I was sipping egg nog and looking out the window of my quarters at the Station Kronos Kuiper on the dwarf planet Pluto. I was 3.6 billion miles away from my home on Earth and it was Christmas again. The weather outside was perfect for Christmas. It’s always perfect for Christmas here. It was my seventh Christmas in this eternal void of the soul.
I don’t know why I volunteered for the Pluto mission, but then again, I do. I suppose it was a hasty decision driven by the heart. All I remember is I was reading a newspaper in a diner on a rainy day in New York when my fiancée found me and informed me that she was in love with someone else. I had asked her if she had forgotten about the wedding we were planning for. I asked her if she just didn’t want a future with me because I was a rocket jockey. She just rolled her eyes at me and then removed the engagement ring and slid it across the table in my direction.
I caught her glancing out the window and then I looked too, through the mist of the city. There was a tough guy outside on the sidewalk smoking a cigarette beneath a black umbrella as he leaned against a pole. He looked like a fancy pants Wall Street James Dean.
“That’s the guy?” I asked her.
She just halfheartedly nodded and slid out of the booth. She looked at me for the very last time and said, “Have a nice life among the stars.”
It was right after that when I volunteered for the mission with no return trip back to Earth. I didn’t care. I wanted as far away from that shitty world as I could possibly be… And then some. I had to put together and submit pounds of end-of-existence paperwork, agreements, contracts, and final wishes for out here. Talk about signing your life away.
And now here I am. It’s Christmas again, and I am the only one here. All those words and directives mean nothing now because there is no one left to abide to them in my name. I suppose at some point I will just fall over and eventually turn to dust.
I handled the death procedure for the last of the others. And now they are all out there, floating around me somewhere in far-out space unseen. It’s cold. It’s gray as metal. I am lonely.
There hasn’t been any communication with Earth in a very long time. They never answer or maybe they never even receive my transmissions. Either something bad has happened there, or they have simply forgotten about me. Perhaps they have moved on to something more viable and fresher and exciting. Like my ex-fiancée. I took another sip of egg nog and looked out in the vastness of it all even deeper. This is a depth of loneliness unseen, yet at times it is nourishing to me.
I often take my loneliness with me and just sit in the great worship hall to visit with all the various gods of the universe we have created. They all have our own interpretations of what they may look like, or what we want them to look like, painted or chiseled or lasered into and upon various places throughout the sanctuary. I think I prefer the God of Time or the God of Lost Places the most. There’s a god for most anything on Pluto. We had to devise reasons for existing and passing on.
It’s a vast place with arches and buttresses and golden windows and statues and rows upon rows of pews for the people who once came there. There’s a large, clear dome at the top to allow one a glimpse of the wet universe that surrounds this place. I appear in the sanctuary at a spot in the middle and pause and admire the work of the ones before me who built it all. I owe them my life at this point really, for their vast creations on this planet have kept me alive and for the most part, safe.
Instead of the plethora of gods, I pray to the astro-engineers and architects and builders and the mechanical men who carved out a whole new world here on the outer Kuiper. I thank them for their ingenuity, patience, and skill. But the silence here now is nearly deafening. What a strange thing. But even so, there are at times distant rattles, invisible things falling, dust skittering in the low light. They often frighten me because it makes me wonder if I am truly alone after all.
Author’s note: I hope to craft more of this story over time as an experiment in writing some science fiction. Thanks for reading and supporting independent content creators who just want to do what they love to do.
The whispering gaunt of psychotic skies played ceiling to the moment when Truman Humboldt first stepped out of the lobster-red rental car in the parking lot of a Lincoln, Nebraska Red Lobster restaurant and took in an enormous breath.
He looked at the sun. He trembled. His throat was dry. Something suddenly made him cry. His lobster ghost companion floated close to him and wondered, “Why are you crying, Truman? Aren’t you happy to be at Red Lobster at last?”
Truman wiped at his cheeks with the back of his hands and smiled. “These are tears of joy, my dear apparition. Tears of pure joy. I can’t believe I’m here… Here! At a real Red Lobster, not just one in my tormented dreams.”
The lobster ghost wrapped a glowing claw around him and gave him a comforting squeeze.
I think I’m ready. Can we go in now?” Truman said.
“Lead the way.”
Truman pulled the doors of his cathedral wide open with a gush of orgasmic ta-da! He stepped through the foyer and into the lobby. The smell of Red Lobster assaulted his olfactory senses in a heavenly, seaside way. Truman felt completely at peace as he admired the décor of an authentic Red Lobster.
He was immediately drawn to the gurgling sound of the lobster tank they had there, and he went to it and gazed into the clear, cool water. A handful of tomatoey, maroon-colored lobsters warbled in the distorting life-giving liquid as they hovered near the bottom of the tank, claws banded and the crustaceans looking like unidentified submerged objects: Alien USOs.
“Hello there, my delicious little friends,” Truman said to them. “Did you know that some scientists believe lobsters didn’t originate on Earth. I believe it too, because you are a great wonder of the universe and deserving of a grandiose origin story.”
When the lobsters didn’t reply, Truman removed his top hat and put his face directly into the water and repeated his greeting, his voice now bubbly and garbled. “Hello there, my delicious friends…”
Someone tapped him on the shoulder and Truman shot up out of the tank, his face and hair wet and flinging droplets. He had been horribly startled.
