7days7authors

Wednesday - Baby Ruth - Brandon

I was born as a c-section on the beach of Malibu. Of course, my mother, a surfer, could never keep herself away from a decent swell. And that day, June 27th, the swell was spectacular. She looked great in that flower print bikini, on her 10 foot pink and blue Carington Foam board, even though she had a baby in her womb, moments away from bursting. As she road the 5 foot wave, and cut the board deep into the ocean’s water, her own water broke, and I beckoned my life into the world.

There on the sand, with the California sun’s rays welcoming my birth, I peeked my little peanut shaped head out and said hello to planet earth and what I, and everyone else around me, would call life.

My mother’s name is Debra. Her bartender friends called her Ruth, because of her fascination with Baby Ruth Chocolate bars. She’d have her bouts with philosophy, never much delving deeper than wondering if the Earth really was round, but one thing she’d always argue was whether that chocolate covered bar of peanuts and nougat was named after the home run hitter or President Grover Cleveland’s daughter.

Ruth. My Mom. The Surfer.

She lived in Venice, California in a small bungalow atop a garage, with a view of the canal. A small studio apartment with a pressure cooker and a tiny little fridge. A mattress flanked the corner next to the only other piece of furniture; a small vanity with large white light bulbs befit for an actress from the early thirties.

Ruth was a beauty, her mouth the shape of Eva Gardner. Her eyes a shade of burnt fire wood. Back in the day she could have had any man or material item she desired, but she only desired the spray of the Pacific and the thought of her son to be - her lil’ baby Ruth.

-walpaper.tumblr.com

Monday - The Disappearance of Forty Dollars - David McGovern

“Well it is fucking shit! Ya hear me? If you’ll pardon the French”

“We are quite fluent in French ourselves,” Clyde replies without a pause.

The cabdriver, Clyde and myself all begin to laugh raucously.

“heh heh heh well alright then!”

I turn and look out the driver’s side window of the van.  The French fries and Coors Light from the Hobby Airport’s sports bar, once airborne and eastward-bound, left my stomach a bit off-kilter.

“So where you boys from?”

“Chicago,” Clyde and myself reply in unison.

“Chicago! I was stationed down in Champaign back when I was in the army.  Used to go down there on the Southside. It’s diff’rnt now though, right?”

Clyde readily took the reigns of the conversation:

“They tore down all the high-rises and are putting condos up.”

“Shit, ain’t that crazy man.  Well, shit, it is happening everywhere.  I got my brother-in-law over in Mississippi and they turning old factories in lofts.  He bought one of them up and it’s fucking nice, but fucking crazy.  Ya hear me?”

“Oh, yes.”

“mmmhmm.”

Both of us agree with the driver’s opinion.   

Ahead, on the left, I see the Superdome, so familiar from news coverage a few falls back.  To unexpectedly see the Superdome’s massive pale concrete rise in the Louisiana humidity takes my breath away.  After seeing something so much on TV still did not really confirm the existence of the building.  I want to tell him to stop.  I want to touch it.  I want to be a Thomas.  Seeing is believing.  This is real?  As if reading my thoughts the cabbie changes topics:

“Ah so ya see right over there?”

He points in the direction I am looking, but a bit behind us.  My eyes are glued on the rapidly approaching Superdome, but I reply:

“Yeah …”

“Ah, so right over there?  Right there is where the first levee broke.  Then, up there,” he motions further ahead of us, “the next broke.”

Clyde and myself remain quiet.

“Shit, all that fucked alot of shit man.  I been living in a trailer in my front yard since then.”

“What part of the city do you live in?”

Clyde picks up the new topic.

“9^th Ward.”

I know the name, not where it is.

“I got a buddy, up north a bit, and he asks me “Say, how much water you get?”. And you know what I said?  I go “Fuck man, ALL of it!””

The car is roaring once again.

“Then, heh, I got the same friend he is doing some work for me now.  And, shit man, these contractors fuck you around so much.  One say he do it in this amount of time and money and then, fuck it, it takes twice as long and twice as much!  Ya hear me?”

“Yeah”

“eh?”

“Yeah.”

