Domestic Disturbance

The people who lived across the street from us were a curiosity from the day we moved in. They greeted us with apparent cordiality and openness but we could tell that there was something behind their façade of normalcy that was much more dreadful than any of the little secrets our family hid from the neighbors. Their handshakes were somehow threateningly firm and warm, and their eyes gave the impression that they were sucking your soul’s secrets out through your pupils. Though their smiles seemed genuine, the stark whiteness of their teeth always disturbed us just a little, and the longer they smiled, the more it seemed that they were not happy to see us so much as happy to have the opportunity to strike an inexplicable fear into the hearts of yet another innocent American family.

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The longer we lived in our new house, the more of this new and intriguing neighborhood’s lore we learned. There were four children in the family across the street, three boys and a girl, and none of them exceptionally bright. However, they seemed to make up for their lack of intelligence with athletic ability and their father’s money. There always seemed to be a beautiful car of some sort pulling in or out of the driveway, and though we knew that the money came from the mother’s ex-husband, it was a strange fact that no one really had any idea what he did for a living, though no doubt it was one of the most lucrative businesses available to uneducated middle class men.

My brother and I were never really friends with the children across the street; the youngest was a year older than I was, and as my brother was two years younger again than me, it was unlikely that as we grew we should have much in common with them, especially since our parents decided very early on that the moral capacities of the people across the street were considerably below the standards they held us to. We were not allowed to go to the parties they held, (eventually they stopped inviting us) and after a while of careful observation of the kinds of people that would come to visit, my brother and I were quite sure that it was probably a good idea our parents had forbade us to closely associate with the neighbors upon whose house we looked every morning.

We grew, and so did the people across the street, and they became a permanent fixture in our lives, not socially, but as an example of how we did not want to turn out. The oldest brother was arrested for assault, the next oldest for grand theft auto, (though why he would be doing that was beyond us, since he could call up daddy and ask for practically any car that he wanted), and the daughter dropped out of school and had many boyfriends with whom she spent long and expensive weekends. The youngest son actually went to college, (albeit it not a very good one,) for which he received vast amounts of laudation and praise and monetary contributions from his family members. And, as he left the house across the street for college, I began my senior year of high school.

It was a beautiful year. I started it off well by being accepted early into the best college in the state, and receiving the role of Maria in the school’s production of West Side Story. With my departure from the house I had called home for so many years fast approaching, my brother decided that this was as good a time as ever to move away from being an annoying little prick and begin to act like a normal human being that I actually enjoyed spending time with. Since he was not the insufferable intellectual that I was, he reached out to me in the only way a popular boy of his age knows how: with sports; in this case, hockey. He, of course, gave the excuse that I was “a fatty” and in need of exercise, but my parents and I both knew what he was up to, and so I began to play hockey with my brother outside nearly every day after school.

We ran and dodged and passed and crashed into each other for nearly two hours every day, glancing down the driveway every once and a while at the house across the street that was now so conspicuously empty of hoodlums, except for the drop-out daughter (and her absurdly small dog), who returned home on occasion when she and her latest boyfriend had a falling out. The youngest son, away at his lower-tier college with an excellent football program, was undoubtedly getting plastered every night instead of studying for his exams; the oldest son, now out of jail and on probation for his assault charges, was shacked up somewhere in the city with his latest girlfriend, and the middle son was still sitting in a cell contemplating why he had decided to steal a car he could have gotten from his father for free. It was very peaceful. The two of us hacked away at each other without reservations, knowing that what wouldn’t kill us would make us stronger, literally, and that in ten months I was going to be living in a cramped dorm room with an unknown roommate and bad food, three hours away from the brother I was just beginning to be able to stand. His suggestions for the betterment of my hockey game were, I decided, veiled expressions of care and instruction for how to live my life away from home.

“You should hold your stick lower in your right hand when you take face-offs,” he said on occasion. Translation: “hold fast to your dreams, for they will fly away before you know it if you hold them only loosely.” Another frequently employed phrase was, “Stand with your legs further apart and your knees more bent so I can’t knock you over so easily.” This obviously meant: “be prepared to fight for what you believe in against those crazy professors who like to corrupt the minds of innocent freshmen.” And then of course, the most meaningful of them all: “Protect the puck with your life!” which clearly was a poorly disguised way of saying “Don’t give up your virginity to the first schmuck who buys you dinner and shows you his collection of vintage Pink Floyd records.”

Whatever he was trying to say, it was very evident that the hockey playing that my brother and I were doing was bringing us closer together than anything we had ever attempted to do to reconcile our differences in the past. In fact, we now were actually beginning to talk to each other about things other than how he wasn’t doing his homework or about how I was leaving stuff everywhere around the house. One Friday afternoon, out of the blue, he asked me a strange question.

“Do you know anyone who smokes pot?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, Alex was looking through Mitch’s backpack today and found a bag of weed.”

“He carries it around with him? That’s pretty stupid.” This was obviously not the response my brother had been expecting. So I gave him what he wanted.

“You don’t have any inkling of smoking it, do you? Because that would be stupid, too.” He made a noise acknowledging my wisdom and I continued to think out loud about the situation.

“Actually, that doesn’t surprise me too much. I mean, he’s incredibly hyper every time he’s over here, so he’s probably… almost a normal person when he’s stoned.” My brother laughed.

“Yeah, that’s probably true.” Suddenly, something behind me caught his attention. I gathered it must have been pretty severe because he indicated that I should stop playing hockey for a second, a request which, under normal circumstances, would most likely indicate the apocalypse. He pointed over my shoulder to the house across the street.

“Dude, look.” I turned around and saw that the youngest had returned home for the weekend during his study break, and, shockingly, the oldest brother was home as well. What appeared even more peculiar was what they were doing. After a few seconds of looking, I dismissed my brother’s surprise.

“Dude, it’s just laundry. They’re just unloading his first load of college laundry from the trunk.” But even I was not convinced. The way they were holding this massive pile of clothing was completely bizarre. It took both of them to lift it. I continued to watch. And then, our eyes opened very wide.

“Holy shit,” my brother exclaimed under his breath. He swore a lot when he was around me, but this definitely merited an expletive. Out of the strangely heavy mass of laundry had just popped what appeared to be a human arm. The two brothers, noticing the appendage sticking out, hurriedly shoved it back into the pile. By this time, my brother and I were already playing hockey again, not out of a desire to get back to the game, but in fear that, if they suspected we had seen what was in that heap of fabric, they would come into our house in the dead of night and smother us in our beds.

As a result, neither of us had any desire to sleep that night. Shortly after hearing the door to my parents’ bedroom close definitively at around 10:30, I heard a tentative knock on my door.

“Come in,” I whispered, and my brother crept into my room with as much sneakiness as he could muster in his rapidly growing gangly form. We both sat in the middle of my floor and just stared at the carpet for a few minutes. After what seemed to be an eternity full to bursting with frantic internal questions and fear of impending doom, I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“Do you really think that was a body?” This seemed to my brother’s conspiratorial young mind an infernally stupid question.

“Dude, what else would it be?! There was a fucking ARM sticking out of it! And I was watching them.” He responded to the look of alarm on my face. “Don’t worry, I was careful. They didn’t seem me looking.” I gave him an older sibling-type look. “No, really, I’m sure they didn’t. Anyway, I was watching them and they stuffed it back in there like their lives depended on no one seeing it. If it had been, like, rubber, or some shit like that, they probably wouldn’t’ve cared, or they would have, like, laughed or something. But their faces were like, ‘oh shit, man’ and they stuffed it back in with the pants and shirts like there were cameras watching them.”

“Jesus, man.” That was all I could think to say. “JE-sus. Our neighbors are murderers. JE-sus!” I just sat for a few seconds after that. “What are we going to do?”

“Do? DO?! Claire, these people killed a dude. If they find out we know they killed one dude, do you really think they’ll have a problem killing two more to cover their asses?”

“I think you’re thinking about this too simplistically. Maybe they didn’t kill him after all. Maybe it was an accident and they think they’ll be framed for killing the guy so they’re trying to hide the body and make it look like the accident it was.”

My brother looked at me like a teacher over the tops of his non-existent glasses.

“Okay, okay,” I acknowledged. “That’s very unlikely, especially considering the fact that the older one was in jail for beating the shit out of a guy. But maybe…”

“No. Not ‘but maybe.’ One of them, or maybe both of them together, killed that guy whose arm was hanging out of that laundry. There is no way of getting around that. And if they find out we saw them, they’ll have to kill us as witnesses and chop us up into tiny pieces and feed us to that ridiculous tiny dog of the daughter’s.” I look at him over the very real tops of my glasses. “Okay, okay, so they’ll probably just bury us in their backyard.” Right on cue, we heard a noise that sounded suspiciously like digging coming from the house across the street. My brother grabbed my arm.

“SEE?!?!?! They’re burying a BODY in their BACKYARD!!! How are we ever going to survive?”

“Shhh! You’ll wake up mom and dad.”

“Oh yeah… Sorry. And if they find out, they’ll immediately call the police. And then we’ll ALL be dead.”

