“And as a PF Falconer commander, Worcestershire courted marine life…mounted his new wife…fucked the shit out of her…he sounded like a well loved man, who is probably burning in hell right now, getting raped by the devil…sinner!” delicately stated the Preacher. “He applied himself.”
“Lucky shit! His end came in battle. Mine will be after I drink a scotch and put a bullet in my head,” said the Preacher.
“This guy is really bad…” whispered Jake Ryan Winters, PFC and the only black on the squad.
“Let us pray. Father who art in Heaven…send this bullet, this one here,” replied the Preacher, holding on to a golden-coppery, elongated pill. “Send this bullet straight to my brain. To destroy it…when I eat it…for lunch! Don’t leave me a vegetable, you senseless bastard! I want to die, not drool all over my last days. So help me if I shoot myself, and not die, I’ll bring upon the Antichrist! Also, send this man’s soul into your arms…”
“Receive him, I mean…I’ve got to remember not to drink during my sermons…”
“Why is the Preacher dressed like a storm trooper?” asked, in a whisper, PFC Winters. But nobody cared.
Brock saluted his commander, which didn’t make a lick of sense because Worcestershire had fallen to his death in a chasm. What lied in that coffin that day was only a store front mannequin, dressed in the latest fashions from the Gap.
“Don’t salute him,” said Tyra, “I’ll find our commander. I believe he’s still alive.”
“Good luck with thee,” said Brock, sarcastically, and with that, Tyra was on her way. And Brock took a handful of boob, and shook it for good luck.
Worcester nestled; Worcester tired; Worcester without the “shire.” Against rock, trapped under rubble, granite, and covered with gray matter, he awoke to a coughing spell. He breathed in fire to sustain what little life he had left. His lungs half-extended, but most of the air was filled with a red dust, that matched the rock that buried him. He barely could move with his broken bones. The Duracell battery still clutched in his shattered hand. His body snapped like a broken rubber band. The battery had been crushed. Its acid leaked onto the hand it was in.
He looked up to the darkened void; the rock face was broke apart like a bowel movement exposed to Metamucil. Stalactites hung at their gallows. Their feet dripping water droplets filled with proteins and minerals. One such foot soaked Worcestershire’s head, washing away blood, sweat, and rock particles.
He wished he could push this weight off himself.
His eyes fought the blur to settle upon the half skeleton visible that was the Megadrode. “Help.”
And more dripping. All the stalactites must be dripping. Something was tickling his foot. “At least I’m not paralyzed…” Drip, drip, drip up his leg. He squirmed and pain shot through him. A sting.
Then the numbness. His leg felt asleep, only there was no way it could be asleep. Not even when it’s trapped under a slab of rock.
“My tongue tastes like salt.”
“My strongue spase mike phalt.”
“Ma tong.”
“Mah Jong.”
Then, the sickness.
So thirsty.
Then, the thirst. The cotton-mouth.
A flushed face.
Sweat.
One syllable words.
“Captain.”
A list of contingencies; lies, falsehoods.
“Captain.”
I’ve never seen the ocean…the salt water breeze I taste at a bright sunset. The sea like a blue colored beer, foamy toward the surface at shore. I lick it up and taste it like the sweat after working the deck.
“Captain.”
What voice is that? Do I talk out loud and speak the ramblings of a senile mind?
The voice hints a sea breeze of frightfulness. Tattered dreams such a mess. The person who speaks this voice doesn’t want to be here. Back at shore, he works a press. He’d rather write books then pull up the anchor hooks. Stare out his mind’s eye then look out port holes. And he’s young, too. A he, the voice is. Thirteen and off-set in adult clothes.
What room am I in? And these ripped sleeves? Wool pants…mine were jeans. Where’s the caked cave dust? The rocks that left me helpless? The stalactite daggers; the stalagmite fingers that point towards Heaven? All I see now is a weary voyager, and a map sprawled out in a non-lit room with its back to the horizon.
“Captain.”
Stigmata. Well, invisible. While dicking around with bastard friends, I had a nail, unsterilized, driven into my left hand. A friendly, substance helped me not realize the pain. Now, the pain was so intense, I vomited. My eyes felt red. My face dripped red. And the ham frightened me.
The pain still lasts within my hand. Probably nerve damage or something. Would a paraplegic still fell like they had their limbs? Wake up in the dead of night to rub an itch on their face, try, and not feel their hand reach their face upon stretching it.
So when I switched scenes, first was the Captain’s quarters, was it not? The word “Captain” stands out, uttered from the steward. Second, the nail incident. My imaginary one-hand crucifixion; real within my life, but a fake momentary pain. Now, the ham.
Where did it come from? What does this progression mean?
