fiction

Street Songs

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Last night I was in an unvisited room – white brick walls, very open, but warm with verdant carpets covering a cold floor. A blond dude stood on a small stage, with a guitar and microphone. He was releasing his only album.  I had no idea who he was. An invitation came in the mail. I responded with a presence.

The music was soothing and mellow,  reminding me of a golden California sunrise  –  yellow with so much hope and promise in the skies. I felt the sunrise in the words as they flowed through me like warm bath bubbles. Every song was great.  Folded cardboard sheets  were passed around. I saw them on a golf course. A sign-off was mandatory.  Beside every track was an approval box.  I put a check mark beside every song.  But not all the songs were present.  I heard more than I saw. I had to tell the producer. We need the warmth. Panic. Action.

 I got on my bike and headed down a street lined with dirty grey buildings and greasy round porthole windows, so thick light couldn’t escape. The air was cold as I glided down the unknown pavement. I passed a relic with a dome shaped roof covered in green metal.  So many poor people along the route –  leaning, squatting, and laying down on the cracked sidewalk The citizens starving with their skin peeling and falling off the bone.  Eyes so dark and sunken like buried seeds in winter.  I wanted to help, but I couldn’t stop. The producer calls.

I got to a shopping centre with a tall glass office tower. The windows were  shiny and mirrored. In the reflection were the starving people on the sidewalk,  behind me.  I turned right, but as I did a large dump truck pulled out in front of me. I was struck. I fell down and couldn’t move. More panic.  The music must get out. The road was blocked. I thought about the sidewalk, but it was covered in people. I sat on my bike, wondering what I should do. I shook. Rivers ran down my face.

A bearded man rose from the sidewalk and walked towards me. He held out his hand. I reached into my bag – slung over my shoulder and hanging on my right side – and took out a bundle of  scorecards. I gave it to the man. He took it and smiled. He went back to the sidewalk  and raised the scorecards with a holler. People rose, gained weight, and were covered in the most glorious gold clothing. They danced and sang the warm songs.

I turned my bike around and headed back down the street. The street people were gone. The green roof was now bronze and shining in the morning sun. The buildings were clean and new. A warm gust flew up the alleys and the streets. Lights glowed in windows and people moved inside, busy. The smell of rich and savoury food filled the street. I wasn’t hungry anymore. I sang.

Bookstore

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A couple of nights ago, I was in this bookstore. Slate grey roof and ceiling with dark mahogany shelves stacked with scattered tomes, big and small. I have a reading list, but I can’t see the titles on the page. I scan the shelves trying to find matching titles. Paper shaking in my wet fingers. I walk over to a table stacked with books like a three-D puzzle. I look under the table and resting on top of a broken wooden crate is a copy of Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch. The spine is broken. The book rests in two pieces.  I’m not sure the novel is on my list, but I’m glad I found it. I leave it hoping to come back.

I move around the bookstore checking my list with words I can’t see. Behind me I hear a famous voice, but I can’t see the face. The man is yelling at someone in the distance behind a closed door. He is upset the other person is closing the bookstore. It’s doing well, he says, so why close it. The female voice says, because it’s time. The raspy voice mutters incoherency as I hear his footsteps move away.  A door opens with the tinkle of a bell and then closes without a sound. No faces, only sounds.

I pull a book off the shelf. I can’t read the title, but on the cover is a dark woman, dressed in regal purple with gold trim. Her hair beehive style adorned with sparkling geometrical figures like a castle tower with golden windows. Her beautiful head crowned in gold and rubies.  I know her, but her name falters.  I look ahead. She is standing stair top between two dark wooden posts, carved with intricate male heads-  dark, shiny and bald. The Queen touches the figures and raises her eyes.

I am no longer in the bookstore. I follow dignity down the stairs. She glides. Her feet don’t touch wood. My bare feet feel the hard, slick wood as I move behind her. When she reaches the bottom, she turns and goes into a magnificent room, filled with ancient books.

The room is dark but  graceful – rich cherry wood, a piano covered in books.   Maps adorn the walls – yellow and crisp and ready to fall into pieces. I see a large golden globe in the centre of the library and a statue of a famous man.  The women turns and hands me a book. It’s very heavy, bound in leather and on the cover a map with river indentations and rising mountains. Both are cold to touch.

I take the book and walk out of the room. I go up the stairs and I walk until I’m back in the bookstore. I know exactly where the book goes. I put it on a shelf. The book glows golden. Anyone who enters will see the book and they will know.

