Good Times

Now and then I sit and stare out of the window wondering how I got to this place in my life. Once i had been young and carefree; willing to do almost anything for a good time. But things have changed now and I am calmer and more set in my ways. Things I once did now appall me. I lived hard and fast and have the scars and body art to prove it. When your young you think the whole world is your oyster to use a cliched phrase. I really thought I would live that kind of life forever. I was stupid. Now I know that the things we do catch up with us and we will have regrets. But sometimes despite everything I remember myself then and feel a little wistful. Wistful for the beauty, the youth the innocence I had. Now as a sit and stare out of this barred window in this maximum security prison with all the other murders I know that beauty, youth and innocence do not last for ever and if I had been smarter I would have used those things wiser instead of wasting them a good time.

The Dance

On the edge of the dance floor stood the girl. She was small for her age and covered from head to toe in unrelenting black. Her classmates would have been surprised to learn that she loved to dance for they had never seen her dance at a single dance over the last four years. She had come to every dance but she always stood on the sidelines, alone. At this ,their Prom and final dance of High School, she came alone and stood on the side of the dance floor in her black dress. Not a single peek of skin was revealed by her dress. Most of her classmates could not remember if they had ever seen the girl's skin other then her hands and face for it seemed she was never without a long sleeve turtle neck and long pants. But none of her classmates ever really paid attention to the girl in black. There were ,at every High School, those kids everyone considered odd and she was one of them at their school. So when the clock struck midnight and she vanished from her spot no one seemed to notice. If they had been paying attention they would have seen the air next to her shimmer for a second and her quickly slip through the shimmer. If someone had noticed her disappearance and followed her through the shimmer they would have believed that the punch was spiked and what they were seeing was all in their imagination. For through that shimmer was another dance floor identical to theirs, except instead of the frolicking young students from Peyton High School the dance floor was full of monsters, demons, witches and vampires. And there on the dance floor was the girl in black, no longer in black but free of the constraints of the human world she removed her long dress to reveal a shimmering silver strapless dress. Her tattooed arms waving to the music she danced with her friends and practiced her magic. Reveling in the freedom to be herself.

When she returned home that night and her parents asked how the dance was she would replay as always, " It was fun." And her parents would be happy that the daughter they loved but who seemed so odd and weird to them at least made the effort to be normal every once in awhile.

The Walk

I saw a movie once at the National Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. It was at the end of the tour I took. We all filed into the small theater and the film started. Survivors told their stories. By the end I wept. A women shared her story in flashes. A man shared his in flashes. It was summer and she was going to school when her father made her change from her sandals to her winter boots. She thought he was crazy but he seemed so determined she did what he said. The man joined the US Army and went to fight in WWII. The day the woman wore her winter boots in the middle of the summer was the day her family was rounded up and sent to a concentration camp. She spent two years in that camp wearing her winter boots. Near the end of the war she was forced with thousand of others who had miraculously survived to march from one camp to the next in the middle of the winter. If she had not been wearing those boots she would have died. Her father was already dead. The man helped the US Army push into Germany. He had seen terrible things over the last few years but nothing prepared him for what was to come. When the German soldiers abandoned the camp where she was they were free but so many did not have the strength to leave. They were living skeletons. She and several other women went out side the gates to get water. There they were approached by US Soldiers who had come to liberate them. When he approached the group of women he was shocked. They were like skeletons with grey hair but none of them were older then twenty. He asked if he could help them, he called them ladies. When the US soldier called them ladies she wept. It was the first time in years anyone had ever referred to them as ladies. She fell in love with him just a little bit. That love would grow and be returned. They would marry and have children and one day would make a film that would be played in the National Holocaust Museum.

