At the Police Station

The street was getting dark and the cold, unrelenting wind threatened to rip the buttons off his jacket. Winter was oft thought to be the worst season in the year; John however, always hated autumn, with winter there at least came some sort of predictability. He always liked controlled situations and predictable people. He even had a predictable job. So it was a shock to his friends and family when he married, arguably, the most unpredictable woman ever. John mused over all this and at the thought of his wife he smiled slightly, the way he thought about it, he was gifted with the most wonderful family a man could have.

The radio that was on throughout suddenly started playing a song he hadn’t heard in over five years:

“Nights in white satin
Never reaching the end…”

The song was beautiful and had manifested itself in John’s mind as not just a song, but a memory. After John had been first introduced to Sarah, he was immediately taken to her, and she to him in a way that they both couldn’t quite understand. But it was the day that they had met at the police station that altered their lives forever. It was December 19th, 2010, and John had just finished designing his third building of the week, and having shown it to his boss, he was exceedingly happy with the result. In fact, his boss too seemed to be happy, so happy that he offered him a drink to celebrate his financial development…how could he refuse? John, by principle was barely a drinker at all-in England that was seen as some sort of crime-but this time he truly felt that he had earned it and what could go wrong, it was just one drink after, all right?

Wrong.

Very, stupidly, undoubtedly wrong.

John might have realised after having perhaps one drink (maybe more) of strong whiskey he wasn’t fit to drive a manual car that required two hands. But no. His cognitive functions and higher order thinking had been taken over by notions that were completely alien to him. Such as driving. While drunk.

Driving out of the office car park without an accident was a miracle in itself, however that was all that went right after that. As he pulled outside the car park John had found that for some bizarre reason all the cars in his lane were going the wrong way. His confusion was further incited by the lights flashing in his rear view mirror. The thought going through his mind at the time was, “Its Christmas already?”

This was how twenty minutes later John found himself at the police station, scared witless and holding a plastic cup filled with coffee.

“Sir?” a man said in a police uniform. He looked…bored. “Sir, I’m going to need your name, your address and, well, everything else.”

John looked frantically around, with reddened eyes, “I’ve never done anything like this before, I’ve never even been in a police station…God! What was I thinking…?”

And so it was here he first saw her, processing criminals as a mere rookie in the police department.

The rest…well, I’ll let your imaginations fill in the blanks, after all, reality isn’t any fun without an element of fantasy.

Belligerent Wolf

“…They combine and change into compounds. Well, that’s that’s all of life. Right? I mean, it’s just It’s the constant. It’s the cycle…” the teacher at the front of the class droned. I tried to concentrate but something was wrong, innately I knew it but there was no external evidence to corroborate that. Probably just in my head. My gut clenched, and where in normal circumstances I would have taken that as a ‘drop, roll and rush to the loo’ sort of cue, right now I couldn’t tell what it was.

“Is something the matter Mr Wolf? Your chair bothering you?” I wonder what gave it away, my constant fidgeting or the way I sat on the edge of my chair? I refrained from answering in accordance with knowledge that talking back would only be throwing petrol over an already growing fire.

“Too good to answer my question, are you?” well, that was certainly the route to go down. Better say something quick.

“It’s very hot.” Even I’m confused as to how I came up with that one.

“Well you can tell us all about it after school, Mr Wolf, I’m sure it’s very interesting.” he smiled mirthlessly. A couple of students sniggered. Crap. I sighed, letting this thing get to you will only incite him to torture you even more. Best just let it be.

*****

“The principle will see you now.” She said through two red, worm-like lips. What was this, The Apprentice? I think principle Brown has a superiority complex, I can’t be sure, since I only met him once around two weeks ago with my parents.

As I opened the doors to his office, I noticed two things; one, everything in there was HUGE, the bookcases, the desk, everything, and two, his chair was elevated. Oh yeah, major superiority complex.

Mr Brown had a very big nose. One of those rare pointy, bulbous ones that indicate a person hasn’t been punched enough times to see sense. He also had a toupee on his head, it was probably a cheap plastic one too since it didn’t fit his grotesquely large head, although it did go well with rotund belly.

“So, Mr Wolf, I was informed you assaulted a teacher.” He looked at me down his spectacle, speckled nose, with boringly disdainful stare.

“Assaulted? Fancy way of putting it, no, I punched him.” from his face I could tell that he wasn’t used to being bluntly spoken to.

“Right. So why did you, er, punch Mr Rosenberg?” he said

“He grabbed my arm.”

“What?!” Principle Brown exploded, face in shock, mouth open, the works.

“He grabbed my-” he cut me off with a gesture.

