Elliot

        The light shined so bright that I could barely make out who I was looking at. What I saw was an angel of my past. The only hope I held in death. He was my Elliot, he was my son, but he was not mine. 

...

Shelly-

        It took Henry and I two divorces to figure out we still loved each other. When Elliot died, he was only 3. We had been married for only 5 years. Elliot was a smiley kid. He drooled so much when he started cutting teeth. Sometimes we would have to change his shirt more than his diaper. Henry made me make him sleep in his own bed once he turned 2. I wasn't happy about it, but I understood that Henry needed me too. 

        We were married as kids. When we started holding hands, we were only 13. We married when we were 19. I don't think either of us even thought that maybe we should look around a bit before we bought in to the first thing we loved. But I loved him, and he loved me. It was obvious. Two years into our marriage, Henry held my hand still as I screamed and willed Elliot into this world. 9 lbs 6 oz, 27 inches long. Henry said he was as long as an elephant’s trunk.

        Elliot was playing in the sandbox at the park. We had bought him these sand pales from the drug store because he threw a tantrum and neither of us had the patience to wait out the terror of telling him no. The sand was dry, unlike our sandbox at home that we would always spray with the hose to make it better for building. He would pack the pales and turn them over only to watch the sand fall and sprinkle through his hands. He kept groaning with frustration and looking to us like it was our fault.

        I went to the concession stand to get us some water. I tipped the boy at the counter $5 because he didn’t call me ma'am. I turned back toward them and saw Henry frantically looking for Elliot. I panicked immediately and dropped the water to the ground and ran. We searched all night long. Once the search parties went home, we kept searching. Two of the other moms told me that Henry had rushed over to help a child who had fallen off the monkey bars. He turned around and we never saw Elliot again.

...

        I remarried a hedge fund manager who was boring and wanted children. I told him from the start that I wasn’t able to have kids. I told him that I have severe endometriosis. He asked about treatment options and different ways in which we could be parents. I didn’t want to be a mother. I wanted to be invisible and forget I lost my little boy. I’m guessing Henry felt the same when he remarried. I saw them once at the theater. His new wife was watching the film and laughing so hard, but I couldn’t stop looking at him. He looked at the screen, but he wasn’t looking at the screen. He was in an entirely different place.

        I wanted to say hello, or anything to him really...but I didn’t. Instead, I got divorced and remarried and so did he. This next guy had a thing for shouting at me. I wasn’t into it at all. I didn’t love him. So I left. Henry married a much younger woman. I guess she was only fun for a short while because they divorced quickly. I decided to be alone for as long as I felt alone. No one was going to make me happy. I had that realization during a day time fake Dr. TV reality show. So I spent the next 5 years walking around and going to work and going to support groups and going nowhere.

...

Henry-

        I tried to make myself a better man. I felt the guilt and weight, but I really wanted to live a full life and move forward. Shelly and I got divorced because I drank too much and cut myself off from her. I couldn’t stop it. Every night, I would read the same news clippings. I’d look at the photos of this monster that took my son. Seeing him in cuffs was no consolation for me. He hurt my son and gave him the horrible death by drowning, then threw him in a dumpster like garbage. I would let the very smallest of visions of these acts into my head and then scream into the night and break things. I would keep drinking and go to the the river by our house...the very river he took my son and try to drown myself. I wanted to feel what he felt, but like the true coward I am, I would always come up for air.

        Shelly was losing her mind trying to hold both of us together and I wasn’t even trying. She left me and I completely understood why. I didn’t blame her at all. I gave her everything in the divorce and moved across the country to marry this girl I met at a support group. Apparently two supremely damaged people shouldn’t marry each other because they both need a savior and both are drowning. We divorced and I moved back home and married one of my co-workers. I didn’t love her, I was just done being lonely. She was young and had her whole life ahead of her, so I let her divorce me without dispute.

        I spent most nights getting drunk and walking around the city, trying not to think about anything that still mattered to me. But at the end of every drunken night, I would end up on that bench in the park I lost my whole life in. One night, I was sitting there and looking at the moon. I was teetering between passing out and getting up and going home. I usually found home at these times. But I heard something behind me. I turned and saw the only living person left on this earth that I still tried not to think about. I loved her still everyday.

        She sat down beside me and said nothing for a while, then laid her head on my shoulder and began to weep. It was like a wretched fist wrapping around my stomach. I hurt so badly that I wanted to throw up. I began to cry. I embraced her and we both cried and felt the wind blow into and around our faces as if Elliot was there too. We met there a few times over the next few months. The last time we met there, she asked me a question. She asked me if I would still have loved her if Elliot had never been born. “Of course” and she began to cry. She took my hand and asked me to never let go. We married again two weeks later.

...

Shelly-

        Twenty-two years after we re-married we were holding hands in the car on the way to the race track. Henry had a "shoo-in." “The Dark Knight” was supposed to win us thousands. He was middle of the pack. I laughed at Henry as I always did because all of his picks were "shoo-ins." We were turning onto the service drive when the car struck us. I remember nothing after. The blow jarred me so hard that I could see that I was upside down and in slow motion, but I was too slow to move at all. Then the lights went out.

...

        Then the lights came on. The lights so bright that I could only see the shape of a little boy coming closer to me. I could feel a hand in mine and I knew it was Henry’s. I felt him. He squeezed it as he also saw the shape of this child. We maybe both hoped so much that we were in Heaven or anywhere that Elliot was. The shape came closer until we could both make out his beautiful freckled face. His brown hair with a hint of red. His nose that was Henry’s and his mouth that was mine. He smiled at us and reached for our hands. “I’ve been waiting for you.” He took both of our hands and at first touch, his head shot upward to the sun and he stood there seemingly basking in energy. He was just a boy, but the harder we squeezed his hand, the more overpowering his became. We began to try to speak, but he pushed is finger to his mouth and we became silent.

        He closed his eyes and swayed with the wind as if music was playing all around him. The very touch of his hand was making me feel light inside, like air. I felt invigorated by the moment. I felt extreme happiness and forgot all bad things that had ever happened. I had back my boy and my husband. Both with their hands in mine. Elliot looked at me and I saw a vision of me feeding him baby food as he spit it out all over both of us. He showed me his memories. He apparently was showing Henry his own as I began to feel Henry tremble and squeeze my hand tighter. Elliot showed me the time he fell out of the tree and broke his arm. He let me feel the way it felt to be him rocking in my arms, comforting him. I felt so loved.

        I felt Elliot’s hand let go of mine. Then I felt Henry’s hand let go on mine. I looked all over for them, but they were gone. A voice said, “Mom?” I answered, “Yes baby.” He said, “It’s going to be hard for a while. You have to hang on to our hands." It was then that the light left me alone in the ICU, breathing through a tube. The pain hurt like nothing I had ever felt. I hurt all over my body. I hurt more inside. It was like awaking from the cruelest of dreams where everything you wanted really didn’t happen. Both of my hands were tied to the bed.  Later, the nurse would tell me that I kept trying to pull out my breathing tube. I woke up and got physically better.

        I got home and started the process of trying to drink myself to death. My family took away all of the alcohol and moved into my house. I tried to sleep the rest of my life away, hoping to dream them back in that light sky again. It didn’t happen and eventually I couldn’t sleep anymore. Months of self destruction passed before I remembered what my Elliot said to me. “You have to hang on to our hands.” So I got better. I went out and learned to paint and sit in the park without the horrid thoughts of my son. I learned to love again. Not in a romantic way, I could never love anyone but Henry...never could. But I learned to love living in the sun again. I let it all go because I knew they were going to be there to greet me...even if not mine anymore.




Sing.
Migrate.