Baby Beetle Camping

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Yesterday, I loaded up the black Beetle with all my camping gear. I was with another person, but I can’t see her face. I never can. We got to an undisclosed location and pitched our tent  in a perfectly round crop circle.  The grass stomped down, but long on the outside. About thirty feet beyond the enclosure were tall spruce and pine trees, so thick you can’t see daylight. I pitched the lean-to style tent, open at the front, but sliding down at the back.  Standing up was impossible.

It started to rain. Torrents. The tent started to move as the crop circle became a giant swirling hot tub. If we didn’t get to a dry spot or higher ground, we’d be swept down into the unknown. Panic flooded us. The rushing water sound so loud we were deaf.  We got out of the tent and ran to the Beetle, still fairly new with a yellow interior. It was parked outside the circle. Once inside, I looked through the sun roof, but only saw dark, angry skies.

It was very quiet inside the German bug . Amazing considering the torrent outside. Then I heard tiny lips smacking. Hunger.  I turned around and behind me was a baby firmly strapped into a bucket seat. We leaned back, so we could sleep. We didn’t have individual sleeping bags, so we covered ourselves with only one bag. It wasn’t very warm. But much better than outside in the cold swirling rain. The baby slept between our heads. Baby sounds. Gurgle. Giggle. Ga-Ga.

We had a fantastic sleep. The rain stopped. We got out of the car. The baby was gone. It took us some time to find our tent. It was wrapped around the base of a tree as if it were a blanket protecting the massive lumber’s roots. I gathered the tent. We were on our way to the bug when a woman walked out of the trees. She had thick curly black hair spun into two wispy spirals. Dark round sunglasses covered much real estate on her shiny white face. I swore I’d seen her in a cartoon.

She walked with heavy authoritative steps and stopped in front of me. She raised one leg and then the other and stomped them on the ground. I felt the vibrations. I’ll give you this gun for that tent. I hate guns, I said. It was a shiny silver gun with a black handle. I was afraid and felt I had no choice, so I said sure and took the pistol.  She took the tent, turned with her heavy steps and walked away. I had the horrible weapon shaking in my hand. She stopped, turned around and tossed a bullet clip at me. I caught it and gave her a direct line across my face. She said, just in case.

She walked into the forest and disappeared with my home. I took the gun and buried it in her footsteps, hopefully, never found.

Decorations

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Last night I was in  front of a chalkboard covered in  undecipherable symbols. People were dancing – backs on the ground, hands behind their head  with hips bouncing up and down as if they were a swing bridge.  The group wore identical grey tee-shirts with a colourful swirling label pasted on the front and bright pink  pants.  All were in very good condition, not an ounce of jiggling.  They gave their presentation, and after everyone clapped.  I said I must go downstairs and rearrange the Christmas lights. It was April and getting late.

I went into the basement of the old school. The well worn steps were steep, shaky and crackling with every movement. Once the door closed behind me, the world turned black. I hit the bottom.  I took my phone out and pressed the torch. Where was the light switch?  I spanned every wall and the ceiling looking for illumination. Nothing. No bulbs, switches, or any hope for light.

As I walked along the bottom, I saw cubicles on each side of a long dark corridor. The storage compartments were sectioned off into small three by three-foot spaces, jammed to the top with colourful cardboard crates. Letters and numbers scribed, but unknown. Each compartment had a chicken wire front door framed with two-by-two pieces of wood  with an engraved number on top, but no order. On each door was a lock. I forgot to bring keys.

I shone the light in each compartment, hoping I’d see a Christmas decorations label. I finally found what I was looking for on the bottom shelf of number fifteen. The door was locked. However, unlike the other locks, this one needed numbers. I used the last seven digits of my school identification.  The metal clicked.

I opened a box and took the tree lights out, pulling the cord while wrapping the green and red bulbs around my shoulder and hand.  A colourful circle of lights.  My arm was getting sore. Just as I thought my arm would fall off, the lights came to a stop and lit up like, well, a Christmas tree. I put the glowing  bundle into a bag labelled “Decorations,” closed and locked the door.

I started walking back down the corridor. I couldn’t find the stairs I came down. I was confused and lost. Just as my eyes started to swell, a glowing rectangle frame appeared. I opened the door. Bright lights. Many voices. I smelled pine,  banana and old spice.

I went to a directions counter. I knew the server. Her English was good, but not proficient enough to understand my predicament.  I said hello. She was very concerned because she didn’t give the right amount of change to the previous customer. I said, don’t worry I know the person.  I found her.  She was flexing in the hallway. Her body bent in pink pants. I told her the counter person was upset because she didn’t give her the right change. She said, laughing, don’t worry she can keep it.

Ward 14

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Last night I stepped out of a cab – directions unknown. The rain poured in slanted silver sheets. I was saddled with a horribly disgusting passenger. The object next to me was all black and gooey as if covered in shiny tar. I have no idea where he came from. He was just there.

