Home?
The wheels spun so fast; anyone outside the car would see them as moving backwards. The four-stroke engine screamed. The little bicycle tires of the Omni barely kept their grip upon the old road.
He clicked his tongue-stud against his teeth. He could feel the microscopic chips fall back onto the taste buds. They felt like salt, little cubes, the taste of salt seeping in.
Click click click. The stainless steel made noises against his teeth. The music blared loudly. The words resonated in his head, and the clicks in time with the 13/8th’s beat. 'Consequences dictate course of action. It’s only wrong if you get caught. Maybe I should play god, and shoot you myself.' The words and drugs seeped in. Opiates, hallucinogens and sedatives kept him on the road, he could not move the wheel and it weighed as much as the world, round and ever changing.
He had focused random thoughts spurred on by the next song: Pushing me shoving me spit on me push it on me shove it on me pushing me; put shit on me. I will choke until I swallow. I bang my head upon the fault line. It’s enough to make me fracture. I do it once I hope you disappear. I am something I don’t want to be. I am somewhere I don’t want to be. You put me somewhere I don’t want to be. You are the only one that I want to be. Pushing me, shoving me. You were begging me to stay. I had to push myself away. I am alive when you are putting me down, but I’d trade it all for just a little piece of mind. I don’t want to see that place again .
The car died before him, unfortunately. Out of gas. The battery still worked. He changed the tapes. He spent a little money on the stereo, of course, and had no money for fuel this week. He placed the fastest and heaviest tape he had. Shit, he put it in upside-down. He took it out and flipped it over; then he put it back in again. It was a shame; this intensity that he loved only lasted one song. Five minutes later and unfulfilled, the last power chord died off. He tried to hit the off button; after a few tries, he actually got it right.
The small car was comfortable, but he had to get out soon, because the drugs would drop off in a short while, and to be in here, he was sure for some reason, would kill him.
He got up and walked. He clicked his teeth again, the salt again in his mouth. He walked, but he couldn’t get lost. He couldn’t get lost because he didn’t care where he was going. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered after last night.
He talked to himself, rationalizing. It was her fault, of course. It had to be. She died, at least to him, when she said it. He looked different, he knew. She found out it was a cover, a blanket, like when he was a child. She didn’t want someone who marked and poked themselves because of their insecurities; she just wanted him as a shock to her parents system.
Didn’t matter. This would end up as another scar. Walking had brought him to this place. A broken door and a dead unrecognizable animal in the front signaled its desertion.
Inside, there was a cross on the wall. The owners probably had gone out chasing the tail of dogma. Probably. He looked at the cross; Jesus looked like he was breathing. Of course, he knew it was the drugs, he only did them occasionally because he knew of things like this. Only people on drugs could believe that Jesus stuff. They'd have to be high to.
It talked to him. 'You! I thought you had run away. You were chasing after a trail of smoke and reason.'
It was the drugs, of course. He looked at the thing again. It didn’t move. He wondered if he ever wanted to see a cross again. He was going to ask him, but that feeling, too, passed.
He looked around, a simple set-up for the house, typical things. He tried to marry the Lay-Z-Boy. He thought it was a honeymoon and tried to consummate the marriage. He urinated on a candle, like a fire hydrant; it smelled kinda cool, kinda funny anyway. There was a mess all over the curtains, armchair covers, throw pillows, and carpeting.
'I’m getting bored again.'
Into the kitchen, sink piled high with dirty dishes. There was a faint smell of bad milk and meat. The corpse of a rabbit lay there; rotted vegetables on the cutting board moved a little. The carrots turned to the rabbit. 'You need to wear glasses. You should’ve seen that lady coming with the knife.'
The rabbit, 'Well, life feeds on life. If you hadn’t protested I would have gotten my vitamins that I need for my eyes.'
The man couldn’t stand it anymore, but he ran further towards the back. There was no back door; there was only the door to his left at the end of the hallway, and a window. He didn’t like what he saw outside, the red sunset, movement, and the wafer sun.
The corn moved back and forth, a swaying caused by the screaming wind. It came through the cracks; it came through the halls and spoke to him. Everyone has an opinion, and the winds voiced theirs, 'Hell is here.'
Thinking about it, he clicked again, more salt onto his tongue. The door opened easily in his hands, the knob almost shook his hand back.
One light hung from its wire from a hole in the ceiling. 'Why is the power still on?' he said aloud, the voice echoing, he thought it came back. 'Why don’t I go down?'
He couldn’t respond to that question. He went down the stairs and around a corner. A single incandescent bulb hung, dimly lighting, leaving corners untouched. A rough pentagram was drawn upon the ground. It was paint, but was it bleeding too? No, he thought about it and decided it couldn’t be that. That HAD to be the drugs talking. There was no other way.
He knelt to feel the star; it was warm, almost hot, and not wet. He laid in the star, his head at one point, his other parts at other points. His shirt pulled up a little, exposing some ink and skin.
In the black, there was movement. Nothing. Imagination.