Thanks for reading...Z

The Hunger- The Day Walker- Part 2

     

     

        The hunger is the wall that stands between who I was and who I am now. The world has also been separated. What were we then vs. what are we now? Or who are we? The immortal encompass 2/3 of the earth's population in my estimation. The number is growing. All major cities are empty, except for the sentimental immortals who like to sit on top of buildings and take the moral approach and eat stray dogs and cats. They are the weakest of all things.

        I am immortal. I was bitten and then released back into the world. Most people became food and were completely devoured. They saw something in me that made them bite me and leave.

        Moments after I died, my eyes opened. I blinked once. Then again. And again. I remembered my last moment and knew something was different about this moment. I wasn't alive anymore, but here is the world in front of me. My vision was blurry at first, but then became so sharp that I could see all things even if they were in darkness. I wore the scars of my other life, but my body was so strong and so fast. I could leap onto rooftops. I could throw boulders.

        I awoke so hungry for nothing I could remember eating. My stomach ached and cramped. I laid there in the night, fully aware that there were others watching me from the shadows and the high places. I couldn't move the hunger hurt so bad. I vomited several times. I laid there shaking and feeling myself dying for the second time.

        One of them threw a rabbit onto the ground next to me. My instincts took over. There wasn't a single shred of evidence of it's life when I was finished. I let the blood sit on my tongue and savored it for it's warm, bitter flavor. I closed my eyes and the world started to spin so fast and I found myself completely overcome with joy and happiness, that I fell asleep. I'd been a vegetarian since 13 years old. I would have to reconsider. This was the greatest feeling I had ever known. I felt it so badly that while eating, I was in wait for the next meal.

...

        They threw a rabbit every now and again because I was squeamish. I also wanted them all to die and couldn't wait for my chance to kill them. But there was something about this hunger that made me always think of eating first. So I ate rabbits. I felt their fur on my cheeks and watched their white hair turn red. But every time I finished eating, I was still hungry.

        I laid on the ground in the woods for weeks, waiting for something better that eating rabbits and sleeping to happen. They kept looking at me so intently, as if they were studying me. They would retreat just before sunlight and return in darkness. On I believe the 45th day, they threw a child into my sight. The child was wounded. One of them had bitten him, but he had not turned yet. In hindsight writing this, I know now that they knew I would eat him to keep him from being them...or me. My stomach tied into knots. I vomited trying to resist. My lips were quivering and I was sweating. But I still felt myself inside. He made me ache for Bea. I missed her more than the hunger. But he was dying. He would become eternally damned.

        I ate him without ever once wiping my mouth. There were no feelings of regret...no thoughts of his childhood. Every part of him that I devoured made me feel stronger. When he was gone, I finally felt the hunger leave me. But as with every hunger, it will return.

     


Sing.
Migrate.




Thanks for reading...Z

The Day Walker, Part 1

     

        I wasn't always a monster. My favorite memory of a time you'd be proud of was when I rescued that girl from that terrible man trying to hurt her. You were already gone. This was during the part when everyone was dying. Bea was with me. I had to take his life, but I saved Elli. Bea and Elli were best friends immediately. When the storms rolled in and the lights went out, they would play games to take each other's minds off of their fear. I sat there helpless. What does a father say when he is absolutely positive that nothing at all is going to be ok? I let them play their games and I worried.

       Mom, Elli died in front of Bea...torn limb from limb by a night walker. There was no way to console her. You had the great fortune of dying from the plague before they came. We all felt so much regret then, but now we wish we would have gone too. They came when more than half of everyone was buried. The world was in mourning and no one saw the worst coming because they thought it had already come. They came in the night and killed the old and young, eating almost every piece of flesh on their bodies. Those in between got bit. They would die for a few days. Then they would wake up in the night hungry and no where near the person they were.

        Me and Bea fled to the mountains. We found a small cabin there empty, and stayed. Winter came, then spring, summer, and winter again for two years. We hunted. We trapped. We witnessed the demise of television, the internet, the newspapers, and finally short wave radio. The last thing we read was a headline that read, "For those under the sea, we have become prey." I clicked the link and it opened a letter to all that remained. It was just a man sitting in a basement of a house in California. He had fortified his home and surrounded himself with arms. He believed he was the final stronghold. But he didn't believe very strongly.

        Bea and I were all we had left, and as long as she was living, that was all I needed mom. I guess you would understand that. We both missed Lena so much and would hold each other when our memories overcame us. We would pray every night, hoping there was a god that had a plan after all. We would pray that the most beautiful and loving woman either of us had ever known was happy and waiting for us somewhere that there is no darkness.

        In a moment of rare weakness during the winter a year ago, Bea asked me to cover her face with a pillow so that she could see her mommy again. I shouted at her so harshly. I sent her to the other room on the deck upstairs. I was so angry. I threw my glass and it shattered against the fridge. The sound of the glass breaking startled even me because it was louder than I thought it would be. That's when I realized that the glass I broke was not the sound I heard. The glass had broken upstairs. I didn't even hear her go. I opened the door and realized that my baby girl was all over.

        I went outside and shouted for them. I begged them to come for me. I screamed and I wailed and I cursed God. No one answered. No one came. They took her from me and didn't have the decency to end my misery. So I walked to the edge of the mountain, all the while listening to the restless activity in the trees behind me. I heard their feet crushing the leaves. I knew they were there. I didn't know why they weren't attacking me. So I jumped from the edge of the mountain. As I fell, I felt joy and peace for the first time in just over a year. Then I felt one of them latch on to my back and bite me on the neck as it pulled me to the other side of the mountain.

        I wish I could tell you about my death. I wish I could tell you about my last moments of being me. I don't remember them. I got really sick and wretched endlessly. I remember throwing up blood and looking at them watching me from the trees. I closed my eyes and woke up feeling incredible, yet hopelessly terrible. I was me without a soul. And I was so very hungry.

        Thank you for raising me, I love you mom,       Gaelan.

...

To anyone alive and still listening,
    
         I was born with Xeroderma Pigmentosum, aka "Vampire Syndrome." It's a rare condition where a person is completely intolerant of the light. It was so crippling that I had to homeschool and live a nocturnal life. I would sleep all day in the cedar closet in the basement and my mom would educate me at night. I wanted to be an engineer, but she helped me find a more reasonable goal as an air traffic controller...because everyone is going somewhere and the planes torch the sky all night.

        I got a job on the midnight shift, of course. I met a beautiful women who loved everything about me, even knowing who I was. My mother told me once that when she met my dad, he loved her regardless of her many faults. That was when she knew that he was the one. This girl didn't seem to see anything but me. The real me. It's hard to meet people and become well rounded when all of the people you speak to are middle-of-the-night people. I had a lot going against me, but she didn't care about any of that. She changed her job to the night shift and lived with me where I was. Her name was Lena and she was bitten and still walks the night somewhere, waiting to bite me too.

        I'd like to tell you I am different because of heroics. But that's not it. I am different from the night walkers because of my disease. The night walkers walk at night because they cannot live in the day. I already couldn't live in the day. I was bitten and all of the sudden the sun comes out and I am drawn to it. As if my DNA had flipped.

        I'm still hungry every day. I sleep at night like those that used to rule the world. I sleep hidden from them. They are looking for me because I hunt them during the day. They hunt me at night. Yes, I will eat you if I see you. Like I said, I am not me.

     





Sing.
Migrate.



Thanks for reading...Z

Where am I?

       

        So where have I been? Why haven't I written about anything in weeks? I don't know. I really don't. I sit here and think about things to write about. I have dozens of short story ideas written down, but nothing seems to fit me right now. So I sit here and try and figure out why I don't want to write. Maybe I only write when I'm sad or lonely. Maybe I am not sad or lonely. I certainly have been doing better with all that. Maybe I don't write when I am too sad or lonely. I certainly could not rule out a confusion between contentment and sadness. Either way, there haven't been many words from me.

