“So, what is the reason for divorce?”

“Reason?” she said.

“Yes. Was he unfaithful? Did he abuse you?”

“Oh, no!” she said. “He is very faithful and has never laid on hand on me.”

“Okay.” The attorney sighed, tapping his pen on the notepad. “Well, what is the reason then?”

“Annoyance.”

“Annoyance?”

“Yes, annoyance.”

“Could you please elaborate?”

“Do I have to?” Her puppy dog eyes seemed to grow larger.

“If this goes to court, you will have to be very thorough in your complaints. It’s better that you get it all out now, so that there are no surprises for me.”

She rubbed her bottom lip while staring at the floor. Then, as if a lightbulb switched on above her head she shouted, “Farting!”

“Farting?”

“Yes, he farts all the time out his ass and his mouth.”

“You mean belching?”

“He does that, too.”

“I’m confused.”

“He farts all the time out his ass and they smell horrible. Worse than anything you could imagine. When he’s not doing that, he farts out of his mouth.”

“Belching?”

“Yes, that too.”

He put his pen down, picked up and pencil, snapped it in half, then picked up his pen. “How does one fart out of their mouth and it be different from a belch?”

“Oh! I see your problem. He makes the noise. Like a raspberry.”

“Oh!” he chuckled.

“It’s not funny. He does it every time I bend over. I beginning to think that I may have a loose backside. He makes the noise every step he takes, like he’s squashing ducks beneath his feet. If he doesn’t like something on TV or on the radio or even something I say, he makes the noise.”

“I see.”

“When he does a real fart, it sounds like he’s filling his pants with liquid. Like diarrhea. But, I know he isn’t because most of the time he’s walking around naked. Cooking naked, drinking coffee naked, reading books naked. And the singing! My god, the singing!”

“Singing?”

“Yes! He sings all the theme songs from every show that he has ever watched. He even sings jingles from commercials he saw as a kid.”

“Really?”

“Yes. The worst is Cal Worthing Ford of Long Beach, we’re open til midnight, see ya here.”

He leaned back in his chair. “Are those the words to the song?”

“No! That’s the damn part that comes on after the jingle, at the end of the commercials. He sings the jingles and then speaks the words. He remembers them ALL!”

“My god…”

“Yeah. The worst part is, is the fucking story he tells me afterwards every time. You see, the song goes, If you need a car or truck, go see Cal. He thought it was, If you need a car or truck PUSSY COW! So sometimes he sings the song, Go see Cal and other times it’s, pussy cow.”

“Does he sing real songs? Like, popular songs from the radio?”

“Oh yes, constantly. The problem is, he doesn’t know the words to anything so he makes them up. So a love song is now about a pooping dog or a clogged toilet or some bitch in a car… I think I’m losing my mind! Can I smoke in here?”

“I think we should both have one.”

They both lit their cigarettes and he leaned back in his chair, blowing out a big plume of smoke, stomach cramping from holding in gas and thinking about how the theme to Facts of Life started.

I was sitting at the bus stop. I didn’t know why. I wasn’t trying to go anywhere. The sun was blazing overhead and the cars all looked ugly. I guess I was trying to sit in the shade. I looked at my wrist to see what time it was and remembered I hadn’t worn a wrist watch in almost 20 years. The shadow on the cement had moved considerably since I’d been sitting there. I figured some time had passed. I was confused. I never would have thought about the “why” if what happened next hadn’t happened.

I didn’t hear her coming, but before I knew it she was there. She sat down next to me. The woman, I guessed to be middle-aged, was wearing an orange sundress that made her skin look brown and shriveled and her liver spots a darker shade than they probably were. Her light brown hair was ratted and tangled, streaks of grey here and there. Then I looked at her face. There wasn’t one, so I quickly looked away.

I thought about it for some minutes. Where was her face? There was no mouth, no nose, no eyes! How does she see? How does she speak? Should I look again to make sure? No! that’s a horrible idea! If you look and she has no face, you’ll go crazy! But, I looked before and she didn’t have a face and I don’t think I’m crazy now, just still confused.

My logic seemed to make sense so I turned my head, as if to look down the street, and tried to catch another glimpse. My eyes darted over to her head once, twice and on the third time, I lingered on her.

No face!

I thought at first that her skin was smooth, like the mask of Cobra Commander, but after further examination, I saw that is was really disgusting. It look liked cooked chicken skin and leather. lines and wrinkles ran like streets and rivers on a map. Warts of different sizes were pushing their way to the surface and tiny little white hairs would catch the light of the sun, reflected off of passing cars.

I was frozen in disgust. I wanted to turn way but couldn’t. Something drew me to her but whatever that awful feeling was that filled my heart with choking terror wouldn’t let me turn my head back to the street in front of us. Then, it happened.

It was so slow it was almost as if she were under water. Her head turned towards me! She “looked” at me! Her eyeless face looked deep into my eyes and held me captive. The horror! I felt something pulling me closer to her, closer to that skin, that faceless head!

