Flamenco music played in the background as I dance with Susan Sarandon, damn she beautiful. I look down to see my toes swaying to the music on the hardwood floor. Next I noticed my bare knees then a white sheet hanging off of me. I’m in a hospitable gown?
Susan is dressed in one of those gowns made by a famous designer that would be worn on the red carpet. She whispers in my ear, I smile. She smells of lavender and bourbon whiskey. How I miss that smell of whiskey. The aroma and color of the drink was alway the best part for me. To hold a glass in my hand one more time, to smell the fragrant and watch the colors swirl around, that would be good moment.
Susan, I ask “How did I get here” “No idea” she responds. “Dance with me as you used too” “Use to?” I say to myself. I pull her close to my chest the music gets faster we move cross the dance floor. People are staring at us, why not I think to myself I am dancing with Susan Sarandon in a hospitable gown. She whispers in my ears for the second time, I smile.
Hand clapping, the crowd start clapping there hands in syncopated beat to the music. I smile at Susan, “dip” I ask here? Then proceed to dip her on the dance floor genteelly kiss the top of of her chest. The crowd erupts in cheers,I smell of urine. Urine? I just relieved myself on the dance floor, I couldn't feel a thing my body just let it flow. Susan doesn't seem to notice. She whispers in my ears for the third time, I smile.
Susan pulls me close, placing each hand on a cheek of my face. “I had a good time, my conscience is telling me that its time to leave. Follow me, it time to follow me, we had our fun now it time to service your conscience” she said.
The dance floor erupts in flames. The flames do not burn me. Susan moves away from me dancing erotically swaying her hips moving her hands up and dow her body, reaching up and grabbing her hair pulling it into a bum to show off the line of her neck. I stand there engulfed in flames that do not burn. Somebody hands me a glass full of whiskey, I drink staring down. “I’m a lonely soul. Please don’t keep me waiting. I tired of waiting for you. I had nobody till I met you, dance with Susan Sarandon” I cry out to her.
Susan whispers in my ear for a the last time “I expected you to accomplished nothing, so you could try anything.
Six months later I awoke from a coma.
Kiss me , kiss me, kiss me Susan Sarandon were the fist words I spoke.
Showing posts with label Short Story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Short Story. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Unnoticeable ~ Short Story
I always awake at dawn. Looking over at my alarm clock and think, why bother to set it? Make the bed, let the dog out, open the fridge, grab the coffee and repeat everyday. This is my morning ritual. Oh yeah forgot; check e-mail, read web while coffee is brewing.
I work from home and this gives me liberties that few others have, such as working in boxers and optional showering. I can go days without seeing or talking to anyone, especially talking. I do get out. I like to walk. I like to sit in coffeehouses and write. This makes me feel like I am the last of the beatnik generation of writers. Getting all Kerouac-O-Wacky rambling on about the unnoticeable-ness of my life and how odd it is to be self-aware of my own unnoticeable-ness, well…that just makes me feel special.
It has been seven days since the last time I left the house. My days have been a fog of writing, photography and practicing the guitar. No special goal in mind. I am lucky enough that I have enough money in the bank and no schedule to answer to. So, I go into hermit mode from time to time.
The weather has changed; autumn has arrived and with that came my nightmares. Never found out why but when summer leaves and autumn arrives I get nightmares; vicious, crazy, scary nightmares of people who only look like living silhouettes and shadows.
I think this is why I awake at dawn. As soon as the night leaves, my body needs the light to free itself from the terrors that nighttime brings on.
I do what I can to keep the nightmares under control. I drink Scotch, lots and lots of Scotch whisky. God bless the distilleries of Scotland for single malt. For reasons unknown to me only Scotch can help; it is not a savior, but it helps. I think it is the slight coma that too much scotch can bring on. Red wine enhances the nightmares; beer does nothing to help and chamomile tea just pisses off the demons in my head.
Day eight, need to get out of the house. I smell from the past seven days of stale air that I sat in. Need food, make myself a tomato sandwich. Toast the bread grab the last tomato from my garden, add some fresh basil, and smear on red pepper hummus. Wash the meal down with a dark beer. It’s ok to have beer with breakfast when you are accountable to no one. Need a days worth of supplies before heading out the door. Grab my journal, laptop, two pens (deliberately leave my phone at home) and toss in a bag of cashews. Tennis shoes on, fleece pullover on and out the door on a forty-five minute walk to Uptown coffee where I can be all-judgmental-of–society while drinking black coffee.
The air is wet and I can see my breath as I walk up the hill to Bower Road. The neighborhood is quiet. Day-job-people, thank God I don’t have one of those. Surprised more people don’t go cubical than postal….I guess we all lead our own life of 9 to 5 repetition. Lucky for me pants are optional in my life of repetition.
Turn the corner at Saint Clair Hospital and I watch a bus let out.
Black silhouette shadows of people get off the bus. My heart stops, I lose my breath. I stand frozen as the black silhouette shadows move past me. Heat - they give off heat, like standing next to a coal furnace and the noise is unbearable; it is as if ten thousand conversations are happening all at the same time.
The bus pulls away and I am alone on the street. I catch my breath and panic at the same time. I sit on the curb. I question…Am I awake? This is a dream, it must be a dream? I am awake, f-ing awake, cars are moving, birds are chirping. Look left then right; no black silhouette shadows. This must be the onset of schizophrenia. Maybe I am a better writer than I thought. Pull it together, get up and walk.