“That does not excuse your behaviour.” He sighed and looked at the papers littering his desk, “Fact is, Wolf, you’ve only been attending this school for two weeks, and while your academic abilities are quite exemplary, your behaviour in the eyes of the staff is completely unfitting.”

I was really starting to get ticked off. “Could you please just listen to my side of the story?” exasperated now.

“No!”He raged, almost screaming, his face becoming red in a matter of seconds, like watching a tomato bloom in fast forward. “You’re missing the point Darius; it’s not just this once you’ve acted out of line, but on many occasions!”

Principle bobble head sighed, as if to say ‘I do so much for them, and look what they repay me with.’ woopty do fatty. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to suspend you for two-what are you doing?”

I got up, “What does it look like?”

He looked shocked and poorly tried hiding that fact by saying, “You can’t leave! Sit down!”

“Shut it fat-ass, and I seriously recommend plastic surgery before having kids Mr Sardonicus.”

I walked toward the door as he screamed, “Get back here, I’ll-I’ll call your parents!”

I smiled as I walked out the doors, “Go die.”

Well, it’s been an interesting day, certainly more interesting than the rest of the week. And as I walked out the school I stopped and closed my eyes letting my face bath in the sun’s rays. Today was a good day. Would be hard to convince my parents of that. Eh. They’ll come around. Probably.

Living

At midnight I was found confused.

My sanity further refused,

Reused by the sentinels of fate

That guard the eerie, rancid, gates.

My heart was beating, yet

I found it berated,

In its rank and curdled juices, met

With a metaphysical form, a knife edge serrated.

‘Love thy neighbour’ and not thy self,

For no man deserves to, no.

To put away, hidden on a shelf

That for us is life, always so.

Dying? Whom? Surely the gates are still open

Why dub him merciful, his mercilessness known,

There for all to see!-seer, let your book fall open

This last page show and be shown.

The Darkness

As the light faded from the ensuing horizon, Timmy found solace in the thought that he would be walking home with his most loyal friend, Tony. They had discussed their plans for the next day and what particular rides they would be most like to go on tomorrow and which ones they would be loath to look at. It hadn’t occurred to them that their parent’s plans might coincide with theirs and result in their eventual disappointment; it hadn’t occurred to them that they were indeed vulnerable to such abstractions.

The park ahead of them was filled with trees and little paths that they both knew so well, even in darkness. Timmy’s thoughts were occupied when a car pulled on to the pavement, Tony had to pull him back and it was only after Timmy’s frustration subsided that he realised Tony had saved him the embarrassment of being hurt, even if the risk was minimal. A man had gotten out of the car and loomed before them, in the escaping light and the shadowy, billowing cloak behind him, the man’s voice seemed distorted and gruff, “You need to watch where you’re going next time Timmy, especially in these parts.”

His fear receded and relief took its place banishing any residual doubt he had left in his heart. Tony’s father, Mr Maverick, had seen the two boys on his way home and thought he might offer them a ride, well, offer Timmy a ride that is, his son didn’t have a say in the matter.

“But Dad! I want to walk with Tim home.” Tony groaned half heartedly, knowing there was no point in trying for his father’s mind was already made up. So when Timmy was offered a ride home he politely declined the offer knowing full well that his decision would infuriate Tony and the thought of getting out of listening to that god awful racket that seems to constantly emanate from their aging radio.

When ‘Father and Son, Circus and Co’ disappeared around the corner, Timmy smiled and shook his head as he imagined the heated conversation that took place within the battered Mercedes. And then, crossing the road, he fell back into deep thought as heavy cloud of cold melancholy fogged his mind once more. His parents had recently taken to shouting at each other and as a result his father enjoyed the company of a blanket and the sitting room sofa most nights.

As a boy of a twelve, the troubles that his parents experienced were seemingly unimportant to him and yet they brought a hanging sense of foreboding. His thoughts were interrupted by the loud snap of a twig beneath his school shoes. He quickly took a careful look around and saw that he was deep in the park, on one of the main paths in fact and yet it seemed to be deserted; seemed to be void of anything living, the trees were in themselves thin and sickly, skeletal. His steps quickened as did the rate of his heart beat, the sound of birds chirping sounded distant or had he imagined them?

The streetlights on the side of the path lay dormant, waiting and Timmy silently willed them to switch on, and yet nothing, nothing happened. The darkness came in slow persistence, the shadows now engulfing the park, and his way forward had now become a void from which he saw a growing, toiling mass of black reach out. He stumbled back, and when he looked behind him he saw that his way backwards had been blocked and that he was trapped, he whimpered. Voices were being funnelled into Timmy’s head and he couldn’t make out any words from them, they were undecipherable. He kept on walking, stumbling forward with both of his hands on the sides of his head. And then they stopped, as his hands fell to his sides.

