Nine Seconds of Jason

Alright. Cut me some slack because I haven't edited this rubbish or checked the formatting, but I'm fucking tired and lonely and talking to myself at this point. I thought this would be shorter and that I would finish sooner, but it wasn't, and I didn't. So you'll have to wait for more. That's if you're here. That's if you care. That's if you exist. Anyways. Thank you.

Nine Seconds of Jason

I — Work 

Mei was tired, and the problem with being tired is that if you tell anyone that you’re tired they will always one-up you, just like Serena was doing right now. 

“Look, it’s not that I don’t understand,” Serena was saying. “It’s just that we all get tired from time to time.”

From time to time. Mei choked back down the snipped words that threatened to escape her and formed a more pleasant response. “I know. We all do get tired. I guess I’m just feeling it a bit more today.”

Serena rewarded Mei with a smile, but somehow it seemed confrontational / condescending. “I understand.” Lie. “It happens to us all, doing all these crazy shifts.” Lie. “I can totally empathise.” Lie.

Mei’s phone rang with a startling TING that simultaneously woke her up and gave her relief — Serena finally had an excuse to leave. And as if on cue, the perky blonde waved with just her fingertips, turned on her Nike-clad heel, and departed down the cubicle lined hallway with the grace and pep akin to those in middle-fucking-management. MFM Mei said to herself, which always sounded like a B-rate radio station. 

Mei answered the phone and even if it was a memorable call she wouldn’t remember it within the hour. That was her life — call after call, complaint after complaint, shift after shift, change after change. She worked through until midnight (which was when she had been waking up the week before, and when she had been half-way through a shift the week before that, and when she had been deep in REM the week before that) and clocked off without eating her lunch. Mei exited the shiny matrix of glass and marble that was her workplace building and wondered how many of her lunch containers had grown old and festering in the cafeteria refrigerators while she clocked on and off without ever asserting herself and taking the breaks she was entitled to.

No point wondering she thought. The answer was All.

II — Home 

Mei caught the late train back to her apartment (or was it technically the early train), heaved herself over the arrangement of junkies on her front stoop, and bundled up the stairs to the emptiness that awaited her. Shift after shift left her a ghost. Perhaps that’s what she wanted to be. More likely it was just what The Man needed from her. Telling the difference was becoming harder and harder. People like Serena who worked nine-to-five pretty much every week of the year were different. People like that — people like Serena — who had consistency and regularity and most importantly normality, they didn’t know what it was like to be a ghost. An imprint of an imprint of an imprint of yourself. 

Mei walked through her apartment and found it to be just as lonely / empty as she had anticipated it to be. Todd had left more than six months ago but she’d still found herself expecting him to be there each time she got home. Who would stay she asked herself now, as she undressed and (barely) lifted her limbs into the shower. The water ran over her and while Mei wanted everything to wash away, it never did.

Mei was lost inside her head when someone asked her something.

“Hello?”

She jumped, righted herself, listened harder. Was someone at the bathroom door?

“Hey.” The voice again, but closer this time.

Mei felt her stomach lift in fear and her heart double it’s pace, but she knew that she’d heard the voice. Perhaps one of the junkies had come in through the front door after her, while she wasn’t paying attention.

“Can you hear me?” the voice asked. It was right above her and too loud — startling her and catching her off guard.

“CAN YOU HEAR ME?” it shouted this time. Mei turned too quickly, grabbed the shower curtain without thinking, and fell painfully onto the bathroom tiles like a sack of potatoes wrapped in a wet plastic bag. 

Fuuuuuuck. Her back smacked hard against the immovable floor. The cussing continued in her head as the wind had been knocked out of her and the pain clouded her mind — perhaps she had instantly forgotten all the words that weren’t Fuck. Or perhaps it was just the only word that she could remember right then and there. 

By the time Mei scraped herself off the tiles and got to a sitting position on the toilet she’d come to the conclusion that she had hallucinated. Wouldn’t have been the first time. On rotating shifts it was easy to forget where you’d been, who you’d seen, what you’d said, what you’d heard. Some days she would get to work and not even remember putting her uniform on, or getting on the train, or clocking in. Yep, that was it — just a hallucination. 

Mei stood and looked at herself in the mirror. There was already and ache in her back and the bags under eyes were those of an unseasoned international traveller. Still, she opened the medicine cupboard, took a pair of painkillers, and made eye contact with herself. “You’re going to brush your hair, paint on some eyes, slip into that blue dress, and go get a fucking drink.”

Her reflection frowned back. 

“Oh, don’t give me that look you lazy whore,” she scolded. Her reflection shrugged and smiled. A drink it would be. 

III — The Bar

The blue dress fit a treat — perhaps the shift work had helped her shed a couple of pounds — and Mei felt a little more comfortable behind the heavy makeup and the perfume and wad of twenties she had withdrawn from the cash machine a couple blocks back. 

