A cold, open morning passing through us. Jones has a red lollipop in his cheek, the stem sticking out like a cigarette. All confidence and swagger he moves up the street like a gangster. He’s looking for a stick. The right stick. All gatherings of plants and bushes must be explored. He holds back the branches of one bush, “Come, Daddy, Come!” He has opened a door that I must pass through, and together we emerge into a new world, journey mystical realms, enter jungles, descend to lakes with lizards and stars. And then Jones standing there. Watching me looking back, all the branches and vines and climbing things now wrapped around him like they did not want to give him up, like he still belonged to their world and not mine. And the bottle collectors are out this morning. They scavenge in the alleys, the glass clinking in their bags like wind chimes from across water.
A cold morning.
The wind down the empty street invigorating, almost inspiring– a reminder that we are of this world, and not the other. Such deep in the bones gratitude in these moments. The day still brand new, still a kind of wilderness. A field of potential stretching endlessly before us. Jones sucks on a green lollipop. His favourite colour on account of the Hulk, the creature his three year old body most yearns for, and above us the sky is changing. The clouds tumbling. The blue of the sky often indistinguishable from the overcast grey, and all around us the stripped trees and withered vegetation. Jones wants to know where all the leaves have gone, and as I am explaining he sees a tree in a yard that’s been decorated for Christmas. He points and shouts, describing the colours and shapes like the miracles they are. And as we look up and through the tree, a cloudbank rolls away from the sun and for a moment we are struck blind by the radiance, and for the rest of our journey ghost lights flicker before us like answered prayers.
]]>- IN A BAD PLACE
- THE HANGED MAN
- RED DYE #40
- LONE WOLF
- ECXTINTION EVENT
- UNMARKED VAN
- GENETIC MUTATION
- REDRUM
- BELIAL
- THE RAPTURE
- RADIATION SICKNESS
- BLACK GHOST
- FENTANYL PATCH
- NUCLEAR WINTER
- INFERTILITY
- THIS BORROWED WORLD
- DATA CAPTURE
- CONTAGION
- FLAKKA ZOMBIE
- MY SHEEPLE
Heidi, our dog:
Our eight-year old Miniature Dachshund has a mysterious marking that looks a little bit like a scar on her nose. When we asked the breeder about this she became very nervous and evasive, worrying the Rosary Beads she had around her neck. She told us it was a “bee sting,” but then begged us not to ask any more questions, knocking $50 off the price for Heidi, “Just take her now, please!!”
Since we took her, we did some research and found out that she was rejected by a previous family. The dog, apparently excited, jumped on the family’s three-year old daughter, knocking her over onto a coffee table. The girl hit her head and was rendered unconscious. The family found her probably about ten minutes after the encounter, with Heidi licking the blood off her head so that it was all over her muzzle. The family was utterly traumatized. The girl fell into a coma, and although she survived, she now has an imaginary friend named Heidi who makes her do bad things. The family returned Heidi, our dog, to the breeder immediately after the incident. It was the fourth time Heidi had been returned to the breeder by frightened families.
Heidi has knocked me down on at least seven different occasions.
The Crying Boy:
This print, by the Italian artist, Bruno Amadio, was “given” to us by a friend who said he no longer had space for it as he had moved. The painting is huge, perhaps seven feet by five feet, and it looms massively above our living room sofa. Wherever you are, the crying boy is staring at you. We have had the painting for 1 year, and in that time I have been fired from 6 jobs, got shingles and assaulted 4 people. The painting is cursed. I tried to burn it once, but it was impervious to flames.
Heidi’s toy, Belial:
The breeder hastily shoved this toy into Heidi’s crate just as we were about to drive away, “It’s named Belial,” she shouted, “ it is of your dog!” We thought it was a pretty weird thing to say, but whatever. As it turns out, this squeak toy is indestructible. I have thrown it out at least a dozen times and even gone so far as to bury it in the backyard, but it always returns, lying at the end of our bed, staring at us with it’s dead, demon eyes.
Sometimes, when Heidi is playing with it and there’s a frenzy of squeaking in the apartment, Rachelle and I can sometimes hear recognizable phrases forming amidst the cacophony. ” Four-eyes must die,” “Drown him in blood,” “Eat all his food,” “His fear feeds you.” Once, I woke up from a nightmare*(see next entry) to see Belial in the chandelier above our bed just staring down at me. It was the most chilling thing I have ever felt.
Squirrel Pelt Blanket:
When we first got this blanket as a gift, we kept it at the foot of our bed, but both Rachelle and I were plagued by horrible dreams about being a squirrel and getting hunted down and skinned by an old, West Pennsylvania Mountain Man. The same dream, again and again and again. They were utterly terrifying and we’d both wake up screaming, the dog shrieking, too. When we moved the blanket and put it on a radiator in the living room, the nightmares stopped, although squirrels, baleful and lost, often mass on the fire escape outside the window and just stare in at it, as if in silent, foreboding judgment.
Me: Rachelle! Rachelle! Are you there?
Rachelle: ( Moves hand as if swatting fly)
Me: What is your favourite crop?
Rachelle: Crop?
Me: Yes, like corn, wheat, tobacco or peanuts.
Rachelle: Mmmm. Peanut butter cups.
Me: Okay, next question. Who is the sluttiest person that you know?
Rachelle: Slutty sluts. They’re all sluts. You know that.
Me: Good answer.
Rachelle: Thirsty.
Me: I will ask the nurse if you can have an ice cube. What is your favourite natural disaster?
Rachelle: Twister. So. Very. Windy. Hide in the basement when the twister comes! Very serious. Lives ruined.
Me: And crops, twisters ruin crops too.
Rachelle: Twisters are ruiners.
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