You would have a hard time telling if the blob riding with me was human. The thing rolled out of the cab and lay in a dirty puddle, floating like a lung oyster in the toilet. And the putrid smell, decaying organic matter not of this universe. The sick shit was my roommate and I couldn’t have walked into a more horrible condition.

I was renting a cramped but clean studio apartment from a guy who worked with me at the hospital. I was very sad because my previous roommate was an outstanding fellow – kind, considerate and the most honorable human I’ve ever met. My landlord hooked me up with the new roomy but warned me to be careful. Honour was not a genuine blob quality.  I had no choice because rents were so high in my city, one had to take on a roommate. I got stuck with a piece of shit. Soaring costs and terrible humans cause havoc on social fabrics.

I got home with misery following and decided to go for a run. The apartment was close to the hospital where I worked. I ran around the hospital and then went inside because I was getting wet. As I ran through the hospital, I saw a guy slouched over on a bench with his head in his hands. I went over and asked him if he was all right. He lifted his head; his eyes rimmed raw red, his face clean and never shaven.

He was carrying flowers – all purple, red and white, but they were sagging and shaking in his hands. I asked if he was all right. He said he was fine, but he didn’t know how to get to ward fourteen. My mouth dropped. The worse ward in the hospital. Once you go into ward fourteen, you weren’t leaving without a uniformed escort. I pointed to the candy-striped elevator. Only one ride to ward fourteen. I hugged him. He thanked me, lowered his head, and got on the elevator. A grey woman wearing a white paper hat shaped like a boat looked at me, smiled and nodded her head.

I finished my run through the hospital and went home. Immediately, I checked all my secret hiding spots. My valuables were still in place. I went into the living room and spotted the black disgusting slug on my couch. I thought about asking him to move because he was staining the furniture, but I didn’t want to anger him. Let sleeping dogs lie, literally. I went and took a shower to remove the hospital and sweat from my bones. When I came out, the slug was gone, replaced with a paper hat. The stain removed from my couch.

Lost Wallet

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Me and the mates were heading to a beach bar.  Beer time, somewhere. As we were walking down the sandy path, I padded my pockets.  Holy shit dudes, I forgot my wallet. They turned, looked at me and rolled their eyes. They continued. I stood alone and watched them move away, brothers in arms. Sand crusted my eyes.

I ran back to the room. They were cabin style with white exteriors and lime green shutters.  An orange tiki lamp with a warrior face lit  my room number, 16A. My bag was on a wicker bench outside the room. I opened the bag and frantically searched for my wallet. It wasn’t there. I couldn’t go back to the bar.  My mates would disown me.  I played the lame excuse card too many times.

I went to the hotel desk. No one was there, so I rang the bell. The clerk came out, he was wearing a lobster bib and chewing horror. The smell emanating from him was atrocious like rotting feet wrapped in a poopy baby diaper. Holy shit, I said.  What are you eating? Oh, just a family recipe. I said, I’ve got a huge problem. I can’t seem to find my wallet. Has anyone turned in a wallet? He shook his head. Is there any way I can get a couple of hundred and put it on my tab. You can just charge it to the card I used for the room. He shook his head. Ok, I said, can I have another room key? I’ve lost that as well. He went behind the counter and gave me 16A. The silver metal sparkled with orange tiki light.

I went back to the room. The key wouldn’t work.  I yanked and twisted  the knob like a full bladder man. I needed my wallet. Moisture swept across my brow. My hands shook and my feet swelled. Finally the door swung open.  On the wall was an ocean portrait, waves crashing and splashing on a rock in light blue and grey. The picture was new to me. Looking at it made me tired. I laid down on the brown and yellow striped polyester bed cover. I closed my eyes.

We were travelling to a large major city, frantically looking for a place to stay. I looked at the map.  Red lines spread across busy intersecting lines. So many lines; it was hard to plan a route.  I wasn’t driving. At the wheel was a person I did not know. I asked her, have we met? She said, what do you think? I said,  we need to find a place before it gets dark. She laughed. I said, do you live here? She laughed again with tiki light.

When I woke up, it was dark outside. I walked to the bar, but it was closed. Then I went to the front desk and asked the sweet pea smelling clerk, have you seen my friends? He said, they checked out days ago.

Then She Was Gone

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I just finished “Then She Was Gone” by Lisa Jewell. I don’t know how to categorize the book – Mystery? Thriller? Whatever the genre, I enjoyed the read, but holy darkness, Batman. We’re talking Chris Nolan cape crusader. Not for this review, but why is everything so dark these days – books, movies. What does this say about our society?