The bar wasn’t seedy but it wasn’t too classy either. Mei hated classy. Seedy was fine but it wasn’t what she was after the day she’d had — she needed to feel good about herself, and if not good, then at least a little better. Definitely not seedy. The bar was just right and she could tell by the light. Not too dim (seedy), but not too ambient either (too classy). It was just a little more than ambient and made her feel a little woozy even before her first drink. She headed to the bar as she tried to ignore the pain that lingered in her back.

“Vodka tonic, with lime please.”

The bartender said nothing and nodded. He prepared her drink quickly and took her cash courteously. She told him to keep the change on a tab and keep the drinks coming. But also the water she added, hoping none of the other patrons would hear her. Getting home was something that she needed to do tonight because, of course, there was a shift awaiting her.

IV — The Toilet

Toilet — “You’re drinking.” 

Mei almost fell off the toilet. “What the fuck!?” 

It was the voice again. “Woah, potty mouth.”

“Dude, who are you?” Mei looked around the filthy bar toilet stall as if she expected to see someone in there with her. “Were you at my house earlier?”

“Yeah, that was me,” he said, and it sounded like he was right in front of her / above her(???).

“Um…okay.” Mei wasn’t really sure what else to say to the disembodied voice.

“You’re drinking,” he repeated.

“Uh, well, technically right now I’m peeing.”

“And on a school night.”

“Okay, mum. I can drink if I feel like drinking.” Mei finished up her business and hiked up her knickers underneath the blue dress. “Wait, can you see me right now?”

The voice was quiet / silent. 

Mei flushed and felt her cheeks flush with colour. “Fuck. How long?”

“How long what?”

“How long have you been able to see me?”

A pause, and then… “Not long. Since yesterd —”

There was sudden silence. “Since yesterday?” Mei asked the air in the toilet stall. There was no response. “Hello? Voice? Are you there?”

She shook her head (mostly to herself) and figured she either needed another drink or to go home to bed. She opened the stall door and washed her hands in the grimy sink / basin. She wondered if this was the kind of thing she was supposed to tell her therapist. Not that she had a therapist. Not that she had money for a therapist. 

The bartender, as requested, had another drink reader for her when she made it back to her seat. Mei drank it fast and then cut herself off, leaving the guy a generous tip before hightailing it back to her apartment. The night was still early but her lower back was starting to ache from the fall onto the bathroom tiles, and the Voice was right. It was indeed a school night.

V — Sleep

It was only a three hour shift change this time, but each one took it’s toll. Mei was awake, staring at the pale morning light that was only barely strong enough to push through the window. She wasn’t thinking of anything other than a strange dream she’d had during the night.

“You’re awake.” The voice didn’t startle her this time.

“And you’re not a dream, then.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“You think, therefore you are.”

A pause. “I doubt.”

“Uhhhhhhrg. Gross. Do you correct your mother with that mouth?”

A laugh. Mei felt her ears twitch up in a smile of her own, and she too laughed. They were that way for a moment and then he was gone again. “Hello?” she asked the air. “Where did you go this time?”

Not long Mei thought to herself. 

VI — Work

It was late in the day and unfortunately for Mei, it felt late in the day. She’d had a double shot coffee before leaving her apartment but 7PM was no time to be starting anything other than an expensive multiple course meal. The train was full of people on their way home or on their way out to something fun. The only good thing would be the noticeable lack of Serena.

When she got there the office wasn’t empty but it was certainly filtering out. Ricky from HR stopped at Mei’s cubicle as he passed by. “Just getting in?”

Mei shrugged and clicked quickly through her login screen. “That’s life on rotation.”

Ricky looked legitimately concerned. “When was the last time you had AL?”

“I don’t know.” And it was the truth. 

Ricky scratched his beard, thinking. “Okay. Let me talk to Serena in the morning.”

Mei grimaced. “I’d prefer if you didn’t.

He smiled. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell her it’s come from the top down. They hate when you have too much stocked, especially if they have to payout a resignation.” Ricky left with another smile and Mei was relieved when she realised that she was the only the one left on her level. Before she could enjoy it her phone rang.

VII — Jason

It was 1AM when the voice returned. “Hey.”

This time Mei wasn’t shocked or startled. She took off her headset and put a pause on her incoming calls. “Hey yourself.”

“I’m Jason.”

“Mei, but you probably already knew that.”

“Kind of, but not really.”

“What kind of answer is that?”

“You should be asking better questions. / You’re not asking the right questions.”

“Oh my god. You’re pretty fucking pretentious for a ghostly voice, Jason.”

“You think I’m ghostly?”

Mei laughed. “No. I don’t know why I said that.”

But then there was no response. He was gone. Jason was gone. 

“Hello?” Mei felt lonely and stupid calling out to the empty air. Her screen lit up with incoming phone calls as she logged back in and adjusted her headset into place.

