Short Fiction: Olds

[All works of short fiction are 1st drafts unless otherwise noted.]

She was still short. She was still brunette. Her smile, still vaguely familiar. But nothing else about W. was the same. She stood on a beach with a man he didn't know and two grown sons, both taller than her. Her face looked weathered from too much sun, too much time. He scratched his graying beard and thought back to days in the school courtyard, lunch, just her and him and the sharing of secrets. Pizza for seventy-five cents.

The sun was always harsh but its radiation wasn't the concern. The Cold War was still on. Reagan and Gorbachev talked. The world was new and full of promise, excitement. W. made his heart hurt with her smile, the way the light caught her eyes, the way she shared with him her everything. Well, her almost everything.

He smiled, he comforted, he listened. She had guy problems. She shared. He cared. Until one day, unable to bear it anymore he told her how he felt and watched her face twitch and her eyes narrow. His wasn't the path of subtlety, more a vomiting up of emotion. She flinched as if she was being hit. Nothing ever was the same between them again.

They stayed in touch, off and on over the years. They still talked, less intimately than before, more conversationally, civilly. They crossed paths in college, briefly. He hurt but couldn't bring himself not to hurt in her presence and she, for her own reasons, couldn't bring herself to simply force him away. It was only years later, in the context of a random and rare email exchange that she chose to share her own burden, her own pain. Years caught up in his own feelings had blinded him to her reality. Hers was the pain of being the cause of another's pain through no fault of her own. He loved her, that much was clear to her and it wasn't that he was a bad person. He'd been a close friend once though she'd searched her heart. She'd never loved him. She never would. She'd been honest about how she felt. She'd never not cared for him and the imbalance of their feelings was a weight she carried with her every time she interacted with him. He had his pain, his memory of their time together. She had her own.

He moved on both in life and in social media. S. had younger kids though she was older. She had the same goofy smile but the years hadn't been kind to her either. He reflected on this as he stared at the built-in webcam on his all-in-one computer and thought how rarely he cared to turn it on anymore and see himself caught in its gaze. It felt like a hundred years ago with S. even if it was only twenty plus. The 'coalition of the willing' was going to save Kuwait. 'No new taxes' became, eventually, new taxes. College was different, free, exhilarating and there was S., a year older, seemingly years wiser, pretty, smart, funny, sharing courses with him.

The day came for  him to tell her his feelings. He was better this time, there was less emotional vomit but the W.'s flinch had become S.'s flinch. Her smile of only a few minutes earlier faded, her face darkened. She was short, to the point, as if she'd had to do this before. She didn't love him. He was just her friend. That's all he was ever going to be.

There was little between them after that, even in the few classes they shared. The intimate had grown awkward. Conversation, once easy and smooth, was now strained. Soon enough there was her graduation which he half-heartedly attended while making a point to stay in the background. Soon afterwards, she was gone only to appear now, all these many years later, on a computer monitor in the form of thousands of pixels.

C. came in to the video store he was working in with her charges, to rent a movie. People did that then, rented movies in stores. Movies in large cases because they were videotapes, movies that needed to be rewound in a machine dedicated solely for that purpose at the front desk, when they were returned. C. was a nanny, her charges raced up and down the aisles wanting first this movie, then that. She laughed with them and giggled and found the whole thing fun. C. found everything fun.

She had an exotic look to her being of mixed heritage. The first thing you noticed, the first thing he noticed, anyway, was her eyes, then her smile, then her very large breasts. After some persistent coaxing he got her to agree to dinner on top of the mountain. It was a 'real date'. She looked amazing. He was proud of himself and the way he was able to keep eye contact throughout. There was an awkward kiss at the door goodnight. It would be their only kiss.

When he wasn't working he became a fixture at her employer's house, visiting her and her charges. He felt alive. She was fun, she was funny, she was pretty, light danced in her eyes changing their color depending on the angle one found one's self looking at them.

