"the fracturing of conscious thought, further buried and often forgotten..."

eva dreamed of a terrible crash. middle of the freeway, 90 miles an hour type shit. the kind that you feel in your nerves under miles of sleep. the car in front of her just smashed into a motorcycle. the young man, an asian fellow, was sprayed across the center divider. she watched from the front seat as the driver came up to her side window. oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit. calm down darling. oh shit. calm down. just give me the i.d. cards. the picture of an old high school professor. the asian guy is getting up, dripping all over the pavement. some kind of fucked up dream. she's freaking out. can't move. stumbling for the bedroom door. can't speak. i tell her it's just the paralysis that takes over your mind. but it's so real. yeah, it's real. not moving. not speaking. it's all real, baby. ever got that feeling? sure i have, i say, many times.


when i was seven the master of fiction came to my school to give a speech on the importance of education and self-improvement. i don't remember all he said. i do remember the bartering of fruit roll-ups and gushers and maggie mendoza passing love notes in the back of the classroom. she eventually grew up to have two bastard children. the father spends his nights in a county cell.


the morning we found robbie tankarsky lying face down behind behind the baseball diamond at fallbrook park i remember thinking to myself, "well shit, i guess the kid got what he had coming." i mean, i would have never expected something like this to happen, or even wished it to happen. none of us would have. but i'd have found it hard to believe that none of us weren't thinking that exact thing once we saw him. ziff had flipped him over with his louisville and we all immediately took a step back, covering our faces. the was a hole the size of a softball where his right eye would have been and several deep gashes along the left side of his face, all the way down to his thigh. pieces of clothing were missing and the rest were dyed a deep red. marty was ghost white. we all were. i couldn't believe what i was seeing.

father

father never wanted to be that kind of man. mother warned him, however, that he would become just that and, within time, we all saw that her words were truth.

mother spent most of her time in the garden, tending to leaves and ferns and the like, most of which she kept hidden in the corner of the backyard. father never cared much for these things or her hobby for that matter, hence the reason for seclusion.

father had better things to do, in his mind at least. one, and probably most important, of which was the tending to his antique guns and pistols. he boasted over one hundred different kinds of firearms, most of which being antiques from the world war two era. these were his prize possessions, often taken priority over his own flesh and blood.

we all saw it coming, albeit in our own twisted and skewed ways. as i said before, mother was the first and, as the priest said, she paid dearly for her foresight. i remember that quite well. it sticks with me to this very day.

white

dear simon,

i had a dream the other night. in it we were driving down the highway, passing cars at subsonic speeds. the overpass suddenly gave underneath and became a massive piece of wobbling concrete and metal, unhinged from the earth itself. but we stuck to it. we kept flying past the other cars. we drove, upside down and everything in between, like riding a giant snake. i don't know where we were trying to get to, but we certainly had a purpose.

and then i was in a bar somewhere. you weren't there anymore but there were several other people in the bar and we were all listening to some broadcast on the radio. there was a trailer somewhere in the desert, the kind that you see people living in sometimes. anyway, underneath this trailer, the radio said, was some kind of alien sack. there was a team there trying to disarm it or disable it. no one really knew. what we did know what that if the device, as they were calling it, went off then that was it for us. for everything. forever. so we all sat there and listened to the radio as it narrated what was quickly becoming the last few minutes of our lives. then it went white. fast. and then back. and we all sat in the bar still. a man next to me asked if this was it. i didn't know, i said. and then the dream ended. that's all i really remember.

so that's that. i'm gonna try to finish the rest of it tonight, the dream i mean, but in all likelihood i'll probably end up dreaming about those giant fish again. talk to you soon.

-c.k.

wisconsin

When Thomas left Wisconsin it wasn’t because he was forced out. Far be it from me to speculate on the reasons behind his departure, the reasoning behind their decision to send him away. Only Thomas and the elders can answer that. But he wasn’t forced out. At least that’s what Thomas told us. He made quite the point of it actually, to make sure we understood that it wasn’t that way. “Understand when I say there are no hard feelings,” he had told me. I suppose at that moment I understood, albeit somewhat confusingly. It seemed odd though, and the more I thought about it the more it made less sense.

We had talked the night before he left. I went over to his place in the evening and we spent some time together while he packed his things. He lived in a small, one bedroom apartment on Lane Lane across from the elementary school. I always thought it was funny that the city named it Lane Lane when they could have just as easily named it Lane Street or Lane Boulevard or even Lane Court. Thomas would tell people he lived on Lane Squared, as in exponents, but then he’d always have to explain the reasoning behind it. “You see, because there’s two Lane’s so it’s like it’s being multiplied be itself. Lane Squared. Get it?” He found it funny. Most people didn’t. That was just Thomas’s sense of humor, I guess.