I make it to the coffeehouse all the while questioning the onset of my crazy mind disease. My heart never slows back down. Scotch. I need scotch. Walk in the coffeehouse; no one is looking up. I go directly into the bathroom and splash water on my face. Looking into the mirror I cannot see my reflection, only a black silhouette shadow of myself. I can see everything else reflecting in the mirror. The sink, toilet, green wallpaper, the photo on the walls, but not me. It’s like looking at a photo of yourself where someone has rubbed black ink over the image. As I move, the black silhouette shadow moves; as I splash more water on my face so does the black silhouette shadow. As I turn and move so does the black silhouette shadow.
This is not real. I open the bathroom door.
The coffeehouse is filled with black silhouette shadows drinking coffee and having conversation, reading books, typing on laptops, having conversations…all this is real. I can see the books, laptops, coffee cups; I can see movement in everything. I can hear the voices, too many voices…
I am cold, so cold. I black out.
I awake later, no idea how long I was out. Nobody came to help me. I lay on the floor balled-up right out side the bathroom door in the fetal position.
My vision comes back into focus slowly. Head hurts and my mouth is dry. Looking down I notice that I can see my hands, I can see my feet, I touch my face and feel the whiskers on my chin. Rub my hands through my hair, I am alive…I am alive. I get up and go back into the bathroom, take a deep breath and look in the mirror…black silhouette shadow. The room is in the reflection but I cannot see my own face. I can look down and see my hands but only the smoke fog of my reflection can been seen in the mirror.
Leave the bathroom for a second time and walk into the coffeehouse.
The coffeehouse is empty. The black silhouette shadows are gone. I am alone.
The smells of fresh coffee and baked goods are in the air. I help myself to a blueberry muffin from behind the counter; poor a cup of coffee and sit down with a Wall Street Journal newspaper that was left sitting on the bar. Look at the date on the top of the paper: October 5th 2010. The headline reads “New CEO at Twitter”, “Stocks slump and Obama Scales Back on Legislative Plans”. This is too mediocre of a day for this to be a dream.
Take a bite of the muffin and think to myself that this is the best damn muffin I ever had. With onset of mental disease comes the blessing of clarity. I giggle out loud; a pure Zen moment during the onset of schizophrenia. The coffee is burnt.
I grab the fork on the table and stab my left forearm; blood comes out, definitely not a dream. Grab the old napkins left on the table to stop the blood.
This is a genuine experience. Odd but genuine. I can see my body, just not in the mirror.
Life is happening outside this coffeehouse, but inside I sit alone.
Alien abductions? I have been reading “The Transmigration of Timothy Archer” by Philip K. Dick. Nightmares, scotch and reading way too much Philip K. Dick could bring on my mental break.
I was recently researching government secret human experimentation, could I have stumbled onto something? Could this be a cover up by bringing on madness so I don’t go public? Probably not since I have no findings past Google conspiracy search on “human radiation experiments conducted by the U.S. government.”
I never did learn what brought on my nightmares or the black-silhouette-shadow-people of my dreams. All I do know is that they come to life every autumn and leave in the springtime.
In between wakening life of the day and haunting nightmare of the dark…
I am unnoticeable….
I work from home and this gives me liberties that few others have, such as working in boxers and optional showering. I can go days without seeing or talking to anyone, especially talking. I do get out. I like to walk. I like to sit in coffeehouses and write. This makes me feel like I am the last of the beatnik generation of writers. Getting all Kerouac-O-Wacky rambling on about the unnoticeable-ness of my life and how odd it is to be self-aware of my own unnoticeable-ness, well…that just makes me feel special.
It has been seven days since the last time I left the house. My days have been a fog of writing, photography and practicing the guitar. No special goal in mind. I am lucky enough that I have enough money in the bank and no schedule to answer to. So, I go into hermit mode from time to time.
The weather has changed; autumn has arrived and with that came my nightmares. Never found out why but when summer leaves and autumn arrives I get nightmares; vicious, crazy, scary nightmares of people who only look like living silhouettes and shadows.
I think this is why I awake at dawn. As soon as the night leaves, my body needs the light to free itself from the terrors that nighttime brings on.
I do what I can to keep the nightmares under control. I drink Scotch, lots and lots of Scotch whisky. God bless the distilleries of Scotland for single malt. For reasons unknown to me only Scotch can help; it is not a savior, but it helps. I think it is the slight coma that too much scotch can bring on. Red wine enhances the nightmares; beer does nothing to help and chamomile tea just pisses off the demons in my head.
Day eight, need to get out of the house. I smell from the past seven days of stale air that I sat in. Need food, make myself a tomato sandwich. Toast the bread grab the last tomato from my garden, add some fresh basil, and smear on red pepper hummus. Wash the meal down with a dark beer. It’s ok to have beer with breakfast when you are accountable to no one. Need a days worth of supplies before heading out the door. Grab my journal, laptop, two pens (deliberately leave my phone at home) and toss in a bag of cashews. Tennis shoes on, fleece pullover on and out the door on a forty-five minute walk to Uptown coffee where I can be all-judgmental-of–society while drinking black coffee.
The air is wet and I can see my breath as I walk up the hill to Bower Road. The neighborhood is quiet. Day-job-people, thank God I don’t have one of those. Surprised more people don’t go cubical than postal….I guess we all lead our own life of 9 to 5 repetition. Lucky for me pants are optional in my life of repetition.
Turn the corner at Saint Clair Hospital and I watch a bus let out.
Black silhouette shadows of people get off the bus. My heart stops, I lose my breath. I stand frozen as the black silhouette shadows move past me. Heat - they give off heat, like standing next to a coal furnace and the noise is unbearable; it is as if ten thousand conversations are happening all at the same time.
