The fact that we not only stumble out into the world, but behind huge lumbering masses of steel and glass and then propel them sixty miles and hour down a concrete road is simply further proof that humans are, at their core, masochists. Every morning, I get lost in a sea of humans who are now behind the wheel of steel extensions of themselves. When someone gets behind the wheel of their car, they fuse with it in a very real sense. While we're often protective of it, and guard it with the same sense of urgency we would any of our limbs, there are always times when we're willing to sacrifice it in without a moments hesitation - whether it's for our own protection or to hurl it into something - a huge steely punch - even if most of us don't carry out with that desire.

Tired people driving is drama waiting to happen.

I was driving along I-90 and I was passing an on ramp, a truck merging and a little BMW right behind it, and then another huge, lumbering truck. I was two lanes over, safely tucked away from the hairy scene. The BMW guy was driving right on the first truck's ass - almost touching that guard rail they have in lieu of a back bumper. I bet one of those fuckers could shear a car (and any humans inside) right in half if a trucker decided to brake check someone.

BMW Man was maybe three inches away from that steely death, and you could tell he was in the middle of that panicked "Gotta Merge NOW" state of mind. It's a terrible feeling to have: that urgent sense of how easy it really is to die - flashes of car crashes and visions of your wet, meaty self twisted among the wreckage. Truck in front of you - can't go too fast with that modern day guillotine in front of you - behind you another truck, looming in your rearview mirror like residuals from drunken nightmares, and all the time trying to worm your way onto a highway buzzing with four lanes of semi-lucid people all with work sitting heavily on their heads. As an added bonus, some are running late, or just generally rushed, and looking for the quickest ways to zip in and out of traffic.

In the moment that I noticed him, I felt almost sorry for BMW Man - not an easy feat considering my natural dislike for BMW drivers. I've often been tempted to ask one of them if they had to sign a contract when they bought the car stating they could never again give the obligatory 'thank you' wave in traffic, use their turn signal to switch lanes and generally swear to be an asshole of the road. The crappy mother fucker yang to everyone else's happily puttering by yin.

But, in that moment, I connected with even him - with his squat, evil looking BMW - and I felt bad for him, wishing for a nice break in traffic on his behalf.

So anyway, he's riding right on the truck's back bumper / modern day guillotine and he jerks his car over into the next lane, cutting off a white Saturn. Saturn Man slams on his brakes, honks, and swerves around BMW Man, zipping past him while laying on the horn. I couldn't tell if BMW Man felt like a dick for cutting him off, like maybe he hadn't realized it as he was trying not to crash into the truck in front of him, look around the truck behind him and move his car over or if he just didn't care. BMW drivers can be ambiguous assholes like that. He didn't wave or make and signal to say 'sorry' or 'my bad' and try to play on Saturn Man's sense of human empathy. But, then again, I really do think they have to sign that contract.

BMW drivers are total fucking assholes.

BMW Man speeds up and gets right on Saturn Man's ass. I'm still a lane over and pretty far back, but I speed up a little so I can keep them in sight. BMW Man speeds up a little more, really getting within inches of Saturn Man who by this time is more than likely driving while watching BMW Man in his rearview mirror and screaming like an ill tempered badger, relying on the car to direct itself. Probably still making some sense and using full sentences and trains of thought - but I'd bet his knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel so tightly, his elbows shaking at the bend.

BMW Man swerved over into the other lane (my lane) and then sped ahead of Saturn Man and then totally cut him off for the second time.

Now, there's just no excuse for that.

For a brief moment, you should almost see that white Saturn glow with the rage emanating from inside. The sounds coming out of his mouth right then were not words. It had to be something deep and guttural - a primal sound of fury and rage that cavemen once used to ward off predators and enemies. It is in moments like that you want to ram your car into his, running him across the remaining lane, into the concrete barrier and then through it, God (and Detroit) willing. Of course, 99 times out of 100, it won't happen. People love their cars and usually opt not to turn any part of their car into twisted steel on purpose. But when you witness the moment when it CAN happen - that snap from not enough sleep, the caffeine shakes from a Starbuck's triple cappuccino latte espresso cha-mocha fusion concoction, and NOW intense, unparalleled rage at being fucked over twice within the first hour of your day ... well, for some people it can be too much, too early, too soon. They snap - and I so want to be there to witness it.