“Eh, yeah.  So just the other day he is in there fitting windows and he is sawin’ away, sawin’ away, standing back and looking at his work and then sawin’ away some more.  He takes the glass and puts it into the place in the front of the house.  We got some nice big picture windows in the front of the house.  So we go out to my trailer and take a look at the window.  And ya know what?  That goddamn window is crooked!  My friend goes “Eh, well shit!  I do believe it ain’t straight.” And sure enough it ain’t!”

The driver lifts both hands from the wheel as we continue to drive down the highway to show how off from center the window was installed.

Clyde contributes “You can call it art” but the cabbie hadn’t quite finished his thought and upon realization of the interruption addressed the comment:

“eh, what?”

“You can call it art.”

I look at the Superdome shrinking in the distance now.

“eh? Haha sure.  Sure!  Is that a Rembrandt or a Picasso?! HeHehHA!”

I join the laughing half-heartedly.  As the ripples of the joke subside we pull up to the hotel.

“Ok now boys, get out of the side there.”

He gestures to the side of the car closest to the hotel, the passenger side.  Clyde and myself head out and back to the trunk where are bags were placed.

“Hey y’all ever see that movie D.I.?”

“No.”

We both reply.  I reach for my wallet as the cabbie hands the first bag to Clyde.

“Haha, reminds me of my army days. In training we had a curfew.  And the D.I., the drill instructor, would go on rounds, to make sure we’d go to bed on time.”

He picks up Clyde’s laptop and hands it to him

“So me and the boys we liked to go down to the basement of the barracks after curfew and shoot some dice.  Ya hear me? Ya know?”

He crouches and shakes his right hand furiously.

“Eh heh heh heh.  Anyway, so we down there and I’m getting ready for my throw and let the dice go and I look up and everyone is standing at attention and there I am crouched over the dice I just threw.  Ooooooh boy … he did NOT like that eh heh heh heh.  Oh man, you see what them D.I.s where like if you see that movie!”

Clyde and myself join in again with the merriment.  At this point we both have our bags and we are both standing out front of the hotel just chatting with the cabbie.  Eager to get the night started I finger my wallet and ask
”So how much do we owe you sir?”

“Twenty-nine and then a little tip … please.”

“Sure, sure no problem.”

I take two bills from the wallet and hand them to the cabbie.  He looks down and appears to count the currency twice.

“Thanks y’all you have a good stay! Go rent the D.I.!”

“Thanks.”

“Thank you sir.  Have a good night!”

We turn and head past the valet and towards the hotel’s giant revolving door, shirt already sticking on my back from the southern moisture and a half day of travel.  As we enter the lobby with our luggage I grin and turn to Clyde:

“Fuck man, ALL of it!”

Sunday - Quickly - Will M.

Her eyes were almost perfect — a flaw, like Faye Dunaway’s character in Chinatown, broke the ice blue in the iris of her left eye like the iceberg that downed the Titanic — and it was that near perfection that drew his eyes to her near-perfect ones from across the bar.

It happened fast after that.

He made his way to her — not rushed, but not slowly — with the lights striking each just right. 

The current Billboard Hot 100 single blared from the impressive PA. Neither noticed.

Around them were sweat-soaked, drunken multitudes, yet when he arrived next to her, it was as if no one else was talking.

The banter was inconsequential, but necessary for how these things work.

Still fast.

“Instant attraction” is a term people like to throw around with little regard for the whole “instant” part.

Even 0-60 in a drag racer isn’t instant.  But this was as close to “instant” as such things get.

They talked.

She ran her hand through her hair. He noticed, being a student of Unsubtle Body Language In The 21st Century. Brazen, he ran his fingertips over her arm.

Then: shots.

Tequila.

Set in front of them naked at first.

Downed.

Then refilled and set again, this time with company: salt. Lime.

The wrists: kissed. Shots: downed again.

Again.

Her neck.

They had to go.

Saturday: Glacier - Jacob Martinez

Thursday: "Stopwatch" by Mandatory Volunteer

Chapter the First

Sodium Chloride or sodium chlorate?

“I don’t think that’s a subject you need to be discussing right now.” The chief of police had appeared behind the two newest rookies to the field and watched them mumble apologies before scattering off to perform their allotted duties. “Newbies…” He shook his head and took a short sip of his coffee before he heard his assistant rush in and looking absolutely flustered with papers and files falling out of his arms, his glasses askew, and this air about him that screamed urgent business. In fact, his assistant did indeed scream urgent business.