The novel is about the Mack family living a very common existence in North London, dinner parties, good grades, high school romance. Until a horror beyond horror hits the family. The family’s golden child, Ellie, is snatched. She’s gone. The action rips the family apart, creating weird broken relationships. The parents, Laurel and Paul, split up because Ellie’s mother devotes all her time to finding her favourite child. She gives up on the living family.

Then just as she’s recovering and starting to move on, she meets Floyd. They hook up in a coffee shop near her home. The new BF has a daughter who looks very familiar. But the relationship is not just good sex and nice clothes. We find that Floyd has a strange past with Ellie’s math tutor just before she was abducted or ran away from home. We aren’t sure at this point.

When she meets Floyd, we are happy because Laurel is moving on. Great. But it doesn’t take long until something doesn’t feel right. Is he a fraud? He doesn’t appears like his book sleeve photo – he’s a published maths for dummies author. It’s just not right. Then the truth falls like a cannon ball in the shallow end of a kid’s pool and darkness reigns.

And my goodness we have some weird relationships in the novel. Poppy, Floyd’s daughter will need some serious therapy for her entire life. Hanna, the not so golden child,  and her brother Jake have very difficult relationships with their mother. The daughter lives a lonely existence with a secret she cannot share with her mother. The only way Laurel can keep in contact with her estranged daughter is by cleaning her house and with that task she spies. The son lives in Devon (away from mother) with a wife who manages his life. Laurel’s  ex-husband remarries and they rarely make contact. Holy estrangement Batman.

And darkness? Holy cow, I’m not going to describe the basement and what goes on in there, but it kept me awake for nights. And the Irish monster, please, please may I never meet such a creature. Another screwed up relationship is between Floyd and his past. There’s not a skeleton in his closet, it’s an entire graveyard.

I couldn’t put the book down. Jewell is very good at making me want to burn another page. But if I may suggest, don’t read it before you go to bed and make sure you read it in a brightly lit safe place and please lock all your doors and windows.

Green Tent

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Two weeks ago, I went camping. I pitched a glowing green tent shaped like an igloo in a forest clearing. Inside, hung from a criss-crossed pole at the top was an old lantern running on white gas, burning with a mesh style baby sock. The light was very bright. White hot slashes poured between the flammable walls. The structure from outside looked like a radiating green snow globe, possibly shaken by a very large man with green clothing and a deep voice, shouting, “Ho, ho, ho.” I wasn’t sure if I should use the light in the tent, the fumes and heat very combustible in a small confined area.

Under the raging light was my sleeping arrangement, a single green cot. I went outside and sitting around the campfire were two people. One was a dude decked out in green camo. He wore a floppy fisherman hat with randomly attached  hooks and lures. One device was bright neon orange. A fish would spot it miles away.  He was a good fisherman, I heard. He always stuck to the rules. Catch and release.

Next to him sat a girl dressed in white, red and brown camo. She kept moving away from the fire. I watched steam rising from her clothes.   She was medium height, with streaky pink hair tied up at the back. She had a camo-tattoo around her ankle, matching her clothes. She wore a large mason jar smile, showing many bright white teeth. They glowed like bright white light.  Good for midnight bladder jaunts to the bush, I thought.

She asked to come in the tent, and I said sure. I brought a blue sleeping bag with me, but I couldn’t find it. I searched the tent and then went outside to look around the campsite, but it was nowhere. I was so sure I’d brought it. Streaky hair girl got on the cot. I did the same. It was very tight and we couldn’t move. We snuggled and tried to get warm. I tried to cover us, but the only means were the bags the cot and tent were stored in.  I considered lighting the lamp, but I was afraid we’d go up in a fireball. Death by fire or by ice, I’m not sure what is better.

It was a restless night.  We couldn’t get comfortable or warm on the small cot with no coverings except leftover bags. Finally, the sun rose. The tent quickly became an oven – nature’s extremes. We were starting to suffocate, so we got out of the tent. Fisher guy was still there sitting around the fire. He’d fallen asleep in a chair before the fire. I asked him how he slept. He said like a baby with blue lips and toes.

I finally found my sleeping bag. I handed it to pink hair girl, but she said she was  going fishing. I said, good luck I hope you catch something. She smiled with those bright white teeth. I tried to remember where my sunglasses were.

Panel Wagon

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I was driving a very small car, fire engine red with white trim. It was so low to the ground, I felt as though my ass were dragging across the ground, derriere road rash. It wasn’t light out yet, gray light just forming on the horizon. I drove to the institution early so I could get a good parking spot. The lot got very full, very fast. I was in a rush, so I had to wash my hair in the back seat of my tiny car. Luckily the car came with a shower nozzle, the kind you find in a kitchen, thin flexible metallic hose with a black nozzle. You just press the button, and water scoots out. I’m glad I had the option. Clean hair is so important.