She was visibly upset when he told her how he felt. She kept asking him "Why?" She just wanted to be friends, nothing more. She seemed insistent on it. So, he let what he said drop, never brought it up again and tried to be 'just friends'.

He tried hard. She seemed to let the awkwardness slide away, or, maybe, she just ignored it. She wanted the friendship thing to work. He came and watched her at rehearsals for a play she was doing. He sat in the audience and watched her on stage and he could feel his heart tearing apart into a million little pieces. He'd go home, he lived alone in a place of his own. He'd cry. He'd blame himself for not being able to just be her friend. He'd feel consumed with a desire for something more. He'd once lie in his bed for four hours without moving hoping that if he just stayed still long enough and didn't do anything that, maybe, maybe he'd die and he wouldn't have to deal with his feelings anymore.

The hospital was a week-long stay. The first night, though he felt the same crippling sadness he'd felt for months before, he realized that he was in the wrong place. The people here weren't just sad like him, they were delusional, a few even downright scary. The week passed in seven days, like most weeks are prone to do. He was required to go to group therapy afterwards. He sat in a circle and listened to stories, some of which he could relate to and others, not so much. He participated in confidence building exercises, wrote in a journal, avoided negative stimuli and tried hard not to think about C.. He also kept to his meds, regularly.

He looked C. up, as he had the others. She was still single, her life mate being her husky/wolf hybrid. She was living in Alaska, over 3,000 miles away. They exchanged emails; short, civil, cordial. He got glimpses into her life via her picture posts. The pain that had drove him so hard once before had dulled. The light still danced in her eyes though, as it had years before. He quit visiting her profile and quit emailing her. She never emailed him again.

D. worked the pole at a local 'Gentleman's Club'. He never felt like the building was much of a clubhouse and saw few 'gentlemen' when he was there, which was more than his income could easily support, but D. had a way about her. She was a trained dancer and moved like one across the floor. She was short but had the most perfect posture he'd ever seen. Women with breasts 4 cup sizes bigger barely moved on stage, instead choosing to sway their largess back and forth with an uneasy smile as money came their way quickly and easily. D.'s breasts were recognizable by her erect nipples only but she was fit, curvy at the waist and her muscular legs grabbed the center stage pole and refused to let go. Every dance was a show and he found it impossible not to give his money away to her along with his heart.

Soon he was coming just to see her. They moved beyond her stage name to her real name. They moved beyond her grinding in his lap to him buying her drinks and them talking about her day. They exchanged book recommends, fave movies, fave authors. When one of her fave authors came to his work, he made sure to buy a hardcover copy of one of their books and get it signed just for her. When he gave it to her from Christmas she broke down crying. It was the first time, she said, that a man at the 'club' had given her a gift that hadn't been lingerie.

He took her out once. Only once. A date. A proper date. Dinner was Italian and the limo was a stretch job and black. Her conservative, classy dress was black and she looked more beautiful with clothes on than she did in the dim light of her job. The show was Cats and the seats were center ones with a good view. During intermission he spent more than he wanted to on a couple of signature black sweatshirts. After the show, he still had time on the limo. The rode around town. She wanted him to take her to work so she could brag. He did. The night ended with a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

Later, when he told D. how he felt, in the 'club' having to speak louder than he wanted to in order to be heard above the thumping music she looked disappointed. She didn't flinch. It was if she had seen it coming, expected it even. Surely, he thought, this wasn't her first rodeo. She apologized, got up, left to keep a commitment to a customer and didn't return.

She was in Arizona now, her last name changed, her relationship status unclear. Her breasts were 4 cup sizes larger than he'd been and looked awkward on her still small frame. Her smile was thin and wan but her eyes were still fiery and determined. Time had been good to her, breast enhancement aside. He wrote her, on impulse. She never wrote back.

There was another D. and there was J., there was S. and LM., all nice women, all attractive, all really caring for him. He had sex with three of the four but couldn't bring himself to feel about them the way they felt about him.