“There’s been another murder!”

—

Atticus Joseph Stalin. Yes, Stalin was his last name, Joseph was his middle name, after the famous dictator Joseph Stalin, he knew. His parents were thoroughly drunk when they had named him, but Atticus never really complained about his name; it was better then being named Adolf Hitler junior, he’d really catch some flack about that.

Atticus was old. He didn’t look old though, he seemed to be in the prime of his youth, barely to the age of twenty-one, he had chiseled dark looks that everyone either hated or everyone annoying liked. He was forever stuck as an emo boy as the stereotype called it.

He had black hair that he had cut and styled in a spiked version, his bangs were long, but it often annoyed him to have it hang over his eye so he cut it just so it was barely long enough to reach his eye. The longer hairs on the sides of his head were dyed a shocking white, and a dark red at the tips. His eyes were dark blue, and always seemed to be full of mischief, and lazy glances, almost over shadowed by his long eyelashes. His left ear was pierced numerous times and many different hooped earrings were protruding from them, and at the very top of his left ear through the cartilage was a key shaped earring. On his right ear, he had a bar sticking straight up and down through his ears, and numerous studs and such along with some hoops as well as pirate and ninja stars.

His face was pale, very pale, without a trace of tan on it at all, and it was smooth and free of lines, except for maybe the faint traces of crow’s feet in at the corner of his eyes. He had two lip piercings, black hoops extending out over his lips and disappearing into his mouth.

He had on a white dress shirt with the cuffs unbuttoned and the sleeves rolled up messily. The shirt itself was wrinkled and the shirttails hung messily over a black studded belt. The white of the belt shone through the fading black sharpie that he had had used to color over it in the first place. His tie was a sleek solid black, and was tied very loosely around his neck.

His hands were crammed into the pockets of his jeans, which were torn and raggedy. The knees were completely gone, and since the edge of the jeans came under his converse as he walked, there were large holes where his heels had worn them away. His shoes were also broken in, and falling apart in a decrepit manner, but he still wore them all the same.

The way he stood and the way he dressed, it radiated a casual sense about him, yet somehow he seemed like an expert at his profession, which he was, and there was a timeless quality, a charm as one might say, that seemed to make people like him. That, or either hate him.

Atticus was currently taking a nap at his desk in his office. He was slumped over, his head leaning on his arms, and one could hear the soft sounds of snores coming out from over the mountain of paper work that he had yet to finish. “Sir? Uhh… sir?” His assistant leaned into the doorway of the quaint little office and knocked gently on the frame. “Sir?”

Atticus’s assistant went by the name of Deidrik Yesvit Hornsfeld, or Ricky as Atticus preferred to call him. He was a man around Atticus’s age, a little more lanky than Atticus was lean, and tended to be more shy and introverted. Deidrik often wore thin black-rimmed glasses, which accented his green eyes. His hair was medium length brown, and flipped out at the ends. He complained about the cold often, so he always wore some sort of beanie over his head.

He wasn’t as pale as Atticus, and quite preferred to be a ‘healthy color’ as he referred to it, and liked his clothing to be a little tighter and form fitting than baggy. To him, that was what comfortable dress was. Deidrik had no piercings, at least, none that he had ever revealed to anyone, and his current dress was a black beanie, a black t-shirt with the words ‘Live to die’ written on it with red lettering, and a pair of tight jeans and skate shoes. He was rather tall, taller then Atticus about an inch to an inch and a half, and radiated this air of cuteness and awkwardness whenever he spoke or just by the way he acted.

“Sir? I- Oh dear….” Deidrik stepped into his superior’s office and promptly crashed into the table and fell back onto the blinds, which made a tremendous crash, and in the process, almost knocked over the moving fan in the corner. Currently, the air conditioning was broken in the office building, and the fans were the only things keeping the building cool in the heat of summer.

Atticus’s soft snores were interrupted with a small sighed as he yawned and sat up from his desk rubbing his eyes and stretching his arms up over his body. “Jeeze kid, try not to destroy my office. I’m not that hard to wake up from a nap.” Atticus smacked his lips together and gave Deidrik an amused grin. His grin bore two elongated canines and always made Deidrik uneasy.