“Louie. I don’t think you realize just how difficult it is to cover up ONE murder, much less five.”

“And you do?”

I wasn’t about to be an idiot and attribute my knowledge of the problems with crime concealment to my frequent watching of Law and Order and CSI, so I just started to pontificate about how people would notice the guy was missing and would report it, and then someone would find out that the people across the street were seen with him immediately before his death, and then one thing would lead to another and they would eventually be arrested.

“So, what you’re saying is that we don’t really have to do anything at all to get the law on them; it will come by itself.”

“Did you seriously just say ‘get the law on them’?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing. I just thought it was funny.”

“You know what I think is funny about this situation?” I waited for him to tell me. “NOTHING! WE’RE GOING TO BE KILLED!” I put my face into my hands exasperatedly.

“You know what I think we should do right now?”

“What?”

“Go to sleep.” He responded by grabbing his head with such fury it was comical.

“How can you think of sleeping at a time like this?”

“How can you think of using that phrase at all when you hate clichés so much?” He let out a sigh of air like a condemned man accepting his impending execution.

“Fine. FINE. I guess we can’t really do anything about it tonight anyway.” I nodded in affirmation and sent him off to his room for the night.

I was lucky I was the first one up the next morning, because when my alarm went off, I found my brother sleeping not only in my room, but curled up at the foot of my bed like a domestic animal. I shook him violently awake, as nothing less ever woke him from his practically comatose sleeping, and spoke quietly but forcefully into his face the moment he gained consciousness.

“Dude, are you serious?” He looked sheepish. “Mom and dad are definitely going to know that some weird shit is going on if they find you sleeping on my bed like a dog.”

“I must have sleepwalked…”

“A likely story. Please try and control your fear of sleeping alone in your room in the future, or go find the cat and make her protect you from invaders. She’s certainly evil enough to scare murderers.”

“True. Maybe I’ll look into that for tonight.”

“Like you would be able to get her to stay in your room without her eating you alive.”

“True again.”

“I know. I’m just a fountain of knowledge.”

“Shut up.”

“No, how about you shut up, go back to your room and pretend to sleep for the next fifteen minutes while I take a shower, and then you take one too and then we can get up and attempt to act like normal kids whose neighbors don’t kill people.” This appeared to be a reasonable plan, as he followed my orders and returned to his room.

While in the shower, I thought about the problem at hand, and suddenly, even more powerful than the fear for my own life came a very bizarre feeling: curiosity. Of course, my logical consciousness repeated to me the well-known proverb about curiosity and if it could kill an animal purported to have nine lives, then it sure as hell could screw over something with only one. But for some unknown reason, that didn’t matter to me. I actually wanted to find out what was going on across the street, to know who the dead man was, to know why he had been killed. I tried to tell myself that this was not television, that we were not detectives and that we could not simply sneak up on the house expecting no one to notice us looking into the window and putting microphones on the glass.

Binoculars were much less obtrusive. My grandfather, before his descent into alcoholic oblivion, had been an avid birdwatcher, and had spent a good amount of money on an expensive pair of binoculars, which he had left to my mother. Though she rarely used them anymore, they held a prominent place on the family bookshelf and my brother and I had no problem locating and extracting them. From his bedroom window we had a very good view of their living room-kitchen combination that went all the way through the middle section of the house, as well as a decent look into the bedrooms and garage. In fact, if we were crafty, we could even see a little ways into the TV room in the corner. Though we had lamented not having a Victorian-style house when we were younger, the ranch format of this neighborhood made it very nice and simple to spy on your neighbors from across the street.

Even with the hours we spent that day, there was not much that we found out. Overall, we discovered that their house was even messier than ours, that the primary decorating force in the house was very fond of wicker and puce-colored fabric, and that the tiny dog had the habit of jumping repeatedly against the bay window at birds. But we didn’t see any bloody knives, smoking guns, letters in large print visible through the binoculars that indicated a time and place with a footnote that said “bring deadly weapon”, or anything else obviously suspicious. What we did notice at around 1:30 that afternoon was that everyone had left the house, even the dog, carried out in the skinny tan arms of the daughter. Practically itching with a child-like yearning to explore, I attempted to pass the desire like a pathogen on to my brother, who, after a decent amount of persuading and assurance that not everyone looked at their windows at the neighbors like we did, agreed that we should actually walk over to the house across the street and unobtrusively see what we could find without leaving any sign that we were ever there.

Departing the safety of our property, we took with us a Frisbee as an excuse should someone find us creeping around on land that did not belong to us, and with the adrenaline rush that comes with both fearing your death and wanting an adventure, we crept nonchalantly across the street and into their backyard. We immediately saw where the ground had been disturbed with the digging last night, and were not surprised to see drag marks in the grass leading up to the upturned earth. Still, even with our expectations met, it gave us a horrible shiver to know that an actual person was buried underneath all that moist and grainy dirt. Still shivering, we approached the house with caution, hardly believing that we were even doing what it seemed that we were doing. Looking into the window of the kitchen didn’t provide us with much insight; there were no recipes lying out that called for human flesh, nor any notes that stated a time and place with an annotation of “Bring deadly weapon” or anything of that sort. In general, we found that we were a little disappointed.

And then we heard the sound of a car engine approaching.

It was too late to go back into our house, so we did something that we had seen on the screen and never expected to emulate in any seriousness: hiding behind the very large bushes at the back of the property. Naturally, after making sure we were hidden properly, we found a way to peek out from between the foliage in a way we hoped did not leave our shining eyes exposed. This time, the car that pulled into the driveway was the red Corvette of the older brother, shiny and almost new. As he backed into the driveway and opened the trunk, what we saw inside was neither shiny nor pleasant.

It was another body, obvious this time; no casual arm or leg flung out from within piles of dirty clothing. This was a full-fledged corpse, complete with bloodstained temple and flopping appendages. The youngest came out of the passenger-side door and looked, white-faced, into the back of his brother’s car. Then, with an almost surreality about his voice, we heard him speak.

“Man, this is crazy. This is fuckin’ crazy.” The older brother responded with disdain.

“What, you think you’re too good for this? Or just too much of a pussy?”

“No, man, it’s not even that, it’s just… you know, I’m in college, man! I’m trying to get my life together and then dad calls me up and I have to deal with this. This is fuckin’ crazy.”

“Fuckin’ crazy is what we do, lil’ bro!” He tousled his brother’s hair as if he were discussing his latest football victory. “If there weren’t fuckin’ crazy people in the world, what would all the normal people have to judge themselves against?” My brother and I looked at each other. This dude was fuckin’ crazy. Suddenly, a cell-phone rang with a loud jangle and my brother and I nearly jumped behind the bush, and then hastily squatted stark still again, praying to the God we barely believed in to help us not be seen. It was the oldest brother’s phone, and he answered it with a chest so inflated I knew without a doubt it had to be his father even before he spoke.

“Hey, dad!” There was a long silence, during which the speaker on the other end of the line spoke so forcefully that my brother and I could hear it from behind the thick bush, albeit as only a wordless mumble. He sounded angry, and the son could barely get a word in edgewise. In fact, the only complete sentence he uttered in the entire course of the roughly three minute “conversation” was right at the end.

“You’re coming up tonight?” (Some sound of affirmation coupled with anger.) “Okay.” And then, after another long tirade, silence.

My brother and I, paralyzed with fear behind the bush, stayed there for nearly another hour while the second body was buried, and the instant it was finished and the brother reentered their house, my brother and I scampered out of there through the back as fast as our legs could carry us.

This was craziness, we decided. Two bodies in under 24 hours? This was just craziness, and something had to be done. But we were too afraid, and instead spent the rest of the day looking out of the window with binoculars. That night, after our parents went to sleep, we both sat in the cushy comfort of the seat in the bay window, and promised to keep watch.

At around one in the morning, my brother and I, shamefully asleep, were awakened by the slamming of a car door echoing in through the open window. Rubbing our eyes and (in my case) putting on glasses, we were visually greeted by a beautiful vintage green Jag in the driveway. Standing next to it and arguing intensely with the oldest son was a man who, though we had never met him, we knew instantly to be the ex-husband, the father, the man who somehow was the ringmaster of this insane set of events that was shaking up suburbia (at least for those who were aware of them). His mustache, thin and well-trimmed, quivered with fury and, dare I say it, almost fear, as he spoke in no uncertain terms to the son about (presumably) how he had so royally fucked up everything. At this moment, the quivering mustache struck a nerve in my mind and I realized that this would be the perfect time to bring in the authorities. Not only were the amateurs who had botched the operation all there, but the hit-master himself was standing in the driveway, coming out of hiding from who-knows-where to belabor his incompetent sons about how they were not the ideal choice to carry on the family business.

“Are you sure that’s such a good idea?” My brother, always the cynic.

“Now is the best possible time! Look at that mustache! He is obviously someone important in the grand scheme of all things that are murder and crime-related around here.”

The facial hair finally persuading him, my brother relented, picked up the phone with shaking hands and dialed 911.

“911 operator; please state your emergency.”

“Hi, uh, we just saw our neighbors bury a body in their backyard.”

“Excuse me? Kid, this is not something to joke about.”

