“What are you doing?” she screamed.
How could I tell her I was removing her chakras to save the world from destruction? As she leaned over to pick it up, I snatched it away.
“Give that to me,” she said, grabbing the wand.
We struggled until it snapped, spilling its bright silver center onto her blouse.
“Ow!” she gasped, clutching her breast where the crystals seared her and dropping her piece of the wand.
I leaned over her with the jagged point. Whirling it in my hands, I aimed it at her stomach. Too late! It was tearing the skin off my palms, while her crimson sacral chakra billowed out to envelop me.
“No!” I cried, thrusting at her like a swordsman caught in his opponent’s cloak.
I was suffocating. Catching the chakra on the point of the crystals, I raised it over my head and tossed it away. Exhausted, I lurched backwards into the living room.
Overhead, an orange sun dazzled me as it receded into the desert sky. An old man, in robes like an Arab, led a heifer, a goat, and a ram through the wasteland. Two small cages were tied to the back of the heifer. The old man stopped, drew his sword, and cut the throats of the three animals. Like a mad butcher he laid them on their backs and hacked the carcasses apart from end to end. After he had propped the half carcasses against one another, he took the birds, cut their throats, and laid them on the sand. Then he looked up.
I have never seen such anguish as on the face of Abraham when he raised his eyes to heaven and waited for God to act. I dropped the wand. Did I dare wait with him for God to pass like a flaming torch between the slaughtered animals and promise Abraham a homeland? What homeland was there to be for me? Like the terrified old man in the desert, my hands were sticky with blood. I had performed the proper sacrifice; I had turned back the apocalypse; the sixth angel would not sound his trumpet; the world would not dissolve in blood.
Oh, what a pounding they made on the door.
“I’m coming!” I yelled.
I could see flashing lights through the transom and thought someone was coming to take me to a celebration. When I opened the door, however, two police officers stood on the porch.
“We had a call about someone screaming,” the older one said, as if embarrassed to ask.
The young couple in the next condo were a little nosey, always asking if they could help with the garbage if I let it go a few weeks in the summer.
“I didn’t hear any screaming,” I replied. “If it’s domestic violence you’re after, try the people next door.”
I flipped on the porch light and pointed to the Andersons’ unit. The officers did not follow my gesture. They just looked at me. Why were they staring at me like that? Didn’t anyone read the Bible anymore?
“Would anyone like a drink?” I said to break the awful silence.
“Maybe you’ve had enough for tonight,” the younger one said.
“Oh, no. It’s time for my nightcap.”
I led them into the living room. As I poured, the bottle felt sticky in my hand.
“My God, Sergeant,” the young one said from the TV room.
I heard him vomit. What a mess it is to have guests. Something always goes wrong. They left me alone long enough to enjoy what would be my last drink for a long time.
“Isn’t anyone going to tell me what’s going on?” I said.
By then ambulance attendants were in the TV room, rolling something bloody into a plastic bag.
“Well, time to wash up and call it a night,” I said, heading for the downstairs lavatory.
“Just a minute, Sir,” the older officer said. “We need to get some pictures and check you for evidence.”
I could only imagine what the Andersons and our other neighbors must have thought as they led me out to their squad car in handcuffs, my arms still slick with blood. Now, even after I know how everything ended, I am still amazed at how little compassion there is in the world. Not only were the police unwilling to listen to my story, but my lawyer was totally unsympathetic. For what I had to pay him, you would expect some attempt at empathy and commiseration.
“There’s no question they’ll convict you,” he said. “The only question is whether you plead not guilty by reason of insanity or guilty to murder.”
My psychiatrist refused to be an expert witness after the lawyer told him I had stopped my medications to drink. Besides, I remembered enough law to know that if I were found not guilty by reason of insanity, I would be locked up in a state hospital until the psychiatrists certified me sane enough to be released. From my experience, a psychiatrist is more implacable than any judge. I would never leave the hospital alive.
“Saving the world from God is not a legal defense to murder,” the judge said after I entered my plea.
As the deputies led me back to the jail, one of them said that life plus 99 years was a light sentence for what I had done. When I asked if they left the body in the cell for 99 years as a warning to others, he told me to go to hell.
So I spent my days in the prison laundry at 50 cents a day, not even enough for the packet of cigarettes I had to give to the Aryan Brotherhood every week, to keep the other prisoners from cutting my throat. If my old firm had not arranged to deposit $50 a month into my commissary account, I would not have survived my first months here. Because my needs were few, however, the money accumulated until I had enough for a money order to buy another crystal wand from Sincerity Wands, Ltd. To avoid problems with security over a pointed object, I ordered the Advanced Personal Model, where the wand is encased in a protective metal sheath.
