GrUeBERfest '08-R 1: Like Unto Stone (538 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.41 on 17 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Fungah (View user info) at 2008-09-28 17:06:29 EDT
Just see how it glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime. Every good stone is. They are the devil's pet baits. In larger and older jewels every facet may stand for a bloody deed....
-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" [Sherlock Holmes speaking], 1891
I'll be moving soon to a much nicer place. Right now I have a window through which I can see the peaks of the city above the close tree line. I can see the sun setting right now, the buildings look square and cut off at odd angles and indigo; like puzzle pieces. The sky is a washed with swaths of saffron and rose. I'm sitting near the open window. The air looks thick in the distance but it feels quite cool on my skin. Satellite dishes are turned toward the west, like plates on display. The squat town-houses complex, of which my window and my room are a part, are much darker than the sky. The day's light's failing and the townhouse brickwork seems to show it first. It's September and as if we've been having warm weather for this long they say, but it won't last. For all the things we can't agree on, that's something, at least it might be.
The trees around the courtyard are still. There's no angry ruffling of leaves from high winds, only the rare sound of a car parking and the shrill screeches of children, either done with the dinner table or yet to visit it. Winter's coming soon, and with it the jackets and the boots and eiderdown gales of wet snow to be shoveled from sidewalks and the lit fireplaces and the bitching and the lake effect snow roaring in through the city with such fury even the cyclists downtown in their skinny jeans refuse to leave their houses. With winter comes an end to the calm fall days with their crispness of air and sharp skies and rich textures of vermillion grasses all blanketed with yellowing or bloodied leaves al shuffling and settled raspy and in downy clumps across lawns. These fall days are yet to arrive though, so we've been floating through the last warm days of summer like birds of prey caught on a surprise updraft of warm air, lazy, content, waiting for the inevitable downdraft to push us closer to cool cruel earth.
As if fearing this downdraft, this undeath of trees and grasses, I lift myself from my seat and make my way to the kitchen. My movements are the product of years. I know every crevasse, I know where the floor squeaks, and I can traverse the hallways and stairwells of my tiny house like a blind man. So I do. My eyes watch my toes or drift along the walls. I look at the corners, note that dust has been accruing, make a mental note to mop. I look out the window as my hands blindly crawl into the cupboards, snatch hold of a cardboard box, peel it open, reach inside and remove a package of microwaveable popcorn. My hands and my eyes are far removed by degrees. The cellophane wrapping of the package shrieks as I tear it and the bag crackles as I place it in the microwave. The buttons on the microwave rip through the ambient silence of my house like a lancet through a boil. I stare at nothing in particular (my eyes unfocused and everything thick and blurry as if under water), and think, how long? How long until they begin to die? It's happening already. Yellow and red leaves are appearing on trees like a pox.
The first kernel pops, and then another. The microwave sounds like a machine gun cut short in mid-clip by three short sharp beeps. Mindful of the steam, and paying full attention to what my hands are doing, I rip open the bag, tossing the remnants into the trash. I approach the couch and seat myself, reach for the remote.
Again, the microwave beeps, three times in quick succession. Again, and quickly after that, it beeps once again, three times, drawn out, longer. Again and after this: three more, once again in quick succession.
I carefully put down the popcorn, mindful not to let the stray kernels spill out of the awkwardly torn bag and onto the floor. I go to look at the microwave, my heart beating quickly in my chest. Standing directly in front of my microwave is what appears to be a tiny man. He's somehow lowered a can of Campbell's Tomato soup down from the cupboards and in front the microwave. He's perched atop it right now, legs dangling over the side (nonchalantly kicking the italicized C). He's wearing what look like sneakers on his feet, and a t-shirt over his torso. His skin looks whiteish red in the hazy rays of sunlight which cut through my blinds and illuminate the dust in my kitchen, forming hazy columns. He waves at me as I come into the kitchen. He also looks a lot like me, save for the fact that he has no eyes. Where the eyes would be on a normal, regular-sized version of myself, there's instead two black concave pits located to the left and to the right of his tiny little nose.
I'm terrified for more reasons than one, but I wave back. Slowly, I back out of the kitchen, finding my way with my hands behind my back. I exit out the front door, the entire time keeping my eyes on the little eyeless me who's still just dumbly waving at me and kicking the stylized C on the can of Tomato soup.
I call my friend Alicia. I haven't known her very long.
"Alicia? There's a tiny man sitting on a can of tomato soup in my kitchen, and he looks like me. Alicia, no, just come over. Alicia, he doesn't have any eyes. Alicia, please" Alicia, obviously puzzled, says she'll be right over.
-------------
I'm sitting on the stoop smoking when Alicia's cherry red Sunfire pulled up. I told her to go inside, have a look. I hoped that the little me would either be dead or gone by the time she arrived to have a look. Alicia, incredulous, entered my house.
Alicia exited the house, sat down beside me on the stoop, removed and lit a cigarette from my package in one fluid motion.
