What's Funny

He laughed as I was leaving, and leaving him hanging, no doubt. We had indulged a quick something in passing--not quite a dialogue, but nothing less. The usual some kind of a thing, where we offer what we have, albeit not much of it is in the form of a sentence. The usual something-or-other, where we reach a temporary end, and I leave (or am left) feeling renovated and yet crushed by a thing inexplicable, and I'm relatively certain that I could devastate just about any sort of thing in my path with the howling fury that probably flies in rays out of my eyes. Then, instead, I use the rays to burn another hatch mark into the something. I mean, into the wall.

It was just the usual transitory not-nothing as I set and he rises, so to speak.

And then he laughed.

But it wasn't the kind of laugh that twinkles his eyes, and subsequently mine. And if it had truly been aloud, I would have known it. This was the nearly silent laugh of a creature, elusive himself, evaded by me, conceding to an evening's fate. It was another tacit moment that I'm not altogether sure he knows I apprehended. This wasn't the first time that one little laugh seized me by the throat and nearly coaxed forth the expression--however ineffable--of that which I also crave, but it does belong to one man alone. I can't remember a time before I was wracking my brain, programming a method to make futile the distance between my mouth and his. I would extinguish his bereft laugh if I could, but not forever, because I know I would want to do it again.

And then I left.

I could ruminate on the appropriate noun with which to describe or explain the history of my behavior, but really, I'm discussing modernity here. The reprise, or something even catchier. And perhaps what I'm doing isn't driven by a noun at all, so much as the dodge of a seemingly incomplete invitation, but a clear invitation in spite of its misshapenness. A clever invitation, even, for a girl who has an eye for a subtle man. Such carnal intimations tucked quietly, neatly within the folds of mundane observations. He offers questions without the indicative mark, created by hands too willingly disconnected from their source to make what some might feel is a passable request. His breadcrumbs are shaped like trees in a forest. And somehow I've grown to adore his almost complete aversion to saying things, harnessing what I believe is my ability to interpret something nearly akin to his language, which is none at all. Perhaps it is my own silence that has unfettered my sight. Questions seem only to breed more questions, until we finally stop asking them. Still, there is a perfectly justifiable question somewhere in that laugh, and my avoidance is approaching negligence.

Avis Spring

Dear Mab,

I miss your branches.

Love,

Avis

The Passenger- Part 4

Morning light shined in the bedroom window. Long sunbeams touched Deloris on the face with just enough intensity to wake her slowly from what felt like the most restful sleep she’d ever slept. She stretched her arms out in front of her, yawning widely. She looked out the window from her bed noticing how lovely the day was and how lovely she felt. She hopped out of bed and went downstairs to enjoy a morning coffee. The microwave clock read “11:16”. No wonder she felt so good. She’d actually slept in for once. Deloris prepared her coffee maker and stood in a daze as it worked its magic. She thought about the night before, and how she went straight home from work with the intention of getting ready to meet some friends. But she’d felt so exhausted from her busy work week that she decided to stay in instead. She was content now with that decision, having woken up in the best mood she’d been in, in ages.

After 2 cups of coffee, 4 bowls of cereal (she was ravenously hungry this morning) and half of the latest “Marie Claire” Deloris decided to go take a shower. She entered her bathroom still groggy from her ample sleep. She disrobed and caught a glance of herself in the mirror. She noticed a wide scrape up the back of her shoulder. She touched it lightly and winced in pain. It was fresh.

“Now how the…” Deloris said to herself, as she peered over her shoulder into the mirror. She opened her cabinet in search of the peroxide. It wasn’t there. She looked down and noticed the bottle was in the trash can. She bent to pick it up. It was empty.

“Strange.” She thought. “I just bought this bottle.“She took another speculating look at her wound and got into the shower.

After about 10 minutes of showering she noticed the water starting to collect in the bathtub. She flipped the drain switch…. Nothing. She put her fingers in the drain to see if she could tell what was clogging it. She pulled out a large wad of coarse brown hair. Where had that come from? Her own hair was red and wasn’t at all this texture. She stuck her hand out of the shower and dropped the fur ball in the toilet.

“Gross!” Deloris said as the hair plopped into the bowl.

Deloris stepped out of her shower and grabbed the towel off the towel rack nearby. She heard the phone ringing from the kitchen. She took her time drying off, knowing the machine would get it.

“Deloris? Are you home?” the caller paused. Deloris perked up to listen to the woman’s voice on her answering machine. It was Nancy from work. “Deloris? Well it’s not like you to not call when you aren’t going to be into work. You never showed up Friday night and a few of us here at the office are getting a little worried. Call us.”

Deloris froze, perplexed. What did she mean it wasn’t like her to not show up to work? It’s Saturday! Deloris marched upstairs to her bedroom, opened the laptop that sat on her nightstand and waited patiently for the desktop to come up.

Monday, September 19, 2010

“What!?” Deloris exclaimed. “How could I have slept for….” Deloris thought for a moment, then in an astonished whisper she said to herself “…. Something like 65 hours?”

