DAY 6: Icebox

Courtesy: punchng.com

Today’s Prompt:

Take two people who dislike each other and stick them in the backseat of a cab. What happens?

Courtesy: creativewritingprompts.com

Word Count: 2,206

No storm clouds gathered when the cloudburst ripped off the sky’s high ceiling and stripped them of alternatives. As a cab pulled up before the empty sidewalk, they were stuck with only two options; to either get their butts in or get it wet. Each climbed into the cab on the opposite side, barely aware of the other’s thereness. (Correction, in their hurry, both men registered company, but none knew for a fact, who he was trucking with.)

They both chanted “Hi” but when their eyes met, the temperature inside the cab plummeted below sub zero.

                The chill ran like a single thread through seamless tapestry and ate up the warmth until the air inside the cab crackled. The mismatched company was like the weather in The Odyssey; they hauled a climate change in the car, but it was not rain. A painter and a gentleman of the bar had managed to churn out a blizzard inside a taxi.

The cab bucked down the street, its headlights beaming full blast into oncoming windshields, garnering furious honks from passing vehicles. The cab picked a tremble as thunder walked and talked. Inside, Lionel Richie sang Stuck On You through the speakers. Josh Akam (/arkham/), the painter and Reuben Idem (/he them/), the advocate sat in dead silence.

                “It’s a real gullywasher and I ain’t heard zilch from the weather forecaster and I been on the radio all day. Where is anybody when you need them?” said the cabbie, wiping the windshield with a towel. He turned around briefly and studied his passengers sitting like ice statues each staring out at the storm on his side of the window. “People, is it cold in here or is it just me?” Silence. “Tsk.” The cabbie turned around and observed he was headed for a bump in the road. He veered to the right but the cab was going too fast. The impact chucked the vehicle into the air and yanked the passengers out of their seats into each other’s arms.

                “Get your hands off me, fool,” said Akam, shoving the lawyer away.

                “Easy on the suit, Picasso,” said Idem, brushing imaginary dust off his suit.

                “Ain’t we just the 3-piece combo of the moment,” said the cabbie, keeping his eyes on the road for a change.

                “Bet, you left your posh SUV back home to stand guard over your land, ugh?” said Akam.

                “And your overrated wagon’s sitting in your garage just in case my SUV trespasses on your property.”

                “Funny, I don’t recall the last time my home was completely empty.”

                “Oh, I forgot,” said Idem, a smirk ran the stretch of his chubby face. “Mr. Freakazoid has a dog.”

                “And a wife,” said Akam. “Don’t you forget that; and a wife.” Then he added. “Unlike some people I know.”

                “Is that so?” said Idem, facing Akam square in the face. “Correct me, if I’m wide of the mark, which I’m usually not when I get on your pitiful case; I used to think your wife and dog was one and the same?”

The cabbie had an ear pasted to the backseat. He’d pictured a scenario where the dispute fell flat and this mobile court disintegrated into a whirlpool of confused madness.

                “Now that I think about it, you two never mentioned where you were going. Not that I recall though.”

                “Shut up and drive,” the Accuser and the Advocate yelled. The cabbie couldn’t help wondering if it was a rehashed job.

                “Thought you’d like to know,” the cabbie said. “In a few minutes, this road’s gonna give on an intersection. What’s it gonna be? Right, left, or drive on through?”

                “Drive right through.” Again in almost perfect unison.

                “Then you won’t mind if I took a detour. It’s the safest short cut around town. And mind the glass, it’s breakable, you know?” The cabbie whose name you don’t really wanna know took quick peek at his passengers and…

                “Watch the road! Watch the road you fool, are you trying to get us both killed?”

                “Damn, such attitude from men who can’t wait to tear each other apart,” said the cabbie. “Tsk, tsk, tsk.”

The cab ducked between two tall buildings and went bumping along a dirt road.

                “So much for your safest short cut,” Idem, the Advocate said, as the cab dive-bombed a depression, rattling his teeth.

                “By the way,” Akam, the painter-turned-Accuser said, not yet over the fight. “It’s not escaped my notice the way you’ve been gloating over my wife, recently. Doesn’t that qualify you as a sex-crazed maniac? I keep thinking I might return home someday and find you bust into my home and violated her.”

                “You’re a veritable source of pain, has anybody ever told you that? Quit the name-calling, I don’t wanna fight you…”

                “Fight me? I won the case remember? The land’s mine already. That’s the reason you been bitching every damn time you saw me. Even the flowers on your side of the land are graying. I bet they hate your freaking guts, too.”

Reuben Idem glanced out his side of the window at people scurrying about in the rain. He seemed worn-out from arguing. The cabbie heaved a sigh of relief. All was peaceful and the fight could have taken place eons ago. Lionel Richie’s voice poured through the speakers singing Sail On.

“Let me get something straight, Dali.” Idem pulled off his suit and laid it over his lap, stroking it like a pet. “I wanna know how it feels to live on another man’s property. To throw a foulmouthed lie in court, like you did, and win over some guy’s family land and occupy same with the helpless owner standing by? Cause if I had my way, you’d be as homeless as those people on the sidewalk.”