The bus pulls away and I am alone on the street. I catch my breath and panic at the same time. I sit on the curb. I question…Am I awake? This is a dream, it must be a dream? I am awake, f-ing awake, cars are moving, birds are chirping. Look left then right; no black silhouette shadows. This must be the onset of schizophrenia. Maybe I am a better writer than I thought. Pull it together, get up and walk.
I make it to the coffeehouse all the while questioning the onset of my crazy mind disease. My heart never slows back down. Scotch. I need scotch. Walk in the coffeehouse; no one is looking up. I go directly into the bathroom and splash water on my face. Looking into the mirror I cannot see my reflection, only a black silhouette shadow of myself. I can see everything else reflecting in the mirror. The sink, toilet, green wallpaper, the photo on the walls, but not me. It’s like looking at a photo of yourself where someone has rubbed black ink over the image. As I move, the black silhouette shadow moves; as I splash more water on my face so does the black silhouette shadow. As I turn and move so does the black silhouette shadow.
This is not real. I open the bathroom door.
The coffeehouse is filled with black silhouette shadows drinking coffee and having conversation, reading books, typing on laptops, having conversations…all this is real. I can see the books, laptops, coffee cups; I can see movement in everything. I can hear the voices, too many voices…
I am cold, so cold. I black out.
I awake later, no idea how long I was out. Nobody came to help me. I lay on the floor balled-up right out side the bathroom door in the fetal position.
My vision comes back into focus slowly. Head hurts and my mouth is dry. Looking down I notice that I can see my hands, I can see my feet, I touch my face and feel the whiskers on my chin. Rub my hands through my hair, I am alive…I am alive. I get up and go back into the bathroom, take a deep breath and look in the mirror…black silhouette shadow. The room is in the reflection but I cannot see my own face. I can look down and see my hands but only the smoke fog of my reflection can been seen in the mirror.
Leave the bathroom for a second time and walk into the coffeehouse.
The coffeehouse is empty. The black silhouette shadows are gone. I am alone.
The smells of fresh coffee and baked goods are in the air. I help myself to a blueberry muffin from behind the counter; poor a cup of coffee and sit down with a Wall Street Journal newspaper that was left sitting on the bar. Look at the date on the top of the paper: October 5th 2010. The headline reads “New CEO at Twitter”, “Stocks slump and Obama Scales Back on Legislative Plans”. This is too mediocre of a day for this to be a dream.
Take a bite of the muffin and think to myself that this is the best damn muffin I ever had. With onset of mental disease comes the blessing of clarity. I giggle out loud; a pure Zen moment during the onset of schizophrenia. The coffee is burnt.
I grab the fork on the table and stab my left forearm; blood comes out, definitely not a dream. Grab the old napkins left on the table to stop the blood.
This is a genuine experience. Odd but genuine. I can see my body, just not in the mirror.
Life is happening outside this coffeehouse, but inside I sit alone.
Alien abductions? I have been reading “The Transmigration of Timothy Archer” by Philip K. Dick. Nightmares, scotch and reading way too much Philip K. Dick could bring on my mental break.
I was recently researching government secret human experimentation, could I have stumbled onto something? Could this be a cover up by bringing on madness so I don’t go public? Probably not since I have no findings past Google conspiracy search on “human radiation experiments conducted by the U.S. government.”
I never did learn what brought on my nightmares or the black-silhouette-shadow-people of my dreams. All I do know is that they come to life every autumn and leave in the springtime.
In between wakening life of the day and haunting nightmare of the dark…
I am unnoticeable….
Monday, November 30, 2009
The Man Who Forgot to Die ~ Short Story
A warm blanket covers me, breathing in cold morning air in a quiet room. “Another day”, I say to myself and then get out of bed and put on blue slippers.
First thing—pee. Second thing—wash face, and next brush teeth. Staring in the mirror is such an unusual thing for me each morning. Gazing at the reflection and trying to figure out who is looking back. Who does this reflection belong to?
“The reflection belongs to me”, I say out loud; “You are the man who forgot to die.” That is what the neighborhood kids have dubbed me; The Man Who Forgot To Die.
That’s the question in my head, that same repetitive question that will not go away. It will always wake me at exactly 7am. I never need the aid of an alarm clock. I have always gotten up at exactly 7am since the incident. What is up with that? Who gets up with a haunting repetitive question in their mind every day? Me, I acclaim, the man who forgot to die.
Monday 7am, the third of December I awake to the question of Existence. Not the question of ‘do I exist’ but the why and how of the longevity of my existence.
This is what I think about at 7am under a warm blanket, breathing in cold morning air. My long existence…
My existence has been mundane at best, not at all a great reality, nor a horrible one either. In all truth it has been a boring life, mostly.
I am the man who forgot to die…in hindsight it is a peculiar thing to put out of your mind, but forget I did. In truth, I did not forget to die. It was more like I didn’t remember that I was supposed to die.
It seems only natural to think about your death. Far as I know there is no cure for that condition called birth. If you are born you will die. Harsh, nonetheless true. Death has no cure.
This is the oddity of all the oddities…if you are born you will die. In between the light of birth and the darkness of death you get to think about it. On some random day for a haphazard reason you will die and there is nothing you can do to stop it. If that wasn’t bad enough you get no control over the how, why or what of your looming death. There is suicide for the control freaks, but that is a bad choice for those who have been baptized.
The compelling subject of death has missed my thoughts; I question my existence and speculate about what purpose it has. Bloody hell there is so much rubbish in my head. Truly maddening, repetitive and worthless…I need coffee, lots of it.
I turn off the running water, flush the toilet and go down to the kitchen.
Seven twenty two AM. Black coffee and toast, this is my same breakfast…mundane…isn’t it? I do use different jellies to break up the humdrum of it all.
