Valentines

"Attention Barnes and Noble customers, the time is now 8:45. Our store will be closing in fifteen minutes. Please make your final selection and head to the register."

This is my cue to squat down behind the shelf marked "Computer and Technology" and look absorbed in the latest edition of XHTML for Dummies. The remaining stragglers, a few tweens in the Graphic Novel section that are trying way too hard to be different, begin to file down the stairs to the first floor and the long counter full of registers. Behind each register is a grim-eyed employee, smiling as hard as they can manage in this economy. They may hate their jobs and every customer they have to deal with, but they love that meager paycheck.

Heath is in the queue for the fifth register. The girl he's crushing on, Tish? She's six people ahead in the line, same as every Tuesday night for the past two months. I've watched every time. They always run into each other in the Science Fiction section. Once, Tish's hand lingered on a copy of Heretics of Dune just a few extra seconds, long enough for Heath to reach awkwardly for the same one and brush her fingers with his. This is what they do instead of dates. Neither of them are socially competent enough to even ask the other's name, let alone invite them for a cup of coffee, or Christ, to raid a dungeon with the other's guild.

It's okay, though. It's Valentine's Day, and Cupid is here for them.

I hunch behind the shelf and make a few necessary adjustments to the pistol crossbow in my coat. Ten minutes. If any employees are going to make a final round of the upstairs before closing, this is usually the time. I pull out a copy of Javascript and JQuery and bury my face in it, trying not to giggle at the stilted writing. I wonder who gets hired to write these things. Engineers, probably.

I read some incomprehensible programming instruction for five minutes, waiting for the next closing announcement. No one else wanders by, so I pull out my lovely little crossbow and take aim. I am a very good shot.

I have excellent timing, today--chubby, spotty Tish crumples lumpily to the floor just as her turn comes, and when Heath hikes up his ill-fitting pants to run to her side, I put my second gold-tipped bolt in his head. He falls flat on his face next to her instead, his sweaty hands flung out to her even as he's begun the involuntary shaking and jerking that follows massive brain trauma.

People are screaming and ducking for cover, but I've already made it down the stairs on the opposite side. I put my hands to my face and yell, "Oh my God," a few times. That gets me to the side of the building with the cafe exit, and no one's watching me anymore. They're watching Heath and Tish bleed out in unison, hearts pumping as one, together forever.

I adjust my coat and start whistling discreetly, but it's just too good, so I start to sing softly. "I've got you under my skin, hmm hmm hmm, I've got you deep in the heart of me. So deep in my heart that you're really a part of me..." I even do a little soft shoe to the Sinatra in my head on my way out the door.

True love is such a beautiful thing, I think to myself. I amble through the parking lot, in search of the next lucky couple.

--
For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Lance challenged me with "At a Barnes and Noble book store in Daily, Georgia, Heath Dipolo is standing in line behind Tish Bejerano. Have them fall in love in 600 words." and I challenged M. Hunter with 

"'C'est le Diable qui tient les fils qui nous remuent!
Aux objets répugnants nous trouvons des appas;
Chaque jour vers l'Enfer nous descendons d'un pas,
sans horreur, à travers des ténèbres qui puent.'

--Charles Baudelaire, 'Au Lecteur'"

Eightfold Path

There are too many people in this world. People everywhere, cars spewing out a thick coat of invisible poison, factories and furnaces, killing the skin of the world we inhabit. They're everywhere, hemming us in on all sides with squalling infants and trash and terrible little clouds of germs. Particles. Maybe spores. You never can tell.

It's mostly the noise, the clashing and creaking, the wails and grunting that play marimba on my spine. I creep around in my apartment because, upstairs, the man who plays bass in some terrible cover band never takes off his shoes. I hear him thumping around every hour of the day. It doesn't bother me as much now that I don't sleep.

I hear voices through the walls, whispers and murmurs of people who might be alive or dead or somewhere in between. I never see my neighbors if I can help it. Everything I need can be delivered, except the gun. I had to buy that from a wizened little man in a bad part of town. His eyes were shark-cold and black, blacker than the hole in the muzzle of my new handgun. He never asked why I wanted such a thing, of course. I imagine someone in that line of work would rather not know his customers too well.

There are footsteps outside my door again, people running up and down the stairs. I think they tread as heavily as they can on purpose, hooting like monkeys who have finally discovered acoustics. There are people everywhere.

Before, I practiced avoiding notice. I tried as hard as I could to become invisible. I think it's worked; cabs don't stop for me, but then again, in this city it would be more of a surprise if I managed to catch one. At night I meditate instead of sleeping, holding a full clip in my loosely cupped hands, waiting to look into the void of empty mind. Without desire, I can achieve anything. The trick in that, though, is that I long to accomplish something great. I have not reconciled these emotions, and I will not reach nirvana in this way. Of course, I can't believe I will reach nirvana with all this noise around me.

Sometimes, in the holy hush of three in the morning, I walk down to the river and watch the lights in the water. Sometimes, yes, even then, there are people in my way. The people in my way at such an hour are never, ever missed.

I wish everyone would disappear, everyone in this city, leave me alone and let me meditate under the wide window, open to the sky. I would never become a bodhisattva and that is okay. Let them all vanish into smoke and dust and ash like the girls in the incinerator.