                “Oh boy, you gotta be kidding me.” The cabbie pulled a face. “Ladies, ladies, you end this right now and the cab fares on the house. This mobile court of law is hereby adjourned.” He slammed his fist against the dashboard and knocked over some CDs.

Akam was massaging his neck when Idem addressed him. He winced as if he had been dealt a blow below the belt.

                “If you want a war why don’t you go pick on somebody your size? I won the lawsuit because I am the legal owner of the land.”

                “Naw. The way I remember it you won cause your father who passed ownership to you was a townsman, while my unfortunate father was an outsider who happened to own a land here.”

                “What!” The cabbie pumped the brakes and sent his passengers flying out of their seats. “Ain’t that a bitch? I’ll take it anyway I get it, bro. If I was from out of town and I owned a place to hang my hat and park my car in some strange town, I’ll go with it. 100%.”

                “You don’t have to break every bone in my body to make your point, you know,” Idem said.

Akam grunted. “Easy on the pedals, cabbie. I got family waiting for me.” He turned to Idem. “You are the lawyer so tell me what part of the law places a local above an outsider?”

                “There’s no law in this part of the country. All they got is a bunch of clowns in costumes and an excuse for a judicial system. They all run jungle justice around here. It’s only a matter of time before the government get wind of these fools and run ‘em out of court, literally. And you, where will that leave your sorry butt and your dime a dozen paintings? And let’s not leave the dog out of this.”

Akam and Idem both owned houses by the lake. The houses once belonged to their fathers who had erected no walls to mark the boundary of their properties. The idea for a wall was Idem’s who wanted some privacy as he called it. The men got into a dispute about ancient landmarks, which was settled in court. Akam won the lawsuit and Idem screamed foul play up and down the aisle. Of course, he vowed to appeal and challenge the court order.

                Ever since the lawsuit, the men have been on non-speaking terms. If Akam’s wife Ada saw these two in the same cab, she would shit a brick.

Idem lived alone, well, not exactly, ‘he lived with his jeep and gadgets’ as Akam’s wife loved to explain it. Idem’s car had developed a glitch just around the corner where he bumped into Akam and a few moments before the downpour. He left it at the mechanic’s. Akam on the other hand, was out sightseeing. He loved taking long walks to inspire his muse. Akam had a wife, a boy and a dog.

                Fate used these circumstances to stick two sworn enemies in the backseat of a cab.

Akam sat ramrod straight as if someone had run a current of electricity through his side of the seat. “You know what, I’m peeved about you dragging my wife into this bull.”

The cab slowed to a crawl. I Can’t Make You Love Me by Boyz II Men had replaced Lionel Richie.

                “Just because she don’t let you get anywhere near her don’t make her the butt of your jokes. I’ve been really trying, doing my best to let it pass, look the other way. But you never get it, do you? And I believe the reason is pretty simple; you are the only family you got. It’s impossible for such a man to understand relationships.”

                “Nice speech for a man who doesn’t know squirt about dignity,” Idem said.

Akam points a finger in Idem’s face. “I’m not going to say this a second time, get the dang off her case.”

                “Let me guess or you’ll paint a butt naked portrait of me and present it to the people who visit at your gallery?”

                “I just might.”

                “Hey, guys, fellows. You don’t need all this drama. You guys are both respectable citizens. You really wanna fling your R-E-S-P-E-C-T out the window cause of this… this… this…” He fumbled for the right word in his mind but just before his brain could process the phrase and present it to his vocal cords, Akam lashed out at him.

                “Mind the road, cabbie. This thing’s way out of your league. This water runs deep and it’d be sad to have an innocent guy drowned in its waves.”

                “Nobody’s drowning but that bitch you left at home…”

                “Now, that’s the last straw. I’m going to punch your lights out right this minute.”

Akam threw a punch at Idem. Had Idem hesitated for one second, Akam’s fist would have detached his head from his body. But he ducked in time and the punch went over his head and straight through the window. Akam hollered as shards of glass pierced his flesh.

                “Okay. That’s it, gentlemen. This claptrap goes so far. We gonna have a little talk and if we can’t get a neutral ground, your silly butts can hail a cab.”

That did it. It was the end of the fight. The cabbie swerved into the curb and administered first aid.

And surprise, surprise, Idem helped Akam into the backseat of the cab then, shut the door quietly. He went around and hopped in on his side mindful of fragments of glass. The cabbie handed him polythene to hold over the busted window and keep out the rain.

The cabbie turned the ignition, put the car in gear and hit the road again.

After some moments of awkward silence, Idem shattered the melting ice.

                “Can I tell you a story, Akam?” Idem turned to Akam who had his eyes closed. “Do you want to know why I picked on your wife every time we got into a fight?”

                “Man, you really think it’s wise to bring that stuff up at this moment? You got a spiritual problem or what?” The cabbie was openly furious. “Take a look at the man. He’s had it.”

Idem continued. “I mean, seriously. I’m not trying to pick a fight, I’m happy to be alive right now.”

                “Okay.” Brown sighed. He didn’t open his eyes. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

                “She dumped my ass for you. I’m amazed she never mentioned it to you. She wasn’t one to keep a secret.”

                “Now that’s some crazy ass shit. All this for the love of woman?” The cabbie turned to Akam. “I bet when she dump your ass too, she gone get out there and sing, ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It?’”

