CEREAL AFTER SEX

The Doll Salon (Pt. 4)

Mature Content Warning: The following contains language that may be offensive to some readers. You’ve been advised.

The Rejectionists

Feldon felt like crawling into the eye of God and setting the world on fire as he climbed the stairs to his apartment. When he reached his floor, the hall was empty. He could hear a television blaring and some people arguing behind a few of the closed doors. There was always too much noise, he complained inside his own mind. Too much noise. Too much rattling around.

He put the key inside his lock and turned it, pushed the door open, and clicked on a light. Carl was still asleep on the couch, but his eyes were wide and there was that ever-present grin —like a crooked car salesman. He went into the bedroom and turned on a lamp there. Eve was still sitting in the chair beside his bed. He went over to her and kissed her gently on the cheek.

“Hello dear,” he said. “How are you? You and Carl haven’t been up to any nastiness, have you?”

He glanced at his rumpled bed, and it looked the same as when he left, yet he still wondered.

“I suppose you haven’t made any dinner, have you?” Feldon asked her. “No, I didn’t think so. Don’t you realize I’m hungry?”

It was then that the phone in the other room began to ring, and it startled him.

“Who on earth could be calling me?” he wondered, and then he went to answer.

“Hello?”

“Hello. May I speak with Feldon Fairtz please?”

“This is Feldon.”

“Hi Feldon. It’s Shirley, Shirley Humpsley from the Fifth Avenue Doll Salon.”

Feldon grew excited. “Oh yes. Hello! How are you?”

“I’m well, thank you. I was just calling as a courtesy to let you know that we have gone ahead and hired another candidate for the position here.”

“What?” Feldon said, suddenly deflated.

“We’ve hired someone else for the position, Feldon. Like I said, as a courtesy, we reach out to our other candidates to let them know. We feel it’s the right thing to do so you can carry on with your job search without wondering if you’ll ever hear from us. It’s standard practice.”

“So, I didn’t get the job?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“But, why? What did I do wrong?”

“Nothing, Feldon. We just feel the person we hired had the strongest set of skills that matched our needs. Please don’t take it personally.”

Feldon grew angry over the phone. “But I have a very specific set of skills, Mrs. Humpsley! And strong skills they are! I am very talented, and I think this is absolute bullshit that you have decided not to hire me. It’s because I’m a man, isn’t it?”

“Please Mr. Fairtz, there’s no need to get nasty with me and use foul language. And our decision in no way reflects on your gender… Or anyone else’s.”

“Of course not, of course not, of course not!” Feldon repeated in anger. “It’s all straight talk and legit, isn’t it Shirley. It’s all politically so damn correct and sterilized corporate wise and all nauseating too. Well, I’m not buying it. This is a crock of crap, and I demand to speak to your supervisor!”

“Look here, Mr. Fartz!”

“It’s FAIRTZ!”

“I don’t care what it is!” Mrs. Humpsley snapped back in snappy black girl style. “I will not be talked to in this way, and if you ask me, Fartz fits you perfectly because you’re one hell of an asshole! Our decision is final, and I have nothing else to say to you. Goodnight, sir!”

She hung up.

Feldon held the cordless receiver away from his face and glared at it.

“I’ll get my lawyer you fucking bitch!” he screamed. “You violated my rights as a person! You assaulted me with words! Cruel words!”

He was breathing hard. His heart was racing. The phone was empty, and he suddenly flung it across the room, and it struck a picture of his dead parents that was hanging on the wall and it fell and broke. He turned to look at Carl. He was grinning chiseled mad, mocking him in mime.

“What the fuck are you looking at!?” Feldon screamed. “I just had a bit of trouble with a prospective employer. Nothing serious, Carl. Just look away. Please. Just look away from me!”

Feldon shuffled to the kitchen, reached into a cabinet for a glass and filled it with water at the sink. His hand shook violently as he brought the glass to his mouth and drank. It slipped from his hand, fell to the floor, and shattered.

“God damn it!” Feldon screamed. “Everything I touch turns into a disaster!”

He shuffled to the couch and collapsed into it. He leaned forward and put his face in his hands and started crying.

His face was wet with tears and his nose was stuffed when he reached for the box of facial tissues, yanked a couple out, and blew.

“God damn it,” he mumbled. “God damn it all to hell. It’s falling apart, Carl.” He turned to the mannequin, still half reclined on the couch beside him. “Do you hear me? I’m falling apart you son of a bitch. Don’t you care?”

There was no answer of course, just a wide, plastic grin and factory fresh eyes millions of miles away.

Feldon stood up quickly.

“Fine! Be that way, you prick! You may not give a damn about me and my life, but I’m sure Eve does. Oh, I know she does. See, she loves me. That’s right, Carl. We’re in love. And you better stop trying to fuck her or I swear I’ll kill you!”

Feldon stormed off to his bedroom and slammed the door.

He clicked on a lamp near his bed and the room was illuminated in a stormy, dreary kind of way. He knelt on the floor before Eve in her chair, touched her smooth, plastic hand and then looked up to her painted eyes of crystalline green.

“Eve, my darling. Gosh I’ve had a rough night. I was hoping that, just maybe, you’d be willing to lie in my bed with me tonight.”

He paused to study her reaction, holding the fabric of her dress to his face to smell it and wipe his damp skin.

“No, no, no,” Feldon reassured her as he patted her hand. “Nothing sexual. I just want to be close to you in my darkest time of need.”

He used his fingertips to move his hair back and craned his ear toward her.

“Of course I won’t be naked,” Feldon shyly answered. “I’ll wear my favorite pajamas. You know, the ones with the monkeys riding the trains. They must be circus monkeys, yes, circus monkeys, don’t you think?”

Then he giggled oddly.

“But of course, if you want to be naked, I won’t complain — not one bit.”

Feldon grinned, stood up and took Eve by the waist. He lifted her and took her to the bed, laid her down, and covered her with a sheet and blanket. Feldon stared down at her. Eve’s eyes were staring straight up at him.

“You look lovely,” he said to her.

Feldon quickly went to the other side of the room, stripped down and changed into the pajamas. He went into the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and swished mouthwash. He clicked off the bathroom light. Then he clicked off the little lamp by his bed and crawled in beneath the covers beside her. His heart was slightly pounding. He turned his head and tried to see her in the darkness, hoping his eyes would quickly adjust.

“Eve?” he whispered.

He reached to grasp her hand.

“I love you,” he softly said. “Eve? Did you hear me? I love you.”

It was silent except for the sound of a slow drip in the bathroom sink and the humming of traffic outside the windows. He propped himself up on his elbow at her side and reached out in the darkness. He held his hand just slightly above her nose and mouth. He felt nothing and then suddenly felt very alone and empty.

“Are you holding your breath?” he whispered to her. “Eve?”

