7-10 Skull Splitter

I remember when my sister came home. My parents didn’t seem to notice the everlasting change morphing the household, but I do. I remember that they no longer interrupted my sleep, no longer interfering with my dreams. I was always a quiet child, never giving them reason to assert their authority over me. Yet, two years later, there she was, crawling into the midst of the hallway, the young tiny treasure that eclipsed the older large ruin.

Her chubby hands emphatically slapped the worn wooden floor as if she was trying to launch herself into sprint with every progressing crawl, and there I stood, looking at her thirstily absorb her surroundings while I cupped dad’s bowling ball with both of my arms without anyone aware of my intentions, not even myself; I just knew that one object was heavier than the other.

Death on the Brain

I think about my death at least twice an hour. How will it happen? I’m not caught up so much as on the when because I could die before finishing this bloody piece. But still – I often think about:


• How will it happen?

• Will it be painful or subtle?

• Will I linger or will it be quick?

And most important of all:

• What song/album will I be listening to when it does finally happen?

I was exiting the expressway one evening on my way home from the university. I crossed the underpass where a truck chose to ignore the Stop sign and nearly plowed into me, but I – an actual driver and not a simple car steering oaf – was able to swerve out of the way and speed my way ahead of the fool.

During the incident I was listening to Our Lady Peace’s album “Healthy in Paranoid Times,” which was already one of my favorite albums from any band. Through the rest of the drive home all I could think about was that if that truck had hit me and I died, I would’ve died listening to this particular album.

That’s fucking awesome.

I think about all of the different forms of suicide I could perform. I have no intentions of killing myself, so I don’t mind thinking about all of the different methods; and, no, I’m not going to describe any of them either because they are all pure genius and reserved only for me or my characters.

Usually, I try to outdo myself with each new deadly episode. I don’t think it really matters how I go, just as long as the music is right.

Silent Sirens

The sky was as enlightened as the introduction to the Big Bang. Fireworks erupted everywhere and she kept her best known associates closely by.


The daughter didn’t want to speak to the mother – the uncle was too amused by the facts of it all to even really care about any of it, and everyone knew a cake was being delivered on Monday.

The sirens sounded but remained silent until there was someone appropriate enough to hear them – to interpret them – and inevitably, to damn them.

Every sentence begins with an idea and ends as a statement. Death makes a statement. Death remains an idea.

Flesh Finicky Feline Furies

Meandering the city streets during their prime nocturnal heartbeats is a dangerous thing. Linkward knew this quite well, but his most solemn conscientious moments occurred only during these ruthless hours.  

The hint of danger and human waste irked his senses throughout every block. To escape the sense-provoking swill, he would glance at the moon – the only celestial entity capable of being observed from the street floor. The city’s streetlights and blinking, neon temptation messengers were obliterated any chance of undisturbed, natural night sky.

The cats could see it though. They could see the sky better than any human ever hoped they could. The other things cats could sense, smell, see, and taste were the downtrodden souls in Linkward’s unkempt community.

During the previous week at the apartment complex, Linkward’s downstairs neighbor – Mr. Edgerow, the man with urine stains trickling down his front shirt that he attempted to pass off as careless coffee splashes had lost his job at the insurance agency, probably for frequently extending his lunch periods in order to get the elderly Yemen prostitute on Montrose avenue to piss on his chest while he chewed on his necktie and strangled his dick with dental floss.

Those nutritious facts made their way to the forefront of his social notoriety after he was found dead. Rather, when what was left of him was found, confirming his death. His former boss feigned concern for his mental well-being, but really hoped to ensure that Mr. Edgerow wasn’t planning any form of legal or illegal and violent retribution towards his office or remaining employees and potential clients.

When the police rigorously entered his home, dozens of cats fled from the apartment leaving behind only scraps of soggy flesh consumed up to the upper torso. His head was completely intact, aside from traces of cat fur draped across his thoughtless face.

The police found a suicide note in the kitchen, but he had planned to sexually asphyxiate himself to death. The cats sensed his despair – they got to him first.

Like everyone else, Linkward didn’t believe any of the stories about the man-eating cats, but after the scene witnessed by dozens of onlookers at the fate of Mr. Edgerow, now and again during his nightly perambulations through his industrial lover, Linkward would now look to the moon and then into the alleys, and occasionally he would find cats lingering within; sometimes feeding on something behind the cluttered mass of malodorous darkness, and Linkward knew that nothing in life was worth losing faith in yourself over because he had no interest in being consumed by soul-sniffing, moon-gazing cats.