On my kitchen table I keep a large yellow legal writing pad. In the morning with coffee and toast I like to write about myself, at least what I understand regarding my way of life. I hope that keeping lists, notes and casual whatnots about my life will help. It is my intention that these words may be of use to somebody some day. I feel bad for the poor bastard who needs these words.
Today’s page is titled ~
The Man Who Forgot to Die
~ I did not cheat death but forgot, so I remembered later, much later
~ No supernatural gifts or powers that I know of
~ No special diet or exercise program, in truth I am a slovenly lad
~ No fountain of youth or magical elixirs
~ Not a vampire
~ Not cursed, that I know of
~ Not blessed, that I know of
~ I do not pray or meditate or talk with the dead
~ Never studied on how to sustain long life
~ I did buy a juice machine off of a late night infomercial, maybe that had something to do with it? Probably not. I only used the juicer twice. Beet and celery juice is dreadful…
~ Spent a long time in a coma or hibernation or deep suspended sleep. The doctors never did agree on what to call it
*****
Twelve years ago I walked out of Saint Clair Memorial Hospital with three Kurt Vonnegut novels, two Beatles CD’s and the complete Pittsburgh Steelers decade of champions history of the 1970's in my head and not much else.
I knew how to tie my shoes and how to find my way home. I knew where I kept the coffee and how to find the post office. I even remembered my way through the local woods and short cuts to get across town.
What I couldn’t remember was:
~ My name
~ Age
~ If I had parents
~ If I had siblings
~ If I went to school or held a job
~ Was I liked or was I a self-absorbed wanker
~ Did I know love, did I break hearts or have my heart broken
~ Indian, Thai or Italian?
~ Why on earth my closet was filled up with tie-dye t-shirts, black skinny ties and a large woolly sweater with leather patches covering the elbows?
~ What was disco?
Nobody was quite sure how long my stay in Saint Clair Memorial Hospital was or even how I got there.
When I arrived at Saint Clair’s their record-keeping system consisted of hand-written notes on 3x5 white index cards that a nurse would type up in some meaningful order for the next physician to use.
When I left, patient information was readily available on something they called smart-phones that had no resemblance to a phone at all, more like a hand-held calculator with no numbers. A flat screen that gave you information when you touched it, as far as I could tell it responded to your thoughts and finger’s needs.
A doctor would walk into my room pull out this tiny black plastic gadget, wave his fingers over it and tell me that my vitals are looking good. Next the black-plastic-calculator-looking gadget would ring or chirp or play music and that was the warning sign that the doctor would say good-bye to me and walk out of the room.
With the switch from the pen to wireless technology my medical history was lost, the majority of it anyway. Dating my stay in the hospital it would appear that I have been here at least 23 years, best guess.
For the past seven years I had the same nurse; Dolores.
Dolores filled me in on much of what happened. She was the one who would read me the Vonnegut novels and play the Beatles music for me. Dolores felt sorry for me that nobody ever came to visit. Those novels and music were her son’s favorites during the wars that he was in.
Wars? What did I miss?
Dolores told me about how her son gave his life for us in a war and how the world has fallen into a world of terror, sac-religion and worst of all you can watch it all on the tellie.
So, Dolores would sit with me and mourn her son. Trying to comfort me with some of his favorite things even though I was sleeping. Dolores the Kind Nurse.
One day I awoke in Saint Clair Memorial Hospital with Dolores the Kind Nurse sitting next to me.
I was refreshed, strong and ready to go. I could bend over and touch my toes, I could do push-ups, was not sore or achy. My muscles should have been atrophied and deteriorating, but they were not. I had energy.
The explanation that the doctors had for me was that I was in a different state of consciousness during my long stay at the hospital. I was neither awake nor sleeping or dreaming. I was in an “alternate state of consciousness” was all they could figure.
They diagnosed it this way because apparently my heartbeat and brainwave activity continuously stayed the same. Neither slowing down nor speeding up. I am told that when you’re in a coma or asleep you will still have changes in brainwave activity and heart rate. I did not.
The comparison they gave me was that my brainwave activity and heart rate could be qualified as a marathon runner, running at peak condition that never altered pace or thoughts, for 23 years non stop.
To the doctors I was neither man nor angel or demon. I was unexplainable. This alternate state of consciousness left me ageless.
I aged but less; I grew strong during my absence.
I had some gray hairs on my chin and flecks of gray in my hair but I was muscular with little to no body fat. I had no wrinkles or age spots on my skin. I stood tall, well built with good posture and bone structure.
The experience should have left me decaying; in reverse it made me trans-human.
Three days after my awakening, with clarification from Kind Nurse Dolores, a barrage of questioning and tests from the medical staff, I walked out of Saint Clair Memorial Hospital with 3 Vonnegut novels, 2 Beatles CD’s and a hug from Kind Nurse Dolores.
Shortly after leaving the hospital I found out that I had become some sort of media-medical-celebrity. Everybody recognized me from the tellie, newspapers and Internet hoopla…but no one remembered me.
What type of blimey bastard must of I been? Twenty-three plus years in a hospital with no visitors and now all this media-medical-hype and still no one remembered me. I left this world and went to sleep and nobody missed me…
Over the next few years people began to think of me as this strange trans-human-being. People would walk up to me and ask all sorts of questions about my alternate state of consciousness. I favored calling it my “long-afternoon-nap”, but nobody seemed to care what I preferred.
Questions regarding the afterlife, heaven, hell, purgatory; they would want me to lay hands on them or they wanted to touch my hair for good luck. They would ask for my blessing over them or to heal their sick.
I had no answers for them. No gifts of wisdom to give them.