“No, I swear to God, and they did it yesterday too! They took it out of the trunk and started digging in the backyard and they buried it!”
“Honey, it’s late. You’ve probably been watching too many horror movies. Go to sleep, and don’t call us with any more jokes.”

“This is not a—” Click.

“DAMN IT!”

“They didn’t believe you?”

“How’d you guess?” He rolled his eyes.

“Let me try.” I called 911 again and prepared my best Russian accent.

“911 operator… hey, wait. Kid, we have caller ID. We know it’s you. Stop calling. Good night.” And that was the end of that. I sighed with a bit of defeat.

“You know, maybe we should just go to bed and call them in the morning from a payphone.”

“That’s stupid. I don’t think there’s even a point in calling back until we get something a little more substantial that ‘we saw our neighbors bury a body in the backyard.’”

“What exactly are you suggesting?”

Louie grinned a mischievous smile. I was not too thrilled.

“You know, unlike you I don’t have a death wish. You think spying on them again is going to get us anything we didn’t already find other than a gun to the head or a blade to the throat or a boot in the back of the neck?” He punched me playfully.

“Come on… where’s your sense of adventure?”

“I definitely have a sense of adventure. It just doesn’t involve snooping around the home of people who enjoy bumping other people off because ‘fucking crazy is what they do.’” Inexplicably, my brother chuckled.

“Yeah, that was pretty funny. I almost laughed. And then I remembered we were trying not to get caught.”

“Jesus Christ.” I had a psychopath for a brother, too. “Are you serious? You found the utter and complete mental disturbance of someone who lives across the street from us funny? I don’t know who I should be more afraid of— them, or you. Because even though they’ll be the ones doing the killing, YOU are going to GET us killed! KILLED! Do you understand what the word ‘dead’ implies? It implies that you will no longer be able to play hockey, to eat Chinese food, to ride your bike, to torment the cat, to do ANYTHING except LIE in a GRAVE and have your EYES EATEN OUT BY WORMS!!!!” There was a silence where I tried to make it seem as though I was not going insane.

My brother seemed more disturbed by my outburst than he was by the possibility that we could die. Granted, I was starting to lose it a little bit. But that was no explanation for his total lack of concern for our lives. Then again, it was two o’clock in the morning. Sleep was necessary. And so we dragged ourselves off to bed with heavy feet, preparing ourselves for the ball-and-chain combination we would have to deal with in hell, a place we would probably be visiting soon.

The next morning, a curious psychological phenomenon came to our attention. Not only had my brother’s desire to spy on the neighbors not been flushed away by sleep, my absolute aversion to exploration had actually turned to an utter and inescapable yearning for suburban espionage. The feeling was so strong that I was actually rather troubled by my nearly total support of his theory that we should spend our time on that Sunday peering into windows and even entering the structure across the street which was, of its own accord, foreboding. At this point, had we not known that the house had been built nearly thirty years before the current murderous family had moved in, we would suspect it had dead bodies in the foundations as well as in the backyard. Though many things we had once thought were totally improbable were coming to pass, we were still convinced that time travel to hide corpses was not a possibility that we needed to entertain.

Still, even with space-time bending out of the question, there were still many things for us to fear, the biggest of which was what exactly would happen to us if we were caught snooping. For some inexplicable reason, our active imaginations chock-full of torture methods from watching strange movies were not enough to dissuade us from going across the street again once they had all left again.

This time, we were not satisfied just to peek in the back window harmlessly like gardening busy-bodies. My brother, in particular, was convinced that we really needed to go into the house.

“And how exactly are we going to accomplish that? It’s not like either one of us knows how to pick locks, and they probably have some sort of home security system.”

“Honestly, Claire, who in this neighborhood has a home security system? WE don’t even have a home security system and our parents are the most paranoid people ever to walk the face of the earth. They probably keep a key under a rock or the doormat or some shit like that.”

“Oh, come on. Like people actually do that.”

Much to my chagrin, Louie reached under the gross burlap “welcome” mat and pulled out a key.

“That’s ridiculous. That’s just ridiculous.” And then, a more pressing dilemma. “Dude, we can’t just break into someone’s house like this, even if they are stupid enough to leave a key under their doormat.”

“Like anyone is going to know. Everyone’s at church right now. And anyway, like you said, they were stupid enough to leave their key under the doormat.”

“That is not an excuse! …Oi.” I grabbed my head with exasperation, but did not stop him from turning the key in the lock.

Instantly, the tiny dog started to bark. His little nails clicked on the linoleum as he ran towards us and the tiny pink bow on his head bobbed up and down with each step.

“See? The dog is barking. We should leave. Someone will be alerted.” My brother looked at me incredulously.

“Do you see this thing? It weighs less than my hand. And there is no way it’s producing enough sound to alert the neighbors, who AREN’T EVEN HOME!”

“Whatever. I’m just saying, this is a bad idea, so if we get killed, I told you so in advance.” My brother made his characteristic derisive noise. I raised my hands defensively, absolving myself from all blame. “I’m just saying….”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re just a wuss.”

“Shut it, boy.” Antagonized slightly, and in the mood for some joking, my brother turned around and put on his frequently-adopted rapper attitude.

“You talkin’ to me, bitch? I don’t put up with no shit like this, bitch.” He pushed me in the shoulders, and I, with my classic lack of balance, lost my footing slightly and knocked into the very large lamp behind me. I righted myself, but the lamp had no such power.

We watched the it fall as if in slow motion, just like in movies, and I half expected to hear my brother’s voice (sounding suspiciously as if it had been digitally slowed down) crying out “NOOOOOOoooooo….” accompanied by a futiley reaching hand. Instead, all that happened was we watched the lamp fall—directly onto the dog, who just looked up and watched his death descend. A slight crunching sound as his bones were crushed under the heavy pole of the lamp alerted us to his passing, and we stood still with utter horror for a moment as a very small bloodstain crept around the edges of the white fluff.

My brother and I looked at each other and saw an indescribable look on the other’s face which we thought most likely approximated what we ourselves must look like. Immediately, there was only one thing we could think to do. We bolted from the house and ran into our own backyard, thankfully remembering to lock the door behind us and replace the key under the mat.

Back in safe territory—if any place was safe anymore—and panting as the animal beneath the bronze lamp once had, we looked at each other yet again, and the inevitable accusations began to fly.

“You killed the fucking dog!” My brother was nearly tearful with the mixture of emotions running through his body.

“No, I didn’t kill it. That lamp fell on it after YOU PUSHED ME INTO IT!”

“I didn’t push you NEARLY hard enough for you to fall onto the lamp! God! What are they going to think when they come home and their dog is DEAD under a LAMP in the LIVING ROOM?!?!”

“It kind of looks like an accident…the dog might have just moved the carpet wrong and the lamp fell on it.”

“Well let’s hope for our sake they’re JUST AS STUPID AS YOU! That’s the worst excuse I ever heard. ‘Yeah, that fifty pound well-grounded lamp must have been knocked over by a ONE POUND FLUFF-BALL!!!!!’” He paused to catch his breath. “Jesus. This is bad. This is some bad shit.” He turned to look at me again. “NOW WE’RE MURDERERS TOO!”

“Oh, come on, Louie. It was a stupid little dog. And it was an accident. It’s not like we’re SHOOTING people and BURYING THEM UNDERNEATH THE ROSEBUSHES!”

Suddenly there was the roar of the daughter’s SUV and she pulled into the driveway recklessly, as she always did. My brother and I were frozen with fear, though not frozen enough to avoid running into the house as if we were being pursued by Jack the Ripper. Once inside, we hid in Louie’s room and peeked like toddlers between his drawn blinds. Nearly the instant we looked through the lens of the binoculars, we heard a scream that echoed as if it had come from the mouth of a denizen of the underworld instead of from between the lips of an anguished 20-year-old girl. Obviously, she had found the dog. We could see her frantically search through her unnaturally large purse for her cell phone and dial a number, speaking tearfully to the person on the other end of the line with such animation it required that she readjust her hair every three seconds. Within minutes, nearly everyone in the family had returned home to console her. However, when the father, mustache-a-quivering, pulled into the driveway, he seemed to have something else on his mind other than a dead dog. Entering the massive room that was the middle of the house, he immediately went straight to the kitchen counter that protruded like a bar. Not finding what he needed immediately, he went into a panic and began to throw everything off the counter in search of whatever it is he was looking for. I was rather concerned by this development.

“Louie, you didn’t take anything from there, did you?”

“Do you think I’m insane? The last thing I’d want to do is give them ANOTHER reason to kill us!” He turned his back to me and paced across the room in exasperation. As I caught a glimpse of his posterior side, I was confronted with something unbelievable.

Stuck to his back pocket was a pink sticky note with a few lines of writing on it in a neat and professional hand. I plucked it off and held it up in front of his face.

“This was stuck to your ass pocket. Even when you’re not consciously doing it, you manage to fuck things up.”

“Oh, come on. You can’t blame me for that. And what does it say? It might just be a grocery list.”

“Well, let’s find out.”

