An Absent Intersection
Part II-The Unfinished Entry
[More and more time passes and I continue to dream. I dream of people walking through walls and asking me where the door is. At least that's what it sounds like they're saying.]
'That little girl, Nny. What happened to her?' Johnny looked up from his notebook and smiled at the memory. His head popped up from where he was lounging on his couch to view the source of the curiosity.
"You can't hear her?" Nailbunny was looking at the small red wagon loitering in the hallway, haphazardly piled with boxes of old cookies.
[Sleep is one of those physical urges I can't avoid. D-boy suggests removing my eyelids, which might sound odd to anyone other than me because I know he's hoping I'll do it and die from blood loss.]
'No. I can't.'
"I can. I hear her from the hallway and downstairs and the front lawn and-!"
'Alright, Nny!' Bunny cut him off, 'I get it.'
[Mr. Fuck suggests looking for these people I see and bringing them here. Fulfilling my dreams or such might make them end. I know I won't find them and Eff says I'm being melodramatic.
I stay awake as long as I can but the longer I wait the harder I fall. I sleep and I dream, each time fighting it harder than the last. Each time I drop faster and faster off of that railing, hitting the ground with greater and greater impact.]
'Get out of the house, you're hungry.'
"I go later, I'm not done yet."
'Why don't you go to the store? Grab yourself a snack or go to that cheap Mexican food place you like so much.'
"I'll head out in the morning, it's too late now."
I'll tell you what's too late! Mr. Fuck called out from where Johnny had stuffed him and D-boy under the coffee table. You're too late! Too late to stop where this train wreck of an existence is going, even DEATH eludes you! You're so fucked up over a stupid dream you don't even want to leave the house anymore. Who gives a fuck if you killed Jesus or something, it doesn't matter if it didn't actually happen. It's a sign Johnny! GO find some priest to maim and mangle, go kidnap a nun and throw her in that pit of nails and broken glass you have downstairs! Just do something other than write in that stupid journal!
AHAH! D-boy kicked Mr. F and a few small bits of Styrofoam debris fluttered out from under the table. It is a sign Johnny. You are not justified in your actions! You spit on the idea of God in your dream, that man was a manifestation of your guilt and a reflection of yourself. Self righteous prick, just like you! Maybe NOW you can finally put an end to this dreadfully familiar and self pitying prose you go on and on about! Go through with it. End the play and pull the final curtain!
The Doughboys struggled for a few minutes after that, Johnny's hand poised mid-stroke above his notebook.
[I'm starting to think that maybe there is something to what they say about . . .]
X
Next Page . . . Next Day . . .
[It gets quiet sometimes, usually around early morning. I won't delude myself into thinking that the others actually sleep but whatever they are doing doesn't include me or where I am.
Beautiful people used to fascinate me but their novelty wears fast. Horrify reflection of what they really are inside of their skin, twisted but inviting physically. Pretty people are disgusting when you get to the bottom of them.]
[When they first get here, completely unaware of themselves and where they are, they look almost normal. They seem to be the ones I'm only allowed brief glances of, people immune to the infection of one's self. Pretty people don't dirty the world with their nastiness or their perverse natures when they sleep. I can't really tell if I actually enjoy the small company I'm favored with during their brief silences or if I hate it when they wake up screaming.]
[Dear Dia, Dear Die-ary,
Today I learned that on the inside I'm pretty fucking ugly.]
Was it beautiful? As beautiful as her? Did you enjoy yourself, Johnny? First word of the day, Nny realized. Psycho-Doughboy had called out from across the room, where he and Mr. Fuck had been standing silently before. Did you see something in yourself that you liked seeing?
What you do is a beautiful thing. If only you could see your own self worth there would be no need for your sadness, no need for your self-hatred. Mr. Fuck added. As if on cue, D-boy cut in.
Do you think, Johnny, that there is any real worth to you?
Nny was laying on his stomach, rereading his previous entries a few pages back. He seemed for the most part to be ignoring the voices that slowly roused from the dark recesses he unknowingly sent them to.
Do you think that if you vanished today, anyone would notice?
But you are a person . . .
You are nothing but a defect.
. . . and I can't say I'm fond of that.
Johnny looked up at the woman, Carol or Kristy probably, who was slowly dripping to the floor from the gaping hole in her head and scythe that pinned her by said hole to the wall. She wasn't such a pretty person anymore.