“I’ll keep that in mind sir…” Deidrik shifted nervously in front of the desk while Atticus leaned back in his swivel chair and put his feet up on the desk. He laced his fingers behind his head and popped his neck twice before addressing the other man. “So, what’re you here for?”

“We’ve been assigned a new case…”

—

The Paranormal Investigation Team, or P.I.T as they were commonly referred to as, arrived on the scene of the murder only five minutes later than they had anticipated, which was very timely for the department which was notorious for always showing up much later than they ever predict.

The chief of police was waiting outside the taped off crime scene with his arms crossed waiting for the pair of Atticus and Deidrik to arrive. He wiped away some sweat that beaded on his forehead and shirked away from Atticus when they approached him. The chief was one of the people who didn’t really enjoy the other man’s presence.

“Stalin. Hornsfeld.” He nodded curtly to the two boys and glanced over to the house. “Another single homicide. Parents came home and found her dead on her bed, same MO as the others. Gruesome.” He shuddered again before Atticus raised an eyebrow and adjusted the backpack that was slung over his left shoulder.

“I’m sure it is. Maybe you’ve got a weak stomach chief,” Atticus said as his cold laughter rang out and seemed to make a cold chill go down everyone’s spine that was within hearing distance. Atticus glanced over at the house and he could see the forensics team finishing up in the upstairs room facing the street.

“We won’t be long, Chief. We’ll go in, collect what we need and we’ll get out of your hair. C’mon Ricky.” Atticus took a single step towards the house and disappeared from sight. The chief of police closed his eyes before blinking quickly to make sure he hadn’t gone momentarily blind.

“Don’t worry about it sir. He’s just a weird and creepy guy. What else do you expect from a vampire? Especially one of his stature…” Deidrik couldn’t really imagine the kinds of things that his superior had gone through to get to where he was today, but he could think that it was a long and horrible process.

“Ricky! Could you hurry it up a little?” His voice floated outside form the bedroom window that caused the other boy to jump and quickly head inside and up the stairs.

—

As soon as Deidrik entered the room of the murdered victim, the smell of blood quickly overwhelmed his senses and made his stomach lurch violently before he could calm it down to keep himself from losing his salad that he had quite enjoyed for lunch.

“Hey hey, keep it clean Ricky. What do you see?” Atticus stood at the foot of the murdered girl’s bed with his hands in his pockets and leaning comfortably on one foot. Deidrik was Atticus’s assistant for his powers of observation, his thinking outside the box, and his uncanny ability to piece things together in his mind. He was going to make a great psychologist one day, and soon, he’d be able to have his own office and his own assistant.

“Don’t wander off now…” His voice brought him back to reality as he turned around and looked around the room.

It was a normal teenage girl’s room from what he could see from under the mass amount of blood splatter. Sick freak. He saw the movie posters, and musical posters that lined the wall, and pictures and notes that the victim and her friends had written to each other, a small white desk at the front of the room with a tweety bird clock over it, a nightstand with an alarm clock flashing midnight, and numerous shoes and flip flops under the night stand.

The sheets looked like at one point in time, they weren’t bloodstained, and in fact were white with light colored stars on them. There were various stuffed animals positioned at the top of the bed on the pillows, and a few folded up blankets as well.

His eyes swept over the dead body of the girl, she was pale, laying on her back with her dead cold hands holding open her ribs that the murderer had split clean open. Her internal organs were all in tact, and the blood that had been exposed to the air was coagulating. Deidrik did notice, however, that the insides were dried up a bit and small white grains stained with blood were present on the cracked open ribs. Salt?

He raised an eyebrow before getting closer to the girl to get a closer look. There wasn’t a spot of blood on her except for where she was cut open. It didn’t look like she suffered any, and it felt like she was still there in the room. Deidrik straightened up and hurried over to the mirror next to the bed. He looked into the background of the mirror and saw the girl’s spirit sitting sadly at the edge of the bed with her hands stroking her dead legs.

“Oh gosh… Hey you,” Deidrik said softly as he gazed at her sadly. The spirit in the mirror looked over at him and sighed before heading over to the edge of the mirror. “I suppose you wanna know what happened before I died right?”