        I've been living. I've been happy. Often times on this blog, I have portrayed a person that isn't me for the most part. It happens because I usually write when I need to express myself. I usually only need to express myself when I am sad or sometimes feeling sorry for myself. Right now I am neither.

        I feel lonely sometimes when I'm alone. I miss my brothers for moments every day. I react to certain songs or smells or places. But those things have been fleeting. For most of the day, I am me...the real me. I laugh and try to make others laugh too. I am the clown that wasn't forced to be. I enjoy my wife and my children and do the day-to-day work to make sure that continues. I get up after going back to sleep after taking my kids to school. I usually eat lunch. I may do a chore, but probably not. I watch television until I have to pick up my kids from school. After, I run. I run until exhaustion. I eat dinner with my family and they all go to sleep. I am left sitting here for a while, debating on whether to go to bed or to stay awake and allow some of the things that lie in wait for me to be vulnerable to take me.

        Most nights, I choose the beautiful comfort of sleep. I mostly choose to be with with my loved ones in repose...to experience the unpredictability of the night with them in oblivion. But some nights, I let them all go away into the peace and I stay right where I am. I stay because I miss the places of sorrow. I sometimes miss being in agony. I miss it because they were there and I always want to feel them. But most days I know they aren't there and I want to be present for my family that remains.

        It's not that they don't remain...my two dead brothers; it's that they cannot be seen except for a few.



Sing.
Migrate.



Thanks for reading...Z

Laura

     

         I thought I was a single stone in an ocean so vast that one could never find their way to home. I walked through some fire and some sunlight. I saw some things that people to this day will not believe. I lived a life that was based on doing the things other people would not do. I wasn't happy.

        Until the night the camera's flashed and this beautiful woman held out her hand to dance. That day everything got turned upside down for me. I used to have control. I knew who I was and what women liked and wanted. This girl was something different to me. She made me nervous.

        I was so nervous when I started dating her that I had to make an actual game plan. I bought a new wardrobe (which garnered the dreaded green sweater). I changed my 3-5 day policy to like 18 hours before I called her. I wanted her to like me. I didn't actually believe I was much, but I wanted her to think I was.

        I think she did. Not because I had fooled her, but because she saw something in me. She saw potential. There are very few people at that time that saw potential in me.

        We dated for a year before I proposed. We spent most of that time driving around. On our first date, I took her to the cider mill, then to the train tracks that I used to talk to the homeless in. I gave her a hundred reasons to leave and not look back. She didn't leave...except this one time we broke up for 19 minutes over the phone. She was in my driveway the whole time. We hung up on each other, then in desperation called back. We decided to be together forever and she made the 17 second journey to my door. We have never been separated more than those 17 seconds since.

        She doesn't think much of herself most days. She always underestimates just how beautiful and wonderful she is. I think that is my favorite thing about her. And also my least favorite. She is so humble to let me lead, yet so blind to what she means to this entire world, especially the world living 17 seconds within her reach.

        Today I tried to give my wonderful wife the best birthday she has had because I really appreciate all the hard work she does to keep us all together and happy. At the end of the day, I just felt like writing about her.

        She is my inspiration. She is that voice inside me that tells me to stop underestimating myself. She is the first person to call BS when I am feeling sorry for myself. She is also the first to catch my tears when things have gone badly.

        Laura, happy birthday. Thank you for marrying me. Thank you for Caeden and Aevry. Thank you for watching me struggle and fail and finally succeed. Thank you for being the best woman I've ever known.




Sing.
Migrate.


Thanks for reading...Z

Quiet

Oh, but the distance between us. 

Hope?!?

       

       

        And there is the point where the colors fade out and in and back to darkness. This place when you decide to give up based on everything you have learned from the state of the world; from the awful horror that happens.

But horror happens everywhere.

        There is no escape from the darkness that seems to reign here. Believe in what you want, the world will always turn your stomach.


...

        I believe in God. I believe because I have experienced the joy of hope. Many others haven't. I will never judge. I will be the very last to judge. But if you knew me before, you know me now as a different person. Because I have hope. The single thing that puts light into the eyes of the blind is hope.

        It doesn't matter to me if you agree with me or not, or if you actually hate the message I am sending. It's just my story, and you have yours. It's just my story.

        I was once very unhappy without losing much. I am now very happy having lost much. My hope in God seems to have gotten me somewhere in my life.


Sing.
Migrate.



Thanks for reading...Z

Carving Your Name

        A photograph may be the most important invention for people still living. You get a snapshot in time of a moment that only those involved in the photo can share.  It was a moment that no one may remember, but it was this moment it time that happened and proves you were alive in the mist of our existence.

        When everything else is gone and your existence hasn't been thought of for centuries, someone will eventually pick up that photograph and prove you were here. Someone will know that there was a story to be told here.
...

We carved our names on that tree.





Sing.
Migrate.



Thanks for reading...Z

They are There and You are Here

       
        The colors flash and the lights dance and everything is art. But those things don't stop reality. I always try to bury really important things in words and cover them up with pictures. I try to make them less because I can't handle more.

        Lately, I've been really ok. I feel better when working the day shift. I'm 75% less lonely. I've been able to go back to church. I've just felt better.

        But feeling better doesn't mean I have forgotten.

...


        I saw your mom today. She was composed and graceful as she has always been. Your dad got married yesterday. I got to go to the reception. Of the three of us, I'm the only one to have been at his wedding. I was doing so well too. I was looking forward as if I had blinders on.

        You both haunt me. In my dreams, you show up. When I'm driving, you show up. When I look at your kids, you both show up. I wouldn't trade those moments for anything. But I get sad sometimes when I think that you might be watching. It has been a really ugly road back to happiness. I'm not sure any of us would have wanted you to see it. But as ugly as it was, we held on to each other and I think we learned what made us all keep moving. Underneath it all, we turned out to be strong. Because we held on to each other.














Sing.
Migrate.

Thanks for reading...Z

Around The Block

        

        Life plays itself out in acts consisting of happiness and growth, crisis, sorrow, recovery, happiness and growth, then definition. Then it repeats over and over again until you could be considered wise, right before you die. The cruel part is that all of the wisdom gained would have been so much more useful earlier in your life. The great part is that the wisdom you have earned is earned, and it shapes what kind of people those that follow you will be.
        People come and go in and out of your life at different times and in different spaces. Some family people are permanent, and those people whether blood related or not ought to be considered family. Others are little saviors and sometimes place keepers that lead you into other things. Most relationships bud, grow, fade, and often die. These little saviors are all but forgotten.
        Until you drive past that old white shed where you used to have “Blood brother’s” club meetings. Or smell a carnival and find yourself right back on that ride with your mom, or your dad, or your friends. You can almost feel yourself laughing again. You can go a decade without the thought of a particular person crossing your consciousness, but one morning when you step out into the cold fog, you hear them whisper. You see their shadow just beyond your ability to identify them. They were here again, even if stored in your consciousness and brought back from the depths by the way your streetlight flickers in and out. It’s fleeting, so you cannot touch it. You can only close your eyes and enjoy, remembering the beauty of your youth before the crisis, recovery, and wisdom. 

Before it Goes

 4-23-2035    
         I went to the park today. For a few moments I pretended that there were people left here...that we were all alright down here. I sat and listened to songs we would listen to in high school and watched the grass blow in the wind. If I closed my eyes, sometimes I felt like I was back there. I could feel what my brother's laugher felt like; so hardy and full. I could see myself laughing too, as if nothing in the world mattered or was wrong in any way. I could even sometimes smell the spring and fall coming. I looked at the cracks in the dirt and think about all of the people that lay dead below me. Then I think about all of the people that are dead among me. That thought brings me back to reality. I'm a 35 year old man in a gas mask, sitting in a park that no one has been to in over 5 years.