Left then right

First she turned left on Main street walked a few blocks and turned right into the alley. She dropped the bag of cash in the red dumpster and walked back out heading back the way she had come. It was all the money she had in the world but it was worth it to get him back. Who ever had done this had known her weakness. She was both angry and sad that someone must either hate her or was so desperate for money they would do this evil thing. 53,429 dollars. That was how much they wanted. It was exactly what she had in her savings account. She had a sneaking suspicion that the person who was doing this knew here and knew her pretty well. She walked back to her apartment on pins and needles. They said they would call once they had retrieved the money with the location to pick him up. She waited half the night for the call but it never came. She was devastated. She had done everything they asked but still they had not given him back. She cried that night for him. The the next morning through the haze of her tears she heard a faint barking. She jumped up. The barking seemed to be coming from the entry way of her apartment building. She threw open the door and there he was jumping with joy, wagging his little tail. Her baby was home.

The Pile

It lay in piles about the room, tall piles, small piles, wide piles, and very green piles. He came to the room often just to look at it. All that money just laying around. They had no use for money anymore but they kept it here stored in a subbasement of the Cultural History Museum. As a guard at the museum he had keys to everything and on his breaks he would often come down here to see the money. They had never had money during his life time and it was not until he had started working at the museum had he ever seen it. He could on a certain level understand its draw. It was so lovely to look at. They had not need of money now. Everything was was kept on little chips embedded in the back of the neck. When he got paid they ran a scanner across his neck, when he bought food they ran a scanner across his neck, and when he bought a dirty magazine they scanned his neck. It was easier that way. But when he looked at those piles of money he sometimes wished for the old days. One of his co-workers would make fun of him always telling him statistics about crime and money and germs and money. He knew it was not healthy but he loved the look of it. He imagined that spending it had felt good. To actually have something tangible as proof of days work must have been nice. So it was not a surprise to his co-workers when he was discovered that day, naked and laughing, rolling around in the piles of money.

The Hospital Morgue

It was cold, really cold in here she thought. She threw off the blanket and tried to sit up. She rammed her head against the ceiling. Was she dreaming? She sat up again scrunching down to avoid hitting her head. The ceiling was maybe two feet from the bed. She felt around in the darkness and only felt the cold sides of this room she was in or better yet this box she was in. What the heck was happening. She started to shake and then screamed as loud as she could. Nothing, no one! Her neck throbbed as if it had been torn open. She tried to figure a way out of this cold box but she could not find a latch on what appeared to be a door at the end of the long box. Then a thought struck her. Was she in a coffin? Was she buried alive? She screamed again. Nothing! Oh my God, Oh My God she thought I have been buried alive. Who would do this? How did they do it? She did not remember much from the party the night before. All she remembered was dancing and drinking and people dressed in crazy costumes. She had spent weeks deciding the perfect costume for the Halloween party. She had found the delicate white silk dress at a thrift store and then splattered it with fake blood. She had painstakingly painted on the bite marks for her costume. She had gotten so many compliments on her Vampire's Victims costume. Then the very good looking guy dressed as Dracula had found her. She was sure it was true love, they had spent the entire evening together. But then it all went hazy and she could not remember the rest of the evening and now she was buried alive in this steel box. She began to scream and kick and cry and then light at the end of the tunnel. She was slowly pulled out of the steel box. She blinked at the bright light. Looking around she saw that she was in a hospital morgue. She sat up touched her neck and realized that the bite marks were not the result of her make-up. He was standing with his hand held out for her. She put her hand in his and stood up.

" Ah my little victim, the night is ours." Dracula said

The Queens Law

The Queen stood on the small balcony over looking the parade area. She was pleased, the preparations for tomorrows celebration were almost complete and every thing looked wonderful. She turned and walked back into the palace with a satisfied smile on her face. She decide to retire to her rooms for the evening and prepare herself for the next days celebration. She slept that night secure in herself and the laws she had set forth for this land. She was ,to her mind, a wonderful leader and tomorrows celebration would reinforce all the good that had happened since she had come to power.
The next morning she dressed with care in her brilliant blue sparkly frock and proceeded to the same balcony on which she had observed the preparations the day before. The parade ground was crowded with her subjects and a loud cheer went up when she stepped out on the balcony. This was it, the culmination of everything she had just spent the last year doing. A celebration of her first year as Queen. When she had passed her first decree she was uncertain how her people would take it but they had accepted it without reserve and once that decree had been put into action and all the humans eliminated it was easier to impose her rule on her subjects.
She stepped forward to the railing of the balcony raised her hand for silence and a hush fell over the crowd. " Friends, Robots and countrymen lend me your audio sensors......"