Akam with a grin spread across his face was the first to see it and screamed. “Watch the road, stupid.”

The cabbie spun around but there was nothing to watch out for anymore. The cab was over the sidewalk and knocking down a lamppost. They all scrambled out as the post dropped on the roof of the car creating a bad dent.

The storm had piped down to a sprinkle. The cabbie walked up to his cab and assessed the damage. The CD player was still in business and Boyz II Men was performing End of the Road.

                “This crazy mother is adjourned,” he said.

Eneh Akpan

June 6, 2013

DAY 5: The Picture Inside the Picture

Courtesy: visualfunhouse.com

Today’s Prompt:

You get to your studio to develop pictures from the hour you spent in the park. All of the pictures turn out well, except for a select few. In six photographs, there is a man in the frame. Something seems slightly off, and rather strange about each picture. Who is he and what is weird about the photographs?

Courtesy: writersdigest.com

Word Count: 2,102

Uduak (/hoodoo ark/) and Usen (/hoo send/) took a walk along the beach one morning. Cause it was a fine morning for a walk.

                “I got to tell you a thing or two about those pictures I took at the park,” said Usen.

                “Don’t tell me they were no good. You made so much fuss about those,” said Uduak.

                “They are masterpieces. But they ain’t what I expected.”

                “If they’re masterpieces and perfect and yet, you do not want them even though you took the shots, all of them, truth is, you must be nuts.”

                “I ain’t nuts, Uduak. Believe me; something ain’t working the way it ought to.”

                “Then, what exactly are you?”

                “There’s a man in the pictures.”

The men halted. The wind was picking up speed but it had nothing to do with it.

                “What else is new?” Uduak  said, fetching a pebble from the dirt. “Those pictures are from the park. There ought to be more than one man in the pictures if you asked me. You make it sound odd that there were actual people at the park or in your pictures. You did not expect to find anyone.” It was a statement not a question.

                “No, no,” Usen said, waving off Uduak’s statement. “You really ought to stop flying off half cocked. There is a man in the pictures.” Uduak meant to interrupt and Usen cut him off. “Wait. The same man appeared in only six of the photos and he was nearly always in the shadows.”

Uduak scowled as he stared at his friend. “In broad day light? You took the pictures in broad day light and managed to capture a man standing in the shadows? I ask you for the second time, are you nuts?” Uduak touched his forefinger to the side of his head and twisted back and forth, back and forth, to stress his point. “Cause if you ain’t, I must be off the bend.”

Usen’s face colored. He hesitated.

                “It sounds crazy,” Usen said.

                “No. It is crazy and you are a victim of a figment of your imagination.”

The two men who had resumed their walk stopped again urged by the arresting view of an imposing mountain far out at sea. Usen pointed out at the outcrop of land mass, which from the distance and probably, because of the little distortion of vision induced by fog could have been only a shadow standing vertical.

                “Out there in the water, do you see a mountain or is it just a shadow? And look up in the sky ain’t that a bitch. I never dreamed I’d be so happy to see the sun.”

                “Alright, I get the point. Now, quit being a smartass,” said Uduak.

                “You mean you agree that a man in the black suit can be in the shadows in a picture taken at high noon?”

                “Usen!”

                “He marked his place, Uduak. He was right there behind everybody and everything else and yet, he was a superimposition. Like one of those photostock productions.”

                “You’re really serious about this?” Uduak said, becoming a little grossed out.

                “On my mama’s grave.”

                “You never knew your mama.”

                “On my wife’s head.”

                “Heads up, Usen. You don’t have a wife.”

                “Well, just come on over to my studio and take a look at the pictures for yourself. See if you don’t change your mind in a hurry.” Usen said, flashing a smile as wide as summer.

                “Stop that,” Uduak said.

And so it happened that Uduak came over to Usen’s amateur studio to have a look at the freaky photos. He saw the man, too. It was like a picture within a picture. Uduak for some reason did not see the queerness of the situation.

The next time they got back together, which they did often, and went strolling on the beach, Usen dug up the issue again.

                “Each time I try editing those pictures or sending ‘em through the printer–I’m talking about the six with the picture of the man in the black suit –he retreats an inch into the shadows.”

                “Because you willed it to happen, Usen. Don’t you get it? You’re seeing what you want to see. Give the damn thing a rest. Just let the pictures be and in time, it just might happen that the guy in the shadows will show himself to be what he really is,” Uduak said.

                “And what exactly do you think he is Uduak?” Usen said, but he wasn’t angling for a fight.

                “Blotches in the film is all. So, what do you say? Let’s catch some chicks at a bad time.”

                “I’m game.”

Uduak and Usen pulled out their digital cameras and started snapping off photographs of abominations that stand in holy places. And for the moment, the man in the picture was laid to rest at the backburner.

After the beach walk, Uduak and Usen retired to Usen’s studio, which is what they called his laptop, printer, digital camera and several photo editing hardware. They plugged their cameras to the USB cables then connected them to the system via the USB portals. Next, they transferred the pictures to the wider screen. It improved the view significantly.

They went through the images in silence, relishing their Kodak moment. Yet, the devil came.

The men were silent, stunned out of their comfort zones as the realization shook the very foundations of their belief.

                The man in the black suit appeared in guess… six of the pictures.