“Sir. I’m going to have to ask you to not play in the lobster tank.”
“What? What!?” Truman said, disoriented.
The small hostess with long black hair and clutching Red Lobster menus gave him a sour smile. “You can’t play in the lobster tank. People eat those. You can’t mess around with other people’s food.”
“Oh,” Truman said as he straightened up and played dumb. He wiped his damp hair back with his hand and replaced the top hat atop his head. It was somewhat crooked. He was suddenly embarrassed. “I thought they were there for the amusement of guests. Like a zoo. I must have misunderstood. My apologies.”
“Hmm, yeah,” the hostess said. “First time to Red Lobster?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Yes. Terribly so.”
“I’m so sorry. It’s just that I’m so damn excited to be here!”
“Right, sir,” the hostess said with little interest. “Just one for dine-in today?”
“Oh, no. There’s two of us.”
The hostess was confused. “Are you waiting for the other member of your party? I’m afraid I’m not allowed to seat you until all members of your party have arrived. We’re a very popular restaurant and in a sense of fairness to all our guests…”
“No. He’s right here,” Truman interrupted, and he made a gesture to his side with his hands. “This is my good friend. We’re having lunch together.”
The hostess chuckled. “Nice one. Follow me, please.” As they walked, the small hostess turned around and smiled at him. “I love your outfit by the way. I’ve never seen anyone come in here wearing a full-on tuxedo. It’s so bizarre.”
“Why thank you my dear. It’s a very special day,” Truman replied, as he followed her through the restaurant with a gentleman’s strut, pumping the walking cane he had gripped in one hand. “It’s colored red like a lobster… I’m paying homage to the wonder that is Red Lobster.”
“That’s wonderful. A true fan.” The hostess stopped at a booth right by a window. “Here we are.”
Truman removed his top hat and bowed to her politely. “This will be perfect, thank you very much.” Truman slid into the booth. He set the top hat and cane aside. He pulled off his satiny gloves one finger at a time and set them aside as well.
“All comfy?” the hostess asked with a sprinkle of annoyance.
“I think so,” Truman answered.
She handed him one menu. “Enjoy your meal,” she said, and she started to walk away.
“Wait!” Truman called out.
She stopped and turned.
“You didn’t give my friend here a menu.”
The hostess looked at the empty booth seat across from Truman. Then she looked at the wanting grin on Truman’s face. She reluctantly went and placed another menu down on the table. “There you are,” she said with a bitter smirk. “Enjoy.”
Truman opened his menu as if it were a magical book and his eyes ballooned with delight. He began to study it with great interest, saying aloud things like “Oh, now that looks yummy.” And “Oh my, that just looks fantabulous.” And “Good Golly Miss Molly I’ll have that!”
He looked across the table at the ghost lobster who was also flipping through the plastic pages. “What looks good to you?” Truman asked.
“Hmm. Well, I honestly don’t know if I could get myself to eat lobster. That would be kind of weird. Perhaps I would fare better with some popcorn shrimp or fried flounder.”
“Then I would suggest the Sailor’s Platter… Right there on page 4. You even get a couple of sides.”
The lobster ghost chuckled. “Wow. You should work here. You certainly are a positive ambassador for the Red Lobster brand.”
A lightbulb illuminated over Truman’s head. “You know what… You may have just hit the lobster on the head with a lobster mallet. Why did I never think of that!?… Oh. I know why. Because crummy Neptune, Nebraska doesn’t have a Red Lobster!”
The volume of Truman’s voice attracted the attention of other diners and there was a soft ebb and flow of whispers and troubled glances.
“Calm down, Truman. Don’t make a spectacle of yourself.”
“I’m sorry. I just get so god damn pissed off about living in that shit hole town!”
Someone hushed him. “Shhhhhhhhh.”
“Watch your language,” another uptight diner grumbled from some unknown spot in the restaurant.
“Truman. Lower your voice,” the lobster ghost gently pleaded. “And why do you stay in that horrible town anyways? You’re a grown man. Make a change for crying out loud. Have some pride in yourself and take a step forward. Move to Lincoln, Nebraska and get a job at Red Lobster.”
Truman took in a shocked breath and sat back in the booth. “You just blew my mind, my eerie lobster friend. There I was this whole time, rotting away in Neptune, Nebraska, breaking chicken necks and punching a register at some shitty grocery store. There I was, pining over a woman I could never have. A woman who would rather settle for crap. No one ever appreciated me. No one even cared if I existed. And now to think, that I could possibly work here, at Red Lobster. My sails have swelled to full speed ahead.”
“Well, there you are. You have a goal for yourself. A dream to chase.”
A worried look suddenly transformed Truman’s face from glad to sad.
“Now, what’s wrong?” the lobster ghost wanted to know.
“Who am I kidding? I can’t work at Red Lobster.”
“Why not?”
“Because… It’s Red Lobster. It takes years of intense study and training to work at Red Lobster. I just don’t have the credentials.”
The lobster ghost slammed a big claw on the table. “Damn it, Truman. There you go again! You’re always selling yourself short. You don’t need study and training… And you know why?”