I weaved in and out of the lanes, keeping them in sight and flying right past my exit on I-77. Work can wait, this is important damnit! But, after following them for a solid five miles I realized it was just an ineffectual pissing contest with alloyed steel accessories. I got off the highway, sighed and eventually found my way to work.

I need a more exciting life.

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Jury Duty

I hate jury duty.

This is the fourth time I've been called and, as I slumped back into my seat, I wondered how one person's social security number could be so damn pickable? If only my lotto numbers had the same level of attraction. I was caught in a daydream of winning the lottery when the lawyer stood up.

All we knew at this point was that we would be sitting in on a lawsuit. Personally I don't care too much about the avalanche of lawsuits that some people cry about. I just don't care one way or the other if someone wants to try and sue anyone. Maybe that's why I keep getting picked for these damn things. I sighed and stared at the lawyer who was approaching the jury box with an open, friendly look on his face. When lawyers look friendly, they're about to lie to you.

He was dressed in a grey suit I wouldn't have been able to afford even if I went to work every day. I picked at the leg of my own cheap black pants. I didn't even is just as responsible for the damage to property as Mr. Granby is."

As the lawyer gestured flamboyantly towards the table of defendants I wished I hadn't missed part of his opening argument.

"You will hear how the Defendants knowingly and without conscience have foisted their poison onto the public, including Mr. Granby, without a single thought to the destruction and heartache they were causing. On the day Mr. Granby ran through the front of his neighbor's house in his SUV ..."

OH MY GOD!

"... He wasn't himself behind that wheel. He was completely and totally under the influence of alcohol. And, in fact, had been under the influence for fifteen years! Fifteen years held prisoner by an addiction so strong he lost everything he cared about and still chose that drug." The lawyer turned to face us all now with a determined look on his face, "And that's what it is, ladies and gentlemen, a drug. Don't let the defendants try to skirt around the issue. Mr. Granby has assumed his load of responsibility for this, make sure Anheiser Bush assumes theirs."

He turned on his heel and stalked back to his table. I leaned over to the woman sitting next to me and whispered, "How much is he asking for?"

"Ten Million."

The words came flying out of my mouth and echoed around the courtroom before I had a chance to stop myself, "You've gotta be shitting me!"

A gasp and then a hush waved through the entire room. The Defense lawyers made no attempt to hide the Cheshire grins that spread across their faces.

The lawyers were called to the Judge's bench and we heard them whispering furiously and throwing sidelong glances at the jury box, mostly in my direction.

Needless to say, I was removed from the panel and replaced by another juror. By the end of the case, the four time DWI offender had won his case, and had been awarded with a ten million bucks for being a raging alcoholic for the past 15 years. The headlines the case generate were amazing and I got 15 minutes of fame I tried my best to avoid once my comment had been leaked to the press.

On the bright side, maybe I won't get called for jury duty anymore.


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Forbidden Tattoo

Marguerite traced the outline along the left side of her calf. The swooping lines, the gentle curve into the back of her knee. She hadn't thought about it, really thought about it for years. But staring at the girl in front of the counter, she found her mind wandering. She stared down at the image, trying to remember why it had been so important at the time.

Life seems so simple when you're 17. She'd wanted a dragon on her calf and so she'd just gone out and had it done. Tattoo parlours in New York City rarely ask for ID on Saturday evenings. They're especially unlikely to ask when a group of young, attractive girls walks in led by a smirking raven-haired goddess.

Getting the tattoo had hurt. A lot. But Marguerite gritted her teeth and forced herself not to scream out. She swore and growled, digging her sports-car-red nails into her palm so deeply she drew blood. The tattoo artist had smiled up at her a few times. As he finished the last graceful dip of the dragon's tail he, too, had growled.

When Marguerite had finally stopped shaking long enough to stare down at her leg, she felt as though her smile would leap right off her face. She watched as the growling tattoo artist rubbed the fresh dragon with lotion. He smeared it into her achingly tender skin until the beast shone.

He gave her instructions and warned her not to pick the scabs as it healed.

"You don't want scars on it," he'd smiled.

Even now those words haunted her. Even now that sentence would stream into her brain and she could feel the sharp clenching sensation of tears burning.

When she'd arrived home that evening she'd been too drunk to notice. She'd stumbled right past her mother and into her room. Her mother had been staring out the window, bottle of vodka on the table, carton of orange juice in the trash. She was 31, tired, alone … angry.

