dreadcrumbs

"Domestic Compromise"

Stepping over the mess in the yard, I open the front door.
"Honey?" I call.
"Here," I hear my wife say.
Crossing the entryway and turning the corner into the kitchen, I see Amanda boiling something, spaghetti maybe.
"Are you okay?" I ask.
"Sure," she says, turning to plant a kiss on my cheek.
"There are...um..." I say, pointing back to the door.
"Hm?" she noises, looking vaguely in the direction I'm pointing.
"Bodies," I say. "Dead bodies on the front lawn."
"Halloween decoration?" she asks.
"No," I say. "You really don't know where they came from? Two men? One has a beard?"
I watch her think for a moment, and then her eyes brighten.
"Oh!" she says. "The spam!"
"The what?" I ask.
"Those guys," she says. "They came ringing the doorbell, interrupting me, not leaving me alone, trying to sell me something. It was annoying."
I walk back to the front door and peer at the bodies.
"I think one of them is Mr. Greenberg," I say.
"Really?" I hear my wife ask, padding across the floor to my side.
She stares with me for a moment. "He's wearing a hat," she says.
"That's true," I say.
She looks at me. "That's why I didn't recognize him," she says.
"So...do you know why they're...uh...there?" I ask.
"I imagine that's where they fell," she says, and turns to me. "Does Mr. Greenberg sell insurance?"
"I don't think so," I say. "I think he's retired. So to speak."
Amanda laughs.
"It's just that he seemed so alarmist when he came to the door," she says.
"Probably saw the body," I say.
"Ahhh," she says, pointing at me with an aren't-you-such-a-smartypants look.
"We should do something with them," I say.
We stare at the bodies for a moment, and then turn simultaneously to look at each other.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Amanda asks.
"I think so..." I say, and shout "Meat!" just as she yells "Puppets!"
"Oh," she says.
"I mean," I say, "it doesn't have to be meat."
"No, no," she says, "that's a good idea. It's just that I've already defrosted some chicken."
"Let's do puppets, then," I say.
"Are you sure?" she asks.
"Definitely," I say. "Puppets are fun."

"Paradox by Proxy"

For the third time this week, my housemate flings the front door of the house open and collapses noisily onto the living room floor. I look up from the book I was supposed to have read for class a week ago to see if he's bleeding or anything. He isn't.
Briefly debating an attempt to leave the room before he says anything, I settle on pretending to be invisible and turn back to my book.
Seconds later there is a dramatic groan from the floor and I ignore it.
"Dave," he calls. "Dave, you there? It...it's Jake."
I don't say anything. I am concentrating fiercely on the sentence that I've re-read three times since his Entrance.
He fumbles himself into an awkward crouch, and finds me sitting on the couch. To my chagrin, he happens to catch me looking in his direction.
"What day is it?" he asks.
I stare at him, trying desperately to convey the deep irritation of the soul I have since grade school reserved for paste-eaters.
"The date, Dave!" he sputters. "What is the date?"
"The thirtieth," I say, still staring.
He opens his mouth, and I hold up a finger.
"If you ask me what year it is," I say, "I will straight up punch you in the face."
He stands awkwardly and clears his throat, his eyes dart around the room briefly and then fix on me.
"In the face," I say again.
He stalks back toward the front door, stopping at the threshold.
"Tell me one thing?" he asks, not turning around.
"Fine," I say.
"Who is the president of these United States?" he asks.
I sigh. "It's Stalin, Jake," I say. "It has been for years."
His head drops.
"Then I'm too late," he whispers, and runs out the door.
I shake my head and turn back to my sentence. I have just enough time to read it again when the door to the second bedroom opens and Jake stumbles out, groggy with sleep.
"Was somebody here?" he asks, rubbing his eyes.
"You," I say. "Again."
He stops and looks at me. "Serious?" he asks.
I nod.
"Lame," he says, padding to the pantry in bare feet. "You tell him the president was Hitler again?"
"Stalin," I say. "He didn't take it well."
Jake shakes his head, almost ashamed, as he surveys the available breakfast cereals. "What a tool," he says.