“Why?” Truman snapped.
“Because you have passion. And passion for what you do is more important than anything you can learn from a book or a classroom. You have more passion for Red Lobster than anyone I have ever known. They would be lucky to have you. Very lucky indeed.”
Truman smiled and straightened himself in the booth. “You know what. You’re right! I don’t need to settle for my bullshit existence! I’ll blow their balls off with my passion for Red Lobster. I’ll be the best employee Red Lobster has ever had! I’ll do it!”
And just then, as it often does for poor Truman Humboldt, the needle on the record came to a violent, scratching halt when a plump young woman with 80s hair appeared at the table. She had a fake smile plastered within a swampy sea of shiny makeup that made it look as if her face was merely a mask torn from a children’s coloring book about happy clowns.
“Hello there,” she said with a jubilant and annoyingly peppy voice. “Welcome to Red Lobster. My name is Maggie and I’ll have the wonderful pleasure of taking care of you today.”
“Maggie!?” Truman yelped. “Why, isn’t that just dandy as candy!”
Maggie’s demeanor immediately drooped. “Sir? Is there some sort of a problem?”
“Oh, nothing Maggie, don’t mind me. I just recently had my heart thrown into a rusty blender by a wretch of a woman named Maggie. It’s no big deal. I’ll get over it because I have dreams that are far bigger than her. But enough of that, when could me and my friend here get some of those yummy biscuits?”
Maggie the waitress glanced over at the empty side of the booth. She looked frightened. “Your friend, sir?” she said, trying to chuckle. Truman winced as he suddenly realized she resembled the clerk at the car rental counter in the movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. “Gobble. Gobble.”
“Yes, Maggie. He’s sitting right there. Please don’t be rude and ignore him. Perhaps he’d care for a cocktail. Maybe one of those fruity things in the tall glass with the lobster straw. Huh. What do you say to that, pal?” Truman waited for an answer from the lobster ghost. There was none and he looked back at Maggie the waitress. “Apologies for my friend’s behavior. He’s the shy and quiet type. Just bring him one. He’ll drink it. And I’ll have a cranberry Boston iced tea with an orange wedge nestled atop the rim of the glass. Can you handle that, Saggy Maggie!?”
“Absolutely, sir. I’ll get that right away.” She quickly scampered off, feeling small and with her sensitivities crushed, her rising soft sobs bobbing on the air like a buoy in the ocean.
TO BE CONTINUED
By
Aaron Echoes August
To read previous episodes of this story, visit cerealaftersex.com.
Truman Humboldt steered the lobster-red rental car onto Interstate 80 at or about high noon and gunned it east toward the city of Lincoln, Nebraska, but he didn’t really know why.
He shoved his favorite Ocean Sounds CD into the dash and tried to relax, but he found that extremely difficult given his very tense and present circumstances. He thought that a fast drive across the gutless landscape would perhaps do him some good.
Truman ground his teeth together and dug his fingernails into the steering wheel as he accelerated the vehicle, his thoughts of emotional relief quickly shredded by visions of his darling Miss Maggie and the retched Mr. Guldencock locked in their nefarious embraces of lust.
“Cinderella from hell! That’s what you are Miss Maggie!” he screamed, nearly losing control of the vehicle. “I’ll stuff you with a slipper you’ll never forget!”
Truman shakily wiped at his brow with the back of his hand and flipped the nervous sweat away. “I’ll show her! I’ll show her how much more of a man I am than gross Mr. Guldencock!” he shouted out, as the sound of crashing ocean waves dramatically poured out of the car’s speakers.
“And just how are you going to show her, Truman?” came the wispy voice like glowing charcoal waving to Heaven on high. “Are you that much more of a man? Truly? Authentically? Are you anything like a lobster would be in such a situation?”
Truman nearly swerved off the road due to the shocking fright of it all.
“Careful now! You’ll get us both killed,” the haunted voice came again. “Well, at least yourself. I’m already dead,” and there was a laugh like how lobsters would laugh if only they could.
Truman turned to look at the shimmering figure suddenly sitting there in the passenger seat. It was the lobster ghost from the ocean beyond who had visited him at home earlier. It was now dressed in a fancy blue suit over a crisp white shirt with a red tie, a big monstrous claw poking out from the end of each sleeve, spindly feelers coming off a maroon head punctuated by two frightening round eyes the color of the black pearls of pirates. Truman slapped at his own face to clear the hallucination away.
The pale, toothless wedge of a mouth moved when the cold-water phantom spoke. “I’m afraid that will do you no good, Truman. I’m real. I’m here with you now. We’re going to spend the day together. And despite your crushing heartbreak at the hands and mouth and other unspeakable orifices of that evil woman… We are going to have a good time. A very good time.”
Truman’s hands mercilessly gripped the steering wheel as he drove on. “Where are we going?” he asked.
The lobster ghost turned and looked straight ahead. “We’re going straight on to Lincoln, Nebraska.”
“How did I already know that?” Truman asked.
“I’ve sprinkled you with lobster intuition,” the ghost replied.
“What are we going to do in Lincoln?”
“You and I are going to have lunch.”
“Lunch?”
“That’s right. Lunch.”
Truman was overcome with great curiosity now. “Where?”