“Surely that occurrence must have had existential meaning to it”, they would say, or “What did you see” or “What did you learn”, they would ask of me.
Sorry to report—no visions, no knowledge, no memory…
It was disappointing to see their faces when I told them the only truth that I knew, which was “Sorry, I can not help you.”
After a while of not being able to stand all the disillusionment that I was causing in the masses, I decided to start giving one blank statement to all the hundreds of questions; Be Nice.
Be Nice ~ that was it, that was all I could come up with. Not much of a curbside prophesy but I figured with a statement like that I could do no harm.
Just like that I became “The Man Who Forgot To Die”, walking the streets telling people to “Be Nice” to one another. It looks as if nobody was listening at any rate. No wonder why I took my-long-afternoon-nap.
*****
Passing a church bake sale I could smell fresh apple pies. I remembered that I liked apple pie but I could not remember if I ever held a job or went on a date. Go figure.
I walked down into the church basement and heard my name spoken out load for the very first time and at that moment it all came back to me, my existence, my purpose, and my name.
I nun falls to her knees in front of me and said,
“Dear God”.
“Yes”, I answer.
First thing—pee. Second thing—wash face, and next brush teeth. Staring in the mirror is such an unusual thing for me each morning. Gazing at the reflection and trying to figure out who is looking back. Who does this reflection belong to?
“The reflection belongs to me”, I say out loud; “You are the man who forgot to die.” That is what the neighborhood kids have dubbed me; The Man Who Forgot To Die.
That’s the question in my head, that same repetitive question that will not go away. It will always wake me at exactly 7am. I never need the aid of an alarm clock. I have always gotten up at exactly 7am since the incident. What is up with that? Who gets up with a haunting repetitive question in their mind every day? Me, I acclaim, the man who forgot to die.
Monday 7am, the third of December I awake to the question of Existence. Not the question of ‘do I exist’ but the why and how of the longevity of my existence.
This is what I think about at 7am under a warm blanket, breathing in cold morning air. My long existence…
My existence has been mundane at best, not at all a great reality, nor a horrible one either. In all truth it has been a boring life, mostly.
I am the man who forgot to die…in hindsight it is a peculiar thing to put out of your mind, but forget I did. In truth, I did not forget to die. It was more like I didn’t remember that I was supposed to die.
It seems only natural to think about your death. Far as I know there is no cure for that condition called birth. If you are born you will die. Harsh, nonetheless true. Death has no cure.
This is the oddity of all the oddities…if you are born you will die. In between the light of birth and the darkness of death you get to think about it. On some random day for a haphazard reason you will die and there is nothing you can do to stop it. If that wasn’t bad enough you get no control over the how, why or what of your looming death. There is suicide for the control freaks, but that is a bad choice for those who have been baptized.
The compelling subject of death has missed my thoughts; I question my existence and speculate about what purpose it has. Bloody hell there is so much rubbish in my head. Truly maddening, repetitive and worthless…I need coffee, lots of it.
I turn off the running water, flush the toilet and go down to the kitchen.
Seven twenty two AM. Black coffee and toast, this is my same breakfast…mundane…isn’t it? I do use different jellies to break up the humdrum of it all.
On my kitchen table I keep a large yellow legal writing pad. In the morning with coffee and toast I like to write about myself, at least what I understand regarding my way of life. I hope that keeping lists, notes and casual whatnots about my life will help. It is my intention that these words may be of use to somebody some day. I feel bad for the poor bastard who needs these words.
Today’s page is titled ~
The Man Who Forgot to Die
~ I did not cheat death but forgot, so I remembered later, much later
~ No supernatural gifts or powers that I know of
~ No special diet or exercise program, in truth I am a slovenly lad
~ No fountain of youth or magical elixirs
~ Not a vampire
~ Not cursed, that I know of
~ Not blessed, that I know of
~ I do not pray or meditate or talk with the dead
~ Never studied on how to sustain long life
~ I did buy a juice machine off of a late night infomercial, maybe that had something to do with it? Probably not. I only used the juicer twice. Beet and celery juice is dreadful…
~ Spent a long time in a coma or hibernation or deep suspended sleep. The doctors never did agree on what to call it
*****
Twelve years ago I walked out of Saint Clair Memorial Hospital with three Kurt Vonnegut novels, two Beatles CD’s and the complete Pittsburgh Steelers decade of champions history of the 1970's in my head and not much else.
I knew how to tie my shoes and how to find my way home. I knew where I kept the coffee and how to find the post office. I even remembered my way through the local woods and short cuts to get across town.
What I couldn’t remember was:
~ My name
~ Age
~ If I had parents
~ If I had siblings
~ If I went to school or held a job
~ Was I liked or was I a self-absorbed wanker
~ Did I know love, did I break hearts or have my heart broken
~ Indian, Thai or Italian?
~ Why on earth my closet was filled up with tie-dye t-shirts, black skinny ties and a large woolly sweater with leather patches covering the elbows?
~ What was disco?
Nobody was quite sure how long my stay in Saint Clair Memorial Hospital was or even how I got there.
When I arrived at Saint Clair’s their record-keeping system consisted of hand-written notes on 3x5 white index cards that a nurse would type up in some meaningful order for the next physician to use.
When I left, patient information was readily available on something they called smart-phones that had no resemblance to a phone at all, more like a hand-held calculator with no numbers. A flat screen that gave you information when you touched it, as far as I could tell it responded to your thoughts and finger’s needs.
A doctor would walk into my room pull out this tiny black plastic gadget, wave his fingers over it and tell me that my vitals are looking good. Next the black-plastic-calculator-looking gadget would ring or chirp or play music and that was the warning sign that the doctor would say good-bye to me and walk out of the room.