"Arts and Crafts"

The mottled gray thing on the dinner plate was dotted with bits of what might have been poorly-treated kernels of corn.
It looked vaguely like a gingerbread man, but large. Bloated. Pregnant with something besides dough. Like a gingerbread man pie, baked out of something clearly inedible.
"This isn't dinner, I hope," I say to my wife who is busily doing something in the kitchen. Cleaning, probably, though I can't be sure.
The abrupt silence that follows makes me re-evaluate my words to see if they could possibly be taken in insult. I was trying to be funny, trying to lighten an already dark mood after my news about the cat. But what if the thing on the plate was dinner? I made the comment because I thought that was impossible, that this was a craft project or something, but....
"What exactly is that supposed to mean?" she asks, bustling back into the dining room, clearly irritated.
"Nothing," I say. "I just thought it was funny, because, well...I don't know...It's...uh...it's...not, though...right? Not food?"
She lets out an exasperated sigh and plops down in front of the abomination on the plate.
"Of course not," she says, leaning over the thing with a fork held edgewise.
"But why would you say that?" she asks. "Do I make you eat things like this?"
She was starting to get angry.
"No, I..." I start, holding up my hands.
"Do I make you eat anything?" she says, still hunched over the Gingerthing, drawing something on it, maybe. "You should be glad I make dinner at all. Ever."
"I am, I am," I say, trying to salvage the conversation. "I love everything you make. Let's um...let's just forget I said anything and start over."
"Fine," she says, sitting up, surveying her handywork.
I look over her shoulder. She's poked two holes into the "head" to serve as eyes, and crudely scratched "LIVE" across the chest.
"What is this?" I ask, careful to keep an upbeat tone.
"A golem," she says tightly, brushing a few crumbs off the chest with her hand. I edge forward for a closer look.
"Aren't they supposed to have...I don't know...like Hebrew letters on them or something?" I ask, realizing just as I've said it that it was the wrong thing to say.
She throws the fork down hard, and it skitters noisily across our hardwood floor, marking its path with a jagged tan line.
"Can't you just NOT criticize for once!? For once?" she shouts.
"No," I say. "I mean, I didn't mean...anything...it looks nice, really."
She drops her voice an octave, the way she does when she wants to mock me. "Isn't it supposed to have Hebrew on it," she says, then reverts back to her normal voice, albeit a bit more strident. "Do you think I know Hebrew!? Do I look like a rabbit to you?!"
It takes me a second to realize what she meant to say, and when I do, my mouth twists as I try to stifle approaching laughter.
She stares at me. "Don't you laugh," she says. "I swear I'll slap you if you laugh."
I can't keep it in, though, and with the first snort, she is true to her word and slaps me hard across the cheek.
There is a moment of silence as we stare at each other, interrupted suddenly by a muffled shriek from the dinner plate. As I turn to look at my wife's golem, the shrill noise sounds again, desperate, and then the Thing twitches slightly.
"It's moving," I whisper.
"All the noise probably woke the hamster up," she says.
I turn toward her. "The what?" I ask.
"The hamst..." she starts to repeat, and then stops herself, turning to me. "Don't you dare," she says.
"What?" I ask. "I'm not...what are you talking about?"
"Don't you dare criticize how I gave this life," she says, gathering up the squealing, twitching thing. "You're going to say it needed to be with magic, or kabbalah or something, aren't you?"
"I..." I say.
"Well I sealed a stunned hamster inside, and now its awake, and my golem is moving, and that means its animated, so you just SHUT YOUR MOUTH," she blurts, and stalks angrily out of the room.
I wait for a few seconds, and then call, "So what is for dinner, then?"
Somewhere in the house, I hear a door slam.

"Business Pitch"