Years passed and his heart, like a wary fish, avoided latching on to anything or anyone who tempted it. He got a promotion at his work. He wound up with a teammate, A., short, pretty, a dirty blonde with an edge, an attitude and a freshly awarded college degree. She was fifteen years his junior. Her being short didn't stop her from being curvy and she seemed to pack the maximum amount of femininity into the smallest frame possible. She was loud. Her laugh was annoying. Her confidence bordered on cocky. He couldn't see it working.

He was depressed then, not yet about A. but about life in general. Work was overwhelming. Bills were overwhelming. He wasn't happy with where he was in his life. Time had passed too quickly and he was nowhere near where he'd expected to be at this point. A. grew on him. She was nice. Cocky, sure? Loud? Definitely. But she was funny. She worked hard enough to justify the cocky and he liked that. She closed a deal, a big deal, she'd been working on. No one seemed to notice. No one seemed to care. He bought her flowers to celebrate.

They didn't meet out of work though they did joint presentations from time to time. Her cubby was just the other side of his. He became friends with her friend, J.. They'd have lunch together and talk and joke. For Valentine's Day they decided to do secret Valentine's. He remembered getting a $20 gift card to a bar and grill type restaurant. He'd drawn A. and made sure to buy her the DVD boxed set of a movie she'd liked. She loved it. She bragged about it. She wanted to ditch work early to go home and watch it.

Life held little joy for him then. He looked forward to seeing her, hearing her from the other side of the partition, prattle on about whatever. About anything. She was a candle that he clutched at in the darkness. She was something and when he dared think of her, his heart quit aching.

A singer she loved was coming to town. He bought her two tickets. Great seats. Told her to take someone, anyone, so long as they were someone she cared about. She was hesitant. It was too much, she said, the tickets, too expensive. She wanted to go though, so, in the end she took them and a friend. He remembered staying at home the night of the show, wondering how it was, if she was having fun and crying himself to sleep.

A. got a better job. More responsibility, better pay. She was quitting. He was proud of her. So young and going places. She'd worked hard for this so, he was happy for her. It meant he'd likely never see her again, he told himself. He was devastated.

On her last day there'd be a group lunch. He ordered her not one but two dozen roses for her desk. She cried. She cried a lot that day. Everyone was happy for her but everyone was sad she was leaving. The group lunch started out well but he left before it was over, trying to see the door, trying to find his way through the parking lot to his car. Keep moving, he told himself, don't stop. If you stop you'll double over and start crying and then where will you be. Somehow he drove home.

Somehow he kept going to work. Every day was torture. Her cubby was empty. She wasn't there. Her friend J. looked at him with what he hoped was concern and what he was afraid of was some sort  of judgement. She was a good listener at first but as days turned into weeks she became less sympathetic, more distant. He could hear her frustration. She didn't want to hear him talk about his feelings. She wouldn't talk about A.. She wouldn't tell him anything about her.

After some begging he got a friend to call A. on his behalf. He felt as if he was crossing a line but he felt like he couldn't stop himself. His friend tried to cushion the blow. A. never saw him as anything more than a nice coworker. He was too old for her. She was only interested in men her own age. She was exasperated. She didn't know what he wanted from her or what he expected. She had no idea what she'd done to engender such deep emotion. A. told  his friend that he needed help. That she if she ever felt comfortable, she'd contact him. She never did.

Work was long, every minute was painful. He went to presentations and barely kept himself together only to wind up sobbing outside in his car. Productivity suffered. There was talk about hiring her replacement. His boss wanted him to sit in on the interviews. There was no way he could handle that, no way he could interview someone to take her place, no way he could bear to see someone else sitting at her desk.

He quit. He had no new job lined up. He had no idea what he was going to do. Quitting meant no health insurance. He quit anyway. He spent his days curled up in his apartment at home crying and trying to sleep as much as possible. The nights weren't bad but the early mornings were brutal. The sun dawning to a new day meant another round of battles, another round of trying to get through, another day he had to get past, somehow.