He moved his face close to hers and gently rubbed his cheek against hers. “Oh Eve, why are you so cold to me? Is it Carl? Do you love Carl?”

He closed his eyes and fumbled in the darkness to find her mouth with his own. He awkwardly pressed his lips against hers and there was no reciprocation. He pulled back, ashamed and hurt.

He threw the covers off himself in frustration and moved to sit on the edge of the bed. He pawed at his face and ran his fingers through his mussed hair of pale cherry. Then there was a light tapping at the bedroom door and he snapped his neck in that direction. His heart began to pound uncontrollably. The light tapping came again.

“Who’s there?” Feldon called out through the darkness. “Carl? Is that you? Can’t you just leave us alone? Ever!”

The tapping turned to a harder knock, then a pounding. The door began to rattle in its frame. Feldon hurled himself out of the bed and yanked the door open. Carl was standing there with his high eyes and wide grin and his fist held up in the air, fixed to pound. He was illuminated from behind by the glow of the television from the other room. There was loud talking and then gunfire rattling from the speakers.

Feldon squinted. “Damn it all, Carl! I told you to leave us alone! And turn the television down!”

The mannequin’s fist suddenly shot forward and clubbed Feldon right in the face. He stumbled backward and clumsily fell to the floor. He suddenly felt dizzy and nauseous and then everything went dark and silent.

TO BE CONTINUED

By
Aaron Echoes August
Child of the Cabbage (Ep. 5)

A bastard chill struck a prophecy of a coming autumn as Astron Puffin sat on a fallen tree deep in the woods. He was looking down at his small but thick hands. He turned them slowly before him, and it was hard to imagine that those were the same hands used to crush their throats. But he had to do it, he rationalized, or their fate could have been much worse.

He remembered the day the strange men had come to his cabbage farm in their protective suits and told him they were there to shut everything down. They went into the house and destroyed all the pipes and cut all the wires. He remembered how they talked about the jail maximus and how it was burning and how all the lions were escaping from the zoo. There was so much chaos. Everything was falling apart. Then they just kept coming back and taking his wife and daughter behind closed doors — locked closed doors. He tried to shake the sounds of the thumping walls and their cries from his head.

Astron yelled out in the silence — hoping the bad vibes would shoot out of his soul like an exorcism. He looked up and the trees looked down. He saw the mustard-stained blue sky interwoven with the scraggly branches. And then the ship appeared again, to do its analyzing of a world it could no longer save. Astron watched the red-glowing disc hover slowly and silently above. There were quick, bright flashes — like old time flashcubes on those cameras that used film. He wondered if the visitors, these immortal observers, would suck him up again into the belly of their craft. He half-hoped they had never returned him to Earth as he bowed his head and waited to become weightless. But then, just as they had smoothly and silently appeared, they vanished. A crow berated him from a nearby branch, and then it too flew away. Perhaps every other living being in the universe had given up hope on man.

Astron suddenly remembered and reached into his pocket and pulled out Gracelyn’s drawing. It might give him a sense of purpose and peace, he thought, as he carefully unfolded it and then held it before his eyes. He would go to her again, he decided, even if she still rejected him as a friend, or a guardian. If the strange men in the protective suits ever came back, it would be better if she wasn’t alone — it would be better if he wasn’t alone as well.

Gracelyn was in a sleepy daze on the old living room couch when the knocking started. She had been halfway dreaming of meandering through the throngs of people on the streets of Paris during the French Revolution — or maybe it was merely a conscious memory. She darted straight up and listened as the knocking became more persistent, trying to figure out where exactly it was coming from. Her head turned toward the front door and she got up and stood before it. Dead and gone loneliness floated in the morning gray-gold cloud filtering into the foyer from brightening spaces throughout. She watched as the door rattled slightly with each pound of someone’s fist.

“Who is it!?” she said, a threatening tone in her voice.

The knocking stopped and there was a brief silence before he spoke.

“Astron Puffin. From the school.”

“I’m not going to class today. I don’t feel well…. So, you can’t force me to go. I’ll make up my work later.”

“I’m not here to make you go to school.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I can protect you,” Astron offered.

“Protect me from what?”

“You know what. The things of this new world.”

Gracelyn paused for a moment, thought about it. “I don’t need your protection. I’m very capable of taking care of myself.”

“You’re a young girl… Alone.”

“And I’ve done just fine for myself, haven’t I.”

“You’ve been lucky.”

“Luck has nothing to do with it,” Gracelyn snapped. “I’m smart. I’m resourceful. I’m strong. Probably stronger than you.”

“Do we have to talk through the door like this?” Astron looked about the grounds around him, thinking he felt something, someone in the air. “I’d rather be inside if it’s all the same to you.”

Gracelyn moved toward the door, stood on her tiptoes, and brushed aside the curtain that covered a small window. She looked out at him. Astron smiled. Then she unlocked the door and let him in.

Astron looked around the old farmhouse as she led him to the living room. He pulled off his knit cap with the long point that hung over to one side of his head, a puffy ball on the tip.

“You can sit there,” the girl said, pointing to the couch. “I don’t have much, but would you like an apple?”

Astron nodded. “I can’t believe you live in this big old house by yourself,” he said to her as she trailed off to the kitchen.

“Why can’t you believe it?” she asked as she returned to the room and presented him the apple. He took it, rubbed it against his shirt, and bit into it.

“All the space. All the memories,” he said as he chewed the apple, a bit of juice leaking from his mouth. “I couldn’t wrap my head around it.”

She sat down on the couch, but as far away from his as she could be. “I’m used to it. I’ve been doing it for a long time.”

“How long?” he wanted to know.

She pressed her lips tightly together and considered the question. “A lot longer than you could imagine.”

“Why don’t you like me?” Astron asked point blank.

She looked at him, puzzled by what he said. “It’s not a matter if I like you or not. It’s a matter of survival. I barely know you… And why are you being so forceful about this friendship thing, or whatever it is you’re searching for.”

“You let me in… So, you must trust me, at least a little bit.”

“Have you been here before?”

Astron looked at her but didn’t immediately answer.

“You have, haven’t you?”

“No,” Astron assured her. “I haven’t.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out her drawing. He unfolded it, laid it out on the table before them and tried to smooth it out with his hands.

“Why do you have my drawing?” Gracelyn asked. “Why did you take it?”

“I like it. It brings me some sort of peace… It helped me find you. Here.”

Gracelyn stood up, angry. “You had no right to take that! It was for my art class, and I was going to be graded on it. Now I’ll fail! I’ll fail because of you!” She snatched her drawing from the table. “And now look at it. You’ve made a mess of it! I’ll probably have to do another.”

“You’re all alone at that school, don’t you realize that?” Astron blurted out, raising his voice to her for the very first time. “There is no school anymore. There are no other students or teachers or anyone. It’s an empty building full of ghosts.”