Creating Shadows

I work. I'm not sure what it is I do exactly, but I know I get a paycheck for it. Sometimes I'm called to the forefront, but usually they need me in the background, behind the darkness; creating the shadows while quickening the pace.

Even the shadow-mover has off-days.

They found a used shell. Apparently, it had my fingerprints on it.

I tried recalling the night I loaded the cartridge but that was useful for only about forty-five seconds. The weather was supposed to be clear all night, meaning I should not have heard anything less than ten pounds scrawling over my rooftops. The spooky bastards they sent after me were at least one-hundred-and-fifty-plus.

They were all dead weight once me and mother nature were through with them.

Craving Ghosts

It's 3 a.m. in the cold.

I lost the bid and watched your breath get sold.

I tore up my written notes, scattering them into the fire

To keep warm our running joke.

Time makes me miss your sighs,

Time enough to have been a long time;

Long enough for me to miss even your lies.

Your windows have begun

To lose their reflection

While a haunting breath still stains the pane,

Yet I'm allowed to see you only when it rains. 

Concrete Heartbeat

Prancing across powerlines,
Listening to the signs of the times; forward is forward
Even when progress incidentally declines.
Losing velocity and devaluating property,
Hearing the heartbeat; feeling the pulse
Of My City...
My sweet city.

Rest Well

Discovered this afternoon that an old acquaintance passed away; I didn’t dig for details because I knew this person for several years and during the latter parts of our association, everyone that knew him could see him slipping deeper into bad health created by a life of self abuse.

He was a good person, however, even good people have bad habits and he allowed those habits to control which avenues most of his life took. He was highly intelligent, gifted with a vivid imagination and a knack for entertainment which he never fully pursued. He and I shared parallel demons at one time, and I knew what  I needed to do to make a positive difference in my life, and I had hoped a light switch would click inside his brain, but he was set in his ways and if he did want to change he wasn’t going to do it willingly anytime soon.

When someone asked if I had heard about this person recently, I already knew what they were waiting to tell me – he had died.

Quite frankly, I’m not interested in the whens and hows. I’m just thankful that he is finally resting peacefully; without pain for the first time in what I am sure were several decades, no longer  chased by demons. He was always kind, as generous as his means allowed him to be, and loved making people laugh. That is how I will remember him.

My Friend D

I had a friend named D. I hope I still have a friend named D.


She manipulated time and music. Previously, I thought she flexed her depth, but once time started swerving before mine own eyes – FTW – this one might hurt.

Every time we rode together, we always finished songs.

You feel those moments when you find that you are where you’re supposed to be, but the song’s not over.

Cruising with D, the songs lasted until the end; she made sure of it. She’s magic, she manipulates your patience; she’s the shit.

She’s D.

I hear tales of this DB. On El Dio de los Muertos, supposedly his strength equals his rage, and if he kicks a man's crotch both testicles end up in one sack.

Backhand

He was no longer accustomed to awakening this way. The hangover threw him for a loop, but his past alcoholic instincts kicked in and he quickly scrounged around the kitchen cupboards for his sister's weed.

He found the pipe.

After placing it on the petri dish he resumed scrambling for the goods.

BAM. Right behind the foreign coffee, not the Maxwell House stuff; like she always did.

The terrace provided all the types of freedom available before she moved in. He loved his sister, but the trick she pulled to move herself into his apartment was a cunning feet worthy of either only Satan or Santa Claus - and he hated them both because each represented his father's fist against his face while his sister was abusively relinquished under holiday cheer.

He hated her too. But he loved her. She was his sister, and every time he saw her he could not help but think about all of those years when he was knocked around the house by their drunken father while their passive mother stood by and watched until she was born - then all three of them watched while the drunken father knocked his ass from room to room while their passive mother never said a word, never lifted a hand to protect him; never disinfected the cuts running crimson downside his body.

But it all came back in that sadistic evening. His greatest girlfriend told him to meet her there. The love of his life was expecting him to be there. He walked into that bar, only to see the love of his life kissing the ex-boyfriend of her life.

She saw him.

He walked out.

She ran after him.