Marguerite burst through the kitchen door. Her mother turned and let her diminishing sens mother yanked her down the hall and into the bathroom. Silver water tap squeak, a groan of pipes and then steam. Bleach and a wire brush.

And the screaming.

Marguerite traced the line again with her index finger. The soft bumps of the unnaturally smooth skin. Her mother had been drunk but exacting. The wire brush she'd used was sharp and dug the ender flesh up quickly. A few days later, as Marguerite had peeled back the sodden bandage for the first time, her jaw had dropped. The outline was nearly perfect.

Not too long after that Marguerite left home and was relieved to discover her luck had changed. She began singing for an angry band of skinny white boys, all flannel and torn denim. Her growling voice and angry sneer caught people's attention. Her body kept it. She had always been beautiful, but pain had made her something more. She twisted around the stage when she sang, writhing around her words, perfect figure, muscles tight and sweaty. The scar on her leg shone like a beacon of disease from her otherwise perfect form and the audience made up their own stories for how it came to be there.

Their ideas were as wild as they were wrong. As popularity grew, she thought less and less about it. The scar had become more than just a part of her body, it had become a trademark. People on the street would stop her and say, "You're that chick I saw play the other night, that scar chick."

Marguerite would smile, bare her teeth and nod. She liked being the odd one, the strange attraction no one could stay away from.

And the music was good. They played around the city, got invited into larger venues, opening up for bands they loved. A year flew by, then, two. Nearly three years later, she was sitting in a coffee shop on Avenue A. She'd just gotten back from Los Angeles, shooting the cover for their latest CD. She hadn't seen the girl walk in but as she stood in front of the counter, leaning on the cash register, smoking a cigarette and talking to a smoky eyed girl behind the counter, Marguerite's eyes wandered down.

She had heard that people had begin scarring their legs but until this moment, she hadn't really believed it.


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Dale's Great Starbucks Conspiracy

He came into the coffee shop and marched up to the counter.

"I brought this coffee in with me yeah?"

The bored counter jockey yawned.

I watched the exchange with mild fascination and smiled at the man as he walked past me.

He stopped and gave me a hard stare, "You work here?"

I shook my head and raised the book I was reading, "Just killing time."

He sat down without asking and leaned across the table, offering me his hand. I shook it and noticed his nails were bitten down to the quick. "Name's Dale," he said in a tone that suggests this is some wise and great truth.

"Hannah," I smiled and bit the inside of my cheek.

Dale waved his thermos around again before unscrewing the cap and pouring a steaming cup of coffee into the lid, "You come here a lot? Or do you go to the Starbucks down the road?"

"No, I usually come here," I thought of the constantly packed designer coffehouse. It's usually impossible to get a seat and even though I have a great lust for their Strawberry and Cream Frappucinos, I always pass them by for the option of a quiet place to sit and read, "It's always too busy at Starbucks."

Dale laughed, a snorty sound that made me wonder if something is about to fly out of his rather bulbous nose. "Honey, that should be the least of your worries."

"What do you mean?" I leaned forward.

"You gonna order anything today Dale," the waitress walked up to our table, tapping a pen on her hip and shifting her gum from one side of her mouth to the other, "You know you can't just come in here without ordering anything."

"Yeah, yeah, I know Grace," he grumbled and huddled a bit over the coffee he poured into the lid of his thermos, "Just bring me a club sandwich, okay?"

"Wheat bread?"

"You know I like white, you torturous wench," he mumbled.

Grace smiled and snapped her gum, "Yeah, I know, Dale, but sometimes it's good to try something different. White bread's bad for you anyway, binds you all up. Wheat bread's good for the colon, fiber and all that."

Dale harrumphed as Grace sauntered off and slapped a piece of paper on the counter.

I turned my attention back to Dale and leaned over to get his attention, "So what's this about Starbucks?"

He stared at me for a minute and then gave another sage nod. "Yeah, Starbucks, you gotta watch out for them."

"Why?"

"Well, see they got people they plant all over. And they're all like," Dale began wiggling his fingers before carrying on in a falsetto tone, "Oooo… Starbucks, you have to love Starbucks they're so wonderful!" He dropped his arms and leaned over, "But they're just plants, you see." He took a long sip from his mysterious coffee brew.

"To make people go to Starbucks? Like human advertisement?"

Dale shook his head and poured another lid full, "You'd think so and, you know, yeah, that's even what they want you think." Another long sip, "But you'd be wrong in thinkin' that."