Dave slides the glossy business plan across the table. The cover reads "XXX Technical College."
I look up at Dave, who is smiling a lot more than anyone should, really, at any time.
"A porn school?" I ask.
His smile tweaks a bit and I see a bit of red flush his cheeks.
"No, no, no," he says, letting out a coughing laugh. "I just haven't settled on the acronym yet. The three x's are a placeholder."
"Oh," I say, and flip open the document. It's the typical fare, lots of questionable justifications as to the necessity of the proposal, financial needs, and so on.
I sigh, idly turning pages but reading nothing.
"You can't really make money in education, you know," I say, and look up, apologetically. "Not really." "I agree," he says, and stands.
Walking over to the conference room door, Dave shuts it quietly and turns back to me.
"I want to say one word to you," he says. "Just one word."
"Okay," I say.
"Are you listening?" he asks.
"Um, yes," I say, and glance around the room to see if there is anyone else in the room he might have been talking to.
"Marrow," he says.
I stare at him, unsure what to say.
He tilts his head and smiles at me.
"You look lost," he says.
"Um, no," I say. "I just thought you were going to say 'Plastics'."
"What?" he asks, straightening up. "Why?"
"No reason," I say, and my eyes dart to the pale stick in his hand that I assumed was a dry erase marker. "So, uh...marrow. Wow."
"It's the future, Tom," he says. "A magical pudding to cure all the world's ills and make its masters rich."
"Here," he says, rifling in his pockets for something. "Let me show you."
He pulls out something that looks like a metal thumbscrew and sleeves the small bone he had been holding into it.
I clear my throat. "It's okay, Dave," I say. "I know what marrow is. Stem cells and all that, right?"
He looks disappointed, fingers poised on the butterfly screw. "But have you seen it, Tom? Have you seen the marrow?" he asks.
"No, but, I...look, Dave," I say. "What does this have to do with the school? Research or something?"
"Oh! Right!" he says, setting the bonescrew down.
He pulls the copy of the business plan in front of him and stares at the cover.
"The thing is," he says, "In the end, it's not so much a school, as a...um..."
"Skeleton farm?" I ask.
He stares at me, a half-smile frozen on his face.
"I...er...I was going to say 'tax dodge'," he says.
"That's good too," I say, standing. "But make the school a skeleton farm, and I'm in."

"Resurrection Serenade"

Todd finishes the last verse just before breaking into a coughing fit. It's a painful sound, raw and desperate, serving no purpose but to remind the body that something is wrong.
I put my hand on his shoulder and can feel his body shudder with the rapid tiny breaths he's taking.
I take a deep breath, hoping the sound will calm him, or at least remind him on some subconscious level how to breathe normally.
"That was beautiful," I say. "But I...I don't think the songs are helping."
His head turns and he fixes me with inconsolable red eyes, long past tears. His expression pleads with me to take back what I've said, but I can't.
Todd turns away, shrugging off my hand.
"If she meant that much to you," I say, "you shouldn't have left her."
He lets out a soft raspy noise that might be words, but I can't be sure.
"You can't just leave on a two week cruise and not expect consequences," I say. "Begonias need to be watered regularly."
"GET OUT!" he hisses, the end of it coming out in a gurgle, like he's ruptured something.
"Are you okay?" I ask.
"I said get out," he whispers, still cradling the dead houseplant in his arms.
As I walk out the front door, I hazard a glance back. Todd has placed the desiccated plant on the window sill and is lowering himself to one knee, like he's about to propose marriage. I shut his door and descend the steps from his apartment in silence.
My car is parked under his second floor window, and walking to it I can hear him singing again to his dead plant. He's opened the window and the rough sound of his vocal cords being rhythmically flayed pours out. I open my car door and stare up, suddenly moved at Todd's hopeless love.
"What is that?" I hear someone say behind me. I turn to see an elderly woman staring at Todd's open window. She is holding a leash with an unkempt terrier on the other end who appears to be desperate to move on.
"I Will...Always Love You," I say to the woman, and am shocked to find my voice choked with emotion.
Collapsing into the car seat, I look back at the woman, who is now staring at me. "The Whitney Houston version," I say, shutting the door, still looking at her through the window glass. "The Whitney Houston version," I say again, but I know she can't hear me.

"An Alternate Path"

I am alone in the study, but can still hear the echoes of their screams. My father. My mother. They told me not to blame myself, and I don't. I blame him. That craven coward who took my parents from me. The man who laughed as my father screamed.
The police did nothing. Would do nothing. And ever will it be the case.
The door opens, and they come in to face me.
"Your mother and I have grown apart, Bruce," my father says.
"The way your father reacted to that car on the freeway was just icing on the cake," my mother says, and he glares at her.
"The way I reacted?" he starts to shout, and I turn to the study window and the daylight outside. I'm used to this. They begin to argue about the truth, but I don't listen.
Because I know the truth.
If it hadn't been for the man who cut my father off on the freeway, my parents would stay together. We would still be a family.
There is a sudden crash as a baseball comes crashing through the window and rolls to my feet. Light streams through the clouds, illuminating the ball, casting its stitches into sharp relief.
My parents run to the window. I stare at the ball. It is a message. It is a sign.
Commuters are a cowardly, supercilious lot.
I will become the thing they least expect. I will wreak vengeance upon all those that flout the law by not using turn signals.
They will know the justice of The Ball. I will break the windshield of their villainy as they have broken my life.
I know who I am now. I'm Ball-Man.