Dream Job

What do you do for a living he asked? She looked at him seriously and said, " I sell world Peace." he laughed thinking she was joking, " No really what do you do?" It was the same every time, they always laughed, no one ever took her seriously. But what she said was the truth, although admittedly she did say it to be cute and funny. It invariably worked, people laughed and thought she was charming and clever. She would then explain she was a fundraiser for an organization that was working toward the ultimate goal of world peace by eradicating poverty, etc, etc. They would nod their head and say the same thing, " Who doesn't want world peace." So she used the line often and the result was always the same, but she believed most people really did not get it, that the idea of real World Peace was so foreign to them that they could never understand that when she said it she really meant it. Sometimes at night she would fall asleep thinking about all the things that needed to be done at work and just like any job there were little annoyances she had to take care off and as she fell asleep sometimes these would be in her head but as she dreamed on those nights it was never about the annoyances but about a world full of peace and happiness for everyone, she knew it was a cliche but when she awoke on those mornings after such dreams she felt energized and would smile into her cereal bowl in the morning thinking about how best to sell her product.

Sorry, No Scribble

The teacher had written this on his first piece of art that fateful day in first grade. When he read it his little mind rebelled. Who was she to judge that his scribble was not art. So from that day forward he refused to draw anything but scribbles. They were beautiful in there simplicity. Each time his drawings would come back with comments about his scribbling when he was asked to draw a house or his family. He did not care his teacher was a philistine. In High School his scribblings got darker and richer with color, but all the while he continued to fail every art class he took. But he cared not for their F's and continued to scribble his heart out. Perhaps no one would ever see what he saw in those beautiful colorful scribbles. In college he continued with his art. Having given up hope that anyone would recognize the true beauty of his work he was surprised to be asked to exhibit his art in the annual College Art Show. When he won the first prize he was even more Surprised. 15 Years later he was still surprised of his success. His Art sold for millions and was displayed in every major Art Museum in the world. That first Art Teacher had even sent him a note after his first major exhibit. " I was wrong, scribble all you want!"

Hi my name is......

Sherry and I like long walks on the beach, sunsets and white wine. For the hundredth time that day he heard those same words, hi my name is! It was a tiring job to say the least and he was sure that when his grandmother had paid for is college degree she had not expected that this is what he would be doing with that degree. But getting a degree in English Literature with a specialization in mid 19Th century male nature writers was not the best degree to try to look for work. So he had ended up here editing these dating videos for The Romance Movie Dating service. All the videos seemed to be the same. Long walks and sunsets. For two years he had seen the same thing over and over again. It had in fact made him very cynical about true romance and he guessed he would never meet the woman of his dreams. But the next video changed his mind and life forever. Hi my name is Electa and I like to dance in the rain during the full moon, I like to sing at the top of my lungs while driving and I love to read mid 19Th century British novels about nature.