“It’d be nice if you could remember anything.” The girl looked at him with sad eyes and pressed her hands against the mirror and leaned her forehead on it. She turned to the side and shook her head. “I was in my room writing my boyfriend a note like I always do. Then something in the window pane caught my attention and so I walked over to it and saw this girl dressed in this beautiful dress, it was raggedy at the end, and the girl was so pale, I thought she was drawn on a piece of paper…” She sank down to the floor of the reflection on the mirror and sighed before she looked up at Deidrik and continued. “She saw me and smiled so happily, like I was a messiah or something and shushed me. Then she walked across the windowpane and then I knew that she wasn’t on my lawn. We had a brief conversation about dreams and the imagination and then suddenly she screamed and that all I remember before… well this.” She gestured around the mirror and the people reflected in the mirror. Deidrik shook his head and let out a long sigh.

Atticus watched the boy work and walked over to the general spot where the spirited girl was sitting and gave the air a pat, exactly where the girl was reflected in the mirror. “I can’t see you, but I feel your pain… I’ll find your killer. We’ll figure out what he’s after.” But in reality, Atticus already knew what the killer was after, and if it was what he thought it was, then things were only going to get harder after this.

—

“It’s the same killer isn’t it?” The silence of the car ride back to the office was broken by Deidrik’s question to his superior. Atticus’s face remained impassive for a moment before he nodded and popped his neck again. He took a right and continued driving down a neighborhood road. There were children out on the streets, on the sidewalks, and on their yards, playing and laughing without a care in the world. It pulled some of Deidrik’s heartstrings and made him ache a little inside.

“It’s heartbreaking isn’t it? The world these children are growing up in. And yet they still retain that innocence that makes them children.” Deidrik shuffled his feet nervously and didn’t reply. Atticus sensed his unease and took a heavy breath in and out. “What do you make of the killer?”

The assistant hesitated at his question for a moment before replying. “The killer is looking for innocence. He probably believes he’s doing these people a favor by killing them before their innocence is stolen by something else.” His mind wandered back to the girl at the murder scene.

“I could feel the innocence radiated from the girl’s spirit in the room. It was pretty strong, almost like a beacon for wayward sailors. That how I found her.” Atticus stopped abruptly as a ball bounced into the street and a little boy and a little girl ran into the road to retrieve it.

Deidrik was thinking it, but Atticus was the one who said it out loud. “Innocence can end any time, any place, and in any way. Be it physical or emotional…” In the rearview mirror, Deidrik saw Atticus’s eyes slide out of focus for a moment as he slumped back into the seat.

“What exactly does this have to do with the killer?” As soon as those words left his mouth, he felt a chill pass over him, and he was afraid of the foreboding answer.

The children who had run into the street earlier were back on their lawn and bouncing the ball back and forth to each other. Atticus watched with sad eyes and processed Deidrik’s question before giving a formal reply.

“Our killer is searching for something; the embodiment of pure innocence. Something, someone that is innocence itself.” He paused for a moment as the two on the lawn giggled while they threw the ball back and forth.

“A child?”

Atticus started driving down the street again and turned to his assistant as he was driving. “In a sense. Do you remember anything about the Dream Scribe?”

Wednesday - This Place is a Prison - Brandon

Every day I feel more confined to this body I was born into. I’d like to think I could fly, if only I was taught earlier enough. I am no more enlightened than any person on this planet. I too am chained by my ideas, perceptions, and lack of awareness. My own leaps of faith and moments of clarity become flooded by anger, or supreme pleasure. These are my emotions. They stand tall, weilding large batons, always keeping me in place, for fear that I’d escape.

As I sat in my wooden desk, with carved confessions of love in the lower left hand corner, I listened. Wide Eyed. And receptive to the input that would orientate myself to the space around me. My teachers were, and are, varied: Parents, Nannies, School, The Big Screen, TV, Books, Magazines, Friends, Loved Ones, Strangers passing on the street…

Nature is endless. Boundless. Without walls. Human beings build walls. We take the large expanse of never ending opportunities and imagination, and we carve it into understandable pieces. We put up walls. Walls between each other. Walls to keep out harm. Walls to make us feel safe. Never understanding that we’ll never feel truly safe. We are fragile. And we will die.

