Stamp's Arrow

“Sometimes when all th'cleanin's done and nobody ain't got th'urge to hang around the saloon, this chore's what tickles me best.”

Rudy was frivolously conversing with the only customer around, who had walked in several minutes before and still hadn't decided which liquor would strike his fancy that evening.
He was referencing the pistol he was cleaning on the back end of the bar. Even after practicing the same routine for almost 10 years, Rudy didn't consider himself much of a gun enthusiast or guru, but giving the public impression of such seemed to keep trouble at bay.

The quiet, lonesome man wearing a dark brown duster at the bar maintained a mild smile, and kept his cowboy hat tipped downward. Rudy started to realize that it was he himself who was doing all of the talking, so with a slight nod of embarrassment, he tried to break the ice more directly.

“Where're my manners! Name's Rudy, Rudy McKowen.” The man looked up briefly, and almost ashamedly bowed his head as he extended his right hand, which appeared to be caked in dirt, almost as though it was rusted. “Matthew Stamp. Like guns, do you?”
“Just about as much I can allow m'self to, given my position.”

Matthew pulled out his shiny revolver and placed it on the bar, barrel safely and symmetrically pointing sideways. “My gift to you...no longer of any use to me. Hopefully you won't ever need to dirty the trigger.”

Rudy was speechless for a few seconds. “Golly Mr. Stamp, that's awful kinda ya! You sure 'bout this?”
Matthew humbly nodded. “One condition though – a double of your finest, whatever it is.”
“Yess'r! Comin' up fer the finest gentleman this town's ever known!”

Rudy pulled the bottle of MacAllan 30 from his top shelf and poured liberally into a rocks glass. Stamp fondled the glass and sniffed it before sipping. He sipped three or four times before he snorted back some disguised tears, and chugged the rest whole. Instead of customarily slamming his glass down on the bar, he handed it directly to Rudy, not making eye contact the entire time. “Thanks so much. The drink and conversation was much appreciated.”

Matthew Stamp slowly sauntered towards the saloon doors.

“You have a marv'lous evenin', partner!” shouted Rudy as he wiped the man's glass.

Rudy's eyes slowly elevated upwards to the stranger Matthew Stamp's figure as it slowed to a halt before leaving the bar. Stamp was beginning to stumble. A squint from Rudy revealed a hole in the back of Matthew's coat, decorated by some fresh red stains.

Rudy McKowen bemusedly looked downward, observing the revolver lying on his bar, pointing left, like a shiny arrow.

Matthew Stamp walked outside, and followed the path set by his gun to his very last breath, which was just moments after he disappeared from the sights of the bartender and that lonesome six-shooter.

park city

He sometimes wondered if this job was killing him. Little sleep to be had, often getting sick & lack of a social life. Was he choosing this or was it choosing him? work and sleep, that was his life. No time to see friends, no time to climb mountains & no time to write stories. He hoped that one day this would change.

12C

12C

He was audibly drunk. Which is hard to do over the whir of jet engines and the mile-high white noise which would generally coax the passengers of row 12, seats A, B, and D into bleary-eyed thoughtlessness. But the occasional overhead ding or bustle of a cart would arouse a strange, malt-soaked grumble or wheeze from the cavernous mouth, which hung open like an empty barrel. His shirt was pressed, jeans fitted, and every other indication that this was a person who was not difficult to look at, save for his now-almost-midnight shadow, tussled hair, and stream of near-dried saliva connecting his jawline with a soft, blue collar. His eyes remained shut, short lashes topping the narrow nose and lean cheeks, which seemed to slightly tug at the corners of his mouth as if he were hiding a joke or some private mischief. And he wouldn’t budge.

            “Someone should wake him,” hissed 12A to B, “just look at him”. Her lipstick smacked violently as her small but enormously round frame rotated towards her neighbor. “Oh, I don’t much care to,” said the lanky, slow speaking man thirty years his senior, “I, I say we leave him be.”

            “To hell with him. I won’t be stuck against this window for six hours without a necessary break. I’m a lady for chrissake.”

            “Why don’t we all get some sleep an’ let him just come around.”

            “To hell with coming around. HELLO! Excuse me!?” 12A projected at him while waiving a pudgy hand across B and over the comatose face. There was no response.

            “I think he’s a deep sleeper, this one” B said, mostly to himself.

Stirring from the commotion, a pretty, suburban-looking pile of blankets, brown hair, and eyeshades turned into the aisle and squinted at the man and his disturbed adjacents.

            “What are you doing?” she queried A & B. “Why are you yelling?”