I took a sip from my tea, "So what's the real reason then?"

"They're sniffers," Dale nodded, "They sniff around," he pointed at the table and sniffed, "They're looking for new recipes." He nodded again and sat back in his seat as Grace slid his club sandwich onto the table.

"You want a mug for that Dale?" She pointed at his thermos lid of coffee.

Dale stared at his thermos and then at Grace. "Okay, yeah, but bring me a glass of water along with it."

Grace smiled, rolled her eyes and turned her attention to me, "Can I get you anything else, sweetheart?"

I saw Dale nodding towards the coffee pots. "I'll have a coffee," I smiled.

Grace walked off and Dale quickly leaned over, lowering his gravely voice to a rough whisper, "Watch what she says."

Grace came back with two fresh cups, a glass of water and the coffee pot. She set one mug and the water in front of Dale and then filled my cup, "Here ya go, Hon, but I gotta tell ya, our chef made this pot. It's strong - perfect for keeping you awake but you won't be doin' your taste buds any favors," she pulled the coffee pot back and levelled her gum-chewing stare at me, "Starbucks we ain't."

"No problem," I smiled.

Grace shrugged and walked off, leaving Dale and me alone again.

"See, ol' Grace," he nodded towards her back, "She's one of 'em."

"One of who?"

"One of them sniffers," he took a mammoth bite out of his sandwich and continued to talk around the food, "She says like that you should go to Starbuck's but she don't mean it."

He paused to finish chewing and to poured some of his thermos contents into the clean, white mug Grace had provided before continuing, "What she really wants is for you to say that you don't like Starbucks and that you make a way better cup of coffee than they could ever hope to. See, Starbucks sends all sorts of people out into the world - people just like her - and then they wait for them to make friends with people who don't like Starbucks - people who say their stuff is way better. That's when they go in for the kill."

"The kill?" I took a sip of my coffee and winced. Grace was right - their cook was either an insomniac or a sadist. Perhaps both.

Dale swallowed another bite of his sandwich, "Yeah, they go on and on to their friends, eggin' em on bout Starbucks and then when someone says they can do one better they start in with 'Oh, how do you do it' and all that."

Another bite. Chew, chew, chew.

Another pull from his mug, "And you, being their friend, you tell 'em, right? You say to 'em that you put cinnamon in the grounds or you use goat's milk or whatever, and then they know."

"They know."

"Yeah, they know. Ain't you been listenin' girl," he tapped the side of his head, "They know and then they use it. What did you think - that Starbucks got people just dreaming up ways of making weird coffee?"

"Well, yeah," I frowned and looked down at my half emptied cup.

Dale sucked his teeth and shook his head, "Aw, girlie, you're so naïve it's almost cute," he reached out and patted my hand, "But no." He took his hand away and lifted the final bite of his sandwich into his gaping mouth.

I sat silently for a moment, letting Dale's theory settle in my head.

He poured the last of his own coffee into the mug and gulped it down.

"You gonna finish that?" he pointed to my mug.

I shook my head and pushed it towards him. He picked up the mug and poured a little into his own mug, then poured in half a glass of water and belted to whole thing down, shook his head violently a few times and coughed.

I stared, wide-eyed and slack jawed.

"So they can't get any samples from the mug," he explained as he wiped his mug with a napkin and set it on his empty plate.

I cocked my head to one side, "So you come here a lot then?"

"Oh yeah," Dale leaned to one side and fished a greasy five dollar bill from his hip pocket, "Grace may be a Starbucks spy, but she's still good people."


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Found Diary

Who throws away their diary? Let me tell ya - plenty of people do.

I was working at a local thrift shop when I realized it. As I sorted through boxes of donations I was surprised at how many dog eared, fake-leather bound books I found. Some were nothing more than those flimsy little day calendars you can buy at the check out lines in most drug stores. Little appointments and phone lists long forgotten and chucked off into boxes destined for this place.

But I found a lot of real diaries as well. Most were less than half full by the time they made it into my hands, and were, for the most part, totally incoherent. I started keeping them after awhile. I figured my boss would never let them be set out for public sale, and we obviously couldn't return them since, more often than not, the boxes I sifted through were left in the middle of the night. So I started hoarding them, taking them home and reading what I could and storing them on the bottom shelf of my bookshelf. No one who came over ever noticed the row of small, dishevelled books leaning tiredly to one side.

