Dissuasion
Someone burst out laughing
and the room began to fall in. No one seemed to notice a cloud of locusts
flowing out of the ventilator. I had to get out. I was going to collapse in a
screaming pile of writhing limbs. I rose deliberately keeping my eyes to the
floor and clenching my teeth into a smile. The wall behind me fell as I entered
the clattering swarm of insects. The undulating mass hovered around me as I
inched towards the door. I couldn't get my breath. I was wild with terror
by the time I made it out the door.
I whipped out my vile of cocaine and did three spoons. The insects began to
clear. I was breathing easier. My mind went blank with relief. I looked across
the street and noticed a large motorcycle parked in front a small church.
Two people on its steps were looking at me. They got up and walked toward me.
One towered above the other who suffered a minor limp. I found myself unable to
move. I couldn't reach my weapon, my mace, my knife. They lead me to the
motorcycle and lifted me on. I looked into their faces. They were smiling as I
was pressed in between the two of them. The roar of the bike overwhelmed me. I
could see nothing, feel nothing, think nothing. I blacked out.
The pulsating roar of the motorcycle returned. When a blur of color snapped
into focus, I found myself in a crowded bar. I realized I had been hearing
dozens of voices. I was standing at the bar frozen next to a heavy set man in
his fifties chewing on a cigar and playing with his necktie. His face was large
as were his features with the exception of his eyes which were small and far
apart. A thick mustache drooped over his lips and a heavy shadow of stubble
flushed with the redness of his skin covering his cheeks and neck. He began to
speak.
"I'm not so good looking but I've always had a high opinion of myself . Though I am a large man, I never had an affinity for athletics with the exception of a few solitary, noncompetitive recreations such as swimming or hiking. I was also rather late in my physical development. With that combination, I found myself often ridiculed as a child. I came to detest the competitive, athletic types and by the time I'd grown large enough to dissuade further ridicule by my appearance alone, I held an almost vindictive attitude toward anyone in a uniform."
"Another condition I have that has caused me some difficulty is my proclivity toward sexual addiction. Perhaps sexual mania would by more definitive. At times this mania will take unexpected forms that I have no control over. I have yet to explain one particular manifestation, that in fact has taken control of me . I remember the first time it happened, I had no idea I was at fault. I was on a city bus when a woman standing next to me started acting very strangely. Her breasts were hard, her nipples turgid. An awareness began to wash in on the waves of pleasure that was shuddering her body, an awareness of heightened sexuality, of sexual abandon. When the bus came to a sudden stop, I was forced against her. She opened her mouth and shrieks of ecstasy darted out. Hooting, squeaking and screeching, she transformed into a flagellating convulsion of limbs and dropped into the laps of an elderly couple. My eyes shot from the woman to the back door and before anyone was aware of it, I slipped out into the night."
" I've done everything. I'll fuck anyone I find attractive, anyone at any given time, not that I have ever had a propensity for rape. I am a very sensitive man. I don't like to be hurt so I don' hurt anyone without justification. And don't get me wrong. I've loved and have been loved. I've practiced satyrism, chastity, monogamy, polygamy, ononism, fetishism and on and on. Perhaps my total obsession with sexuality in all its forms, practical and imagined has resulted in this plague of uncontrollable circumstances, the first of which I've just described. Recently this horror has begun to appear during normal (normal by my standards) sexual encounters. I'll be having wonderful sex with one or more people when suddenly I'll find myself staring at my partner or partners writhing and wailing in sexual ecstasy completely independent of me. I suppose it wasn't completely independent of me since in some way or another, I was responsible but I have yet to fall into this abandon myself. As a result, I, who have considered myself as sexually liberated as anyone have, for the first time in my life experienced sexual frustration. This frustration has begun to build in me and I have found myself at times almost overcome with rage. I have been forced to become practically asexual as I find this horror occurring more and more frequently. There are times when I'll see someone I find attractive and they'll have a fit the moment I lay eyes on them. I can't seem to have sex with anyone any more without the inevitable happening. I have even found myself masturbating alone in my apartment only to hear the all too familiar screams in the apartment above me or below me or next to me. You may well wonder why I have not sought treatment for my problem but how can I be treated if the nosology of my disease does not exist? As far as I have ascertained, I am completely unique. Psychiatrists, psychologists, neurologists or specialists of any sort would do me no good if I were to seek help which of course I wouldn't consider. They'd lock me up in a padded cell and experiment on me for as long as I lasted, not that they would find a thing for the symptoms of my condition are temporary on all those it afflicts and I am the only one aware of them as my 'victims' have no recollection of their attacks. Friends, acquaintances or strangers, upon reviving from an attack will find me white with shock or boiling with rage and will either suggest I see a doctor or leave as quickly as possible thinking they have been subjected to the presence of a lunatic."
