(337)

Everyday when I got onto the bus, two stops later Bill would get on. He was a slow man, in his thirties, and I think he worked at a grocery store. He would talk to everyone that he knew from riding the bus, and whistle at any sexy joggers that ran past as we rode along.

He would always wave as he got onto the bus, and most of the time I’d wave back. There were times, though, when I didn’t want to. I can’t say why. Maybe I was a ass, maybe I just didn’t want to, but I wouldn’t wave.

Sometime I’d pretend that I was napping. Sometimes I’d pretend that I didn’t see him get onto the bus. I could see him looking at me from the corner of my eye waiting for me to look so that he could wave at me. But I wouldn’t wave or look.

One day a week ago, I was sitting on the bus, anxious to get home, when we arrived at bills stop. He got onto the bus and noticed that he and I were alone. Slowly, he approached me and when he was close enough, he grabbed my collar.

“I know you can see me waving at you.” he whispered angrily.

“You wave back, or we are going to have problems.”

With that he went back to his seat, and waved at me…

(338)

“Have we met?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Hmmm. I feel like I know you.”

“Well, it’s possible I guess.” 

Hogarth studied his menu as the curious middle aged waitress twisted her mouth to the side.

Somehow, on a biological level at least, this was supposed to help her remember where she’d seen this young man before. 

“So, anything to drink?”

“Yes. I’ll have a diet pop, please. No ice. But if for some reason you have to absolutely add ice to the drink, may I have a straw? You see, I don’t like it when the ice touches my lip. That’s the first reason. The second is that the pop is already cold when it comes out of the fountain. Adding ice only takes away space for more pop, and leads to the ice melting in the pop and watering it down.” 

The waitress begins to nod. Not because she agrees with him, but because now she is sure she has seen this man before. 

She had not. 

“Now I know you’ve been in here before! Just last week. You said all the absolute same stuff about “pop” and ice.” 

“Oh.”

“I know you were.”

It was my brother. I have a twin brother. His name is Randall.” 

As she walked away to get his iceless diet pop, Hogarth put his plans of finding his missing twin on hold for a second, and started trying to figure out how he could sleep with the middle aged waitress.

(339)

“I have finally done it!” he said, rushing into the room.

“Done what?” she asked.

“I have perfected a machine that will turn you into a ghost. It literally makes you into a ghost! You can float around unnoticed, then pop out at any time! You can listen in on conversations, and float through walls! You can be one of the unloving! You can be a ghost. You CAN BE A GHOST!”

She sat there, quietly, staring at him as he excitedly waited for her answer.

He waited, panting, and pacing, wanting to share this gift with the woman that he used to love.

Finally, she answered.

“Okay. Make me a ghost.”

And he promptly shot her in the head.

The end.

(340)

I stood outside the library for two hours waiting for my parents to arrive. As I waited, I got angrier and angrier, but that didn’t help the waiting. I couldn’t believe they’d forgotten about me.

Eventually, they showed up, but when I approached the car, I noticed that I was already inside- or at least, someone that looked like me.

I tried to scream, but I had no voice. Somehow, they still heard me. All three of them: my parents and the fake me, they all looked at me and laughed.

But I still couldn’t scream.

(341)

The crazy man with the high pitched voice and the meaty hands won’t stop staring at me. When I look up, he looks away. He’s not very sneaky at all. I see him watching me. I think he loves me. I’m flattered, but creeped out because I am not gay and if I were, I’d be attracted to a much less creepy dude.

He got up and approached me, and I could feel that he was about to initiate some horrible kind of small talk. I pretended to have a heart attack, then stopped half way through when I realized he might try cpr.

So there we were, me on the floor, and him looking down at me concerned. This was the way my Wednesday ended.

(342)

      I can hardly keep my eyes open. And I have the hiccups. Two very minor problems- minor for you, maybe. But I know that if I close my eyes and succumb to sleep, they will get me. As soon as I fall asleep, I’m a dead man.

      The last time I rested, I dreamt that assassins were after me. I awoke with bruises. I don’t think it’s a dream. I don’t think I should sleep.

      I went to the poetry show this evening, and tried to read a few for the crowd, but I couldn’t get my words to work. The crowd cheered when I was done, and I yelled at them.