"A Work In Progress"

We walk through the storage facility halls quickly, noisy footsteps announcing our approach to whoever might be in here with us.
We clip past the rental units lining the hallway, each ceiling-high corrugated metal door pulled closed and sealed by padlock.
"Are these all full?" I ask, pointing as we pass at what appears to be unit "B-12," based on the letters spray-painted on the metal door.
"Nah," Jerry says. "They keep 'em locked even when they're empty, you know, so winos don't come set up house or something."
We take a few more turns in the labyrinth and stop suddenly. Jerry turns to me, looking serious. "Okay," he says.
"What?" I ask, looking around. "This it?"
"Not yet," he says. "But this is a multisensory piece, you know? Pan-experiential?"
"Pan-experiential," I say, pretty sure he made that term up just now.
He catches my expression and gives me a look. "Fine," he says, "you're not an artist. Whatever. I just want to share, okay?"
"Okay," I say. He nods, and then puts his finger to his lips, indicating I should be quiet.
We walk in silence several more feet to a door that looks like all the rest. He pulls a key out of his pocket and as he starts to unlock the padlock, I hear an odd gasping whine coming from inside the unit. Jerry removes the lock and cocks his head to look at me. I hear the noise again, louder. It sounds a little like a large wounded animal, but wrong somehow, like a recording of someone pretending to be a sick horse.
Jerry flings open the door, and as interested as I am at seeing what is inside, I involuntarily close my eyes at the rank odor that spills out of the space. Opening my eyes, I see Jerry by the unit's light switch, gesturing toward something deeper within the space, still in shadow. I squint at the dark shape shifting position and suddenly worry that maybe Jerry is keeping another monkey in here.
There is a click and an overhead light flares on directly over the shape, exposing an exceptionally skinny middle-aged man on all fours staring at me. He's covered in what looks like human hair, but is wearing nothing but a loincloth and a wire brush dangling from the base of his spine.
I hear Jerry cough, and the guy on the floor jerks his head to the side, exposing an ear that is stapled over with a triangular piece of dirty orange felt.
I look over at Jerry, who is nodding at me with eyebrows raised, and then back at the floor-man, whose knees, I notice now, are covered with open scabs.
"This is kind of disturbing," I say, and look back at Jerry.
"Good!" Jerry says, smiling. He looks back at the man approvingly. "I call it The Withered Dog."
The dog man is looking at me with an expression I can't read. Something like a sneer.
My eyes dart to the man's ankle, which looks to be chained to the wall.
"This is voluntary?" I ask.
"It's actually a lot of work," he says, gesturing at the man. "I wouldn't do it if I didn't want to."
"No," I say. "For him. Voluntary for him."
"Oh!" he says. "Yes. Yes, of course. It's a paid position."
"Hm," I noise and take a step back, trying to illustrate to Jerry that I'm ready to leave this place.
Jerry steps with me, still watching the guy. "I'm thinking of, you know, like, submitting it to a gallery."
I make a show of checking my watch. "That'd be...woah...it's 9 already," I say. "I better get going."
"What?" he asks. "Oh! Right. Let me just close up."
Jerry slides the iron door shut, and just before it closes, I see something in the crawling man's expression change.
The hallways fill with the sound of the door shutting and Jerry noisily replacing his lock, but it is clear the man inside has started screaming.
We start to walk away. "Is he..." I start to ask.
"All part of the piece," Jerry says. "Not to worry."
We wind our way out, the Withered Dog's howls diminishing with distance.
"Where did you find that guy?" I ask.
"Book group," he says.