A loud roar screamed and made my fast beating heart skip a number of beats, but my eyes were still locked on that skin covered skull. The roar did not come from the woman, it came from the bus that stopped just a few feet from us. The doors opened with a shrieking hiss that was deafening.

Neither the woman, or myself, moved. Our horrible faces still locked on one another. Thankfully, she slowly turned her gaze to the bus, then back to me.
She was going to get on that bus and she wanted me to come with her. This was never said. It was felt. She stood up, not breaking her eyeless stare, checked the bag over her shoulder, turned her ugly head away and walked onto the bus. The driver didn’t seemed unnerved by her presence. He stared at me as if he was asking me to hurry aboard. I looked at the bus for a long moment. I knew if I got on that bus, I would never get off of it.

I looked at the driver and shook my head. The doors hissed shut. The traffic light ahead was green and the bus left me there, alone. I didn’t look into the bus windows as it passed. I don’t think I could have handled it if I saw that grotesque head again.

My mouth was dry and my feet were now in the sun. Across the street was a McDonald’s and a Del Taco. I had a new choice to make.

All I have to do is keep writing. There really isn’t anything else I can do. As long as my keystrokes don’t fall below a certain number, they will never come over here and look at me. I just need to keep going. They don’t read what we write. They don’t check for grammar or content, but the thing they do do, is that they can tell if you are just slamming buttons down. The words you type must actually be words. I am noticing that I am hunching over the table. The table itself is a bit too low for me and one of the feet is broken so overtime I stat typing the table rocks back and forth like a piston in an engine. I really wish I could take a break. My fingers are a bit sore but my wrists hurt so much more. They ache like crazy. Its that blasted carpel tunnel bullshit. I always thought that was fake and just something that fat people complain about so that they could get some kind of disability payment. But all that, all that was before what happened. The thing that changed everything. Now, there is no disability payment. There is no workman composition insurance. There isn’t anything. The only thing you have to look forward to is death. Some are more open to the idea of death. Those brave should just stop typing. Once that happens, within minutes, actually seconds, they cease to exist. There is usually a loud noise the noise it terrifying. Depending on how close you are to that person, you may even get some of them on you. That has only happened to me once. It was just a small piece of flesh. It landed on the pinky of my right hand. I was in the middle of typing a long line about something or another and couldn’t concentrate when that warm piece of someone who had sat so close to me for so many years was now sitting on my knuckle and dripping the precious red liquid down onto my return key. I tried to flick the flesh off my finger with stopping to type. It was very hard and time consuming. That happened quite a while ago and my return key is still a little sticky. I have tried to make sure that it hasn’t gotten inside my keyboard. That would be the worse. If I couldn’t type, who knows what would happen to me. When their large metal feet stomp on by behind me. What if they were to check my keyboard out? What if they were to look over my shoulder? What if that cold mechanical language that I have never been able to understand shouts into my ear? Would I be the next person to explode at their keyboard? Who knows? I hope not. The longer I type though, the longer I think about what the hell it is that I am doing? Is all of this worth it? Those brave should that chose death over typing, are they happy now? Do they know if they are happy now? Does anything happen to you after that? I am too big a pussy to risk it. I would love to go home and see my family. At least one last time. I couldn’t tell you how long it’s been sine I have seen them. My daughter, she was just about to become a teenager before the large metal robotic overseers landed. I wonder how old she is now? I wonder if she misses me? I’m sure she does. That’s is just crazy talk. I sure she thinks about me everyday. I wonder if she is even alive? I know she couldn’t type. What other weird remedial task could they possibly give teenagers? My wife on the other hand, I haven’t see her either since this whole thing started. She can’t type to save her life. I know that she knows how to make really good sandwiches. I would chop off my leg to get one of her totally amazing sandwiches right now. It would be so good. She could take any ingredient and make it into something that is most yummy. I really don’t have an idea what the overseers could’ve done with her. I have never seen them eat anything or rest. I don’t think sandwiches, no matter how amazing they are would be worth not killing her. That makes me sad. I want to cry so bad right now but I have cried so much over the past however many months this has been I don’t think I could do it anymore. I feel quite numb with the exception of my wrists. My ass also has what I could only describe as bedsores on them. That is very painful but it isn’t as bad as you would think. Just don’t move around in your seat a lot. The catheter that is inside my penis helps so that I do not have to get up to take a piss. There are many different straws that are aimed at our faces. One has water and one has coffee. The coffee is cold of course but no matter. It is a high caffeine coffee. Im sure there are many vitamins in there because we never really have the crash you get from drinking coffee. Another straw has a liquid protein shake of some kind that is green and tastes awful but it keeps us full. The way they have made all this, the ingredients that they use have made bowel movements completely obsolete. I can’t even remember the last time I took a shit, or even farted for that matter. I’m sure I have, I think, but honestly can’t remember. One of them is behind me right now!!!! I don’t know what I am going to do. They never stop. This one has stopped. And it is right over my shoulder. I can feel its metallic breath on my neck. Is it watching my typing? Can it read what I am typing? I don’t think they can read? Maybe some of them can? Maybe some of them have been learning? It isn’t impossible to learn, we teach it to children! I bet it’s reading this. Have I said anything that would be considered incriminating? Have I said anything that would immediately make me explode? Jesus christ I don’t know! Shit! We aren’t allowed to say the JC words. That was one of the first things that were banned. I hope to god it didn’t see that! Shit! The G word! I’m not allowed to say that either! What the hell is wrong with me? Am I trying to be brave? AM I trying to get a bunch a bullshit happening so that I could be one of those martyrs? I don’t want to be one of those. But If they make me explode, would I be able to go back to my family? I wish I could understand their technology. It would make decision making so much more logical. How can these creatures expect us to make well thought choices if they never explain what will happen? For that matter they also don’t ever let us know what the fuck we are doing anyway? Why the hell am I typing? This room is like a warehouse. Rows and rows of tables with hundred of people typing away like their lives depend on it, which they most definitely do. I just glanced over my shouter and saw that the creature is still there. They never stop this long. They make rounds up and down each row. It just tried to talk to me. It turned and bumped it’s metal a-endangered into my shoulder so hard I gasped. I turned what I can only refer to as it’s head and grumbled two words at me. Those words, I don’t know and don’t think I had ever heard. It stormed off after that. What was it doing? Was it watching my typing? Was it timing me? Was it able to read thing? Fucking hell I wish I knew. What if it is in some sort of office with more and more of them? What if they are discussing what exactly they should do with me? Good freaking shit! I’m terrified. I usually fly under the radar here. That’s what makes me so good and not getting exploded. What happened today that would change all of that? I wish I knew. Maybe I’m just being super paranoid. That sounds like a better answer. As long as I am able to finish sentences then that means everything is all right. The second one of these sentences isn’t finished, we all know what happened. I would probably be sitting here typing away that then BAM! Off goes my head and the rest of me, splattered abasing my computer screen, getting my keyboard all sticky. Then all of this would have to go to some other department who’s job it is to clean the computer and get them ready for the next batch of typers. Then all of me documents, all of the stuff that I have written will sent to someone to read and study for some stupid fucking reason and then mayb