******

When Timmy reached home his mother flung the door open and began to shout at him, although she was angry she was relieved at the sight of him. Her screaming subsided and her few minutes of having ago at him, ended with a hug, “Oh we were so worried, where were you?” she asked, yet still Timmy gave no answer as he walked through the house, his father once again on the sofa looking at him quizzically.

“Timmy what’s wrong?” his mother asked quietly as he turned around and grinned diabolically at them, his eyes glowing with a black intensity.

And so began the tormented screams that dreadful Monday night.

Jason

It was still dark out as Jason looked through the rear window. There wasn’t a cold breeze nipping at his bare skin but the rather an absence of substance within the brightly lit bus that made his skin pepper with goose bumps. Outside there was no light, there was no road, no sky to be seen except the occasional glimmer of reflective metal. It was a welcoming nothingness.

The bus made a groaning, sighing sound as it came to a stop and Jason looked at his surroundings a second longer before getting up and getting off the bus. He stood looking after it as it lumbered away. He would be getting in that vehicle again the next morning at 4 am. And the next. And the next. It was, how did Helen Arney’s sister put it, ‘an ouroboros of shit’? Of which our esteemed friends over at Disney dress up to call ‘the circle of life’.

Like a moth to a flame Jason was drawn to the neon sign that read, ‘American Diner’. Stepping inside he was greeted by an unhealthy mix of grease, fried foods and retail bleach. Jason sat heavily as he waited to be noticed in the corner of empty diner. When he was approached by an elderly oriental wearing the name tag ‘Jim’, he said, “I’ll just have a coffee, thanks.”

Jim looked at him with a confused look and said, “Do you want drink?”

“Pardon?” Jason said

“Want drink?” the old man repeated, a little louder.

“Yes, I just asked-”, he was cut off mid sentence, and the old man started going through the list of beverages, “Orange juice, soda, Pepsi, Coca-Cola…you want drink?”

Jason was about speak, but instead closed his mouth and sighed resignedly. He was beginning to see why they employed ‘Jim’ at this hour. Telling the oddly named oriental that his services were no longer required was even more of a problem since verbal cues held no meaning to him. In the end he went away more confused than when he came.

Jason looked at the clock behind him and saw that he had a full thirty minutes before going to work. With no coffee, this was going to be a long wait. Jason Briggs suffered from chronic depression. His mother had noticed it at age eleven. ‘Noticed’ might not be the right word in this particular case, since what she did notice were the razor blades tucked underneath his pillows. Of course his mother immediately saw to it that he was locked safely in the toilet until she could call everyone. And call of everyone she did, with Jason in the toilet contemplating which way to slice his wrists, with his father’s razor. In that moment he heard his father open the door and cry out, but he was already falling through the red-black tunnel of unconsciousness…

The bell on the door of the diner rang, penetrating his thoughts and he looked up.

The Oscar

My thoughts turned to black as I heard the birds chirping outside the window, I hissed and shied away from the crack of sunlight breaking into my room, uninvited. A racket sounded down the stairs and I groaned as the sounds began to take form in my mind.

“Tony!” hearing her voice, I pulled the duvet over my ears and slipped my head under the pillows. The words shouted from the bottom of the stairs were muffled and I took comfort in the enveloping darkness. I went to sleep this way, in the foetal position, under many layers of bed sheets bunched up tightly around me.

It was only moments later that my mother had stormed up the stairs, being informed by my mewling sister that I would not wake up, and ripped the sheets from my clutches with a look on her face that would send even the most intimidating dictator running for the hills.

“The school bus has left Nathan, again.” My mother said through clenched teeth, I squinted up at her wondering what she meant. And then I saw the clock behind her and lay back resignedly.

My mother was perpetually fuming at this point, “What do you think you’re doing?!” she shrieked.

“I’m giving up.” I answered simply.

She seemed somewhat taken aback by this comment, and even more so by its casual calmness. The attitude that I had adopted, little over two years ago, was displayed daily and the fact that my mother kept on expecting ‘more’ from me only lead her into a hole from which escape was unfeasible. She doesn’t seem to understand the meaning of the phrase ‘give up already’, I mean there must a limit to ones diligence and a point where it stops being diligent and becomes more of a pathetic grasp for hope, unfortunately this isn’t Pandora’s Box.

And that’s when I heard her sigh, I looked her wondering whether she finally got the memo; accepted my nonchalant nature. But to my surprise she said, “You’re forcing me to do this Nate.” I looked her quizzically and was about to ask what she meant when her hand came hurtling down, angled directly at my chest. The breath was knocked out of me and I clutched my chest as I rolled of the bed, and fell on all fours coughing.