"Mergers And Acquisitions"

I duck into the meeting room as quietly as possible, shutting the door behind me. Mr. Gregson is sitting at the far end of the table and looks exhausted.
"...a lot lower than expected," I hear him say as I take the only chair left vacant. "But I know that isn't really an explanation."
I look around the room to gauge reactions. Everybody seems to be sporting dumfounded expressions, so either we're all being fired, or...
"I think we've managed to organize things so everyone keeps their job," Gregson continues, tapping the papers on his desk.
Well that's good, I think, but no one in the room except that bug-eyed guy from IT appears to be reassured.
"Don't get me wrong," Gregson says, shrugging. "We will have to make some sacrifices, no question."
One of the business analysts sitting across from me stands up quietly, mouthing the word "restroom" to no one in particular and leaves the room.
Gregson watches her go. When the door shuts behind her, he sighs.
"It's the price of staying solvent," he says. "I know some of you are going to want to start looking for other jobs, and that's okay, but..."
He stops and bobs his head back and forth slightly like he's trying to find the right words.
"But I'll need to know now," he says. "Part of the deal we made requires that continuing employees immediately sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement."
Gregson looks at everyone on the table, silent. No one says anything.
"Good, then," he says, and hands a stack of papers to the person on his left. "Just sign these, and we can get back to business as usual."
There is an extended sound of shuffling and skritching as everyone except the marketing director signs their NDA and hands it back. He's still reading the fine print when Gregson speaks up. "Is there a problem, Brad?" he asks.
The marketing director looks up, his finger still pointing to a piece of text on the agreement. "No seafood?" he asks. "Really?"
Gregson sighs, and I suddenly wish I had the agreement to look at again.
"Come on, Brad," Gregson finally says. "He's a fish god. What do you think?"
My eyes twitch back to Gregson. I'm not sure I've heard him right.
"Fine, fine," the marketing director says, signing the document. "I only liked the fried stuff, anyway. No good for me."
Gregson puts the last sheet onto the pile. "Okay then," he says, visibly relieved. Reaching down to his laptop bag at his feet, he pulls out a copper circlet and places it on his head.
I look around the room, and no one seems particularly surprised at this. The guy next to me is idly biting his nails.
Mr. Gregson raises his hands, palms outward, to either side of his head.
"Great lord Dagon welcomes you, the supplicants, into his embrace," he says. "Hail Dagon."
"Hail Dagon," everyone repeats. I manage a confused "...gon," but no one notices.
"All right," Gregson says, getting up from his chair. "Let's get back to work."
Everyone at the table starts to gather their things and stand.
"I did want to remind everyone," the voice of the HR director calls out over the growing din. "We're still having the blood drive this Friday, and participation is now mandatory."

"Late at the Office"

It's 8:00, and I've already stayed much longer at work than I had intended, and on my way out, my boss pulls me into his office. Shutting the door behind him, he tells me to sit down, and I do.
He takes the seat opposite me, on the other side of his desk.
"Anybody else out there?" he asks.
"I don't think so," I say. "I'm the last one. Besides you, I mean."
"Listen," he says. "I want your opinion on something, off the record."
"Um, okay," I say.
He starts to unbutton the cuff on his left sleeve. "Do the employees hate me, David?" he asks.
"Er..." I start, taken off guard. "I can't really..."
"Just kidding," he says, now rolling his sleeve up to expose a large blood-spotted bandage on the inner side of his forearm.
"This is really what I wanted your thoughts on," he says.
Pulling off the bandage, he lays his arm, palm up, on the desk, and shoves it toward me. His forearm is covered with what looks like an angry sunburn that might have been previously mauled by a vengeful raccoon.
"So?" he asks. "What do you think?"
"It looks painful," I say. "Is it some kind of rash?"
"Yes," he says, pushing his arm closer. "But what does it look like? Who does it look like?"
"Who?" I say, and despite my better judgement, look at the thing a little closer, trying to think of two bleeding bits near the top as eyes.
"I don't know," I say, tilting my head to one side, and then the other. "Maybe John Rhys-Davies?"
"Who?" he asks.
"An actor," I say, and shrug.
He pulls his arm back and mumbles something.
"What?" I ask.
"I thought it was my father at first," he says, staring at the wound. "That's why I cut the eyes out."
I let out a brief involuntary sputter that I try to turn into a cough.
He looks up at me with a thoughtful expression. "That's a little weird, isn't it?" he says.
I try to look as non-judgmental as possible.
"It isn't my father, though," he says.
"Look," he says, moving his arm in front of me again. "Look closer." He points at a portion of his skin that might have been a mole before it became afflicted. "Under the nose...." he says, obviously trying to lead me somewhere.
"I...um...," I say, trying to make a show of analysis, but I mostly just want to leave.
"..." he whispers.
"I'm sorry?" I ask, not having heard clearly.
"Hitler!" he shouts. "It's the thrice-damned face of Adolph Hitler!"
I stare, and he stalks away, yanking his sleeve down.
Not sure what to say, I try to manufacture some kind of polite conversational noise and come out with something that sounds like an old woman's cough.
He turns back to me. "Didn't you get a degree in history?" he asks. "Shouldn't you know what Hitler looks like?"
"Um," I say, suddenly myself again. "No. No, I was a business major."
"You were?" he asks, arms falling limp to his sides.
"Maybe you're thinking of the Dave in Market Analysis," I say. "He did his Masters prospectus on Civil War economy or something."
"Odd," he says, sitting. "I could've sworn it was you."
I stand up. "Sorry," I say.
"Don't worry about it," he says.
I'm almost out the door when he calls me back.
"Yes?" I ask, standing in the doorway. He's holding his arm up to the florescent lights, looking at the Hitler Rash from the corner of his eye.
"Do you think people might pay to see this?" he asks.