"I think I'll go out today." As he said this Johnny stood and walked over to the not so attractive woman in his straight jacket. Her black glitter mascara was drying in long tear stain tracks on her face, gold dust mixing with the red dripping from her mouth. His hands reached out and grabbed the handle of the scythe and quickly jerking it out of her head, he watched in satisfaction as she dropped to the floor with a dull thud. A marionette without her strings.
He didn't think of Edgar when those words came to mind again, or at least he tried not to. A flash of that man's rueful smile and his polite introduction and then the memory was gone
Make use of her Johnny, take her downstairs and use the only part of her that has any worth. Drain her and feed the wall. Go before the blood clots or drains on your living room floor.
"No!" Nny kicked at the limp and heavy body, "You can't tell me what to do you self serving piece of shit!" She was what Mr. Fuck wanted, was everything he should worship and adore. Seeing her was disturbing and wrong. Carmen, or Kayla, reminded him that he was a defect, that something was wrong with him because his selfishness was different from her own, his impulses, his needs were not like hers or anyone else's. She showed him that some aspect of humanity had been taken from him.
The door slammed behind him, effectively cutting off whatever Mr. Fuck had to say about the woman, whatever her name was, still strapped in his straight jacket.
But you're a person.
Unnecessary restraints that really didn't serve a purpose.
Why don't you kill yourself?
Johnny stomped over to his car, realizing as he wretched open the door that he had left his keys inside.
"Fuck!" he screamed, alerting all dogs within a ten block radius and sending them into their own howling rage. He leaned his head against the car door and debated going back in to get them. Inside he was sure that the Doughboys were laughing at him and a sense of unease came over Johnny, he wanted to get away now not later.
The sun was still below the horizon but the morning was cool and a little dark, and the word comfortable came to mind. He didn't mind going out during the day but the summers got so hot that being out between twelve and eight pm was torture without his car.
"We could walk."
Johnny jerked back from the door, seeing someone he shouldn't have sitting in the passenger seat for a split second. A few feet away he couldn't actually see anyone inside, despite the fact that he was sure they'd been there only a moment ago. Curiosity called him back and he leaned into the car, still seeing nothing inside.
"Shit, now I'm seeing you outside of the fucking house." He crawled in on his knees, looking in the back and even going as far to check under the seats and in the glove compartment. He sat on the driver's side for a moment, his knees pulled up close to his chest, looking around to see if someone was going to jump out of one of the nonexistent bushes in front of his house. He stayed there long enough for the sky to brighten a little and for the temperature to rise a few degrees. Nny knew that if he was going to get back before it got too hot he would need to leave soon.
He groaned as he stepped out of the car and shut the door. There wasn't anyone out that he could see and it wasn't cold enough for him to need a jacket.
[I think it's sad that bunny has to remind me to eat, and yet every time he does I almost despise him for it. As soon as he tells me about my hunger it gnaws at my insides until I finally give in.]
Times like this, when everyone was still inside, when the people around him had yet to find justification for any sort of existence outside of their own little breeder's dens everything was quiet and nice. Walking in the mornings made it hard to be angry or confused.
No thinking, no voices, no Nail Bunny, just quiet and empty thoughts of nothing.
. . . you could have taken someone more deserving.
I just wanted to get back home.
And then a nagging thought as he passed the first mom and pop store on his way downtown, towards his favorite fast food eatery. Deserving, the guy said that there were more deserving people.
Self righteous prick, just like you!
What did that mean? Even with his limited understanding of how good people operate he was sure that decent people didn't condemn others the way Edgar Vargas had.
You can let me go, and I . . .
And I . . . And I what? What would he have done? Johnny could remember interrupting before Vargas had been able to finish and now that the dream was done and in the past he really wanted to know what the other man had wanted to say.
NO! NO! NO! Stop it!! Just shut up!! I have no choice! Save your noise for later!
He couldn't really ever remember enjoying someone's company or even their conversation skills. No noise in the background once they'd started talking, no laughter or screaming, nothing outside of Edgar's voice.
I see.
It made him hate sleep even more, these little snippets of a person he might have liked to know. But there was no way someone so close to Johnny in idea could exist. There was no way that this Edgar Vargas could be more than some twisted image Nny had created in a fit of loneliness, a friend who in some way could connect with him.
He had no choice, even when being handed someone like that he realized he would never be able to keep them. To keep him. It always ended the same, it always ended with someone dying. When his friends came over he killed them, when little Girl Scouts came bearing cookies he tore them limb from limb and buried them in various parts of his property. When he talked with people who did and didn't scream he strapped them in death machines.