The Collection

She typed in the secret code and walked into the room. With a whisper the steel door closed behind her. It was in this room that she felt the most like herself. calm and secure. She went over to the large comfy chair and sat down. Then when she was comfortable she flicked the remote control and the lights came on casting a soft glow over her collection. She had spent years assembly this collection and although no one else would ever see it she was proud. Proud of the time she had spent in collecting it. proud of the room she had built to house it and proud of her ability to keep quiet about the collection. If anyone ever found out about it she would lose the collection for sure. They we come for it and her and know one would ever see her again she was sure. She sat back in the chair and looked around. It was truly the most lovely collection ever. It was in fact now after all of her hard work the only collection of its kind in existence and she hoped that it would be so for ever. As she looked at the all war heads in this room and housed in the basements that went deep into the earth surface her pride came back in force. Pride in a job well done. For this collection of warheads was in fact every single warhead on the planet and not a single soul knew that she had spent the last ten years replacing every nuclear warhead in the world with fakes and that she had all the real ones. She took a bottle of champagne from the small refrigerator next to her chair, uncorked the bottle and toasted her collection.

The Writing on the Wall

Dear John,

I am writing this on the back of this match book because there is no other paper in your house and in fact that is one reason why I am leaving you. How can a person live their life without notepads and notebooks. For God sakes I could not even find an old receipt. You have no books! But I digress. It is not you it is me. I was stupid. All I saw was a pretty face and great abs. You have a six pack! I admit I was blinded by your beauty for a while. I had never been with a guy who looked like you before and it was fun and sexy, but I need more. I need someone who will argue with me about politics and religion and world events and why batman is a way better superhero then Superman. I want someone who reads. Reads a lot and wants to talk about those books. I want someone who is willing to make fun of himself and do stupid stuff like dance in the middle of the Museum of Art even when there is no music. Do you even know where the Museum of Art is? Really it is me not you. I am sure there is some woman out there for you it just is not me. I need more! Good-bye John it was fun but I have got to think about myself here.

Have a good Life,

Sylvia

The Industrial Psychologist

He sat there day in and day out listening to them answer the questions that would either prove they would be a reliable employee or they would be a terrible risk to hire. The company he worked for sold paper and before he took this job he had not realized how difficult selling paper apparently was. The questions he asked often brought the perspective employees to tears. It seemed at times there were no sane people left in the world. The door to his office opened and his secretary said, “Your 3 o’clock is here Dr. Lazer.”

His three o’clock walked through the door and he could already tell the man was not going to make the cut. He was interviewing for a job in sales and Dr. Lazer could already tell from his nervous energy that he was going to fail this test. The man sat down and Dr. Lazer began asking him questions, probing his psyche. After twenty minutes of questions Dr. Lazer was pleasantly surprised that the man was doing so well. All that changed with the next question. It was the question that often made or broke the interviewee. So Dr. Lazer asked the man, “If I were to make the statement that in the future only Robots will know love. What would your response be?” The man just sat there with a defeated look on his face and began to cry. Dr. Lazer was disappointed. This is what happened every time he asked this question. Only about 1 in a 100 was able to pull them selves together and answer the question with a semblance of intelligence. When the man sobs finally stopped Dr. Lazer escorted him to the door. It seemed as if they would never fill this job.

Dr. Lazer went back to his desk and sat down. He picked up the picture of his family and felt all his gears and bits and hard drives whir with emotion. In the end Dr. Lazer knew that the last question was unfair to his human interviewees. And there were times he regretted having to use it to weed out the loose cannons because both he and the humans all knew that the future was now.

I get that sinking feeling

She heard the crash before she felt the jolt jar through her body. As it did she lost her balance and fell. The sirens went off as she was rising from the floor. She calmly went to the bed and rummaged under it until she felt the soft padding of the life vest. She pulled it out and put it on over her lovely evening gown. It was her first grown up gown and she felt very beautiful in it. It was a lovely pale blue silk that clug to her body in all the right places. She went to the door and looked out in the hallway. It was empty, which she thought very odd. She realized that other then the siren it was eerily quite, no screaming or running. She made her way down the hallway toward the stairwell. As she approached the stairs the ship jerked violently to the left and she was thrown first to the floor and then as the ship tipped she was on the left wall. Oh no she thought, this ship is sinking.

With a loud roar the ship was sucked into the ocean and the light blue silk quickly turned to midnight as the ocean swallowed it.