His family helped with bills. He tried to job hunt but was miserable at it. The depression he'd felt before he had feelings for A. had come back and then some. Nothing mattered. Nothing made sense. It was all futile anyway, he reasoned. Death was coming for us all in the long run.

His doctor gave him discounts and put him back on medication. He didn't seem to be getting any better. When he asked his doctor how many of his blood pressure pills he'd have to take in order to kill himself his doctor wasn't pleased. He went to ER after ER and was turned away every time. He was depressed, no one argued that but he wasn't assessed to be a risk to himself until finally, on his 4th or 5th try, the hospital decided he had to stay. He looked like he hadn't slept in days. His blood pressure was uncomfortably high. He was admitted.

It was a ten day stretch this time, not seven. He spent his days in the community room watching TV. Lots of infomercials and bad movies. The food was good enough not to be bad and bad enough not to be good. The list of rules was a mile long. At night some of the patients screamed, others snored and the frosted windows kept you from being able to look outside. The courtyard, where one could walk, it was late June, early July, had high walls and was secure from attempted escapes, if he had even had the energy to try something like that. Family and friends visited. They all looked concerned. A psychiatrist checked his med levels and talked to him for 5-minutes a day, a couple of residents learning the trade in tow. There were no counseling sessions (the counselor position had been vacant a while) and no daily activities (the activity coordinator position had been vacant a while). He grew a beard rather than try to shave with the flimsy plastic razors they handed out. After ten days he was deemed well-enough for the world again and set free.

He found a job. He went to work. He came home. He cried. He stuck to his meds and slowly, very slowly, he found that he could get through a day without crying. Then two. Sometimes three. Everything reminded him of her. He thought of her all the time except when he was sleeping. He liked sleeping.

He avoided looking for A. on the Internet, more so than the others. He didn't want to see her. He was afraid of all the feelings rushing back to him. But as he had looked up his other olds he decided that, after a certain number of years, it was time to look her up as well.

There she was, sitting in the grass in her pic. Married. Her husband and kids with her. He teared up but he didn't cry. His heart hurt but he didn't double over and spend the rest of the day in a fetal position. He got up and shuffled into the other room to get a drink. He turned the swamp cooler on, it was getting hot. He came back to the computer, got off her profile page and decided to play a movie. He picked something he'd seen a million times before, something that gave him a semblance of comfort.

And so he sat, in his t-shirt and boxers, that weekend day in Summer, scratching his graying beard, staring blankly at the screen of his computer, alone with his memories, listening as his cooler kicked on. He looked at the built-in webcam camera again and was glad he didn't turn it on and turned his attention back to the movie. He'd have a pill later, for anxiety, and he'd take a nap and he'd hope not to dream of anything he'd ever wanted.


Copyright M.R. McCaffery, 2014. All rights reserved. 

Fiction Short: "The Problem With Mothers"

[Note:  All pieces of short fiction are rough drafts unless otherwise noted.]

Barack, Jesus and Spock met for lunch at Bob’s Burgers. Barak was in town, Jesus was able to manipulate his schedule however he wanted and Spock used a quantum fissure to beam into this time/space continuity.

Jesus had the ranchero burger with fries, Barack, the chicken taco platter and Spock a chili cheese burger with chili cheese fries.

Jesus avoided tapping into his divine side, as he always did, when he wanted to be surprised by something. This was a conversation he wanted to have for a long time.

Barack started first. “You guys ever get tired of being defined by your dads? It’s as if our mom’s didn’t exist, were never born, didn’t matter. When someone looks at me all they see is a black man. My mom being white, being from Kansas. Nobody sees that. They just see me, see a black man. American politics, culture, they won’t let me be anything else. I’m half American, half African but I’m not ‘African American’. I don’t relate to the struggle because the struggle wasn’t part of who I was. If I tried to market myself as biracial, I’d be nothing, I’d belong to nothing. Neither side would accept me. To be something I had to pick. Being black was the only choice. No one sees my mother when they see me, they just see a black man.”