Written hurriedly, but still neatly across the piece of paper was “Carl Benneford, 3252 Fairway Ct. Found out about last job. Is allergic to peanuts. Will be home alone at 6:30.”

“Oh Jesus, Louie. Jesus.” There was no other exclamation that would possibly be warranted. “Okay, well, we have to call the cops now. There is no choice here. We can use mom’s cell phone or something.” My brother looked terrified and nodded in assent.

“Okay. I’ll go get it.” He sprinted from the room and I looked out of the window again, only to see, much to my utter shock, police cars pouring into the neighborhood and up the driveway across the street. Unless my brother was capable of telepathic communication, someone had beaten us to the punch. Louie, hearing the sirens, came back into the room and we watched through the binoculars, chuckling maniacally as the two sons and the father, mustache shaking with anger, were handcuffed and put into the back of the police cars.

Listening to the local news that night, my brother and I were not surprised to learn that there had been a total of 11 bodies found in the backyard during the excavation process. The tip that had led to the arrests had come from an ongoing investigation into the person killed right before Laundry Man, and the pieces had come together, resulting in the arrest of the family who ran the largest illegal car parts industry in the country. The killing had started two years ago, when an employee earning blackmail money had gotten too greedy, and had escalated as knocking people became easier with practice. Thanks to questions asked of all the surrounding neighbors, my brother and I were solely responsible for getting a police protection unit put on allergic-to-peanuts guy, and we grinned smugly about it whenever we could.

We were just beginning to sleep well that night when the doorbell rang. We answered it, as our parents were already comatose, and upon opening the door, were faced with nothing but a box on the front doorstep. We were rather apprehensive, but seeing as the entire family except for the daughter was in jail that night, we didn’t think we had much to be afraid of, so we lifted the lid cautiously.

Staring up at us were the dead eyes of the tiny dog we had unwittingly crushed beneath the lamp in our spy-like efforts. I felt my heart clutch in my chest and we looked up across the street, where the bedroom curtains hurriedly closed, hiding the frightening eyes of a young woman full of hatred.

How to make a long post

It took the better part of four hours and some disgustingly potent coffee, but you now have a great way of making long posts to our blog! With this method, readers on the front page of the blog will only see a snippet of your post, but readers on the post page will see the complete post.

Click on "Post Page" below to see the rest!

These steps assume that you want the beginning of your post to be the preview. If you really, really want something different, let an administrator know and we'll help you out.

Step 1: Put your entire blog post into the new post text box under the "Compose" tab. If you want to format your post, now is the time to do it.

Step 2: Click on the "Edit Html" tab.

Step 3: Find the spot where you want the preview to end. Put the cursor there and paste the following:

<span class="frontpageonly">

Click on "Post Page" below to see the rest!</span><span class="postpageonly">

If you want to change the "Click on..." text, go ahead, but don't touch the span tags unless you know exactly what you're doing.

Step 4: Scroll all the way to the bottom. Paste the following to the end of the post:

</span>

You're done!

As always, those of you who know HTML/CSS are welcome to apply that knowledge to this system. Play around with the frontpageonly and postpageonly classes to your heart's content, but try not to break the blog in the process.

The Magic Wallpaper

I wrote another story :) It can be found at (link) and on the post page. Comment please :D


Click on "Post Page" below to see the story!

It all began when someone left the window open. Before that fateful day, it was just a normal bedroom. But after that, it turned into the emptiest 100 square feet in the universe. The emptiest, and yet the most alive.

No one quite knows what sort of devilish magic entered that day, but at first it seemed like a boon. The walls became so much more colorful. The wallpaper went from being drab and uninteresting to the most natural scenery you have ever seen. But if you looked closely, you could see the fear in all the faces of the birds and the bugs in the picture. I had a fantastic attraction to those frightened faces. Something about them made me never want to leave that room.

One afternoon, I stayed just a little too long. I was sitting on the bed reading my weekly novel when I suddenly felt a strong tug from behind me. Confused, I glanced behind me to find nothing. Suddenly, I felt pulled again and started sliding along the bed. It was like it was some crazy magnet and I was a piece of iron. I couldn't release myself from its pull. As my back hit the wall, I felt myself losing motion and then started to feel myself flattening into the wallpaper. Within fifteen minutes, I was part of the scenery. Then I understood why all the other animals were so lifelike and frightened.

Behind the wall, everything still had its voice. I obviously couldn't understand any of the animals, but they were clearly just as frightened as they were when they got pulled in—as was I. None of us could move, and we were all stuck looking into the room, but we still had our minds and souls, and our thoughts echoed in this crazy world we were stuck in. I often wonder if that's what plants feel like. It stayed like this for a few weeks; I could tell by counting the sunsets. Then one day, someone else found the room. I wanted to yell to her to leave before she fell victim to the same fate as we had, but I was unable to do anything in the world from whence I came. There was something different about this woman, though. She had an air about her I can't describe. She carried herself like a queen and always wore the same flowing, white robes with the same flowery, white crown. She was tall and moved with a grace that surpasses that of a butterfly.

Day after day, she came into the room and sat down, looking around her with a look of satisfaction on her face. If I hadn't know any better, I would almost have called that look smug. Around the end of the fifth week of my capture, something amazing happened. The lady came into the room again, and sat down on the bed with that same look on her face. But this time, when she looked around the room, her gaze stopped by the window. She walked over to the wall by the window and stopped in front of a large ant. She looked at it for a while and muttered something I couldn't understand. Then she stroked it twice with that long, slender finger of hers. As her finger moved down the back of the ant the second time, it gained form and body, and left the wallpaper. She petted the freed ant softly and then put it down by her feet. Then, standing tall again, she spread her arms, palms up, and started muttering, in what sounded like the same language as before. Slowly, she started shrinking, both vertically and horizontally. Her arms flattened out while her hair started growing into her head. Feathers started sprouting up everywhere as her legs became stalks. Her nose elongated and her eyes spread out across her face. Then suddenly, there was a dove standing in her place. She bent down, grabbed the ant in her beak, and flew up to the windowsill. Looking back once more at her trap, she let out a satisfied chirp and flew out away from the cursed room.

Every day since then, I've been hoping for another magician to come and undo this incantation she placed on my third floor bedroom.

Spider Lies

They are my friends.
They're all I've got.
I have a home,
A place to sleep
because of them.

Spinning, strand by strand
fortifying my home, my safety net.
they've done it all for me.

they're busy at work
I sit and watch, and suddenly
my arms and legs
are bound.
I've been tricked.

I've made a mistake.
The spiders have me.
This web, this home,
Is my prison.

agon

"make me immoral,"
the protagonist whispers
"let me taste her love,"

An old poem

I decided to post this because it's very old, and the plant to which it pertains has finally been repotted. Poor thing. I think it's been... 6 years?

Dying

Bamboo plant is looking brown
Crispy leaves scattered all around
I think that plant is a little parched
Haven’t watered it since March
Used to be a thing I loved
Now it’s going to plant heaven above
The sun that used to be its friend
Is bringing it to its tragic end
Photosynthesis can’t take place
If I don’t toss some water in that vase
I think I’ll just throw that plant away
It’s surely seen some better days

I’m holding it above the can
But suddenly, something grabs my hand
Bamboo plant! It lives and fights!
And I am what it wants to smite!
It curls its leaves around my neck
It’s just a plant?! What the heck?!
I never expected retaliation
Now I am filled with trepidation
Bamboo plant has had enough
It’s ready to be strong and tough
It knows it won’t be the one to croak
As I continue to be choked
There is no hope; I commence to crying
I know it’s me who’s really dying
I confess my sins as I begin to pant
I should’ve watered the bamboo plant

Castle

You're wandering around
An unlit hallway
No doors to let you out.

You think you're stuck,
That you ran out of luck.
But you found your way in.
You'll get back out, again.

Can't find a single soul
In this empty castle.
The way out, you don't know.

The torches are burned down
You found your way to the dungeon
Now you walk with a frown.

You think you're stuck,
That you ran out of luck.
But you found your way in.
You'll get back out, again.

---------------------------
Not sure what I don't like about this, but something's missing. The rhythm seems a little off, and I'm not happy with the last line in the second to last stanza (Now you walk with a frown). I think I only put frown in there to make it rhyme. I also think it's a tad short, but that can't quite be helped.
Any ideas?

a whisper

it beats. you gasp.
a helpless girl, a kindred soul
somehow molded into one uniform being.
once broken, but now inexplicably whole.
that's their story, none truer, nor pure.
a whisper, a heartbeat
a hole where we should be
all contained within.
without
you

(note: you can't see the formatting on this, but it's in the shape of a heart. Looks kinda cool.)

Writer's Block?

Turns out images are great spark-pieces. This past Wednesday, we had a pretty good writing activity. Jessica brought in a very .... interesting book to say the least. It's a collection of single pictures from picture books with captions, but no general story line. I managed to pull off over two pages before getting stuck/running out of time (we sort of tailored it so those two coincided), which is a lot for me :-). So anyway, if you're ever stuck for an idea, look up! Check out your wall-hangings or do a quick image search on Google.