I kept one in my bedroom though. It was almost entirely full and had spanned five years of the keeper's life. Her name had been Emily and on July 27th, 1984 she killed herself. I know this because she left her suicide note in her diary. I checked the obituaries for that day and found her small square, cut it out, and pasted it onto the front cover of the bright pink book. I can't imagine why her family had dumped it into the box of books, magazines, jeans and wrinkled tee shirts that I had discovered it at the bottom of. I assumed they had simply overlooked it, not realizing it wasn't just another one of the many trashy romance novels and poetry books that had also occupied the box. I chose to believe that. The alternative - that they simply hadn't cared - was too much to think about.

I'd read her diary at least two dozen times, and knew several parts of it by heart. I'd driven past her house and her school, even spied on her former boyfriend once, working at a used car agency. A week before Emily had killed herself, he'd bought her the first (and last) bouquet of flowers she'd ever receive.

It had been Emily's uncle who pushed her over the edge. A family reunion two years before had ended with him shoving her up against a garage wall and raping her. She hadn't told anyone and he continued to abuse her for the rest of her tragically short life. Emily's hatred for him jumped out on every page. Several pages were nothing more than mantras of her hatred - one entire page was filled with the phrase 'Tony sucks' repeated over and over. Another was a crude drawing of her uncle (it was really just a stick man with a picture of his face she'd cut from a photograph stuck to the top) lying down in a pool of blood.

The note to her family had taken five pages of her diary. She'd poured her heart out, asking her parents to read her diary starting from the summer two years earlier on. She even suggested to them they should skip some parts that had to do with 'stuff you probably don't want to know about me doing'. She begged them for forgiveness and apologized a dozen times over what she felt was her only option.

And her diary had been thrown away.

A few weeks ago I had casually looked up her last name in the phone book and, astonishingly enough, had only found one Anthony listed. I jotted down the address and stuck the paper in her diary. Now I sat in the windowsill of my bedroom and stared at the scrap of paper and at the book in my hands.


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Blind Date

"Didn't Charlotte tell you?"

I nodded dumbly, then coughed. "Uh, no," I finally sputtered, "no she hadn't, uh, mentioned it at all."

Helen nodded and arched an eyebrow which, for some reason, struck me as ridiculous. I stuck out my tongue at her just to see what would happen.

"I hope it won't be an issue," she said, staring somewhere over my left shoulder. I wanted to ask her if she just saw black but then wondered if she'd know what black looked like.

That's the moment it happened. That's the moment I fell madly, passionately, head over heels in love with her.

Charlotte hadn't told me about Helen's blindness, it's true. But she also hadn't told Helen I'm an artist. The idea of painting for the blind struck me in that moment and I leaned over, elbows on the table, head in my hands, and stared at her. Really stared.

I asked her about her own work - she was a professor of Mathematics at a local university. My jaw dropped when she said it and she seemed to sense it.

"Are you surprised?" Her smile was beautifully infectious and I felt it seeping through my brain.

"I suppose I am," I laughed nervously, not wanting to hide with her, not feeling the need to, "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize," she laughed and it brought tears to my eyes, "I think most people probably don't realize how much we can actually do now. Hell, when I was 15 I had resigned myself to a life of dish washing jobs," she paused then, a wry smile on those painfully kissable lips, "And even then I thought I'd only get it if I was lucky."

I felt a surge of anger then, of wanting to grab that 16 year old version of her and shake her, screaming "You can do ANYTHING!" into her vacant eyes.

I shook the thought away, tuned back in to what she was saying.

"... teach theoretical mathematics, so that helps," the smile again, a shrug, "Plus I have a full time teaching assistant and a part time PA, so it's not like I'm exactly challenged," another laugh. She asked what I did and I told her. She paused for a moment and asked me what medium I used.

"Painting, mostly," her eyes were the most wonderful shake of turquoise and cobalt blue. I wanted to kiss them, "But I've done some sculpture, some video work. But I always go back to painting. It makes me feel ..." I stumbled then, not exactly sure how to finish because I'd never really thought about it before. Already she was changing me, make me better, making me whole.

She smiled and, for a moment, I thought I felt pity coming from her. Pity that I relied so heavily on my eyes, that I couldn't move past it.

She became my muse then.