Dear Diary

It lay on the table. All of her deep dark secrets contained in the little book. It was lovely to look at with its sparkly flowers embossed on a pale blue background. The only thing keeping those secrets inside was the little lock on the front. To read it would be the greatest violation of her trust, but not to read it would be a lost chance to know everything that went on in her mind. He really wanted to know everything that went on in her mind. He had loved her for as long as he could remember and it was slowly killing him. He never seemed to be able to say the right thing to her to convince her that they were perfect together. So he held the little key in his hand that just may unlock all of his dreams or would it crush them? He was so uncertain. He had never had to face such a dilemma before and he was sure that he would never have to face this kind of dilemma again. He held the key up to the light and watched as the it gleamed. What should he do? He sat for many minutes holding that key trying to decide what he should do. Finally he picked up the diary and took the key and went over to the bedside table. He carefully put the book back in the drawer where he found it and placed the key under the lamp just like she had left it. He left the room, firm in his decision.

20 years later on their 10Th wedding anniversary she gave him a small package. He unwrapped it, expecting to see a watch or some such thing but there folded in the paper was the diary. She leaned over and kissed him as he opened the diary and read the first entry.

Dear Diary,
My brothers friend Steve came over again today. I think I may be in love. He is so funny and smart and handsome. But he is a junior! Do you think a junior and a freshman can date? I really like him! I wonder if he could ever like me!"

The decision

The decision to do it was not an easy one. After she did it she was pretty sure it was the wrong decision. She should have spent more time thinking about it but she was like that, impulsive. Besides it was too late now anyway. It was done and she could not change it. She resolved right then to be less impulsive and think her decisions through more. It was really too bad that she would never have the chance to put that resolution into practice, but when you decide the fate of mankind on an impulse you really only have yourself to blame. She watched from her window in the Oval Office as the first mushroom cloud appeared on the horizon toward New York city. It was really too bad she was a bad decision maker.

The Perfect Heart

The first time she realized it she was only eleven, but it was not until she was thirteen that she felt it. That day started like any. She put on her favorite pair of jeans and a loose fitting tee shirt and went to school. It was during math class that it happened. The boy was neither a crush nor a friend but when he told her she was fat she felt it. Felt it in her core. From that day forward she felt as if she was a fat girl. In college she made a friend by chance only because she had jokingly commented that if she had lived during Rubens time he would have painted her. In reality she was far too thin for Rubens tastes, but when she looked in the mirror all she saw was fat. She nearly starved herself her sophomore year weighing in at 92 pounds, something she was very proud of at the time. Also at the time she was chased after by men like she never had been before and never would be again. With her 34 double D’s and size 2 body, she was the Barbie doll all men dreamed of. But in reality she was not much more then a skeleton. She gained most of the weight back when she realized she could not go on never eating. She liked food too much. It was not until she was in her thirties that she realized she was not fat. Curvy, womanly, bodacious perhaps but not fat. But the Phenomenon that was the skinny, skinny woman was well entrenched in society and still she heard the comments and occasionally, not often but occasionally still cringed from the sight of her own body. But the day she went to a new doctor and he checked her heart rate and listened to her heart and asked if she did anything aerobic and she replied walked, he said “Well it must be working because your heart rate is perfect, your heart sounds perfect.” Vindication at last. She would have bet her perfect heart that those phenomenally skinny women could not claim they had “a perfect heart!”