It's been a very long time since I've posted anything on here... and I've been apart from all of you for a long time, too... but I have been writing. Here's the shortest poem I've written recently... if you get a chance to give some feedback (any feedback), I'd certainly appreciate it. Hope you are all well! Miss you--

CAT’S BAR SONG NUMBER ONE

in a wild world, at the t.v. room:
I’m—under muscle men in underpants
and striped black, white star,
scar- painted faces, while
they bleed and they pound on
their heavyweight champ— yes, I’m
getting by on that smile.

Marks that Linger Beyond the Questions

(For Virginia Tech.)


I am trying to picture how you all grew from sacred wishes into
sadistic headlines and what you were at each point in between:

Did candles or smiles surround your parents' thoughts that became?
dreams of you and brought the flesh that was delivered and cleaned?

and taken home, perhaps, where you might have played with dolls?
or trucks or both and in the flowers of gardens in dirt in rooms?

tracked with the careless steps of each place your moments emobodied?
And maybe your parents would scold or sigh or spank but always hold?

you as soft as the thought before the moment you were first cleaned?
the scent of melting wax still fresh in the memory of those breaths?

But none of that really matters when I try to picture who he was and why?
he might have wanted to be called question mark and why that makes me?

think only of questions about whether he had the smiling touch?
of parents to greet the softness of his new flesh after he stopped being?

a thought, then a doubt, and then became a child who may not have said?
all that much because he had nothing but questions and felt betrayed?

when nobody answered and stopped playing after he learned to not?
like gardens because maybe he didn't feel clean with a face layered?

with dirt and felt a parent's fist after leaving some trace of his moments?
out in his room that was maybe a little too tidy to be a normal child's?

But none of that matters when I realize I am just picturing and whom-
ever you and he were, you all began and ended as ideas that could have been

anything, but can only be for me questions
that search everywhere for their answers.

Another one

This one I like better. It also has no title as of yet:

She sits and looks
Across the open room,
And all she sees are his eyes
Looking back at hers.
His smile works its
Way into the image.
The sight of the man
Warms her inside,
And she feels it
Displayed on her face.
She flashes a sign
Secretly. Not sure...
Was it enough to catch?
Then he answers
Her unvoiced question.
"I love you too,"
Comes the response with a wink.
She's beaming and knows it,
Wants the whole world to see it,
Feels like the luckiest
Girl on the planet.
And she knows that
He's feeling
The same
Way.

A post

First one since December apparently. This one's called "Personal Time". There's a lot of stuff I don't like about it, title included, but here it is.

Get up, pack up, take off
Find a seat, stay awake
"Pay attention, this is important"
Rush across the Diag now
Ignore the biting wind
Leave class, board the bus
Find a seat, then endure the cold
Bus back to central after class
Stand this time, there's no place to sit
Keep my balance as the bus rocks back and forth
Don't fall on the robots sitting all around
Meet in the library with more college drones
Hear the belltower toll seven times
Need to find something to eat
Start assignments due soon
Check the clock, eleven o'clock
Can't go to the gym anymore
Try again tomorrow
Finally finished.
Time for bed.
I get to repeat tomorrow

UM Writers' Community

UM Writers' Community

I don't think this is good. I just needed to be honest.

Rain on Us

I hate it when you open the door and look at me
like I shouldn’t be in my own house
and take my best friend away.

You don’t hate me.
I don’t hate you.
But I hate feeling like a stranger in my own house
because when you’re here, I feel like I
don’t want to be, not really.

Of course I don’t hate that she loves you,
or that you love her (I know
you do) but it is
cruel
that love is so exclusive. That in the act of loving
you
she loves me less. Less than if we were in
our own house together
without you, loving each other.

But now she's gone away.

I sit here,
you sit there,
sprouting clouds from the corners
of our mouths and wishing
the other weren’t here.

She rains on us both.

A poem for your consideration

So here's something I came up with a few days ago, and have been tweaking it since then. I'm not sure the stanzas connect very well to each other, or even that I completely understand it, but I thought I'd throw it up here for your consideration. Oh, and it doesn't have a title (which, I have been convinced, is okay).

Untitled

In Ann Arbor, the snow falls soft and silent,
leaving gentle splatters on my coat,
not like the winter when you and I
went for a walk around your neighborhood,
and the snow slipped from the sky all at once,
burying me in its heavy cold.

Still, I thought it was all so beautiful,
even after I learned
how absurd it is to be from a town
named Bloomfield Hills
which has no fields and no hills, only
Hummers leveling the bumps on the shiny roads.

Today, sitting in a crowded computer lab
with a cup of lukewarm cafeteria coffee
I’m plucking words from the keyboard,
when I think I hear your laugh:
starting low, boiling over,
and flattening the silence.

Forgive Me.

I tell you the truth:
oversimplification
will be my ending.

No Title.

Ages past have given me
hollow, hardened lullabies.

So gone be the give-a-damns
and honeysuckle goodbyes.

To the Children of 1986

We’ve been born into the world
as the middle child, our hilarity
a touching means to pacify
our self-deprecation, the ease
in which we fall in love and stay
in love heartrending. But our

hearts’ blood just doesn’t congeal
as easily as it might, our tenderness
toward tradition baring the grief
we endure in the course of change—
we’ll love our partners far past familiarity
and into gossamer, the indentations

left on our side of the bed as defined
as our devotion. I see in us the true capacity
to lay our everything down for greatness,
but the even stronger instinct to protect
and abide by our families. I’m concerned
our fear of fast food isn’t strong enough.

I’m amazed how willing we are to die
alongside the people we’ve lost, our tears
the first and fastest to fall, the gift of our groans
more tender than any eulogy. I’ve lived
in our houses—the walls either stark naked
and sterile or pasted over with thick layer

after layer of prints—our inner rooms
as barren as monastic chambers
or stocked full of plants and pianos,
heavy curtains and dark furniture.

I’m sorry to find our beauty- riddled bodies
slumped on barstools, the rawness
of our perceptions dulled down by the necessity
to function. I’ve had to witness the best of our kind

leap from high points to beg the comprehension
of our makeup before they met the earth. I see us
dying out there—something akin to a defect
in our flesh instilling the desire to run knives
across our wrists. We’ve sought love from both sexes,
our elders, the great novels, God.
.
We can never connect more deeply than when we
are among our own, but I fear our engagements run such high risks—
the only man I’ve ever loved brewed Jasmine tea
with honey and moved his strong hands across

the piano in the melancholy song of moon rise
until my aching eyes fell to close and silent
and he played and played so that so that even
my dreams took on his fragrance.

Tanager Street

Home after dark
I listen for the electric
pierce of the television,
for her slipper-shuffle
feet.

I wait to hear the tumble
of clothes in the dryer,
the kettle whistle
from the stove.

I am late and want
to be forgiven. She
does not stir. Not
even a vacuum
disturbs the silence.

A Short Story :-)

My short stories can be a bit morbid sometimes. Forgive me. This one is called "Getting Even":

“Mikey, does Brooke know you’re here?”

“Nah, she thinks I’m at Todd’s bachelor party.”

“Todd’s getting married?”

“Yeah.”

“But I work right next to the guy. How come I wasn’t invited?”

“Maybe because you’re always rolling your chair over there to show him another stupid card trick.”

“My tricks are genius, man. Oh! I got a new one for you.” He searched his coat pockets. “Dammit. I left my cards at home. I’ll show ya on Monday.”

“Alright, Rex.”

Michael was not a religious man, but every time he stole out to the city to hit the casinos with Rex he prayed. Past every mile marker he would pray that Brooke would not find out. ‘Cuz God (if there is a God) knows that he loved her. She just didn’t understand that it was all harmless fun.

“So, you gonna try something different tonight? Or are you gonna stick with the same old shit that you always do?”

“Same old shit,” he said before downing the rest of his drink and walking over to the roulettes. Rex followed him.

“One dollar on evens, please,” Michael said.

“Man, sooner or later it’s gonna be odds. Five on odds.” Rex put his chips down on the table. “And you better be getting’ riskier than that my friend. We got a whole month’s paycheck to work with tonight.”

“Dammit, Mike! How come you keep kicking my ass?”

Michael smiled, tipsy and triumphant. He always won. But even though this was a good night, he knew he should be sobering up to go home soon. “C’mon, let’s go sit down at the bar for a while, get some water.”

“What? It’s only eleven-thirty and you’re done already? Aw, you’re no fun. You’re hot tonight, man, you can’t stop yet.”

“Nah, I gotta drive all the way back to Mesa by a decent hour or else Brooke will get suspicious.”

“She thinks you’re at a bachelor party, Mike. She’s not expecting you to get back at a decent hour anyway. C’mon, one more spin, then you can spend the rest of the night being a loser.”

“Alright, this time you can’t be a pussy. I wanna see you risk some big bucks,” said Rex.

Michael put five chips down.

“I said you can’t be a pussy. Where’s the thrill if it’s not a huge risk, huh?”

Michael took out his bag and poured all of his chips out.

“That’s more like it!” Rex clapped him on the back. “Put it all on the lucky numbers. Evens.”