Gracelyn looked at him, her eyes wide and on the verge of being wet. “I want you to leave.”

Astron sighed, clasped his thick hands against his thighs, and got up. “I’m sorry to have bothered you,” he breathed. He turned back to her before he got to the door. “If you need anything, you can come find me. Even if you don’t want to.”

“I won’t need you… For anything.”

“I’ll be at the school if you change your mind.”

Astron tugged on the front door and went out. She went to the open doorway and watched him walk away. He threw the apple off to his left side, like he was skipping a stone across an unmuddied lake, before a bright light appeared in the sky, and in half of a blink of an eye, he suddenly vanished.

TO BE CONTINUED

By
Aaron Echoes August
The Doll Salon (Pt. 3)

The Psychiatrist

Dr. Frost was sitting in a chair across from Feldon and flipping through a file. He clicked a pen and scribbled something down. He was dressed in a shirt and tie and perfectly pressed pants. His shoes shined like the gates of Heaven. He was a man in his late 40s with a neatly bearded face and a high forehead with thinning dark hair slicked back over his scalp. He wore expensive glasses over his dark eyes and constantly sipped at lemon water during the sessions.

Dr. Frost was a serious man who seemed continuously annoyed at the less intelligent world that surrounded him. The doctor carried himself with an air of self-importance; he was a product of wealth and the best schooling, but it did him no favors because he was often looked upon by his colleagues as snobbish and close-minded. He had been trying to help Feldon for months now but was dismayed and often bored by his lack of progress. In fact, he felt Feldon was getting worse each time they met. The doctor folded his hands in his lap, cleared his throat and nodded his head with a fake grin.

“Are you ready to begin?” he asked in a firm yet soft tone.

Feldon was lying on the comfortable couch and staring up at the white ceiling.

“Yes.”

“How have things been since we last talked?”

“I got into a fight with Carl last night. I hit him.”

Dr. Frost readjusted himself in the chair and leaned in with some interest. How absolutely exciting, he thought to himself.

“Why did you hit him?”

“He was annoying me.”

“How?”

“It’s just every time I try to get close to Eve, he’s always right there. He’s always getting in the way.”

The doctor clicked his pen again and jotted something down in the file.

“I seem to recall that you had talked about asking Carl to move out. Maybe it’s time to do that. It sounds like things are getting a bit out of control.”

“I can’t just throw him out into the street. He doesn’t have a job. He’d never survive,” Feldon complained.

“I think it’s admirable that you care about the wellbeing of your friend, but you also have to consider your own happiness as well, Feldon,” the doctor replied.

“Happiness? What’s that?”

“I suppose it’s something different for everyone, but for you, I believe a sense of security and having less chaos in your life would be a start.”

“Maybe I should be the one to move out,” Feldon said. “I could just go away, somewhere else, and never come back. I just long to escape.”

“But Feldon,” Dr. Frost began. “Until you give up this idea that happiness is somewhere else, you’ll never be happy where you are. So, you see, it really doesn’t work. And you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re with yourself wherever you go. You may be able to escape from a physical place where you may feel sad and uncomfortable, but in the end, no matter where you go, there you are. Does that make any sense?”

Feldon turned his head to the side and craned his eyes to look over at the doctor.

“No,” he said. “It makes no sense at all.”

Dr. Frost reclined in his chair, adjusted his glasses, and sighed.

“All right then, I see we have work to do in that area, but tell me, what about Eve? How did she react when you hit Carl last night?”

Feldon squirmed a bit on the couch. “She didn’t say much about it.”

“Nothing?”

“Not really. I think she was a bit shocked maybe. But I also think she’s messing around with Carl when I’m not there, so, you know, she didn’t want to act like she cared too much about him. I’m not fucking stupid.”

“So, you suspect they’re having an affair behind your back?”

“Yes,” Feldon said, with little hesitation.

Dr. Frost removed his glasses and rubbed at his eyes with his thumb and a finger. “Feldon,” he began. “I feel living with these two people is causing you a lot of unnecessary anxiety and worry. It’s unhealthy. I would strongly suggest separating yourself from them.”

“You want me to kick both of them out?”

“It may seem drastic, but I feel it’s for your own good.”

“But then they’d shack up for sure, just to spite me. I’d be sick to my stomach every single night. At least if we’re all in the same place, I can keep my eye on them. What kind of advice are you trying to give me? Are you sure you’re a real psychiatrist?”

“Feldon, please! I am not the subject of this session or any of your sessions. Let’s focus on this. You think they’re messing around when you’re not there, you said it yourself. What are you going to do when it goes too far and you walk in on them going at it in your own bed? Then what?”

“Why would you say something like that?”

“I’m just trying to help you realize how unhealthy all this is. You have to choose what’s best for you, not what’s best for them.”

“What if I asked her to marry me?”

“Who?”

“Eve.”

“I would put that notion on the back shelf, Feldon,” the doctor strongly advised.

“Why? Do you think I wouldn’t be a good husband to her?”

“It has nothing to do with that. You have far too many immediate issues to deal with. Marrying her would be a complete disaster for you.”

Feldon closed his eyes. His stomach hurt. “I’d like to talk about something else now.”

Dr. Frost sipped at his lemon-tainted water. “What would you like to talk about?”

“I had a job interview.”

Hmm, this should be interesting, the doctor thought to himself. “Well, that’s a positive step. What kind of job?”

“Working at a doll salon.”

“A what?”

“A doll salon.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s a place where people can bring their dolls for a makeover and what not. A salon… For dolls.”

“Are you making this up, Feldon?”

“No. It’s a real thing.”

Dr. Frost clicked his pen once again and wrote something down.

“What’s the matter?” Feldon asked.

“I’m simply taking notes. But why would you want to do that? Why would a grown man want to play with dolls for a living?”

“Are you questioning my sanity?”

“That’s my job, Feldon. But please, I want you to explain to me why you would want to play with dolls all day.”

“It’s not playing with dolls! It takes real creativity and skill to make a doll look beautiful and perfect. There’s hair and makeup to consider, the right dress, and accessories, too. Yes, you must know about accessories. These people pay good money for this type of thing, and besides that, I prefer human interaction with non-humans.”

Dr. Frost paused. He tapped his finger against his face and sighed with concern. “Do you realize how very odd that sounds?”

Feldon grew more defensive and sat up on the edge of the couch. “It’s not odd at all. There’s a real need for it for some people. It’s a service I’d like to provide, and I think I’d be good at it. I see nothing wrong with it. I thought you’d be pleased that I’m trying to put myself out there. Why are you trying to sabotage my progress!?”

“Just calm down, Feldon. There’s no need to get upset. I’m not trying to sabotage you at all. Please, lie back down.”

“I don’t want to. I want some chicken and coffee.”

“You want to leave?”

“Yes. I don’t think you are any help to me at all.”