When the renewed heebie-jeebies in the wake of the weird pictures subsided, Usen sighed and said, “You still think that man is blotches in the frame that’s bound to fade out with time?”

                “Please, do not patronize me. What are we gonna do about that guy cause apparently, he’s either stalking you or stalking me.”

                “Or stalking both of us,” Usen said and shrugged when Uduak glared at him.

Uduak ran six of the pictures of the man in the black suit through the printer. The printer vibrated then uttered a shrill noise as if it was stuffed with shards of glass. And finally the pictures came sliding out. The spots where the images of the man ought to have been were fuzzy as if a mild heat had charred it. Though his aspect was visible, his face took the worst hit. It was hard to identify. Uduak tried to do a reprint.

                “Maybe, at a later time, buddy.” Usen held his hand. “It’s best we don’t stress the printer,” he said.

The freelance photographers waited in the silence allowing both the static and tension in the studio to fill up the void in their brains.

                “What are we really going to do about that guy?” Usen spoke like a man climbing out of a dream.

Uduak sat hunched over and he had pulled the collar of his flannel shirt over his head. “Well, we got digital cameras for a start.”

                “What’s that got to do with anything?”

                “We get back to the park and we can start by checking the pictures soon after we snap ‘em,” Uduak said.

                “Great idea,” Usen said, but his words lacked the conviction. “What do we do when we find the trifling son of a whore?”

Without looking up, Uduak said in a growl, “We will cross that bridge when we come to it. Okay?”

                “Whatever.”

One beautiful morning, these freelance dudes set off on an investigative paparazzi stint and were still undecided on what to do with the man in the black suit if and when they had him in their clutches.

                “We couldn’t even tell if he had on a leather jacket or an overcoat.” Usen way out of his elements did nothing to hide his sense of defeat from dripping through his words.

Uduak blew hot air on his hands and rubbed one against the other. The chill wasn’t in the air but in the gig. It had him all tensed up. “Mind if we ask around if anybody ever saw this guy in the park?”

                “And strike terror into the hearts and minds of these lovely people? Would you like being called a freak?”

                “How long before we start taking the snapshots?”

                “How about right away?”

And they were off snapping and checking the pictures.

Snap. Check. Nothing. Snap. Check. Nothing. Snap. Check. Check. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Outwitted and outfoxed, the freelancers mobbed a park bench and crashed their tired butts into it.

                “Did you see those pictures? He’s not in any one of them,” Usen said.

                “You telling me? I wish I could just forget it ever happened. This creep show’s not good for my nerves.”

                “I’ve had my share of the creeps the very first time I set eyes on the dude in six of my pictures. If freaking out was hard currency I’d be swimming in dough, right now.” Usen flung up his arms and jerked his head backwards so that it perched against the top edge of the backrest, his face staring up into the sky. A dark figure leaned over him and looked straight into his eyes holding him in his gaze. He couldn’t break his paralysis. The eyes of the man in the black suit pinned him into position and penetrated his subconscious and in that instant, Usen knew.

It didn’t take five seconds but he knew why his camera had picked up the man’s image. Then he was gone.

                Usen bowled out of his seat and totally flipped out.

Uduak jerked forward but stayed seated on the bench. “You trying to give me a heart attack? What’s gotten into you?”

Usen’s eyes roamed the park, searching for the man in the black suit. He was nowhere in sight. “Shit. He was standing over me just now, looking dead into my eyes. I saw his eyes, no irises, just two orange balls of flame. And he had no face, I could see right through him. He was wearing a hat, a magician’s hat but it seemed to hang on empty space, a void. And he smelled like…”

                “Like sulfur,” Uduak completed his sentence for him.

                “How did you know?”

                “You saw the devil? I read something like this before in a Stephen King story, The Man in the Black Suit it was called. Well, I never.”

                “He stood right here.” Usen went around the bench and stood in the spot he supposed the man in the black suit stood a few minutes ago.

                “You really saw him? In black and white?” Uduak’s words oozed with sarcasm, an unconscious act triggered by dread.

                “Of course, I saw him. He was here, right here.” Usen stomped up and down on the grass.

                “If he ain’t anywhere around here now, where the hell did he go?”

                “You can’t be asking me that, can you? You’ve been here all along and you happened not to notice a man this tall, wearing a black suit creep up on me and give me the jump of my life?”

                Uduak shrugged. Usen burst out laughing and Uduak followed. It dissolved the tension.

                “That fools turning us against each other. We can’t let that happen. We need to put him behind us.”

                “I’ve been thinking the same thing.” Uduak patted his friend on the shoulder. “Maybe, that’s just what we’ll do. Get the devil behind us. Somewhere where the sun never shines and the water is fire.”

The freelancers looked into each others’ eyes and laughed again.

                “Maybe, the bastard wished to be left alone.”

                “All he had to do was ask. It’s simple courtesy,” Usen said.

                “Maybe, we wouldn’t have understood his language. Come on, we’re done here.”

                “Maybe, he should have stayed the hell out of our pictures, is what I think.”

Uduak and Usen left the park and went home. At Usen’s studio, when they moved their pictures into the system for editing and printing, the man in the black suit was back in six of them. In each of the pictures, he had his back towards them and each succeeding picture showed a smaller image of him. He was walking away.