"The Further Adventures of Emily's Husband"

For the third time this week, I wake up screaming. I gasp, trying to catch my breath and calm down. Rifling desperately through the shreds of my fading unconscious, I try to remember what it was that woke me and get nothing.
I look over at my wife, deep asleep. I don't know how she manages it through my episodes. The blanket has fallen off her, and while I reach to pull it back up, I see that she's shivering. As I watch, her whole body begins to shake, twitching spasmodically, and her face wrenches up into some kind of agonized rictus.
"Emily!" I shout, grabbing her shoulders. There is a staccato retching noise coming up through her nose, with brief bursts of air and saliva pushing through her tensed lips.
"Emily!" I shout again, shaking her, and her eyes pop open.
"Bwaahahahahaha!" she blurts, taking a deep gasp of air and then lets loose with the biggest belly laugh I've ever heard her make.
I'm still looking at her, confused and a little concerned, when she calms enough to look up at me with tear-bleary eyes and sputters "...you...your face...heh...when you wake up...sc...sreaming..."
As she peals out another storm of laughter, trying at intervals to calm down, I notice she's holding one of the large salmon-colored knitting needles her aunt gave her as a wedding present.
"What," I start, overloud, trying to get heard over her gasps. "Why do you have that?" I ask, indicating the needle.
She stops suddenly, confused, quiet as she looks at the needle in her hand, and then starts laughing again.
I groan and flop back onto the bed, covering my face with my hands.
"It's," she says finally, "it's what I used, you know..."
She takes a deep breath and I uncover my eyes and look over at her.
"For what?" I ask.
"To, you know," she says, taking another breath. "To wake you up."
I sit up. "How, exactly?" I ask. "How did you use it?"
She hesitates, and then reaches the needle toward my head, suddenly freezing, staring at my face.
I feel a warm itch beneath my nose and on my upper lip and unconsciously probe the area with my tongue, tasting blood. She's still staring.
"What..." I start, and rub my hand across my face, under my nose. It comes back smeared red.
"What did you do?" I ask. I bring my hand up to pinch my nose and hear a tiny ripping noise somewhere inside my head. Blood starts to flow, pushing through my nostrils, spilling down my chest and onto the bed. I scratch at the bed sheet frantically, trying to pull it up to use to staunch the flow, but it won't budge, fitted tightly to the mattress.
"Get me a towel!" I try to sputter through the warm fluid running across my lips, but it comes out sounding like "Gahmyatahl!"
Emily stares.
At some point I pull off my pillow case and wad it up under my nose. Breathing through my mouth, I look back at my wife. She looks back at me in the frozen look of shock she's held for the last minute, and then starts laughing again.
I stand up. She points at me and falls back on the bed, still laughing.
"Fibe," I say. "I'b goaba sweep ob de coush, den."