Michael saw through the window that the kitchen light was on. She was still up. He closed the garage and made his way through the collection of bikes, toy cars, wagons, and sidewalk chalk scattered about. When he walked in, she was sitting at the table stirring a cup of coffee. She looked up.

“How was it?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“What happened?”

He couldn’t lie to her this time. So he told her everything. How he went to the casino again, even after she’d warned him. How he’d won a whole lot of money and was gonna come straight home, maybe stop at the grocery store and buy her some flowers. How he risked all his winnings on one last spin. How he lost them all and tried to win it all back with the money from his paycheck. And how he lost most of that too. She stopped stirring her coffee. When he was finished, she stared at him for a few minutes like she was acknowledging the moment that she had always known would come. Then she stood up, pushed her chair in, and walked down the hall and up the stairs. When she came down, she was carrying Isabelle. She peeked out from her windbreaker with sleepy eyes and brushed away the chaotic curls from her tiny face. Brooke slipped a pair of shoes on, grabbed the keys to the car, and closed the door quietly behind her.

* * *

A bead of sweat dropped down Michael’s panicked face. “What do you mean they only come in packs of twelve?”

“Uh, well, we also have cartons of twenty-four. But they’re a different brand.” A tall, wiry teenage boy awkwardly lifted a large package of water bottles off the shelf. Michael shook his head with frustration and quickly grabbed a gallon jug of water from the bottom shelf before deserting the boy in the middle of the aisle. Down the next aisle, among other things, were garbage bags. He remembered that he was almost out. Might as well get some, he thought. He turned down the aisle and immediately froze. Staring straight back at him were four big blue eyes. Twins, strapped inside a double stroller while their mother decided what size snack bags to buy. He closed his eyes and quickly retreated to the main aisle. I’ll get some next time, he told himself.

After he had gathered a few more items in his cart, he headed to the front and got in line to check out. He read the cover of a People magazine as he unloaded the groceries from his cart so as to keep himself from counting his items. His hands were shaking by the time all of his purchases had been scanned and bagged.

“That’d be forty-four even, sir,” said the cashier.

Michael fumbled through his wallet. He handed the cashier nine five dollar bills. He grabbed his cart and bolted out the automatic doors before the cashier could give him his change.

Once he was in the parking lot, he slowed down and exhaled. He crossed the lot and wheeled his cart into the alley between the dry cleaner’s and the pet shop. There stood his customized vehicle: a red tricycle with a storage compartment nestled between the two back wheels. He loaded his bags into the compartment, got on the tricycle and rode away leaving the empty grocery basket in the alley.

After a short ride along the main road, he turned left down a one-lane dirt road. Half a mile down, he got off of his tricycle and walked it up his driveway and into his garage. He took his bags into the house and set them on the circular island in the middle of the kitchen. There were two messages on his machine. He erased the first one and played the second one as he put the groceries away.

“Hi Michael, it’s Brooke. I’m calling ‘cause the check you sent for this month was only seven hundred and thirteen dollars and I thought maybe you forgot that the monthly child support was actually eight hundred and twenty four dollars. Anyway, gimme a call back so that we can figure something out, ok? Bye.”

He stiffened at the sound of her voice. The voice of someone simply conducting business. Doing what needed to be done. He sighed. Picking up the phone, he began to dial. One. He took a deep breath. Six. He let it out. Zero. Two. His eyes started to water. Two. He wiped his eyes and refocused. Six. Eight. A wave of nausea swept over him. Four. Come on. It’s not that hard. Four. Eight. Seven. He put the phone up to his ear and collapsed onto one of his custom-made, three-legged kitchen chairs. The phone rang twice before she picked up.

“Hello, Brooke.”

“Michael, are you okay?” Her voice was sprinkled with concern.

“Yeah, why?”

“You sound…I don’t know, out of breath.”

“I just got back from a bike ride.” Technically speaking, he wasn’t lying.

“Oh, I see.”

“Yeah.”

There was an awkward silence before she spoke again.

“Do you have the rest of the money?” Her question seemed more like an accusation.

“Of course.”

“Then how come you didn’t send it? Did you forget?”

“No. I sent the rest of the money three days ago. You should be getting it soon,” he said.

“You sent the rest of it?” She asked.

“Yes, one hundred and eleven dollars.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Another wall of silence stood between them. She climbed over and ventured into the unknown.

“Is there any particular reason you didn’t send the whole amount?” She asked hesitantly.

“Yes.”

“Well?”

He paused and thought. “I didn’t have enough money in my checking account at the time.” He said.

“Are you sure that’s why, Michael?”

“Yes!” he shouted angrily, but then calmed himself.

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I just don’t want to be taken advantage of or anything, you know? I don’t like to be lied to.”

His stomach dropped. He twisted his hands until they were sweaty.

“Brooke, you left me. You took my daughter from me. You got your revenge. We’re even. Don’t try and make me feel guilty,” he pleaded.

“I shouldn’t have to try.”

He got up and opened the cabinet above the kitchen sink. From the lowest shelf, he retrieved a bottle of large blue pills and set them on the counter. He stared at the label. For Mr. Michael Shipley. Take two tablets every twelve hours or as needed. Do not exceed six tablets in a twenty-four hour period. Two tablets. Two! He stared at the bottle for a few more minutes before he decided to take the pills into the living room with him. That way, he could watch T.V. while he took the pills, so that he wouldn’t count. He poured himself a glass of water and carried it to the living room, as well as the pills. He set them on the round coffee table in front of him and sat down on the couch that wrapped in a “U” around the T.V. He picked up the remote which, at first glance, did not even look like a remote. There were stickers and scraps of paper taped as best they could be taped to the small buttons. At a closer glance, one can see the improvised system with which the man had decorated his remote. The number 2 button had been taped over and replaced with a handwritten note that read, “The number after 1.” The next revision had been made to the number 4 channel button. Taped to this one was “The number before 5.” And such was the nature of other revisions to 6 and 8. Even the 0 had been covered and replaced with “nothing.”

He turned the T.V. on and found a channel that could sufficiently distract him. He grabbed the glass of water and set it between his legs while opened the bottle of pills. Focusing as hard as he could on the romantic comedy that was playing, he placed one pill on his tongue and washed it down with a large gulp. He watched the boy and the girl dancing awkwardly while he popped another pill and swallowed. Engrossed completely, he was not aware that he continued with another large pill. And another. And another. Finally, a commercial drew him from his trance. He put the cap back on the bottle and struggled to keep himself from wondering how many he had taken. He put on a pot of coffee. That would relax him.

A sizable mug steamed before him as he got out a plate, a knife, and sugar cubes. He placed one cube on the plate and cut it diagonally so that it was triangular. He dropped the five-sided sugar cube into his coffee and put the other half in a plastic baggie. Twice more, he carried out this sort of ritual. The last cube that he dropped in the drink caused the coffee to spill over the lip of the mug. He got a paper towel and wiped up the spot. With another piece of paper towel, he wiped up the stray granules of sugar on the counter and threw the paper towels in the wastebasket. While he was stirring the sugar into his coffee with the knife, he glanced in the wastebasket and stiffened. Two lonely paper towels sat at the bottom. That won’t do. He put down the knife and ripped off another piece of paper towel, crumpled it up, and threw it into the wastebasket. He relaxed again. He sat down at the table with his coffee and blew on the surface to cool it down.

He looked up at the clock. It was 6:20. He quickly looked away, but he was nervous now. He began tapping the table with his fingers. He began to sweat, and the steam rising from the coffee didn’t help. He glanced at the clock again. This time it read 6:22. That won’t do. He leapt from his chair and almost knocked over his coffee. Standing on his chair, he ripped the clock off of the wall and threw it face-down into the trash. He sat back down with his coffee, but he still felt tense. He scanned the room. Everything else seemed to be fine. He picked up the knife and nervously stirred his coffee some more. He watched his hand swirl it around and around. Then slowly he came to a shocking realization. Two hands. That won’t do.

From a writing activity

This piece came from a writing activity at a meeting a couple weeks ago, but I said I was gonna put a prose piece up so here it is. As a result of it being quickly thought up and hastily jotted down, it's kind of rough and lacks a title. The activity was telling dreams and then writing about someone's dream. Follow the link to read:

My story

There! Comments!

I finally gave into Manish's requests (I've given in to her in other ways long ago, oh...) and made some comments. Check them out. I'll have something of my own up soon, too.

Jenny

LIfe off 152 & Broadway

Life Off 152 & Broadway



Walking the length of the subway train—
this morning I woke myself to screaming,
a hollow face, grey in early light,
lay beside mine on the pillow.

Got up for Good Morning America
to let my mother know I haven’t
yet starved, called to hear her
voice, all softened by morning.

Took the N to Coney Island,
but was sick and sick and sick.

Speaking Spanish to white people,
black people, Spanish people, I’m
asking for the Metro, but looking
for the subway.

Fifth Avenue and I’m walking
Central Park, walking through film
crews and climbing the backs
of memorials to better see the water.

Following the snake of the subway
train—a bum rips me to the ground,
my face pressed into the space
between rail-cars. The rats
are as big as they say they are
down here.

Flashing and sparking through
the darkness that is the timeless
underground, I turn over and it
is the same grey face.