The lobster ghost turned to him and attempted a smile. “Red Lobster.”
“Red Lobster!” Truman voraciously squealed.
“I can tell that makes you happy. I want you to be happy, Truman.”
“Are you kidding!? Red Lobster is my favorite restaurant of all-time! How could I not be happy about eating at Red Lobster!? But wait…” Truman’s mood suddenly dampened, and he sighed.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t go to Red Lobster looking like this. I’m not dressed for it.” Truman looked down at himself, ashamed. “I look like I just rolled out of a garbage bin after a night of restless dreaming. They won’t even let me in.”
“Nonsense,” the lobster ghost said, and he snapped the tips of one claw together and there was a great poof of under the sea magic and Truman was suddenly transformed.
He looked down at himself in disbelief, nearly losing control of the automobile once more. “A tuxedo!” Truman yelped.
“A tuxedo that makes you look like a lobster… Mostly,” the lobster ghost proudly pointed out. “How do you like the top hat?”
“It’s fucking great!” Truman yelled out. “Do I get to have a cane, too?”
“It’s in the backseat.”
Truman grinned more right then and there than he had in a very, very long time. “I’m so happy I could cry,” Truman said, and he looked down at the protrusion in his crotch. “Wow. I’m experiencing so much personal pleasure right now that I’m stiffer than a narwhal’s spiral tusk,” and he looked over at the crustaceous phantasm. “Thank you. This means a lot to me… More than you could ever know.”
The lobster ghost softly chuckled. “You’ve had a rough ride most of your life, Truman. A rough ride indeed. It’s time you experience some real joy.”
Once off the exit in Lincoln, Nebraska, Truman craned his anxious neck to see the Red Lobster restaurant glowing like a beacon of love to him in the distance. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! I see it!” Truman cried out, his guts gallantly vibrating like golden angels trumpeting atop heavenly clouds.
The traffic was thicker than cold gravy in the retail and restaurant clotted edge of town. Truman grew impatient as they slowly crawled toward the Red Lobster, the purposeful architecture reflecting seaside melodies and nuances as it called to him. Truman could almost taste the salty air; hear the clanging bells of the boats, the gruff voices of sea captains as they smoked pipes in yellow wet gear, and the clattering of lobster traps as they’re stacked on the docks by strong men in brown cable-knit turtleneck sweaters.
Truman honked the car horn, rolled down the window and stuck his head out. “Come on you fuckers! Move it already! I gotta get to Red Lobster!”
“Calm down, Truman,” the lobster ghost gently advised. “We’ll get there soon enough.”
“Ugh. I’m sorry. I just get so frustrated with these brain-dead shopping fools trying to get to Sam’s Club and Best Buy, or wherever, just so they can twaddle their lives away in meaningless materialism. And I’m hungry, and I get very agitated when I’m hungry.”
The chariots rode into town blaring trumpets and waving spider webs like white, cotton kites and the soldier watched the cheering crowd all smiling with blood on their teeth and scriptures dripping from their curled fists and the soldier felt as empty as wind when he jumped off the back and made his way through the blistering crowd their eyes vacant, their hearts rattling with ice everyone was like a bee sting clawing and banded amber jewels wearing spears and hammocks on their backs in which to swing above a lazy flower before the dark stones fall from the sky and Jesus is riding a missile spreading handfuls of love dust across the widening gap of mankind and he plants the point of the missile right into the dirt lot of the Cactus Gin a splintering roadhouse joint on a desert road a long, spindly caramel kiss warmed and running across the bourbon asphalt the mellow yellow of factories glows like a foggy harbor veiled in red velvet and the broken bulbs of the Cactus Gin marquee still flash, the craggy edges are crusted black the little heartbeat light flickers like a sick Christmas tree and inside… floating malnutrition backward evolution noise pollution
And the son of God ordered a whiskey and smiled at the people he created as they danced and fought and loved, cried and laughed and ached… to the slow grind of a melancholy jukebox and he brought with him an angel one with a rhombus head and stunted wings and the angel was singing the grief of all she suffered on her leash and a weepy guitar began to groan in the corner Jesus was singing a song about peace and love and the congregation began to throw beer bottles at him and Jesus spoke into the mic… “Oh great. Here we go again.” But he took the blows with harmony, nibbled the glass between his teeth as he sang weaving tanglewood hopes through the vibrating cave.
And the madness began to settle as he curled before the window the soldier was home but shaking he was upset about the killing he had done his wife a dozen miles away on sleepers the children were slaves the plays were robbing their minds of any moral foundation the madness had spun out of control to the point of consensual acceptance like morphine in your I-V the slow drip of horror shows gone real and fishing down by the river was no longer notated in the wired almanac as simply two boys and a bucket of worms a shingle thatched roof crowning a famous whitewashed bait and tackle shop glows in the background like a slice of warm care or apple pie with vanilla ice cream on top cinnamon showgirls lifting their skirts and squirting you with a city sweet… that’s life with those eyes, what is this undecipherable want?
Content warning: Adult situations. You’ve been alerted.