I was afraid that the crystals would be damaged by the X-rays when they passed through security, but the wand was released to me with only the plastic wrapper removed. It looked like one of those containers for rectal thermometers. Perhaps due to being stimulated by the X rays, the crystals were activated quickly. I was able to quiet the nighttime screamers in my cell block by pointing it at them and adjusting their chakras for sleep. I even stopped the Aryan Brotherhood’s enforcer from stuffing me into a dryer, when I forgot a payment, by burning 666 on his forehead with a few deft strokes.
I was so confident of my skills that I didn’t bother to read the directions for several weeks. The brochure had been redesigned to feature Swami Svigli Paramsara, an accomplished user. According to the Swami, one could heal distant chakras by pointing the wand at a photograph of the patient. There was the same warning that neither the manufacturer nor Swami Paramsara himself was responsible if the wand were used in accordance with their instructions. So I bribed the prison librarian with a handful of cigarettes to print out a photo of my lawyer and the judge.
First I pointed the wand at my lawyer, manipulating his chakras so he would file a motion for shock probation. This was something he had sworn he would never do, not even for another six figure fee. Then I pointed the wand at a picture of the judge and adjusted his chakras to grant the motion. I am scheduled to be released tomorrow. Rejoice with me, my brothers. I am sailing home from Patmos.
When I leave here, all I will have is a plastic bag with some toiletries, a clean set of underwear and the wand. As far as I know, no one is planning a homecoming for me. The Andersons will be surprised. Perhaps I will do something to help them sleep, so they will not be so easily awakened if they hear screaming.
The 22nd Floor
by J. T. Lewis
I type figures, from a report, into my computer. It’s just past noon and I have skipped lunch again in an effort to catch up on my work.
At least I think I need to catch up.
My name is Jason Endower. I work as a data entry clerk at Raverman and Leibowitz.
George, my supervisor, didn’t look very happy when I met with him this morning, but I could only make out some of the noise coming out of his mouth, and really none of the words. The glass between us was now too thick to hear through.
It was definitely getting worse, and I had no explanation for it.
I had first noticed plate
glass walls appear around me when I was twelve. Suddenly, glass would block my progress, appearing out of thin air. The first time it happened, I was confused, thinking that my mom was merely expressing her artistic abilities in her decorating. I walked around it and made my lunch…it was a slight hindrance at best.
The third time glass appeared, I was getting a little worried. Blocking the sidewalk on my way to school, I moved to walk around it when another pane materialized. I saw no one else around, so I sidestepped the glass and continued on my way.
That was the beginning. It got progressively worse as I wore myself out in the developing maze of my life. While one of my friends would effortlessly take a step forward in his life, I would have to take three to keep up. High School was a nightmare, and I had to drop out of college after a semester due to the massive amount of energy it took to make it through a day of classes and studying.
Of course it wasn’t just the physical exertion that doomed my college career.
The glass could block out many things, like the information professors tried to impart…the more important the knowledge seemed…the thicker the glass would become.
Glass walls surrounded me when I was with friends, cutting off any meaningful communication. I tried to overcome it, but the harder I tried, the thicker it seemed to get. Eventually, my friends drifted away…I wasn’t worth the extra effort, I guess.
I landed this job two years ago, after failing at higher education. The interview went great and I was hired immediately. The glass walls seemed unable to find me on the 22nd floor office.
I thrived without the glass!
Promoted twice in as many months, I practically lived at the office, my only respite from the clear barriers that haunted everywhere else.
I thought it was too good to be true.
It was.
Involved in my work to the point of distraction, I was reading a report as I made my way to the break room. I ran into it…scared the shit out of me! The plague that ruled my life outside the office had now entered my domain…and I was pissed! Sucking up my courage, I walked around it and continued on for my sandwich. I was determined to beat the glass here. My miserable life on the ground was one thing, but I refused to be blocked on the 22nd floor.
And it worked.
For a while, until I met Amy.
Amy won me over with her smile the first day she walked onto the 22nd floor, but bumping into her two days later in the break room made me want to know her…to have a personal relationship with the short, blue-eyed girl with horn-rimmed glasses.
The next day the glass returned, blocking my way to the restroom. Each day it took a little more space, severing more routes. I fought to maintain the first chance at normalcy I’d had since childhood.
Now… all I had left was a path.
Even with all my efforts, the glass slowly boxed me in, until I could go nowhere on my beloved 22nd floor, except my desk and the elevator.
I’d lost Amy, the thick pane of glass between us impenetrable, as it was with everyone else in the office.
Despite my attempts to break free of my glass prison, I was left with nothing.
I looked up to see Amy passing, a small sad smile on her face as she glanced my way through the thick, clear wall.
A smile! Even that was enough to make my heart skip a beat.
Dammit! I have to do something! My muscles tensed and my heart leapt. I WILL do something! My slavery to the glass is through!
My muscles twitched with nervous energy, I called out. “Amy! Wait up…we need to talk!”