Spock found the chili cheese burger fascinating. Human foods were often illogical in their construction and this was no exception. He arched an eyebrow. “It is logical that based on your melatonin count and your species that those of your nation-state would choose to identify you as a so-called ‘black man’. Humans are notoriously visual creatures and have a strong clan identity system, most likely the result of their primate lineage. For them to see you as anything other than black would be unlikely.”

Barack and Jesus looked at Spock. They both admitted to finding him annoying at times but there was one thing they admired about him, his ability to cut straight through the bullshit.

“I too suffer at the hands of the human predilection to label things based on visual perception alone. My ears are Vulcan. My mother is human, from Earth, not too different from your Ann Dunham, Barack. She married boldly. She married out of her kind and became an outcast in the eyes of her family. She married for love. It was illogical for her and my father to wed, it was illogical for me to be the product of their passions and yet hear I sit. Ironically my lifelong pursuit of logic is the result of an illogical coupling. If I had more of a sense of humor I might find that, amusing.”

“Be that as it may, no one sees me as human. They only see me as an alien. I’m a Vulcan, like my father. My mother, like your Barack, has no standing in the equation. I’m not bi-special, I’m not a hybrid born of human and Vulcan, I’m Vulcan as far as most are concerned. The details of my birth, their specifics, are mostly academic.”

“I wish I could say this was limited to just humans but I find the same prejudices exist on Vulcan. Perhaps there’s an innate weakness in the reasoning of sentient beings that leads us to be thus. Perhaps we have an innate distaste for complexity, a yearning for the simple. Being one thing or another is easier to deal with than being a combination of multiple things.”

Jesus bit into a taco and nodded. “Your problems, my brothers, are not dissimilar. I too can relate, but only to a point. Being the son of a human and a Supreme Being is not unlike your conditions but is a different thing altogether. Half human, half divine, the human part is diminished. It’s there only to feign my death, a death I can’t have because I’m half divine. My human side may die but my divine side is impervious to even the tortures of the cross.”

“People focus on the imperviousness. They deny my human side. They deny my mother’s human side. Unlike your mothers, my brothers, mine is venerated above all. She’s not venerated for being human, she’s venerated for being more than human. Mary, my mother, farted and shit, she vomited and pissed, she sweat and fucked. She was a woman, a human woman. Her shit stank something terribly. When she passed gas, it could clear a room. When she lay with my step-ather, Joseph, sometimes she rode him hard, other times, she let him take her from behind. When they finished sometimes she smiled a happy smile, other times she came loudly calling both his and my father’s name, body shaking, back arching, muscles taught at the moment of climax. Sometimes when they lay together they didn’t engage in coitus at all but rather, my mother would take my stepfather all into her mouth and suck him until he spilled his seed. She was a woman, a human woman, and she was all those things that a human woman entails.”

“But like my mother, many people deny me my humanity. Oh, my death, they give me that, sure, they wish that upon me. For only in my death and subsequent rebirth do they get hope of their life ever after. They wish my death upon me out of fear of their own. But they don’t wish me my human joys, my human pleasures, my human frailties. I’m the son of God, the son, not the father, though many like to say I’m all things in all forms, son, father and Holy Spirit. They want me to be all things because they can’t accept me being anything less. That I shit, that I farted, that I felt the pangs of lust and felt my manhood engorge when I was aroused, no one ever gives me these things. That women spread their legs for me, that they took me in, that I felt the pleasure that lasts forever between that moment when you’re on the verge of release and the release itself, no one gives me that. My manhood, like my humanity is cut out of my story. All that’s left is a bedazzlement, the light of the divine. But if I was all divine and not man, what good would my sacrifice have been? A mere magic show, a fraud, a falsehood born of a god faking his own death.”

“It is logical that a species fearing its ephemeral condition would latch on to a story about a man that was more than a man, a man that was able to overcome Death. It’s logical for creatures burdened with the weight of their mortality to wish for something more, in whatever form it may take. What is illogical is the penchant to deny things their true nature, to see things the way people want to see them instead of as they really are.” Spock picked at his chili cheese fries. “Therein lies the problems with mothers.”