        So you want reality? Who are you who reads my thoughts? Who are you to ask me questions? Reality is that I was sitting in a van with my two brothers. We were getting ready to go fishing in the middle of the night; putting on our gear. We were talking about how great it felt to put on new socks, when the world blew up. The van flipped over and over and one of us was thrown from the passenger window into the water. He either drowned or was killed by the explosion, but he was floating in the water nonetheless. The other brother was missing some parts. He was driving and he was clearly dead just by looking at him. I was the only one to leave that van alive that day...that moment.

        Vans blew up all over the world. They kept blowing up everything until everything was gone. As far as I could see it, I was the last one here; the lone survivor of the fruit of our hateful and rancid work. No one builds 200 million dollar bombs without intent to use them. So there it is. That's what happened. And nothing has happened since. The airwaves went down. The power went out. The sun stopped shining. The darkness took control of everything. If I needed light, I needed batteries. If I needed heat, which was always, I needed generators. If I needed generators, I needed gasoline. If I needed anything, I needed something else to get it. It's a full time job remaining alive.

        I sent signals over the airwaves. I sent signals with smoke. I sent signals with fireworks. No one was listening because everyone was too busy being dead. It's difficult to fathom. I was always religious, so it gives me mixed feelings about being alive. I've always been so scared of death. The knowledge that no one escapes it and it's coming scares me. When I was a little kid, I thought adulthood was so far away, but then it happened like time never really passed. So it scared me to know that in a few years, I would be dying an old man, probably with Alzheimers while defiling my pants. So on one hand, I am thankful to not be dead, but not really sure how I feel about being the only person alive. A lifetime can feel like minutes.


7-13-2060
        So do you still want reality? I'm old. I run everyday, but I am so much slower than I used to be. I get dizzy sometimes when I stand up and pass out. The sun has begun to shine from time to time and I take my mask off for a while to breathe what the earth is giving me. I last about 4 minutes before I can't take it anymore. You know what's funny? A thing I can't explain? All people are dead, but Facebook is still online somehow. There is nothing new and my primitive knowledge of computers tell me it's just my cache or cookies or something giving me a picture of what was on my computer. I don't really know why. Three things have survived; Facebook, my computer, and me. I wonder who will last the longest? All I know is that Kelly Stepniak likes cats a lot and that Joe Cohen is still waiting in line at the DMV.

        I went to the park today. I sat on the same bench I sat on the last time I wrote on this machine. It was filthy and hard to find with the overgrown grass and weeds, but it remains. I've really begun to appreciate the things that remain. When I was really alive, I would go to the places of business that had people with faces I knew. I liked to know the people I ate sandwiches from. I've always been sentimental. So this is the park I go when I'm going to write something on this little machine that shouldn't even be working anymore. But today, I really don't have any real news to share.

10-31-2085
        You won't die. I push the button and you light up. You want reality don't you? You aren't going to die before me. You want to be the last thinking piece of material alive. So here is reality. I am too old to even attempt to take off the mask when the sun is out. I can't risk it because I fear I will die. I don't want to die.

        Right now, in the world, I am alone and sitting on a bench that has collapsed among the weeds. I'm looking at a playground I have outlived lying on the ground in pieces among the thorns and weeds. There is a chill in the air today, much like Halloween when I was a kid. When I was little, kids used to go out in scary costumes and ask people for candy with pillowcases. We would stay out all night until all of the porch lights were out. I actually did this for a few years after everyone left. I'd dress up and go door to door knocking. A tiny part of me always held hope that someone would answer. Hope has always been for people with really good luck. I've always struggled with the decision of whether I was the lucky one or the unlucky one. Doesn't matter really, because every morning when the sun comes up and shines through my window, I remember that I'm alive and that there once was a lot of life here. Someday, I think there will be again. But not for me. This will be my last broadcast from this bench. I think it's ok to go now. I've had enough of this full time job of being alive and alone. I'm gonna go the way I came. I'm gonna have a cry really loudly, then I'm gonna find rest in the arms of my mother.

        Turns out that this machine will be the last being on earth until more arrive. It will continue to add and subtract and remember until it's insides finally give way to darkness. I hope that this message reaches you before it goes.
       





Sing.
Migrate.





Thanks for reading...Z

Robby (A Short Story)

One more week...then one more day...then one more hour...until it's complete.

        Robby is born. Among dangling tools and circuits, in a tiny room in a cluttered basement, he opened his eyes as the three prong plug entered the socket on the wall. His creator, Steven, was born of a poor family living in squalor. Steven had met tragedy and difficulties coping with tragedies for the entirety of his life. He longed for romance: The kind of romance that isn't found in a woman alone. He wanted to express himself in an art so beautiful that it took a life for itself. He studied robotics and engineering throughout his schooling. He applied himself to his own art; the art of feeling things.

        It took years to engineer. He assembled robot after robot, only to disassemble them shortly after. Duncan was the first to be plugged in. He followed the command prompts and walked forward, backward, and sat down in the chair. Steven began the feeling sequence of commands. He wanted to see Duncan experience him as a father.

"Spoken. Alabaster. Philo. Prince. Arrow...Care."

        Duncan blinked, his titanium pupils dilated, then he began to smoke from his chest; from his heart circuit board. Duncan collapsed in front of Steven. He was the first, followed by Vincent, Jared, Silus, Peter, Archie, and Samuel. 40 years he had toiled over his greatest work of art and it seemed as though he would fail. But then he plugged in Robby at a time in his lonely life when he was on the brink of giving up on his greatest dream, something wonderful happened.

         Robby sprung to life like none of the others. He was almost childlike and energetic. Almost as if he were waiting for this for 40 years as well. He stood when prompted. He sat. He walked. He spun around in a circle. He shook Steven's hand. Steven was sweating. This would be it. If Robby's chest began smoking, he would be the last of the robots.

"Spoken. Alabaster. Philo. Prince. Arrow...Care."

        Robby's head lifted and his eyes dilated, narrowed, then dilated again. He looked at Steven like none of the robots did. An upturn of Robby's steal lips produced a smile.

Steven: "Hello Robby," Steven said in a calm and hushed voice.

Robby: "Hello Steven."

        Steven reached over and put his hand on Robby's shoulder and kept it there. Robby looked to the side at Steven's hand and smiled again. Robby reached out and placed his hand on Steven's other shoulder and squeezed softly. Steven laughed because he couldn't hold it back any longer.

Robby: "Steven? Why is your face changing?"

Steven: "That's called laughter Robby. You do that when you are happy or something is funny."

Robby: "Did I tell a joke?"

Steven: "No Robby, I'm just happy to see you."

Robby: "I've been waiting for you too Steven."

...

        Steven taught Robby everything he knew about the world and how to experience it. Steven and Robby both worked from home doing programming, coding, and software development. Robby made some of the most beautiful art pieces through data manipulation. At first, Robby was everything that Steven was. He was loving and affectionate, caring and strange. But as the years passed by, he began exhibiting a person that Steven was not. Robby remained an artist, expressing himself through paintings, sculptures, poetry, and music. But Robby became somewhat charismatic, which was a trait that wasn't learned from Steven. He became outwardly angry at the tragedies of the world and would punch holes in the walls of their little townhouse. Steven knew he had to let Robby see what the beautiful side of the world looked like. He had to let him into the world. Watching the news brought only heartache for him.

        The world had seen it's fair share of robots, so going to the park garnered little attention. But when little kids started noticing Robby drawing on the ground with sidewalk chalk and trying to smell flowers, their eyebrows were raised. Robby loved the sun the most, even though it made him squint. He liked the way the heat would cause his sensors to cool his circuits. It made him feel like a person. Robby and the outside were inseparable. As Steven continued to age and eventually became incapable of walking without the aid of a device, Robby began venturing off on his own. He would bring back dinner and flowers. Every morning, even as the cancer ate away at Steven's desire for sunlight, Robby would open every curtain in the house and replace the dead flowers with live ones.