Sometimes, the man in the black suit was back in the pictures but Uduak and Usen put him in his place–at the back of their mind. They knew better. He never bothered any one of the men again. And when people picked up one of their photos and asked about the mystery man in the background the photographers said, “Oh, that’s the park caretaker.”

When they replied, “Why do we never see him around?”

They answered, “It’s best if he is left alone.”

Eneh Akpan

June 5, 2013

DAY 12: High-Octane Version

This cute, your-everyday-type-of-chap sashayed to a fairly-used exotic rugs merchant shop. He was keen on getting his hands on one of the lovely Kurdistan, spread out like tapestries to conjure up imageries of a gothic landscape in the mind of the observer.

            “These are all exotic hand-woven masterpieces from far away lands,” the merchant who looked like someone caught in the act of napping with his half-open eyelids, said. “I got a special collection right out of the A Thousand and One Nights.

Our guy whom we’d call Hall wasn’t really impressed. He didn’t have to say so; the expression on his face was a neon sign. But an odd looking rug among the lot caught his fancy. He reached out to touch it and his mental siren went off. Hall, not a superstitious fellow like most men, almost thought he felt something. A protective alien presence perhaps, around the rug.

Hall swayed on his feet. It was undetectable to the merchant who mistook Hall’s lingering about the rug as customer indecision. He seized the moment and moved swiftly into action.

            “I was told by my Arab friends that this rug took Aladdin to paradise.” Disney’s Aladdin and Jasmine were woven through traditional embroidery in chain stitch on the Kurdistan rug. And in the background (elementary, my dear Watson) was Abu, Aladdin’s puckish monkey friend. “You probably never heard the story I didn’t believe it myself when I heard it.”

            “How much does this go for?”

            “This is a state-of-the-art fabric you got here. I’m excited it’s fallen into the hands of a worthy customer. Why, a man of your stature could really make this thing . . .”

            “How much?”

            “Oh, now we gotta talk money. Did I mention this thing got Aladdin to paradise then, returned to earth? Some fool argued Aladdin’s rug never returned and this might be the one made by the evil sorcerer, Jafar. You never want to hang around their type for long or it rubs off on you.”

            “You can stand there and spin your yarn or we can trade.”

The merchant didn’t pause for breath. “I was getting to that part, just trying to let you see the worth of the thing. It’s still quality though, and you know nothing beats quality. Fifteen grand and we have a deal.”

            “Twelve,” Hall said, not taking his gaze off the rug. “Twelve grand. Give or take.”

            “Show me the money or do you gatto use the ATM?” In Lagos, it’s not unusual for customers to get to the ATM after pricing goods, what would be unusual was if they came back for said goods.

Hall paid cash.

The merchant didn’t believe one bit of his own version of the Aladdin story. He just sold himself an area rug, that’s all. As for the rug being of Arabian origin, fair enough and true enough.

Hall went to his house with his exotic rug, a proud and happy customer. Hall lives alone in a low-cost housing project. He set the rug down and spread it out on the floor of his room. Something was different about the rug. At first, Hall couldn’t make it out. Then, gradually, as he grappled with it like a man coming out of deep hypnosis, it came to him. The color of the rug had changed. The Disney characters retained their color depth and warmth except the monkey. Hall believed the monkey was brown, the color of wood when he bought the rug. Now the monkey was pitch black, the color soot.

Hall, who as we know, wasn’t well acquainted with superstition, was a trifle skeptical. “Oh well,” he said. “Sun got in my eye is all.” He spread the rug on the floor in the center of his sitting room. The embroidery of the Disney characters vivid as daylight in the tropics-Aladdin and Jasmine together with arms locked like a couple on their wedding night; the monkey in the background, almost a silhouette.

The next morning, Hall awakes to find the monkey’s color restored to tree-brown. But the monkey is now curled up around Aladdin’s neck in a death-grip.

            “That’s a trifle odd,” he said, as he doubled over to have a closer look. “That monkey . . .” He let the words trail off, shrugged as if that settled all manner of issues then, set about the day’s business.

The monkey bugged Hall the whole day; he found it impossible to take it off his mind at the office. He just couldn’t accept the reality of what he saw before leaving for work that morning.

A week later, Hall got a call from a friend.

            “Hey!” the friend said.

            “Hey!” Hall replied, now the rug came to his mind and he wondered if he should talk about the monkey he had on his back. The monkey that came with the rug. He argued his friend could be trusted. After all, they were childhood pals.

            “Hey, Darrell, I sort of have this cool antic rug. Although, it’s fairly new for an antic.”

            “Huh, huh,” Darrell intoned.

            “Just bought the thing and when I got home, the color’s different. Weird stuff, huh? I thought it was the sun, so I waved if off my mind. The next morning, you see there’s this monkey from the Disney world’s Aladdin in the background of a bigger stitch work . . . in the background, I say. The next morning, the monkey’s around Aladdin’s neck in a death grip.”

            “Quit staying in the sun for extended periods, Hall. You catching a new type of cancer-cancer of the mind.”

Hall couldn’t tell if his friend was serious or just teasing him. He didn’t push the issue. There are times you know a problem won’t go just be talking about it. Hall acknowledged this had to be one of those times.