I had been crying. A lot.

I couldn’t explain it. Sure, I was recently divorced, but that was a really bad situation and I was glad to be out of it. I had been living in this crap-hole apartment building on Cumpston Street in North Hollywood. I had been making movies for the last ten years and finally decided that I hated people, so turned to writing books instead. 

But, I was still crying.

At eleven o’clock in morning, my neighbor was trimming a tree with a chainsaw and I almost killed him. There was nothing wrong with him or what he was doing. He was a very nice guy. I liked him. But, I knew I was cracking. It had happened before.

I called up a shrink in Burbank. 

“How can I help you?” a woman said.

“I’m cracking, man! I’m losing it. I need to see someone right away.”

“How’s next week?”

“I said, ‘right away!’”

“That’s the soonest you can be seen, sir.”

“So, what do I do until then?”

“Take care of yourself.”

Fucking hell. So, I basically had a week to kill without killing anyone else or myself. The week passed with little to no catastrophes. I walked to 7/11 and bought a carton of smokes, coffee and any other food items that I thought I would need until then and put myself on lockdown. It was horrible.

The next week, I drove to Burbank and parked my car on Magnolia, right in front of the building in case I needed a quick getaway. I entered the waiting the room and walked up to the counter. There was a portly young woman with acrylic nails that needed a fill. She was Arminian, I think. Very pretty.

I told her my name and she told me “$150.”

“What the shit?” I shouted. There was only some old lady in the waiting room and it was a small waiting room. I felt like there needed to be an outbursts of some kind. “I thought this was a sliding scale place?”

“Oh, it is,” she said. “Sorry.” She typed something into a computer and said, “$70.”

“Seventy fucking dollars? That’ll break me!”

She raised her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders. 

Weren’t these people worried about driving crazy people mad? For fucks sake, I could’ve pulled out a gun and shot her. I don’t have a gun, but she doesn’t know that. I could’ve pissed on her. That’s more up my street.

I gave the chick the cash and waited for about twenty minutes. I saw the doctor walking around in the back, talking to the ladies, small talk, jokes, etc. 

Does anyone care that I may be on the verge of completely cracking? These people work with crazy people and they act like it’s a joke! A walk in the park!

I was getting mad, but then the door opened and the doctor called me back. We went into a very small room with two chairs. His swiveled, mine did not. He looked strange. He had a damn Van Dyke beard. Was that still a thing? He looked like the cartoons of the devil from the thirties mixed with what was either Freud or Jung or one of those guys that I’m sure he looked up to. He wore tiny,  framed glasses, but I think he should’ve had a monocle. He had short thick black hair slicked down forward. He had a very thick accent from where I do not know. His name was… It started with a consonant and ended in a vowel. I can’t remember. I will call him Dr. Van Dyke.

