Journalstone's 2010 Warped Words for Twisted Minds

by Compiled by Christopher C. Payne

  I have only lived here a short time, but I am happy to share my house with several brothers and sisters of my own, as well as, three beautiful young girls to whom I am not related. One is 7, one is 12 (she just had a birthday), and one is 14 but will be turning 15 in just a few weeks. The three girls are all lovely young ladies who are not always as respectful as one might hope. But they have good hearts and a softness about them that only youth possesses.

  In addition to our full and lively household, there are two dogs of vastly differing stature. One is a Labrador Retriever, and the other one is a Chihuahua mix of some kind. The little one can’t weigh more than 14 pounds. He is cute compared to his lumbering, overly exuberant playmate, with her whiplash tail that can only be described as a weapon. While she does not wield it intentionally, the effects are the same as I have now been beaten with this flailing appendage on several different occasions. It is not very convenient to be forcefully reminded that all objects must be kept at a strict minimum height level in order to avoid the inevitable smacking the vicious tail can dish out.

  The last of our group is the father of the three girls. He is middle-aged, having just turned 42. With the exception of occasionally raising his voice, he seems to be a good soul and easily expresses his genuine love for his three lovely, little girls. I love cozying up in the back in a corner as he snuggles the little one in his reclining chair. The two of them look so enamored, sitting close together as we all watch an episode of Amazing Race or American Idol on the flat panel TV above the white painted brick fireplace. He professes not to like American Idol, but on the occasions where the three girls are at their mother’s house, it is easy to see the contradiction. He watches the show with nary a child present.

  We have only recently moved into our little three-bedroom sanctuary. The father split with his soon to be ex-wife about a year ago. The divorce was not well received from the oldest daughter, and her adjustment has been extremely difficult. The two younger girls are taking things as well as can be expected, but as with all fractures of a family, it is not the easiest thing to transcend. Families are made up of all shapes and sizes in today’s society, so we have to be ready to openly accept the myriad of structures that are thrown our way.

  We have our ups and downs, but as families go we are happily making our way through life, dealing with the odds and ends and keeping our routines spiced up just enough not to get bored. The father tends to work a little too much, but on the days where his daughters are present, he comes home on time and cooks a nice meal with vegetables. The rule on entertainment is no TV until after 9 p.m. He often makes exceptions starting around 8:30, but in general, evenings begin with meal preparation, a nice family dinner and, on most nights, end with some form of reading.

  We are somewhat well read as far as families go. There is always a supply of new books on the modern square coffee table sitting in the middle of the family room. The two little ones, as the father likes to call them, enjoy reading, while the oldest has to be pushed most of the time. She doesn’t take very well to sitting down long enough and focusing her attention on words. She, as most high school-aged kids, prefers her entertainment in the form of cell phones or her MySpace page (which was recently taken away). I hope she soon discovers the joys of reading and the places one’s mind can take you if nudged by a few well-chosen words cobbled together to form a magical place.

  The only thing I can actually admit to finding truly sad is when the father takes the three kids and the two dogs away for the weekend to their lovely house in Twain Harte. For some reason he continues to leave my brothers and sisters, as well as me, behind.

  He does speak to me on occasion, but through today we have avoided that one glaring issue which I can’t seem to understand. Admittedly, it does break my frail heart. The only reason I can fathom this oversight is he must be waiting for me to get stronger. Once my siblings and I have matured to a state of readiness, he will then include us in this activity. We continually discuss the stories of this vacation home, and I can’t wait to one day be included and feel like I am finally accepted as an equal.

  The only other people that periodically visit our house are a friend of the father’s who comes over every few days. She is nice enough but doesn’t really speak to me directly. I see them holding each other on the couch, and I get jealous because I do appreciate the few times where he and I can be alone. We will always have the two dogs with us, but I would never count them as competition for affection. And, the girls and I will always get along splendidly, bar the minor altercations that sporadically occur between kids our ages.

  It is now approaching the end of May, and we have lately been keeping the blinds raised. At times we have been opening the windows, as well. It is a wonderful time of year when it starts getting warm, and the sun shines almost every single day as a soft breeze blows through the house. I feel my skin getting that soft, silky, smooth texture that accompanies the springtime weather as you bask in its glowing feel. I have to be careful as I see my skin beginning to turn red, and the last thing I want to do is burn. The 12 year old just recently returned from the latest family trip to Twain Harte, and she had that unhealthy burnt-red tint. I am sure the next time I see her; she will be peeling back several layers of lost covering.

  There is nothing more refreshing than sitting in the sun as you gulp down a nice full drink of water, letting the cool liquid nourish you as it flows through your limbs, replenishing your essence. I remember hearing somewhere that the human body is made up of 98 percent water. That seems like it is too high of a percentage, but we are all vastly made up of liquid. None of us can afford to get overheated without the replenishment of the much-needed source of energy.