The man stopped talking, lighted his cigar and ordered a drink. He turned to me and smiled then frowned. He became forlorn. He asked me if I'd ever had an experience so strange that no one would believe me if I tried to describe it. I nodded and was astounded. I could move again if only slightly. I was no longer frozen like a mannequin leaning against the bar. He apologized for rambling on, blaming it on too many drinks then admitting that he had to get it off his chest. He asked me if I thought he was crazy. I shook my head and told him that I'd had some very strange experiences recently myself. I could speak! He smiled again. His puffy face bloomed into an intricate network of lines. He offered to buy me a drink. As I reached for it, I realized that I was capable of independent movement. I checked to see if my weapon had been stolen. It hadn't, nor had my knives, gas, poison or drugs. I relaxed enough to take in my surroundings, putting the man and his soliloquy aside for the moment.
My peace was short lived. A man walked up behind me and began talking to the bartender. His attire upon first glance might have suggested an eclectic, expressive, even creative personality given somewhat to excess as full length capes were not in vogue. Examining him in detail would have been out of the question normally but I found myself threatened by his high pitched voice constantly on the verge of cracking, his frantic stream of manic verbosity, the sight of his bulbous, flabby fingers scratching at his scaly scalp and scabby beard, his too short double knit trousers exposing boney ankles swimming above baggy white socks and scuffed wingtips. His whining voice clawed at me. My new found freedom was threatening to freeze up in disgust and loathing. Suddenly I remembered the pepper spray. So many distractions had just about finished me. I relished the memory of the tiny brass canister shaped like a fountain pen nestled in my shirt pocket, a weapon with dead point accuracy up to three yards with no sound, no trace. I reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out the canister. Pretending to write something down on a cocktail napkin, I aimed quickly and fired the gas into the idiot's face. His voice cracked and I felt the unconscious relief of a dozen people around me. His face flushed crimson and a flood of tears erupted from his eyes. He made two honking noises, grabbed his throat and fell to the floor. The bartender and a customer rolled him out the door.
My confidant was quick to pick up what had happened and was much impressed. Then the sight of thugs on the motorcycle speeding at me returned. I frowned. He asked me if I made a habit of gassing mentally unstable people. I saw the thugs dismount and charge at me. I felt the syringe in my arm again. I muffled a groan. I responded to my confidant's question. I was only acting in self defense. The mental state of the moron was inconsequential. I rationalized that the gas had no permanent effect but that the moron's voice could have left scars on me for years. This didn't seem to sink in. I told him, in order to simplify things that I was under extreme duress. The memory of the thugs looking down at me and laughing made me shudder. The thugs had paralyzed me. But how did I get into the bar? I had no memory of it. I put a hand on my forehead. My new friend relented, admitting that the man had annoyed him to the point of disturbing his train of thought and even went so far as to consider the incident interesting. I wanted to put us both at ease. I hoped that he didn't want to return to the subject of his affliction any more than I wanted to think about what the thugs had done to me. I asked him if he had heard of the leeches of Atlantic City. He had not.
"That's my story!" I whirled around. A beautiful young woman was glaring at me. "Thousands of mother fucking leeches, each as long as your arm all writhing around in a stinking pit! They’d soon be eating each other if they weren't fed! And after they ate each other? The biggest, strongest monster of a leech was going to crawl out of that pit and eat a whole busload of school children!"
I decided that it was time to leave. I thanked the man for the drink and apologized to the woman for interrupting her. I suggested that she continue her story and excused myself. A sudden chill swept over me then a euphoria stronger than any I'd ever experienced began to spread over my body. I glanced at the man who was frowning. Fear flitted in and out of my mind almost imperceptibly. I was completely immobilized. The strongest, most sensual orgasm I had ever felt threw me to the floor. I screamed in pleasure as orgasm after orgasm pushed me closer to unconsciousness.
***
"Don't cry out loud."
I stirred into consciousness. I was on my back.
"Only the good die young."
My eyes snapped open. I was paralyzed by a blinding light. I winced. I groaned.
"Put these on."
I felt something on my face and raised my hand. Someone took hold of it and placed it on the bed I was laying on. "They're sunglasses, friend."
I again opened my eyes and focused on a large and airy room filled with dilapidated wicker and bentwood furniture. A piano was in a corner. I closed my eyes and my mind filled with dinosaurs and muck and ravaged ankles, buses filled with the dry husks of school children, towering tsunamis.
"Calm down and relax. There’s nothing to be afraid of. You are in the sun room of an exclusive beach house. It's the type of place where one would want to linger. Turn your head and look at the ocean."
I obeyed. The ocean was no more that thirty feet outside the window. I turned my attention to the person addressing me. It was my acquaintance at the bar, my confidant, an evil jade in league with the thugs who had assaulted me. He put his hand on my forehead and smiled warmly. Or maybe he was nothing more than an innocent buffalo chip wearing a plaid bathrobe who had coaxed me back to consciousness with pop culture lyrics, a victim of a terrible affliction that had afflicted me. He patted my head. "Don't bother searching for your weapon or any of your paraphernalia. We have removed them."