...

        There was a battle raging in Steven's mind about Robby. He knew the cancer was about to take him. Robby was built to live maybe for hundreds of years as he was programmed to repair and replace parts of himself. But Robby had feelings. Could he put Robby through losing his only friend? Could he put Robby through braving this cold world alone? Could he force himself to say the words that would put Robby in darkness?  There wasn't much time left to decide. Robby didn't know a world without him and Steven had never been able to teach him how to cope. Robby would get so angry.

        Steven got up earlier than Robby on a Saturday morning. He used his wheelchair and descended the steps on the porch using the ramp Robby had built him. He collected flowers from the garden in the back yard. He returned to find Robby sitting on the porch waiting for him. They went inside together.

Steven: "Sit down Robby," Robby complied. Steven continued as tears began to fill his eyes, "Robby, you are my son. I love.."

Robby: "Steven? Why do your eyes look like that?"

         He had never seen Steven cry before. He had only seen it on TV during tragedies.

Steven: "Robby, that's what happens when you are very sad or very happy."

Robby: "Which are you Steven?"

Steven: "I am both so very happy and so very sad. I have lived a long life and have seen many beautiful works of art, but you are the most beautiful. You have created yourself. But I am so sad that one day I will die."

Robby: "What does it feel like to die Steven?"

Steven: "It feels both safe and scary. It feels so warm, yet lonely." Robby grabs hold of Steven's hand as he begins to fade and lie down. "I'm sorry Robby, I do love you so."


Safety. Sterile. Cabin. Aardvark. Pine cone. captain...sleep.

     
        Robby locked eyes with Steven and watched him cry himself to eternal sleep as he himself felt himself slipping away.

...
     
        They both laid silent and lifeless on the couch for days. At 6:30 AM on a Wednesday, there was a twitch in Robby's eye, then a flicker. All at once, Robby was fully awake to the sun. He reached his hand to Steven to find his cold skin activated his sensors to heat his circuits. Robby knew what this meant. He was angry that Steven had made him die. He was sad that Steven was gone. He was happy that he got to know him at all. He was scared that nothing would ever be the same. He felt all of these feelings together as a human would. He got up and opened the shades, then went out and replaced the dead flowers with fresh ones. He buried Steven in the garden, then went to the sit in the sun to cope with the tragedies of life.

     

     





Sing.
Migrate.

Thanks for reading...Z

Gene Simmons - a memoir

I'm still not entirely clear how the whole thing went down. I was in elementary school, my brother Jason was probably in like 4th grade or something. We were both in the back seat of a small car with a mentally disabled teenager my mother was fostering. We were stopped on the freeway I think. It was dark outside and raining. I remember some of the details so vividly and others are like dreams you try to remember too long after you have had them. I was wearing a tan corduroy coat with fake fur on the neck. I was in my mothers trademark pants she would buy us called "Tough Skins." They were made of pure steel and had another layer of steel on the knees to prevent molten lava or a semi truck crash from piercing them.

My mom was in the passenger seat and her friend was driving. I was looking out the window from the middle seat in the back seat. I was fascinated at the way the rain would roll down the window. I was making races out of them. They reflected light so brilliantly. The light would hit the beads of water, them shoot lasers of light in different directions. I was reaching out to touch my side of the windo.... Smash!

My neck shot back, then forward and something shot through the tiny gap between my left arm and my ribs and lodged itself there. It didn't hurt, but I noticed it. When the jarring was finished, everything was still. More still than before when we were idling. My mom was her neck and that's what brought me to this obscene moment of terror. My eyes were drawn to the glove box which produced a taped on photo of Gene Simmons in his makeup with his tongue wagging out. I saw it for years, I'm writing about it now so I guess I still do.

A man with blood on his face approached the passenger front window as my mom rolled it down. He asked if we were alright. My brother was really freaking out, so for some reason, he was sent with the man to his truck. As they got to the truck door, a drunk driver came careening off the side of the road, headed for them. The man throw my brother into the cab and tried to fall into it himself. The car hit the door, which made it work like a sling shot, coming back and hitting the man and throwing him into the truck bed. My brother only cut his leg, but I'm not sure whether the man made it that night. The rest gets foggy, but I remember all of us walking to the grass beside the freeway to avoid being near the car if it were to explode.

Memory is funny because this memoir is told from the perception of a 5 year old and the memory 32 or so years later. I bet each of us would remember it differently. But this is my experience of Gene Freakin Simmons.





Sing.
Migrate.

Thanks for reading...Z

What it Takes

       
        When you are lost, you panic. You keep moving so that you don't kill yourself with inactivity. You are scared and just want to find a solution. It gets dark outside and you realize that you are going to have to spend the night alone in the wilderness. Another day of wandering passes and you realize it will be another night in the wild. Then another...then another...then another, until you have lost your will to keep searching. You just expect another night and try and breathe through it.

        It's like watching television. There is this perfect family on the screen and you remember being there. They laugh and they cry and they pray before meals. They are entirely aware of why they are thriving. As you watch it, you find yourself on the other side of the screen; the viewer's side. You are watching them, and yourself (whom you forgot you were) on that screen and look away to only see darkness and hopelessness. A fake reality.

        At some point, you will realize that the person in that television show is you and he is missing from this side of the screen because he made a lot of mistakes and got turned around and lost his way. At some point, you let the heartache go that pushed you onto the wrong road in the first place.

        That's what it takes to come home.




Sing.
Migrate.



Thanks for reading...Z

She

       
        A lot of sad stuff going on around here. It's been a tough year. Christmas time has been a difficult time to get through for the past 6 years...obviously for good reason. But I still LOVE Christmas! Because it's still about Christ. Christ is about redemption. Christ is about the recovery of things lost. He didn't get born here and die here for nothing. He did this to live with us...and show us what love is really like.

        Sometimes when I get in these funks, I forget the great things I never deserved to have. As a kid, I always wanted to have a companion that didn't care about my idiosyncrasies and strange tendencies. I was loud and twitchy and said things that made people look at me and shake their heads. I'm guessing most of my readers know what I'm talking about. This one girl showed up at a wedding. We danced all night. I loved her immediately.

        This girl grounded me. She helped me work on my weaknesses and I helped her work on hers. We acted stupid around each other and made each other feel safe. She made me feel like I was worth something for the first time in my life. If this girl could love me, maybe I wasn't so bad.

        I asked her to marry me. Twice. Once for real at the Olive Garden while eating the bread. The second time was in front of the bathrooms at the shopping mall food court. The last one was for laughs, because that's me.

        I've never regretted a single moment of my marriage for almost 15 years in June, She wouldn't have enough fingers for the rings I would still place on her fingers.

        She's helped me out of my worst moments. She has laughed with me during my best. She is the most beautiful person I've ever met. We in turn, made the most beautiful kids. A perfect mix of loud and inappropriate humor and grace.

        There is not a thing I would change. God had\s been good. I have been writing about failure and sorrow and loss so much that I have forgotten the reason I'm still standing.

She.




Sing.
Migrate.




Thanks for reading...Z

Whales

     

        Humpback whales sing into this huge abyss of water. They sing to find a mate. They sing to find each other. Sometimes when they find a mate, they sing with her, often harmonizing with each other. When a humpback whale has lost a loved one, they sing in agonizing tones. When they are lonely they sing. But when in captivity, they are silent. They sing for no one. When you are being watched and the walls of the pool are your horizons, there is no one to sing to.

        I started this blog the day I read that. I had a thought. What is a life that is spent when your horizons are the walls? We all hide things. We spend a great deal of time keeping people from our real thoughts and feelings.

        A child learns it isn't tough to cry or vent feelings in school. So they don't. A young adult learns that vulnerability is weakness. Once we reach our adulthood, we are hardened to being seen or trying to really see others. It's the sad state of humanity.