“The problem with mothers?” Barack took another bite of his taco.

“I think what our half-human friend means to say is that in a universe created by a patriarchal god is a universe that is run as a patriarchy. We are the men of our fathers because its our fathers that matter, not out mothers. A mother may give birth to life but if the universe was indeed created by a male god, by a father, without a mother, then it explains why mothers are so invisible, especially where males are concerned. We are the true children of god. We are his true servants in most all faiths. We men. Women are denied the role of leadership because they’re denied the role of life giver. Women are denied their humanity because god is a man and women aren’t.”

Jesus thought about it a  moment, “Maybe it would be better if we just saw things as they were and not as we wanted them to be.”

Spock finished off his chili fries, “Fascinating. Unlikely proposition, but, fascinating.”

Copyright 2014, M.R. McCaffery. All rights reserved. 

Fiction Short: "What Doesn't Kill You..."

[Note:  All my fiction shorts are first drafts unless otherwise noted.]

The kid with the purple highlights in his otherwise jet black Mohawk, the one wearing the Nietzsche shirt, could feel the warm sticky blood coming out of the center of the “S” where he’d stuck the jagged piece of green rock into. He cocked an eyebrow as the blood started to leak at first, the spray. He had to shut his eyes as it sprayed into his face. The tall guy in the mostly blue suit with the red cape, the one with the square jaw, gave out a slight, awkward gasp, staggered backwards and fell down, hands clutching at the tail end of the jagged piece of green rock sticking out of the fountain that had once been his chiseled chest.

The kid wiped the warm sticky blood out of his eyes. His first thought was how he was definitely going to need a shower when he got home. His second thought was how he’d just killed god. He took the earphones out of his ears since he only wore them to make people think he was listening to music to avoid conversation. The iPod mini he carried was broken. Hadn’t worked for ages. Truth was he’d gotten used to playing the music he’d heard before over and over in his head anyway, so it wasn’t like he was ever really without tunes.

The guy sure was big. He’d been tall enough but he was really stretched out now, lying sprawled out on the ground, the dark red pool of blood unevenly expanding more on his left side than on his right. You could only see some of the red “S” and yellow background now, most of it was covered up. His eyes were still open, staring blankly up into the sky. The tail end of the jagged green rock stuck out of his chest, a red light beeping on and off.

The kid looked up into the sky. He knew the guy came from up there, not from ‘up in the clouds’ up there but from ‘beyond the stars’ up there. Did aliens like him even have a soul, the kid wondered. And if they didn’t, say, would it be wrong to kill them, even if it wasn’t on accident? Was killing an alien, even on purpose, was that even murder? Or was that, like, some kind of cruelty to animals?

“Hey kid, come here. This will come in handy someday.” The bald man in the stretch limo rolled down the mirrored window and handed him a sliver of green rock. It was sharp. It looked like an emerald. Course he’d never seen an emerald….

“It ain’t no emerald kid.” The mirrored window rolled back up and the limo pulled away from the curb. The kid felt it, weightless in his hand. He liked the way the sun danced on it. It was jagged and sharp, long and thin. He slipped it into his middle hoody pocket and walked away, listening to the music play in his head.

His mom paid just under a thousand for the loft they lived in. His ‘room’ was a converted closet. The roaches were only really bad in the hottest parts of summer. It was an old brownstone in an old neighborhood and the heaters didn’t always work in the winter but when they did they were good enough to take the edge off the cold at least. His mom worked three jobs to afford the place so he didn’t see her often, mostly coming and going. She was mad about the Mohawk at first but then she seemed to forget about it. She was probably pretty once, the kid thought, but she looked sad and tired now. Even if the guy who said he’d been a fireman and was on disability, down on the 4^th floor, kept hitting on her all the time, trying to get laid. The kid thought the guy was a real laugh but his mom never seemed amused, or even flattered.