            “She might need to pee,” admitted B to D.

“I will not be stuck against this window for…”

“Here,” offered D, as she removed her polka dot neck pillow from around her shoulders, “I usually just hit my husband when he does this.”

With a quick thwoomph she hammered the man firmly on the chest and he jolted forward. The next sound he made was as surprising as it was booming and surely the rest of the plane could hear the laugh. He didn’t stop, but hysterically and with shortness of breath and closed eyes laughed as A, B, and D gazed on in confusion. Just as suddenly his guffaw came to a crashing halt and he sat up straight and opened his red, glassy eyes.

“My friends, I’m getting married”said the man in seat 12C, finally, in a clear and level voice. “But I haven’t met her.” He then rifled through his pocket and pulled out a creased photo of a beautiful woman, a ring, and receipt from “SFO Jewelers” with an address on the back. He then fell quickly and suddenly back to sleep.

           

The Pavement

Actually, that very morning I had resigned myself only to meet everyman for the rest of my life, and began to apply the appropriate measured steps toward this reality.  But I was at the corner of 14th and Bismark in the drowning light of a rainy day when I was approached by a man.  He wore a long damp dark cloak with collar turned up and a hat with a downward brim.  I saw an unlighted cigarette in his mouth and as he closed the distance between us he began "Can I-", I was already drawing my lighter from my pocket, shielding it from the rain.  As he continued his lips did not move but the cigarette wagged up and down like an imploring puppet and when I could almost feel his breath I heard: "Can I crack my skull against yours?"  When everything stopped I looked into his eyes and saw a gaze as sure and steady as if there had been nothing in their sockets.  Then there was a strong thunk and bright white and that was all.

Revivified by the same gray rain of dawn, I was surprised to find myself in the same place. I thought I was lying on the ground, and as the first passerby walked on without question or surprise I quickly tried to rise up and then brush myself off and then attend to all those people I was thinking about. But I lifted my arm, it would not move.  I tried to shift my leg but it did not budge.  And then I felt another passerby.  He stepped on my face, and I felt no pain. The sole of his shoe was as flush with the contours of my head as if it were the same as the flat pavement of the sidewalk. And then a woman stepped on my ribs, but again, it was as hard as concrete. I looked up at the people walking on and around me, I can see them, and I found that I was in the firm ground of 14^th and Bismarck where I had met the man last night.  As the sun rose, so came the wave of people skittering over my body on their way to everywhere. Sometimes they stop for conversations near me and I can hear everything and what a pleasure it is. But nothing like the pleasure of this stillness—the strength of this unflappable inertia. 

Just Kidding

          “Merry Christmas” is a cliche, yet thoroughly appropriate and wonderful way to start December 25th. “Look, here are pictures of your parents during happier times” is not. Guess how the morning began?

His Aunt never knew what to say. She was the middle child. Her older sister the success, her younger brother the delinquent, therefore all attention magnetized away from her. Luckily she learned at a young age to take this like a champ, to triumph above it all.

Just kidding! It ruined her life. She felt a constant need to manufacture attention, and today it came in the form of reminding her nephew of his parents’ divorce. Luckily he could sidestep this trap and head on over to the beautiful tree, decked out with amazing ornaments passed down from generation to generation, circled with layers of presents, flawlessly selected after countless top secret phone calls, email chains, and direct messages on twitter.

            Just kidding! No tree. No presents. Maybe a twitter tutorial later; he had become the family’s pro-bono 24/7 IT technician; a role he cherished, much in the same way a football team cherishes its kicker after missing an extra point to lose the Super Bowl.

At least a fancy dinner reservation awaited that night. Unfortunately the plan was to split the bill. This wasn’t a white Christmas. This was a red Christmas. This was Communism. Can you blacklist an Aunt?

Interesting question. Maybe his Grandma, the host of Christmas 2012, would know the answer. This was all hypothetical of course, because her deafness had reached Jedi levels. Going to her house was like attending a lecture series. Most lecture series at least have Q&A’s, but at this series, every answer out of his Grandma’s mouth was the same: “WHAAAAT???”. He loved his Grandma. He just wished she could will herself to take those hearing aids in for readjustment. Why couldn’t she do that? She took her car in for maintenance and that was always a breeze.