He dipped into the soul of the only spirit that ever knew him. He dipped into the city's shadows. She ran right past him, calling his name. Maybe she was sorry, but he didn't care. He knew what he saw. He knew what he felt. It was dad's backfist all over again.

The Bane of Detective Alvarez

The moon tried hiding behind a blown over valley of saddened clouds, but the night was too young and in tune with the excitement of the city, so that astral speck of supposedly lifeless rock shined brightly upon that damned California city.

Detective Windsor Alvarez stubbed out his cigarette on the forehead of the lifeless bum passed out on crystal meth in the alley's corner entrance before making his way to the crime scene. He could smell the murderer from ten feet away, not because the bastard was near but because the douchebag had left that condescending scent behind.

After dressing his hands with the latex gloves, Detective Alvarez pressed his hands upon the descended driver's side window, peering his head through the opening, knowing that The Strawberry Slasher had struck again.

The alignement was different but the murdering premise was the same. The corpse was splayed out across the front seats. Its left arm had been thrown over the passenger's side seat. The killer wanted the visual to make more of an impact this time. The bastard was gaining confidence.

Downward, all along the chest and stomach area was where the victim had been sliced open, probably again with a razor, but this time the wounded area was surprisingly clean. Strawberry Slasher had cleaned up the slaughtered areas before implanting the freshly picked pseudofruits, outlining the trajectory of the brutal incisions. The fact that the killer had enough time to execute such a detailed scenario made Detective Alvarez hate the city even more. But not as much as he hated Florida. And not as much as he hated his first name.

Pick Your Poison

Leave it to me. I just finished watching Lucio Fulci’s New York Ripper for better than a third time, yet the film still tantalizes me; quacking, gutting, and all.

I left the homegrown theater that was showing it, and upon entering my car, I immediately recognized the scent of strawberries, plunging me into an evolution of paranoia. I fashioned myself into my personal driving position.

Instantly, my meandering wonderments struck an anonymous diatribe amongst personalities – “THIS IS IT? THIS is how I’m going to die? I couldn’t be butchered by some inbred, chainsaw wielding psychopath; NO – I’m getting killed by the Strawberry Slasher?! - A deranged serial killer that kills victims while distributing a strawberry scent.

I’ve spent half of my life trying to convince my mother I’m NOT gay, and the other half trying to convince my friends that I was too busy to hang out, hoping that they would think I WAS gay and leave me alone, but here comes the Strawberry Slasher. This slayer doesn’t care about sexuality or situations. This one’s an impromptu killer. He or She hates everything and everyone while indulging in the finer scents of life.

I was really hoping for the garden tooled maniac; instead I got the pleasantly smelling black sheep psycho.

Echo Sprints

I had been running.

I awoke on the highway, sprinting past a drop-top BMW as the driver chatted on their cell phone. Instinctively, I knocked it from her grasp, flipping her off before the curse words had a chance to echo up to the blue sky.

What direction do echoes travel? Upwards I presume.


I was travelling forward, and that’s about all I knew. The previous night I had been working the door at The Firewall. I couldn’t recall anything out of the ordinary happening, but I couldn’t recall anything that happened after locking up the front, but as I gasped for breath I could feel a slight striding pain at the base of the knap of my neck; like someone had pierced it, probably injected me with something. Whatever was it had to have some ephedrine in it because my legs felt like badly worn semi-truck tires ready to blow out. My quads were pulverized, ready to snap; luckily my hamstrings were holding it together, and my dick was harder than a diamond.

Turning the mountain’s corner strained my body but there was nothing within me that suggested I should stop, because if I did I feared my heart would explode. The blood needed to keep rushing, I needed to keep running.

Suddenly, Last Summer - Movie Review

The wealthy widow, Violet Venable has lost her only son Sebastian. While vacationing in Europe with his cousin Catherine Holly, Sebastian was murdered. Catherine witnessed the entire ordeal and has since slipped into madness, uttering incoherent rants for which Violet requests her to be lobotomized. It is up to Dr. Cukrowicz to agree to the procedure, but first he hopes to help Catherine come to terms with exactly what it was she saw which will also uncover the secret that Violet hopes to keep hidden.