"There's a tiny man sitting on a can of tomato soup in your kitchen. He looks like you. Why doesn't he have any eyes Brad?"
"I don't know Alicia."
"Did you try talking to him?"
"I don't want to talk to him"
It's night now. The courtyard is rinsed with the diffuse sodium glow of privately owned and operated streetlamps. The green grass looks vivid in the yellow lamplight. The air smells crisp and sharp, Alicia's perfume smells smooth and worn. She's still dressed for work in a black blouse and black slacks. Her hair falls across her shoulders in stiff curls. She's smoking like a white woman and her legs are crossed. A skunk is sifting through the piles of trash bags stacked beside the complex's large recycling bin.
"Alicia, what do we do?"
"I don't know. Do you want to go check again, to make sure he's still... there?"
"Okay."
We go inside (Alicia first). We're unsteady on our feet as we toss our cigarettes. My gaze is turned towards the kitchen and I absentmindedly flick on the lights, flooding it with light. Without looking back I flip the lock on the door. My eyes are only on Alicia.
The little me on the Campbell's soup can waves at me.
"What do you want?" She asks the little me.
It tilts its head back, opens its mouth, and shrieks. The sound is like nails on a chalkboard. It leaps off of the can of soup and with some effort pushes it to the ground. It moves with quick spastic movements that appear at once lightning fast and palsied, as if every movement of its limb is an abomination. It shrieks again as the can hits the floor with a thud. Alicia screams.
I, the little me, somehow reach into my, its, stomach, and remove a sparkling gem, the size of my little finger-nail, and its head. It sets this down, sits cross legged, begins smoking. It waves again, and nods.
"I'm scared, Brad." Alicia says. It smiles, shrieks again, and pulls another gem from its stomach. They're diamonds, and they're each worth a quarter of a million dollars. "Brad, you're on your own. I'm leaving"
I close my eyes and take her head in my hand and force it to the ground. The thing shrieks madly, ravenously. It claps as I slam Alicia's head repeatedly onto the floor. Her perfume wafts up at me every time I force her skull into my kitchen floor. It smells mellow, smooth and womanly. Her fists, slamming against the ground and searching for purchase in her confusion, sound like gunfire. She's dazed, so I go for the knife. I rip her open, so she bleeds and she gurgles and she dies. The little person on the counter is shrieking madly and it sounds like steel being twisted apart by manic giants. Keeping my eyes closed, I crawl my left hand up the cupboard beside Alicia's corpse and grab the two diamonds. It finds its way easily. I know every facet of my house. Like unto wealth attracted is my empty heart, unto stone seek my blind hands. I keep my eyes shut when I leave the kitchen, opening as them as I get closer to the couch. I turn up the volume when I sit down, and try to ignore the wet, smacking sounds of the tiny little me eating Alicia's eyes.
I'll be moving soon to a much nicer place.
User Reviews
Submitted by simple_catalyst (user info) at 2008-09-29 21:52:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2008-09-29 17:01:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Opponent +2....
But I did like this anyway.
Good work my man.
Submitted by Desz (user info) at 2008-09-29 15:46:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2008-09-29 14:55:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Well fuck me, I liked this.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-09-29 11:33:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-09-28 23:19:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Adjectives are your friend. The slyly placed and surreptitiously rendered adverbs with coyly distorted meanings are the stupidly ignorant sign of a scarily under-developed intellect.
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2008-09-28 22:07:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by STIXS (user info) at 2008-09-28 20:54:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Creepy, but I skipped the first 3 paragraphs - they were superfluous save for the detail about being able to walk around his home without his eyes.
+1
Submitted by Gyro_Gearloose (user info) at 2008-09-28 20:23:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by tatersninja (user info) at 2008-09-28 20:17:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Ok, that made me laugh. I'm guessing your guessing is right.
Submitted by Fungah (user info) at 2008-09-28 19:47:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I should of just done something about a three headed goat made out of forks and put in a picture of a jack-o-lantern.
Submitted by NintendoCzar (user info) at 2008-09-28 19:08:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by tatersninja (user info) at 2008-09-28 18:48:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Hmm. Only one in that WHOLE SENTENCE!!!
Submitted by Fungah (user info) at 2008-09-28 18:03:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
THE KING OF ADJECTIVES COMETH FOR YOU.
Submitted by tatersninja (user info) at 2008-09-28 17:51:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
too many adjectives. my wet glistening eyes and rapidly degrading brain would've wished and hoped with a healthy intent that something more was left with me than a vague, frustrated feeling in the crisp fall not-yet-summer, deftly-duckin-winter-air.
"like unto wealth..."
Submitted by DTII (user info) at 2008-09-28 17:48:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
http://www.fredvanlente.com/cthulhutract/pages/index.html
The truth about the Universe.
- Deadtoast
Submitted by Fungah (user info) at 2008-09-28 17:41:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
MY ENTRY ABOVE.