The End

The lights are fading.

Red in the reflection of past moments.

Breath fades, as the scar roots take hold.
They build a home in the deepest core.

Gasps forward, and take staggered breaths

of desperation. Shhh don't move.
The shattered within clasps shock's

Rigor Mortis.

The black swells, internal bleeding

of midnight sworn despair. Quiet hope

withers waiting in corridors of twisted

cords of blue and red, standing forward

On temples of useless flesh.

The flash plays in the clockwork mind,

one more time, remember the headlights,

remember the moments once before, she

cries out and the immoveable collides

with breakable, once-full life.

No. She cries. But once was now is,

And what was, just was.

The End.

Candy Ramherst

It was just another godforsaken night, Candy told herself as she stepped from the studio into the back alley once again for today’s walk home. Ouch. She exclaimed as she tripped on the step. Her teeth gritted, I always miss that step. She shook her head at herself. Calm down, she tried to convince herself. But she had been trying to convince herself of that all night. Now she was done for the night, but the tremor in her hand still had not ceased. She had tried to convince herself earlier in the day that all Mickey had given her was some Ibuprofen, maybe he thought she had a headache. She knew better though. The girls had been stressed lately, and those chalky pills couldn’t really pass for over-the-counter pain meds-that is, unless you were trying to convince yourself that you weren’t really in that much trouble.
“Screw him,” she muttered aloud, her Jersey accent pouncing on the words as they escaped her lips. She tried not to curse, her mother had always taught her not to, and now it was the only dignity she had left to preserve. The tremor worsened just a bit with the effort. She bent over, and emptied the contents of her stomach onto the street-corner in front of Derrione’s. She was overwhelmed with the post-sickness lightheaded sensation. Her head seemed to weigh more than her whole body on one side. Her hand caught at the brick wall next to her and she leaned her weight into it.
“Oh God,” the words gushed from her, “Damn this…” Her breath caught, a series of short coughs wrenched forth from her gut. Finally, she pulled herself up for a deep breath of polluted air. Her breaths following that one were shallow, shaking through her lungs, but she reached her trembling hands deep into her trench coat’s lined pocket for a cigarette. As she pulled her hand forward, and retrieved the lighter she had barely remembered to stuff in her purse, she walked forward just a bit to the street lamp. Refusing to turn around, the tired worker could still sense the smoke and debauchery of her workplace.
It was the leading disreputable bar in San Magdala. One of the only places left with “dancers,” and gambling, it was run by Mickey Tonson. Mickey looked any old mob boss, but his specialty was in picture taking, and avoiding take over by the cops. His bartenders and managers looked after the rest. Candy let forth an overwhelmed sigh as the work of the day flashed through her mind. She couldn’t bear the thought of what she did herself, so all she saw was Mickey and his demands, barking and harassing her forward. That’s when her agent had spotted tears in her eyes. He took her to the back and slapped her, hoping to ‘bring some sense into her,” then he had shoved the pills into her hands and she had finished the day’s work. She closed her eyes in anguish and flame glittered forth from her zippo only to mingle with the tobacco and nicotine waiting in her clutch.
She stared forward into the closed businesses all around her. The industrial revolution had sure been aimed right for this place. Concrete masses were piled all around her, lit only occasionally where night workers kept their early morning vigil. Above that was a pitch-black void, punctuated only by the front of clouds that almost completely hid the moon.
Another long drag of the cigarette. For a moment she was back at home, clinging to her mother’s leg. It was an odd sight. Her mother had looked and dressed like a 50’s Leave it to Beaver mom, except for the overdose of crimson lipstick and blue eyeshadow, highlighted by the smoking cigarette that nearly always protruded from her mouth. She remembered her mother dragging her leg forward to the table as she set the day’s burnt casserole onto the table, nearly burning herself and jumping back with a premature, “Ouch,” still holding a hot mat in one hand and shaking the other(which just so happened to be gloved. She shook her head relieving herself of the memory, it was too long ago, not worth thinking about now. The cigarette was gone, already? It seemed like they just disappeared lately. Most of her paycheck went to buying cigarettes, ever since she stopped riding the bus that is. That was a bad thing about working in performance. All the perverts knew her name, and not just her name, but all the wrong ways to talk to her. And so, she was sentenced to the long walk home. It didn’t fix it all, but the few drunks out this late at night were easier to deal with than the night-crowd in the Amway system.
Her black heels clicked on the sidewalk.

“Tick, tock, make it hot, DJ…”

Oh, I hate that song.

