Horrors and Miscellany
These three pieces aren’t connected by plot or character. They’re simply a small collection of strange, darkly comic stories that seemed to belong beside one another.
Green Wood
Willards can’t decide if this is suicide or just another attempt at autoerotic asphyxiation. He reaches fat fingers beneath the fold of his stomach. Soft. So, suicide, then. He’s sure of it—wait, maybe a little blood flow? No. Just a cyst.
Ashen fingers tear at his lungs. Suffocation. It’s the steel belt buckle digging into his neck, though, that annoys him. It’ll leave a thick red welt. What will his family think? The gravestone will say he went out looking for a thrill, though there’s no semen in the immediate vicinity. He didn’t find it, they might add in smaller letters. They’d have to be honest, right?
“Please. Stop,” she says as the wind moves through the window.
Selfish, he thinks. What will become of you? Who will water you if I go?
She stands tall in the corner, her petite limbs sagging slightly toward the floor. All the same, she’s quite impressive for a two-year-old. A little white skin peels from her body. Willards loosens the belt, and it falls to the floor. The blood rushing into his neck exaggerates the pain.
He’s alive, though. It wasn’t suicide. Pride.
“I love you this time of year,” he says. “The orange, the yellow. So beautiful.”
Willards sits up and drinks some water from a jug on the floor before pouring the remainder into the sapling’s pot. He watches it disappear into the dirt.
She’ll be perky again within the hour.
Eject
“Dude, check this out,” says Brian. He holds up the new laptop for Curtis, who is sitting on the couch. “There’s an eject button, but no disc drive.”
“Weird, man,” Curtis replies without looking away from the Xbox dashboard on the television.
“Yeah. It is. Why the hell would they do that?” Brian turns the Mac over in his hands, inspecting it aimlessly. He walks over to the couch and sits beside Curtis, the Mac open on his lap. “See, look.”
He presses the eject key repeatedly.
“Nothing.”
“I don’t know. You’re probably just between models, and it’d cost too much to redesign the keyboard.”
Brian opens a chat window while Curtis returns to the game.
You: asl?
Stranger: 16/f/ca
Stranger: You?
You: 23/m/mo/sexy
Stranger: yeah. rite.
You: It’s true.
Stranger: ppl from missouri arent sexy tho.
Stranger: What do you do?
You: It is though!
You: I actually work at a nuclear reactor
You: well, a test reactor for my uni. Still cool though.
Stranger: prove it
You: How?
Stranger: Send a pic.
Stranger: katnissgirl98@gmail.com
You: ‘/;.lutk5yhr3e
Stranger has disconnected.
To: katnissgirl98@gmail.com
Cc:
Bcc:
Subject: Sorry
The laptop next to mine just randomly fucking ejected its disc. Spilled coffee all over my computer.
Re: Sorry
Yeahhhh. I think im just gonna go.
pls dont email again
Sent from my iPhone
The girl closes her laptop, takes her keys, and leaves.
“Initial reports say the driver was a sixteen-year-old female, quoted as saying, ‘I was just on my way to QT.’”
“What can you tell us about the scene, Ken?”
“We’re seeing fifteen, maybe twenty cars in the pileup. There’s an overturned semi-trailer. State troopers pulled her out about ten minutes ago. Looks like there are still a few cars on fire.”
“And, Ken, what can you tell us about the traffic? Pretty nice being up in the air, huh?”
“Oh, yes, Karen. Backed up two miles in both directions on I-80. Even the outer roads are seeing trouble as people try to get off.”
“Well, I guess drivers should stay away during the evening commute. Thanks, Ken and the AirNBC crew.”
My Dearest Patricia,
“Are you sure you want to start it that way?”
“Is that weird? She’s my sister.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
“Fine. Go with ‘Dear Patricia.’”
The nurse scratches out the salutation. Steve continues his dictation.
Dear Patricia,
She’s left me. The bitch has left me. A mail-order bride.
“You sure about bitch?” says the nurse.
“Fine, scratch it.”
She’s left me. A mail-order bride left me.
“I never knew Olga was a mail-order bride.”
“Her name was Olga,” says Steve.
“I know her name. I thought she was just an immigrant.”
“She was an immigrant.”
There is an awkward pause.
“Say: I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Could you come up to visit me?”
I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Could you come up to visit me?
“So why did you get a mail-order bride? I mean, don’t get me wrong, Olga was great—”
“She left me.”
“I said was. She was great, but I didn’t think people actually did that.”
“I lost my sight in that pileup ten years ago. My third seeing-eye dog died in a car accident last month. I figured it’d be crazy to get a fourth. Now I don’t have anything.”
A Man Collects Miracles
I loaded the trunk onto my cart. With its contents, the vintage luggage weighed nearly one hundred thirty pounds. Wait, let me check. It’s in the other room.…
Yes.
That’s about right.
Never mind the ice in the alley, the drizzling sleet, or the streetlamp that could manage only a dingy yellow smog.
I got the trunk up the steps and into the elevator with help from the lobby boy—what building has a lobby boy these days? I’m still sweating a bit thinking about it.
I propped open the door and dragged the trunk inside. Something shifted as I pulled it over the threshold, though old trunks always complain. It took nearly three hours to get it into its current place against the side wall. It’s not as long as it sounds! What else was I supposed to do?
Should it have gone near the shelf with the drywall? The water curls so curiously near the bottom, forming a cheekbone. The rot shades beautifully into a spectrum of brown hair. The uptick of her lip. She’s smiling, mimicking the Mona Lisa! Jesus, she’s right there, stained into the drywall.
Or maybe it should have gone near the burn. I fixed that into the wall myself. Yes, a charred handprint. I purchased it years ago. A father felt it had tainted the house. His wife had gone insane. An incredible price I paid! It was their child’s hand. He’d been to Hell. Imagine! It was even verified by a bishop.
No, no, I considered these. But this specimen is special enough on its own. It’s there… there on the floor. Just down the hall.
You should see her. Mesmerizing. I knew the moment I saw her beneath my fire escape. She was glowing, the Virgin Mary herself. No, this time I will not need a priest to verify. Who could think otherwise?
Oh! I hear her voice—laced with grace. I’ll attend to her.
Quickly! Before she damages the trunk.