“Mr. Wall, what do you do?” he asked.

“I’m a writer. Used to be a filmmaker but mainly a writer.”

“I see.” He scribbled a bunch of shit down on a yellow notepad. “What can I do for you today?”

“Jesus Christ, man!” I said. “I’m fucked up right now. Why else would I come here? I cry a lot, I fly off the handle. I have horrible thoughts.”

“I see.” He scribbled on the paper and handed me a prescription. “Take these and see me in two weeks.”

And that was it.

Two weeks later I was back. I was very angry. I had to talk to the portly gal who still hadn’t gotten her nails filled and she tried to get me for $150 again and I said, “sliding scale”, and she brought it down to $70.

I saw Van Dyke.

“How are you feeling this week? Still sad?”

I almost jumped out of my chair. “Yes! I feel worse!”

While writing something down he said, “Yes, that happens.” He gave me another prescription and said, “Let’s double your dose and see me next week.”

The next week came and went. I was back in the waiting room about to rip off homegirl’s acrylics if they weren’t filled, but they were. Lucky for her. She had a stain on the front of her top though. I think she was trying to make me crazy. We did the same rigamarole about the money and I said, “$70 again? I thought this was sliding scale. My scale hasn’t slid once. You guys are breaking me!”

She shrugged.

Doc Van Dyke had me in his broom closet again and he asked, “How are you feeling?”

“Listen here. You guys keep gouging me for cash. I have seen you a total of ten minutes, if that. We are going to get to the bottom of this right now.”

He smiled. “Okay, Mr. Wall.”

“Okay.”

“Where would you like to start?”

“That shit you put me on.”

He chuckled. “Okay. What about it?”

“It’s killing me. It may have taken my mania away, but it has killed my drive. My soul!”

“What do you mean?”

“I write for a living man. I write scripts. I write books. I have to write them fast. I once wrote 16,000 words in a single day! Good words, too. I didn’t even edit it and put it up on Amazon. You get me?”

He nodded.

“Now, I can’t write a damn text message! The other day I was sitting on the couch. I watched Oprah! Oprah! Didn’t change the channel. Then the View came on. The fucking View. I couldn’t be bothered to find the remote so I WATCHED IT. Do you understand? I watched it.”

“So?” Van Dyke shook his head.

“I don’t even have a fucking T.V. What the fuck am I doing? I can’t write and you want me to give you $70 every time I come in here?”

He looked over his glasses at me. “You’re only paying $70?”

“Sliding scale, doc!”

He nodded.

“If the crap you are pumping into my body takes away my drive and my ability to earn a living, I think you need to do something to help me out, especially since you’re asking for cash every time I come in.”

I scribbled something down. “I see, I see.”

“Good!” I felt proud of myself. 

“You want me to put you on disability because your awful stories aren’t selling.”

“What the fuck?”

“Yes, you want a hand out because you can’t cut it.”

“Cut it? Like hell mother fucker. I’ve been hustling this shit the last decade. You broke me! You killed my drive! I need my mania back!”

“Could you imagine if I put every writer in the valley on disability who couldn’t sell their crap?” He chuckled. “I’d be a laughing stock!”

I stormed out. Flipped off the fat chick. Got in my car and drove home to North Hollywood, running as many lights as I could. I felt as if I were in a rush to get home. Couldn’t figure out why. There was nothing I was late for. No deadlines coming up. I was just hustling to hustle. Get home as fast as I could, to sit alone in the dark, doing nothing.

12 days left and it will be The End of Everything for this campaign! it’s a shitty time to ask, but if you can help me out I’d appreciate it. please contribute or share this link. thanks https://igg.me/p/2583891/twtr/23172666

Tony came home. He got out of the car and opened the large wooden gate that he found for free online that someone was throwing away. It hung badly but that was because Tony didn’t know how to do anything. Tony was pretty shit.

He could hear the dogs barking but his wife hadn’t come out of the trailer. That always bothered him. He turned off the car, swallowed hard and got out. The dogs were still barking like maniacs. He shut the old gate and walked to the door of the trailer, sighing deeply.

He opened the door and ran up the three steps inside. Fred, the older of the two little dogs, jumped up on him, still barking. He saw his wife come out of the shitter. “Thank God,” he said.

“Thank God?” Susan said. “What’s all this ‘thank god’ shit every time you come home?”

“It’s just good to know that you are okay,” he said, kissing her on the cheek.

“Of course I’m okay. What the fuck do you think will happen to me?” she said, mockingly.

“I don’t know.” He fumbled his words. “You never know what could happen out here.”

“Out here? We are in the middle of the fucking desert! You were afraid in the city so we moved out here. What the fuck do you think could go wrong?”