VIII — Home

It won’t surprise you to learn that nothing is open at 3AM except Mickey D’s. Mei didn’t particularly like take out food, but she stopped either way and grabbed an egg wrap and a coffee. The egg tasted of rubber, and the coffee of luke-warm chemicals. Seventeen minutes later she stepped off the train behind a few still-drunk sports fans and —  with bleary eyes — trudged up the road to her apartment. 

Once inside she turned on her coffee machine to make something actually drinkable and pulled out a leftover frozen lasagne. The microwave was still buzzing, it’s internal plate rotating, when her phone rang. It was Ricky, from HR.

“Listen kiddo, Serena is being…well…Serena. She’s cut me off at every angle, but she’s agreed to let me give you the next two days off. I know it’s not much but —”

“Oh!” Mei couldn’t stop herself. “Dude. Dude! Are you kidding me!? That’s amazing. That’s…”

“Don’t thank me just yet. I have no idea what she’ll do to your shift schedule after those two days. But at least you can sleep, right?”

Mei’s face hurt from the smile that had set up camp on it. Her ears twitched with happiness. “I owe you Ricky. I owe you a big one.”

He chuckled on the other end of the phone. “Just think of me when Christmas gifts are getting handed out.”

“I will,” she promised. 

Mei looked at the wall clock and noted that it was just past 5AM. Ricky must have worked on that shit overnight and then called her as early as he could. She didn’t just make a mental note, she took out her diary and wrote a reminder to get him something good within the week. There was an interesting desk piece she’d seen on the internet — perfectly carved crystal likeness of all the planets in a mahogany setting. Most people weren’t kind. But when some were, Mei dug deep, and that’s exactly what she would do this time. Ricky had gone out of his way. She noted the website and made sure to transfer some of her savings out to her credit card. 

She was half way through her coffee when she heard Jason. “Hey, you.”

Mei couldn’t stop her smile as she adjusted on the couch and faced where his voice had come from. “Hey yourself.”

“I didn’t think you’d still be awake.”

She hesitated. “I was waiting for you.”

“Were you now?”

Mei felt embarrassed. “Maybe. I don’t know. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“You’re cute when you get nervous like that.”

“I’m absolutely not cute.”

“You work weird hours.” It was a statement but still, he sounded confused when he said it, almost as if it was a question. 

“I know. No need to remind me.”

“What if you —”

But he was gone again. 