With the switch from the pen to wireless technology my medical history was lost, the majority of it anyway. Dating my stay in the hospital it would appear that I have been here at least 23 years, best guess.
For the past seven years I had the same nurse; Dolores.
Dolores filled me in on much of what happened. She was the one who would read me the Vonnegut novels and play the Beatles music for me. Dolores felt sorry for me that nobody ever came to visit. Those novels and music were her son’s favorites during the wars that he was in.
Wars? What did I miss?
Dolores told me about how her son gave his life for us in a war and how the world has fallen into a world of terror, sac-religion and worst of all you can watch it all on the tellie.
So, Dolores would sit with me and mourn her son. Trying to comfort me with some of his favorite things even though I was sleeping. Dolores the Kind Nurse.
One day I awoke in Saint Clair Memorial Hospital with Dolores the Kind Nurse sitting next to me.
I was refreshed, strong and ready to go. I could bend over and touch my toes, I could do push-ups, was not sore or achy. My muscles should have been atrophied and deteriorating, but they were not. I had energy.
The explanation that the doctors had for me was that I was in a different state of consciousness during my long stay at the hospital. I was neither awake nor sleeping or dreaming. I was in an “alternate state of consciousness” was all they could figure.
They diagnosed it this way because apparently my heartbeat and brainwave activity continuously stayed the same. Neither slowing down nor speeding up. I am told that when you’re in a coma or asleep you will still have changes in brainwave activity and heart rate. I did not.
The comparison they gave me was that my brainwave activity and heart rate could be qualified as a marathon runner, running at peak condition that never altered pace or thoughts, for 23 years non stop.
To the doctors I was neither man nor angel or demon. I was unexplainable. This alternate state of consciousness left me ageless.
I aged but less; I grew strong during my absence.
I had some gray hairs on my chin and flecks of gray in my hair but I was muscular with little to no body fat. I had no wrinkles or age spots on my skin. I stood tall, well built with good posture and bone structure.
The experience should have left me decaying; in reverse it made me trans-human.
Three days after my awakening, with clarification from Kind Nurse Dolores, a barrage of questioning and tests from the medical staff, I walked out of Saint Clair Memorial Hospital with 3 Vonnegut novels, 2 Beatles CD’s and a hug from Kind Nurse Dolores.
Shortly after leaving the hospital I found out that I had become some sort of media-medical-celebrity. Everybody recognized me from the tellie, newspapers and Internet hoopla…but no one remembered me.
What type of blimey bastard must of I been? Twenty-three plus years in a hospital with no visitors and now all this media-medical-hype and still no one remembered me. I left this world and went to sleep and nobody missed me…
Over the next few years people began to think of me as this strange trans-human-being. People would walk up to me and ask all sorts of questions about my alternate state of consciousness. I favored calling it my “long-afternoon-nap”, but nobody seemed to care what I preferred.
Questions regarding the afterlife, heaven, hell, purgatory; they would want me to lay hands on them or they wanted to touch my hair for good luck. They would ask for my blessing over them or to heal their sick.
I had no answers for them. No gifts of wisdom to give them.
“Surely that occurrence must have had existential meaning to it”, they would say, or “What did you see” or “What did you learn”, they would ask of me.
Sorry to report—no visions, no knowledge, no memory…
It was disappointing to see their faces when I told them the only truth that I knew, which was “Sorry, I can not help you.”
After a while of not being able to stand all the disillusionment that I was causing in the masses, I decided to start giving one blank statement to all the hundreds of questions; Be Nice.
Be Nice ~ that was it, that was all I could come up with. Not much of a curbside prophesy but I figured with a statement like that I could do no harm.
Just like that I became “The Man Who Forgot To Die”, walking the streets telling people to “Be Nice” to one another. It looks as if nobody was listening at any rate. No wonder why I took my-long-afternoon-nap.
*****
Passing a church bake sale I could smell fresh apple pies. I remembered that I liked apple pie but I could not remember if I ever held a job or went on a date. Go figure.
I walked down into the church basement and heard my name spoken out load for the very first time and at that moment it all came back to me, my existence, my purpose, and my name.
I nun falls to her knees in front of me and said,
“Dear God”.
“Yes”, I answer.
Friday, November 6, 2009
The Abandoning ~ Short Story
The Abandoning ~ Short Story
Dear…
Mr. & Mrs. House; that’s my parents and they love coffee and not much else. They have 7 kids and I am the 7th. Max, that’s me. Coffee that is their life actually was their life.
Mr. & Mrs. House up at 6:30am, by 6:35 they are sitting at a small kitchen table built for two. Yellow formica table top with four rusted steel legs two chairs that are permanently wrapped in a thick plastic with faded pink flowers imprinted on the cushions.
My Mom makes the coffee like a sacred ritual. She opens the big blue can, takes a deep breath of the grounds and then four large scoops into a stainless steel coffee pot that was given to them as a wedding gift. They sit at that table and wait the 4 minutes and 32 seconds for life to begin, again. After the 1st cup is drank my father pours the 2nd cup for the both of them and then looks at his wife and says, “Don’t say I never do anything for you.” He says this everyday and not much else to her. My Mom just smiles and reads yesterday’s newspaper.
This is what I wake up to; the smell of coffee, and two fat parents in a small kitchen who could care less about me. To be fair, at least they treat me like all their others kids. The siblings seven: the two oldest in jail for drugs, next set got the hell out of here over ten years ago. I don’t see either of them very often but they do send me books and music at Christmas and on my birthday. That leaves the two siblings that I should be close with, my brother & sister. I am not for no particular reason. We do not fight or have different views; we are simply distant from one another. It’s like when you see a cousin every other year at a family event. Sure there is a family resemblance and polite conversation, nonetheless he is a stranger to you. That’s us as siblings; strangers who are polite.