The Passenger- Part 3

When Deloris’ eyes opened she shrank back from the morning light shining through her car windshield. Her hands went up to her face, blocking the invasive sun. As Deloris grew used to the light she realized she was sitting in the passenger side seat of her car, which was parked in the driveway of her home. Her head was pounding.

“Hangover.” She said aloud, holding her head in her hands with regret.

Deloris opened her car door and stepped out onto the pavement. She walked to the front door, fumbling through her purse furiously for her keys. As she approached the door she looked up slightly, realizing it was opened, keys still dangling from the lock. She stepped cautiously through the threshold of her home, scanning the living room thoroughly for evidence of an intruder. Nothing seemed out of place. She stood in her living room for a moment wondering how drunk she would have needed to be to come home, unlock her front door, only to return to her car to sleep for the night.

Deloris made her way to the bathroom in desperate search of pain killers. As she entered the room she noticed all the cabinets were open, their contents pulled out and strewn around the counters and floor. Someone had been here. They seemed to have been looking for the first aid kit. The kit lye open on the toilet lid, a peroxide bottle spilled over on the floor, the gauze was opened and unraveled. She turned to investigate further and noticed a large bloody handprint on the edge of the sink. Not just large, HUGE! Impossibly huge. Her eyes followed a trail behind the bathroom door where a bloody blanket sat wadded up in the corner. She recognized the blanket as the one she’d had in the trunk of her car.

“What the hell?” Deloris gasped in confusion and horror.

What could she have done? Did she kill someone in a drunken stupor? Did she hide a body? Panic overcame her and she ran from the room, closing the door hard behind her. She ran upstairs to her bedroom. Breathing erratically and crying, she lied down on the bed struggling to get a hold of herself. She tried desperately to piece together the night before.

Deloris had left work early, she remembered that much. She was heading home to change her clothes before meeting some friends from work at a bar near her house. Then…

“What then?” Deloris asked herself out loud. Could she really have gotten so wasted that she’d deleted any memory of making it home? Some sort of retro-blackout? Deloris was not a heavy drinker, so this seemed unlikely.

“Someone must have roofied me!” Deloris exclaimed in horror. But where did the blood come from? What had happened to her? Before she could speculate further a high pitched ringing began in her ears. The room went black as she fell into her pillows.

The Passenger- Part 2

Deloris grabbed the wheel without hesitation, as if the hairy thing’s command possessed her limbs and controlled her motions. Her ears rang again louder than before. It occurred to her even through the distracting pain that the ringing in her ears might be caused by her passenger’s voice. She drove just as she was instructed.

“Take a left here, Deloris.”

Deloris did as she was told, ears ringing. Despite the fact that there was no road to turn onto, no thought of protest entered her mind. She turned her wheel to the left, hard, entering a dark clearing in the forest she’d been driving through for over an hour. She drove until the road was no longer visible in her rearview mirror. Not that she could have looked in the mirror if she wanted to.

“Stop the car, Deloris.”

The thing opened the back door of the car and exited. It walked past Deloris and past the hood of the car for about 40 feet and stopped. Deloris’ headlights lit the path. Deloris could feel the tears that had been welling up in her eyes begin to overflow and fall down her cheeks. She was paralyzed. Not just her body; she couldn’t move her mind forward. She couldn’t think about an escape. She sat in stasis.

The hairy giant kneeled in the grass before a brownish mass lying on the ground. The monster stood up, the mass now draped in its arms. Turning its head to the sky and opening its mouth wide it began to scream. Deloris briefly noted the anguish in the sound of this cry as the sound drowned out all thought, all noise, all sight. Black.

The Passenger

"You know why I'm here, Deloris."

Her ears were ringing so loud she almost didn't notice the foul odor creeping up from the back seat. Before she could completely conceive of what she was smelling she began to retch so hard she didn't notice her car veering over the yellow line. Both hands had left the wheel and were grasping blindly for the window crank. Deloris lowered the window sticking her face out in desperation. The cool night air blew in cleansing away the stench and bringing Deloris back to her senses. She had only a second to mentally curse her old buick and it's ancient turn style windows when she realized her hands were no longer steering the car. She froze in realization that the road still moved steadily underneath her car. As she slowly pulled her head back in the window she felt something warm brush the back of her neck. Deloris flinched, quickly turning around. What she saw incited a panic in her that left her paralyzed, putting together the moment's events. One long, thick, fur covered arm was reaching from the back seat. The arm,clearly attached to the source of the stench, was resting lightly over her shoulder. She followed the huge appendage with her eyes all the way to its end, where a proportionately gigantic hair covered hand grasped the steering wheel, directing the car. Deloris's eyes followed the arm back to its source. The fear she'd felt a moment ago was nothing compared to the new definition of terror that replaced it.

"Sa..sasasa..s..sas...." Deloris stuttered.

"Drive the car, Deloris."

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Forever yours, Ophelia

There is no heart. The heart is a mirage. She whispers lies. She promises oasis and fills your thirsty mouth with sand. She beats you and you ignore her. She pauses and you listen. Like a shadow at the corner of your eye. To hear her is to harbor delusion. To hold her is certain death. I tell you there is no heart! At least none of any consequence.

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