“I don’t know.” He looked down at his feet. “I just like it when you come out to see me when I pull up is all.”

“I know you do, baby, but I had to shit,” she said. “I can’t stop shitting just because I hear you pulling up.”

“I know that. It’s just that I get afraid when you don’t.”

“What do you think’ll happen?”

“Well, nothing would happen, but when you don’t come out and I hear the dogs barking like that, I just assume I’m gonna open the door and find you murdered.”

“Murdered?” she gasped. “What the hell for?”

“For anything really.”

“That’s stupid.”

“It could happen. You never know.”

“So, let me get this straight. You come home and I’m not out there, so your first instinct is that I’ve been murdered?”

“Yes.”

“That’s stupid. We have the dogs.”

“These dogs are shit,” he pointed to them. They were laying on the floor licking their assholes. “These dogs wouldn’t scare away a mouse.”

“Bullshit. They are loud and terrifying.”

“Until someone puts their hand out or rubs their chest, then they are anyones best friend.” He leaned down and rubbed Mina, the little ones, chest. She loved it. “These dogs are shit.”

“So what exactly do you think you will see when you open the door?”

“Red. Red splattered walls. Blood pooled on the floor. The dogs soaked in it. Licking it up. Your body in pieces… stuff like that.”

“Jesus Christ!” she gasped.

“It’s just like any other phobia.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. You know how there are people afraid of heights and people afraid of spiders?”

“Yes.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to come in here one day and you’ll be butchered beyond all recognition while our stupid fucking dogs are still licking the cheese powder off your fingers from the Cheetos you had for lunch.”

“Fucking Jesus!”

“That’s all I’m saying. It scares me. That’s all.”

She said in a soft voice, “I’ll try to make sure that I come out to see you when you pull up then.”

“Thank you,” Tony said, “I’d appreciate that.” He turned on the little TV they had and was just in time to watch Dancing with the Stars. He sat down and danced slightly to the theme song.

The bridge over the L.A. River by Matt Wall

Jack walked out of his apartment, across the street and onto the bridge that goes over the dried up L.A. river. It was a warm evening and the sun hadn’t gone down yet. Jack squinted his eyes to see better and saw Ian waving to him from the other side. Jack waved back and once he got half way across the bridge, he stopped, and faced west, the sun still warm, shining on his face.

Jack pulled a pack of smokes from his front shirt pocket and lit one up. A moment later, once Ian had arrived and perched himself next to him, he handed Ian a cigarette. Ian lit his and they both looked into the sun.

“I’m waiting,” Jack said.

Ian chuckled and open the brown paper bag that he had brought with him and pulled out two, ice cold, glass bottles of beer. “Here you go.”

Jack smiled. “This is going to taste so good.” He took a long pull on the bottle. He started to say something, thought against it and pounded the bottle until it was empty. He belched loudly. It echoed beneath them along the concrete walls of the dried up L.A. river. Jack screamed and threw the bottle into the river and the sound of the glass smashing against the concrete was sadly softer than he hoped.

“Another?” Ian asked.

“Please.” Jack took the bottle from him and opened it. “I hate having to wait until evening to have a drink. This is torture!”

“How long has your community had booze banned now?”

“Six months and twenty-seven days. We are as dry that fucking river below us.” He guzzled half the bottle down. Belched loudly. “I don’t know what I would do without you, Ian.”

“That’s okay, Jack. If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be able to ever have another cigarette. They banned those in my community a year ago!”

The two men smoked all the cigarette’s and finished off the six pack with hardly saying another word. They said their goodbyes and then Jack walked back Northeast across the bridge to his community and Ian walked back down Southwest to his.

The next night the two men met again in the middle of the bridge. Jack handed Ian a smoke and Ian handed Jack a beer.

“Things are getting weird over in my community,” Jack said.

“How so?” Ian asked.

“Well, there’s a food shortage and a lot of people are starving, I guess.”

“Yeah?” Ian said. “We sort of have the same problem in mine. No meat.”

 Jack continued, “So there was this big meeting with the whole community and everyone is shouting at everyone else and people are getting upset so I said, why don’t we just eat people? We got a ton of those!”

“People?” Ian asked, lighting another smoke.

“People.” Jack said, opening another beer.

“You think they’ll go for it?”

“I don’t know? There’s another meeting tomorrow.”

“Would you do it?” Ian asked.

“Fuck no!” Jack shouted. “I’m vegan now and fast four days a week anyway. When we eat, it’s mainly soup – of some kind.”

“I didn’t know that about you.”

“It’s kind of a new thing. This girl I’m dating is vegan and she moved into my place last month so…”

“I understand,” Ian said.

The next night Ian beat Jack to the bridge by a couple minutes. When Ian asked what took Jack so long, Jack said, “You’ll never believe it. They took a vote today and cannibalism passed. People can eat people in my neighborhood now.”

Ian handed him a beer and said, “That’s great, man. You must feel really good about it.”