After I washed my hair, my friend came and tapped on the window. I couldn’t see her face because her shaggy dirty blonde hair covered her facial features. She wore a large beige cable knit sweater, reminding me of a rug with a zipper up the front. She was going to take my car and drive it to an unknown location. She got in and dropped me off at the institution door, but it was too early. I told her I’d wait until the doors opened, but she insisted and drove back to the parking lot. I said, you’ll never get a parking spot. She wasn’t worried.

When we got back, the lot was full. Another little car was driving into the space we vacated. Only little cars were permitted in the lot. So many little cars in one place, you’d think a clown convention was happening. We drove around and around but couldn’t find a spot.

My friend was getting frustrated. I asked her if she wanted to come for dinner. She was very appreciative.  She said sure. She’d come back and pick me up at four. I walked to the steel institution doors. They opened.

She arrived right on time at four. We drove to my house. I was living in another car, a station wagon with the same wood panels adorning so many basements in shag carpet time. My house had no wheels. It was parked in an abandoned lot with a large park flowing outside the back window. The wagon had a portable stove on the back.

I poured some wine. We drank and she admired my Swedish shelving. They’re Olof Palmes’.  We sat in the front seat drank wine and ate steak and potatoes and green beans. After dinner, we jumped over the front seats and sat in the back and listened to the radio. A song came on about a guy who was in love with his best friend’s girlfriend. I said I hadn’t heard the song in a long time. She said the guy was an asshole. Who does that?

We pulled the seats back and laid down in the wagon area, watching the trees and the grass sway in the park. We drank the rest of our wine. We talked until the park was only shadows. She said, it’s getting late. I have to work in the morning. After she went home, I got out and lit the wagon on fire. I walked down a dark road, wishing I hadn’t given her my car.

We Spread

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Ok, just finished the Iain Reid book. Great last name pal. Penny is an elderly woman living alone in her apartment after her partner dies. They were painters, he the more famous.  She thought she wasn’t as talented. Or perhaps, she could’ve been the better painter but it was hard living in her partner’s very large shadow.

She’s lonely and a little paranoid living alone. Her most loyal companions are the mice who live with her. She sees a person across the street staring into her apartment. She worries, not sure if the dark shadow is friend or foe. Living alone and aging brings on paranoia. Who can you talk to about seeing suspicious shadows if you are alone? The voices in your head? Oh yea, those are so reliable. No matter what age.

Then one day, she’s trying to change a lightbulb and she smacks her head on the counter. She lies there unconscious until her landlord finds her and calls the paramedics. It could’ve been much worse. Landlord packs her bags and hauls her to a retirement home, “Six Cedars.”

The place is wonderful – lots of trees surrounding an old Victorian home. A place to live out your years in peace, quiet and verdant pleasure. Except you can’t go outside. Too dangerous. Shelly runs the house for purely altruistic reasons, or does she? She has another dude working for her, Jack a repenting soul – issues we never know about. Also in the home are four patients – Hilbert, a mathematician, Ruth a chatterbox translator who speaks many languages and finally Pete who never speaks but plays a beautiful violin.

When Penny arrives at the home all is grand – she is eating well, more than her apartment staple of canned tomato soup. She sleeps well another necessity she lacked while living on her own. All is just hunky dory until weirdness happens (time starts slipping) – she paints prodigiously but doesn’t remember creating, fungi grows on people, Sistine Chapel frescos appear.  Windows are not real, they are more like a Salvor Dali painting where the glass bends and wobbles. Penny is suspicious. She feels the need to escape. She needs to walk among the trees like the old days in the park near her apartment. A place she felt safe. She does not feel safe in the painting that’s come alive.

Now, what to make of this novel. What’s it all about? What does it mean? I do not know. I see Penny as elderly person who gets to the point where she can’t take care of herself, and she’s forced to move. Maybe she actually dies in the apartment and the retirement home is her purgatory before she moves on. Her last final painting. Her great work of art. She says she doesn’t like to complete her work; she loves the “in progress” tone of her art – to borrow a cliche, life is about the continually moving journey not the stagnant destination. She finally creates her masterpiece, reaching the final station along the line. Once complete she moves on. Isn’t this like all humans? Fear that if we complete our journey, it’s the end. A reason many won’t get a will done – if I see a lawyer and leave all my earthly possessions to my dog, down comes the deadly hand of fate. Ok, maybe that’s just me.