Just kidding! That was always life threatening. Driving with Grandma was like skydiving

 with a 92-year-old parachute. On the bright side, she nominated herself as the wheelwoman for dinner, so if it turned Kamikaze he might not have to fork out that fifty dollars after all. In the meantime there he stood, in an empty corner perfect for a tree, reminiscing about his parents’ divorce. But what would he do between now and the Pinko dinner? Only one option. He would suck it up, put all the family craziness aside, and humor his Aunt and Grandma.
             Just kidding! He’d fake another nap. A brillant strategy. Getting dicey though thanks to overuse. Five naps in three days; those were great-grandpa stats. They were nervous about his health. They needed him to be healthy so he could return soon, preferably New Year’s Eve. He could set up their new printer. He’d be open to that idea...
             J.U.S.T. KI.D.D.I.N.G.

Blue

The water was a sky blue tortoise back, with nary the aftermath of a scream on the surface. 

As he looked at the pool, Travis knew that he couldn't do it. His toes gripped the gravelly surface of the diving platform, prehensile safeguards against disaster. A drop of water fell fifteen feet from the underside of the platform, as if to say, "Look how easy this is." 

But it wasn't easy. Without his glasses, the up-turned faces of the other students appeared as formless splashes of color. The blobs were wordlessly waiting their turn, waiting to show him how it was done. Travis bitterly wondered why his last name had to be Abernathy-Taylor. 

His last name was Abernathy-Taylor because his father, Dr. Martin Taylor D.D.S., had decided, on February 12th, 1994, to run off to Atlanta, Georgia with one of his dental assistants. His last name was Abernathy-Taylor because, five years later, a charming insurance salesman named John Abernathy, with an equally charming Scottish accent, had come to Travis's mother's front door to peddle his services. Abernathy-Taylor - to Travis - was alphabetical suicide at a school whose teachers were fond of ordering class presentations by last name, and had caused a string of embarrassing misfires for Travis from grades two to six. Abernathy-Taylor was the reason, on his second day of middle school gym class, he was ready to fail again, on a fifteen-foot-tall stage. 

A murmur ran through the colorful blobs, or was it laughter?  Somewhere unseen, a clock ticked.

Travis wondered if he could just stall the rest of the class period out, or fake some sort of sudden illness. Below, without his glasses, the pool was full of swirling waves of fuzzy blue and white streaks. It looked more like a blue sky, viewed from out an airplane window, than the indoor pool at Herbert Hoover Middle School. 

Two years ago was the first time Travis had ever been on an airplane. In 1997, his mother had loaded him onto a flight from San Francisco to Atlanta, Georgia, as a human olive branch, hoping that the sight of the long-neglected son would be enough to melt the iciness of the father's heart. Travis had stayed awake the whole flight, his nose pressed against the window. He had watched the atmosphere swoop by below, holding out hope for a fatherly embrace that was born out of true affection and not obligation. It was the most at peace he had ever felt. There was something calming about sitting with your own thoughts, high above everyone else, knowing that once you landed, everything would go back to being horrible and broken and wrong. 

The platform wobbled. The gym teacher was ascending the diving platform to help get the fat kid into the pool so the other kids could dive. Travis took a deep breath, and stepped forward. There was no way to escape the inevitable. The bell rang, shattering the stillness of his sanctuary. Class was over.

He Was Dead Wasn't He?

     John hated all of them after that. It wasn’t so much the taunting as it was the immediate humiliation. He’d spent weeks preparing and it appeared to them that he’d just thrown it together at the last minute. Donna would find out. She always had a way of knowing the things he’d never tell her. The only thing he could think to do now was go fishing for the weekend, hell, maybe the month.

     The cabin looked much better when he’d hoofed it out there last summer with his son Freddy. Grass was growing through the deck, a couple windows smashed and a section of the roof was definitely caving in. Probably the winter weather tearing at those things we still love when nature tells us to let them die. John pulled into the drive way and loaded his arms full of gear. His sleeping bag, tackle box and backpack might be too much for one trip from the car but that was his style.

     Inside it was very musty and darker than he’d remembered, probably because the lights worked then. He was afraid to use the fireplace for fear of burning the place to the ground again. On the lake it was all exactly as remembered. The boat leaked just like last year and the fish were too small to eat but that’s okay.

     His head was throbbing the first day too so it didn’t really bother him. Freddie was worried but he assured him, “that’s why you don’t drink too much son”. When he fell asleep after trying for two hours he was unable to heed the warning signs. The footsteps outside and the sheets that surrounded his cabin like a spin cycle. This area was known for its pestilence but never had there been any incidents to speak of.

     When John woke in his back seat parked at the baseball diamond he’d grown up playing at he was confident he was still dreaming. His head was throbbing which never happened during his last trip to the lake. But now he wasn’t at the lake so maybe this was another situation all together. The problem John was facing had nothing to do with his trip to the old cabin or his embarrassment at the church. John couldn’t remember when he saw his wife last, much less his son.