I closed my eyes and covered my face with my hands, feeling the sun glassed but not daring to remove them. "We?"
My confidant patted my arm. ""Please don't try and put things in perspective. There's plenty of time for that, and don't worry, we will not attempt to explain how you got here until you feel inclined to ask us. But let me start by asking you a few questions and let me preface them by saying that I have brought you here to have a long conversation free of distractions. Simply put, I want to talk about myself and I want to hear about you. Now, first of all, are you hungry? I can have anything brought to you. No? Very well. Are you in need any kind of drug or intoxicant? You had a very impressive collection on your person and I mean that as a compliment."
I resigned myself to the situation. I decided that I would indeed like to calm myself yet remain clear headed enough not so much for the purpose of maintaining a conversation with my captor but rather to be alert enough to escape should the opportunity arise. I asked for a line of cocaine, a line of crank and a double scotch n the rocks.
"Burstyne! Could you please bring our friend here a line of cocaine, a line of heroine, and a double single malt on the rocks, dear?" He smiled at me. "She'll be right out. Why don't we look at the ocean for awhile? We have some of the most beautiful sunsets in the world here and as you can see, the ocean comes very close to the house at high tide. Sometimes winter storms flood the room, break a window or two. Ah, here she is."
An elegant woman wearing a silk dress covered with a print of wild parrots entered the room. She was carrying in one hand a small mirror with two lines of powder traced on its surface and a double old fashion glass full of ice and scotch in the other. She placed them both on a table next to the bed. She handed me a straw and pulled me to a sitting position. Her eyes were large and liquid. She smiled, parting her lips and exposing her upper teeth. They were slightly flawed. I looked to my confidant. "She looks familiar."
I was offered a conspiratorial grin. "Oh, you've met Berstyne before but let's take things slowly. I'll introduce you properly later. Thank you, sweetheart."
The woman glided out of the room. I distributed the drugs evenly in each nostril, picked up the scotch and took a sip, then a swallow, then another. "You're a rarity. I've never been successfully kidnapped before." I lied. "Congratulations." I took another swig. "On second thought, I was kidnapped and brought to the bar where I had the pleasure of making your acquaintance. Two freaks took advantage of my mental instability and drugged me. Probably cohorts of yours."
"Employees." He offered me his hand and pulled me up to a sitting position. "Let's discuss all of this somewhere more comfortable." He pulled me to my feet and led me through a door into an office. He poured himself a drink from a bottle on a desk and walked over to an open filing cabinet beneath an old regulator slowly ticking away. He turned from the filing cabinet with a laptop in his hand, motioned me to sit in front of the desk and lowered himself under a glowing oil of a nude sprawled across a divan. He opened the laptop. "You first came to my attention when I heard about you in this NPR broadcast.
copyright 2013
Richard Talbot Hill
CALL GIG
Audio Transcript
NPR
"And now we turn to 'Art Corner' with Luella Lubricity."
"Thank you listeners and welcome. We are joined tonight by critic at large, Thurgood Muldoon Arachnid III who has just perused an exhibit of local talent in a pop up gallery in the dicey Tenderloin District of San Francisco. How was the show?"
"Thank you, Luella. Though the local was a challenge, I found the exhibit quite exhilarating."
"Was there any particular artist that stuck with you?"
"Luella, all the artists and their work were interesting and original though, I must say, one particular painting entitled 'House Call' I found to be especially uplifting."
"Please, fill us in."
"'House Call', depicting a Lady of the Evening entering an apartment building through the garage offers an intriguing menu of image, color and symbolism. The apartment building that climbs a hill is down right phallic with its turgid perspective and taught, translucent, condom white wash over titanium white cement bricks. In contrast, the bleached, foaming, greenery in a cement planter on the sidewalk gushes down toward the prostitute whose head, an often unnecessary appendage in her profession is blocked by the lowering garage door. The only warmth in the painting is the reflecting afternoon light that, with a liberal dose of cadmium scarlet and cadmium yellow caresses her arms, teasingly tickles the tops of her breasts, and, catches her burning red mini skirt on fire as it frantically laps at her legs. Ahem. Oh my goodness. Oh dear."
"Are you alright, Mr. Arachnid? Can I get you anything?"
"I'm fine. I'm fine. Goodness gracious, excuse me."
"That's quite alright, Mr. Arachnid. Please continue."
"Yes, yes. Of course. Where was I? Oh yes. These taunting images the artist toys with are contrasted by the flat, oppressive cobalt blue sky and the threatening prussian blue, phthalo green shadows in the garage that respectively suffocate the prostitute's least aspirations and beckon her to a life of violence, addiction and disease. Finally, the tiny, doll like purse dangling from the call 'girl’s' hand frames her for what she really is, a beautiful, child devoured by a heartless world."
"A very sad story, indeed, Mr Arachnid."