“Don’t be so dramatic, get your clothes on.” She said with a hint of resentment and I thought I detected a hint of guilt in her eyes but it quickly vanished, and reverted back to the cold hard gaze she always wore. And with one final look at the room she left, clearly disgusted by the very sight of my room, and even as she walked out I recalled telling her at one point that I was ‘expressing my individuality’.

As I heard her descend down the stairs heavily, I got up and felt my chest for any permanent or at least longer than temporary pains she may have inflicted and I realised that there was none at all. And I was hit with the realisation that she was right; I was dramatic. I hadn’t thought about it before but I suppose drama could actually be a possible career choice. Imagine it, me an actor!

“And the Oscar goes to…*drum roll*…Nathan Maverick!”

Fatal Detachment

My once smiling eyes, were now dead, gelatinous globes set in hollow, empty sockets. I turned my head from the accusing glare reflected off the table from the overbearing light, the carpet’s luscious fabric was much more serene. It seemed to absorb my feelings, sinking into it’s chasm of cotton-like tentacles. Like my decrepit emotions the carpet was black, the irony. 

I pursued the delusion of getting answers and yet even more questions seemed to rise. I had become detached from the plane in which I previously existed on, and now resided in a reality that was neither oppressing nor monotonous. The thought of a nonexistent, contradictory universe sparked my interest, it had a somewhat prepossessing feel-

“…hear me? Rudy? Are you okay?”, asked Mr Byrnes with obvious caution. 

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine”, I replied, my mood in spirits that were enough to darken the fathomless depths of the eternal ocean deep. 

The Man Beneath The Mask

He began to wonder through the streets of dreary grey, as he pondered what the very nature of his soul yearned for. The days held nothing in store of him, and so he found solace in moments where interruptions from life’s forward movement came to a slow trickle of fickle drops. 

 He wore a mask made of false emotion, to masquerade and dance in tune to the falsified fallacies of modern day clowns. Was madness or clarity his godly saviour? 

 To be offered to the abyss, the never ending chasm that we see as our demise was his sole desire, and so he planned that day to end his days of steady respire. 

 It was in the basement he was found, with rope and chair and pen in hand. The tears spilled from a man who’s mask had cracked from care, from a man who longed for the irresolute and pointless debacle to end forever, standing on his chair. 

 Ready and taught the rope, as strong and steady as he, and ready to kick but stopped, for the voice of Annabel Lee.

Writing: The beauty

The beauty of writing is that, while many people don’t notice, the words transport you from your body and into your own mind. The eloquent part of our minds are a terrain we rarely ever venture to, but when writing or even reading, we become emearsed in the thoughts and words whizzing around our minds.

By writing you create a world where you, essentially, are a god. You can create, destroy anything you want, whenever you wish. The beauty of it is that it’s extremely easy, writing is simply a persons thoughts recorded, juiced and concentrated until it makes sense on paper.

I only began to notice this fact when I was 15 and now, a year later I find myself writing not only this blog but many other fictitious works-of pure genius. Being inspired to write is usually why most people start writing or even the realisation that one has the ‘talent’.

‘Talent’. One of the most misleading words you will ever come across. When you look at works of great authors or great artists, you gaze and tell those around you, including yourself, that “Wow, now that’s talent”, when what you don’t realise is countless hours and days, months have been put into perfecting their craft.

Reading, now that is where this ‘talent’, that so many profess to have comes from. By reading you open up your very world to possibilities that only you can imagine. I can already imagine some of you whining “Ugh, but reading’s so boring!”. Well then, I recommend you don’t read, because reading is about enjoying yourself, indulging in works of great artists. And if you don’t enjoy it…what’s the point?

 

A Clash of Human Nature

Sometimes it’s better to keep things, matters of the heart, to ourselves. But what happens when we simply cannot contain our emotions, our very thoughts within our minds?

The consequences are on occasion quite austere. An example of one such consequence is when you simply wish to know the name of a book by a certain author-say it’s been bugging you all day- and ask a collegue what it might be, the maths teacher responds with “Get out of my class.”. Confused, I ask him, “Why?”, his reply was “I don’t want to see your face right now.”So obviously, it seems racism had it’s part to play in his heart.

Now, many if you are most probably wondering what my point is and my answer would be “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” As the old adage says. But in truth, it’s simply that many people go through life and never say what they truly need to say. We hide behind this somewhat familiar mask that we put on every day-for some it’s two-thinking that it’ll somehow make it better. Here’s a thought why don’t we simply not disregard ourselves in lieu of others?

When written down it seems an easy enough fix but the question is, how do we fix the whole world?

Solve that one Obama.