"Hey."
That voice again, for a split second he was sure that the hand on his elbow was bleeding and that the person it was attached to was just as red. He released a sigh of relief that only just curbed his anger when he realized it was only a man in a brightly colored apron trying to hand him a flyer.
"We're going to be having a sale at the book store next week. Feel free to come . . ." but Johnny had already started walking away. The guy watched him slowly walk away, "Okay, never mind."
X
[I saw someone today, someone I probably shouldn't be seeing at all. Fragmented pieces of a person who could be dead . . . my days are disrupted by a man with bleeding skin and listless eyes. No matter where I go I see passing glimpses of him, he talks to me but I can't always understand what he is saying.]
Johnny rubbed at his itching eyes, blinking sleep away with rapid movements. Sitting against the soft and worn fabric of his couch wasn't helping to curb his fatigue.
[I never know when he's going to show up, and when he does appear it's always a surprise because I'm so sure I'll never see the fucker again.]
"Shame, such a shame
Think I kinda lost myself again . . ."
His body buckled as he hit the floor. Neither of the Doughboys made any comments as he slowly pulled himself up and onto his couch. He'd heard singing, a woman with a taunting sort of tone. He could hear the creaking of steps and the sound of metal scraping wood.
It was so much more comfortable on the cushions. A woman singing, there had been a woman who was in his basement? No, she was in his dream, singing at him, taunting him. Had he known her? She'd just appeared out of nowhere and . . . and this was so much better than the floor . . .
"Day, yesterday
Really should be leaving but I stay."
It was a desert, all around him . . . empty squares of dirt and dying grass. Johnny was standing in the middle of a road to nowhere and the desolate neighborhood that it skewered was plotted with yards that housed empty walls built with invisible brickwork. He looked at the barren wasteland, fascinated by what he couldn't see.
Edgar walked past him, his arms crossed over his chest and stared hard at one particular plot of land. The dark grey hoodie he wore looked far too warm for a place that distorted the road with its scorching sun in watery waves. It was at that moment that Johnny realized he couldn't feel the heat at all.
"This is where I used to live." The other's voice wasn't unfamiliar but hearing it still startled him out of observing the strange place he'd fallen into. Edgar continued, "Me and my dad, after my mom left, we handled things on our own." He looked over at Johnny and gave him a bitter half-grin. "We did okay for ourselves."
"How did he die?" Because that's where it was leading to. That's where it always led to.
"We got robbed one morning. I was thirteen."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
Anti-climatic, Johnny watched as Edgar turned to face him fully and pointed across the street.
"The couple who robbed us, they lived right there." Johnny looked over at another empty plot of empty land and sneered.
"In that shit hole? What dumbasses, robbing their own neighbors." The other man's laugh was surprised and short.
"I used to think they had the nicest house on the block."
[Fucking asswipe, dragging me into his delusional drama! I don't fucking need this shit! I don't need this Vargas fucker telling me about his fucking family or his fucking problems! Damn hallucinations and their shitty lives!]
Now, now, what's gotten your panties twisted in a bunch like that? Did you have another one of your homosexual wet dreams again? Awwwww, Nny it's nothing to be ashamed of. I'm sure you're just going through a phase right now.
AHahahahahahahahahahahhhhahahahhaaa! What a jack ass! You fucking fell on your ass! That's what you get for calling me a self serving piece of shit! Hahahahahahahahhhahahahahhhahahaaa!
"Nny?" That damn voice again . . . Nny covered his ears with his hands, hoping if he ignored Edgar's calm words they would go away. "Are you okay?"
"I don't need this shit! Get the fuck out of my house!"
'Nny!' Nailbunny's voice joined the chaotic symphony.
Shut the hell up Eff! Your laughter is grating.
-ahahahhhahah! Haha hah hahahahah-!
'It's just me Nny! No one is here but us. Just me, you and the doughboys.'
The noise it swelled and exploded behind his eyelids. There was a faint crackling and then nothing.
'Nny? Nny! Johnny, can you hear me?'
Oh, stop being such a drama queen. I was just joking with you!
-ahah ahah . . . pant pant . . . BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAA-!
[The white behind my eyes is so blinding sometimes . . . I want to fall into clean white sheets and dream of nothing. I want to hear silence when I'm alone and see people when I'm surrounded by shit. I know that there are decent human beings out there somewhere and as sure as want to find them, I'm also afraid of going on a search and finding no one.]
X
End Chapter Two