"Indeed, but all judgment aside and a short, brutal future notwithstanding, you have to admire the 'working girl'."
"Admire her for what, Mr. Arachnid?"
"For working, Luella, of course."
"You mean rather than lounging around on public entitlements?"
"Exactly. In a way, the prostitute shows us how the wonderful twenty first century Sharing Economy works. People no longer have to live the dreary nine to five life or, God forbid feed from the public trough. They can do what ever they want, make their own hours, live their own life on their own terms."
"In other words, Mr. Arachnid, the prostitute shares what she has."
"Indeed, Luella, what God has given her."
"And her clients share what they have."
"And perhaps the best part of the bargain, Luella is that intrusive government doesn't get in the way."
"As long as the police aren't aware of her version of the Gig Economy."
"Luella, if entrepreneurs can work their way around big government intrusions into the free market like health care and social security and pensions and overtime and workman's comp -"
"Or the enviro-nazi EPA, the socialist FDA -"
"Glass Steagall, the SEC and all the other endless communist folderol, they can work their way around prudish anti prostitution laws."
"And offer another example of the Disruptive Economy with all the convenience of modern technology, a 'call girl' app if you will."
"Afternoon delight only a click away."
"You know, Mr. Arachnid, it's almost as though the prostitute is an example for the way forward."
"She is not only an example, Luella, she is an inspiration, an inspiration for us all by showing us that the American Dream is alive and well."
"Thank you, Mr. Arachnid, and thank you listeners. Be sure to tune in next week. This is Louella Lubricity for NPR."
Copyright 2015
Richard Talbot Hill
It was Christmas Eve. As Julianne walked through the door of Scheherazade's Closet, the owners looked up. Annabelle was a small, shrewish woman with foggy glasses and perpetually smeared lipstick. She was wearing a llama wool shapeless one piece dress that looked like a hair shirt. Estelle was huge. Her breasts and hips had a life of their own each independent of the other. Her arms were oddly thin and stick like and tended to wave around suddenly for no reason. She was wearing a faux leopard low cut dress that framed her enormous breasts like mug shots. A matching beret jumped and wiggled on her head as if it were hiding a terrified mouse running around in her thinning hair. She smiled through her teeth and informed Julianne that, contrary to what she had been told the day before, the shop would not close at noon but seven in the evening. Julianne gave Estelle and Annabelle a winning smile and cursed them under her breath. The salary wasn't much above minimum wage but it was a job. If she lost it, there wouldn't be another. Her studio was under rent control and since she'd lived there since the last recession, no make that the recession before last, the rent was manageable, and thanks to food stamps, she stayed afloat in spite of the Banks garnishing her wages for the interest on her mountain of college loan debt, a mountain of debt that got her a master's degree and a job as a shop girl. Besides, she desperately needed her bonus. The old biddies could be intolerable but they always managed to fork over a couple of hundred bucks at Christmas. Her cell phone was failing and she wanted to contribute at least something to the family fund subsidizing the co-pays for her mother's treatment.
After calling her mother to tell her she would be late for the family's traditional Christmas Eve's dinner, she made busy work straightening the rows of women's apparel hand made of the finest fabrics. She swallowed a bag of nuts in the ladies room in lieu of lunch. Six women came in the store before noon and Julianne made four sales or rather she almost made four sales. Estelle managed to swoop in the last minute and take over.
After the last sale, Estelle tapped Julianne on the shoulder. “You must have noticed me stepping in on your sales. It’s for your benefit or rather the benefit of the store. Annabelle and I have noticed of late your somewhat dismissive demeanor to our customers. We feel it best you refrain from interacting with them for the immediate future.”
No one showed up in the after noon. Julianne polished gleaming mirrors so furiously they rocked on the walls, dusted spotless shelves down to the grain and straightened more piles of expensive couture as high as she could reach. Annabelle glared at Estelle and Estelle glared at Julianne. At one minute to seven, Estelle rummaged in her faux leopard purse and pulled out a small gift wrapped box. She shoved it in Julianne's hand as she ushered her through the door. "I'm sure you understand that weak sales preclude any bonus this year but Annabelle and I thought you should have something despite your questionable performance recently. We'll see you bright and early the day after tomorrow." She closed the door in Julianne's face and mouthed Merry Christmas through the glass.
As Julianne watched the shade drop, Estelle's words bounced around in her head Dismissive demeanor? Questionable performance? She was stunned. And no bonus this year? But sales had been great this Fall! The women had been on a merchandise shopping binge and clucked proudly of the new restaurants they had tried almost every night. How the hell was she supposed to survive without a cell phone? What about her mother? She thought of the gift in her hand. She recognized the wrapping paper from the store. She tore it off and examined a brightly printed gift box. But there was no plastic seal. It almost looked like it had been opened. There was a slight tear on the card board lid. She lifted it and pulled out an atomizer full of clear liquid. There was no pamphlet, directions, description of any sort, not even a label on the bottle. She noticed a piece of paper in the bottom of the box. She recognized Estelle's hand writing. "A wonderful H2O moisturizing dispenser for your face. All the girls are doing it. Merry Christmas."