            “Well, you are sure you saw that monkey someplace else, Hall?” Darrell asked.

            “Yap!”

            “In the background. And in the morning it was gone? Is that what you said?”

            “In the background, yeah and in the morning around Aladdin’s throat, squeezing like it had unfinished business.”

            “Better watch that rug, Hall. Watch the rug and especially that monkey. I gatto go but think about what I just told you.”

Darrell was gone, leaving Hall with a lot more fear than hope; with a truckload of anxiety than courage. “Better watch that rug. Thanks, bro. Thanks a million.”

Anyway, by evening when Hall got home, the rug was totally off his mind. He cooked himself dinner and after watching television a few hours into the night, fell asleep on the sofa. It was more like on purpose since he brought a bed sheet out to the sitting room.

That night, Hall walked the corridors of a nightmare. The feverish, high-octane version of a nightmare. In his dream, the monkey came off the rug and turned his house into the aftermath of a brawl. Hall had a rack where he kept stuff like magazines, the papers and several novels. The monkey was fascinated (God knows why) by these and scattered it all hell to breakfast. At a point in his dream, the monkey leaped on the bed where Hall lay asleep. Then, it peeled back its lips to reveal unearthly fangs and went for Hall’s jugular.

Jerking and writhing like a man strapped to a railroad before an oncoming train, Hall awoke suppressing a scream behind his lips; swimming in his own sweat and his sofa a total jeopardy. The monkey was nowhere in sight. Of course, Hall thought, it’s a dream. He reached out and flipped on the side lamp and this time it took all his willpower to keep from screaming.

His room was a perfect picture of his nightmare. Everything the way he had dreamt it. Hall hurried to get out of his sitting room and his feet got tangled in the bed sheets. He is spilled to the floor backward, the hard impact rocked his body and, his head exploded in pain like a munitions dump set off by a stick of dynamite.

Hall opened his eyes and his head seemed to have been cleared by the fall rather than clouded by it. It’s amazing how things like this worked themselves out, sometimes. He was on his face with a monkey on his back. Hall’s mouth is on the rug and on Jasmine’s mouth. Then, she’s French kissing him. He feels the softness and wetness of her lips; she was real in a way he couldn’t imagine. He yielded to her prodding. She smiled at him and then, something else happened.

The gloss in Jasmines’ hair faded to a hag’s whorl; it became coarse and began to fall off in nasty clumps. Her cheeks caved in and peeled off in layers like an onion bulb in hot oil, to reveal charred gums and rotten teeth. Finally, she disintegrated-imploded and became a bag of bones.

Meanwhile, Hall had backed up from the corpse-like thing. He cawed like a rook, as he tried to vomit. He only managed to slobber. The monkey however, was still on his back and as he attempted to push it off, it took a big chunk off Hall’s arm. He yelled and rolled over. Blood spouted from the wound. He got up to run and hit the floor dead on as the rug shifted under his weight. The carpet riffled like the aftermath of a backwash and then, tossed Hall in the air. He landed with a heavy thud. This set the monkey off applauding and chattering in monkey-speak.

The irony was not lost on Hall; the monkey was like the audience in a circus watching an acrobat perform. The carpet wrapped Hall up and started to squeeze the breath out of him. The monkey leaped on top of him, Hall’s face and neck are exposed. The monkey bares its claws and slashes Hall across the face with it.

He tried to free his hand and get at the monkey but of course, he’s wrapped up like Cleopatra on her way to visit Caesar.

            “Get off me, you pesky monkey. Believe me, you’re one dead monkey, when I get out of this piece of shitty rug.”

But Hall was losing so much blood he felt dizziness encroaching on his mind. It would take a miracle to get him out of this situation alive. Blood, fresh and healthy, gurgled from his wounds in an untidy spray.

The darkness deepened.

Abu, the evil monkey was not done with him, yet. It dug all five claws into his scruff and hung on. Hall yowled, the pain was thunder. And then, the monkey turned his head slowly like a lover in the wake of a deep, passionate kiss and sunk its teeth into his voice box. The blood was the sea, furious and free.

The scream confronted the pain and they intervolved and made misery out of the man. Hall snapped to and realized he had blacked out after falling off the sofa. And all his woes were mere throes of a nightmare.

            “Damn it looked, felt so real. I died in that dream. I felt dead.” Tears fell from his eyes as he realized his trauma was mostly imagination. He was still alive. It felt great to be alive. He got off the floor and the world spun like a wheel around him; he had to hold on to the back of the sofa to steady himself. When he put his palm to the back of his head and looked at it he saw he’d conceded a bruise from his fall off the sofa. “Damn you monkey!”

He shot the rug a momentary side glance and saw the monkey standing in front of Aladdin and Jasmine with its paws raised like an innocent puppy’s.

            “You don’t fool me, you little twerp. You devil monkey.”

There was a glint in the monkey’s eyes.

Hall saw it.

And now he was enraged. “You brought this whole drama on yourself, fool.”

He grabbed up the area rug and took it to his backyard. He poured kerosene all over it and torched it. The flames tasted the fuel and then lapped it up like a ravenous kitten.

He headed off to work feeling good for the first time since his encounter with the carpet.