“Have you been taking the ‘don’t be sad’ pills I’ve prescribed.”

“No. I’m making Carl eat them. I think that’s why he’s constantly grinning.”

“You shouldn’t do that. That medication is specifically prescribed for you. You could be causing harm to your friend, and yourself.”

“There’s trapezoids in my empty mind, doc. My empty mind.”

“Feldon, I want to see you more than once a week now.”

“Why?”

“I’m gravely concerned for your mental health.”

“Concerned? You mean you want more money, right?”

“That’s not it at all.”

“These are my last days, doc. My last days.”

“Are you feeling suicidal, Feldon?”

Feldon wanted to scream “YES!” at the top of his lungs, but he knew that such a response would surely be a death sentence anyway — a lie would spare him further agony and torture. “Of course I’m not,” he answered. “Don’t be silly.”

“Are you sure?” the doctor pried.

“Yes, I’m positive. It’s just that, well, sometimes life feels like a broken fucking record. Is that so immoral and worthy of persecution? Surely you feel the same way at times. You’re human, right?”

“I am,” he answered, and then the doctor leaned back in his chair and wrote some more notes. “I want you to come back on Wednesday, at 4.” He tore a piece of paper from a pad and reached out to hand it to Feldon. “And I’m prescribing you some more anti-anxiety medication. It’s for you, not Carl, okay?”

Feldon took the piece of paper and looked at it. The writing was indecipherable to him.

“I want you to take 8 pills a day, four at breakfast and four at dinnertime. Understand?”

“Okay. I get it. I’ll see you on Wednesday.”

Dr. Frost watched as Feldon depressingly dragged himself out of the office, and he noticed he was mumbling something to himself. Then the doctor looked down at the file, clicked his pen, and wrote the words: TERMINAL MADNESS in big, bold letters.

TO BE CONTINUED

By
Aaron Echoes August

Not a WordPress member? Sign up at wordpress.com. If you’d like to follow this blog without a WordPress account, just enter your email address below to receive notifications of new posts from Cereal After Sex. Thanks for supporting independent writers and publishers.

Type your email…
The Doll Salon (Pt. 2)

Peanut Butter Psychosis

Feldon pedaled his red bicycle to his apartment building at the corner of Third and Park streets. It wasn’t the best building in the area, not by any means, in fact, it was a bit run down and housed a lot of seedy characters. He secured his bike to a rail out front and hopped up three flights of stairs to the long hallway. He looked down and he saw a couple of rough guys hanging around talking loudly and drinking 40s of beer. He sighed and went forward, key in hand.

When the loiters saw him, they clapped and yelled out, “Hey it’s Mr. Fartz!” And then they childishly started replicating bodily function noises with their mouths.

“Knock it off you guys,” Feldon protested as he got closer. “You know that’s not how you say my name. Do you really have to do this every single time I come home? Why don’t you losers get jobs and leave me alone!”

A punky black guy named Lester approached and stepped in front of him. He was stout and muscular and smelled of frustration and failure.

“What did you say to us fairy fart boy?” he angrily wanted to know.

“I said I think you should get jobs instead of hanging around the hall being jerks and harassing other tenants. I pay rent, too.”

Lester suddenly punched him hard in the stomach. Feldon doubled over and gasped for breath. The rough guys laughed at him.

“Yeah, bitch! How do you like that job fairy fart boy?” Lester said, sauntering in a circle around Feldon. “Maybe you should mind your own damn business next time before I go GTA all over your ass.”

Feldon tried to straighten up, and that’s when a bald Hispanic dude named Pinto came over and kicked him in the head. Feldon collapsed to the hallway floor and started crying.

“Oh shit, man,” Lester said to Pinto. “Look what we did. We made fairy fart boy cry.”

Pinto bent down and mockingly laughed at Feldon. “Hey fart boy. You want us to get your mommy for you?”

Feldon got to his knees and managed to slip his key into the lock of his apartment door. He was shaking and weeping. He turned to look up at them. “My mommy’s dead,” he whimpered. The door opened and Feldon scrambled inside and slammed the door shut. He got up slowly and looked through the foggy peep hole. Pinto put his milk-chocolate-pudding face real close on the other side, shook his head, and then moved away.

“Just wait ‘till next time, fairy fart boy, we’ll kill you!” Lester yelled through the door.

Feldon hobbled to the bathroom and started the water in the tub. He poured in some bubble bath and watched the suds blossom. He went to the mirror and tugged off his shirt. He looked at himself. He was so thin and pale, and now there was a big red spot on his skin where Lester had punched him. He peeled off the rest of his clothes and studied his scrawny body. He held his arms up and flexed, but there were barely any muscles.

Feldon was depressed and discouraged when he got into the tub and sank down into the warm, fragrant bubbly water. He scrunched his eyes real tight, held his nose, and went all the way down until he was completely submerged. He felt like drowning himself. He felt like sailing away, forever into the warm recesses of the bath water. The water filled his ears and made his head feel heavy and clotted. He puffed his cheeks out. His heart was pounding. And when he couldn’t hold it anymore, he suddenly shot up and gasped for breath.

“Bubbly, bubbly, bubbly,” he muttered to himself. “I’m so damn bubbly wumbly.” He panted and rested. He used his hands to scoop up the suds and then he’d let them drip down over his body. First there was an eerie and dripping quiet, like the earth suddenly stopped moving, and then, without warning, there came a thundering noise from between his legs that reverberated against the bottom of the tub. Great bubbles rose and burst. Feldon made a face of disgust. “Ugh. I really am nothing but a farter,” he said aloud to the walls. “And my heart is like a broken cup.”

When Feldon finished bathing, he got out of the tub, put on his robe, and went to the kitchen to fix himself a snack. He looked through the cupboards, but money was tight now and he had very little to eat. He reached for a half-empty jar of peanut butter, twisted off the lid, and then stuck his finger inside. He scooped out a big hunk of it and put it into his mouth.

Feldon talked to himself more than usual lately. “Mmmm, that’s good. I’ll have some peanut butter bread and a glass of milk for dinner.”

After he prepared his snack, Feldon brought the plate and glass out to the living room and set them down on the coffee table. He took a seat in the middle of the couch and then turned his head to the right. “Hello, Carl,” he said. And then he looked to his left. “Hello, Eve. How are you both this evening?”

Feldon waited for responses that he knew would never come, but he did not care. The mannequins gave him a sense of comfort.

“Should we watch some television?”

He clicked on the TV with the remote control and a strange light filled the room. Carl was glowing green and white, and he had a strange grin on his face that never went away. Eve was more stoic; her pink lips were tight and slightly chipped. Her eyes were wide and glassy, and the lashes were full and turned upward. She had an air of classy gangster sophistication — like she was someone fresh out of 1930s Los Angeles hiding a machine gun underneath her dress.