Suddenly, Last Summer is originally a one-act play written by Tennessee Williams and is a monologue orated by Violet, so in order to turn this single person play into a full length feature film might seem tricky but director Joseph L. Mankiewicz and legendary screenplay writer Gore Vidal along with along with the original creator Tennessee Williams made the material transition from stage play to the silver screen in a smooth fashion, extending Dr. Cukrwicz’s involvement in the ordeal and expanding on Catherine’s character. The only issue that felt slightly forced was the growing romance between the Catherine and the doctor; it seemed out of place but Elizabeth Taylor was one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood back in 1959; I lost my breath a few times while watching this movie, so I’m sure Montgomery Clift didn’t object much.

As Violet, Katherine Hepburn turns in yet another memorable performance. Whenever she is onscreen she unleashes her talent upon the world and everyone else is just trying to keep up, even making everyone around her better actors. That year both Katherine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor were nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars for this film. Taylor does indeed shine as the emotionally vulnerable and mentally tortured Catherine while Montgomery Clift plays Dr. Cukrowicz with a granite-like expression as he acts powerfully with his mind and through his eyes throughout most of the film.

Suddenly, Last Summer is a powerful piece that keeps the mystery fresh, the tension high, and the audience engaged.

Muddy Truth

The knocking on the door turned into kicking AND knocking. I awoke from the last pleasant slumber I could recall only to walk from my room, past the living area of my apartment so I could open the door for my Uncle Phillip.


He limped in, taking his favorite seat; the one that faced the television so he could read the reflections in case anyone else entered the room. We shared a cup of tea at the table in the midst of the kitchen area, and by sharing I mean I poured a cup for both of us, but I knew he wouldn’t even take a second look at his offering.

“How are you?” Phillip asked.

“Fine,” I said.

“How’s Meredith?”

I was clueless on my answer. Uncle Phillip had been dead only a month, yet I didn’t have the guts (pardon the pun) to tell him that Aunt Sonjya was already dating; some chiropractic schmuck that lived out by the island. He’s actually pretty cool.

“She’s fine,” I said. “I think she’s come to terms with everything – she’s fine.”

“Good,” Uncle Phillip said as an earthworm dripped down his right cheek, pouring from beneath his right eyeball, biting on the last physical remnants of his rotting right cheek. He could smile, frown, or embrace apathy; either way, his teeth were going to show.

“She’s happy?” Uncle Phillip asked. It nearly broke my heart to answer him, considering how awesome of a couple him and Aunt Sonjya were, but I wasn’t about to lie to family.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Good,” was Uncle Phillips reply, but by the look on the rotting, sagging gray flesh of his brow and his sinking eyeballs; it was more than an admittance of being passed over – it was more like a relief because his greatest treasure was happy.

When I awoke the next morning I was still at my kitchen table. Apparently Uncle Phillip and I partook in a game that required tequila shots. I dragged my wishfully dead body to the front door. I opened it and peered into the hallway where I found muddy footprints departing from my apartment back to where dead bodies go and where memories of the dead blossom.

The Penguin Pool Murder - Movie Review

The Penguin Pool Murder & Murder on the Blakcboard

Directed by: George Archainbaud

Written by: Willis Goldbeck

Based on the novel by: Stuart Palmer

The Penguin Pool Murder explores the case of a murdered stockbroker whose body is discovered at the local zoo. Inspector Oscar Piper (James Gleason; Arsenic and Old Lace) is called in to solve the case but he doesn’t count on a wise-cracking school teacher, Hildegard Withers (Edna May Oliver; Drums along the Mohawk), becoming involved in the solving of the case.


Penguins are some of my favorite animals despite their grotesque lifestyles, but that joy took a backseat to the pairing up of Inspector Piper and Ms. Withers almost immediately after the two were paired together and started trading banter. Hildegard Withers was always one sarcastic step ahead of the oafish Inspector Piper, and it was wonderful to witness the evolution of women’s rights and steps to equality in American cinema.

These two would be paired again in Murder on the Blackboard when a local music teacher is found dead. I enjoyed this particular film just as much as it’s predecessor because the audience got a chance to see these characters evolve which is something I was personally not used to witnessing during Hollywood’s Golden Age. The dialogue was just as sharp as it was in The Penguin Pool Murder and it made me yearn for a modern interpretation of the Inspector Piper and Ms. Withers.