The city at night was loud and busy. The kid liked it. He felt less lonely then. The honking. The shouting. The sirens. People would talk about seeing the guy flying above. This one kid, Jesse, he swore up and down that the guy flew buy his apartment and saved some Puerto Rican girl who jumped out of her burning apartment. The kid didn’t believe the story. He didn’t believe in the guy who flew even with all the news coverage and the newspaper photos and the videos on the Internet. There had to be an angle, he was sure of it.

He looked at the guy’s uniform. Was it a uniform, he thought, or a costume? When did the one become the other? The red boots. The blue tights. His eyes were still staring blankly up into the sky. For an alien, he sure died the same way people did.

His mom didn’t want to but his grandmother had insisted. The kid had to take the subway across town to check on Uncle Freddy. Mom gave the rules but the kid had always remembered them because Freddy creeped him out. He had this smile that you instinctively knew wasn’t a smile. The ride across town didn’t bother him. The subway had plenty of weirdoes, sure, but the hum and the swoosh and the sound the doors made opening and closing, they all made up for it. He didn’t mind going, as far as that was concerned.

Uncle Freddy didn’t let him up when he buzzed so he waited around by the door in a slushy mix of rain and sleet until he could sneak in. Some little old lady in ankle breaker platforms couldn’t manage the door, her umbrella and her yappy Pomeranian all at the same time. The elevator was out so the Kid had to walk up to the 7^th floor. He stomped more than walked. He liked the way the sound echoed in the close stairway. The stairs were wood and looked old. He liked that.

The door to seven, from the stairwell, stuck. He had to work at it to get it open. Someone was playing some loud Italian singer in the room across from the door. It would’ve been annoying to listen to for anything more than a few minutes. Room 777 was Freddy’s but it had never been particularly lucky. The door was locked. The kid knocked. Knocked again. Yelled. Nothing happened. The kid waited. The building smelled bad but at least it was warm compared to outside. His jacket was too light for winter and had stuffing coming out here and there. The long inside pocket was still good though. He reached in and pulled out the long green sliver of rock. He had tried to bend it before and realized it was really tough. It wasn’t a perfect fit into the door lock but it worked. The kid played with it and the door popped open.

The smell wasn’t the building. Or, if it was, it wasn’t just the building because Uncle Freddy’s place smelled awful. And there were flies. Flies in the middle of winter. He had no idea how long Uncle Freddy had been dead but it was clear it had been a while. He saw the maggots and they bothered him but not as much as  Freddy’s dried out eyes, staring up at the ceiling, blankly. What were they looking at, the kid wondered. What did they see?

The alien’s eyes weren’t all dried out yet but they had the same blank stare, up into the sky, the sky he was used to flying in. The kid ha been walking down the alley, hadn’t even heard him then felt a slight swoosh of air. He turned around and the guy was there. Tall. Looking him over like he could see through him or something.

“You’ve got something that doesn’t belong to you son. A green rock. You have to give it to me.”

The kid thought his voice was cold. It was deep and polite, but cold. The kid instinctively reached for the green sliver of rock in his back pocket. The guy took two quick steps forward. All the kid could see was that big red “S”. He felt scared.

He didn’t remember stabbing the guy. He just remembered feeling the blood coming out of the guy’s chest, out of the center of that “S” and thinking that he’d heard the guy was supposed to be some kind of bulletproof or something.

Pigeons cooed and stared from a fire escape above. The blood had stopped spreading outward. The guy had bled a lot. The kid wondered if all aliens bled like that or if this guy was special. There was honking coming from the street. And shouting. The kid figured he should get out of there even though he was pretty sure about the ‘it can’t be murder if it’s an alien’ thing. He thought it was good, you know, to play it safe. He checked the time on his phone, his mom would be off to job number 2. When he got home he’d have the place to himself. The first thing he’d do was shower. Then he might sit by the fire escape and stare up past the clouds and into the stars. He’d listen to the music in his head and he’d read and he’d think that even the true stories weren’t always true.

Copyright 2014, M.R. McCaffery. All rights reserved.