Truman Humboldt parked his rental car around the corner from the house that delicious Maggie Barrymore lived in. He admired himself one last time in the rear-view mirror to double check that he still looked like a man fox. He felt he surely did. He retrieved some breath spray from a pocket and filled his mouth with a few sparkly squirts. It was a burning peppermint flavor of fireworks and Truman made a face and flopped his tongue around like it tasted bad.
“I wish they would make some lobster-flavored breath spray,” he said aloud to himself. “Why does the world never do anything right? This stuff is cooky and brutal.”
He was beaming with confidence when he got out of the car and walked toward her house, the bottle of wine cradled in his arm, his triangular chin up, the organic maca working through his bloodstream. The day was beginning to darken and there was an ocean fresh breeze in the air despite the closest ocean being about 1,399 miles away. Truman stopped for a moment to take a deep breath and admire the world around him. “Life is absolutely beautiful,” he exhaled. “And it’s all because of love… And lobsters.”
But once Truman got closer to the house, the needle on the record violently slipped off, the world tilted, and his heartbeat began to bang like a golden gong inside his chest. There was a car that wasn’t hers parked in the driveway, and for some strange reason, it looked vaguely familiar to him.
Truman moved closer and ducked behind a tree in the yard. He creepily peered out from around the rough bark and saw that there were some lights coming on in the house. He snuck up closer, then closer, then closer still, moving like a lobster ninja, until he was crouched down in some bushes beneath a big window at the front of the house. His heart was beating more out of control, and he feared he was having a heart attack right there, and his entire body began to flush with electric warmth, like hot wasp stings. His multiple nervous and emotional conditions were becoming his worst enemy once again. He tried to breathe slowly and calm himself. He muttered a soothing mantra: “Lobster is life, life is lobster, lobster is life, life is lobster…”
Then his momentary meditation was interrupted by noises coming from the house. He strained to hear. Yes, they were noises, people noises. There was some muffled talking, and there was the voice of a man, a strangely familiar voice. Then Truman heard playful giggling, laughing. And then it was quiet. Truman slowly moved up from the cover of the bushes, like a perverted submarine periscope penetrating the surface of the water, and he carefully peeked in the unshaded window.
And what he saw there made his eyes spiral in angry madness like a psychotic clown. He gulped and began to shake as he witnessed his beautiful Maggie Barrymore locked in a passionate kiss with his ex-boss, the man who had treated him so cruelly and just recently fired him from his cashier job at the Neptune Pop-In Shop Food Market. Yes, it was indeed, the distasteful Mr. Guldencock. It was gross Mr. Mustard.
Truman nearly vomited right there as he watched Miss Maggie grip his oily and sweaty head in her luxurious hands as she sloppily ate his face as if it were an ice cream cone. He continued to watch with sickening delight somehow as they began to grope and tug at each other. Clothes were now beginning to come off. Miss Maggie impatiently shed her top and undid her bra. Truman’s eyes widened like a cartoon rabbit as her intelligent breasts spilled forth. Mr. Guldencock reached out and touched them like a grinning pervert. Then he stood, frantically undid his belt, and let his polyester grocery store work pants drop to the floor. He then pulled off his shirt as well, wildly messing up his stringy hair and revealing a bulbous and fuzzy body punctuated with the most nauseating areolas Truman had ever seen on a human being.
“Oh, God,” Truman painfully moaned, and he gritted his teeth to keep from screaming, but his soul was screaming just as loudly from within the shocking cathedrals of his bones. “How can this be? How can she possibly be doing this? He’s so disgusting. Vile. Why would she crush my poor heart like this? And with him of all people. Him! Why Miss Maggie!? Why!?”
And when Mr. Guldencock finally presented her with his oversized tube of spicy, mechanically formed discount bologna, Truman watched in wretched angst as his love princess dropped to her knees and took an open-wide taste of him as if she were hungrily devouring a sandwich at a New York City deli. Mr. Guldencock’s ugly skull flopped back in ecstasy as he palmed the top of her head and thrust forward with his hips.
Truman’s battered existence on Earth could take no more, and he turned away, pressing a hand against his belly to hold back the sickness, tears welling up in his swollen eyes. When he went back up for one final and devastating peek, even though he knew he would forever regret it, there she was, now lying back on the couch and open to him, inviting him to enter. Mr. Guldencock’s blubbery body was hovering over her, ready to haphazardly bounce on her pristine flesh like a bloated white whale in desperate need of salty water.
Boiling tears of deep sadness began to roll down Truman’s cheeks like Indiana Jones boulders as he watched Mr. Guldencock’s face twist in obscene gestures of pleasure as he played plumber and plunged her like a clogged sink — the ol’ in and out, in and out, in and out, Miss Maggie howling away like a she wolf beneath a midnight moon — and Truman could finally take no more, he couldn’t handle the salacious scene of ultimate betrayal and he popped away and ran down the sidewalk, angrily pitching the bottle of wine into someone’s yard.
Truman became truly physically ill and rushed to the curb and threw up in the street, shaking, spitting, dripping. Once he righted his own mutinied ship of emotions, he made his way back to the car and drove off into the newborn night with a reckless and hysterical screaming fury.