Feldon enjoyed Eve’s company more. He really liked her. Sometimes he thought he loved her. He reached out and gently touched her brassy blonde hair. He liked how it felt between his fingers. Then he was uncomfortable because Carl was right there on the other side of the couch.

Carl was more of a nuisance to him now. He felt he interfered with his intentions toward Eve, and several times he had thought about simply setting him out with the trash. But he just couldn’t do it. They used to be the best of friends. Carl came home with him first. He clearly remembers the night he snuck him out of the back room at Sahara’s Department Store and carried him home in the darkness.

But then Eve came along and the whole dynamic of the small apartment changed. It was something Feldon never expected. Feldon often wondered what Carl was up to when he wasn’t around. He was overly suspicious of him. He kept the two separated at night now. Carl was laid out neatly on the couch and covered with a thin blanket. Eve was placed in a chair right beside Feldon’s bed so that he could look at her until he fell asleep. He hadn’t gotten up the nerve yet to lie her in the bed beside him. That would be pushing it, he thought. It would be better to work up to that slowly, Feldon decided.

Feldon leaned forward and began to eat his peanut butter bread. He held it up to the mannequin’s faces in a sign of offering. He hated to be rude. There was no response. “If you don’t eat, Carl, you’ll die,” Feldon said as he chewed. Carl just grinned and stared at the television. He put the sandwich close to Eve’s plastic mouth and pretended she was eating. “That’s a good girl,” he said. “Can’t have you starving now can we.” He put the glass of milk to her lips and made sipping sounds. “Mmmm, yummy. Good for your wax bones, too.”

He finished the rest of the sandwich, drank the remaining milk, and settled back between them. Feldon didn’t really care what was on television. It was mostly damn commercials anyway. He loathed the fact that he could barely afford to pay to watch this shit. He pushed the frustration aside and focused on her now. His heart wobbled faster when he sat next to Eve. He carefully reached out and grasped her hand. Her plastic skin was cool to the touch. He gently squeezed her fingertips and then leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. He suddenly sensed Carl was watching and he snapped his head in his direction and yelled. “Don’t you have something better to do than just sit there and stare at us!”

Carl grinned and watched yet another bullshit commercial about car insurance as it flashed across the screen annoyingly.

Feldon stood up. “Damn it, Carl! I’m talking to you.” He reached out his hand and slapped the mannequin in the face. Carl oddly tipped over on the couch. Feldon suddenly felt terrible and went to him and set him up right. He looked into Carl’s high eyes and tried to soothe the tension. “Oh, Carl. I’m so sorry I hit you. Please forgive me.”

Carl’s white smile was distant and masking a bucketful of pent-up frustration.

TO BE CONTINUED

By
Aaron Echoes August

Not a WordPress member? Sign up at wordpress.com. If you’d like to follow this blog without a WordPress account, just enter your email address below to receive notifications of new posts from Cereal After Sex. Thanks for supporting independent writers and publishers.

Type your email…
Have you heard of not peddling religious texts in a public library?

So, yes, yet again, I was at the damn public library trying to get some writing done. If you are familiar with my other library rants, you’ll know I always seem to run into some kind of trouble or annoying distraction at my local library.

Well today was no different as some miniature Ralph Malph mofo from the Happy Days universe in Milwaukee appears out of nowhere and starts talking to me. I’m sitting there all alone at a private booth with ear buds on, minding my own business, listening to music of high vibration and positive energy, and typing away at my laptop. I give him a perturbed look, remove my ear buds and say “What?”

He starts in on how’s he’s selling books to raise money for something or whatever, I really didn’t catch that part because he was talking so damn fast, and he starts showing them to me and they’re all books about God and living a godly life and going to church and having abundant joy and so on and so on… And then he had a book about Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., too, and I was like “You know he was all about civil rights and equality for all people and an admirer of Gandhi.” And the kid was like, “Yeah, of course I know that… He was also a Baptist minister and had a strong Christian faith so that kind of cancels out the other things.”

As soon as he went on talking, I put up a hand and said, “I’m really not interested.” He gave me a butt hurt look and immediately walked away mumbling something about me being a “Jerk who lacks true faith.”

I had initially heard the boy, who sounded like a girl, talking to someone else in the booth behind me and I seriously thought he was giving an oral book report to a teacher or something but then he just kept dropping the word God and so I thought maybe he was a student at a religious school. Nope. He was trying to sell religious books to people in the public library. Has the whole separation of church and state thing just gone completely out the window?

How the fuck is this allowed? I guarantee if some kid was running around the public library trying to sell Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim texts, people would lose their minds — kind of like how Al Pacino does when he sees a cantaloupe.

Now, the kid can sell religious books out his ass if he wants, I have no problem with that, but at least do it in the proper forum. And I guess I can’t completely blame the kid because there is probably some oblivious nut-job adult behind the whole scheme. Yeah! Sure! It’s a library. The library has books. What a perfect place to try and sell books! I don’t know. Maybe during a book sale? Outside? I surely don’t appreciate someone coming up to me while I am trying to get some work done for my heartfelt, yet edgy and subversive literary website, and push religious books on me. I don’t go to his church on Sundays and try to drum up followers for cerealaftersex.com. Are you kidding? They’d have me sent directly to hell without passing GO. And all without reading one word of my work. Kind of like passing judgment without reading the Bible. That’s called a zinger.

Now, you’ll have to forgive me if I am coming off as a bit harsh today, but it’s not been the best day. I have chemical imbalance issues that no one has really figured out the proper remedy for and so I have days where I lose my shit, get dark and withdrawn, and am generally not very pleasant to be around. I’m also upset about not being very successful. That’s really been buggin’ me lately. I may end up working in the sporting goods section at WalMart next week. No offense if you work in the sporting goods section at a WalMart. It was the first thing that came to me.

Anyways, I’m all about equal rights and religious liberty and all that jazz. If that’s what you believe and the way you want to live, fine, have at it, but don’t try to push it off on me, especially when I’m writing bitchy op-ed pieces at the public library. So, there you go mini Ralph Malph, go be giddy about God and sell your books until you’re heavenly blue in the face, just do it somewhere else.

And even though I shot him down like an autumn mallard dancing in a blue sky, at least the kid probably has a bright future in missionary work… come to think of it, so do I.

By
Aaron Echoes August
The Doll Salon (Pt. 1)

The Interview

Feldon Fartz sat nervously in the waiting area of the glossy Fifth Avenue Doll Salon. It smelled like makeup and money and there were a lot of people moving around and phones ringing.

His dress clothes were too tight, and he was squirming like a galactic worm under the sun after a rock was upturned. He ran a finger inside his collar in an effort to loosen it. He felt like he was being strangled by society.

His thin and perfectly manicured fingertips were gently strumming the cover of his portfolio, a portfolio of few accomplishments. He wet his miniature lips with his snake-like tongue, cleared his throat, and pinched at his eyes. He was being impatient. He was tired and restless. His sleep lately had been unsettled.