Wicked, Wicked Girl

Her first fully formed memory was of her third birthday. She had wanted a Suzie doll. The baby you fed a bottle to and she got a diaper rash. It was all she wanted. What she got was a regular baby doll that only closed its eyes when it slept. She cut off its hair and pulled out its eye lashes and then buried the whole thing in the back yard. Her stepmother called her a wicked, wicked girl. She knew that she was suppose to feel bad about it and that being a wicked, wicked girl was not a good thing but when she repeated the words to herself and they rolled around on her tongue she felt good and liked they way they sounded. So for the next 10 years she did everything in her power to be a wicked, wicked girl. She never did what she was told, she always behaved badly in public and as the years went on she was told over and over what a wicked girl she was. She knew that her stepmother hated her and she did not blame her. So when they sent her to the boarding school she was prepared. it only took her ten days to get expelled. At the next boarding school it only took seven, the next three and the last one only 4 hours. She was wicked and she liked it. The hour before her life changed she was once again rolling the word wicked around on her tongue and as always it tasted good. When the train stopped she did not notice at first. Not until she saw them did she realize what was happening. They converged on the train and people began to scream. She grabbed her bag and sunk to the floor. She knew they would eventually find her and she had to be ready. When she heard them coming she jumped up and sprayed the can of mace right into the leaders eyes. He yelped and dropped his gun. She ran. Ran as fast and as far as her legs would take her. She stopped to rest and tried to think of a plan. she would have to disappear. Her parents had finally done what they said they would do every time she did something wicked. They had sent these men she was certain and if she did not get away they would make sure she was not wicked anymore.

The Large Appliance Department

His name was not Bob but that is what he used while selling large Appliances at the Sears on Lawrence Avenue. He was grumpy and with his gravely voice he scared off some of the pretty young things that come in during the hottest part of the summer to buy a air condition. It seemed like Bob had spent his life around large appliances because he knew so much about BTU,s and electric coils. But Bob had only worked at that Sears for a couple years. Before that he had lived in Tuscon and sold cars, before that he had lived in Topeka and sold mattresses and even before that he had lived in the Twin cities driving a snow plow for the city. If the pretty young things buying those air conditioners had stopped to notice they may have figured it out, but most never took the time. From his dress shoes to his three gold rings and large gold chain around his neck to his slicked backed hair Bob was so obviously not a Bob that it was a common joke among his co-workers. Little did they know that the joke was on them. When they joked about how he did not look like your typical Midwestern Bob, he just nodded his head and said nothing. He liked his job at Sears and the city he lived in and had no real desire to move again, so he kept his thoughts to himself on the subject of his name. What he wanted to say was " That is right you idiots, I ain't no Bob, my name is Tony and I come from Trenton and in the blink of I could break your neck and have your body disposed of!" But he didn't and besides he did not mind the name Bob so much at least it was better then the name he had in Topeka.

"What's your sign?"

“What’s your sign?” The man sitting next to her asked. She glanced over at him with disdain. Did he really just ask that question? Had she some how been transported back in time to 1978? He looked normal enough and was actually kind of cute so she wondered what he was thinking by using such a silly pick-up line. When she turned back toward him he was gone. That was weird she thought but as she sipped her drink and tried to forget about her terrible day she forgot about him and listened to the inane conversation her friends were having about some celebrity. The next morning as she was just coming out of that deep refreshing sleep one achieves from just a few glasses of wine she recalled the guy and his “ What’s your sign?” line. The more she thought about it the odder it seemed. That afternoon while she was sitting at the café drinking her coffee and typing on her laptop the last thing she expected to hear was that same question “What’s your sign?” This time it came from an elderly women sitting next to her at the coffee shop. “You look like a Gemini, are you a Gemini dear?” She could only nod her head yes as the woman started to babble on about Gemini and their traits. She packed up her lap top finished her coffee and escaped. Two days in a row the same question, this was getting weirder by the moment. The next evening as she walked her dog along the path by the lake she heard it ever so faintly wafting on the breeze from the beach, “What’s your sign?” She jerked her head up and looked toward the beach but did not see anyone there. Weird! After several days with no one uttering those three words again she forgot about the weirdness of it all and after several weeks it did not cross her mind again. So the day it happened she was not prepared for it, if she had maybe noticed the signs she would not have been walking alone that night along that stretch of road where he was known to have struck before.

The next morning the paper waited on her front door step. A door step she would never cross again. The headline read, “Gemini Killer Strikes again.”