As for me being born as lucky number 7, well that is not clear to me yet. To say that my arrival into this world was a surprise would be an understatement. If the New York Giants did not win the Super Bowl in 1987 there is a good chance that I would not of been born. But here I am at this computer telling you my stories and hoping somebody out there is reading them. They say that you choose your parents before you’re born in the great Hall of Bluff in Heaven. I have no idea what I was thinking up there in the after life or the before life or whatever you want to call it. All I know is that I must have been up for a challenge choosing Mr. & Mrs. House.
Nine months and 12 days after the Giants won the Super Bowl my parents finally got around to giving me a name. There was no debate or thought as to what to name me; they just didn’t get around to it.
On day 12 of life they decided on a name for me. At 6:39am one minute before the coffee would be ready. Mrs. House holds ups her beloved blue can of coffee and looks at Mr. House and says “How about Maxwell?” So, Mr. & Mrs. House named their 7th child after their true love. That must mean something, right?
Searching for life,
~MH
*****
Dear…
It has been 4 years since the abandoning. I live alone on a small plot of live land on a dead planet. As far as I know I am the only one left. When I say dead planet, I mean dead. If you walk off my land the world is gone. No people, no buildings, no trees, no plants, no air, no sky, no water, no memories; only death. It is like one of those photos of the Moon or Mars, a crater of dead rock suspended in space with no purpose. Accept for my small plot of land.
Is this purgatory or paradise, paradise lost or paradise found? I have not discovered that answer yet. Why was I spared from the abandoning? I do not know. I am the last of humankind, all extinct but me enveloped in silence, the last to speak or to use language.
Why publish these letters if nobody is left to read them?
The abandoning left me with this land, one working computer and an internet connection. A single solar panel on the house powers the computer and there must be a satellite left up in space that I can get an internet connect from. This is all just a guess. I have no explanation for this and have stopped trying to find one a long time a go.
The internet is filled up with the wisdom of my ancestors; I will have no descendants to tell my stories to. The Abandoning left me this vessel for communication. It must mean something, and this is why I write these letters.
Searching for life,
~MH
*****
Dear…
Up at 6:30am, I must be a creator of breading, I say to myself out loud. No coffee but black tea and raw almonds provided by the land. This will do. Twelve raw almonds I must eat every morning before I start my day. I have no inkling why it has to be twelve, but twelve it must be. OCD in purgatory or paradise.
Day 1,468 I sit in the kitchen as my parents did. Starting out the same bay window, with the same smoke yellowed curtains with a blue dove pattern. From this window I can see the only other sign of life left on the planet and it’s actually a sign. A real sign; a billboard. A billboard that sits on the very edge of my land and a death planet, separated by advertising.
This billboard is not the typical roadside billboard that you’re used to seeing, it’s enormous. Think of the Las Vegas strip on steroids. This black and white structure stands 50ft high by 100 feet long and it reads…
Searching for life,
~MH
*****
Dear…
Yes, it was maddening. The world is gone. I awoke to nothing. No violence, no war, no rapture, no explanation, nothing. Writing this I am not sure if I am sane or insane. This is no dream. The land and the billboard told me so. Not in a voice or a feeling but their existence gives me reason to believe.
My land is perfect. It is everything I need to sustain my life; hell it has everything I need to grow old and fat. Freshwater stream with fish, an orchard of fruit trees, rows and rows of vegetable gardens, birds in the sky, squirrels and chipmunks on the ground. I live on the perfect farm; a land of perennial bounty with none of the work.
Traveling this land I now know so well I feel guilty if a have to kill any animal for food since now these animals with the land are my community…my people. My only predator is time.
I have to go now. The sun is setting and I’m losing power.
Searching for life,
~MH
*****
Dear…
I play guitar, a 67 Martian acoustic. This instrument holds memories of the life I was living before the abandoning. I played too well not to be a professional musician but not well enough to be noticed in my profession. Now I sit at the edge of my land under the shade of the billboard and play for the audience that I wish was listening.
Reminiscent sounds of clapping in the distance...could it be?
Two walking shadows at the foot of the billboard move towards me. I cannot understand nor believe it. I run towards the billboard.
“Hello Maxwell.” Says the man.
“Why...how...who are?” I ask dumbfounded
“You say that every time we meet Maxwell.” He says with a strange, knowing look on his face. "This is my wife Eve and I am Adam."
Dear…
Mr. & Mrs. House; that’s my parents and they love coffee and not much else. They have 7 kids and I am the 7th. Max, that’s me. Coffee that is their life actually was their life.
Mr. & Mrs. House up at 6:30am, by 6:35 they are sitting at a small kitchen table built for two. Yellow formica table top with four rusted steel legs two chairs that are permanently wrapped in a thick plastic with faded pink flowers imprinted on the cushions.
My Mom makes the coffee like a sacred ritual. She opens the big blue can, takes a deep breath of the grounds and then four large scoops into a stainless steel coffee pot that was given to them as a wedding gift. They sit at that table and wait the 4 minutes and 32 seconds for life to begin, again. After the 1st cup is drank my father pours the 2nd cup for the both of them and then looks at his wife and says, “Don’t say I never do anything for you.” He says this everyday and not much else to her. My Mom just smiles and reads yesterday’s newspaper.