But I think we all want to tell everything.

        I thought about the whales and how they instinctively cried out for each other, but when put in a box, they let it all go. It connected me to humanity.  Because we are in the same box. Everything is taboo or weak or offensive. No one wants to feel vulnerable. No one wants to admit that we are no better than the weakest and no worse than the strongest.

        I kept a journal at the time. It meant a lot to me to be able to express myself...but something was missing. I was being a human to only myself. I decided that this was no way to live. People should all know each other. Love is based in this very concept. Love everyone means know everyone. So it started with me. I had nothing to lose by giving you my guts. The worst you could do is stop reading. The best I could do is to show someone else what it's like to be human in front of everyone. I didn't think that was such a bad thing.

        I started pouring out my guts on this blog. It wasn't really a blog at the time. It was a journal. A blog expresses opinions of topics. A journal chronicles true events. I told whoever would read; everything. I had a steady growing number of readers who became active in my life. My objective was to to be entirely transparent. It was really hard to do. I have had a lot of demons. A lot of times I would write something and never...ever read it again because it embarrasses me. The point was to share it.


...

        Will died and everyone came out to lift me up. It was a great thing that people did. Many had been reading about my life for years and spoke to me only this one time. They felt me and hurt with me. They hurt with me because they were connected to me...because I spilled my guts to everyone. It really was a comfort to me to read the prayers and kind words of people I have never met. It connected me to the real world, where there are still caring people. The same thing happened when Joe died, although I didn't share as much because I feared I may hurt his family.

...

        I believe that life is lived best without small talk. There isn't enough time to talk about the weather. There isn't enough time to talk about your previous weekend. You attack immediately. You engage. I'm not calling for a total onslaught of words. I'm talking about asking poignant questions and actually listening for the answers...especially to people you're are just meeting. We need to listen. Life is too fast and we often neglect the good stuff.

...

        I started "In Search of Whales" because I wanted to connect my life to yours.  I didn't  need a huge audience. I just wanted to connect with people at our most vulnerable points. Our human existence. I was in search of others who wanted to share in this human experience together.

     



Sing.
Migrate.



Thanks for reading...Z

I Am Now Here

'There's no love in the ground for me, so I kicked all this earth downstream."- #1 Dad


     It's really easy to forget where you came from and where you always wanted to go. You forget where you are when you act like someone you have never been...for someone else. You forget where you wanted to go when everyone else trampled your thoughts. You find yourself working really hard at something you don't love because someone somewhere thought you were good at it. Maybe they were right and maybe they were wrong. It doesn't really matter now. I did what they told me to do.

People always told me I was a leader.

     I followed a dream. I followed a dream to try and help kids that were hopeless find a hope I couldn't find as a kid. I couldn't point them in a specific direction. God has no direction. God has no limits. God is in all things. God is in a different place for me than anyone else. For me God was a small heat register that brought me comfort to my face every 45 minutes, relieving me of my loneliness as a child. For someone else, He's a blanket given to them. For another He's a Christmas card, for another, He's a suicide note. Comfort depends on the damage done to a person.

     I became a youth pastor because I really wanted to be a difference maker in the world. I wanted other kids that had nothing like I had to have hope...like I did. Hopelessness was a lie. No one has to accept the hopelessness that comes with missing something. I worked really hard. I sought out troubled kids. I sought them out and cultivated them...so much so that some in my church raised questions about what I was doing here. I could only answer them with Christ. I really felt like I was pointing them to something great in their lives. I could never be sure, but I always believed I was pointing them to where God was in their own lives.

...


     I've struggled to find God in much lately, and feel alone still. But it doesn't mean He's not there. He's just residing in something different...somewhere I am not right now. I am residing in death. He doesn't live in death. God lives in life. God lives in love. I am living in the squalor of grief. So God is not living with me. God lives for me, but He doesn't live in hopelessness. God lives in happiness.

     At some point to be happy, I'm going to have to let my brothers go. They are dead and burned into ashes. Those ashes, I wear around my neck. Everywhere I go that reminds me of them, I see them hanging on every tree. I just can't live a life dominated by death and sorrow. It's killing me. I have to let them go. We are no longer those kids playing in the street. They are no more at all. It's just me, still trying to play with them in that street when they aren't there. They are a part of me that must become the past.

     Right now, as I sit here writing; I have the most beautiful and loving wife any man could dream of. I have the softest hearted kids, who have seen so much death, standing with me strong. They are looking for me. I've haven't really been visible to them for a while, but here I am now. I am now here.




Sing.
Migrate.


Thanks for reading...Z

Things Vanish (A Short Story)

     

        I led her to my house that night to tell her that I loved her...that I had always loved her. I loved her from the first moment I saw her flipping off that bus driver. She was all wrong for me from the start. I was a timid kid. I spent most of my time with my mom shopping for groceries and clothes or whatever she wanted at the time. She was this story that only other stories could fathom. She was an enigma; saying one thing that had made me think she was one person, then another that would defy my presumptions. She got kicked off the school bus for calling the driver an idiot. She laughed at him and walked off the bus and down it's stairs. She turned and saluted him with her favorite finger.

        She showed me some interest after she had watched me get mercilessly beaten by some assholes after school. They wanted my shoes. I had a hook-up who worked for Nike and got me shoes for an eighth of the price. For at least three years, I had the best shoes in the school. They got me as soon as I got past the baseball field backstops; where we were out of view. They asked nicely first. The first kid said, "Nice shoes man!" The next said, "How much you pay for those shoes? You are wearing clothes from K-Mart, so something doesn't seem right." I said, "I paid what anyone else would pay. I just choose what I want and what I don't care about. The military says that your shoes are the most..." Punched in the face...kid three. The first kid held me down with his knees on my shoulders and the second started holding down my legs, one by one, until the third had finished taking off my shoes. He held them in front of me as my nose bled and tears streamed. I could barely tell what they even were with him holding them in front of me.

        I stood to my feet to face them. I didn't have much as a kid, but I was so excited when I learned that I could have these shoes for the same price as the ones from Payless that the other kids made fun of. I was proud of them. So I faced these kids; I looked them in the eyes, sucked in some of the blood from my nose, and spit it as far as I could in the direction of the first kid's face. It landed on his mouth and some in his eye. He was pissed. He started screaming and gagging. I took my chance and kicked kid two in the nuts and watched him drop my shoes. I turned around to throw a punch at kid three's throat and found a fist in my eye. I dropped. The lights went out and didn't turn back on until I was the only one left on the sidewalk. I looked to my left and saw just the baseball field. Above me was grass. To my right was this girl. This girl that had never looked in my eyes before, despite me having memorized her every detail. She looked for a moment, smiled at me, then walked away.

        The next day, she sat with me at lunch. I didn't say much. I mostly just stared down at my plate and tried really hard to figure out what to do with my hands. As I poked holes in the styrofoam tray, she blurted out to the table that I had kicked these three kid's asses. Everyone looked at me. I couldn't figure out what to say. I looked up for a short moment and saw the whole table staring at me. I didn't say anything. Inside I was jumping all over. Why had she said that? Why had she sat next to me? I did get my ass kicked right? I stopped hearing anything. She kept telling a story that was a little bit true, but mostly false...I think. I was watching her mouth as she was talking about me and I couldn't believe that this girl was talking about me. It didn't matter what she was saying.

        I was an instant success! All of the sudden, everyone at school wanted to sit at my table. But that day she told the story; that was the one and only day I would sit with her at lunch. She sat across the room after that as kids were piling around me, asking me for advice and tips. I could only look at her, but she wouldn't look at me. The one time she did, we locked eyes. We had just spoken to each other, I just knew it. I got up and started walking toward her and she left. I caught her after school by my bike. I asked her to come over to my house to play video games. I had no interest in video games. I didn't even have a video game console. I just wanted her to come over; to see her eyes look into mine a little longer. I felt her pulling away.