The next day was Saturday and Truman stayed in bed, but he didn’t sleep much, he just achingly laid there in a crooked, drooling, and disheveled mess and stared at his lobster-shaped ceiling fan — the blades resembling big lobster claws — and his brain whirled along with them as they hypnotically spun and spun and spun above him. No matter how hard he tried, he could not erase the images of Miss Maggie Barrymore and Mr. Guldencock, together like that in moist, physical love. Mr. Guldencock? Mr. Mustard? How could she? He just couldn’t comprehend it. He tossed and turned in his sweaty sheets until his mind and body finally broke and he dozed off in the darkness for good.
And then after the hours turned over and over on themselves, the sun finally broke through and it was Sunday morning, and everything was quiet, yet so hurtful. The night had been long and filled with tortured dreams of wayward lust. Truman peeled himself from the crinkled sheets of melancholy and catatonically walked into the kitchen and prepared himself a bowl of delicious Froot Loops. He sat at the kitchen table and stared out the window at the ever-brightening morning as he slowly crunched and munched, the emotional pain reverberating in the fruity rings like bombarded Saturn in space.
“Froot Loops! Froot Loops! Froot Loops!” he screamed out when the turbulent hurt bubbled and boiled over, and he tossed the bowl of cereal against a window, and it made a milky mess as it dripped down the glass. Truman’s head dropped heavily upon the table, and he sobbed uncontrollably for a long time, that is until a red-skinned lobster ghost penetrated the walls, tapped him on the shoulder and whispered something unsettling in his ear, the sound and feel of it being like the cold ocean full of madness.
TO BE CONTINUED
By
Aaron Echoes August
In case you missed it, you can read the previous part of this story HERE.
For some reason the cement tasted like butterscotch pudding when I got shoved to the sidewalk, face hitting first, teeth bent, nose shoved to one side, forehead gashed, and the worst of it… Eyebrows completely scraped off, now two little brown caterpillars on the sidewalk dying in the morning sun.
When I got up and brushed myself off, the people streaming by in both directions stared at me. Some pointed and laughed, others showed disgust. Not a single person stopped to make sure I was okay. Not one. Even with blood trickling down my face. As usual.
It was the morning, and I was hungry and had been on my way to the bagel shop for some breakfast like I often do when I get shoved to the ground. I was aching and banged up and without any eyebrows, but I was still hungry, nonetheless. I decided I would carry on with my plans and go into the bagel shop anyways. They have a chocolate chip bagel there that will blow your balls off. Of course, with all my other injuries, I suppose I didn’t really need to have my balls blown off, too.
I found some fast-food wrapping paper discarded in a nearby trash bin and cleaned myself up as best I could. Then I made my way to the bagel shop, my stomach growling. The place was packed, as usual. I stood in the lengthy queue, craning my neck to see if Cliff was working beyond the throng somewhere. It was crowded and noisy and I could tell people were looking at me and mumbling things that I am sure weren’t flattering at all as I stood there looking like humanity’s most puzzling freak. As usual.
Cliff was a longtime counter clerk at the bagel shop, and he was nice to me. If I ordered a medium coffee, he’d make it a large. If I ordered one bagel, he would slip me another one for free. He looked at me funny sometimes, too, like he was in love with me or something. Maybe that’s why he gave me extra coffee and bagels. I was okay with all that for sure, but I just wanted to be friends.
Cliff was short. He was the shortest person who worked at the bagel shop. I always wanted to ask him if he fell under some sort of special classification of very short people, but I never did because I figured he’d get pissed off about that. His shortness is the reason why I always have to put in the extra effort to see if he’s around. I don’t really care if he’s that short, but maybe he does. He’s loud, too. I suppose he’s trying to make up for being short. It’s like he screams everything he says or thinks whoever he’s talking to is horribly hard of hearing. If I don’t see him, I can usually hear him.
“Hey, Ernie!” he called out when he had finally caught sight of me. He had a big grin on his squarish concrete face, colored a smooth peppery gray because of a recent clean, close shave.
I raised my hand and smiled to acknowledge him, but I didn’t yell anything like he did because I’m just not that type of a person. When I finally got my turn at the counter, Cliff looked up at me and made a face. “Jesus Christ! What the hell happened to you!?” he screamed over the din of the crowded bagel shop. “Did you get in a fight with a lawnmower!?”
I laughed about that. “No. I didn’t get in a fight with a lawnmower, Cliff. That would probably prove to be fatal. No. I got shoved down out on the sidewalk.”
“Shoved down!? Why!?”
“The city’s a crowded and animalistic place, Cliff. Someone was in a big hurry or maybe running from the cops. I just don’t know. Guess I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Cliff scoffed and reached into the case for two chocolate chip bagels without even asking me. He knew what I liked. “And what the hell happened to your eyebrows!?” Cliff wanted to know as he shook a small white paper bag open and dropped in the bagels. He curled the top of the bag with his fingers and set it up on the display case. “It makes you look like a freak without any eyebrows!”
I chuckled even though I was embarrassed. “Yeah. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that. I hope eyebrows grow back.”
Cliff looked at his co-workers who were scrambling all around him. “Do any of you guys know if eyebrows grow back!?” he shouted to them.
A tall young woman with red hair and a pale face who wore far too much makeup stopped and touched at her own eyebrows as she thought about it. “I think eyebrows grow back.” She looked at me and made a face like she was super grossed out. “God. For your sake, I hope eyebrows grow back.”
