Posted on by Lydia Ink

Normal

The word normal is overused.  And, by the way, ‘normal,’ should in no way cause anyone a sense of well-being or security.  In today’s world, normal means, ‘I have you in my clutches.’ 

Laugh, I don’t care.   I just want a cup of coffee and I’m on my way.  Yeah, look there, a young mom gathering up her kiddos because I’m talking too loud.  That’s okay too.  Keep them safe, mom.   

No, I have money.  Here it is.  I work for a living.  I’m not a vagrant.  Look, my clothes are clean, outside of walking through this city, and I managed to bathe this morning.  Okay, I’m going.  I’m going but remember–normal is deceit.   

You following me?  Well, don’t I’m not crazy.  I will not do something awful.  You cops are the ones that give me the most trouble.  I’m not in a crowd of thugs, so I’m easy to subdue.  If there were five of me, you’d just let me rant on and on, maybe even burn down a building.   That’s normal.   

Listen, I don’t care, seriously.  It’s that mom who just left with her kids–and it’s too bad it looks like she could use a cup of coffee-that I feel bad for.  But listen, I gotta go. My lunch hour is almost up.  I know I talk too loud.  But I’m not a bum on the street.  Besides, too many bums are on the street.  Seriously, where does all the shit go?   

Who am I?  Just a person, just a weirdo person, but a viable human being.  My parents?  Do I look too young to be on my own?  My parents are dead.  They were pretty sharp, my parents, and they got along.  I was a shock to them.  Seriously, I think they could read each other’s minds, so when they gotta around to making love, I just don’t think they thought of the consequences.  I’m surprised really, I survived the womb portion of my life. They grew things, you see, so they probably thought the entire process worthy of exploration.  If I had conversed–not talk mind you–conversed with them at three months, I might have held their attention but that didn’t happen.   

How did they die?  I didn’t kill them, not sure who did.  I was away at school, so they couldn’t blame me.   Later, I read the police reports. I’m sorry I did because there were photographs.  It wasn’t quick.  I mean, there was no love lost between my parents and me, but I was sorry they suffered like that. 

What did they do?  They grew things; I told you.  Grew lots of things.  I had a close call with one.  True, I shouldn’t have been in their laboratory put for Pete’s sake, I was their son and… curious.  Normal?  Hell, no, it wasn’t normal.  The plant was like their damn guard dog. I’d have been strangled where I stood if I didn’t have sense enough to have a pocket knife.   The thing was around my neck before I knew what was happening.  And do you know what they said?  They said that if the thing had bound my hands first, it would have succeeded.  They seemed disappointed, not that I had survived, mind you, but their growth hadn’t the sense to bind, then kill.   

Oh well.   

The plants?  No idea I was at school.   I got their money and their house up on Long Island.  I had that place demolished and go up there every once in a while, just to have a look around, make sure all the vegetation is burned to the ground. 

Don’t look normal at all, thank God.   

Posted on by Lydia Ink

Her Perfect Green Eyes

“You know, I used to date a boy in high-school just like him.”

Cara’s cat like features perfected her green-eyed stare. Gazing out upon the crowded dance floor, watching the gyrating, perspiring bodies weave and bob away the troubles of low pay, glutted administrative jobs and a world tearing apart their parental implanted belief system set a fascinated glow to her luminous eyes.

Watching people her own age thrash about, sweating off makeup and deodorant to banging music and flashing lights left her half philosophical, half angry. The laughing, hysterical crowd before us would wake up to faces they had not seen before and discuss how to increase their sexual performance in a calm, matter-of-fact manner over coffee in a watery grey morning just before another day’s work.

Watching Cara, I worried for her. She took any slight directed toward me as personal. The hours of discussion melted from her mind; as a plain person I am looked over, snubbed and ridiculed. The fact did not distress me and in some places in the world, mostly Europe, my plain jane looks gave me an advantaged over the flamboyant. Here in the United States, my demeanor and my looks did not please. Despite my not being offended Cara’s green eyes gave her away, she was angry.