"A bottle of water?", Thought Julianne in a rage. "I work my ass off all year long and the fucking hags criticize me then give me a fucking bottle of water?"
She pounded on the door. The shade slowly rolled up. Estelle’s expression was half curious, half irritated. Julianne motioned turning the latch. Estelle unlocked it and opened the door a crack. Julianne threw all her weight against it almost knocking Estelle off her feet as she lurched into the store. The two hags stared at her in astonishment. She murdered them both.
copyright 2014
Richard Talbot Hill
The sea surged at me. I climbed a large rock as fast as I could. Worn steps were carved into it. I followed them to the top. There was a jolt. The steps disengaged from the rock. I was lifted up over the top and down into a walled enclosure of weathered wooden buildings. A well dressed couple approached me. They were polite but their voices were firm. They would escort me to my quarters. They took me into one of the buildings and down a hallway past comfortable rooms, some with people sitting quietly, then ushered me into a small suite covered floor to ceiling with intricately inlaid marble. An anteroom was filled with consoles of machinery.
They left me there with an attendant, a large, lanky man with a sad face. I asked him if I was a prisoner. He rolled his eyes. The consoles in the anteroom jerked and swung into motion like rocket launchers on a warship. He walked over and closed the door. I asked him if I could leave. He said I could not. His eyes showed concern. My unease was turning to fear.
I tapped his shoulder. “ I must leave.”
He turned away and repeated himself. “You cannot.”
I took his hand and pulled him toward me. He was taken aback. I kissed him. He pushed me away. I kissed him again. I opened his shirt. He shuddered. I put his hand in my shirt. He didn’t withdraw it. I loosened his belt. He grabbed me. We fell to the floor. He tried to stop himself.
“You want to!”, I hissed. “You love it! Be yourself!”
He shouted something incomprehensible. As he gave in, he transformed. His ears grew. His arms shrunk. His nose was black and moist. There was a large black spot over one of his eyes and tears flowed out of both of them.
“You fags!” The woman was standing over us, her heels in my face. She ordered me up and dressed. The dog-man was weeping in a heap. Two scowling guards with wasps the size of light bulbs on their shoulders surged into the room, picked him up and dragged him out.
The woman ordered me down a corridor. “My husband figured you out immediately. He wanted to throw you into the sea. I reminded him that Michelangelo, Leonardo, Alexander were all fairies.” She opened a door and pushed me into another marble room. “Before we use you, I will use you.” She closed the door. “I want you to love me.” She unbuttoned her blouse. She was attractive. She was a witch. I had to escape. I unzipped her skirt. Her expression softened. I would make her delirious.
“Mommy! Daddy wants to tickle me!”, she cried in the voice of a toddler. “Hi, daddy!” she fell to her hands and knees. “See daddy?”
I stepped away. “I can’t do this.”
“Of course you can’t! You’re queer!”, she snarled.
“I need a shower.”
The room was suddenly screeching with huge wasps. “You will not shower!”, she choked as she pulled on her clothes. “You will come with me!”
The wasps led us out of the room. She stomped behind me down halls, past more quiet rooms filled with silent people. We stopped at a gate that exited the building. It was over grown with vines and alive with lizards whipping the air with long tongues. Her husband was waiting. “He prefers dogs.”, she whispered loudly, and to me, “The wasps will show you away.” The lizards began to sing. The husband and wife joined in. The gates opened.
As the couple stepped out, I launched myself onto their backs and the three of us tumbled to the ground. The woman screamed. The man freed himself and rushed to an idling ambulance. He opened the door and jumped in. I followed him and we struggled desperately. He grabbed the wheel and stepped on the gas. We careened toward his wife. Her skull burst under a tire like a melon. We sped straight through a barrier and over a cliff. I heard gunfire and shattering glass.
The ambulance rolled in mid-air. I was thrown against the roof. We slammed into the ocean on the driver’s side and I was thrown on top of him. Water rushed in. We sunk like a stone. I pushed myself out of the window and swam to the surface. Debris from the ambulance floated around me. There was no land in sight. I grabbed a stretcher. I was alone.
The stretcher just supported me. I jammed as much of the debris as I could under it and stabilized myself. If the sea stayed calm, I could survive a few hours, maybe days. I pulled myself onto the make shift raft and lost consciousness. When I came to, it was night and the light of the moon danced on the water. Panic rushed up in a clattering storm. The raft only partially supported me and my legs dangled in the water. The thought of sharks battered my sanity. I closed my eyes. When I opened them, the sun was rising. I felt it on my skin and images of peeling, flaking sunburn taunted me. I was terribly thirsty. I was barely afloat. I thought about drowning.