I could go out into the world and sit under a tree until another homeless man stands too close to me, offering drugs and requesting things I don't have to give. I could walk to the park, if another thoughtless young woman with a stroller too wide for the sidewalk wouldn't simply shove me aside with its nearly-armored sides. I am running out of places to put the loud, the rude, the hapless, and the damned.

I will stay in here with the candles and the bits of unburned bone until I hear silence out there, or until another knock on my door signals the loss of my invisibility. Or I will go out and remove another piece of trash from my city, one bullet at a time, one more splinter of annoyance pulled from under the nailbed of my soul.

The incinerator is the only quiet thing in this building. Sometimes I go into the dark and lie in front of its iron mouth, whispering sutras into its heat. Sometimes I see the faces in the fire and I am so grateful they are silenced forever. Sometimes when I blow out the candles on my windowsill, I make a wish, but then I remember that desire is the enemy. Is a wish the same as desire?

I cannot escape the prayer for silence, the great and sacred responsibility that has been laid upon me. I wished to be of use, I wished to remove obstacles from my destiny. I wished to live in an empty place, for an empty mind, for the peace of perfect enlightenment. If I could just quiet the voices, I could get there, but people are everywhere. So, one person at a time, I strive. When all is silent I will reach again for the truth, set out upon the eightfold path that promises detachment from these earthly desires.



For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Tobie challenged me with "Make a wish and blow out the candles." and I challenged Wintervixen86 with "Pierrot and Columbine".

Annexed

It just happens, one day. You're walking down the street and the kid who mows the neighborhood lawns over summer break is walking ahead of you, his iPod jammed in the pocket of a pair of weirdly furry pants. You start to yell hi, but when he turns around he's had those weird nubby horns installed under the skin and giant gauged ear flaps. Plus, those weird goat-footed boots, just like Lady Gaga? Kids these days.

Then you walk into the bakery and the nice ladies who run the place have been replaced. The woman behind the counter tries to sell you New and Improved Bread, made from a giant puffball mushroom, but you hate mushrooms, and you just wanted some toast. She wrinkles her entire face at you when you ask for brown bread, the kind with a little salt sprinkled on top, and tells you she might as well keep Cold Iron in the shop if you want her to sell that kind of crap.

You're confused, because isn't bread usually baked in an oven? And wouldn't that be hot iron? You shake your head and go around the corner to the florist's, but the door is locked and there's a sign on the door. "Closed indefinitely by Royal Edict," which is truly odd, because your country hasn't had royalty for hundreds of years.

It's not a great day. It's like everyone you know has up and moved, overnight, and a lot of strange characters have taken over. Still, you have to eat, so you head over to the grocery store. It's next to the elementary school, which is even louder than usual. In the playground, they appear to be playing some kind of complex war game, with blue face paint, bows and arrows, even a cute little blowgun or two. You wonder why you never had friends like these, who would pretend to shoot you and then be patient while you acted out your thrilling death scene. Some of those kids are really hamming it up, too--convulsions and flailing around on the ground like landed fish--mostly the ones who were on the wrong end of the blowgun "dart". It's pretty cute.

The school bell rings, and you turn into the grocery store parking lot. The recess war looks to have been decided in the blue-painted team's favor, but the ones who are left lying on the ground are really committed to their death scenes. You remember how hard you played at that age, and smile to yourself as you head into the store. On your way in, you pass that wizened old school bus driver. Smiling and nodding, you head over to the organic produce and start picking through this week's crop of tomatoes. Your hand on the cool, dry surface of the crimson tomato reminds you of something, but it can't be that important, or you would remember, right?

You wander the aisles, putting into your basket anything that catches your eye, and with a start, you realize that the hat your old bus driver was wearing is an oddly rich shade of red. Plus, wasn't it just a trucker's cap last week? This one was pointed, and seemed a little damp. Sodden, even, is the word that comes first to mind.

You check out at self-service and stop making eye contact with the other customers, because the anxiety is kicking in again. You always feel like you're the center of hostile attention. Time to get home. Heading out, you see the bus driver standing outside his bright yellow school bus, all the tiny blue-painted savages lined up to board. The kids still lying on the playground, those must be waiting for rides home. Funny how they haven't gotten up yet, though.

You're walking past the school bus, and you tip a salute to your old bus driver, when you realize it's not your old bus driver at all, and his hat, that strangely pointed hat, is dripping slowly. You're walking on past, in a hurry to get home, because things have started to feel really weird and you'd like to get to your medication, and it's then you realize that he isn't a man at all, but a Redcap, his teeth and fingernails and hat all dripping thick blood the color of old rust.


For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Chaos Mandy challenged me with "Fae and Children", and I challenged Cheney with "God's away on business."  


This is not technically a ghost story, sadly--the prompt was pretty specific. I'm okay with a delightfully murderous gang of pixies and a Redcap or two, instead.  I hope you are, too. 

fine dining

"Why are you so slow?"
The insolent question cuts
faster than I can.

Still, I slice, precise.
Would you have it done quickly?
Or have it done right?

Give me time, I think
fiercely, to get up to speed.
Or do it yourself.