  We have modest furnishings in our little home with only a couple of couches, one chair, and enough beds to get us through the chilly nights. We have a dining table, a couple of end tables, and a minimal amount of dressers. The father is always proudly mentioning that everything was bought used on Craig’s List, keeping the costs to a minimum. He is a frugal one, that father, as he turns the heat off or way down at night, and during the first month I was here I must admit to getting shivering cold at times. While he watches what he spends on everything possible, he contradictorily spends a fortune at times on frivolous items, surprising me with his lack of judgment.

  Happily, that is my biggest complaint. Listening to the stories of others as they come and go, I have it better than most and count my blessings that I have a family as good as the one that I lucked into. As I now sit in the family room, waiting for the father to come home and realizing that tonight is a night we will spend with the kids, I excitedly look forward to the evening. The clock seems to be taking its time as it clicks by each second in slow, painstaking motion with the minutes tick-tocking back and forth in steady rhythmic fashion. How can time move so slowly yet not actually slow down? Perception plays tricks on my mind at times as I sit impatiently looking out the window on the sunny day just slightly beyond my reach.

  Finally, the father has made it home, walking through the front door somewhat out of breath. He has ridden his bike to work again today which is about eight miles away. It is not a long ride, but I have noticed he’s starting to look trim from the cardiovascular exercise. I have also observed him spending a renewed effort in the mornings with his pushups and sit-up routine. He attempts to do 250 pushups and 300 sit-ups every morning. He falls short of this on most occasions, but even his feeble attempts are showing some results in his physique.

  As he puts away his bike, he walks in my direction and, for the first time in several days, addresses my brother directly, stating today was his lucky day. “Lucky Day.” I never imagined those two words would change my life forever. That was the moment when my world changed, and everything I thought I had known was taken from me.

  The father ripped my brother up with one hand, plucking him from his resting place where he had been fast asleep. I heard him scream, a sound that will never be erased from my memory. As he was
crying for help, the father took him in the other room. It would be the last time I would ever see my brother alive.

  I heard the slicing noises. My brother cried out for me to aid him for a few minutes, and then his voice went silent. I was so confused. This was the man who had cared for us, fed us, given us water. He was the one protecting us, providing us shelter. How could he brutally torture my brother? Was I now to assume my brother was dead?

  It was at that moment the father returned. He casually walked around the corner back into the living room. Red liquid oozed down one of his hands, and I saw the crimson-sheathed layer of skin clinging to his shirt. I could see his mouth still moving, and remnants of my brother’s body were stuck to one side of his mouth.

  I tried to warn the rest of my family, for now I knew this man was not our friend. He was nothing but a killer, a murderer of the innocent. He placed little-to-no value on the very life we all hold so preciously in our frail hands.

  We were all screaming at this point, crying out for anyone, anything to come to our rescue. But alas, we were all too small, too weak to protect ourselves. The inevitable was bound to take place, I guess, as he grabbed one of my sisters, discharging her in much the same way my brother had only recently found his demise.

  Right there in front of all of us, he placed her body in his mouth and took a bite. The liquid from her guts squirted out as his teeth met skin, and he chomped down all the harder. He callously bit a large chunk out of her with all of us sitting there, unable to do anything to save her.

  I tried not to think of all the things in life she would miss – growing up, watching TV, reading books. There would be people she should have met but, at this point, never would. Her life was cut short. There was nothing any of us could do. She was now dead. My brother was dead. Most likely the rest of us would be dead, as well.

  My only hope was his daughters. They would be back soon, and if I found a way to tell them what was going on, maybe they would be able to help us. They were small, as well, but they were good and kind. All of my hope rested on them finding us and saving us from this demonically possessed beast whom I had trusted just a short time ago.

  The father spent the rest of the evening sitting in his chair, watching TV as if nothing had occurred. He laughed at Seinfeld, jumped a couple of times while watching a movie, pretending nothing had changed.

  I heard somebody speak about psychopaths a couple of weeks ago and how there was one in every random 25 people who had no conscious. One person out of every 25 is a powder keg waiting to explode. If push came to shove, that one person was capable of doing anything without remorse.

  Sadly, I now knew this was the case, and even more disturbingly, he was sitting in my living room.

  The girls came bounding in the front door, their usual smiles on their faces. The little one talked about a pancake breakfast occurring at her school the next day. The father smiled and expressed his interest in taking her, conversing with his kids like he was a normal human being versus the stone-cold killer of reality.

  I reached for her when she passed by, screaming at her to run and please help us. “Take us with you. Help us escape,” I blurted out as loudly as I could.

  I didn’t understand it, but she ignored me, pretending I wasn’t even there.

  We had never spent a ton of time together – she and I. It wasn’t like we were best friends, but she didn’t even look at me. It didn’t matter how loudly I cried.

  “PLEASE, DEAR GOD, HELP US!” my remaining brothers and sisters screamed together, but none of the daughters gave us even a glancing nod.

  I wanted to plead with them, beg them, ask them why they no longer cared until it happened again. I can’t begin to tell you why or what they were thinking. They were only girls for Christ’s sake – little children. How could they have been taught this was ok?