Cara’s flashing green eyes, her emotion and frankly her laughable sense of injustice drew me to her side, broke me down and weakened me so much that I told her my secrets. When we first met in a darkened alley, she rushed forward to defend me from harm. Glad for the opportunity to study her hunter like prowess, I sense to this day a recklessness about her. The surrounding atmosphere didn’t matter to me; it was a means to an end. To Cara, the crowd warranted a chance to avenge what she deemed the downtrodden. I disliked the loud, disconcerting music, but Cara thrived on it and I thrived on her expression and her perfect green eyes.

“I thought you too old for high-school remembrances,” I said, not focused on comment but on her emerald glow. Wanting her focus to remain upon the man who had just rejected me for another partner, concentrating on the thrum and throb of her calculating emotions, I felt the lift of anticipation.

“What sort of remark is that?” she asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I shrugged and looked away; her question shocking me into disappointing depletion. Perhaps her understanding of me was quickening. Her wrath directed toward me may be interesting. An undercurrent of electric anger between us may enhance an already welcomed partnership… or not. I felt an uptick in my sense of smell and taste when faced with the unpredictable.

The world had long left me flat and rather despondent, Cara surprised and kept me off center. She chose me, selected me, stalked me after our first encounter when she attempted to come to my rescue. I could have left her long ago or perished at her hands, but I allowed her to capture me, so I captured her. Narrowing her eyes, she speechlessly demanded a better answer of me. Looking away, focusing on some other salient point of interest, I countered her childish demand; “You seem timeless, too old for the nonsense of high school and all its silliness.”

“I endured like all the rest of these poor slobs,” she said with a shrug, immediately losing interest in the conversation.

My mind goes dark when confronting the mundane 21st century. Her response disappointed me, and it wasn’t the first time. Hating the hardened soldier, or bitter martyr tone she took, I shook my head in rejection to her response. Knowing the music or what passed as music to these craven and luckless lot I turned to scan the crowded dance floor. I felt the night funneling into dawn and the thought of time wearied me. Teaching Cara to understand that there were better places, stronger people, higher planes of existence than the jungle of despondency she insisted upon, seemed impossible. I returned my focus on my more basic needs and gazed about the long lines of lythe young people about me.

Reading me, connecting to my more basic wants, she looked toward the bar where most men leaned, gazing out at the dance floor; their faces reflecting the flashing lights that glared from the ceiling, floor and walls of the club. Her pristine skin and darkly painted lips attracted the man who had rejected me only moments ago.

When will you allow yourself culture? When will you pull yourself out of these pits? I longed to ask her these questions. Maybe some day.

Facing me again, unaware of my disgruntled emotions, she wore a wicked smile on her face, “Are you worried I’ll turn to extreme tattooing and piercings?” Mocking me was her only defense against the instinct she had in knowing she offended me. Warning her against taunting me with deadly earnestness, she would bring up my threat of having nothing more to do with her if she marred her beauty with smears of unnatural color upon her skin. Barbaric. Narrowing my eyes in her direction, she seemed about to say something more but laughed instead, as if realizing she was about to say too much.

“So what was this boy in high school like?” I asked, annoyed at myself for lowering our conversation to meet her needs and rescuing her from any further embarrassment with me. We both acknowledged our personal needs to each other and there were times I felt cheated by my surrender to her. The man whom she gave a coaxing look moments ago moved slowly toward our small table.

“Oh, you know. After we kissed for the first time and I found him wanting, he went about with any girl who would have him. He wanted none except me, but something inside him drove him to show me how happy he was; how very much happier he was with her or her or even her than with me.” Cara shrugged, looking around again with perfect timing. The man was before her.

It was my turn to laugh, and I did so. I almost felt a joy hammering with the loud, stubborn beat of electronic music which pumped throughout the hellish club. I looked again at the man now dancing with Cara. So simple; we easily catch the certain soul in any trap.

