"Pale Horse" #Fridayflash

This was what came to mind tonight as I prepped to write something incredibly insightful. A heroin addict sometimes doesn't measure just right, then again it's a vicious drug and will change potency in your body at any given time. I've never done heroin but have lost people I cared about...if reading about that disturbs you, look away. Else, welcome to my improv thought process. 

"I have made the big decision

I'm gonna try to nullify my life


'Cause when the blood begins to flow


When it shoots up the dropper's neck


When I'm closing in on death


And you can't help me now, you guys…"

  Heroin – Lou Reed

I’m breathing and shutting the door behind me. Neighbor downstairs is shouting at his girl again and somewhere there’s a bird chirruping and

—I gotta find it. The bathroom sink is a fucking mess and I should’ve started the wash.

There it is. Oh sweet heaven you. I hid you and nobody found you, not even that girl, what the hell was her name

—oh yeah. Shelia. Shelia is some girl, man but I gotta think straight. Think straight.

There’s pain where there shouldn’t be and I’m digging, digging because I need. Need. Alcohol wipes above the kitchen sink over the pile of dirty dishes. Goddamnit she should've at least done those. I think I said I would.

—Found it.

I gotta make sure I hit the vein, you know. Gotta pull the needle out just a little and look for those blisters, Man those blisters take fucking forever to go away and burn. A little blood baby. Yeah. Just a little.

Just a little.

There’s roses on the walls; I don’t know why man. Stupid tv and and aww man. Yeah.

This shit is gonna rock me so hard. Gonna go back to that Circle K in a little bit and score some smokes before…what was her name...gets home. Yeah. I gotta girl. I gotta girl and she loves me. Wait a minute, just a little more. Heaven ain’t like this. Maybe that Either place, wow man…

I feel like I’m gonna just float away and hey baby. Hey baby. She looks at me and screams. Groceries on the floor by my head. How did I get here? I was taking a piss and…

Oh baby. Don’t cry. I don’t know your name but I’m alright, just let me get up and

—Shit. Man I’m messed up. So messed up.

I love you too baby. Can’t you hear me? I’m talking

—aww damn.

I think I fucked up.

"Fast Folly" #Fridayflash

I had a tail on the way to my apartment from the office one night.

A black-cherry Mustang in my rearview, twisting through traffic like a head-lit cobra snake, looming there. I cut a quick right, wheels cutting into the pavement when I gunned the engine. It was a strange sensation to see it there: the distance kept immaculate but intimidating.

My mind raced, spinning through all the names of those who would like to get a piece of me, and well there were a few. There was my crazy bitch of an ex-wife, my last girlfriend; her new boyfriend.

The feeder sprouted into view and I darted up on the freeway. The Mustang followed, sunset ablaze in the windshield reflection, giving it the appearance of being on fire.

I let the window down to get some air and heard it. It had a low growl, except when I sped up and then it'd snarl with unbidden power. I sped past a line of slower-moving traffic, cutting in-between a Winnebago and a diesel F-250 to hit the inside lane, where the road was wide open.

I stomped down on the gas, and watched the speedometer climb. The Mustang responded in turn until I surmised we were doing close to 100.

A low-flying bird came across the highway, but I hit it before I could even respond. The body exploded into a blizzard of inky feathers; deep carmine red splattered over the expanse of my windshield.

I couldn't see.

The steering wheel ripped itself from my grip, my tires screaming before I did as a semi-hauler disintegrated the front half of my Volvo.

Safest cars in the world, and that's why I survived.

The Mustang passed, and kept going without the slightest lapse in speed as I sat there agape, the dash pinned against the knees I could no longer feel.

"Sketchy Connection" #Fridayflash

Bones has Season Three on Netflix now. I minimize the screen once the opening score starts and focus on my resume. Keywords are important to get noticed by The Machine. I called an office once for an update on the status of my resume with their firm. A woman answered and told me that "The Machine will pre-select your resume for our consideration." It came down to The Machine to read my carefully-composed work, and The Machine to decide if my hobbies and interests interfered with The Company's Vision.

This is not to be confused with The System. The System is down, I can't access your records to calculate your Unemployment benefits. The System doesn't make mistakes. Your last paycheck has to be right—The System doesn't lie.

I wonder what large nameless entity I'll become acquainted with next. What monolith I'll have to scale. I change a couple of keywords in the document and return to my show. The connection is sketchy, and pixels show like they used to when I had satellite cable. My phone rings on the seat. Just another bill-collector.

I attach my resume to another well-thought out email including my salary requirements and sigh at the jet-taking-off sound. It's unavoidable. I've lost my confidence.

As long as this connection stays up—

I'm deep in Dr. Brennan and Detective Booth's conversation when I hear the soft thump of a car door. I snap the laptop screen shut, and turn the key in the ignition.

A flashlight taps my window, the shine reflected by a golden badge.

"Instant" #Fridayflash

"Repugnant is a creature who would
squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven;
conscious of his fleeting time here."

Right in Two - Tool
____

The sky flashed, illuminating thick, rolling underbellies. Veins of red and deepest black traced those surfaces like a fatty vital organ. Bilboy peered out the rain-speckled windshield up at the magnificent display of nature’s wrath. An old-time country song crooned to itself on the AM radio. The Ford sputtered, recapturing Bilboy’s attention.

“Just a few miles more,” he muttered to the rusted behemoth.