I started painting for her. I used thick slabs of paint, raised edges and slapped on bits of fabric, feather, Styrofoam, whatever I could find. Helen would come over, run her lickable little fingers over the canvas and smile, "I can see this one," she'd whisper to me, as though it was a secret we couldn't let out.

At night I'd run my hands over her smooth, white skin and bite back the tears. My love for her is all consuming, even now. She's everything, the only thing I can think of and I've ever hesitated to pay any price.

A few months after we met, she came over when I was in the middle of a project. I ran for the door, recognizing the sound of her key in the lock. She stumbled in, hair dangling into her eyes and I knew she couldn't bother shoving it away. Nothing mattered.

"Busy?" she sniffed, smelled the paint but not the tell-tale scent of turpentine that signalled the end of my sessions.

"Not especially, just finishing a piece for the Textile Exhibit over at MOMA. How did you manage to get away so early?"

She grinned and gave me a sexy little shrug, "Decided to schluff everything off on Miriam and Dexter. Wanted to get back here. Fancy the company?"

"Of course," I leaned in and kissed her softly, then again, as urgently as I felt.

She pushed me away lazily, "Finish what you're doing, I want to change anyway."

She emerged a few minutes later as I was scraping knife-fulls of emerald green onto the canvas. She stood for a moment, listening to the scrape of my knife, feeling the glow of my smile.

She walked over, touched me on the shoulder and stood a pace or so away, "Put one of those in front of me."

I immediately moved her a foot or so over to a clear wall and leaned a canvas onto it, filled a palette and shoved a few brushes and a knife into her hands. I scurried over and shoved my easel around, grabbed a fresh canvas and began painting her as she set to work.

She scraped some colours on, scared at first then sure. She abandoned the brushes and the knife, scooped finger-fulls up and smeared them across, moulded them into what she wanted with a fingernail. Every time I heard the sound of her fingers on the canvas I shuddered.

When she finished her canvas was a dripping cacophony of colours and ridges. She pressed me up against it and kissed me. My hands flew over her body and she pulled me away, made love on the faded gold sheets I covered the floors with. When I woke up, I saw her painting, the explosion of colours and textures marred only by the frantic outline of my body.

That painting still hangs here. I saw it the other day and sighed. Things are different now, of course. That day awakened something in her I don't think she ever realized had been there.

When we met I thought she was my muse. As it turns out, I was hers.

After that afternoon things changed. She left her job, sold a few pieces, rode the publicity. I still painted with her, but only as a prop. My own exhibits tapered off because I couldn't be bothered. The clients to whom I had regularly sold pieces fell off one by one. After awhile I was nothing, in her shadow, happy and content basking in her glow.

That's when she asked me. Asked me to be her ultimate masterpiece. A breathing piece of art, something new and amazing. She starved me for months - diet of beans and rice, apple juice if I was good. I flexed for her, felt her fingertips dancing over my exaggerated bone lines, stretched out tendons.

And tonight we finish the project.

Tonight she opens me up and puts me on that canvas. Tonight I come immortal. Tonight I finally become what I always have been: I become hers.


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I Only Want To Help

I came down with a fever when I was three that never really ended. For five years it burned its way back so often that my mother began stopped calling me Matthew and began calling me Match. "My little match stick," she'd whisper as we sat up in the early morning hours. My mother used to hold me against her fleshy body and rock back and forth as I sweated through yet another fever. She'd smooth her cool hands against my searing flesh and whisper stories to me - stories about all the things I would do when I grew up. Something which, at that point, no one thought I would.

The fevers tapered off as I approached ten and were almost totally gone by the time I hit high school. I still remember the first year I went without a single one. Now I get them so infrequently I barely think about them. When they do come, I remember those stories my mother used to tell me. She used to say that I was suffering then so that I could be a healer later. She and my father spent a small fortune sending me to a private academy and university before medical school. The day I graduated she cried me a river and gave me a box of wooden stick matches. I still have them.

My mother died last month. I was there when she went. I was holding her hand, smoothing her hair away from her face as her breathing became laboured and, finally sputtered away. She stared at me the whole time, smiled as the tears streamed down my face. She had told me about all of dreams for me my entire life - she had known what I would be from the moment I was born. Those last few days with her - those last few hours - they galvanized something in me. I became suddenly aware and completely confident in what was to become my mission. As a doctor, a knew that sometimes the only way to heal someone was to go in and cut out the dead, decaying, rotting, infected and puss-laden pieces of flesh. To completely excise them in order to expose the healthy flesh below. Some diseases simply cannot be treated, they must be cut out, removed, burned and destroyed.

