The Door

I pounded harder and harder on the decadent, heavy, oak door. "Don't do this, Sarah!" I yelled so loudly that my throat began to throb with pain. It was almost enough to numb my bleeding fists, which were still beatin against the now crimson grain. "Things will work out. It will be okay. You just have to trust me." I pressed my ear against the door, straining with everything inside me to listen for a reply. However, the only sounds I could hear were that of the openings and closings of drawers and medicine cabinets. "This isn't the answer, Sarah! Please, just come out here and talk to me!" There was no reply. I ran quickly into the kitchen. There were still unopened gift baskets and covered dishes from neighbors sitting everywhere. Ironically, no one has an appetite after funerals. I searched frantically for something I could use to open the door--my sister's barrier between life and death. After about forty-five seconds I found a screwdriver in the back of the droor next to the refrigerator. I grabbed it and ran back to the door. As I approached, a crashing sound pierced my ears. I knew what it was immediately and the mental image of her lifeless body falling to the floor sent a wave of panic throuh me. Just at that moment, the dreadful white pill rolled under the crack of the door and into plain sight. I fell to my knees on the cold marble floor. I was too late to save her.

Weekly Fun

How he got himself into this situation he still did not know. Just three days ago, he was behind a desk in an accounting firm, analyzing thousands upon thousands of figures for the biggest money-makers in the world. Now, he was the captain of the newest team in the league. Of course, that didn’t mean much. In bloodball, a new team was added every week since the only way to win was to brutally kill every member on the opposite team. He had no idea why it was called bloodball. There was no ball, only ten men armed with axes, daggers, and ninja swords trying to cop each other into pieces.

            He looked around the makeshift auditorium. It was nothing more than a large warehouse that the government used to keep aborted fetuses in for research. Now, it had been transformed into the Arena of Death. The timer was about to start. He had three minutes and six seconds to fight for his life. Six seconds after the match began, he was still in awe. Looking at the wall clock, its face protected behind heavy wire mesh, he wondered if he could last three minutes longer. He shook himself and focused. He had to survive.

            All of the sudden one of his opponents charged, his battle axe in mid-swing. The accountant dodged the blow and counter-attacked with his razor sharp ninja sword, cutting his opponent’s arm to the bone. The opponent screamed in pain while the blood from his arm sprayed through the air, bathing the accountant’s face in the warm fluid. He now knew the taste of blood, and he thirsted for it for the first time in his life. The accountant swung again, slicing through his opponent’s jugular. His opponent dropped to his knees, blood covering his chest. “Finish me,” he gargled.

            The accountant knew what he had to do. He ran his sword through the opponent’s stomach, twisting it in wide circles to create a large enough hole. He then reached into his opponent’s stomach, clenched his intestines, and began ripping them from him with a ferocity that sent the bloodthirsty crowd into a frenzy, He rapped the intestines around his opponent’s neck and stopped on his face, breaking five of his teeth. Victory was his, at least for this week.

                                              The Story of a Bird

My story is not like most of the ones a person would hear from an animal such as myself. I wasn't born. I didn't grow up. My first memories were made up of glue and popsicle sticks. See, I was made entirely of wooden sticks. I have no mother, and my father was a six year old boy who was in search of an art project for school. His name was George. He was actually very intelligent for his age, but of course the other children teased him because of it. They especially liked to make fun of his relitively large pair of glasses that he always had to push back to the top of his nose whenever he moved his head too quickly. He was a good kid with a big heart. He spent hours making sure every part of me was lined up perfectly, from my unrealistic tail feathers to my rounded popsicle beak. He put a lot of hard work into me. Once I was finally completed, he was so proud that he showed me to his entire family, and then to the art class at school. I remember those days fondly. He brought me home from school and placed me in the middle of the dining room table so that everyone could see his wonderful creation. However, I quickly learned that nothing popsicle can stay. Within a couple of months I was moved to the attic, where I have remained ever since. I'll see George every once in a while. Whenever he can't seem to find something he'll look around this place for a while. He never seems to be looking for me though. I wish dearly that I could just call out to him and relive my glory days of dining room display, but I can't. I can't even move. If I could I would have broken free of this prison long ago. I just sit here all alone, day after day, and I'm afraid there will soon be a sign on the attic door reading "Here Lies Stick Stickly: A popsicle stick afterthought in the ice cream stand song of life."