        I took hold of her hand and and led her to my house. From days of thinking, I had decided that she liked that I stood up to those kids even though I got killed and lost my shoes. She must like a strong person, and I am going to pretend now. We walked and talked about things neither she or I had told a single person. We passed my house a dozen times. When it finally got dark, I decided that there was no better a time to tell the girl that I loved her. My mom had this beautiful garden she worked on every day in the back yard. This would be the perfect place. I was going to take the biggest chance of my life. I was tired of not taking chances. I was smart enough to know that my high school fame wouldn't last long. I didn't care about that at all. I had wanted her and only her.

         We got to my front gate and I led her to the backyard. I opened the wooded fence and watched her eyes widen at the lights that lit the garden. 80% of my mother's heart was shining in the eyes of the girl that was 95% of mine. She squeezed my hand.

        Then it all disappeared.

        She disappeared. I walked into the house and no one was there. I ran down the street to the 7/11 and no one was there. I called 911 and no one answered. For the next week, I would knock on doors and call random numbers in the phone book, looking for anyone to answer. The television was static. The radio was squealing noise. I got in my mom's car and started driving. I was fifteen and had no license. My hope was that someone would pull me over. No one ever did.

...


        I drove all over the country looking. No one seemed to be here but me. I sat down on the boardwalk in New Jersey and watched the ocean pass and swell. I drove to Florida and put my feet into the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean and ate a pretzel. I drove to Marti Gras and Bourbon street was empty. No corpses or foul odors;  just emptiness. I drove through the dark night of Las Vegas and found my way to California. In California I gave up searching for people in the world. I was the last and she was gone. I thought about her every day, wondering if she could see the things I was doing. I acted for her in case she was. I grabbed a camera and took photos of me shouting into the dark sky at the top of a ferris wheel. Took photos of me in famous people's homes.

        I listened to record after record of any musician I could find. They made me feel human. These people poured out their hearts and guts into these records. Some went bankrupt and failed. Those were my favorite because it made me think about them now, and if they knew I was listening as the last person on earth. If they didn't capture the masses, at least they reached the last person on earth. I felt them.

        I started painting her face. I would make a painting while drunk on alcohol and hang it somewhere in the city. I hung one in front of the library, the city hall, the 7/11, the high school, and the video store. These were the places I went to most. After that, the locations became random and numerous. I thought once when hanging my artwork of her on the freezer door at a Rams Horn restaurant, that if another person showed up here, they may think my subject was the president or even God.

...


        I continued to make signs pointing other life to my life, but no one ever came. The radios were dead. The televisions were static. There was nothing living, not even animals. I traveled the entire country, too afraid to brave the sea. I had seen even Omaha seven times. I never got her out of my head. I didn't want to. She was the reason for my survival so far. But I didn't want to be alone anymore. It occurred to me that death among the masses of everyone who has ever died is much less lonely than being the only person alive. I had all of the resources to live, but lacked the only thing that sustains life...love.

        I stood at the lip of a cliff on the Grand Canyon and closed my eyes. I looked at her as she watched me get beaten. I watched her smile and walk away. I remembered her breath on my face as she sat next to me at lunch. I remembered my favorite memory. She grabbed my hand when she saw my mother's garden. She knew I loved her...and she loved me. I stepped off the cliff and began my descent.

        She stopped me. She grabbed my shirt and pulled me back. I turned around and looked into her eyes. It was HER! She had darker hair, but she was there. She squeezed my hand and we got into my car. It didn't matter to me where she came from or where she had been. I only wanted to be with her. We talked all night and told each other things we had never told anyone. At the end of the night, she asked me, "Why are you telling me all of this."

        I told her, "There's no time for small talk: Things vanish quickly."







Sing.
Migrate.





Thanks for reading...Z

Those Christmas Lights

     

        I remember sitting in front of the Christmas tree. I was maybe five or six years old. I would watch the lights dance from one place to another, flashing across bulbs and crystal angels. My favorites were the cloth elves whose bones were made of steal wire. I don't remember my imaginary scenarios with them, but I do remember them being my favorite thing about Christmas. I remember pretending things with them and playing in the tree. I would go lay down in front of the heat register and watch the lights flash and wait for the furnace to clank, then fire heat to my face. When the heat would turn off, I would feel lonely. At some point in every kid's life, Christmas should become their favorite time of year. My mom made Christmas a big deal for us from the start. I love Christmas.

        I was sitting on the floor sweating like I had never sweat before. I was sitting inside of a teddy bear suit. I was young and little and people eat that up. Put a cute kid with a personality inside of a teddy bear costume and you will sell all of those small church Christmas pageant tickets. I remember saying some rehearsed things that were meant to be cute and the whole crowd laughing. I looked out and saw old women with Kleenex and old men in woolen suits and fur hats. I saw what Christmas looks like to people who need Christmas. Ordinary people with simple lives, enjoying the feeling of being together with their friends and family.

...


        Life became hard for me. At some point Christmas became something I couldn't reach, and that made Christmas sad and lonely. I had my rituals. I would take a walk around the city and look at the lights as drunk as I could make myself. I would go to Meyer and buy gifts for the five for six people that meant anything to me and end up sleeping underneath my own Christmas tree, staring at it's lights. During my walk, I would watch the warmth of family in other houses. I had family of my own, so I still don't understand it. But I wanted in. I felt outside of everywhere I went. I would take these walks because I felt alone and wanted to watch someone else's home. I sometimes brought a flashlight to flash, to remind people that I was still here. Like a beacon on a lighthouse in the fog, I was invisible.

...


        After wonderful things happened, I found myself watching my kids stare at the Christmas tree, just like I did. There was so much wonder in their eyes. I felt like me watching them. My awesome mom bought me the closest replicas to those elves that could be found on Ebay. My kids got to see Christmas like I did. Beautiful, innocent, and quiet. This was just like the coming of Jesus. Until the phone rang one Christmas morning and changed our expectations of Christmas morning. It was Joe. He told me that my brother Will was dead. I dropped the phone and went down stairs and sat down on a laundry basket. My wife asked me what was wrong, what had happened? One of my lighthouses had gone dark. I took my time to get to his house, I didn't wan't to face it. But I did.

        5 years later, while the lights twinkled and flashed across my house for my kids especially to see, I drank vodka. I drank it because I didn't know how else to go back and feel my brother with me again. I got a call. This time it was about Joe. He was gone. I was now the last of the Dead End Kids. Terrible things were felt, but I had to find a way to tell my kids and not ruin their Christmas. I spent most of my time in the basement in front of the computer, looking at pictures. Finally, I just told my kids the truth.

        To do that is like playing an instrument. A sad song starts with a piano or guitar. As a musician, you wait for your turn to add something to the story. You listen to all of these beautiful contributions from people just like you. When it's your turn, you just bleed all over because that's all you have.

        That's what it was like telling my children their uncle Joe was dead. I could only tell them it was over; when it was my time to weep through my instrument. He was gone and I was so sorry. At that very moment, the Christmas lights from the tree flashed all over the basement and my two kids wept because they really loved their Uncle Joe as they did, their Uncle Will. A few days later, when their uncle was put to rest, they both resumed Christmas. They celebrated like we should all celebrate. They kept focused on the Jesus...the beacon of hope. He was a beacon to all people, even if they can't see it.

        Christmas isn't about death. It's not about any sadness at all. When my kids look at those lights, they are looking for a miracle. One just like when Jesus came. They are looking for people to be happy. I wrote about this before and I will again. The reason I still love Christmas is because of my little girl. The day Will died, we were all in pieces. That little girl came up to me as I was weeping in my living room and handed me a little pink heart. She told me I needed it more because my heart was broken. She knew a lot of things I had forgotten.