“Not really. Everyone has been chasing each other around all day trying to kill each other with the stupidest things. I don’t think people know how to hunt anymore. Come to think of it, I don’t either.”

“Give me an example of what you saw.”

“Well, I saw a woman chasing a man down the alley behind my kitchen window. She was chasing him with an electric carving knife, but the knife wasn’t plugged in and the guy was running from her! Scared!”

“Why don’t people just shoot people?”

“Guns? We banned those things years ago.”

“That’s right,” Ian took a long drag off his cigarette. “We have guns coming out our ears in my neighborhood.” Ian took a swig off the beer and said, “You know what Jack? You’ve inspired me. I’m going to call a meeting tomorrow and tell them all the great things you’re doing in your community and see if we can follow suit.”

They finished the beer.

They finished the smokes.

They went their separate ways.

The next night, Jack was hanging his head low. He met Ian halfway and lit a smoke and grabbed a beer. “Well, it started,” Jack said.

“What did?”

“Someone finally caught someone else, and right this minute, they are cooking them over a fire.”

“How do you know?”

“I can smell it. It’s making me hungry, but I’m a vegan and this is one of my fast days anyway.”

Ian shook his head. “Your willpower is amazing.”

They both finished a bottle and threw it into the dried up, concrete, L.A. river. 

Ian said, “I talked to my neighborhood and they are voting on cannibalism tomorrow. I think it will go well. There is no protein in my community. Everyone has these fucking gardens and shit and all they do is grow vegetables.”

“Really?” Jack said. “Like what?”

“Everything you could think of and some others that you can’t. Lettuce, tomato, onions, potatoes, carrots, celery, eggplant, cucumber, zucchini, pumpkins, watermelons, and the corn! Jesus Christ there is so much corn!”

Jack’s mouth was watering. “Could you bring me some of that tomorrow?”

“Like what?”

“Any of it. We can’t grow stuff in my neighborhood. We are allowed to but no one knows how to do it and we don’t got any dirt. It’s all concrete!”

The next night, Jack’s community was on fire. It was terrifying. There were gunshots, people screaming and buildings collapsing. Jack got there early. Not because he didn’t want to be in harms way, but because Ian promised him some veggies.

Ian showed up, this time carrying two big brown paper bags. One had two six packs in it and the other was a colorful explosion of veggies and fruits. Jack’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. Jack handed Ian a cigarette.

“I feel bad,” Jack said. “First the beer and now this? I just bring you smokes, man. I need to do something else.”

“You already have.”

“What do you mean?”

Just then a truck drove over the bridge and slowed down by them. Ian waved and the truck drove away.

Jack shook his head. “I can’t remember the last time I saw anyone drive on this bridge.”

Ian took swig of the beer and said, “We passed cannibalism in our neighborhood today.”

“That’s great, man. Really,” Jack said. “You guys should have no problems.”

“I know! What made it better was the fact that your community passed it too.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because now we can just go into your neighborhood, where no one has any guns, and kill people there and bring them back to our neighborhood without anyone getting hurt.”

Jack nodded. “That makes sense, I guess. This morning I looked out my kitchen window and saw a little old lady, curly white hair, sunken eyes, kneeling the street, she was chewing on this big fat guy’s belly. He was laying in the middle of the ally wearing nothing but his tighty-whities. She saw me and sat up to wave. I was expecting blood and guts and shit, but she smiled and there was only drool. That was it. She didn’t have her dentures in. She was just gumming him to death. Then, while she was waving, the fat guy just stood up and walked away. I think it was a sex thing or something.”

Ian shuddered and said, “The freezers in town are almost all full of dead people. Our town will be eating good for months.”

“What happens when the food runs out again?”

“I guess we will turn on each other.”

They shrugged and finished their beers.

“Goodnight, Ian.”

“Goodnight, Jack.”

Jack walked back across his side of the bridge and walked through town. He didn’t see another living soul. There weren’t any bodies in the street either, too valuable. He went home and placed his brown bag of veggies on the counter. His girlfriend wasn’t there. Somebody must’ve got her, he thought.

He walked over to the community center where the meetings are held.

Empty.

He sat in the biggest chair. He picked up the gavel. It felt good. The weight of it in his hand. Then he said, “I herby make into law, from this moment forward, that alcohol is legal once again in this community.” He slammed the gavel down two or three times and smiled. 

He stood up and was nearly dancing as he walked out the door and back down the street. then he stoped.

“Shit!” he said. “There’s no one left to sell beer to me.” 

He went home with his head hangin low. He lit a cigarette, shut his door and grabbed a cucumber, counting down the minutes until he would met Ian on the bridge tomorrow night, until he saw a truck full of armed men crossing the bridge from Ian’s neighborhood into his. Swallowing that first bite of cucumber became difficult. 

Billy lived in North Hollywood. It used to be a nice place. Then, the Red Line stop was put there. Now, it isn’t so nice. Make of that what you will.