Not in the mood to finish her coffee and full to the brim with reheated lasagne, Mei spent the rest of the morning reading and catching up on personal paperwork. Now and again she’d stop and listen and wait for Jason, but he was never there and eventually she realised that all she was doing was torturing herself. 

~~~ more to come...

Video Games

                 trying something a little different this time...  


Personal diary of Margot Spoon. Entry dated 27th May 2012. Evidence Item Log #46331. Maryland State PD.


    27/5/12 Sunday

The one is about you. But aren’t they all? Well, they’re all about me really, but this one is also about you.

I wore those nice purple knickers that you say you like. Did you even notice? Actually, I should back track because that’s not the start of it. The start of it is that I don’t have a key. I don’t have a key, which is fine, I would flat out refuse a key anyways, but it would just mean that I can get in and out of your fucking house. Like when I leave my makeup bag in your bathroom but I’ve already closed the front door and then I’m locked out. Thanks. That’s what I would say to you. THANKS.

Today, as always, it was getting in that was the problem. This is how it went — I try calling you on my drive back but you don’t answer. Then, at your front door, I’m knocking without response. And then I’m knocking so loudly that your neighbour comes out to see what’s going on. And THEN, my husband calls and I know that if I don’t answer he’ll start to panic a little bit.

So there I was, on your front steps feeling your neighbour’s eyes penetrating my skirt, seeing my inappropriate purple underwear, wondering why I was talking to one man on the phone while I waited outside the door of another man’s house like a fucking five dollar whore.

But of course he was thinking nothing of the sort — your neighbour. Those were MY thoughts.

And THAT was the point that I had a tiny, quiet moment full of questions. It went like this — Is it the sex? Is it the danger, the risk? Is it just a habit I have created? Is it the comfort I feel after so long without any comfort? Is it my lack of self control? Is it you?

Is it YOU?

By the time I realise it’s none of those things and nor do I have any answers, you’re at the door, opening it, and I can see you’re wearing that ridiculous microphone headset.

‘Sorry baby,” you say as you let me in and I would believe the apology if you didn’t immediately  turn away and hurry back to the video game that I know is the reason you took so long to answer the fucking door. I want to leave right then and there, and so I pause in the hallway, my overnight bag in one hand, my phone in the other with my husband’s missed call. I watch you un-pause your video game on the couch, and to you, it’s as if you it’s as if the last fifteen seconds didn’t happen. And maybe they didn’t.

I think about walking back out the door but I’m tired and I’m frisky and I’m hungry. Plus, my husband thinks I’m staying at Kate’s tonight and she thinks I’m staying at home. I don’t want to go home, but if I actually show up at Kate’s it will be cuddling and then I’ll get her off and then she’ll lick me and all I’ll be wishing is that someone would actually fuck me. And hard. With a dick. I know that’s selfish. I’m no stranger to my own lack of appreciation for the things that I do have have in life.

To be fair though; my diary is about the ego. So let it be that this is my ego talking, in order of make me feel less culpable. And there it is — I already feel it less.

Anyway, I’m at your house and I don’t leave. I don’t go home. I don’t go to Kate’s. I undress and, in only my underwear, I come and sit next to you on the couch. For obvious reasons I am convinced that this will work, but you LITERALLY don’t look away from the television screen.

I sigh. My eyes ache. I want to take out my contacts, and let’s face it, maybe I’d like you more right now if you were blurry. I lean in and kiss your neck but the only response I get is a small humming sound. You still don’t look at me. You are transfixed on Halo. I know it’s called ‘Halo’ because you might have said it to me a million times. Maybe more. It was a couple of months ago when you first bought this video game and it’s your money to spend so I kept my mouth shut.

But now, here on your couch in my inappropriate knickers, I wish I had said something. I want to you tell you that you’re a halfwit and a fool. I want to scream it out loud and paint it on your god damned walls. I want to paint it on your face. I want to paint it in your blood.

You’re talking and for a moment I think it’s to me and so I go open my mouth to say something in response, but then you wave me away with a hand and I feel my anger and it’s almost tangible.

You’re talking into your headset and I think of all the times you have come on my back. In the interests of full disclosure via my ego, I will say that I always liked it, but that is beside the point. I think of all the times you’ve come on my chest. I think of all the times you’ve come on my face. And in my mouth.

I recompose myself and sidle up next to you. The gunfire from your Halo game is distracting. ‘How about we have a little nap?’ I suggest. You appear not to hear me. You talk again, and AGAIN, it’s not to me.

I’m vibrating. I feel it more as I stand up and look directly at you from the side. I’m cold in just my knickers and my eyes still itch — I’m at the point where I NEED to take out my contacts. ‘Baby?’ I ask, one last time.

If you register the words you fail to show it. You frantically thumb buttons and I see your eyes dart back and forth as they follow the graphics on the screen. I circle the couch until I am behind you and I feel as if I’m floating above us. I think to myself that perhaps even if I could break open the heavens, your attention wouldn’t be caught. Perhaps I could wake the dead and your attention wouldn’t be caught..

It’s easy to grab the thin cord of the game controller and quickly wrap it around your neck; the neck that I just kissed. There’s a long moment before you reach up to grab at my hands because apparently you thought this was something kinky. You were wrong.

I tighten the cord and feel you struggle against it. You’re strong and you pull forward and one of my hands slips but I have my knee up on the back of the couch. Leverage. That’s what I have. For once. LEVERAGE.

It takes longer than I imagined. You scratch at my hands with your fingernails and try to get out by sliding downwards, but you weren’t expecting this. No one would have expected this from me I suppose. I almost lose you a few times but I think of your come on my face and somehow it gets easier to keep the cord pulled tight and fast around your neck.