He had very feminine features for a man. His face was clean-shaven and baby-butt smooth, his nose was thin and slightly pointed, as was his jawline. The color of his skin was peachy, but he had rosy cheeks. His red hair was split in the middle and went down both sides of his slightly elongated head to just the tops of his ears. He resembled a soft-muscled prince from a magical kingdom as he sat there so at odds with the world, but in fact, he was some sort of a regular man, a real man, one who longed to do great things.

Feldon had pale blue eyes, and the rusty lashes were soft and upturned. He fluttered his lids like a butterfly toward the woman sitting across from him and he asked her, “Are you interviewing for the position, too?” His voice was quiet and soft, like a feathery pillow in the dead of night.

The woman looked up at him and smiled slightly. He could tell she was a bit annoyed by his intrusion. “Yes,” she answered him, and then she tried to look away but really couldn’t. He was just so strikingly odd.

A door suddenly opened, and a sharp-dressed black woman stepped out. She was very sparkly. “Feldon?” She looked down at a piece of paper and paused. “Fartz?”

Feldon raised a finger and smiled. “That’s me,” he said, and he stood up and followed her. As he went by the woman who was in the waiting area with him, he gently tapped her on the arm and whispered, “Good luck.”

The interviewer led him down a short hallway and into a small, brightly lit office of glass. She directed him to sit down. He immediately leaned forward and gently tapped his finger on her desk.

“Actually misses, my name is pronounced Fairtz. Like, say, the county fair, but with the letters t and z at the end.”

The interviewer put on her glasses and glanced over his resume, troubled by her mistake. “Oh. I see. My apologies, Mr… Fairtz.”

Feldon leaned back in the chair and playfully waved his hand at her. “Don’t worry about it. Everyone gets it wrong.”

“That must get very annoying at times,” she said with a feigned smile.

“It did annoy me, but now I’m just so used to it I kind of have to just laugh it off.” Feldon chuckled oddly, and then he felt her staring at him strangely. He could sense she knew he was lying. He hated his name, and the ridicule he’s endured forever.

“Have you ever just considered changing the spelling of your name to reflect its pronunciation?”

Feldon stared at her, dumbfounded, lost in space. Pondering the ridiculous question, once again.

“No,” he answered a few moments later. “I shouldn’t be forced to change the spelling of my name just because the rest of the world sucks.”

The woman was uncomfortably silent, cleared her throat and went on with the interview.

“I have to say,” the woman began. “I really wasn’t expecting any male applicants for this type of job. You do understand this is a position for someone to provide beauty salon services to our clients’ dolls, don’t you?”

“Yes mam. And I do hope you understand that you cannot discriminate against me based solely on my gender.”

The woman glared at him from across the desk, then smiled seriously. “Yes. I’m quite aware of fair hiring practices.”

“And I’m not gay, either, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“No, of course not, that has nothing to do with anything, but…”

“I like to plow the feminine fields of love just as much as the next guy — if you know what I mean.” Feldon winked at her.

“Let’s just try to get back on track with the interview, Mr. Fairtz… As I was saying, and I mean this in no way to reflect a preference between male or female applicants, but this position has traditionally been filled by women and I am rather curious why you feel you would be a good fit for us in this type of environment.”

Feldon straightened himself in the chair, cleared his throat softly, and tried to remember what he had practiced in his bathroom mirror the night before.

“Well,” he began. “I enjoy beauty. All kinds of beauty — whether it be a sunset or a flower or even a doll. I feel like there is enough ugliness in the world, too much ugliness in fact, and I just want to be part of a team that adds a little sweet frosting to the beautiful birthday cake of life.”

The woman leaned forward and smiled again. “You do have a very intriguing attitude, Mr. Fairtz, but what about the skills and past work experience you have listed here on your resume? Tell me more about that.”

“Yes mam.”

“You can call me Shirley.”

Feldon smiled and chuckled again. “Surely Shirley. As you obviously have seen, I have worked in a real salon with real people as a shampoo agent. I very much enjoyed that feeling of soapy hair all over my fingers. The clients always raved about my scalp massages, too. It was all very exhilarating.”

“And may I ask why you left there if it was so exhilarating?” Shirley glanced at his resume again and then back at him over the top edges of her thick glasses. “It looks like you weren’t there for very long.”

Feldon shifted uncomfortably. “Well. There was a misunderstanding with a client. Someone claimed that I purposely got shampoo in their eyes… Which is a complete lie. I did no such thing. I believe the real reason they let me go is that the other employees felt threatened by my advanced skills.”

Shirley stared at him like a pondering stone. “Hmm. I see.” She scribbled something down. “And what about your position at Sahara’s Department Store? It says here you were the senior mannequin manager.”

Feldon touched the tip of his long, pointed nose with a finger and then pointed at her with a finger on his other hand. “Bingo,” he said, and he chuckled. “I mean… Yes. That’s correct.”

“And which of these two positions do you feel suited you the best?”

“Oh, definitely being a mannequin manager.”

“Tell me why.”

Feldon chuckled oddly again. “They don’t talk back!”

Shirley feigned another laugh, put her elbows on the desk and leaned forward. “Mr. Fairtz, the details of the job are quite rudimentary, and of course we’ll train you on exactly how we want things done around here. The challenges in this position come from the reality that despite the fact you will be working with dolls, those dolls belong to real people, very serious real people. We do cater to a very upscale clientele, and what may seem frivolous and grossly shallow and unnecessary to most, is very important to the people we serve. I guess the bottom line is, Mr. Fairtz, is that even though the dolls don’t talk back, the moms and daughters, and believe it or not, a few of the fathers and sons, do. I’ll be blunt. People can be very particular and demanding about these things. How do you think you will handle that kind of pressure?”

Feldon looked up to the ceiling and thought hard to himself. Then he smiled and looked back at Shirley. “With the upmost dignity and giggly delight,” he answered.

She beamed at him and scribbled another note. “That’s an excellent answer, Feldon.”

“Thank you. Did I get the job?”

“Um, well. We’re not quite through yet. You seemed to have really enjoyed working as a mannequin manager, so, I’m curious as to why you left that position.”

Feldon fidgeted nervously again. “I guess you could say I had a disagreement with management.”

“Really? Tell me about it.”

“They felt I was spending way too much time prepping the mannequins for the sales floor. I took my job seriously but apparently they thought I was overly consumed with the details.”

“That’s odd,” Shirley said. “Usually, employers are thrilled to have someone who pays attention to details. I know I am.”

“Right. That’s how I felt, but instead they just wanted me to get the mannequins churned out as fast as possible to drive sales. That’s all they cared about. They didn’t care about the time and pride I put into it. Those assholes only cared about profit. I just can’t be rushed like that when I’m really into my work.”