     For six days he walked away from the car he’d forgotten he owned. It was as if walking was the cure to a disease that had been handed down to him. He didn’t do this. How could anyone blame him? What they did to him that night at the cabin was unforgivable and warrants any and every irrational act John could ever commit in his life. Perhaps Freddy would grow to disagree but the temptation is always there to abandon responsibility.

     John haunted his wife and son for the next twelve years but they never knew it. He was more devoted than he’d ever been as a living breathing man.

Hutchins Mall

It was the same dream again. The open-air mall, chased by the mob, ending in a staredown at gunpoint, then: bang. 

Cameron, surprised at how awake he now felt, looked at the triple threes on his clock and wondered if he could get back to sleep.

Fifteen minutes later, he was googling “outdoor mall Chicago”. He’d never been there, but he just knew it was Chicago. It was unlikely that he’d find anything, but he was bored and he couldn’t sleep. He remembered hopping handrails twice down a staircase, running past the Sbarro and Orange Julius, then ducking into-

“Sears!”

Cameron had clicked on a map of Hutchins Mall, and had just traced his path past each store, perfectly aligned to his memory. Everything was in place; it was his mall. It had to be.

-

That morning, Cameron packed a bag and drove the 217 miles to Chicago. He wasn’t even sure why he was going; maybe just to see firsthand if it was the real thing. After all, he wasn’t wanted by the mob, or at least he thought so.

He arrived as it was getting dark. Inside, trepidation flitted in and out of his mind. Why did I come here? Am I destined to die in this mall? What if the mob has used mind-control techniques on me?

He laughed when he thought ‘mind-control’. Just to be safe, he kept an eye out for suspicious people.

Up ahead, he saw them. He waded through shoppers as he descended the staircase, as if he were replaying his dream in slow motion. Coming to ground level, there, right on cue, was Sbarro. Orange Julius was next. Sears was straight ahead. 

Screaming came from the top level. Cameron scanned the top level, heart racing. Was this it?

A man sliced a path through the shoppers, then jumped a handrail. He jumped it again, then sprinted past Cameron into Sears. Behind him rushed two men in suits, one of them bleeding from his forehead. 

“No way,” gasped Cameron.

Suddenly, he turned and ran up the stairs. In his dream, he ducked into Sears and went back into the mall through the second level. One jump down the staircase, across the street to a park, and that’s where the gunman was. This man had to be warned before he became a bodybag. 

Outside the Sears entrance, Cameron waited. Before long, the man showed up, walking briskly, trying to blend in but get out. 

“Don’t go to the park,” Cameron said. “They’ve got a guy there.”

He heard a faint ‘thanks’ as the man left.

Downstairs went the man, and Cameron felt relieved. This changed when the suits caught up.

“He’s down the stairs!” yelled one into his shoulder. “Stay in the park; we’ll flush him to you.”

The bleeding suit stumbled, then sat up and asked Cameron, “Did you see him?”

“Who?”

“A guy ran downstairs just now. He’s wanted in five states. Any information would be helpful.”

Two Worlds of Design

     They lied to us. They lied to all of us. We never suspected that, all along, they had been deceiving us.
Taken away from all we knew, we clawed at the walls and begged for help. But they chose not to hear us. They stood by and watched our world burn.

       Then they told us it was for the good of all, "For the best" they had said. But all they had done was to put us into a prison. But, despite their tampering, we found ourselves in the darkness. Suddenly we had realized that we had been lied to and put into what they had called a "Utopia". But to make a utopia, you need to destroy every remnant of the dystopia that existed before:  every memory, every thought, every last shattered feeling.  And they had tried, but they had failed.

     For what makes us human is not perfection, but imperfection. We can't exist in the perfect little world that they made for us, the flawless design that they had been so naive' to assume we would accept as reality. Our suspicion was always there, creeping, making us doubt our existence. We finally broke free of them though, and now we know the truth, the truth that they had so perfectly designed our lives for us, the truth that we came from a world with fallibility and no perfection.

      And now we will reveal our discovery to them as we combine these two worlds of design, these places that we used to call home, and now can call only the battlefield. We will not rest until they know the depths of our knowledge, that we are stronger than they had counted on and that their mistake has cost them their lives.

      This is our memoir, this is the account of the great discovery. Be aware that our lives have changed on account of this knowledge; do not take it lightly.

The Rise and Fall of New Thebes

Amidst my wanderings, I, Antonius Block, found a history written in chalk on black earth. The testament is the last record of a self-crowned king. The community around this king, upon his devastation, worked tirelessly to erase all record of his wonder. Moments after I scribbled it onto paper, it was obliterated.

