could be her right hand
resting severed on the seat
there beside her

Though she wasn’t so
sure about the hand
Maybe if she made it
to the hospital in time?

Maybe

the woman smiled at him
and showed her
legs from beneath a
white coat

She was close to his face

Stretched on the label of
the rubbing alcohol bottle

70% alcohol

He liked this woman because her
smile never faded
and she was always inviting

"Oh, if you insist," he said
and made an
effort to push himself away from the
moldy pillow and stand

He grabbed the bottle
added some water
stirred
held his breath
and drank

The words "I love you," came from his mouth
enveloped in thick steam

and there was a brutal
growl in his guts

but none of that
mattered. The woman was still
smiling at him, still
lovely

I was walking home from work
and it started to rain
big, fat drops

I had no umbrella

I ran for a couple of blocks and decided this
won't do
I found shelter
under the awning of some abandoned flower shop

There were bushes and greenery
and weeds all about it
and in the bushes there was a homeless guy
taking a crap

We made eye contact

He said hi

"Hello," I said

"Would you happen to have some
paper in there?" he asked
pointing at my backpack.
I always carry my food in my backpack

He probably thought I was returning from
school or something
and would have some books
or notebooks or something like that

I maintained eye contact
took off my backpack
looked inside
There was a Tupperware casserole in which I had
fried chicken
The only paper I had was an A4 copy of
the contract that stated
I got a raise to my salary

I took it out
and held it to him

he grabbed it
smiled
"My god, thank you so much. You're
a good lad, really. Say, wouldn't you be interested
in a job by some chance? Part-time."

"Where?" I said

"Why, at this here flower shop," he said. "I plan to
reopen in a month's time. Got a new supplier an' all
that. I'll make it worth it."

I thought about it for the time
it took him to wipe his ***
with my contract

"Nah," I said. "I've already got a job. Sorry."

"Oh well, should you ever change your mind,
come here and ask for Santa Flea, okay? That'll be
me by the way."

"All right," I said

When I got home I asked my girlfriend
if she was ready to go out

"To celebrate my raise," I said

"Oh ****," she said. "How much?"

"Just a ****** sum," I said

Run wild
That was the motto

Of course it didn’t address
running wild
in the streets
and away from angry shopkeepers
and the police
and rival gangs
and betrayed friends

It all starts with a
run from responsibility,
evading reality

“Think you
can live like that?” father had said.
“Go ahead and try. C’mon, not
like you’re of any
use round here. Go!”

He went

and the years have passed and
he was never missed

But tonight he would return
with a couple of
friends
some rope
and a few sharp objects

A dim light was flickering in the kitchen
meaning the old man
would be at the table with a belly
heavy with drink
and a head light with fumes

So not much changed

"Well, let's go."

his eyes looked fresh out of
a ******* crying
session

I walked up to him
and asked what
was wrong

He showed me his phone and
what I saw were pictures of some
dismembered kitten,
head and legs and tail cut off

"The ****?" I said

He shook his head. "My girlfriend. She
thought I gave my cat
almost as much attention as I
gave her. She couldn't
have that."

"****, man. I'm so sorry."

"My mother gave me that kitten
before she
left for Italy…"

"Gods… you… You reported your girlfriend,
right?"

Just then his phone rang
and he was quick to pick up. It was
an alarm. He looked at
the screen and took a few big steps away
from me. "Sorry bro, you took too
much of my time. I gotta get home now."

"Wait," I said, "Aren't we going for
some drinks?"

He ran away from me
as fast as he could. "Sorry, I can't give
you that much of my time. My
girlfriend's waiting for me. Bye."

Well, I went drinking
by myself. Unfortunately it did not
get the images out
of my head