At the Mouth of a Funeral Parlor

At the Mouth of a Funeral Parlor




If there is and if there isn't doesn't matter to her dead son.
She will continue to believe in heaven, so long
as she ever pains to be with him again.
Another woman's heaven to be buried
with her heart, that no amount
of firestorm can threaten her soul;
it will stay housed in her body.Then a man stands to say his afterlife is the merriment
of his grandchildren—that their shrieks
of delight and wonderment will
continue on no matter what
part he plays in it. But there are people
discussing souls in terms
of music and color and plants and water.
And then everyone
is talking at once.

Sky Coasters,Teacups and tears,
I threw up at Coney Island
in the back of a pirate ride.

With terrible acceleration
the vessel swung skyward,
stomach walls clenched

to fill my throat with pink matter—
children screaming for the ride
to stop, but I was vomiting

at Coney Island when the call
came for my Grandmother to die.
Convulsing, brown curls shading

my face I couldn’t know my tears
came for my father as he landed
a fish on Lake Michigan—

I was retching out french fries
in the realization there is no better
relief on earth than release—

still lifted up and slammed back
down, lifted and slammed—
the child beside me begging me to stop,

the astronauts orbiting earth so exactly
they could pick out their home states:
this my first time at Coney Island
and the ride never once stopped.

One from the closet

Found it!

I'm posting two versions. The first version is the old, classic one that I read for the group many months ago. The second is a revised version that I wrote not long ago. No title for either.

The first one:



Why are there children in my quadrangle?
They should not be there.
This is a place for adults with complex relationships.
I am a fairly well-dressed individual
I do not have a minute to spare
For your scraped knees and simple quips.

Please get off my cigarette-tapered lawn
And take your recreational throwing-orb elsewhere
You are distracting me from my studies
I, a fairly well-dressed individual, yawns
For I am tired and you have dared
To keep me from the nap I need because all night I was distracted by my buddies

I cannot believe I just said"buddy."
That is a child word
And I am not a child
I am a fairly well-dressed individual
I eat sophisticated things like bean-curd
Why, world, why do you let you children run wild?
Please take these children from my quadrangle
They should not be here
It will soon be passed their bedtime.
I am more than a fairly well-dressed individual
I am groomed with the utmost care all the time
And, unlike those children, when I speak, I wouldn't dare rhyme.


And, the new one:


Why are there children in my quadrangle
They should not be here
This is a place for adults with complex relationships
They have no prescheduled business
They do not contribute, nor perform in a reliable manner
They do not understand; but me
I am a fairlywell dressed individual
A repsectable straight-edge-laced totheclock citizen
A pillarmoral figure of civic faithlaw
Precise, mochablended, and statuewary

Please get off my pinstripe lawn
And take your overly rotund recreational throwing-orb with you
I scoff at its obtuse form which lacks sharp edges of trust and responsibility
Have they not heard of wholesomewheat? But me
I am a fairlywell dressed individual
A man of the straightback
Eyebrow furrower of the wakeup shapeup morning newsathon
Well groomed to the toothcomb
They call me just-the-right-curd-of-bean
Applied at the appropriate times, accu-first-rate

Authorities
They should not be in my quadrangle
They must reedulocate
Learn to discipline contibutevote and maybe we'll talk
For we, the fairlywell dressed
We go down the workweek sled
And you, casualman
It's off with you to bed

blippity blue

Here's the first draft of a poem I wrote for class... (the assignment being to write a poem about/in response to a museum). When I was in Germany, I took a trip to Prague and got to visit the Kafka Museum. It was fabulous... and the poem is a kind of ... chaos as it stands. The usual. But the indentation is all wrong. Blogger doesn't let me do my crazy indentation the way I wish it would. Alas.

AH, KAFKA

Die Verwandlung and you—
we can imagine what it means, we can know it by your words
this kaleidoscope jags through
alleyways, staircases, mountains, castles and snow.
More snow—virgin pure snow—
of white light spun into dark webs, a man becomes
a Käfer.

How to make a collage of literature? How,
but to string words along walls; to push against a happy canopy
with alley-way staircases of reflected light and dark:
the dark sum of feeling attached to the Käfer—
a beetle, whose metamorphosis spurs
the revaluation of prose:
der Vater-Sohn Konflikt; the body-soul conflict;
the lust-love conflict; the male-female conflict;
the genitalia conflict. And you never married

your lovers, did you?! Sick,
but not simply sick. Afraid of illness,
or the decay that proliferated
out of cells touching cells
touching your legal mind’s cells;

Temptation that never left you
to write your heart into combustible stone
until it wrote itself out (preserved itself atop this hill of your city; metaphors that may
be of a fever, of a gash
in the face that was much more than a gash—
the Country Doctor, the lusting crispness of a maidservant and you!).

You willed—never that this would happen: words,
yours, flashed out on walls,
bound and wrapped in your second tongue,
my tongue, in your mother tongue, not
the WRITING ON THE WALL tongue
ah, that there could have been some union, some award
swarming these details: drawers full
of light and drawings of
stick-figures in single black lines—
from overhead, from forward and behind:
the mirror that you were back then
never shone so clearly as it does today:
that you were lonely the brilliant
sojourner of the castle.

Tangle

The moment your fingers brush my neck
I return to my body
and you to yours.
You lean in and unclasp
my necklace, smooth silver,
and let it slip to the floor.
Neither of us are worried
about the chain
that will soon be
a twirled, twisted tangle
from our carelessness.

You remove your watch.
You have no use for it here.
Sharp hands
are twitching from line
to deliberate line
as if there aren’t an infinite number
of moments in between.

I let you take off
my skin.
Ultimate vulnerability.
Ultimate freedom.

Locked.
One moment.
Us.

An Elegy for Her

Slowly trudging through the sludge,
Amidst mass chaos beneath grey skies,
She fought.
Fight did she by day, by night,
Clung to her last allies of hope:
Her crystal rain, whose mother the black clouds of death
Guarded from the sun.
Despair did she not,
For one day her sun would shine,
One day pierce the shadow.

But what when dwell in sole dark?
Mortality of those
Whom once we thought invincible
Harshly proves us wrong
As cower we in fear
At that very prospect of unknown.
And so the gruesome mask of death
Casts its ruthless shadow upon her innocent face.
And she, liberated to that sunny land,
Forever shall remain a mystery of the past.

-Nirmish Singla

For now I'm posting this under my username, but it might be transferred to his if he makes an account.

Untitled

Our Eyes met in passing
though brief the moment, I knew
and you did too.

I felt eyes on my neck
and turned
our gaze has met
once more.
a sparkle and smile.
Lightning struck again.

My face is hot
and tingling hands.
I want that moment again.

Untitled (as is the usual with my stuff)

sullen, stark and shabby,
he sits upon the stoop.

Slowly singing somber songs
Sipping on his soup.

Journey

A spot of orange
On the hard, white oval.
It begins.
Another chip.
It keeps shivering.
More cracks.
Suddenly a bulge.
The bulge pops,
Replaced by a head.
It keeps pecking
Out of its confines
Into the world.
Such a big world.
Such a long journey.
The casing is gone now.
Its legs are wobbly.
A shrill chirp.
With a small nudge
The caring mother responds.
Soon you'll be me
She thinks.
Go forth little chick.
Explore your new world.
It's such a big world.
Such a long journey.

It feels weird that all my posts so far have been poems. I'm going to write a story next, I swear.

My "lonely cigarette" poem

So I came back from the meeting and tried to work on the poem inspired by my feverish ramblings last week which I'd promised to have ready for you guys by tomorrow... but, sadly, it fell completely apart the way poems do sometimes. However, feeling poetic and refusing to give up, I sat resolutely in front of my computer until I came up with something. Not surprisingly, after the conversation at the end of the meeting, it's a "lonely cigarette" poem. It's so cool when the group works exactly the way it's supposed to... from our chatting came--an idea!

It's not super-refined or anything, and it's not really a performance piece, so I won't be reading it tomorrow, but I'd still appreciate your feedback. This is *gulp* my first actual creative post on here.

Fading (working title)

You walk with me, the glint of light dangling—
perky, precarious—from two careless fingers.
A fading moon looks stoically away from us,
the trees bend and sway, the air laden with
latent raindrops, or early dew,
or some other small quivering wetness.
I laugh and tell you to blow me a smoke ring.

You tilt your head up obligingly,
take a long drag (always with eyes closed)
and round up your lips as if for a howl—
but out creep two ghostly rings
followed by a wobbly third.
“You can’t breathe from the throat,” you tell me.
“It’s gotta come from deeper inside.”
Then you take another drag and start again.

Impulsively, I lean in
and touch my lips to yours, lightly,
before you’ve had the chance to blow all the smoke out.
In your surprise, you let it out into my face, and I laugh again.

But you don’t laugh. You
look away, stoically, and mumbling, repeat
“from deeper inside.”
Suddenly, I feel a sharp burning in my own throat.

When we get to my door, I stop and smile,
and you look at me—we’re both wondering
whether I’ll ask you up. You lean toward me, back bent,
and look at me a little too long.
I sigh an apology, and step deliberately inside.
I don’t turn around till later.