There was this reoccurring dream: It always ended before his inebriated mind could wrap its arms around the true significance. Clouds overhead. Weak headlights stabbing vainly at the gathered night. Indescribable shivers puckering the old Semper Fi tattoo on his right forearm.

The reflection in his big-faced Timex watch, then the old Ford would sputter, just like that. Bilboy’s mouth twisted downwards and he rustled a bagged beverage clinging to the driver’s side door sill in one of those plastic half-circle cup holders you could get at the Speedy-Stop outside of Wilmenco.

This night drew up viscous memories of cold fluorescence, the stench of spilled gasoline and the tight red-burn of rope-bound wrists. It wasn’t too long ago that those scars’d faded  to silver, just under the deep chestnut hairs. Spiderwebs skittered over those bones and canvassed the tops of his hands where the skin peeled back, like an old dirty sock.

Thunder announced just behind the cab making the old man jump in his seat. No seat belt—a ¾ Tonner didn’t have those kind of rules. He took a bitter swallow of piss-warm beer and fumbled in his breast pocket for a Camel, thumbing the lighter in the dash. It never worked; he never remembered that until it’d pop over and over again, only to hold it in til he could feel the heat radiate outwards from the inch-diameter hole.

The spiral of bright orange illuminated the end of his cigarette and guided the lighter back home. The Ford dipped two tires off the paved road onto the shoulder, and Bilboy corrected with a reflexive jerk of the gigantic steering wheel. The other two tires screeched in protest as the empty bed of the truck swung around to meet the front.

Bilboy growled as he attempted to hammer the brake into submission, spilling his beer down his leg and finally the floorboard as both hands clamped on the steering wheel.

Lightning flashed over the slick pavement, strobing the scene as it unfolded before his eyes, but it wasn’t this moment in time.

It was the dream. That same damn dream that jerked him awake, sheathed in chilled sweat and trembling like a newborn calf. The dream of what happened when the Ford really did leave the pavement and fall afterwards.

Snap of thunder. Blaze of fire. Gasoline.

It was his time, but he didn’t believe in that kind of thing. He didn’t believe in anything except Pearl, (who’d gone on fifteen years before) Pabst beer, Winston-Salem and that number 45 car, whose driver was a distinct asshole but he sure did get the job done.

Bilboy threw his arms up to cover his face, but the glass melted through his skin. The old 302 wormed into the cab to greet him, partially severing his right leg in a searing instant. The rain saturated his dry skin as he stared up into the face of his Maker.

Something Good for a Change

"The Week After" #Fridayflash

"Someone shot nostalgia in the back Someone shot our innocence."

Who Killed Mr. Moonlight - Bauhaus



### 
Shiny leaves bounced in the mediocre shower as I watched two men work in tandem to ease the deceased to his final resting place. Their hair slick and hanging, slapping against cheeks pulled in from exertion and eyes puffy from tears.

The hole was without a headstone, only a mound to indicate a prior individual lay there in the dirt. People needed markers inscribed with comforting verses and clever poems. Humor in the morbid. Couldn't think too hard about the Time, because the rest of the Days would fly by.

I blinked, closing my eyes to hear nature's liquid percussion patter along vinyl tenting and drip off the curved shelter of my umbrella. I was a house. This was my eave. He was buried in my backyard. I pulled my feet out of the gathering muck. It was time to move.

I took a cab back to his apartment. It would always be his in my mind, because I was still a guest. I'd come to help keep him warm, but hadn't earned the right to live in his closet, our clothes mingling, merging and getting lost. Socks of red and black.

A framed photo of us mocked me from the mantel and I lay it face-down. He was gone a week and already I wanted to erase my mind of the happiness. A false start. I'd been left idling in a parking lot where the building was torn down.

I had no meter, only a heart. I wanted to reach inside and turn back the hands, just push back the spring to remember how it felt before I stopped hurting for the right one.

"Crooked Fang" #Fridayflash

This week I wasn't sure if I'd even have a piece to share. I lost my guitar hero, Peter Steele. If you have anything to do with me, you're already aware of the status level of my absolute distress. Still, I was browsing Type O Negative's website and inspiration struck. Xan Marcelles, aka Crooked Fang bassist doesn't have a bio. As it is entirely fictional, I figured I'd make you chuckle if I could. Smile for me. I'll catch up later. 


Type O Negative's official site
Crooked Fang's menial blog

Xanox Marcelles,  (born Gabriel Nez on October 8, 1958) is the backing vox, bassist, and full-time asshole for his band, aptly named Crooked Fang. Preferring to stay out of the spotlight as much as possible,  Xan can usually be seen lurking in the intentional shadows onstage during the small shows randomly held at PALE RIDER in the backwoods of Pinecliffe, Colorado.

When not plucking four strings, cursing, drinking, or sleeping in, Xan often takes assignments off ‘those kind of people’ but no worries—he only offs other vamps.

That’s right, Xan is also a vampire. Shit—I thought he told you. 

In his spare time Xan enjoys tinkering under the hood, drinking, social networking, drinking, smoking, drinking, women, and occasionally kicking himself in the teeth. After a drink.

Xan’s main musical influences include Roger Waters, Peter Steele, Glenn Danzig, (The original one) and any other badass musician with a good set of pipes, inhuman percussion techniques, or bass sweet enough to feel in the cockles.

Crooked Fang is comprised of Jason, Josh, and a certain missing vocalist named Serv. Xan swears he’s not taking that spot.

Crooked Fang is hiring lead vox. Preferably immortal and not a douche bag.