Billy was a writer who had never sold anything. He was living off of an inheritance and if things kept up the way they were going, which wasn’t well, he would be broke and out on the street before the year’s end. 

Instead of writing, Billy was constantly thinking about his money running out and how awful things would be then. “It couldn’t be worse than living in this flea bag apartment building,” he thought, at least when he was feeling optimistic, but that didn’t happen very often.

It was hot and it was night. Billy needed a drink.

He walked out his door on the third story of the building and blocked out all the screams of madness that usually littered those hallways. He had to. He would have been driven mad long ago if he didn’t. But, if he had listened to those screams, he may have noticed that tonight, they were a little different.

He went to the corner shop, dropped a ten on the counter and walked out with a case of Natty Ice. He liked the taste of Natty Light better, but Natty Ice came in black cans. He thought black was cool. He always wore black. So, he logically thought that his beer cans should also always wear black.

Minutes later, as he was walking through his building, he was still blocking out the screams of madness that usually came from his little square of NoHo. He had to. It would’ve drove him nuts if he had to listen that everyday.

When he was slipping his key in the door, he heard a voice coming from behind him.

“Can I have one of those beers you got there?”

The voice was deep, but, it didn’t sound threatening. Billy was always worried about getting robbed. He heard of many people in the building getting robbed. Usually he heard of this when he was checking his mailbox since he rarely ever talked to anyone in the building. 

“Is this how it happens?” Billy thought. “Is this how people get robbed?”

“Hey!” said the voice behind him, “I asked if I could have one of those beers?”

Billy slowly turned around and made eye contact with the man’s chest. He moved his eyes upward and eventually came to the man’s face. He had a hard face, but the guy was wearing a black shirt and Billy took that as a sign of camaraderie. 

“Shit, man. I’ll give you a dollar for one of those beers,” the man said. 

Billy thought about it. The case of Natty Ice only cost $7.99. A normal case only comes with 12 beers. If he sold each beer for a dollar, he could be up $4.00 minus tax. But this case, this was one of those cases that gives you three extra Natties. That meant that Billy had 15 cans of beer in his case. The ROI on this deal could end up being a very lucrative scheme. If the writing thing didn’t work out…

“Jesus Christ, buddy,” the man said, “forget it!”

“No! No!” Billy said. “It’s okay. I’ll give you one.” Billy opened the door and was about to ask the man if he wanted to come in, but found after he put the case down, the man was already in the apartment and had shut the door behind him. Billy also noticed that the man was wearing a skirt.

The man saw that Billy’s eyes were fixated on his attire. “It’s a kilt.”

Billy titled his head to the side. “Is it? It looks like a skirt.”

“It’s a kilt.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Goodwill.”

Billy rubbed his chin. “What department?”

“What?”

“Like, what else was around it?”

“I dunno, clothes.”

“Ladies clothes?”

“I said, I dunno!” The man snapped. “You trying to be funny or something?”

“No!” Billy shuddered.

“The thing is plaid and it has pleats! It’s a damn kilt!”

Billy wanted to tell him that all catholic school girl’s skirts did too, but let it slide. He ripped open the cardboard case and gave the man a beer. Billy waited. The man opened it and took a long pull on the can. Billy waited. The man offered no money and Billy’s heart sank. 

Billy opened a can for himself and sat down on his tiny couch that he found near the dumpster seven months ago. The pattern on it was disgusting. Something grabbed Billy’s attention.

A drop of blood fell on the hardwood floor. It came from in-between the man’s legs. Another drop fell.

“Oh shit!” Billy shouted. Was this man having a period? Was this a woman before him? Had he misgendered this person? His mind raced. He wondered if he had said anything to the man or woman that would indicate what sex Billy figured the man or woman to be. He panicked. Just a few weeks back, Billy was cancelled off of Twitter for accidentally misgendering someone. He thought his life was over. In fact if it wasn’t for the first three episodes of The Mandalorian on Disney Plus, not having any female roles, he was sure that the cancelling would’ve followed him to Instagram and Facebook, as well.

The man looked at what Billy was looking at. He saw the blood.

Billy looked at the man’s face. He didn’t look so good. He was pale, but with a yellowish tint. He was dripping sweat. The closer Billy looked at the guy, he thought that he would pass out. 

There was a long uncomfortable silence.

Then, something made a splat sound with light thud, on the floor.

Billy looked down. “Oh my Jesus! Your ball fell out!” Billy even pointed in case the man didn’t know what he was talking about.

The man slowly looked down to the floor. Sure enough, there was a a roundish object, covered in blood on the hardwood. He picked it up and lifted his skirt. Billy was horrified and now certain of the man’s sex. The man’s scrotum was huge, discolored and looked infected. The guy had a pretty decent pecker in there, too, but it was the sack that was the grotesque freak show. It had a slit near the top by the penis that was about the length of a thumb. The edge of the slice was disgusting and red, and scabby and crusty. Greenish puss oozed out of the wound. Billy stared at the sack and it looked like a leather pouch filled to he brim with marbles. It seemed that there were tons of balls in there. He couldn’t understand it.