“I mean, come on, it’s hair right,” Cliff said. “Hair grows back, so, yeah, eyebrows should grow back. Don’t worry about it, Ernie. Hey, hey. Maybe you could take one of those crayons the ladies use to draw on their eyebrows… What’s it called?” he said, snapping his fingers as he thought about it, and he looked at the tall redhead with too much makeup. “Come on, Sally Sue. You should know this.”
“It’s not a crayon. It’s called an eyebrow pencil,” the pale Sally Sue said, shaking her head like Cliff was a real idiot.
Cliff pointed at me and grinned. “There ya go. An eyebrow pencil. Get yourself an eyebrow pencil.”
I shook my head for a moment as I considered it. I reached for my bag atop the display case and sighed. “I don’t think I want to wear makeup. That’s sort of weird. And just going into some place and buying makeup. That’s really weird.”
Cliff chuckled. “Weird? Hell, Ernie, anything would be better than how you look right now.” He handed me a large coffee.
“Cream and sugar?” I asked to make sure. I must have cream and sugar. As usual.
He winked at me. “I got you covered, my friend.”
“Thanks. I’m going to go sit down now and maybe read the newspaper or just stare dreamily out the window as the city slides by like corpuscles in human blood. See you later, Cliff.”
Cliff gave me a friendly wave. “Take care, Ernie.”
There is order There is disorder There are purgative drugs And there are clouds to sleep on
It was a day that was easy to dance to It had a beat and a really good rhythm with the angel ship standing there like she was some great gift slipped directly from God’s palms and she didn’t even begin to sing she just stood there a microcosm a star a California thread beating down my doors with her eyes and a long highway lust stretched as taut as the yellow line from which she had just begun the long-toed tip toe with valleys of grain whipping by her temples fast as light and she waved goodbye to her scar tissue as it flew out the window and died in the past for now all she had before her was the whitest milk and the blackest nights snuggling a cold mattress reeling in the chill of it all as does he
My chorus ran through the checkpoint my liver was aching something fierce on that Arizona wideband that Calypso horizon swimming like a fish across the rusty pinnacles sprinkled with salt and I dreamt of snuffing it and devil tattoos calling to me from the other side and I begged for the lush of some green island adventure with vodka and bright vegetables canopies on wheels and jalopies with no steel a theater show for the man on his homemade bed peering out a broken window watching all the wealth rain down on him and he was indeed the meek and all he wanted anymore was to inherit the Earth she being queen sun and he being king moon and he would lay out carpets of stars for her so she could step over the puddles of empty space ever so elegantly and precious like a newborn baby kept clean and pure behind a bell jar of kaleidoscopic glass
He stepped on the white, feathery scorpion and it played the tune of a harp when it squealed and he wondered if he were in Heaven rolling snake eyes and sin across green velvet lawns sprinkled by the belch of a crisp hose he pondered fame he pondered glitter he pondered perfection and the price you pay for not living what you feel when all is a cool, light, tapping reverberation and your soul feels as empty as some wicker basket beside a raging river run dry think of the music inside you think of what smells good think of letting go and feeling for once with that wrecked soul
He was playing a baby grand cigar crunched between his teeth the whole of NYC bouncing around in his eyes and he looked around at the clean carpet and all his plush interior and he felt as dirty as a slaughtered lamb he was too cold to think and too hot to cool down with ice he was wrapped up in all the fornication society was performing in front of him and he climbed out the window and started to fly like some great bird startled free from a bush all around the world he soared like a rollercoaster of flesh and all he saw was her standing there with her small feet planted firmly on the long, yellow line
He dropped the porcelain figure on the highway it was crushed by large wheels and scattered amongst the tacky asphalt and cryptic road kill so he knew now it would be a mad journey to hell and back with an English girl and an American man and he rolled her on the dandelions in some London park and they ate squares of cool, orange Jell-O making glasses out of them and seeing the world through a wobbly, blood-stained sepia glaze the antiqued film made them sentimental the statues and cobblestone had a look like one would find on Mars not the planet, but the god’s personal person and he pulled out a slide and the world was indeed an orange hue and the English girl and the American man never wanted to leave London in the summertime
And he steered his teary-eyed red rabbit near Joseph City, Arizona gunning it hard toward Gallup and the museum of green pharmaceuticals but the meditation gave him a vision
Like a small film painted on the cold, white wall of a motel room and this particular film taught him about writing letters and the waste of getting wasted because he knew the angel would return in one form or another and she’d be happily holding out a plastic platter filled with jars of glass eyes swimming like fireflies
Sometimes a man gets too sad to breathe, too sad to see, to sad to sit or stand or fall or lie down. Sometimes a man gets too sad to eat or drink or wish upon a star or look at Mars or hang out in the underworld of Old West bars in a time without cars but only scars from the red sun, the blue mountains, the green sky and all its hearts popping like balloons over a river down in the snug of some psycho cult compound where the women bake pies and wash babies and the men shoot arrows and ride horses and build flying machines to some other astral plane.
He stood at the end of a long narrow hallway on the 19th floor of a tall building in the middle of a city that bustled far too much for any man. At the opposite end of the long hall was a rectangular window that reached nearly to the ceiling. From where he stood on the other end of the hall, he could see the blue sky and a few white clouds that skittered by like marshmallows thrown into the air by an unsettled and spoiled child.