Watching him gyrated and swirl around Cara and looking oh so handsome on the crowded floor and in the flashing light, an animal exultation surged through my body. Examining myself and searching for any falsehood within myself, the thought of my share of the man did not disappoint me. I did not resent Cara’s powers as her beauty did not reflect against time. Did my relationship with Cara draw me down to the level of animal attraction? Yes. Most assuredly. I looked at the man again, his catlike movements and his masculinity exuding out of every flash of demonic light. He could enhance the beauty of the woman he danced with, but the beauty seemed to return to him; keeping what his ego demanded underscoring his selfishness and self-serving nature. I determined to capture his stolen beauty.

Cara’s perfect green eyes connected with me for a moment. In a burst of energy she lifted her long slender arms and danced as if around an ancient camp fire. She felt my determination.

I left the club. I moved into the icy night seeking silence. Cara’s laugher and feigned giddiness warned me of her approach. I pushed forth my desire, and she stumbled against the man she was with. I knew she felt my presence.

She wasted no time in pulling men to her need. I waited, for I understood she had needs too. I regretted their excursions weakened him but when he understood what I was; he put up satisfying resistance. Cara’s fascinated stare baffled him as he sank away into nonexistence.

“You won’t ever feed on me, will you?” she asked. Her partner tonight was more determined than most; more from disbelief that any harm dare touch him than from out-and-out fear.

“You must invite me, Cara.” I said. Her weariness allowed satisfaction from my answer. The invite she will not question which is 21st century style – so literal. So very literal.

Posted on by Lydia Ink

From Curious to Fodder

I wish my mother were here. Not that she’d do much good, but still I wish she were here.

You know sometimes I wonder if I want her here with me because, though I’m not much good, I feel, just a little, that she deserves this place more than me. I press the palms of my hands together and feel my bones just beneath my skin (more so now than ever) and think she should be here, not me.

Then the terror comes over me, and I just want her to hold me. Hold me, please mother, just once.

Just once.

When I was walking the streets of Chicago, I’d get as close to the lake as I could just to hear the lap of water. It was usually late, so the roar of the boats and the laughter of people did not interrupt me. In summer I might find late night lovers walking hand in hand. I thought them brave to walk and hold hands after dark in Chicago. I’d stay quiet and hide, not wanting them to think I was some thug or mugger.

See, yes, perhaps I’m not so bad. Perhaps somehow that will benefit me.

Also, if I die here, I’ll do it without a tattoo. My hair might be a blue one day and pink the next, but tattoos are too expensive and will look hideous after 50 years. I won’t live that long, I know.

It was the mist on the lake that attracted me. I’ve heard tourist wonder where all that water came from, they did not know Chicago sported a lake. What the hell people, do you think Chicago is in Kansas, (and not on the Missouri side, mind you)? Help me.

Yes, please help me.

Right, the mist on the lake. When I was younger, when my teachers tried, despite my mother, I would look out at this body of water and ache for it. Feel sorry for myself that I wasn’t on it, touching it, floating on it and freezing to numbness. It seemed so lonely, so forsaken, so beautiful, so cold, and I knew cold. We could only have our hats and gloves on while freezing on the playground, we couldn’t take them home and the bus ride home was so cold without them. The school would send home notes stating I needed a hat and some gloves, but the notes went unread and I grew older and more used to the freeze. So Lake Michigan drew me in during that frigid November day.

He was beautiful in the mist. He stood there, tall and lank and serene. How could I resist? At first I thought he wanted me for a night and though I never go to the Lake for that I shrugged and thought I would have him and revel in the thought I could find a secret place for secret self fulfilling desire. I guess I did. He keeps me here, in this bricked place, where I can’t see the lake. I hear it thunder in the wind, mostly I feel it within the walls of my prison. When I feel it, I feel the ache of cold and I know; I know he is here to feed upon the heat of my soul, and I’ll never see the lake in daylight again.