“I appreciate your straightforward honesty.”

“Sure. Did I get the job?”

“Well, I do have some other applicants to interview. And I’ll have to check your references, of course. But I do like you for some strange reason. I really do like you.”

She stood up and extended her hand. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Feldon. We’ll be in touch.”

TO BE CONTINUED

By
Aaron Echoes August
The Linguini Ballroom

The Linguini Ballroom
is a black and blue champagne glass
the bubbles being elevators to space
the crystal reflections being the light
the people spinning lovely
my heart-wrenching demise —
the parquet floor of time
is a long-bedazzled square
of lines and rituals carved in it
greasy secret codes
and polished roadmaps to secrets and sand
one must step lightly on the floor
for it is slick and one could slip
spilling their brains
all over the barn —
I had to get outside the Linguini Ballroom
sit on a bench
smoke some rope
try to get my heart to stop beating
it’s wrinkling my roughshod tux
looking like my little green jeans
muddy and torn
as I spun like a wheel
on the oceanside roundabout
years ago…
Before the wind dragged me back inside
the Linguini Ballroom
and the liquid slide
and the rhythm of the jazz
is all hyped up and pounding
the feet are all slapping the floor
dreary teeth are spitting
limbs are making me dizzy,
the way they spin is so criminal
and I pound my fists
against the gold, velour wallpaper
and it’s soft like cloth
and no one can hear me begging to escape
from the madness of
the Linguini Ballroom —
and a cold mountain of snow
crowned by a ring of trees
comes to my aid
ever so suddenly
and it’s depression on snowshoes
looking for an ice spear
to shed a tear
across blue-black veins freezing
and down the hill
rests a little town
and the sign says Damnation
and it’s straight to the whiskey bar I go like Jim
and family portraits are nothing but piss
and winter sweat
and I drown in the rollback stitches
tearing down my spine…
And someone taps my bowed head
seems I’m back at the phone booth
cradled behind the glass
to keep the mad steps away
swirling lavishly
beneath bee lights
of the Linguini Ballroom
dripping cancer and JFK —
eyes drooped so low
I push the doors aside
and take my stride
to the gun cabinet
tucked neatly back
in the Linguini Ballroom vault
reach out for a magnum sunflower
a golden crown of velvet peace
take my stance on the mossy drawbridge
and blow all the wishes from the stage, to send the spores to Heaven’s edge.

By
Aaron Echoes August
Child of the Cabbage (Ep. 4)

He watched her from the safety of a window inside as Gracelyn poked at the worn strip of earth below the swing with the tip of a shoe. She slowly swayed in the cool air of the playground, oblivious. Her thoughts were listless, yet on fire. She gazed into the emptiness around her and then bit into a hard apple she had plucked from a tree near the schoolyard. It tasted too sour in her mouth, and she threw it.

Astron Puffin turned away from the window and went to stand before the corkboard in the art classroom where he admired Gracelyn’s crayon drawing of her pastoral life. His eyes slowly scanned every sloppy detail — the clear-blue sky that was too blue, the camel hump green hills that lacked realistic detail, the crooked house in the middle of a field, the lake that was unnaturally circular, the red lighthouse she left structurally unsound.

He smiled and laughed to himself. Then he reached out, tugged the drawing away from its place beneath the pin, folded it, and stuffed it into his pants pocket before going outside.

He walked boldly to the playground, her back turned to him as she floated in the air atop the swing. He said nothing when his hands grabbed the chains and drew her back like an arrow on a bow. She screamed when the hands released her, and she shot forward. When she swung back, the hands pushed against her lower back, and she swung forward again. She struggled to twist around to see who it was. Then again, the hands pushed against her back with more force than before.

“Stop!” she cried out. And again, the hands pushed against her when she swung back, but this time, Gracelyn jumped off before going too high.

“What are you doing!?” she screamed out, tangled up in a cloud of dust on the ground.

Astron Puffin was startled by her reaction. “I was just giving you a push. You looked sad. I thought that you might like to go high on the swing.”

“You scared me half to death!”

“I’m sorry.”

“You shouldn’t sneak up on somebody like that… It’s unsettling.”

“I’m sorry,” Astron repeated. “I didn’t mean to unsettle you. I thought we could be friends… It’s such a lonely place, don’t you think?”

Gracelyn huffed in frustration as she got up and brushed the dirt away. “Why are you still here?” she wanted to know, stern in her tone. “Why do you keep following me? Can’t you just leave me alone!?”

Astron froze for a moment. He didn’t answer her. He couldn’t answer her — no thought that made sense came to his mind quick enough.

“Well!?” Gracelyn demanded.

He turned away from her and ran off.

“Wait!” Gracelyn called after him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” Then she watched him get smaller on the horizon until his body completely vanished beyond the edge of the dark woods.

Gracelyn meandered as she rode her bike back home from school. She looked up at the sky. The sunlight was dying earlier every day now. Summer was over for good, and the Earth was moving toward autumn. “At least in this part of what’s left of the world,” Gracelyn reminded herself. She slowly shook her head. “I’m getting very bad at talking to myself. I should find myself a doctor of the mind.” She laughed at the absurdity of that thought.

When she got back to the big white farmhouse she called home, she lazily dropped her bike in the yard, scrambled up the steps and went inside. She immediately locked the door behind her and went around the house lighting a cathedral’s worth of candles. Moses came out of his hiding place, twisted around her legs, and demanded to be fed by means of loud, repetitive meows.

“All right, all right. At least let me catch my breath and get situated,” she said to him. Then something caught the attention of her mind, like an invisible tapping on the shoulder, and she slowly walked around the house to investigate the feeling. Gracelyn carried an LED lantern that swung on hooks attached to a handle to light her way. She didn’t like the lantern as much as she did the candles. The light of the lantern was too harsh, too bright, too cold, but it was the best way to crawl through the darkness that fell upon the house in the deep of night.

She poked her head in all the rooms on the first floor — the living room with the old furniture, musty drapes, and cabinet TV; the front parlor with its large bay windows; the study with its shelves full of books now dismantled by technology — before going up the stairs to where the bedrooms and a bathroom were. She stood in a long hallway and held the lantern out in front of her. All the doors to the rooms were closed despite the fact she always left them open. She went to the door of her bedroom and pressed the side of her head against it and listened. Once she was satisfied there were no sounds inside, she reached for the doorknob, turned it, and went in.

Gracelyn was startled to see that the doors to her closet had been thrown open and now all the clothes she had inside it were piled on her bed. “Robbers searching for something,” she breathed. “Or lunatics.” The air in her room felt cold and she looked and saw that her bedroom window was open. She went to the sill and peered out, but the gathering darkness provided no clues as to who or what had entered the house. “Someone is trying to trick me,” she said to herself. “Or at least scare me.”