  I don’t have any of the answers, and it happened so quickly I had no time to even react.

  The father reached down, grabbing my only remaining sister and dropped her on the coffee table. She lay there with part of her body on a plate, and that was when I saw the knife in his right hand.

  He placed the point inside her midsection, and with the precision of a doctor, effortlessly pushed it all the way in. He carved it to the side, slicing a section away from her as she wailed in pain. Again, he acted like he couldn’t even hear her.

  The girls just sat watching. The middle child curled her lips in an awkward position while raising her hand.

  “Disgusting,” she uttered. “I am not eating any of that. There is no way you can make me.”

  “I want some,” the littlest girl yelled.

  I felt a tear slipping down; I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. He was slicing pieces of my sister off, handing them to this little girl, and she was eating them like candy. You have never witnessed insanity unless you have been subjected to seeing your relative butchered and consumed raw right in front of your eyes.

  “Don’t wipe your mouth with your sleeve, please,” the father said. “Do you know how hard it is to get the red stain out of your white tops?”

  He continued like his only concern was cleaning up the blood of my beautiful sibling from their clothes. We were nothing more than a meal for this sick jerk, and he was only worrying about cleaning up.

  This was the point in time where I lost all hope. I no longer felt there was anyone to help us, nobody cared what happened. We were all sitting here with nothing left to do but await our death.

  It might sound impossibly difficult to lose all hope, but how many family members can you see die, eaten right before your very eyes, before you have to face the reality of your end? My life is over, let these monsters do with me what the will, I thought to myself.

  I spent the next several days watching more of the same until finally I was the only one left. They were not all my brothers and sisters. I am not even sure where some of them came from, but I noticed a few times when the father and girls came home, they had others with them.

  They talked about purchasing some, but somehow the ones they bought didn’t taste as good as my family did. Apparently my family was delectable, and even the little girl chimed in how much better a flavor we had.

  It is sick beyond belief to murder and torture somebody. It is even more detestable to talk about killing them and how much you enjoyed it. It is beyond anything I could ever imagine to hear a 7-year-old girl talk about the taste in her mouth as she swallowed somebody with whom I had grown up.

  I wondered how they would feel. What would they think if I casually sliced them into little pieces, eating them while they were forced to sit and watch?

  What would this father go through if he had to stare straight ahead as his daughter was chopped up and eaten while we all sat around and talked about how good she tasted. I knew I had no chance of escaping, but in my mind I still left a small bit of hope that somehow, someway, I might be saved.

  Sadly, it is not meant to be, and today, I now face what I have feared and been forced to observe. Today it is to be my turn. Today, my life is going to end.

  The father announces that today he will make some cheeseburgers for the girls. He coldly states that, with me in attendance, he is sure the meal will have a delicious flare that has been lacking for the past several months. I have no real understanding of what is making tonight special, but I begin to fathom the possibilities of a surprise that he is so thoughtfully instigating.

  After he spends a few minutes admiring my skin and complementing my complexion, he moves to the bathroom where he quickly freshens up, changing out of his sweaty T-shirt. But, he leaves his shorts on for what appears the remainder of the evening. He is always in a little bit of a hurry on nights when the girls are here, getting the meal prepared so he can spend as much time with them as possible.

  I hear him in the kitchen as he turns on the oven, mashing the hamburger into patties. I feel myself getting caught up in his exuberant energy as he is now quickly banging pots and pans. It is with su
rprise when he approaches me directly for the second time this evening. I now admire the strength that he possesses as he picks me up rather easily with one hand, carrying me with him, carefully setting me way up high on the countertop.

  I feel very little as he detaches me from my slumbering state of comfortableness, and I contemplate all the possibilities that the evening might hold. I don’t understand the large slab of wood he places me on, and the large knife sitting next to the block has me somewhat unsettled. I have now known this man for several months, and it is with a little trepidation that I watch him fluidly navigate on his continued course. Why would he insist on my staying put, and why can’t he simply take my life quickly?

  He, again, compliments me on my beautiful skin tone and how my perfectly proportioned figure sits stoically, entrusting him with my life as I have done with no other. He hovers over me, staring into me like he owns me. I feel my nerves beginning to perk, detecting a hint of something in his voice. That should have been enough to warn me of the impending dilemma quickly approaching. I feel I know what is going to happen, and the scream that wells up inside my physical being is stifled by his hand as it holds me firmly in place.

  With his fingers wrapped completely around me, keeping me from moving in any direction, he laughingly states how delicious I look and what an honor it will be for him to have me for dinner. Not have me to dinner, but have me for dinner. The subtle dynamics of this difference vastly underscore the meaning of what is about to occur. I remember the times I spent in his family room with his children keeping him company and holding my breath, waiting patiently for their arrival. I am a part of this family, a member of this group who loves and needs love as much as any other living thing would.

  As he raises the knife slowly arching it downward, I realize how little the father really cares. He has pretended to like me, spent time talking to me, nurturing me to a healthy full complete existence. But in the end, it is all for his own personal, carnal pleasure.