The forest was cold and dark, with various hoots and howls echoing through the trees. It was enough to chill any man's spine and cause his muscles to tense with fear of the unknown. The forest floor was damp with dew-covered death from the limbs that towered overhead. With every step, one could not keep from treading on life from years passed that has fallen with all that has withered away.

Johnny strolled through the forest as one might stroll through a meadow, seeing the beauty in every plant and letting them sooth his hurts. He lived and breathed the forest, for it was his refuge from the domestic cries of bloodied fists and anger in a bottle. That was the life he knew, countless evenings of submitting to his father's inebriated commands, and enduring punishment despite his actions to obey. But there was none of that in the forest. It scared all of those things away.

A stinging "beep" from Johnny's wristwatch awakened him from his fantasy of peace. "It's nine o'clock," Johnny thought to himself, "Dad is going to kill me!" Johnny knew that at his best pace he could not make it home before his father came looking for him. He also knew that his delay would cost him dearly. He took off at once in the direction that had been stoking him in the back the entire trip, stirring up the pains that he has buried time after time. Almost breaking a full stride, Johnny recalled the sting of the leather belt his father wore and the agony of wielding the lashes across his back, each with a loud "crack" that he knew brought satisfaction to his punisher.

Johnny was nearing the edge of the forest when the dreadful figure came into view, a silhouette with a bottle in one hand and the instrument of pain in the other. "Where are you boy?" Johnny's father yelled with an escalating frustration, "I know you're here somewhere." Johnny stopped dead in his tracks. "I can hear you breathing," his father exclaimed, "Come on out here. I need to talk to you." Johnny knew what he father wanted. His father didn't need to talk to him; he needed to release his frustrations, despite the suffering of his once-loved child.

His father's eyes were scanning the treeline. In hopes of hiding himself, Johnny began to slowly move toward a large oak tree ot the left of him. Careful not to make a sound, he picked up his left foot and meticulously set it on the forest floor a few inches away from where it had previously been frozen in fear. As he began to follow the same procedure with his other foot, he gasped from the realization that his father's gaze was locked on his exact location.

Johnny's father began to move toward him, stepping across the forest line and into Johnny's realm of imaginary joy. "I see you boy," his father said, "Come on, let's chat." From fear of enduring any more pain, Johnny ran to the oak tree and began to climb, hoping that his father would be too drunk to follow. His father walked toward the tree. "Don't be scared Johnny, I just want to talk." Johnny could almost smell the liquor on his breath. He climbed higher until he was sure that he was out of his father's reach. His father continued to move, stopping directly under the limb Johnny was resting on. "I'm getting impatient boy," Johnny moved farther out on the limb. "Boy don't make me come up there and get you!" With that, Johnny's father took the bottle of Jack Daniels he had been holding and threw it against the trunk of the tree just above Johnny's head. Johnny jumped in terror, and as his weight shifted back onto the branch, he heard a loud "crack", much like that of his father's belt. The branch had begun to break away from the base of the tree. Johnny's demeanor changed immediately. He stood up on the branch and began to shift his weight up and down. "There you go boy. Now come down here and we'll head inside."
"As you wish father," Johnny replied. He jumped into the air and landed back on the branch, separating it completely from the base of the tree. Together they fell, the branch and Johnny, landing directly on top of his father.

As Johnny sat in his room later that night, he held both a tear and a smile. One was for the pain of losing someone he loved, and the other for the satisfaction of killing someone he hated.

DISMEMBERING DISTANCE

This would be the death of me…

Starving from lack of form

Leaving one to fend for want

If only steps comprised of defeat

I could walk on endless sole

Never conjoining with this vice

Which abides on every floor

And drowns these feet in pleasure

An amplitude housed in deception

Destroys my sense of navigation

And strays the best of sight

A canyon gapes from breast to breast

Inviting beasts of severed intentions

Tearing flesh, void of apprehension

Halting for null and compelling fear

To suffocate every plead and cry

Which would wane and expire

If given chance to enter air

In attempt to stretch across the gap

Separation succeeds the piper’s blow

And so this distance is my poison

-JG