She shook her head, wishing it wouldn’t be stuck in her head…again. Casualty of the job, she grimaced, how could she NOT memorize every grimy popular song out there, she listened to them all day, every day. Hmm, she lived their ideal dream, too. Well, she might as well have brushed her teeth with Jack in the morning, but the parties weren’t all they were cracked up to be.
Her stomach surged and she strained to hear the silence again, the clacking of her heels, the breath of the wind around her shoulders. Her ears ringing from the days exertion was enough sound for her tonight. She stuffed her hands further into her pockets and tightened her lips against the cold, gritting her teeth to maintain some sort of balance.

A chilled drop of icy rain steeled itself against her cheek.

“Not now…” she muttered in disapproval. 3 miles left to go and the sky had decided to empty on her. The void had filled itself with grey masses quickly enough after she had gazed upon it outside the club. Now it was threatening her trek home. She tightened a scarf around her neck and scrunched her shoulder up nearer to her neck. This was just in time. Minutes later the torrents were let loose. It started slow enough, but the rain emerged into a downpour before she had weaved through one more block. The icy shots to her forehead seemed to refresh her a bit, but her nauseated stomach rejected the chattering teeth and tension from her conservation of warmth.
She gagged again, leaving what was left in her stomach on the side of another road. The world seemed to spin before her again. She took a turn, not sure if it was in the right direction, but desperate to keep moving. Vaguely aware of a couple of hobos outside a movie theatre, she sped up her step,
“Hey, little lady,” their shouts barely pierced her inner moanings, “I could show you somewhere to sleep tonight.”
She gagged again, choking to hold back angry cries as she did so. And her steps forward doubled. One of them took another step towards her, but seeing her ghastly pale face he was taken aback, and before he could say anything else she was gone.
Turning a corner, she caught herself against a wall for just a moment. The rain had died down just a bit, but she had somehow ended up in a part of town she knew better than to spend much time in. It was, if anything could be, worse than the industrial area around her studio. Here there were shacks that held drug dealers, the broken homes of drunks who worked what little jobs they could to feed their families, and who knew what else. She hadn’t taken the time to look before today. Here clothed in night, she couldn’t really see the fearful places she had been steered away from, but she could sense a friction in the air that sent chills up her spine. She redoubled her steps, scarcely daring to turn around to relieve that feeling that someone was watching her. She nearly collapsed as she neared the end of the block, catching herself on the edge of the stop sign and trembling as she nearly retched yet again. That sign became her closest friend in the world as she clung to it to make the world stop spinning.

She felt a slight, almost tender, touch at her side. She turned toward it only to gasp in horror.

A man stood by her. He was over 6 foot and possessed a strength that simply radiated forth from him. She took no more time to observe him but turned and ran as fast as her tormented body would allow. She began to limp as one high heel pulled at the muscles in her leg. She tore it off as she continued to run, but in this endeavor she collapsed on the ground.

Her knee hit the concrete first, making a splitting sound as it did. She crumpled to the ground in pain, and a sob choked forth from her. She had turned the corner right before she fell and from all she could tell, it seemed the man was gone.

It seemed centuries that she stayed curled there in the fetal position, covered by a blanket of icy rain, shivering. Tears begun to stream down her face as she attempted to stand. Each attempt ended in her collapsed again, until she realized the futility of her efforts and gave in to a hopeless offering of herself to the night.

She cursed the day as she lay there trying not to think of the death that would probably take her, and just when she thought nothing could get any worse, she sensed a figure’s approach. Her shivering body refused to move as she tensed, hearing each steps approach nearer and nearer. The steps quickened, and suddenly, she felt a gentle hand on her cheek.

She shied away. It was a touch she had never felt before, but flashes of her work lit her brain with the fear that desired to cry out from her.

“Shhh,” he lilted. His hand caressed her fallen head, and he stroked her air away from her face. He pushed his hand forward in front of her face, and she allowed it to be wrapped in the welcoming of his human touch. Her tears wet the palm of his hands and he soothed them away as they came.

Her eyes closed as he lifted her into his arms and she felt the warmth that had never approached her roughened skin. “Shhhh,” he said again, ”Everything’s allright” and her head dropped into his shoulder.

And from then on “everything” was.

An Aperture in the Imaginarium

To Stephanie Mosbrucker: For all her loveliness

“Sighs, short and infrequent were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where St. Mary Woolnoth kept the hours.”

The city rose grey into the sky. The dawning morning filled the haze with kisses of the blue sky. Knives of the grey sliced into the haze, but it curled with calm knowledge of its overarching power. It breathed upon and around each city street, nuzzling at the cars that stood in wait for their masters. “Sh, little city, a new day is starting.”

“Crack!” A construction workers unruly wood crashed unto its master on the ground. The owner cursed and kicked the plank in return for its discourteous descent onto his ill-clad foot.

“For all the stupid, silly old rich women, members of the f…” He muttered, cursing the elite. So women lay in houses somewhere with silk and satin, pillows covered in velvet happiness. Curse them all. He would be making these accursed buildings of high price until the end of his days, and ___, he’d be selling them.