The lapping of the waves was disturbed by a dull churning sound. There was a ship in the distance and it was steaming toward me. I heard frantic yelling. I was yelling. A large motor yacht pulled up along side me and a Jacob’s ladder was thrown down. The sun was in my eyes. I saw forms moving above me. I pulled myself up.
No one helped me as I fell over the railing onto the deck. A crowd gathered around me, a crowd of brown spheres each standing on a pair of stubby legs. I heard gasps and cries of alarm. Large depressions with faces in them appeared and disappeared on the spheres. One of the spheres spoke to me. The ship was going to dock on a beautiful island. Everyone was going to have lunch.
The engines surged and in almost no time an island loomed large. We pulled up along side a wooden pier and a gang plank was lowered. A gravel road led us through golden fields spotted with gnarled olive trees. A limb sprouted slowly out of a sphere next to me and grew a couple of digits. I felt them stroke my back. We came to a group of simple, round tables furnished with bent wood chairs resting under trees. Dozens of egg plants were piled on linen table cloths.
“Egg plants!”, boomed the spheres. “Ha hah!”
Richard Talbot Hill
2015
copyright
I couldn’t get the napkins out of my mind. I wondered if I would ever see them again. Then I found the huge bowl of salsa waiting for me at the top of a precipitous gallery of stairs folding back and forth on itself and twisting into the depths. I ran to the salsa and leaped, grabbing the sides of the bowl with my legs and its rim with my hands. It lurched forward and carried me downward faster and faster. I whooped and yelled and waived my arms over my head. My legs were splashed with salsa. I smeared some on my hands and tasted it. It was delicious. When I landed at the foot of the stair case, I found grandma tied up by the wrists to nails driven in a door frame. I knew the potato people had done it. They were busy with the others so I managed to creep up undetected. She was pressed up against the screen door and her body kept it closed. I tried to untie her.
“I don’t care what happens to me!” she barked. “This is about you, you and the desk. You have to find it. Get away from me before they see you! If they gas me, I will become tiny! Find out what they’ve done with the others! Maybe they can help you!”
I heard voices in another room. The potato people were coming. I ran through a back door. A scream echoed in my ears. I crept back. I peeked through the door. The potato people had a mask with tubes attached to a canister. They were strapping it to her face.
I ran through another door to a large dark room full of cages. The others were there, one in each cage. I went for the doors but they were chained shut. “They’re not going to kill us.”, everyone reassured me. “This is just a disciplinary thing. Besides, we have all the correct documentation. We found it in the desk before it disappeared. And they haven't found you. You get out of here.” I kept quiet about the mask and the tubes and the canister. There was an outside door. I would be back with help, I told myself. I opened it and stepped into brilliant sunshine.
The road in front made a sharp turn and followed a hill that rose over the building. As I climbed it, I ran into a crowd of people surging down toward the building. Some had weapons. A small boy pointed a rifle at me but I talked him out of shooting me. “You have to go right now and save the people they have locked up inside. The potato people are going to gas them. You have to shoot the potato people.”
When I was clear of the crowd, I kept climbing until I walked into a small village. A blind man carrying a golf bag full of shot guns approached me and directed me to a store. Inside, a woman behind a counter gave me three elaborate hand made knives. She had a faint mustache, soft hair. I said I only needed one but she insisted I take all of them. I wondered if she shaved her legs. I slid the knives in my pockets and belt.
“You’re upset because they killed your friends.”, said the woman.
“You don’t know that!”, I said angrily.
“But they always kill them. At least you are alive. Now take your knives and go.” She walked from behind the counter and ushered me to the door. The sunshine was blinding. I covered my eyes as I heard the door close behind me.
I wandered out of the town and into the hills. I stopped under a tree. My feet were caked with dirt. I washed them in a pool of stagnant water. I was so dejected, I didn’t even realize I was looking at it when I was standing right in front of it. I found the desk! It was laying in the dirt and the legs were broken off but I found it! I stood staring at it for a moment, frozen with anticipation. Were my napkins still in there? Could they still be in there safe and sound after all this time? I reached for the drawer and then stopped myself. What if they weren't there? What if there were spiders in there instead of my napkins? What if tiny grandma was in there? I opened a broken drawer of the filthy desk and pulled out a pair of worn white socks, some puppets and an old calendar with all the dates scratched out. There were no napkins. I tried to fold up the puppets but they broke in my hands. All the sticks with little heads on them were in splinters and the bits of cloth with the faces on them were torn.
I heard a sound. I looked toward the rise in front of me and saw people cresting it. It was the potato people. A chill went up my spine. There were several of them and they were somehow different this time. There was something on their heads. Should I run? They couldn't get me if I had a good start. And then I saw it. Then it hit me. They were wearing my napkins on their heads. Oh my God. They had my napkins and they were wearing them on their heads. They had punched holes in them and were looking at me through the holes. I had to kill. I had to have something to kill with. I remembered the knives. I pulled two of them from my pockets and unsheathed them.
