I’ve been holding onto these…

——

STRAND
My Train of Concentration had derailed in a small township known as Grey Mattersville. It’s located directly behind the big graveyard.  The one where my optic nerves are buried.

The once insect-like flicker of the lighting had evolved.  My attention span was soon reduced to a single strand of mozzarella clinging to its Pizza Mother as the horrible, penetrating, Hydrogen Bomb Hand of God dispassionately lifted away a slice for consumption within his drop-ceiling heavens.

CONE
It was a ‘normal’ Thursday when I woke up, but somewhere between the ice cream machine and the donkey, Thursday took on a new, more colorful adjective. At least I have a vanilla-choco swirl cone.

MARKER
As the projectile made it’s instantaneous journey through my guts, a thousand moments passed. Each following the next acted as a marker indicating an invisible dotted line stretching from the tip of her revolver, through me and into the now blood-speckled wall behind me.

POKE
Jumpers almost always remove their glasses before taking the plunge of a rooftop. I admire that. I wouldn’t want the broken glass ground into my freshly hamburgered face either. With my luck, my autopsy would be performed by the one half-retarded coroner in the state and I’d be declared an accidental death. Or worse, a murder. There needs to be zero doubt that I wanted anything other than to die by my own hand or all of this means nothing.

And another thing… those jumpers have the right idea. This shit is taking forever. More cuts would probably expedite the process, but I hadn’t predicted how slippery the blade would become after switching hands.

Listen to me. My life is rapidly shitting out of my arms and all I can do is complain. I mean, it’s two steps. 1. Poke self with knife. 2. Die.

I can’t even die right. And where did the knife go?

Damn it all to hell, I can’t see shit without my glasses on.

HIP
The nursing home is on the phone telling me mom has fallen out of her bed again. Says this is the third time this month. Says the words “shattered” and “hip”.

My first thought is that mom doesn’t have health insurance. The second is wondering if my first thought should have been about her health and not her insurance. The third, I think I forgot to brush my teeth this morning and that doctor is kind of cute.

PEPPERMINT
I’m cleaning off the retarded kid while thrashing my short-term memory for the location of my cigarettes. God, I feel sorry for this kid. Not because he’s stuck in this place. Not because he’s stuck with embarassed parents that only visit twice a year. My pity for him is deeper than that. The poor guy will never have a job. He’ll never have sex. He’ll never be able to read a book. The limits of his accomplishment are eating all the candy out of the visitor’s bowl and stinking of wet dog and peppermint.

As soon as this kid’s hosed off I’m walking next door and smoking at least two full squares.  God does not exist.

VENUS
Our mouths split the atoms in the room with a chain reactive cadence. Spastic breaths escape between the slippery melting pot of saliva and sweat and flesh. She wants to be my Venus. Her Mars? That’s me. Too bad I’m not in the same solar system. I’m out charting new planetary bodies.

ENVY
After the doctor tells me I can go, I spend another hour trying to remember how pants work. For that matter, what are pants? I leave the office, a young woman in tow, yelling something about a bill. There’s something familiar about her and for a moment I consider turning around to conduct research. But only for a moment.

Eventually I find my car. I spend an hour trying to remember how cars work. For that matter, what are cars? An audience gathers to watch as I give the car oral commands. Open! Go! The car does not comply and my audience at how stupid it is.

Oh, how I envy my audience. They know what I’m doing wrong. If only I could know what I’m doing wrong. Maybe then I could do something right.

Wait. What are pants again?

——

© Eric Adams