This is what I wake up to; the smell of coffee, and two fat parents in a small kitchen who could care less about me. To be fair, at least they treat me like all their others kids. The siblings seven: the two oldest in jail for drugs, next set got the hell out of here over ten years ago. I don’t see either of them very often but they do send me books and music at Christmas and on my birthday. That leaves the two siblings that I should be close with, my brother & sister. I am not for no particular reason. We do not fight or have different views; we are simply distant from one another. It’s like when you see a cousin every other year at a family event. Sure there is a family resemblance and polite conversation, nonetheless he is a stranger to you. That’s us as siblings; strangers who are polite.
As for me being born as lucky number 7, well that is not clear to me yet. To say that my arrival into this world was a surprise would be an understatement. If the New York Giants did not win the Super Bowl in 1987 there is a good chance that I would not of been born. But here I am at this computer telling you my stories and hoping somebody out there is reading them. They say that you choose your parents before you’re born in the great Hall of Bluff in Heaven. I have no idea what I was thinking up there in the after life or the before life or whatever you want to call it. All I know is that I must have been up for a challenge choosing Mr. & Mrs. House.
Nine months and 12 days after the Giants won the Super Bowl my parents finally got around to giving me a name. There was no debate or thought as to what to name me; they just didn’t get around to it.
On day 12 of life they decided on a name for me. At 6:39am one minute before the coffee would be ready. Mrs. House holds ups her beloved blue can of coffee and looks at Mr. House and says “How about Maxwell?” So, Mr. & Mrs. House named their 7th child after their true love. That must mean something, right?
Searching for life,
~MH
*****
Dear…
It has been 4 years since the abandoning. I live alone on a small plot of live land on a dead planet. As far as I know I am the only one left. When I say dead planet, I mean dead. If you walk off my land the world is gone. No people, no buildings, no trees, no plants, no air, no sky, no water, no memories; only death. It is like one of those photos of the Moon or Mars, a crater of dead rock suspended in space with no purpose. Accept for my small plot of land.
Is this purgatory or paradise, paradise lost or paradise found? I have not discovered that answer yet. Why was I spared from the abandoning? I do not know. I am the last of humankind, all extinct but me enveloped in silence, the last to speak or to use language.
Why publish these letters if nobody is left to read them?
The abandoning left me with this land, one working computer and an internet connection. A single solar panel on the house powers the computer and there must be a satellite left up in space that I can get an internet connect from. This is all just a guess. I have no explanation for this and have stopped trying to find one a long time a go.
The internet is filled up with the wisdom of my ancestors; I will have no descendants to tell my stories to. The Abandoning left me this vessel for communication. It must mean something, and this is why I write these letters.
Searching for life,
~MH
*****
Dear…
Up at 6:30am, I must be a creator of breading, I say to myself out loud. No coffee but black tea and raw almonds provided by the land. This will do. Twelve raw almonds I must eat every morning before I start my day. I have no inkling why it has to be twelve, but twelve it must be. OCD in purgatory or paradise.
Day 1,468 I sit in the kitchen as my parents did. Starting out the same bay window, with the same smoke yellowed curtains with a blue dove pattern. From this window I can see the only other sign of life left on the planet and it’s actually a sign. A real sign; a billboard. A billboard that sits on the very edge of my land and a death planet, separated by advertising.
This billboard is not the typical roadside billboard that you’re used to seeing, it’s enormous. Think of the Las Vegas strip on steroids. This black and white structure stands 50ft high by 100 feet long and it reads…
Ye are all GODS
and it’s about time
you start getting good at it
and it’s about time
you start getting good at it
Searching for life,
~MH
*****
Dear…
Yes, it was maddening. The world is gone. I awoke to nothing. No violence, no war, no rapture, no explanation, nothing. Writing this I am not sure if I am sane or insane. This is no dream. The land and the billboard told me so. Not in a voice or a feeling but their existence gives me reason to believe.
My land is perfect. It is everything I need to sustain my life; hell it has everything I need to grow old and fat. Freshwater stream with fish, an orchard of fruit trees, rows and rows of vegetable gardens, birds in the sky, squirrels and chipmunks on the ground. I live on the perfect farm; a land of perennial bounty with none of the work.
Traveling this land I now know so well I feel guilty if a have to kill any animal for food since now these animals with the land are my community…my people. My only predator is time.
I have to go now. The sun is setting and I’m losing power.
Searching for life,
~MH
*****
Dear…
I play guitar, a 67 Martian acoustic. This instrument holds memories of the life I was living before the abandoning. I played too well not to be a professional musician but not well enough to be noticed in my profession. Now I sit at the edge of my land under the shade of the billboard and play for the audience that I wish was listening.
Reminiscent sounds of clapping in the distance...could it be?
Two walking shadows at the foot of the billboard move towards me. I cannot understand nor believe it. I run towards the billboard.
“Hello Maxwell.” Says the man.
“Why...how...who are?” I ask dumbfounded
“You say that every time we meet Maxwell.” He says with a strange, knowing look on his face. "This is my wife Eve and I am Adam."
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Short Stories
I have been wanting to write short stories as of late, nothing new to share, yet. Re-living my personal greatest hits.
No Demons
Rainbow in a ghost town
I Dream of Heaven
The Shepherd & Alpaca
I never thought the afterlife would look like this
Rooftop Sanctuary
Joe the Ugly Art Critic
But, I think my next story will have something to do with this quote “Ye are all GODS…and it’s about time you start getting good at it.” & a single billboard left to stand on a dead plant.
No Demons
Rainbow in a ghost town
I Dream of Heaven
The Shepherd & Alpaca
I never thought the afterlife would look like this
Rooftop Sanctuary
Joe the Ugly Art Critic
But, I think my next story will have something to do with this quote “Ye are all GODS…and it’s about time you start getting good at it.” & a single billboard left to stand on a dead plant.
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