The potato people stopped in their tracks. They started to laugh. Then they started to sing. What were they singing? What was that horrible sound? Was it Christmas carols? Was it? My God, they were singing Christmas carols. I screamed. I let go of my knives and slammed my hands over my ears. Silent Night, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, The Little Drummer Boy. The Little Drummer Boy. I shut my eyes. I fell to the ground and vomited. I choked. I started to shake. I opened my eyes and saw the feet of the potato people all around me. They were hairy. I saw tiny grandma. She picked up one of my knives and wielded like a sword. She stabbed the feet of the potato people. She slashed their ankles. She cut off their toes. They fell all around me screaming in agony.
I jumped to my feet. I reached down and grabbed my napkins from their heads. I shoved my napkins in my shirt and picked up tiny grandma. She smiled serenely. I placed her on my shoulder and ran back to the desk Suddenly a hand reached out from a drawer, grabbed tiny grandma and pulled her in. The drawer slammed shut and the desk exploded into flames. It took to the air and sailed off over the treetops like a comet.
The napkins fell onto the dirt. I put my head in my hands and wept. The memory of tiny grandma when she was larger madly dancing with me in her apartment that looked over the city came flooding back to me. She sang me her favorite song:
"The gas is turned on high!
Let's all sing and shout!
Judgement day is nigh!
The pilot lights are out!
Batten down the hatches!
We're gonna have some fun!
I've got the matches!
You've got the gun!"
copyright 2015
Richard Talbot Hill
When I came to, I was laying on a couch in a living room with a man and woman and several children sitting around me. A toddler lay sleeping by his father. Suddenly he lunged for his father's arm and bit a large chunk of flesh out of it. His father screamed in agony and grabbed his arm trying to stop a spurting geyser of blood. The mother picked up the little monster and walked outside with him. I followed asking her why she was not upset and what was she going to do with her son. She reassured me that everything was going to be alright. The child stared at me with ice cold hatred. His ungodly assault on the world focused on my eyes. I fought back. I bellowed that he was not fit to be locked up in a cage. He leaped from his mother's arms and skittered off into the underbrush. He emerged at the base of power pole, climbed to the top, grabbed a wire and let the electricity surge through him before shooting down the line and disappearing. The mother told me I must go before the child returns with others of his kind. She handed me some car keys and pointed to a parked car. She said I had to drive into town and warn everyone.
When I arrived, the town was in a panic. A group of marauding children was picking people off one by one. A man in a bar had his arms torn off. A woman in a restaurant was decapitated. A well known and beloved actor performing a well known and treasured play was surrounded on stage and torn to pieces as the audience fled the theater screaming. I looked around me. My eyes darted here and there. It wouldn't be long now. If only I had some bugs.
I heard rustling. The infants were surrounding me. They were smiling sadistically.
I felt something in my shirt. I looked down and saw a daddy long legs crawl out. I took it into my hands and raised it to my lips. "Go and find your friends quick, before it's too late." I let it fall to my feet and it wobbled off.
I turned to the children. "You know, when you grow older, you are going to grow hair in places you don't grow hair now."
They stopped their advance and looked at one another. "And when you do, you're going to have to shave it off."
They had confused looks on their faces. "You're going to have to shave it off every day."
Their confusion turned to anger and they moved closer. "Some of you will have it ripped off." This stopped them again. Some had fear in their eyes.
Legions of daddy long legs swarmed over them. Muffled screams filled the air.
copyright 2015
image and text
Richard Talbot Hill
It’s time to go away for the cookie clock. If we stay, who knows what might happen. John tells me the FBI might be interested. I told John that I talk to the FBI on face book. They would let me know right away but they haven’t said boo.
I am going away but I just don’t know where yet. I’m waiting for the cookie clock to give me a clue. Yesterday there were green birds in my hair. I wondered if that was some kind of hint. I first noticed them when I was walking out of the dentist’s office. The dentist was telling me that the Free Market was so great because we could get Maine Lobsters in California. I didn’t argue with him because his hands were in my mouth. There is a mirror in the dentist’s waiting room. I glanced in it when I was leaving and noticed my hair was moving. Outside, I looked at my reflection in a picture window of a shoe store and saw the birds. There were seven of them and they were looking at the shoes in the window. Looking back now, I am thinking, green birds, green birds. Were they there to suggest I go to a place where there are green birds like Africa or South America or Indonesia? When they noticed me looking at them in the reflection, they flew away. Should I fly somewhere?
Then I saw her, strutting down the avenue, Triangle Gal, in the flesh, stepping out. She had a sad look in her eyes. She was singing. "Tock tick, chocolate chip. Tic tock, where's my glock?"
I smiled and waived to her. I asked her if she had seen John. She told me he had been arrested. The FBI had broken down his door when he was in the shower. His house and all his possessions had been confiscated and sold. Triangle Gal had been at the auction. She bought his library. I thanked her for that. We walked down the street slowly together in silent respect. She took my hand. “Did you hear they’re going to make pornography illegal?”
