I thought it would be a nice idea to recap each month’s writing experience, so that’s what I’ll do. Here’s the list of stories for June, from earliest to latest:
It’s worth noting that all of these stories appear to have been published on July 2nd, but that’s just the date they were moved onto WordPress. The first was originally posted on June 2nd.
And now to look at each story.
After four days without shaving, my face became obscured by shitty little face-pubes. The patchy chin-scarf had to go, so I pull out my electric trimmer and make the blades do their dance. Up the sideburns, around the adam’s apple, the insubstantial fluff cascades into the sink. It gets clogged in the drain catcher, though, so I have to reach my hand in there and get my fingers covered in congealed snot and hair.
I throw the clump in the trash. About a week later I put that trash my building’s can which then gets dumped in larger bin. A bird gets at the trash and pulls out my hair clump, picks it apart, seals the walls of a nest, hatches some babies with it, pushes the babies out and eventually dies.
With the bushy stuff gone it was time to scrape my face with a razor. Some of those stubby bristles get caught in the clump, most go down the drain. I scrape too close to a zit on my chin it pops prematurely, like amputating a limb I didn’t want in the first place so fuck it. But the pus and blood mixture spurts out and sticks to the mirror, so I have to use a washcloth to smear it off. I don’t get it all, though, so the chick who lived in this apartment after me looked at her reflection through a very thin layer of my zit blood, which was pretty insignificant compared to that bird’s experience, really.
I’ve pretty much finished shaving but I’m bleeding already so I pick at a few other blackheads and blemishes until I’m so thoroughly disgusted with myself I want to slit my own throat. So I stab the razor into the corner of my jaw (goddammit there’s a patch of hair I missed) and cut to the opposite ear, then over my cheek, the ridge of my brow, and back to the start. My skin starts to fall away and I have to hack at my nose to get it away from eyes so can watch my muscles spasm in the mirror. I throw the flesh that used to be my face in the trash, but the bird doesn’t get to that before some racoons do and we lose track of it from there.
I thought the muscle groups of my face would be interesting to look at, but mostly I’m staring at the cartilage in my nose as blood streams between my eyes and drips off the tip. Cartilage is pretty cool so I figure bone must be more interesting than muscle. The razor has a hell of a time scraping my jaw and cheeks clean but, hell, with a little effort I uncover the bones that really make up my face.
The washcloth sops up most of the blood and, sure, smears some pus onto my bones but still I look pretty good now. Bones are beautiful, even the ones that make up my face, and I want to display them on my shelf. First I have to figure out how I’m going to see if I remove the bones that make up my eye sockets. I figure I’ll leave the image in the mirror intact and see through those eyes, which feels weird because everything is backwards, though I supposed it’s the version other people must see. From this perspective I pluck my eyes from my skull and place them on the edge of the sink. I don’t notice that one rolls off and it gets lodged behind the sink so when the chick cleans the apartment she finds it and gasps but then gives it to her girlfriend for mother’s day.
With all of the muscle gone, my jaw pops right off and I dip it in wax and put it on my nightstand. I have to tear at my facial plate hard and bang my head on the wall until the seams joining my brows to my forehead give way and let me hold my face in my hands. Then I stare out of the mirror and look at what remains which, oddly, isn’t brains or anything. It’s hair. Not the hair on top of my head, that’s still there, but this is facial hair. Thick, tangled, bushy-lumberjack-wizard-santa-beard hair where my bones should be. And apparently that’s my face.
The razor is pretty dull by now so I give a once-over with the leather thing that makes razors sharper then dig into the knotted mess. It seems I have a lot of face to get through.
Journal Entry – 9/5/2016
Mandy says it’s over. I think she’s serious this time. I don’t know what I’ll do if she’s serious. No I know exactly what I’ll do, what I’ll have to do. That must be what she wants: me. Gone. Forever. Is that what you want? You can’t be serious!