Your last breath is silent. I almost don’t even notice it. Ironic, really. Isn’t it? I let go and push you a little. You slump forwards. Your video game controller falls to the floor. I think it might crack open. Your game — Halo — continues on the television. On the screen things explode, vividly coloured aliens attack your virtual character, and I bite my lip.

It happened again. My husband is going to be so mad.

This Is Getting Old

“Jerry, take your meds.” Ellen was thin, quiet, but not to messed with. 

He didn’t really care today. 

“Jerry,” she repeated, “we’ve done this a thousand fold and it always turns out the same way. Please don’t waste my time.” 

She was right — they had done this a thousand times, and it did always turn out the same way — but he was still going to put on the show. 

Just to keep her distracted. 

He opened his mouth to protest (or so Ellen would think) but then threw in the three little pills and took a gulp of tea from his cup. Then he made a big deal of swallowing and opening his mouth again to show that the pills were gone. 

Ellen looked at him like she looked at everything else — with eyes that could see but would never really care — then she turned on her heels and walked the med cart over to Beverley Lewis who was drooling down the front of the bib that was tied haphazardly around her wrinkled neck. 

Jerry drank the water from his plastic cup to wash away the heat from the tea. He watched as one of the pills bobbed up to the milky surface in his mug and wondered how he was going to fix that situation. Letting the capsules hit the roof of his mouth and then get sucked back with the rest of the tea was easy; getting rid of them was a whole different thing that he hadn’t really thought about until this point. 
 
“Butter cake, Mr Downs?” It was one of the morning shift trainees. Luke or something. He was holding a flimsy plastic plate with a thin piece of dry butter cake on it. 

Jerry looked up at the kid and had an idea. “My fly has a tea in it.” 

“I’m sorry Mr Downs?” Luke-or-something was confused. 

“I mean, apologies — my tea has a fly in it.” 

“Oh. Oh... I see. Would you like me to make you a fresh cup?” 

Jerry went to stand up. “No no. I can do it. You carry on kiddo. But be sure not to get your fingers too close to Bev’s chompers,” he winked. 

The kid shrugged and continued on his butter-cake-mission around the ring of stained plastic chairs that were the main attraction in the common room of Pandonia Lodge. 

With plenty of effort, Jerry hoisted himself out of his plastic chair and shuffled over to the tea cart that was parked near the nurse’s station. 

As he dumped his tea (and secret stash of pills) into the waste bucked, a pair of dark eyes and a short, thin, electric-purple mohawk appeared from behind the cart. 

“Dom!” Jerry hissed, and turned back quickly to see if anyone was looking. 

They weren’t — Ellen was rigid as always, talking to a tired-looking resident; Beverly Lewis was stuffing butter cake in between her dentures; and Luke-or-something was turned towards a window mucking with his phone. 

Jerry slowly turned back to the cart. The purple mohawk was gone and so he poured another cup of tea, but just as he was stirring in the half-spoon of sugar that he liked, he heard a whispering voice to his left. 

“Jeeeeeeeeeee-rrreeeeeeeee...”

He turned his head to see Dom in a backwards hand-stand against the wall down the hall. A huge grin peeled itself right across the kid's face. 
 
“Oh my God!” the Dom exclaimed, “I’ve been waiting, like, only forever for you."

All Jerry could think was that he was going to be in trouble. They were going to be in trouble. “Dominique, you can’t be here!” 

“Jesus. You always say that.”

Jerry stepped further into the hall — away from the common room. “I say it because it’s true.” 

“Oh, c’mon Grandpa. Live it up a little.”

Jerry didn’t like that. “Please don’t call me Grandpa.” 

Dom pushed himself off the wall and stood up-right, his purple mohawk bobbing sideways and then back again. “Sorry J. I’ll call you Nancy if you prefer. Either way — I have a plan,” Dom said, winking one of his dark eyes. 

Jerry was tired. “No, not tonight Dom. I have to get back to the common room and check in with Ellen.” 

“Fuck that. I have a better idea.” Dom winked again and took Jerry’s hand in his own.

The skinny purple-haired teenager dragged the old man further down the hall, away from the common room of Pandonia Lodge and the tedious staff and residents who milled there, wasting away their lives.
 
“Where are we going Dom?” 

“To complete the first stage of my plan, Nancy. You and I are getting out of this prison.” Dom dragged Jerry past the awful unisex bathrooms, the steaming hot kitchen, and the security desk — they headed right for the staff locker room and Dom produced a silver master key from him pocket. 

“Where did you get that?!” 

Dom shrugged. “Stole it from the nurse’s station, Nancy. Whatchya’ gonna do ‘bout it?”

Jerry felt a tumultuous mix of worry and excitement inside himself. “This is bad Dom. We shouldn’t be doing this. We’re going to get caught.”
 
Dom waved his hand in Jerry’s face as he opened the locker room door and pushed inside. “Oh don’t be such a scaredy-cat Nancy. All we need is one set of car keys and we are outta-here!” 
 
With a glance behind him, Jerry had no choice but to follow the purple mohawk though the door and hope that no one saw them. Inside it smelled of sweat and socks and Indian food. Jerry felt the urge to hold his breath. “What do we even need a car for, Dom? We’re not going anywhere without the pass-code for the main door.” 

Dom brushed a hand down the line of smooth skin next to his mohawk. “Ain’t no thing but a chicken wing, old man. You just leave that to me.” Dom turned quickly and started rifling through the myriad bags that lined the benches. When he found a jingling key chain in what looked like a bowling ball bag he jumped up on the bench with a wild ‘ah-ha!’. 

“Get down from there Dom,” Jerry protested, feeling all his seventy-three years coming down upon him at once. He wanted to have fun but now was not the time, and this was not the place. Pandonia Lodge was where he lived now and it commanded respect. He had already disobeyed the rules by not taking his pills — by lying — and now stealing was just another step out of line. 

Dom jumped down from the bench and looked at Jerry with big, crazy eyes. “Remember when you used to knock off early on Friday afternoons and bust me out of school and we would go to the beach down past Golden Cove — where you knew that no one would recognise us, so we wouldn’t get in trouble? Remember?” 

Jerry looked down. He remembered.

Dom jangled the keys in his hand and tousled Jerry’s wispy grey hair. “Golden Cove was always my favourite place. Always.”
 
The old man felt a big fat lump swell up in his throat. 