Here it reads:

     We called him Alex at first. The girls liked him, but he had no girlfriend. He was taller than me. I think maybe he would have stayed an average kid, but he took World History with Mrs. Polybius.

     Alexander and the rest of her students were taught something different one day. Mrs. Polybius taught them about how one Pharaoh tried to make a giant pyramid for himself, but he messed up. He built it wrong. They call it the bent pyramid. This inspired Alexander to believe in something great. I don’t know why. But I know Alexander’s imagination grew into fact for the rest of us.

     Alexander was good at basketball. Now he needed to be great. He trained everyday. I helped. He also needed everyone to believe that what he did was more important than everything else. He ran and was elected the first sixth grader to be voted president. Hanna Barca told me that she loved Alexander even before then.

     Alexander got them all to vote basketball as the school sport. He did do that. He also wanted to have the school change its name to something Egyptian. He liked Egypt. He wanted to be Egypt. But the school resisted him. I went out with him and we made the sandbox into one big pyramid. All the school came out to see what Alexander had done.

     Alexander was a star when basketball season started. He was impressive on the court. But he was impressiver after the game. He spoke to the crowd. Every time. Somehow he found the microphone. Every time. He said things like, “You saw victory today. Tomorrow, you’ll see more.” You’d believe him too.

     Alexander said the next year would be bigger. He was right. He got the presidency again. The team was unbeatable. We destroyed Carthage at tournament. Alexander was MVP. They made a pyramid statue to honor the perfect season. The PTA paid for it.

     But Alexander wanted too much. He wanted more crowd involvement. This year, he got them all to take pictures of the opposing players crying when they lost. The pictures were blown up and posted across campus. We counted victories by tears. Marcus Anthony was so excited, he spray-painted WELCOME TO NEW THEBES on the walls.

     They blamed Alexander. They said he was breeding hate. I don’t even know what that means. 
     Hanna Barca says it’s unfair. He left Jackson Middle School. I don’t know what happened to him. He wanted to be great, but they wouldn’t let him. I guess because he couldn’t build a really good pyramid, he just left us bent. Just like that one Pharaoh.

Eight fifteen for Ayr

On Friday, 10 October 1997 a train en route to Ayr from Glasgow derailed near Knockinlaw, killing six people and leaving 20 injured.  Five people died on the train.  A sixth died whilst being airlifted to Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock.  She, a 19-year-old from Ayr who was studying English at the University of Glasgow, was found unconscious and it was determined that she had died from internal bleeding.

She was considered ‘a good student, well liked by her friends, a member of the University Photo Society and an accomplished flautist.’  With all due respect for the young woman, she was a decent flautist, taking up the instrument at age eight, but losing all real interest in lessons—in favour of an interest in the lads—by age sixteen.  She hadn’t performed publicly since she was 14 and when she died the flute was stowed away neatly under her bed at her parents’ home in Doonfoot, Ayr.  But she did in fact possess a warm personality, assisted by her sky blue eyes and kind smile.  Those very eyes had been on her boyfriend’s mind when he received a phone call from the young woman’s older sister that evening.  Perhaps overdramatically, he would grow to hate the odd sunny day with its blue-sky reminder for many years to follow.

It was considered a miracle that only six people were killed among the 61 passengers and two staff.  Of the three carriages of the SPT Class 318 train, the six fatalities were confined to the first two.  Four people, including the aforementioned young woman, were in Coach A and two were in Coach B.  Sitting in Coach A, seat 6 was a tall, thin young man of 24, asleep at the time of the accident.  When Coach A fell onto its right side he was flung across the carriage and into a windowpane just before it shattered, suffering a fractured skull.  He remained unconscious until he bled to death a short time later.

At his funeral, as is probably the case with most funerals, a great many untrue things were said.  Everyone is made a saint in death.  Some men are fathers and some are not.  Among the fathers, some are good fathers and some are not.  With regard to his relationship to his seven-year-old son, he was a father of this latter type.  But this young man, who had in the eight months and seventeen days leading up to the accident, been part of a local methadone programme in the Priesthill area of Glasgow, wanted to change.  When his body was discovered it was still clutching a late birthday gift for his son.  The package contained a pair of size 12 green and white Nike football boots.  An attached note read:

Callum,

I’m sorry I missed yer birthday.  I promise I won’t miss any again!  I promise that we’ll go out to the park by yer house and play fitba every Saturday from now on.

Daddy loves ye very much!