I write to explore the blank page in front of me. Is it possible that my stumbling, clumsy, ill-coordinated foot work can lead me to something worth while?

A continuous effort is the process of deleting the notions of success, beauty, importance, and worth which was taught to me through these teachers. I am in a constant cycle of unlearning.

-walpaper.tumblr.com

Tuesday - Jane - Daniel West

Monday - The Disappearance of Michael Dobbins - David McGovern

 The fire alarm goes off awaking Joseph from his light slumber.  Slowly surrendering to consciousness Joseph blindly stumbles from the security of the bed to the hallway outside his bedroom.  The parquet floor feels refreshingly cool to his bare feet in his humid, stagnant garden apartment.  He reaches up towards the kitchen ceiling and fumbles with the rudimentary locking system which keeps the smoke detector mounted to the wall.  After a few uncoordinated moments Joseph releases the device from the wall and with both hands brings it down to waist level. He tries to stick what little is left of freshly clipped finger nails behind the batteries base.  After four attempts nail gets enough leverage and the battery comes out, but the noise does not stop.  Joseph pauses for a second before setting the smoke detector on the kitchen counter.  He tilts his head to the left, trying to give his right ear a better angle to detect the source of the sound.

Joseph turns on his heels.  On the slick floor he haphazardly spins 180 degrees and is facing his bedroom door.  He purposefully heads through the doorway and is immersed in the smell of himself in the heavy warm air: stale gym clothes, spearmint gum, dirty hair, fabric cleaner bearing spring’s name.  All the movement has jostled the sleep from his eyes and fog from the brain.  The small clock-radio on the three drawer particle board dresser next to the bed is blinking and blaring a harsh grating tone every second on the second.   Joseph extends his left hand to press the long rectangular button above the clock’s digital readout.

As the button clicks into place silence returns to the apartment.  Joseph sits on the edge of the bed and the frame creeks from his weight.  Resting his left arm on his left thigh he raises his right hand to scratch the back of his head.

“I am not hungry.”

Joseph rests his right hand on his right thigh.

“I need to pee.”

Raising slowly from the bed Joseph shuffles to the bathroom.  He leaves the door open after entering and stares at the floor.

“fucking filthy.”

Hair, pubic and otherwise, along with an assortment of minuscule specks which could possibly be dirt, plant mass, or even ant corpses.

Lifting the front of his boxers down Joseph relaxes and stares at the framed picture immediately in front of him. 

“I am not sleeping enough.”

Instead of focusing on the wood cut black and white print of a fisherman holding a lamb Joseph hones in on the reflection of himself in the glass.  Under his eyes are subtle, but visible even in reflection, ashen purple swollen regions. 

Lifting the front of the boxers above his waist Joseph flushes the toilet.  He turns to the sink and turns the faucet on with his other hand.  He scrubs both hands without the aid of soap and dries them without the aid of a towel - he rubs each hand absent mindedly on thighs, using his boxers to absorb the moisture.

Into the kitchen for the second time that morning Joseph ignores the smoke detector and it’s battery on the counter.  He heads for the small cabinet  above the refrigerator.  Opening the cabinet door with his right hand he pulls down a twenty-five and one quarter ounce box of Cheerios with the left.  Reaching into the dishwasher Joseph places the large cereal box on the counter next to a fingerprint smudged pint glass, an image of a goose head in profile is screen printed on the side.  Pulling open the bottom rack of the dishwasher Joseph briefly surveys the array of pots, plates and bowls.  He selects a small white bowel with a thin lime green circle along the rim of the bowl.  He sets the bowl next to the box and opens the cardboard flaps of the cereal.  Reaching inside he grabs the plastic bag containing the Cheerios.  Unrolling the bag Joseph tips the opening of the box toward the bowl.  Cherrios yield to gravity and tumble out, at first musically, then muffled as the cereal’s population reaches the bowl’s capacity.

After closing the box flaps, but not reclosing the plastic bag inside, Joseph returns the cereal to the cabinet above the refrigerator.  He then opens the refrigerator door and removes first a pint of skim milk and then a gallon of pulp-free, vitamin D added orange juice.  Joseph first pours the orange juice into the smudged pint glass and then pours the milk into the bowl.  A spoon is taken from a drawer on the other side of the kitchen.  The Blue handled plastic spoon is promptly harpooned into the bowl.  The fragile Cheerio surface yields to the force of the utensil.