Grinning ear to ear at my newfound resolve, I picked up my heavy desk chair and flung it though the glass beside me, the deafening noise of tinkling glass music to my ears. Stepping through the gaping hole in the wall, I stood up straight for what seemed like the first time.
Using my sexiest smile, I wrapped my arms around Amy. Her face reflected her surprise. “You are a sight for sore eyes!”
* * *
“Over here detective!”
“Whatawegot?” the detective asked the patrol officer as he approached.
“This specimen here is one Jason Endower, late of the 22nd floor of this magnificent building.”
“Suicide?” the detective asked the young officer.
“According to eyewitness reports, he just stood up, lifted his chair and threw it out the window; then he walked through it like he owned the world.”
The hardened detective wasn’t surprised; he had seen too much of this kind of stuff in his twenty-two years on the force.
“They said that Jason here had been growing more and more remote for the last few months. It appeared that none of them were expecting this, but since it all went down, they could see it had been building up for a long time.”
Nodding, the detective pulled the collar of his overcoat closer to his throat as a chill wind whistled through the city’s jungle of buildings. “Ok officer, pretty cut and dried it seems to me…lets wrap this up and get out of here. I might even make it home for supper tonight.”
The young officer shook his head. “There is another little complication detective.”
The detective sighed in aggravation. “Go ahead officer…but it better be good.”
“There’s another body.”
“What?” The detective swallowed a frustrated scream.
Nodding sadly, the officer looked at his notes.
“Seems that before Mr. Endower took his final leap, he grabbed a girl and pulled her out the window too…girl named Amy...”
Bloody Freedom
by Catherine Stovall
November 25, 2013
Soft sounds of his breathing filled the room. The rhythmic intake and release of his breath as Brad slept, once a comforting sound, made Cher’s eardrums bleed. Years of torture, anger, and depreciation filled her cold heart, and anxiety built-up in her core. A nauseating sense of hate swallowed the woman as she stood in the darkness at the foot of their broken marriage bed.
She let memories of their years together wash over her. Where were the happy times? The joyous moments meant for couples did not exist within her recollections. He had ruined even the sweetest occasions with his words, sharp as knives and more venomous than poison. Heavy fists had broken her body, menacing threats had caged her spirit, and disappointment had stripped her of her beauty.
Cher’s eyes focused while she waited in the shadows. She saw the outline of Brad’s body beneath the beige comforter. He drifted in a dreamless sleep, unmolested by their fight. He held no conscience about the way he tore her confidence away and exposed her naked fear. She felt like a deer carcass, gutted and stripped. He had reduced her to nothing more than a trophy kill, left out to rot as fodder for the scavengers of the world.
Assured he would not wake, she stepped closer. The clouded sky outside cleared and moonlight peeked through to illuminate his face. Brad’s dark hair fell across his forehead. The strange light emphasized his strong features. The peaceful expression he wore made her hesitate. Her heart skipped and she drew in a ragged breath. Cher asked herself the same question she had been asking for years. Is he really so bad? For the first time since she had given him her heart, the answer changed.
Something deep and wild spoke to her in a guttural, hissing response. He ssstole your youth and gave you a pittance of nothing in return. He sssucked every ounce of life from you and left a shade of the woman you should have been. He isss a monssster. A lunatic. He isss your dessstruction, the thief in the night, he hasss taken your sssoul. Isss he ssso bad? Yesss, he isss. Sssteal it back. Take from him asss he took from you. Take it all with brutality. Rape hisss sssoul asss he hasss raped yoursss. Dessstroy him.
The weight of the strange object in her hand surprised her. She ran her thumb over the smooth wooden handle and enjoyed the way it fit into her palm. She felt as if she were cupping the face of a lover. Cher stifled a giggle as the lines of an old quote drifted through her mind, “The one melts; the other breaks into pieces.” She
wondered if things would have been different if he had read a single book. She pondered the idea that Brad might have escaped if he had opened himself up to the knowledge of those like Thoreau.
She inched forward until she stood directly above him. He must have felt her presence on a subconscious level, because Brad shifted in his sleep. Just as he did in his waking hours, he turned his back on her. At first, her body went rigid and her heart slammed hard against her small chest. When he didn’t wake, Cher relaxed.
Normally, she would have given into her distress but his actions, even in sleep, infuriated her. His indifference chilled her veins. She succumbed to the madness festering inside her, letting insanity sweep away her warmth and compassion. He had long ago shattered the girl who could love. Cher was now an empty shell.
In the span of a few seconds, a lifetime of dedication turned to disgust. His every sound and movement made Cher sick to her stomach. His appearance changed and he looked like the infectious monster he had been for so long. She wanted to rush for the bathroom and heave up the disgusting bile his presence induced. She wanted to cleanse herself of the taint he left on her spirit.
Broken Mirrors, Fractured Minds Page 8