When Hall returned in the evening, the Aladdin’s rug was back in its spot. Jasmine stood beside a man who didn’t look anymore like than a dog looked like a cat. Hall crossed the threshold and reached the rug. The image of the monkey was still on the carpet, alright. And blood dripped from its mouth and paws. But in the place of Aladdin stood a man in the exact outfit Hall had on him at that very moment. Hall couldn’t tell who it was because his face was a mess.

It had been chewed off.

DAY 5: Dead Man Walking

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The House of Assembly was erratically, heated up. The perspiration on the faces of the members buttressed the point.

Grandpa Dexter was giving the matron lip and tearing out his hair while he was at it-so much emotion was driving him to the lip of the drop into madness. It was not exactly oblivious-the reason for his tantrums, that is, was not particularly concealed like the great drops of sweat standing out like overripe balls of pimples on faces of residents of Carune Nursing Home.

Storm winds knocked down the poles in the onset of the storm which was still raging fiercely that night. The standby gennie refused to pick up. The senior class citizens decided to have a verbal equivalent of a Mexican standoff with management. They’d elected to take the situation in their stride-stage a midnight protest cum demonstration. Thus, they clustered here in the general room where meals were served and taken, TV watched, newspapers read, and the old timers did only what only they could do better by unanimous definition-catch up on old times.

Things have taken a wrong turn in Carune. Things were either lying on their backs or sideways or, this was the crux and the worst of the bunch, on their goddam faces-senile faces at best.

            “You got some goddam explaining to do,” Grandpa Dexter said, shaking his twig-like arm at the matron. “This is goddam ridiculous. You got serious explaining to do, I tell you. Nobody ever seen or heard of a more outrageous situation. Do something about that genie before somebody cons out in this hellish heat. Several voices mumbled in agreement.

            “Suck it up, old fella,” Junior, the supervisor said. (Need to look it up on the internet. Find out what these guys are called.)

            “Don’t you fucking patronize me like that, you little twerp.” Grandpa Dexter wheezed. “You mind me now, Junior. Beware.”

            “And what are you gonna do huh, old fella? Pick your nose and cry like a baby?” He let out a little chuckle.

            “Quit it, Junior. That’s enough,” the matron said. This is no time for target practice.” She turned to Grandpa Dexter. “We are doing everything we can to bring the gennie up to speed. It should be up in no time so, I suggest you all get back to our rooms and stay in doors till electricity’s restored. I don’t need anybody tumbling off the stairs and knocking off a few teeth.” She swung around to face Junior. “Junior will lead-guide-you.”

            “This is ridiculous,” Grandpa Dexter said.

            “Ridiculous,” echoed the faces spread across the length of the shadow-haunted room.

            “Betty, here is scared of the dark. A handful of the others, too. You want to have something; a paraffin lamp would be a start, up in their rooms to keep ‘em from lunging into a seizure or worse, have a heart attack.”

            “Please, Grandpa Dexter, this situation would not be resolved if we keep standing around in the dark pitching for a overnight revolution.” Exasperation was beginning to take its toll on the matron. “What we clearly need right now, is all the understanding we can get out of you, guys.”

Grandpa Dexter stepped forward until he stood almost nose to nose with the matron and then put on his best matter-of-fact tone. “I understand that gennie ain’t gonna make one single sound until dawn cracks open the skies, is what I understand.”

            “I told you, we are on it. We’ll the machine walking and talking in no time.”

            “Then, why the hell are you standing there talking to us if indeed you are on it? Shouldn’t you be greased over, already? I bet this is one way of getting that budget cut alive and kicking. Bet all of hell and the portals of heaven, it is.”

            “Okay, old fellas. Let’s pack it up. We got work to do.” Junior turned on the flashlight, a powerful one and trained it on Grandpa Dexter. On his face. The old guy thought he saw patches of thicker shadows in the dim room when he smacked the hand gripping the flashlight.

            “Get that thing out of my face, you dimwit. Are you trying to blind me?”

            “Move old bones.”

The senior citizens of Carune Nursing Home trundled in a perfect Indian file and trudged head down to their separate rooms.

The Carune Nursing Home building was a mammoth-sized structure with a lot of rooms. It used to some sort of guest house for the highway farers in its own time. It was acquired by Carune & Carune Developers a few years ago-about twenty years would be a close guess. And then renovated to become the largest nursing home for the elderly retired in the state.

Carune Nursing Home stood on an extensive strip of land which boasted a garden and a lake.

The residents file out of the House of Assembly as the general sitting room/parlor was called.

            “Just pray nothing happens to none of us,” Grandpa Dexter said, as he ambled along with the others, “None of us or I’ll call my son up and sue your penny dreadful asses, you incompetent leeches.”

            “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Junior mumbles casually, like someone speaking to a friend on the phone-probably about some uninteresting topic.

That night, by the time the rays of the sun tore through the cracks in the curtain like flaming white spears, marking the innocent brightness of a new-born day and, residents of Carune Nursing Home trundled out to the House of Assembly, they were two short of their population. Nobody really noticed the absentees at first. Not when they were all busy exchanging pleasantries and raining curses on the accursed gennie. Though, the matron fulfilled her promise and got the gennie going at exactly 0600hrs.