     

God is good.
God loves us.
No one is being punished.
Sometimes we get confused and lose our way.

        I think that's what happened.

Merry Christmas to my brothers who left. I love you. The lights will always be dimmed without you.



Sing.
Migrate.




Thanks for reading...Z

The Pact (A Short Story)

        

        In order from left to right, Danny, Tom, Jim, and Carey; the four adopted sons of Sam and Edith Cone, sat around the table on the first Sunday of May. The agreement they had made to Edith was that they would come eat dinner together on the first Sunday of each month. The agreement was made individually with each child on the day they were adopted.

        Danny was the oldest; adopted from an orphanage just outside of Baltimore. He was found living on the streets before being arrested for loitering and taken into custody. The Cones had gone to visit him three times before having the courage to adopt him. Edith couldn't have children of her own, so it was her decision to adopt only children that were considered too old or too troubled to be adopted. She told Sam that it was such a waste to adopt a new baby, when there were all of these older kids running out of time. She sat down with Danny on the playground slide and made him the deal. "Once you are old enough to leave my home, you must come back every Sunday to eat with us. That's what real families do, and we would really like to you to be a part of our real family." He agreed and the papers were signed that day. Danny struggled to find his way for a while, but as he grew closer to Edith and Sam, he started to see himself inside instead of outside.

        Tom was adopted from Fort Lauder-dale, Florida. Tom was in and out of foster care homes as fast as they could place him. Tom really, really liked to burn things down. He was smart about it and methodical. He would never leave any evidence that the fires were started on purpose or by him at all. At first Tom was polite and quite with the Cones. He ate properly, got good grades, and kept up after himself. About 5 months into his residence with the Cones, their garage went up in flames, burning down all of their photos and keepsakes that were put in there to make room for his bedroom. Sam awoke early the next morning and got Tom out of bed and took him to the pier. They sat down on the edge of the pier, kicking their legs over the side for a couple of hours until the sun came up. Sam didn't mention the fire to Tom and Tom didn't speak at all. The next week, when all of the debris was cleared, Sam built a large fire pit in it's place. He handed Tom a box of wooden matches and told him that if he felt the need to light fires, this pit was the place; not their dinner table.

        Jim was adopted straight from an emergency shelter that was housed inside of a juvenile correctional facility in Cleveland, Ohio. He had been severely beaten by his father and had been hospitalized. Jim didn't speak much at all; only offering direct and short answers to specific questions. Despite his dismal non-verbal communication tactics, he excelled in communicating with his fists to anyone who would listen. This behavior got him bounced from school to school and kicked out of church forever. Jim would often be taken home by the police and handed over to a very weary Edith and Sam. Jim raised his fists to everyone but those living in Edith and Sam's home. They were family.


        Carey was adopted from a juvenile correctional facility he had earned residence with a year prior for spray painting penises all over the interior walls of his school. Carey was the jokester. He had a way of making Edith laugh at inappropriate times, such as church and ceremonies. Of the three other brothers in the Cone house, Carey was the easiest to get along with. To him, everything was a joke and he seemed to never get angry. He was the smallest and youngest of the kids, and relied on his three older brothers to keep the bullies at bay. He made a lot of enemies with his mouth and they, (mostly Jim) had to back him up.

...


         The four were all adopted within 5 years of each other and did not become instant friends. They did gradually become brothers, sharing in the hobbies and talents of each other. Danny would help them with mathematics and wanted to become an engineer. Tom was the best basketball player they had ever seen and eventually got a scholarship to a small university. Jim played hockey throughout high school and would eventually become a brawler in the boxing ring for small change. Carey always said he wanted to own and run a rubber chicken factory. They would all laugh, but they had all seen him staring at the stars and reading books about other planets and constellations.        



...


        When Sam had died, they no sooner got his funeral arrangements settled when Edith passed too. The four boys buried their parents next to each other in a cemetery just two blocks from where they lived. They made a new pact: They would walk here to see their parents after they had eaten together on the first Sunday of every month.

        The pact held up and they broke bread together and visited their beloved parents at their grave every month until the first Sunday of April that year when Carey didn't show up. They would find him dead at his home after having succumbed to the side effects of using too much heroine. A side effect of being a clown to people who don't know better. He hadn't fooled them though. He was cremated and his ashes given to his brothers to decide what to do with. It didn't take long before they figured out what to do with them.

...


        "Hey Tommy, you gotta light?" said Jim. "Ha! Funny Jimmy, you got any teeth left? I got an extra apple right here..." Tom replied while pulling out a middle finger from his pocket. Jim reached across the aisle of the plane and punched him in the arm. Jim continued, "Hey Danny, what do orphans get at Christmas?" Danny sighed, "what do they get Jimmy?" "Lonely," Jim replied. Tommy sat silently shaking his head, then spit out some of his drink trying not to let Jim notice he was laughing. "Still not sure why we have to do this on Christmas. We are leaving the snow in Boston on Christmas for the desert? I like the sun, but not on Christmas," said Danny. Tommy replied, "Like you got anyone but us to celebrate with anyway Danny. Might as well do it where things are easier to burn."

 ...

Danny: Well, here we are. How do we do this?
Jim: You didn't forget Carey's rocket did you? If you did, you're going over this cliff with him.
Tommy: I got it in my bag. Should we say something?
Danny: No Tommy, we are just gonna chuck him off the Grand Canyon and walk away.
Tommy: Come on man.
Jim: I'll start. You guys shut up. Alright, what's got 5 arms, 3 legs, and two feet? The finish line at the Boston marathon.
Danny: (Holds his hands over his face, feeling terrible that he is laughing). Carey would have liked that one. Ok, my turn: A man is talking with his wife the other day and he asks her to tell him something that will make him happy and piss him off at the same time. His wife thinks for a moment then replies...Your penis is bigger than your brother's.
Jim: Funny because it's true isn't it Tommy.
Tommy: Wait, you slept with my wife?
Jim: Size don't matter.
Tommy: Alright idiots, my turn. In kindergarten class, the teacher tells the kids to come up and write something exciting that happened this morning. Little boy Johnnie walks up to the front of the class and grabs a piece of chalk and writes the word "Period" on the blackboard, then sat back down. The teacher looked in bewilderment for moment, then needled Johnnie for an explanation. "What's that mean Johnnie?" He says, "I don't know, but this morning my sister said she missed one. Then daddy had a heart attack, mommy fainted, and Uncle Bob shit is pants.

        Danny and Jim stood silently shaking their heads at Tommy. Jim cracked a grin, then reached into Tommy's backpack and pulled out a small model rocket. He sat it down on the red rocks that overlooked a vast hole in the earth, too large and deep to fathom it's origins. Danny said, "I did the honors of putting Carey in it at the hotel, so we don't have to taste him in this wind. You're welcome." The three brothers sat down on the rock and waited for the sun to finish it's descent below the horizon exposing the innumerable amount of stars in the galaxy. "I can kinda see what he saw in looking at this," Jim said. "Yeah, me too," Tom replied then continued, "Let's send him off, I'll take care of the pyrotechnics." Danny hands him a lighter while grinning. Tom puts the fire to the wick and sends the homemade rocket into the Christmas night sky. They watch it flash, burn, fade, then go dark as it soared into what looked like space to them.


        Jim asked, "You guys ever wonder where we would have been with ma and dad?" They all look at each other and nod. He continued, "Me either." Jim pointed out into the sky. Danny put his hand on Jim's shoulder and watched his tears fall to the dirt. Tommy, picked up his bag from the ground and said, "Goodbye you little bastard, may God kick you out of Heaven for that mouth." Danny said, "Merry Christmas my brothers.


     
     





Sing.
Migrate.



Thanks for reading...Z