The man took a deep breath and then ran down the hall as fast as he could, he ran straight for that window because he wanted to burst through the glass and just fly like some great bird or a spaceship untethered to any sort of gravity. He wanted to fly into the ozone and beyond, he wanted to fly so he could escape the mundane and the worthless and the obsolete and the unloving hands of whoever was in the bed that month. He wanted to fly to Sri Lanka or Yemen or maybe all the way to Pluto in space and beyond, to waterfall stars and deep blood blue oceans with fish that glowed like neon and maybe somehow smoked magical cigars.
The man worked an incredibly boring job in a very boring office in that tall building and he had excused himself from his boring cubicle. He told them all that he needed some air for just a moment. He told them he was sick of looking at the computer screen and talking about complete worthless bullshit on the telephone with people who were assholes. They had all turned in their cubicles to look at him, but just for a moment because they lost interest in everything so quickly. It was five seconds later and not one of them gave a damn what he was going to do next. They didn’t even watch him walk out into the hallway one last time. No one even bothered to say goodbye.
And as the man ran down that hallway toward the window and his attempt at flight, he screamed at the top of his lungs. He screamed something wild and unintelligible. It was just an angry scream, a heated spew of pent-up frustration, layers of it, his angst could be measured in geologic time, each layer another chapter in the circus, a flash in a pan, a long, drawn-out nightmare in the sun, trying to choke down a dry chicken sandwich at a Sonic Drive-In in a land of vapors and ghosts and green pulse lines of a failing heart. One failing heart after another. One more parking lot rung by a black chain-link fence. One more iced tumbler sweating in the corner of a lonely midnight of some hotel garden.
He hit the glass at full speed. It did not break. He bounced off it like a beach ball against a man made of ice. It threw him back and down onto the floor with a thud and a grunt. He just stayed there on the carpet, that real flat carpet that one would see in an office, a wild pattern of colors like purple and wine, or green and blood. His heart was pounding. He was trying to catch his breath as he looked up at the boring, meaningless ceiling. The man heard the far-off ding of the elevator at the other end of the hall, like falling into the precipice of a dream when going to sleep. He thought he heard someone coming toward him, he could nearly feel the vibrations of someone’s polished shoes flowing beneath him, scratching his back. It was a soft thundering vibrato through the ornate fibers, burrowing like the flushing evil of a corpse god. Then there was someone standing over him, looking down at him. He could hear him breathing and thinking. It was a man in a very fancy suit, and he was holding a briefcase and chewing gum like some high ferocious prick. He looked rich and successful, well-polished, nearly perfect, everything life wanted out of someone.
“Are you okay down there?” the man in the suit asked, blue eyes blinking in perfect rhythm to the heartbeat of a dripping wet jungle a million miles away. “Did you have a stroke or something?”
The man on the floor of the hallway looked up at him and sighed. “No. I’m fine. But why does this glass never break?”
The other man took a moment to look at the window. He went over to it and touched it, examined it like a gynecologist or architect. “It’s designed not to break. But I don’t know why. You would think people would want it to break… You know, in case of a fire or something. It might even be bulletproof considering the thickness of it.”
The man in the suit knelt beside the man on the floor, smiling like an idiot, still smacking his gum. “If you’re trying to do yourself in,” he said in a whisper. “Why don’t you just go up to the roof and jump from there.”
“I’m not trying to do myself in,” the man on the floor protested. “I just want to get out of here. It’s awful.”
The other man stood back up and looked down at the man on the floor. “You mean you just want to get out of here? Out of the building?”
The man on the floor propped himself up on his elbows. “I suppose that’s right. I hate it here. The job is awful. The people are awful. Everything is awful.”
“That’s why they call it work. It’s not meant to be pleasurable.”
“You seem happy enough.”
“I’m not, though. I’m just pretending like everyone else does. No one is happy in this glass cage doing the bidding of the gods that aren’t even gods. But we do it anyways. That’s just life, friend.”
“It’s not a life I want,” the man on the floor insisted. “I just ended up here… And I don’t even know how I let it happen.”
“That’s right. It’s designed to work this way,” the man in the suit said as if he knew everything about life and perhaps designed it all himself. “We’ve been conditioned to it for eons. There’s no escape. All you can do is just get through it.”
Then he reached out a clean and perfectly manicured hand toward the man on the floor and helped him to his feet. They looked at each other. “I have to get back to work,” the man in the suit quickly made clear, and he turned his head and looked at a large brown door. “In there. I hope you have a better day, friend.” He smiled and went through the large brown door. It closed with a heavy click. The hall was silent and lonely again.
The other man, the one who had tried to jump out the unbreakable window, slowly walked back to the far end of the hall where the elevators and the entrance to his office were. As he walked, he reflected on his entire existence. It went quickly. He was terribly bothered by that. He was bothered by the insignificance of it all.
When he got to the opposite end, he took a deep breath, turned, and ran down the hall toward the same window again. This time the glass shattered when he struck it, and he flew like a magical bird for just a few euphoric moments before hitting the sidewalk and breaking for good.
CEREAL AFTER SEX 