I laughed. “Then what is the FBI going to watch?”
“They have us to watch.”
The Insects
The gun was too big and unwieldy and I didn’t want to shoot the son of a bitch but it was me or him and the world would be a hell of a lot better off without him. He was having lunch in an outdoor café on a small square. There were few people on the street and no one else at any table. The thug pushed me and told me to get it over with. I peeked around a wall on a corner a few store fronts down. The thug jabbed me. I lifted the gun to my shoulder and fired. The son of a bitch fell backwards, his feet kicking the table over. Blood flowed around the shattered dishes and glassware. I heard a scream. We both bolted. A couple of streets later with no one around, we ditched the weapon in a hedge and sauntered the last few blocks to the store. Another thug was waiting for us and ushered us in. He told us to walk through the store and exit the back. He lead us through a yard and out a gate. Across a street, we climbed a flight of wooden stairs up to the roof of a dilapidated building. When we reached the edge of the roof, the thug from the store looked down to a field of dry, overgrown grass. He told us the man I had shot was beloved by the insects. There was fear in his voice. A high pitched rattle began to fill the air. He looked around frantically and told us we had to get the hell away before they discovered us. He screamed and jumped off the roof right before our eyes. We turned and ran down the stairs for our lives as the rattle turned into the clanging of a distant fire alarm. But there was no fire. We raced down the street towards an abandoned, weed covered railroad track. Both of us stopped in abject terror as the weeds suddenly began a frantic dance from the racing insects beneath them. A rattling howl filled our ears.
All went silent. We stood stupefied. The quaking plants swayed still. Millions of eyes staring at us pricked our skin like needles. I began to sing. I rocked on my feet with the rhythm in my head. The man looked at me in astonishment. When he turned to run, a cloud of insects vomited out to the brush and consumed him. The music filled my soul. My shoulders moved with it. My head rocked. The cloud over his bones hovered for a moment next to me as if making a decision. I began to dance. The fog of tiny teeth moved with me. I opened my arms to it. It surged toward me. It enveloped me. It rhythmically caressed me. I rolled my head back on my shoulders and smiled.
Rick Hill
Copyright
Dick and Me
I did this is a portrait of Dick Cheney when he was in his prime. When we met, our lives began anew. We were inseparable. It was if we had already spent our lives together but with the explosive joy of discovering everything about each other. One of the first things we did was spend a couple of weeks together at Disney World, Orlando at his insistence. When a dear friend of mine heard that Dick and I were going away together, she had to join us. Unfortunately they won't let her out for more than an hour or so. I felt so bad that Dick and I had so much fun without her, I gave her the portrait and it now graces the dining room of the asylum where she now resides.
She is safe and sound in her own world while I suffer the disappointment and heartbreak of the real world. The Holiday season always makes me a bit nostalgic and this year led me back to Dick Cheney and our brief affinity in the late nineties. We had such a good time at Disney World, Orlando that Dick invited me for a long weekend at his time share condo at Disney’s Old Key West Resort. It sounded like a blast to me so I arranged to take some time off from my job at Lockheed Martin. Back then, Dick and I would spend hours on the phone almost every day. We were finalizing plans of where we would meet, how we would get there and so on (at one point, Dick suggested we take a cruise from New York to Miami!) when all of a sudden everything went dead. I didn’t hear from him for a couple of days and when I tried calling him, there was no answer, nothing. Finally a maid picked up the phone and told me that someone had showed up at Dick’s door and the two of them had been inseparable ever since, someone by the name of Dubya.
The one thing that pisses me off more than anything is betrayal so I definitely was not going to let Dick break my heart and get away with it let alone have some little dip shit run off with him and make a fool of me to boot. I thought of a friend of mine I worked with on Hellfire missile development at Lockheed who had recently joined the NSA. I helped him get through a nasty divorce and I was sure he would be glad to return the favor. I wasn’t interested in, how shall I say it, getting anything done to Dick and the little Jezebel. I just wanted to know what the hell happened. My friend was glad to oblige. You can imagine my shock when I was told not only were they planning to run off together, they were planning to run off with the country as well. My feelings for Dick notwithstanding, I just couldn’t imagine him at the helm of the greatest country on earth especially with some punk shit for brains pile of potato peels at his side. That was when my friend showed me a photo of the two of them in a huge red Chevy convertible on their way to Vegas. The enigmatically attractive look of menacing thuggery that so often graced Dick’s face had warped into a demented sadistic mask and the hysterically crazed demeanor of his new pet was truly terrifying. Something had happened to my Dick Cheney and he was mine no longer. They deserved each other and I knew they would surely come to a bad end. That was my revenge. The idea of the two of them getting anywhere near the White House shot a spear of ice up my spine. Thank God reality intervened and that nightmare left me. Let it go, I said to myself. You’ll never see either one of them again.
KEEP US SAFE
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Richard Talbot Hill
2017