Reentering the bedroom, Joseph sets bowl and glass down upon his work desk, using scraps of paper and open envelopes as an eclectic but functional placemat.  He reaches for the light switch. Pushing the top half of the plastic square kicks the 60 watt bulb and ceiling fan into life.  As the air begins to circulate around the bedroom Joseph turns his attention to the small promotional single picture 12 month calendar next to the light switch on the wall.

The picture is of his cousin Rodrigo wearing pink jeans, a pink t-shirt and pink sunglasses.  Rodrigo is barefoot leaning on the hood of a yellow convertible parked on a palm tree lined street in Los Angeles.  The covered eyes are toward the camera and his left hand raises a pink frosted doughnut to the mouth.

“Today is Wednesday.  No.  Today is Thursday. Yes. Thursday.”

Joseph puts his index finger to the last week in April.

“twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth, thirtieth …”

Joseph shifts weight from his left to right foot

“Thursday May first.”

He swallows thickly and tentatively licks his lips:

“Rabbit rabbit.”

Sunday - Cleanup on Aisle Three - Will M.

She was casually pawing through the loaves of bread, the boyfriend (whom she never thought of, when she thought of him, by his name¹) was off an aisle or two over, picking out whatever varieties of high-calorie, high-fat, high in a general je-nois-se-quoi of bad-for-you-ness foods he would scarf down while watching baseball, when the ex walked by.

The ex was just a glimmer in her peripherals at first, but she was sure it was him, the asshole, and quickly became very interested in the percentage of daily vitamins in Iron Kids bread. It didn’t help.

“Hey.”

I should’ve known, she thought, it’s not like he’s never seen me from the back before, or in these jeans—of course the guy who couldn’t notice a drastically different haircut can recognize me by my ass alone. It figures.
She turned, preparing a mask of mock surprise that wouldn’t even fool the very gullible—but one she nevertheless felt was Oscar-worthy.

“Oh. Hey.”

“So, how have you…um…been?”

“Just out shopping,” she didn’t want to be too dismissive or cruel, “with the boyfriend.” Not yet anyway. But a reinforcing of her situation couldn’t hurt.

“Oh.”

She put a loaf of bread into her shopping cart, where it joined the following items:

√three ears of corn

√a ready made salad

√two cases of beer (his, obviously)

√a bottle of wine coolers (hers—also obviously)

√a bag of Granny Smith apples (which she hoped to use as some way of weaning the boyfriend from cookies to healthy foods)

√sliced luncheon meats

√the his and hers magazine combo of Cosmo and Maxim,

√and a pack of condoms, which she rather obviously placed into plain view of the ex as she added the bread to the cart.

She thought, for a guy that she had dumped two weeks previous, he was way too nonplussed at her non-single status.

“Well, y’all must’ve been going out for awhile then, if he’s going shopping with you.”

Was that a dig? Was he being sarcastic? She could never tell if guys were making fun of her or not. She hoped that the boyfriend would show up, see the ex “putting the moves on” her (she actually thought of it in such antiquated, quote-ready terms) and impart some sort of violence on the ex.

But that was not to be, because the boyfriend was busy checking out boxes of Chee-Toz and three nubile Tri-Delt pledges—fresh from the back storeroom and the pool, respectively.

On some deep subconscious level, the boyfriend had an inkling that he was just an accessory to her, but he couldn’t articulate this—so he would try to get caught ogling other women and hope she would dump him instead².

After a few seconds, the ex simply said “later,” and walked off; she took out her grocery list, resumed shopping and waited for the boyfriend to find her.

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¹This depersonalization of a significant other might bother other women her age, but didn’t faze her. Of course, she never really thought about it either, which may have something to do with it.

²And as for “imparting violence”—forget it. The boyfriend, who did outweigh the ex by a good 50 lbs., had learned from experience that, in this day and age of karate, Billy Blanks, and jujitsu that being bigger and stronger only made you a bigger target and was quick to avoid physical conflict.

Saturday - The Dark One - Jacob Martinez