And the eyes? My eyes red, dripping red, but not blood. Like melted red crayon; thicker than wax. My stomach feels upset, like it is full of candy and the sugar rush is unnerving. Light-headed again, the downward feeling. Have you ever taken the hottest shower you could think of, then, get a sudden cold moment, where the water turns to ice? And that rush through your body feels like a hot knife through butter. It hits deep to your core. That was my feeling just now, mixed with the stomach acid two-step. All at the sight of ham.
The closest to what that swine could represent would be another moment in my life…
I remember as a teen, I got food poisoning. I couldn’t eat or I’d vomit; lose control and feel vulnerable. Feel that turning like the merry-go-round turnstiles. Burning throat from heaving. The ham smothered me like a blanket, and I hid under the covers, cowering.
Shiatsu massage needed. Neck felt crumby. Bah.
Frame by frame went visions and hallucinations. What happened?
“Captain…”
Time to enter this portrayal. Captain of a fleet, who takes me on? Darkness. Clammy. Weak. Sick to my stomach; delusional. Somewhere in my body, I was hemorrhaging. How long I had, I wouldn’t know. Medical treatment couldn’t help me now. Then, the faint sound of rocks and rubble above moving down. Something up there in the dark was coming down. I saw a faint glow; I saw through delusions reflected light off of eyes; a horrifying sight. And it was coming down for me.
I envisioned the creature landing beside my crippled body, and disemboweling me. It ripped my arm out of its socket, even completely from my torso; the muscle, veins, and whatever else bloody was dangling from my nub. I screamed absolute murder, but only to deaf ears. It lunched on my forearm, and then was fed up with the sounds from my mouth. It silenced my screams by reaching its hairy, slender arm into my mouth, shimmying it down my throat until it reached my esophagus, and all the rest of my throat components, which it ripped out. I winced, the pain so extreme, my eyes bulging. A blood vessel popped in my left eyeball. Let this horror end.
His hairy arm groped my bloody mouth, everything of mine was bloody. Then, that same grotesque hand punched through my head, destroying my brain. I screamed, and woke to find myself alone. But that scraping sound, as though someone were repelling from above on the rock walls, continued. The eye of the storm had begun. In less than an hour, whatever it was that was up there, would be down here.
My throat burned even worse. Had I, in this time frame, accidentally swallowed a gallon of Chloraseptic? Inevitably, it was my windpipe closing.
The next few scenes startled me. When was I to be the Captain? I’m so use to that lead role. Here, I’m submissive. I wake early to the sound of a screeching, which really is a negative way to start the morning. It’s more like groan, itch, rise, and cuss. Then, on a road I drive, or, more like creep my way towards work at the speed of glaciers shifting. And everyone else is the same. Breakfast is gargling water, to break apart morning flam, then an extraction of piss. Longing for holiday, in fact, a calendar hangs in my office only to count down the days to such an event. Megadrode was excitement- it was my turn to destroy. My life is ordering around, then paper work. Work has taken over my life.
“Quit complaining, officer, and climb into the sack.”
And there I stood, by the edge of a pool, bare-assed, holding my genitals. And to my own shock, in the pool, along with our company, were women, with small, itty-bitty children. The women held their infants by their bellies, their feet kicking with glee, water generating rays, and motorboat splashes. Their arms paddled to the unison of a tweeting whistle dangling from an instructor’s lips.
“That’s the youth league. They’re learning to swim upstream.”
This person in front of me was blotched head to toe in gray, color seeping though. His clothes were completely white. The pool water blue, of course. The facility, in which we stood, was aqua. Orange swim caps topped off orange swim wear on the women and the children.
“That’s it! Get in the sack.”
Before the sack was tied off at the end, over my head, I heard the chant from the instructor. “That’s it! Paddle! Paddle those oars! Fishy, fishy, fishy! You’re at the white caps now. Paddle with all your might!” TWEET! TWEET! TWEET! And the words drifted over the youths, the instructor’s lips not even moving with the words.
I was in the sack. Now pushed into the pool.
The water soaked through the burlap, flooding my oxygen. I took a final breath.
Inside the sack, I noticed I was sitting at a mahogany desk, papers drifting up to the top of the sack, where an air pocket resided. The stapler obviously sank, being metal. So did the computer and keyboard. My Monday Mug tipped over, the coffee within neutralized in the pool water.
I was running out of air quick. My lungs hungry for an inhale. A few more seconds, I’d pass out. Then arms reached for me in my cozy, wet nook. I was pulled out of the sack, me, the one that was coughing and gasping for breaths. All the contents in the bag were gone, just me and my nudity. My mouth was pressed against a puddle, my body dripping water on the cement, and my lungs filling every inch. Why was I pulled out? Just die already. And that frustration radiated in the malice I showed toward my pool-buddy playing drowning instructor.
“Lunchtime!”
And that was my only relief.
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