Maybe Eunice would smile tonight before bed.

But she wouldn’t. Every evening her father returned home and saw some longing betrayed in his daughter’s eyes, but the kettle called and Lize needed the filter on the washing machine changed, and the lawn needed to be mowed. Regulations went on and on.

And still the city rose.

Eunice may have only been 3, but the early years of kindergarten wore on her child’s heart. They had begun reading Alexander Pope and Darwin in recent weeks, and though her teacher had encouraged them that “They are finally learning what it meant to take their place in society.” Eunice couldn’t help but wish she would be the weakest.

Her father knew this, he felt it every time she came home to him after hours of the same grueling “cultivation” as every other day. He knew her pain, but how could he have compassion on her, how could he pity her, when he could not even save himself?

He moved along with the other plastered-on faces past rows and rows of mirror –fronted skyscrapers. They were the hazy impressions of human conquest and they couldn’t even meet the earth’s glance. Sign after sign announcing tonight’s concert, last night’s gentleman’s meeting, weekly celebrity visits, waved past customers as they, blinded by the task at hand, glided forward.

He heard another plank drop and he started. “What the…” Oh just another building to rise, just another man at work. George Roburns was startled out of his torpor for just a moment.

“Excuse me!” A shy, awkward redhead pushed past him, and he continued on.

The door of Manfred and Sons Real Estate opened automatically at his touch, gliding into a clean spacious arena of tile and glass. A deceptively healthy looking rubber plant was the only decoration, and it served to bring color to the front desk. Mr. Roburns walked mechanically past it, as he did every day.

“Floor 7.” He spoke aloud to the elevator. Well, at least the music had stopped, if he had heard another infernal…Ding!

“Good morning, Mr. Roburns, your coffee is on your desk and, your papers…”

“Thank you, Melissa.”

Her 4-inch heels clicked on the tile as he watched her pass from his desk to her cubicle. Same outfit, every day. I wonder if she changes, he asked himself. It was true, each day Melissa came in flawlessly put-together, the same natural and yet stark shades of make-up, the same snug-fit pencil skirt and white button up shirt.

No time for that now. Mr. Roburns had a stack of paperwork to fill out.

Tick. Tock.

Tick.

Tock.

Time passed and Mr. Roburns filled out pages and pages of leases, and sales, and contracts. The highlight of the day must have been Manfred’s impromptu meeting. He scolded the workers for not earning him more money. That could mean that he might not have Lakers tickets as well as Dolphins tickets this year. Not that he would say that of course. No, the company was in serious danger if the numbers did not go up. Do we value our jobs? Do you value your breath, Mr. Manfred?

And then time continued on. Roburns would have left the office to eat, but the stack on his desk was an inch or so thicker than normal, must have been those sales going down.

The clock struck two as he closed his mouth on the last bite of ham and swiss. And three as his afternoon hunger passed…

Tick

Tock

Tick. Tock.

The metaphorical bell rang as Mr. Roburns penned the very last signature on the very last piece of paperwork. Out folder, full. In folder, empty…well, for now that is. Time to go home anyway.

The sun had already set when Mr. Roburns ventured back out into the world. Shades just barely changed as he walked past the window panes. High above the ground, there was a lonely glass-cleaner. His whistled song sounded like the ballad of a lonely mariner, lost at sea…

A car nearby stopped at the red light.

Where was the glass cleaner? Oh foolishness, must have been hearing things.

He had to walk two whole blocks to reach the parking garage. He slipped back outside in a pristine black Cadillac. Cars passed by, just barely caught his awareness.

For a moment he imagined what it would be like to run into that oncoming semi. But he didn’t steer in that direction. Just keep going. Wife’s probably got dinner going.

The housing was just outside of town. They had been lucky to get the house they did, so close to his job. It was right on the edge of the suburbs. I guess they weren’t called suburbs anymore. What would they be called?

Housing plants. Yes, that’s what they were called. Or if not they should be, that’d be the best description of it.

He yawned stiffly and opened the driver’s side door, pulling his briefcase from the passenger seat. There wasn’t a sound outside. Everyone in the neighborhood must be sleeping.

The door creaked, but no one stirred.

George Roburns mounted the stairs, landed his briefcase in the closet. He was a little grateful no one was awake.

The door to the bathroom closed behind him one more time and he climbed into bed next to his already sleeping wife. She mumbled some sort of salutation as he lay down.

He saved his reply for the morning(it would be inconsiderate to wake her up) turned off the light, and stared up to the ceiling.

His mind slowly passed into memory, a passing shade of playing on the front lawn, and G.I. Joe’s with Tommy.

Well time goes by.

And his eyes closed as he faded into black, and peaceful, sleep.

The End.