~~~

“Jesus! Jerry! Where the fuck do you even think you’re going?” Ellen was not herself for a moment — she was huffing and puffing and there was bright pink colour in her usually pallid, unreadable face. She stopped in front of the Vespa 400 and Jerry could see her process as she put herself back together. She straightened up. The calm came over her and it was enviable. Jerry was used to the panic, even in his old age, even now that there was nothing to lose. He always got the guilts so easily and couldn’t help but feel every eye on him despite being the only one in the room. 

If only he could find a calm like that.

Jerry gripped the steering wheel of the Vespa and looked across at Dom who had his feet up on the dash, and his chin down on his chest, and his arm crossed like a sullen child. Jerry remembered that Dominique had always been a sullen child. Naughty and then sullen. Naughty and then sullen. Sullen when caught. 

“Tell her, then. I know you’re going to.” Dom’s electric-purple mohawk brushed against the car’s roof as he spoke. 

Jerry looked back up at Ellen and the words came out far too softly. To the beach. 

 “I’m sorry Jerry,” she said coldly, “did you say something?”

“To the beach.”

“To the beach?” 

He nodded, “Mmhmmmm.” 

“To the beach,” she repeated, her eyes narrowing. 

Jerry swallowed and tasted the freedom that was about to be taken from him. 

Ellen took a few steps forward and placed her hands on the Vespa. “Turn the engine off please, Jerry. We’re going back inside.” 

Jerry shook his head and gripped the steering wheel tighter — he didn’t want to go back inside. 

“Jerry,” she repeated, “we’ve done this a thousand fold and it always turns out the same way. Please don’t waste my time.” 
 
He looked up and saw her face was serious. His confusion must have been apparent. “I was going to the beach,” he protested. 

“Who were you going to the beach with?” she asked, motioning for Luke-or-something to step and in get Jerry out of the car. 

Jerry turned to Dom, who was still sulking, and then back to Ellen. Her face was unreadable and slightly distorted on the other side of the Vespa’s windshield. 

“Jerry, who were you going to the beach with?”

Jerry, feeling all of his seventy-three years hanging over him, was finally ready to go back to Pandonia Lodge. “I was going to go with Dom. It was his plan, after all.” 
 
Ellen’s face didn’t change. “Dominique has been dead for forty years Jerry. I’m sorry. And I need to ask another question.” 

Jerry knew what the next question was — “No. I didn’t take my meds,” he said, feeling tired all of a sudden. 

When Jerry looked back to the passenger seat, Dom was staring right at him and the electric-purple mohawk had drooped a little. “Dad, I’m sorry. I just wanted to go to the beach.” 

Jerry smiled. “I know kiddo. So did I.”

Untitled

Untitled

And they both went down into the water
         — Acts 8:38

How quietly and slowly it is, that
You waste me away
How surely it is, that
You waste me down to nothing
You grind me down to dust

Dig up what you’ve buried and it will only stink of earth and rot

Dig up what you’ve hidden and it will ruin you

How entirely it is, that
You use me up and take all of my love
I am emptied out; cavernous, now.
And how slowly it is, that
You fail to fill me up again.
How slowly it is, that
You

Dig right down into the heart of me

Dig up what you’ve tucked away and it will be your end

How surely it is, that
I am not the means to your end
And so you dig

You and dig
And dig
And your hole
It fills
With water
Me; I fill with water

I fill with water and how slowly it is, that
I fill with water and yet it is not you
Who fills me

I can’t breathe
And you can’t tell
How surely it is, that
I fill
How slowly it is, that
I drown

Dig up things you’ve stolen and they will burn you

Dig into your luck and it crumbles

How quietly and surely you waste my time
And waste my body
And waste
My soul

How slowly it is, that
You lean back
Fall back
Into the water

And you take me with you.

Christmas Eve



I died in the light of the morning. 
You died the next day.


Maya had bought the sweater with money from the last truck driver. It wasn’t for the warmth, though essentially that was good for keeping up appearances, but for the dirty great reindeer stitched to the front with the googly eyes and glittering antlers and stitched sequin nose.


She had always loved Christmas and even though last year hadn’t been ideal, Maya was determined to resurrect her longstanding habit of festive happiness. Or whatever.


She supposed she looked ridiculous in the sweater, but still, she'd bought a small, unsweetened coffee and set up camp at a grimy table in the corner. The girl behind the counter had been giving her the eye ever since. Jesus, Maya thought to herself, what was she gonna buy, a cow burger? Even that probably wouldn’t have satisfied the stupid slut who was still glaring Maya down like she was about to steal the cash register or just plain solicit right there in the diner.


After a while the girl behind the counter was distracted with one thing or another and Maya found herself free to get back to the hunt. More than a dozen truck drivers were milling around in the warm interior of the diner but one in particular had caught her eye. He was tall, lean, barely older than her, she guessed, and though clearly minding his own business over a cup of steaming soup, Maya could feel him buzzing with human need — he had already noticed her — she could hear the blood pumping through his veins.


Dark curly hair, rough fingers...her mind ran over their course surface and there was an echoing sound that boomed around her...a scraping so loud...


An unbuttoned flannel over a dirty grey shirt, hat on, its brim straight as an arrow but just as dirty as the shirt. A beard that sprouted in a thick carpet on his face. Maybe four days worth.