I sat in the corner of his room, watching as he packed his things into a duffle bag no bigger than a corgi. “Seems awful small, don’t you think?” I asked him. He stopped for a moment and I could tell he was gathering his thoughts, trying to think of the right thing to say, as if to give nothing away.
“I suppose so, yeah.”
“Well don’t you think you’ll need a bigger bag? A suitcase at least?”
“This should do,” he said with a heavy sigh, and I could tell he didn’t want to discuss it any further. So I stopped.

homonyms

you wake up from a dream, sweating and gasping, reaching for the nightstand, swatting at flashing reds in the dark, landing on a switch, lighting the fear, thinking, rubbing, sobbing, dripping, kicking at the covers, wiping your face, swimming but not, unknowing, breathing deeply, looking, seeing, watching - a spider on the wall, spinning his web in a corner, and realizing this has meant nothing.


dear caroline,

i was in love with you five or so years ago. just about five years. maybe a few more. in secret as a matter of fact. you didn't know then. none of them knew, actually. i loved a lot of people back then, you see. in secret. all of them didn't know. at least i don't think they knew. maybe you were the one to come closest. to finding out, i mean. maybe one other, but i'm not entirely sure. well, that's about it really. i'm not sending this. they'll find it long after i'm gone. so long, caroline.

regards,
j.c. beckwith
18.7.1932


...
...
...
...
we haven't a coherent, concrete thought in days. days!
i'm aware of that.
are you? because fro-
yes!
...
i'm aware.
...
what?
what?
what?
what?!
i don't know. you tell me.
no.
c'mon.
no.
tell me.
no.
tell me!
...
...
fine.
go on.
i was just think-
*yawn*
see?! see that?!
see what?
that, asshole. that right there!
whhaaaatttt?
god damn you.
i'm tired.
god. damn. you.
i just-
no. no! you just what?
i just-
what?!
...
okay man.
okay what?
okay.
okay?
yup.
okay what?
...
...
...
huh.
yep.
...
...
so listen, about earlier.
what about it?
well, i was just tired you know.
so.
so i was tired.
so.
so i'm telling you now.
i don't care now.
of course.
of course.
that's convenient.
i know.
god damn you.
you started this.
me? you!
you!
you, you slick bastard.
*finger*
alright, man.
alright.
alright.
alright!!
...
...
...
...



Wake up, Charles.
Who-what is this?
It?s time to start over. We?re starting over.
What?
It?s time.
Who is this?
Who do you think, Charles? This is God.
Where am I? That?s impossible.
It?s not, Charles.
I don?t believe in God.
I know. But that will change. It all will.
What the Hell are you talking about? Where am I?!
I?m talking about the Universe, Charles. Life.
What about it?
It?s going to end. We?re going to end it all?


[Some time ago?]

words

this is a summer adventure: a trip through under-explored woodland areas, rafting in toxic waters, a night or two spent in over-heated garages, swimming in alcohol and liquids not yet known to most 4th graders. this is forced, let's make no qualms about it. fact is it's been clear near a month of fractured thought, the most of which, at this present time, gets scribbled down in a forgotten notebook on years old paper next to doodles of fish and coral and an unfinished self-portrait of a cow next to a windowsill. to be perfectly frank, and tim will agree with this to the limit, nothing comes near the apex of what is motivating to a man with little-to-no self worth nor appreciation for the misgivings around him than the feel of a cool hand against his own. to be perfectly honest, as i mentioned before and, again, tim can attest to the true severity and honesty in these words, this is forced, straight away. nothing in a nutshell save for that slight hint of warm spirits and methane mixing in the fluorescent light of this place. we had to put it down to paper - the trips to the moon, our concerns about what may and what could have been, that unsettling aroma between the sofa and the fern, a matchstick's duration in a vacuum, what i had said on january thirteenth, piano keys and what the strokes meant to not only you, but the older gentleman we purchased it from, single-syllable words strung together to make beautifully awful poems about past misfortune. we put it all down. to remember. to preserve.

i recall sitting near the back of the room. it gave off a sort of normalizing feeling, the walls, the ceiling, the armchairs and the table towards the center. this is where it took place. i sat there, coffee in the left hand, a book, the illegitimate fowl meets mother self-depreciating goat, clutched in the right. this was something else, i thought. sitting in the leather chair, it's arms coming up higher than a normal chair would, nearly as high as my shoulders. i feel like a child, i said...i thought. did i say it? the older fellow to the left seemed to hear me say something. his reading glasses removed, he shot me a curious look, as if to say, don't you dare think about even thinking about fucking my daughter. he wasn't even with anyone. crazy old coot. he turned away just as quickly as he began. for the best, i thought, i'd be a shame if i'd have to make another example out of a foolish old man. but that's what i get. i suppose that's what we all get.

gigawatt

i dreamed my finger landed on cookeville, tennessee.
"this is where i'm going," i said, dragging the syllables through the thick of disappointment.
"i don't know where that's at."
"consider yourself lucky."
"why are you going there?"
"because i have to."
"because why?"
"because that's where the finger landed."
he paused and studied the globe, the great decider resting reluctantly still on my new found destiny. i watched him as he placed his tiny hand upon the deep blues and dark greens, tracing the lines of the rolling mountains with such precision, a skill uncommonly familiar to this three-year old soul, like some master craftsman creating and molding a fine piece of art, or even something more magnificent, something beyond this young child's imagination, infinite and pure as it may be.

dear fran,

you were right. this isn't going to work. why i thought it might, shit, i really don't know. i mean, it seemed to be a good idea, in theory at least. right? it was simple enough. but i don't know. i'm just tired i guess. tired of trying to come up with different ways, different answers, different...

i woke up this morning and there was a rat in my bed. a goddamn rat under my goddamn sheets with me. what kind of shit is that? well, it was the last kind of shit i'll tell you that much.

you understand right? it was doomed from the onset. i see that now. but what does it matter, right? i mean, somewhere someone is sitting down and writing or typing or whatever the fuck, painting, these same exact words in some same exact self-deprecating, fucked up tone like what the fuck is so wrong with my life? right?

kip says not to send this letter. but that asshole took my last beer so screw him. the fuck does he know anyway, right? so...well, heh. adios then.

-den


i read a line in a book today. something to the effect of the best love letters being encoded for the one and not the many. something like that. you think that's true? but what if you don't know that it's meant for you?