      “What are you cheering about!?” I yelled. “I haven’t said anything!”

      I’m not normally a suspicious man, but I think this is all bigger than me.

      Across the street, I can hear a woman yelling…”Everything you know is a lie!”

      I recognize her voice, I think.

Block out with your cock out (343)

      I felt that something was amiss. The girls kept leaving to go to the restroom, like they would in a movie about coke or smack.

      I didn’t care though. I liked Violet, and I was going to find out if she liked me tonight. I asked her if she’d like to go to another bar. This was my chance to get her alone. Immediately, Hortence had the idea to go karaoke.

      Outside, Hortence insisted that Violet sat up front with her, which left me alone in the back with Hortence’s ass of a boyfriend, Blaine.

      It seemed like at every turn, Hortence was Blocking me from my intended goal: making nice with the lovely and foreign Violet.

      Finally, after singing Sunday bloody Sunday at the karaoke bar, I gave up. I called a cab and went outside to wait. Oddly enough, it was Blaine that volunteered to wait with me. I respected him for that. I still do. I believe he knew what was going on… I like to think he tried to tell me, and I just didn’t get it.

EPILOGUE

      As it turns out, Hortence had been drafted by Violet because she felt that I liked her, but didn’t like me back. That’s cool.

      What was not cool was that Hortence couldn’t just pull me to the side and tell me this, after all, we’d been friends for quite sometime. Instead, Hortence opted to let me blow in the wind, embarrassing my self all night.

      Even better was the fact that Hortence herself ended up abandoning the lovely Violet soon after due to the fact that she didn’t appreciate the way Blaine stared at Violet’s ample, foreign bosom.

      Women.

(344)

      I took the needles from her hand and stated to place them, one by one, into my skin. When I was done, I tuned and found that she had vanished- or left. One never can tell.

      I sat quietly there in the wilderness, and listened to nature as the needles began to vibrate. I was finally at one with something. I just didn’t know what.

      I decided I’d wait for to return and ask.

      The first week was the hardest.

      It rained for the second week.

      The third was calming and peaceful.

      I don’t think she’s coming back.

(345)

      The car crept along the quiet neighborhood street looking and waiting for a victim.

      The sedan had been terrorizing the suburbs for over a month now, and had plowed over almost everyone in the cul-de-sac. 

      Mrs. Smith peaked from her window as the devil infected dodge rolled along past her home. She’d lost her husband a week earlier when he made an ill advised attempt to run for help. The dodge ran him over. It ran over her dog, her neighbor Mr. Poole, and everything else that was unlucky enough to cross its path.

      Mrs. Smith wondered if she could communicate with the rolling death machine. She gathered all her strength and slowly approached the vehicle. It slowed when it sensed her presence.

      It actually allowed her to get close enough to touch the door handle. Before she could open the door, it opened on its own.

      She looked inside and saw what she’d been afraid of the entire time- there was no driver.

      As she stood there, she knew that getting into the car was a bad idea. But she also knew that this could be the only way she would get an answer to what was happening. Slowly, she climbed inside, and the door slowly closed.

      Later, at a motel miles away, the car had its way with Mrs. Smith.

      It was as sexy as it was painful to hear.

(346)

I finished my half dozen of chocolate doughnuts, and sat down to write a letter. I didn’t know who would ever read it or whether or not it would ever be finished. All I knew was that tonight was the night I would change the world. Tonight was the night I would leave my mark on the future.

      I folded the words, placed them into an envelope, then lept from the top of the building. I floated there, waiting for morning to come and for people to see what I’d done to their precious thoughts about gravity. I floated and waited to change the future.

Morning was so close.

(347)

“I don’t mind the sex” Ava said, staring at me with her dark and sneaky eyes.

“This is the life I have chose.”

I couldn’t help but think that she wasn’t not 100 percent honest with me, yet, she was oiled and panting and available. So I decided not the press the issue. I turned away and went to do other things as she stared at me, blankly. She’d always be there, staring at me, until I found someone else to take her place. It would be soon.

(348)

“everything you know is a lie!” she screamed, as the manager of the small sandwhich shop pulled her into the street and beat her.

We all looked on in horror. It was true that the last few days had been strange, and she seemed to be the only one that seemed to know what was going on.