Posted on by Lydia Ink

To Dread the Dark

We try not to think of it too often. It.
The situation was this… we pushed our limit, we overreached, we took out the part of us that God put in, labeled free will and we shook it liberally all over our skin, hair, hands and feet.
Don’t get me wrong, don’t think I’m one of those people who blame God for everything. We knew what we were doing, and we knew we really should stop.
But we didn’t.
I’m not sure how old he was or where exactly he came from. I know he was very old, but he was prodigiously strong. I understood his strength when I saw him, when my mind connected with my vision and nudged my soul (something I most assuredly believe in now, my soul) and said “the legends are true, the stories are at least based on fact and man are you in a world of hurt.”
Alex, poor guy, his mind didn’t nudge his soul and the legend, now a reality, which we went out to meet, snapped him like a toothpick. Sometimes on my better days, when I don’t see Alex gasping like a fish out of the water, I believe he had enough time to think, “I have a soul and I’m going to God and I’ll be okay.”
I really don’t know. On my bad days, I cry like a baby and go visit Alex’s Mom. She hates me but I mow her lawn and fix stuff around the old shack she lives in.
Please don’t think Dana and I ran, we didn’t. Dana lifted her cross and peed. I lifted my cross and felt something like an electric shock thunder down my arm and blow out my fingertips. For a minute I was ashamed because I had just finished a joint. How could this work, how could I keep this horrible monster at bay after finishing a joint?
He was tall; you know. Very tall and he had this ironish white hair that sort of matched the paleness of his skin. When Dana and I lifted our crosses (we pinched them from the old, tumble-down, Catholic Church that is there on Moore House Street), he snarled at us and for a minute, despite Alex all in a heap, I felt sorry for him.
How did he get that way? The same way we did; arrogant, stoned and seeking a thrill?  Maybe because he wanted to or maybe because he was ambushed. He circled around us but my days in the army settled that maneuver; I told Dana we needed to go back to back and keep him at bay.
Three hours until sunrise. Three hours with Dana’s wet pants dripping on dry leaves. It exhausted us; always looking down, looking up, Alex in a heap. Every noise we figured he was coming up from the ground or coming down from the trees.
You do not understand what it’s like, you never will, to dread the dark.
 

Posted on by Lydia Ink

Missing Shakespeare

“Let slip the dogs of war.”

He heard it first in a Star Trek movie years ago–he couldn’t remember which one.  Stirring his coffee and decided he couldn’t remember which Shakespeare play the quote was from either.  He knew whenever he thought of that quote now; he thought of his ex-wife.

He thought of her often. When that wriggling little black mass of gooey memory started forward he took the dog out and tossed the ball until they were both exhausted.  He worried because old Fido (his actual name) didn’t want to run and play fetch as often or as long as they used to.  That was a problem because lately that mentioned black mass of destruction was surfacing more often.

He knew why his second marriage was failing.  He married her on a whim.  She was there; he was there, a need met, and he thought he might as well continue meeting that need.  It was fine for the first six or seven months until she decided she was in love.

He dressed appropriately, was even happy on the day of the nuptials but now…

Now his coffee was stale and overcooked and the nice neat-as-a-pin house he lived in had a thin layer of dust dulling the sparkle he remembered.

His second wife couldn’t cook and that was fine, it was just the two of them and he enjoyed cooking.  She enjoyed reading and at first that was fine.  They enjoyed walking downtown to the used bookstore, he would walk away with an edition of Sir Walter Scott he couldn’t believe he had the good luck to find and she would walk away with a bag of paperbacks.

At first it was fun.  She tried everything on him–everything.  He even flipped through her books once but when he came across some descriptive parts of the male anatomy, he thought he’d leave it up to her.

The marriage was about a year old when he found himself wide-awake beside her.  She was softly sleeping while he puzzled about life throughout the night.  What scene had they played out, what plagiarism in bed did they perpetrate?

That’s when the face of his first wife drifted in front of him and he sat bolt upright.  What if he slipped, what if he got so caught up in the current rush of love making but uttered in ecstasy his first wife’s name?

His first wife read Shakespeare and used to quote long segments at a time.  She read and reread the plays.  She looked so lovely during the festivals they attended.  They were young, inexperienced and let slip away the teachings of commitment.

He didn’t mourn her memory but her memory of Shakespeare. The taunts, the jibes, the certain bawdy humor and a sense of a night walk with ghosts and skulls and the best of ill luck. The slap and suck of sweat dimmed quickly in comparison.

He stirred his coffee and watched the dust motes on the windowpane.