Maya could smell him on the air between them. Her hands were starting to shake from hunger.


***


She was tiny. And pretty.


He had seen her across the diner as soon as he came through the doors into the warmth. Out of the cold.


He had seen her, looked away immediately, and then found that he had memorised her in less than that moment. Jayden sighed. He was getting tired of failing to surprise himself.


Don’t think with your little brain, brother. That’s what Jimmy had always told him. Troy burned for Helen. Jimmy was probably the only voice of reason he’d ever hear.


Jayden had told his Mama that he would be good out here — where it was cold and isolated and the women were ‘strange’ and always ‘wanting to tempt him' -- and he was going to hold himself to that promise. The women that he’d encountered hadn’t really been like that, so he could never understand what his Mama was so afraid of. They were just women. Some were truck drivers, some were prostitutes, some were housewives who served him hot soup in cups at diners along the interstate.


This women, well, she was more girl than woman... She was tiny. And pretty.


***


Time passed for this man. Tall Beard. More boy than man, Maya thought to herself.


She watched him lift the cup of soup to his lips and time passed for him and his beard grew and she swore she could hear it growing. Time passed for this boy but it didn’t really seem to pass for Maya anymore. Sure, it had been a year, but she only knew that because Christmas was here again. She wondered if that made her like everyone else, with her hair and fingernails that continued to grow and her lack of surprise when night turned into day, over and over again.


She felt like the same Maya. She felt unchanged, as if her self was persistent and the world moved and grew around her in its own way. Perhaps it would have been different if Baby was still alive.


The only thing that was different was the fact that she wasn’t a little girl anymore. It wasn’t a blatant change that the people in the diner wouldn notice — the girl behind the counter, the tall boy with the beard — but it was definitely a change.


The bruises on her elbows and knees, and the dark circles under her eyes, these were more visible when she was hungry, and tonight she counted four days since she had last eaten. She needed more money. And she needed to eat.


The sweater had been frivolous, Maya could admit that to herself, but the improvement it had made on her mood was more than worth it in her opinion. The coffee tonight had been a dollar which left an even eleven dollars tucked into the back of her winter leggings.


Maya sipped her coffee and tried not to be envious of his plump, pumping arteries. Tall Beard. She could feel the heat of his blood coming off him in waves. The heat seemed to mimic her own want; her terrible, unforgivable need.


No big deal — just two consenting adults who needed what the other had.

Sure, Maya wanted it to be true, but she knew there was no way Tall Beard would consent to what she needed tonight. She was going to have to take it from him.


***


Jayden was tired but his heart seemed to be working harder than his body could manage, and a lot of his blood was funneling straight down to his...


Well. If he was being honest, that had probably started happening as soon as he’d seen her, really. Big dark eyes, with bags above her cheeks that were screaming lack of sleep, dirty bangs across her face, swimming inside a too- big Christmas sweater. There was something about her — like a car crash that you just ached to look at — this girl, with her big eyes; she was a magnet.


The soup was definitely not enough. Jayden bought an egg salad sandwich from behind the spit-guard for $4.50 (it was probably old and dry, but whatever) and wished he was anywhere but this truck stop diner in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere. In less than a day he’d be gone from this place, just like he was gone from every other place, but still.


He was already rock hard in his pants underneath the table when he looked up to see her face, not a foot from his own, as he finished opening the sandwich packaging. How had she come over without him noticing?


“Hi.” She smiled at him, but God, she looked pale enough and weak enough that she might just pass out.


Jayden smiled in reply. "Hi yourself." He motioned for her to sit down opposite him in the booth, which she did. She did not, however, accept the half of his egg sandwich that he offered her.


***


When you have no heart, it’s as if that heart belongs to everyone. And so, Maya’s heart was every man’s heart. But that was really only because men were easier.

There were women out here, in the cold, but it was as if most of them had no intention of exploring their wants or giving in to their urges. Men on the other hand were dripping with need and all Maya had to do was be there.


Just like Carl’s friend had told her.


It had been a night after the boys were all too drunk to remember that she was, in fact, a girl. An average kid, average height, average face, but there had been a glint in his eyes that made her think he was smarter than he let on and perhaps the alcohol only really opened his mouth and let out the words that had already been inside his mind.


“I’ve tested it out,” he had said.


Maya hadn’t understood.


“I’ve tried it, and it worked,” he continued. “Not like, stalker style, but just...you know, texting her on a Friday afternoon, or mid-morning Monday. Times when you know she needs attention. Just be there. Be there.”


Maya had only been half-listening at the time, with her mind on other things (though, she didn’t know then that she was pregnant), but now, these days, she found that it worked. And it worked pretty fucking well.


Just be there.


***


Perhaps it was just because it had been so long since he had been close to someone; touched someone, or felt something other than his own isolation.