I don’t mean remakes, but the way Gleason paraded like the chauvinistic male did during the 1930’s only to be mentally and morally sideswiped by the independent and rambunctious Edna May Oliver was some of the most entertaining Hollywood products I have witnessed in quite some time, and their chemistry left me wanting more movies involving this madcap crime-solving duo.

Hallway Memories

Slithering strands of light protruded through the window. If they didn’t show him the path to exit his room then they would have served no purpose at all.

He leaned over and grabbed the last photograph they had ever taken together. It was a simple picture frame, but the memories inside of it were far more complex and much happier than anything else that had crossed his mind these last few weeks. The morbid scenarios that looped through his mind lately had nothing to do with that photo and had everything to do with finding new ways to stop breathing.

He had no intentions of killing himself. Death was just something he thought about every day, at least once every hour ever since he was a six years old when he saw his mother jump. There were times when the method was something amazing, like being flung wildly through a hurricane as he crash landed to earth strapped to a parachute, but what he focused on was the feeling. He knew that when he died his death would not be painless; it just wasn’t his type of luck and certainly not his style.

Her eyes were the most glamorous things he had ever seen. He missed being able to look into them every day. They were mysterious, gorgeous; they represented everything that he loved about her, and every time she blinked his heart skipped a beat, and now that she was gone his heart stopped beating all together.

He drew back the curtain, turning the illuminating slithers into blinding, enlightening piercings. There was a trail of unwashed dishes leading from his bed where he sat to the hallway where they first made love inside what was then their new house. They had barely handed the check over to the realtor and practically forced her out the door. They would have invited her to join but it had been a long day and neither of them had that kind of energy. It had been a long day, he remembered. Now, everyday was pathetically drawn out between the sunshine and the moon-rise, but he refused to die because he knew that if he died he wouldn’t be able to remember her anymore.

Rambling Nomads

The stench of the piled corpses had seeped into the flavors of every meal we cooked. The dead-body-walls weren't so disturbing or distracting anymore. They were kind of useful to tell you the truth. If any of them shifted or even seemed out of place, the suspected incongruence served as a pleasant warning that the Rambling Nomads were returning.

The downside wasn’t that these drug-fueled mad bastards killed you, it was that they were so strung out on the expired psychiatric medication and bush league speed that they cooked in their camps they couldn’t shut up long enough to kill you. They’d beat you senseless, maybe dismember an appendage or two while blabbing nonsense about tax reforms, the first time they licked a snake's dick, or how many snowflakes it took to drown someone before the drug-crash started kicking in and they needed a new fix. Once they got it, they’d run a few dozen miles before they realized they were clueless about their new location, so they’d just set up a new camp. If some of them wound up alone, they’d just hook other travelers to their paltry narcotics.

Even the delirious had enough awareness to understand that no one could survive this era completely alone.

Double Doors

...the continuation of Chasing Oddities

The double doors guarded secrecy like dust settled on old things. There they were, like I had always seen them only with a slightly important difference, now one of them was slightly ajar. The darkness behind it may as well have been a waving finger, inviting me into the unknown. I knew the big guy was still after me but once the silent siren of the new darkness gestured me towards the forbidden room, I forgot about the chainsaw-wielding psychopath that could not have been more than one-hundred yards behind me when I first entered the house.

I pushed the door open, away from the beckoning emptiness and waited for the creaking to spoil my elusiveness, but the silence reflected the seriousness of this part of my trial, and being the greatest warrior meant honing the patience that came before that ever elusive moment of spiritual discovery, and I was always taught to stand up to fears – all kinds of fears – and horrors.

The room was carpeted gray; the whole identity of these quarters was completely opposite in tone to the ransacked, floor peeled kitchen area before it. There were chairs and plastic fern trees decorating two corners of the area. It was a polite waiting room made eerie only by the gloomy shade and the wicked chamber that partially illuminated my side of the window but was brightly lit on the other side.

There were no stairs, no doors, and no other windows that I could see, only a grungy tiled wall. In fact the whole enclosure resembled an Olympic sized, ill-kept swimming pool without any routes for escape. However, I had to press myself against the glass to see exactly where the water was, and it was well below the floor level of the house, embedded tightly into the earth, and at the bottom of this devious pool were humanoids – what exactly I could not tell. At first glance they looked like normal, full-grown humans curled up into fetal positions except instead of being spread out into single vials they were all gathered and grown in this one monstrous pool.

And then one of them moved their head.