Journal Entry – 9/6/2016
She’s serious. I tried to talk to her before Gym class, to like mention how we’re still going out to the coast this weekend. Mandy didn’t even make an excuse, she said she knew what she wanted and it sure wasn’t spending another dumb weekend weekend with me. That’s what she called it, “dumb,” like great vocabulary bitch get your shit together we have something special. Had something.
I threw up right on the gym floor. At least I got to chill in the nurse’s office instead of spending the period with her fucking friends laughing at me.
I’ll show them.
Journal Entry – 9/7/2016
On Sunday I’m gone. I guess this is my note. No, I’ll need something bigger than this.
Journal Entry – 9/8/2016
I figured out how I’m going to do it, and make a show of it. I’m going to break into my mom’s lab at the Evil Science Company. She’s shown me around her work before, I just need snag her badge and key ring before she gets up in morning.
They test on animals down there. Before I do it, I’ll release as many as I can: mice, rabbits, chimps. Let them all run wild, so when they find my lifeless body, overdosed on tranquilizers, they’ll think I went crazy for some animal-rights cause like some kind of hero.
Except until they read this, I guess? Hi mom! Let everyone think I died for a cause, but tell Mandy the truth. Make her feel that.
Journal Entry – 9/10/2016 (Morning)
Mom, it’s not your fault. Goodbye.
Journal Entry – 9/10/16 (Evening)
What is happening to me?! I can’t go home like this! Where do I go?
We do not eat our children. We do not beat our children. We fear them, as all wise people do these days. However, we have found ways to keep our community thriving without devolving in barbarism like so much of the world. Here at the California Collective, we treat childhood like the illness it is, and we are developing the cure.
Before joining our community, we expect new members to be familiar with our history. It is important you understand how we formed during the chaos of The Great Tantrum. You should learn how we found stability, and our current approach to new generations. This will acquaint you with our ethics and social guidelines.
In the first year of The Tantrum, the California economy collapsed more abruptly and more completely than most of other states of the former Union. As you know, all children grew manic, then violent, and eventually completely rabid. Every nation of the fell into a state of civil war as armed forces had to be deployed to protect adult citizens from the unrelenting attacks of children of all ages.
For a time, most regions were able to maintain order while fighting this war. California’s economy, however, was too reliant on the demand of children. Most forms of entertainment were completely abandoned. Stores closed, malls closed, and soon there were whole counties where money was worthless and desperate adults hid indoors, attempting to avoid the young hoards. Only hospitals without maternity wards remained open after the the first days of The Tantrum. Schools and universities became cemeteries and battlefields.
Universal Timestamp 30-Z-08:44:01
“Captain! They have control of the Primary Thrule Engine! They’re bringing us into their ship’s gravity field!”
It was my fourteenth year in space, my third as Fleetship Captain, yet only six months into extra-galatictic sky and two days before Christmas. I thought I was prepared for this post, but this opposition had me crying for mommy. These foreign ships had been seen before, just weeks ago on the damn-near other side of our galaxy. This appeared to be the same ship, having traveled an incredible distance in such a short time. Or perhaps it was another ship of the same kind, and they have our galaxy surrounded. In any case our prospects were grim.
“Give me reverse thrust, all you’ve got!” I commanded, “Engineer, tell me we have some way of breaking free.”
“I can’t see how, Captain. They have already cut through all our Drum Resistors.”
She was right: the navigators were throwing up their hands as the other ship forcibly brought us in for docking. I had to be somewhat glad they hadn’t destroyed us on sight, but then an impossible portal grew on the side of the ship we were approaching. Looking into its piercing, liquid light, I had only dread for the other side.
“Good people, my crew – please hold faith. Every day we face the unknown. Today the unknown faces us. We must stay strong, maintaining both curiosity and caution, while we find a way to communicate with the force that approaches us. Let us do this, together!”
As a wave of resilience spread across the faces of my crew, I faced into the portal with them and gritted my teeth.
Transferred over from harmlessvillain.tumblr.com. No regrets.
Harmless Writing 