Tonight, as I walk through the city it's hard to imagine where to start. I can't go ten feet without passing someone in desperate need of help - even if they don't realize it. My brain aches for a drink as I head for the dumpy little building, a club I heard about from a patient who only told me about it because he had been desperate for a cure. I spent weeks with him, made him take me to this club on several occasions. By the time I finally released him from his sickness, I had already been accepted into their group. I got to know the building, was able to determine the best course of action. That night I come through the door and can't shake the chill of the night air outside. A scotch settles my nerves and another one steels them for what I'm about to do. I only want to help, I remind myself, to heal these people, this place.

I speak in hushed tones to the hostess and she ushers me into a small room. A private show, they call it. The club is small, only a few rooms like this one and one larger room for the Shared Performance. The people who run the place make it sound like art. No one questions this approach, no one snickers Can't be more than a few rooms big and I'm glad I came prepared. As far as I can tell, the private room is located almost exactly in the middle of the squat little building and that somehow seems right to me. As if some instinct is leading me, some force larger than myself is guiding my actions, leading me to victory, protecting me on this mission. I smile as I feel the warm spread through me - the knowledge that I am doing the right thing, I am a messenger, an angel, call it what you will. I am here on the Lord's Business

It's a dim and dusty little room - only slightly larger than a bathroom cubicle. The walls are painted a deep and ugly red. I decide against sitting in the padded chair after inspecting the seat and noticing the telltale stains of sin. I glance down at my feet and frown. I wonder how many stains I'd see on the dark wood floor if the lights were brighter in here. In front of the chair is a large window and I look into it as the lights come up on the other side.

She's young - ten, maybe eleven years old - eyes filled with a terror so deep and old that it looks like boredom. She stares through me for a moment before blinking and slipping out of her faded Spongebob Squarepants nightgown. She turns around slowly, pauses, then does it again. She climbs onto the bed there and I look away as her cherubic fingers wander over her swollen pink vulva and little red thighs. When she begins gasping with immature sexuality I take the bottle of isopropyl alcohol mixed with gasoline and let it spill across the floor.

I look up at the girl on the other side of the window. She's not looking at me as I dig out that pack of matches and light one, whispering, "I only want to help."

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Industrial Fatalities

The Hoover Dam can retain up to 9.2 billion gallons in its reservoir. 9.2 billion gallons. That's a little over 20 billion pounds.

Christ.

I learned that at three in the morning, hunched over my monitor, terrified of moving a single muscle because the last time to turned my head all I could hear was cracking.

Still. Must stay very, very still.

I read about the Hoover Dam for another two hours (no noise when I moved my hand and clicked my mouse). A little before six, I clicked print on that rather large MSWord file that I had been copying photos into all night. Then I began the arduous, painful task of extracting myself from my chair. Leaning back takes a full ten minutes, joints popping, ligaments screeching
every inch of the way. Then I roll my shoulders, gritting my teeth against the grind, rotating my head on my shoulders until finally the dry cracking gives way to a thick, juicy pop. The endorphins stream into my system and I'm ready for another day.

I grab the sheaf of papers from my printer, stuff them into my briefcase and leave. I'm in the office by 9. My secretary looks at me, raises an eyebrow. I'm never late. I don't say anything, pretend I don't notice, but already I'm talking myself out of the things I want to do with her. The sensation of her sweet, slick intestine sliding through my fingers, the deep musky smell that will rise with the steam when I slice her open.

I shake my head and close my office door. The gas station cappuccino is still lukewarm and I finish it off, spreading the pictures across my desk and staring at them. I hang them around the office so they cover a wide strip of each wall - all eye level with me when I sit in my chair.

When they're finally up, I open the email I sent to myself from home and click on the links, opening several web pages in the background before I fire up the tools of my trade.

At 11.30 Joyce comes in and asks me about the Skyler Project. I rattle off some of the mindless double-talk that always makes her smile and nod like some fucking Kewpie doll and I force myself to glance around at the photos as soon as I begin thinking about the tender spot on the back of her neck where the skull and spine don't quite meet. How little it bleeds at first, how easy it is to stick your thumb in there, your fingers ... my fist.

The total storage capacity of the Hoover Dam can be measured in 30,500,000 acre feet. 9.2 billion gallons. 20 billion pounds.