Still, we all wanted to see where this beating was going to go…

(349)

The peephole allowed him to look ten minutes into the future.

It seemed like there was always someone knocking, preparing to do him harm. Luckily, he was smart enough to never answer…

(350)

When he thought about her, there was a pain in his sides. He thought of all the things that they had done, and all of the times he could have kissed her but didn’t.

She hadn’t returned a call, an email, or visited him in over a month. He assumed that he’d missed his chance and erased her from his phone.

      This was death in the digital age.

(351)

She asked me what I was thinking as she walked out, and probably, out of my life forever.

      “I’m thinking that I’m going to enjoy watching the tapes from last night.

      She looked at me and gasped. For a second she believed me. For a second I had some control.

      This is as happy an ending as I am going to get.

(352)

     He waited at the bus stop an hour past when the bus was supposed to arrive. He was in no real rush to get to where he was supposed to go, and he supposed that the people there wouldn’t miss him much.

      It was a hot day, and he rather enjoyed the feeling of a good sweat. He was outside, among others, but he enjoyed the quiet.

      Soon, he’d be where he was meant to go, and he’d once again be in an infuriating and peerless situation.

      He closed his eyes and let the sun press down on his face.

      When he heard the bus coming, it immediately reminded him of the week that lay ahead.

      “One day…” he thought to himself.

      “One day.”

North Korea(353)

      She was hot, chocolatey, and sexy. She had sex appeal like the take no nonsense black women of 1970’s revenge thrillers past.

      Her job was to audit the rich playboy. She didn’t think she’d fall for his charm, but she soon did. They had many nights of hot and steamy sex, and she because quite fond of his island paradise life style. One day while searching through the old chapel, she realized that her new playmate could be the lord of the voodoo zombies. She asked him about this, and he responded with “So, you found out. Are you going to be a Chatty Cathy or a Charlie Keepsittohimselfington?”

      In the distance, the hulk leapt over a building, misjudged the ledge, and fell to the ground.

South Korea(354)

All that they ever wanted was a baby, but they couldn’t become pregnant. They had heard that the man at the end of their street, the man in the huge house, could help them. Now, they’d decided to visit him. They made their way up to the mansion, and knocked at the door. An old man answered, and smiled at them. “Are you here for a child?’ he asked. They nodded. He led them into a room and sat them down.

“I have been making children for the childless for many years.” The old man started, “But I have to tell you that you will be the last to receive this gift.”

The young couple smiled.

“I must also warn you that all I have left to make is a baby with a big head.” The old man said, and sipped his tea.

“How big?” the young man asked.

“Very big.” The old man replied. “His head is larger than his body, and he will need to be carried constantly. He will never grow up. He will always be your baby- your baby with the gig head.”

“Sometimes, he will latch onto your head with his oversized mouth, and he’ll be able to control your thoughts and actions.”

“He will smell not bad- but not good.’

The couple looked at each other for a moment, then back at the old man. They nodded.

“Good” the old man said. “You passed the test. You may have the most perfect baby I will ever create.”

And he did.

And they did.

Backdraft (355)

The problem was, he just wasn’t from their world, and he had no desire to pretend to be.
What this turned into was a constant battle of wits. Unfortunately, they were not p to the challenge. Their usual strategy was to insult him and run away, or the ever popular “under-the-breath comment”.
Today was no different. He’d taken a small jab at one of their hairbrained observations, and expected them to react like normal people would; laugh along with the revelation that it was a bad idea. Instead, offense was taken.
They were in rare for today, trying their best to get a rise from him. But he wouldn’t play along, making them even angrier.
As the day wore down, he revealed the fact that he wouldn’t be attending a party that they were all going to.
“That’s your problem.” She quickly retorted, and left in a hurry.
He laughed at her for three days.

(356)

Hogarth thought that he would fall forever. The jagged rocks tore at his skin and broke his bones, but he continued to fall- to roll down the harsh, rocky embankment.
Once he finally did reach the bottom, all that he could do was to cry.
Hogarth wept for what seemed like hours, and eventually passed out.
When he awoke, he was at the top of the hill again. He was paralyzed with fear as he thought about all the times he’d fallen .
Then he fell.