She sighed, uneasy. Gracelyn reached up and pulled the window down tight and locked it.

When she returned to the kitchen, she cranked a can opener around the top of a can of cat food and plopped the factory churned seafood delight into a bowl. Moses didn’t wait for her to set the bowl on the floor but instead jumped up on the counter and ate right there. Gracelyn stroked his fur as he gobbled up the food.

She let Moses be and went out the back door that was off the kitchen and walked into the backyard. A screen door with a spring that croaked like a frog when it was stretched slammed behind her. Tall trees fenced in the yard on three sides. An opening to the left led to an old barn and the fields and wilds beyond. Gracelyn went to the firepit she had constructed out of stones, added a few new sticks and small logs, then lit some crumpled-up paper beneath the wood with a Bic lighter until it caught and spread. Once she had a lively fire going, she stood there for a moment, mesmerized by the orange light and the soft crackling of sticks and the sizzle of sap.

Dusk was retreating and full night was coming on and with it the first few lights in the heavens flickered to life. She looked up, hoping to find something she could wish upon. But she gave up quickly because the heaviness of the world came upon her again like it so frequently did. She looked back at the house and the gently shaking soft orange glows of the candles in the windows. She saw a silhouette of Moses, licking a paw and washing his face just beyond the screen door. She tried to smile but found it hard. The thought that someone had possibly been inside the house frightened her. Then she realized she had forgotten to look in the basement. It was too dark for that now, she decided.

She looked up again at space. “I can’t stay here forever,” she said to the sheet of stars unfurled across the night. “I need to find a way to get out. I’m afraid.”

TO BE CONTINUED

By
Aaron Echoes August

CHECK OUT PREVIOUS EPISODES OF THIS STORY AT cerealaftersex.com.
Child of the Cabbage (Ep. 3)

Gracelyn spun around and pressed her back to the counter. Her heart started thumping inside her chest, lit up with fear. “Who said that? Who’s there?” she called out.

The door to the stall slowly opened with the squeak of a metallic mouse. A small man, husky, and with a very round face emerged. There was some gray in his hair that was creeping out from beneath a crooked pointed winter knit cap that sat upon his head. The salt and pepper scruff on his face was uneven, choppy like a soured sea, as if he had used a dull butcher knife to shave. He had a lot of wrinkles around his cold blue eyes, the skin like rivulets streaming in from somewhere beyond his temples. He looked tired, Gracelyn thought, but not overly threatening. “Who are you?” she asked.

“The name’s Astron Puffin,” he said, and he spoke with an accent, like from the Old Country on the other side of the planet.

As he grew closer, Gracelyn saw that his skin had an almost pale-green hue to it, like he had been washed in over diluted watercolor paint. “Are you sick?” she wanted to know.

“No. I’m not sick at all. I swear it. Would I even be here if I was?”

“Right. Here. Then why is it you’re in the girls’ bathroom? I’ve never seen you around school before.”

The man looked around at all the pipes and pink and porcelain, confused, as if he had just discovered where he was. “I don’t know. I just figured it might be the safest place to be at the moment.”

He stepped forward and Gracelyn shifted away from him. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he assured her. “I just wanted to wash my hands.” He was not much taller than she was, but definitely wider. “I’ve never hurt anyone in my whole life. Yet here I am, left to suffer alone in a world such as this.”

“You said you thought my speech was wonderful. How did you hear my speech?”

“I was hiding outside an open window, near your classroom,” he said, shaking water from his hands and then rubbing them against his clothes to dry them. “And even the softest voices carry far in this weight of silence.”

“Have you been watching me? Following me?” Gracelyn demanded to know.

Astron Puffin turned his moon-like and pale-green face away from her. “You’re the first person I have seen in a very long time,” he shyly said. “Please don’t be upset. I was just trying to make sure you weren’t evil. I suppose I’ve decided you aren’t.”

“You’re right. I’m the farthest thing from evil, most of the time,” Gracelyn pointed out. “But where did you come from?”

“I had my own cabbage farm, far over the hills to the west. The nights grew to be too long and lonely and much too dark. I set off to see if I could find someone else. To keep madness at bay… And that’s how I came upon you.”

Gracelyn hesitated for a moment and then moved toward the door. She quickly turned to look back at him there. She was scared yet felt pity for him. “It was nice meeting you, however strange of a meeting it was, but I really should get to my next class before I’m late,” she said.

Astron looked hurt. “Oh. All right, then. I shouldn’t keep you from your lessons.”

“Maybe I’ll see you around again, somewhere,” Gracelyn added, in an effort to give him a small bit of hope for whatever future he had.

Astron attempted a smile. “Yes, perhaps. I’d like that. Good luck with your schoolwork… What was your name?”

The girl hesitated for a moment. “Gracelyn,” she said, and she went out of the bathroom and into the dead hallway that glistened with lonely solar energy falling across the plains of the universe.

Gracelyn sat alone in her art classroom. She reached into a box of crayons and retrieved a periwinkle blue. She held it under her nose and smelled it deeply. “I just love the scent of a fresh crayon,” she said to the quiet air. Then she applied the tip of the crayon to a blank sheet of drawing paper and moved her right hand back and forth until a sky appeared.

She then retrieved from the box two shades of green, a burnt umber, and an earthy yellow to draw the hills, forests, and fields that surrounded her home. She mixed white, and gray, and black to construct the house. She grabbed a darker shade of blue to color in the lake and used the gray and black again to create a stone pier. Finally, she grabbed brick red to create a lighthouse that sat tall at the tip of the pier, and silver to add a shiny light that looked out all around the world.

When she was done, she held the drawing in front of her and looked at it. She cocked her head to the left and studied it more intently. Once she was satisfied with it, she signed her name at the bottom in bright orange — Gracelyn Polk, sixth grade, 413 years old. She then got up and walked her drawing to the front of the classroom, turned to face the empty desks, and held it up for no one to see.

“This is my drawing of where I live,” Gracelyn began — speaking much more confidently than she did in her history class earlier — and then she pointed with a finger. “This is my beautiful house. I live in the country, surrounded by lovely green hills and trees and golden-brown fields. It’s all very pastoral — that means being peaceful in the lands beyond the broken cities. Further off, you can see the great lake, and there’s the lighthouse with its bright beacon guiding safe passage for all… Thank you.”

Gracelyn turned and stuck her drawing to a corkboard with a push pin. She went back to her desk, put the crayons back in their box, and put the box back into a wine-colored cubby hole in the cubby-hole cabinet near the front of the room. She looked up and saw the big poster that showed the map of the entire world. Her eyes scanned it for a moment. There were so many red Xs drawn over so many countries. She sighed with faint hope, faint promise. She pulled the classroom door open, walked the somber corridors alone, and went to the playground for another desolate recess.

TO BE CONTINUED

By
Aaron Echoes August

Type your email…