The man lifted the ball up off the ground and smiled when he showed it to Billy. It wasn’t a testicle. It was looking back and him. It was a fucking eyeball!

Billy shrieked in terror and spilled his beer. He tried to jump back over the couch but it was against a wall and he had nowhere to go. 

The man pulled down on his sack to open the slash and forced the eyeball into his scrotum. He winced and once it was inside, he dropped the skirt and lifted his hands toward Billy, opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue. 

Billy had nowhere to go. He was a weakling and had never been in a fight in his life. He had no idea what to do so he froze. The man grabbed him and put his mouth over one of Billy’s eyes. His breath smelled like spoiled milk, electrical fire and asshole. His skin was sweaty and clammy like dead fish. Billy screamed as he felt his eye pop out of the socket. Billy was sick. The pain made him sick but the sound made him even more sick.

Billy puked down the front of the man. All he had eaten that day was a bag of ramen and half that beer.

The man backed up in disgust. Then, he puked a little. 

Billy saw his own eye on the ground in the man’s puke. He reached up to his empty socket and felt tendrils and other shit that he couldn’t explain coming out. He screamed and ran for the door. He opened the door and ran into the hall, screaming. He finally stopped zoning out the other screams in the building. 

“My eyes!”

“I’m blind!”

“Where are my fucking eyes!”

These were the screams that Billy heard. 

“Help!” Billy shouted, but realized everyone was in the same boat as him. 

Doors opened. People stumbled out. The people had bloody holes in their heads where eyes should be.  They’re arms were outstretched, feeling their way through the hall. Then, he heard the man stomp into the hall.

“I’m gonna put your eyeballs in my bloody, bloody ballsack!” The man shouted.

“Help!”

“I’m gonna put your eyeballs in my bloody, bloody ballsack!”

He was getting closer. Billy felt like he was having a heart attack. If he let the man have his other eyeball, he would leave him alone. That’s what Billy thought.

Billy stopped running and turned, back against the wall. Everyone still screaming through the building. The man stormed towards him. “I’m gonna put your eyeball in my bloody, bloody ballsack!”

As the man painfully sucked his other eyeball out, Billy remembered that the man with the bloody, bloody ballsack still owed him a dollar that he would never see.

If I could be like John Carter

I take off my clothes. I stand outside, in the cold night air, lit only by the moon. I lift my arms. I stare up into the void of space. My eyes set themselves on a star. The star is so bright. It’s color changes from white to red to blue to yellow. I want to be there. I want to be on that star. I feel weightless. I stretch my arms out as far as I can and I am suddenly lifted off the ground. The cool air on the bottoms of my feet give me a shock. I move faster and faster upward. I don’t look down but I know that the ground beneath me is getting farther and farther away. I focus all my energy on that star. My brain begins to ache with the strain. I am getting higher and higher. I can feel the air thin in my lungs. It’s becoming harder to breathe. There is pressure in my ears. I can feel blood trickling out of my nostrils. I scream and there is no sound. My body beings to freeze. My eyes feel like they are trying to escape from my skull. My head…

I COULDN’T GET OUT OF BED. 

It was awful. There was no reason to. Everything outside was disgusting and everything inside bored me to my core. I couldn’t think of anything to do, so I didn’t. I was so tired. Tired from doing nothing and being nothing. How could something like this make one so exhausted? I lay in bed and pass time by cataloging the pain that runs through my body, in my mind. The aches and pains are so severe, but not anything compared to the thought of having to deal with the “normal” humans out in the world. They are awful. They can’t drive. They speak too loudly. They smell. Their faces wear masks of fake smiles and joy. Mothers yell at their children and yank them by their arms. Idiots trick everyone into thinking their dogs are service animals. No one gets out of your way and doesn’t wait for you to move out of theirs. Women dress provocatively and give dirty looks if you stare. Men try to look tough and give you dirty looks if you make eye contact. It rains and suddenly the roads become unbearable. The seasons change and with it the weather. The winter cold hurts my bones and joints. The summer heat makes me want to kill. The pollen of the spring makes me not be able to breathe and the fall, the fall which I’m in now, turns life into a slow death. My loneliness, once thought unbearable, remains my only solace in a world of death and decay, full of assholes and ingrates. Entitled shits who want the riches of life, the riches of the world, handed to them on a silver platter. The same ones who want to change the meaning of words. The same ones who want to be the new world regime. Why get out of bed with this madness? Why try? Why put on a smile to be just be accused of being a Nazi or a racist or a fascist or a sexist or any other ist that you can think of. I want to live on Mars, or the Moon, or Hell, if that is still a place. Maybe then I would get out of bed. Maybe I wouldn’t.