Cheryl, my secretary, is mildly surprised by my decorations, but she doesn't let it show. We've
worked together for three years. I hired her because I thought she would look good without any flesh. I find it hard to look at her today.

"Feeling okay Martin?"

I nod, "Yeah, just, uh ...," I swallow, catching a glimpse of cleavage as she throws a small pile of pink phone messages on my desk, "Just tired, long night."

"Yeah, well, I know what that's like," her flash of white teeth.

I smile, nod, steal another quick glance at the corner by the door where I've taped up a wire frame view of the Hoover Dam.

"Nice pictures, by the way," she grinned, nose crinkling, eyes twinkling. I want feel those eyes, slick overripe grapes between my ...

Officially, there were 96 'industrial' fatalities during the construction of the Hoover Dam.

Shit. I cough again, scrambling for something else to think of. "Industrial fatalities"

"Uh, yeah," I finally cough, "Um, inspiration."

"Ah," Cheryl nods knowingly. She gave up smoking four years ago. I told her I was giving up when I decided to curb my own bad habit. She glances around the room, nodding, "I get it, yeah. Holding back the tide, strength and all that."

"Uh, yeah, something like that," I smile.

She leaves.

Officially, there were 96 'industrial' fatalities during the construction of the Hoover Dam.

I let that roll around a few more times. 96 fatalities during the construction. 9.2 billion
gallons.

After some wrestling with my machine, and my conscience, I finally decide that it makes sense that occasional fatalities would happen during any large scale construction project. I only fight the idea for a moment, really. I'm both saddened and comforted by how easily my own resolve crumbles. When you're building something on this scale, lives can be lost, people can get hurt. Why should my own project be any different.

But how freeing! I take a deep breath and am grinning ear to ear when Greg walks into the office. Before I know it, I'm making plans to meet him after work for a quick pint. He mentions something about seeing "my friend" later - his code word for hooking up with the Korean friend of mine who's recently caught his eye. I grin and nod, assuring him our good friend T'an will be there.

"He's been asking about you, actually," I say casually, making no effort to restrain the thoughts galloping through my head. When I see the blood rush to Greg's neck I ache with the thoughts of his salty flesh between my teeth. The long tuna steaks his thigh muscles will become once I've dried them out.

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Love Me

'I want you to love me.'

She was asleep, her hair splayed out around her head, a soft smile lifting the corners of her sweet, pink mouth.

His eyes glistened with tears as he stared down at her. She had been through a long day. Woken up at before 5 to go running - always trying to stay healthy for the baby she wanted to have one day. Then to work and a gruelling 12 hour day as a court clerk. People think such a job might be easy - all stamping papers and collecting court fees. But nothing could be farther from the truth. She runs around the court house, taking orders and putting up with lawyers and judges who all consider her to be their personal gofer. But she smiles through it all. That's how amazing she is.

He leans in and inhales deeply, smelling the sweet, musky scent of her. A mix of her bath oil, baby lotion, vanilla and something else. Something he could never quite name. Something soft and musky, something that pulled him to her from the beginning and kept bringing him back for more.

'I love you,' he sighed again. He knew she didn't feel the same way about him, but some things you just KNOW. And he knew. He knew that she was the only woman for him and, more importantly, he knew that he was the man for her.

Lots of relationships face this problem. Invariably, at the beginning of any relationship, one person pushes things whilst the other dawdles, unsure and afraid. That's all this is. She's afraid to be hurt again, doesn't realize how much I love her.

Time will fix that.

The open windows lets a small breeze waft in, cooling her skin. She's sweating. He can see the soft sheen on her face and watches her sigh as the wind caresses her soft, damp skin. He sighs again, looking down at her and feeling his heart swelling, his lungs expanding and for a moment he felt overwhelmed by just being next to her. Feeling the surge of his intense love for her.

He leaned over and grabbed the bag at the end of the bed. He felt the wet heat in his hand as the chloroform spread over the white cotton handkerchief. Pressed it over her face, smiling into her eyes when they flew open, wide and afraid. He saw the flicker of recognition before she slipped under. When her eyes fluttered closed - like two sweet butterflies, he thought - and her breathing became deep and steady he took the cloth away and gathered up his things. He gathered her gently into her arms and began to make his way down the dark hallway, never once taking his eyes away from her sleeping, angelic face.

Yes, time would convince her. And now they had all the time in the world.

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