            “See, I told you these scrimpy scumbags are saving fuel. Stowing us away in the dark and saving the goddam fuel.” Grandpa Dexter was a few decibels from actually yelling. “Goddam bastards.”

Later when the table was set and nobody heard Grumpy whine about the salt like he was wont to do. And somebody made a remark about how the salt fairy finally had it with Grumpy and whisked him away that somebody asked, “Where the hell’s Grumpy?”

One of the nurses made to fetch him before the Matron found out one of the senior citizens was not at the table and none of ‘em noticed-a lecture fro Matron Beatrice would have been in order. A moment later-not too long-not quite 120 seconds after that nurse who went to fetch Grumpy left, she fetched a scream from his room. It got the old timers started.

            “It’s okay.” One of the nurses. “We’ll go check it out. Stay at your tables.” The old timers obeyed and stayed put however, not a single fellow touched his/her plate. They suspected the worst and now stilled themselves for the inevitable.

The nurses found Grumpy, whose real name was Kennan, on his bed with ghastly wounds on his body like he had been strapped to his bed with invisible and poisonous cords. There was pus oozing out of those wounds like he’d been dead for much longer than a mere six hours. He had an expression on his face. The look of a man who’d stared the worst form of horror in the face and paid his due. His head was twisted at angle to suggest it had been snapped-broken-by a powerful force. It’s a wonder the nurse didn’t pass out. It was a freak show, after all.

            “It’s the damn gennie that won’t kick up killed Grumpy,” Grandpa Dexter said, later while they all sat in the general sitting room. “Grumpy was one of ‘em folks who couldn’t stand the freaking dark. He always slept with his bedside lamp on and always threw a fit if he woke up to find one of ‘em nurses came along to turn off the lights. Guess, the only thing they do with any efficiency around this parts is freak us out with the dark.”

A few nights after the incident with Grumpy, two other residents made an appointment with death in a similar fashion. Terror had come to Carune.

One evening, while Grandpa Dexter was walking in the garden, kicking at invisible stones, he saw somebody standing by the lake, back-facing him. He mused about the striking resemblance to Grumpy but reminded himself Grumpy was one dead son of a gun. He thought it was good to have someone to get up close to and have a chit-chat with on such a nice day. Something, anything to get an old fella’s mind off the incidents of the past days.

He walked up to the man standing by the lake and just before he reached out to tap the stranger on the shoulder and say Hail fellow, well met, the man turned.

What Grandpa Dexter saw ripped the grin off his face like a crashing plane snatching off rooftops in the wake of descent.

He came to a few hours later. Grandpa Dexter could tell it was hours because darkness had fallen outside. (He was still by the lake, lying down where he’d seen the figure.) Faces peered down at him. To him, it seemed as if he was observing the world from the bottom of a very deep well-while staring up at faces peering into the darkness trying to help him out of the pit.

            “Is he awake?” It was Lucille, one of the residents who could have passed for Grandpa Dexter’s girlfriend in their heydays when youth was wasted on pleasure.

Water splashed in his face and Grandpa Dexter sneezed as it trickled in his nostrils. “He is now.” He registered the voice as Trey’s. Only Trey would splatter a guy’s face with water to prove he was awake.

            “Hey, pal. Welcome back.” There was no doubt about that one. It was Roger all the way-his best friend since he came to Carune Nursing Home.

Grandpa Dexter couldn’t quite bring himself to narrate his ordeal by the lake that Wednesday evening. He couldn’t tell them he’d seen Grumpy, alive and well, watching the lake like he used to while he yet lived on this side of existence.

Grumpy who died in his room two weeks ago. Grumpy  who actually turned and offered his hand while saying, “Hi, Dex. A lovely afternoon for a walk in the garden, isn’t it?” just before he passed out. “Must have been the goddam sunlight,” Grandpa Dexter said. They’ll fall for that, he thought. Rather be called weak than loony. Grandpa Dexter had been called a lot of things in his time, senile was one, foul-mouthed another. He was not about to top the lot with insane or plain old crazy.

A few nights later (not so far removed from the one that witnessed Grandpa Dexter slumped by the lake), after rolling over and over and over again and failing to catch sleep on either side of his bed, Grandpa sneaked out of his bedroom. He wanted to see if a little TV would calm his nerves and set him off snoozing. Lord knows, he’d done his share of sleeping in front of the TV while chewing popcorn in his youth. He promised himself he’d wake up early and get back to the confines of his bedroom before any of the nurses got up to do their chores.

He got to the landing after coming off the stairs and his heart picked up momentum. He saw light dancing on the walls. Light which signified someone had beaten him to it and turned the TV on, already. He thought it might be one of the nurses set to catch TV addicts like him. Nevertheless, he crept up for a close peek and saw . . .

            “Lucille? What the hell are you doing down here so late in the night?”

            “Dex, is that you?”

Grandpa looked into Lucille’s face and a knowing passed through the two old timers like ashstakes through a vampire.

            “You see them, too. Don’t you?”

            “They’ve been calling me to come. Said I’m next. Who are they? What’s bringing them back and why now?”

A few days later, Lucille passed on. Grandpa Dexter still couldn’t bring himself to confess his vision or Lucille’s confession to his friends.

Lucille’s questions are gonna serve the plot in the final draft when I rewrite this story.