The pipe overhead crisscrossed into millions of directions. That one held electrical wires. The one over there went to the bathroom and that to the kitchen. There was a gas main, and a toilet run, where the septic took the crap and threw it out into the world.
Move movement in the dark.
The pipe dripped its condensed water onto him. It fell on his stomach, right above a tattoo. It said 'Scarred.'
He thought for a minute about leaving, but there was no real reason too. Jesus would tell him if there were an intruder, and he could still hear the carrot and rabbit talking about the necessity of death.
'Wouldn’t it be nice,' he said to the darkness, because he thought he was alone. 'Wouldn’t it be nice if we would all be high?' And numb, he didn’t add, because it was cliche, but so true.
The thing that moved in the dark didn’t speak; shimmers of light came from its black shell, reflecting off the bulb.
A moan came from around him. The basement, he now saw, was not concrete, but simply dirt. A giant hole. He felt hands upon his back.
He stood. The entity crawled up the wall. It’s antennae moved around; they felt the wind from his movement and the thing ran faster.
He climbed the stairs, quickly, the light swinging and casting moving shadows that terrorize children. At the top of the stairs, he looked out the window. He saw a long pale face, a woman with long black hair; her lips pursed into a tight expression of joy, like someone who likes her work. He faced away from the window, and he saw the rest of her body, not just a reflection in the night. She stood there, headless, a long black dress, slightly tattered, but still black as the entity downstairs, it gave off darkness as a flame does light. A knife was in her right hand, a carrot in her left; he thought he heard its cries. She lifted the knife and cut the carrot in half, all was silent, aside from the squishy sound of her pushing the carrot into her open esophagus.
The woman’s eyes, the make-up made it hard to tell, because her eyelids and lashes were black, and there was only a thin slit through which he saw her pupils. They were empty.
There was nowhere to go but back down or right through her. He didn’t want to go down there, where any worm or bug could and would crawl in between the cracks of the dry dirt. He had to go through her. She offered no resistance; he put his arms up but they didn’t touch anything as he charged. He looked back at her. She didn’t move at all. Then she floated around; she did not touch the floor.
He ran for the door. He couldn’t find his car. He saw the woman outside, on the porch, coming down to him, the head still floating outside the window. He ran into the corn, entire stalks falling to the ground at his touch; there was no moisture in these things, they had died long ago, longer than anyone could ever realize. The leaves smacked him in the face, scratched, bit, clawed, and raked. Some of the stalks seemed out to get him, reaching over for him as he came to them.
He reached a road. The white lines met in the distance. This was a road that you would only drive if you lived out here. He saw the lines converge in the distance both ways, with no interruption; the corn, grass, white and yellow lines all came together in each direction. He saw a car in the distance, one headlight angled into the sky. He walked towards it; he didn’t see the thing following him anymore. The car approached. It’s been a few hours, surely the drugs would wear off soon, but he did take a lot. He idled and wondered if he would ever recover. It didn’t much matter.
More thoughts raced by as the car speeds closer:
I can’t run away anymore. I must persuade you another way. There is no love in fear. Remember I’ll always love you, even if I tear your fucking throat away. I can’t have it any other way.
The car slowed and stopped, it was a familiar type. It was her, the object of his affection, affliction, and rejection. It was her, the face in the house. 'Where were you?' She said, 'You really had me and your mother worried. I expected you to take it hard, but not this hard. After all, we still can be friends.'
He closed the door. The dome light turned off. He looked at her, the woman in his life, the one that didn’t want to fill those shoes anymore. He looked in his heart for the woman he wanted, knowing he would never find her.
He wanted his car back, only so he could drive some more. 'Your car, we had your step-sister pick it up and put a little gas in. Ya know, it was stupid of you to run out of gas like that.'
He looked at the corn. Children played in there. He could see their flashlights, were they there before?
'Are you listening?'
He didn’t answer. The door was unlocked. She was going fast, but not that fast. Did he want to join them? Not really. He just wanted out. Was it worth it, to die for a girl? Not really. Jesus didn’t understand that. It wasn’t worth it. You’re only given so long. May as well use as much as you could to do something you believed in.
He didn’t need anyone to get off their cross; he wouldn’t be their next fool martyr. If he was gonna die, it was gonna be for something real, and he sure as hell wasn’t going alone. Click click click.
'Stop it, that’s so irritating,' she complained
Click click click.
'I said stop, dumbass.'
He stopped. He couldn’t kill her. He still loved her. He couldn’t move. All he hoped for was a woman to match the one he saw in his heart, and she was the only one that ever pretended to care. He looked at her and imagined being in her arms as they were not two days ago. The drugs were wearing off, but the last thing he saw and heard in his mind was her telling him 'I love you.'
And of all the things that he had smelled or seen or heard or tasted or felt tonight, that was the most unbelievable of them all.
He never looked in the mirror, the floating head and body illuminated by the red rear lights.
-
This is what happens when you listen to a lot of Tool before the teacher gives you an assignment.