Jayden found himself picturing her naked, this girl across from him at the table, looking up at him with big, wet eyes. He wondered what her nipples looked like; if she was shaved; what her skin would feel like underneath his fingers.


He took a long, calm breath and sipped his soup. It must have been Christmas Eve messing with him — making him think of home; making him wish he had a home of his own — a wife, child, dog. A lawn that needed mowing, a garden full of bright colourful flowers, a home cooked meal on the table every night, bacon and eggs in the morning.


All the things that he would never have.


No, he thought. Stop it. All he had to do was rest up, make it through this night, fucking Christmas Eve, and get his load upstate, on time, without incident. Then he’d be done. Home free, as other people said. Ready to chug on to the next job.


***


Maya found it oddly comforting that his truck cab felt more like a home than any other she’d been in. Normally they were littered with greasy crisp packets, empty soda cans, sticky used condoms, crumbs, and shards of broken glass.


But this was different. There was a sturdy blind that pulled down and covered the inside of the windshield blocking out most of the sunlight that had already started to finger it’s way through onto their legs.


The way she was now, Maya could feel everything, but when she touched her fingers to Tall Beard's chin and the sides of his face she was taken aback to find that it was total overload.


His thoughts came flooding in and there was no gate. The kid was an open book of feelings.
Mostly there were images of a small family home. Blurry, angry memories of a father. Tall Beard himself, picking coloured flowers against a brightening morning. There was a girl as well. Soft and curved and smiling, as if she herself, was the actual sun inside his memory. Big, pearly-white teeth; cherry red lips; bright blue eyes that sparkled. A girl — slipping away, fading away; moving her lips, but Maya heard no words.


She knew Tall Beard had lost himself to this girl. Maya knew that Tall Beard's heart had been rendered as useless as her own. She felt sorry for him. She had seen heartbreak before, she had felt it, but this was different somehow.


This was closer and louder.


***


Carl had scrambled on top of her in the motel bed, and, thinking he was on a bender, Maya had given up fighting him. It hurt less if she relaxed.


And then, just as she did, she had felt his teeth. By that point they were sharp and elongated. They opened up her neck and in response, her chest rose in an unintended arc towards him, pulling her upper body away but simultaneously giving him more space to straddle her and get at the hot blood that was running down her neck and into her hair on the sheets underneath her.


Carl. She had pawed at him but he was different. He was strong. Too strong for an addict. Too strong for the pathetic excuse for a human that she knew him to be. His skin was cold against her own and it was as if he was fevered, or pumped full of adrenaline, or something else...


He hadn’t fully drained her that night and then, eventually, she had turned. In the midst of her mindless convulsions Carl had dragged himself out behind the motel and died.


And then it was just Maya and Baby then. Maya. And Baby.

***


Jayden was nervous. His little brain was telling him what he wanted, but at the same time it was hard to think that this tiny pretty girl was anything other than dangerous.


She straddled him with the ease and grace of the experienced, and licked from his collar bone to the edge of his jaw. He was hard — a coiled spring — and he had the strong urge to toss her into the back, get on top, and hold her down while he had his way.


That was wrong though. Merely an urge. Not the way you act around other people. Jayden knew how to act appropriately and that was exactly what he intended to do.
As he let her move on top he noticed that she was lighter than he had anticipated.
She kissed his neck. She kissed his beard. She kissed his lips and then the lids of his eyes. Her pants were off (he hadn’t noticed her taking them off) and she pulled her knickers aside. Jayden could feel with his fingers how wet she was and it only made him realise that he was much closer to an edge he hadn’t noticed before. He wanted to buck up into her. He wanted to push her down and use her. He stopped himself.
This tiny, pretty girl slid herself onto him just as her razor sharp teeth pierced the warm skin of his neck.


Jayden clawed at her shirt trying to detach her from his neck but her hands were suddenly so strong that she had him pinned and he could feel nothing but the warm red blood that slicked out from his carotid.


***


Penetration.


Maya knew it had never been her word, but it was hers in that moment. She had penetrated him.


Her fangs had punctured his soft skin and it was as satisfying as anything she had ever felt. Even more than the first time. She sucked hard, desperate to get her fill, desperate not to waste a single drop. Tall Beard's blood flooded her system; overwhelmed her; set her cool, pale body afire.


The morning Carl had turned her, Maya had been in pain. It was Christmas Eve. Carl died out behind the motel but she woke the next day to a fresh hell that she didn't want any part of. And then she had become hungry. So hungry. Too hungry.
 
She had grown weak.


She had failed.


Failed Baby.


Baby had been her first meal. Tall Beard wouldn’t be her last.

Untitled [24.02.15]

You should be fearful for the girl that I slipped in and took
She’s not safe, she’s unclean, and she’s never coming back
Loosed the demons from inside long before the ground shook
I locked her downstairs lest we expose depravity black


~
it was time to purge -- after two weeks in the slough of despond. don't dance around, ask your questions. you know i'll say yes.