By then, you’re just a figure with a cigarette
fading slowly, shoulders quivering,
into the plain dark night.

Festifall Writing Activity Sentences

At our Festifall table, we had set up a writing activity where people drew one word each from three different cups containing adjectives, verbs, and nouns, and wrote a sentence on-the-spot using the three words. Many people participated, and we ended up with a lot of sentences. Here are some of the highlights:

Your lips inspire me to be lazy.

I lied when I said I was jealous of your body.

Her lips appear soft, red; in a word, delicious. I hesitate to think of the colors feelings emotions evoked by the simplest of contact with them.

He conquered my curves with alarming finesse.

There was something quite inspiring and sexy about the way the vomit pooled on the floor.

If I wake up past tomorrow morning, I'm limp and lost, because I obviously slept with a hooker.

The lesson my mother taught me is a secret which I only think about when I caress my pet cat Celia.

Though subtle at first, the trickle of spring melt soon turned into a roaring river that seemed like it would never stop.

Dream yourself out of embarrassment, naïve girl.

I am thoroughly embarrassed by the orgasmic reaction to the passage of linear time. Alas!

Commandment XI: “Thou shalt honor and caress thy tender guitar.”

I discovered delicious intestines inside me.

While you conquered “Love Me Tender” on your mandolin, I chopped vegetables for stir-fry.

Indulge in the morning, though your limbs may be limp.

Thoughts

Hi everyone!

Neil and I went to the Summer Hopwood award ceremony today to see Bethany get recognized and read her prize-winning poetry. It was a small, but classy ceremony, and Bethany read two excellent poems, the first of which was one of the earliest poems she had brought to Writers' Community to workshop. I have to say, listening to her read, I felt so incredibly proud of her, and realized again how thoroughly she deserved to win. Once more, congratulations, Bethany!

So, seeing this prestigious award ceremony and all, I've been thinking a lot about what makes writing *good* writing. We had a discussion along these lines on the blog some time ago, I know, but today my modern poetry professor read us a quotation by Matthew Arnold that tried to answer this very question. Here it is:

"For the creation of a masterwork of literature two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment, and the man is not enough without the moment."

Arnold meant it in the historic sense of time and place (my professor used it in reference to Yeats writing about the Irish rebellion against the British), but I think "the moment" is also an interesting way to describe that flash of inspiration that sometimes comes over a writer. Indeed, that's how it works for me; I'll have "a moment" of clarity and deep feeling in which I'll jot down some words, and then have hours and hours of that muddled second-guessing process we call "editing". What do you guys think?

And lastly, since I've promised to write and bring a poem to the next meeting, I have, of course, been thinking particularly about poetry. This is not the form that comes most naturally to me--and yet, as a reader, I feel like nothing is more "natural" than a poem well written. It's hard, as a writer (I guess I should say "as a poet") to figure out what you want to say, and how, exactly, it can be said most effectively. To give this ultimate question some perspective, I will end this post with the last few lines of Marianne Moore's poem "Poetry", in which she outlines, consisely and perfectly, exactly what a reader should expect from "poetry":

"In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, you are interested in poetry."

Eastward, Onward, Forward

Strolling down Magnificent Ave.
With cane and coat and keys.
walking eastward, onward, forward,
in search of boundary.

Mile one is done, as is two,
Now I'm working on three.
I'll keep on going with steady gait
Until I'm ready.

I don't yet know how far i'll go,
the trail has yet to tell.
But I'll continue 'til I'm there,
or 'til my feet should swell.

I'm walking eastward, onward, forward,
steady on my path.
Never a better road to travel
than down Magnificent Ave.




(Draft one, please comment)

The Derelict

Move along. Nothing to see here.
Nothing but this mendicant man.
He's been begging in the same place
All day.

"Spare some change, sir?
Have a good day."
That's all I ever hear him say.
There's a sigh in his eyes.

Some time soon I'll join him.
Some time soon, I say.
Maybe another day.

I'll buy him lunch or coffee.
Hear what he has to say.
But not today, no.
Another day.

On a String

Here's his black hair
His brown eyes are open
His nose is here
His lips are smiling
He's wearing a blue shirt
He's wearing black pants
Here are his sneakers
And here's a pin
And the doll cries

Comment on anything, including title, punctuation, etc.

Scheduling

Anyone have preferences/requests for when meetings should be this semester? Also, we could all put our class schedules on M-Schedule and then find out that way when we're all free. I'm pretty much free for anytime I don't have class.

CONGRATS BETHANY!!!!!

For those of you who don't know, our very own Bethany Goad has won a Hopwood for her poetry!!!!! WOOOOOO!!!!!! This is an incredible achievement which Bethany entirely deserves since her poetry is so fricken awesome! The awards ceremony will be held September 22nd at 11 am if you'd like to stop by and give Bethany your congrats. If you can't make it then, be sure to come to our first Writer's Comm meeting of the year and tell Bethany how cool she is, and how cool it is to know a girl who won a Hopwood.

I admire your talent and am happy it's been recognized, Bethany! Cheers! ^_^

Jenny

poem:HIPPOCRATIC GARDENS AND JARS OF BILE

(title needs work)

I had it stashed in my brain:
how my landlord, Sandra, kept
the face and neck of a snake
in a squat jar filled with vinegar.
This was her spectacle about death--
how to deal with dying, or how to die.

I turned seven before spotting
the jar in our shed--before the jar spotted me.
Sandra hadn't intended so much for humor,
as she had to set a spectacle.
And that was the thing
about death and its aftermath.

I couldn't have been
more surprised to learn that
such snakes tend only to help
gardens grow by masticating
certain pests--shaded black and brown,
which are the colors of melancholy.

"Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
how does your garden grow?" Then,
words fell flat off my mouth: I dreamt
of an old pal and her brothers--
the three of them--stepping off a cliff,
as if in obedience to an unspoken mantra.

This all happened before
our move to that house with the shed.
What did the rest of the verse do but fail me?
The hoe had twice fallen straight on its neck
and seemed to have splattered it
into three pieces, now caught in a jar.

It couldn't even scream or make babies,
this all happened so fast.
Hadn't its blood been yellow, like dragons'
in Renaissance fairytales? Or, I had made this up too?
Unlike that myth about the poisons excreted
by our bad humors into our blood. Choleric-yellow, for example.

When another one slid around the bend,
I shrieked sanguinely and my mother finished it off--
"With silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row."
Somehow, that made even less sense than the rest.
As did the kinds of solid questions
I took too shy of a blush to utter.

Not even scrapping questions
like, What's the origin of this plot?
Who took grandpa's hand on the way to the cemetary?
Why won't Ms. Sandra-landlord
show herself when I'm around?
Where'd its blood go, and why not red?

The kinds of suckers people call leeches
didn't begin to help
with removing that bad bile
they used to believe our blood was made of.
Nor was it that the screening for life
and the carbon dating system had let me down.

In my quest for the exact
age and reason for the canyons,
I simply decided to suffer the literary approach--
which is to say I've taken a certain
so-called mythology very seriously,
and have given up on blanket answers.

Idea for next year

I was thinking, yesterday, about how many of us know how to play instruments, and I realized that at least part of the way into next year, if not at the beginning, it will be at least me, Rachel, Manisha, Josh, and Will. So I got to thinking, music is related to English, writing, and just creativity in general...why don't we have a music meeting where we write a song? Let me know what you think.

poem: decision about reciprocity

Hey, here's something of a poem that I started a couple of days ago. Please let me know if you can't figure out what's going on, or if you're generally confused... I think there may be issues with obscurity here that I need to work on. Anyway, I hope everyone's well and is enjoying the summer! Thanks for your feedback!

DECISION ABOUT RECIPROCITY (title also needs work)

What crawls from his lips as vapor dirt,
tinged with scents of sweet salt-water
and rum, dissolves me from this chair--
this desk. I resume myself, half full of breath
and blood, in a spot of sparse straw-grass.
Beside a plastic pail and shovel, my knees
bump under my daisy and red-cotton skirt.
I will shovel my mouth full with dirt,
swallow and scan the tree-stubs
for a woody-chunk.

What looks exactly like white
breast-meat from a bird
fits between my lips.
What pretends to have died
flapping feathers with a song--I chew on.
Chew, chew, chew and swallow. He breathes
for me, so I swallow that wood
of reciprocity. For the seeming insect inching
from his parted lips, I nibble on wood
that once centered around a vein of green.

I gnaw hopelessly for that vein of living green,
while he breathes of masks:
opaque-scented, damp-living. Insects
whose colors adhere to leaves and grass.
What starts from his mouth
encircles me, my bent knees and bucket,
like a thick swarming of gnats--in my mouth,
nose, and ears. Still, he towers over my desk,
and I'm five years old again. He's there
at my desk with his elbows propped up,
a yellowing collar piqued for command;
he presses his fingers forward--as if
against a heap of sand.

It's what will topple at the slightest
nudge. I could swallow again, chewing
what he knows has never flown, nor bled
in red. Or could the wood simply
drop from my mouth: still-white,
wadded, slathered, smiling in spit?