The Windows

There are twelve windows in this room.

They say one of the windows leads me to my freedom, to a life outside of all this. The other eleven lead me back to more of the same, or maybe worse. Although it's hard to imagine what might be worse. They say that the imagination is the most powerful tool for torture, but I've seen some stuff that puts the unknown to shame. For example, there's a thing called the threader. 

The thread - a thin, non-reactive metal cable - goes in your mouth, and you have to swallow. You get a break while they wait for it to come out the other end. When it does, they pull it until there's a loop with its center inside of you. Then they hook both ends to a centrifuge and start spinning you around the room.

Did you know your intestinal tract has a tensile strength, a tearing point? Everything does, really. Even the soul. The threader takes you right up against that limit. I've seen strong men cry and later shit blood; I've seen weak men resist until they were torn in half from the inside out.

I'm somewhere in the middle. That's probably why they put me in the window room to begin with. For those who can endure torment of the body, there's always torment of the mind to consider. 

And what better way to torture a prisoner than offering him a choice? I know that if I choose wrong, I'll recriminate myself until I'm torn apart just as surely as if I'd spent an hour on the threader. I know that if I choose right, the whole thing might have been an exercise in false hope. It'd only work once, but once would be enough.

So I say nuts to the whole thing. I sit in the window room. I close my eyes. I must look like I'm thinking, or praying, or maybe even shitting. After you've watched a man's bowels rupture and spray feces across the room in a wide arc, shitting for an audience isn't as embarrassing. 

Time passes. I know this can't please them. They wanted to watch me choose and doubt and panic and fail. This has to be a disappointment on the order of the other prisoner who died of a heart attack before they even got to him. It wasn't even a heart attack from fear, just a congenital defect that picked that moment to give the guy the easy way out.

Oh how we all paid for that.

There's a click behind me. I ignore it. Remember what I said about the imagination? Whatever I can come up with in the dark of my mind is still better than their reality. There's another click. Now I'm terrified and curious. Click.

I turn my head and behold a forest of densely packed needles that now covers a quarter of the floor. As I watch another row silently rises, the click only coming when the floor first opens. Intuition tells me they could have made the entire process completely noise free, but the click is part of the fun.

There's a time limit for my choosing, then. Or maybe they just got impatient. Either way, I have about a minute before the needles press my flesh aside and join everything else under my skin. Maybe I should lie here. Maybe I should let it happen. Needles are as good an end as any other. At least my death wouldn't be pointless, ha ha.

But no. My problem, aside from the obvious, is that there's a part of me that won't give in; there's a blind idiot god in the dark of my brain who just won't let the ride stop. And wouldn't you know it? He's got the wheel. 

I feel myself rising, rising like the needles, and in just as much control. I take a step, then another towards one of the windows. Which one doesn't matter, I now realize. Maybe the windows don't open. Maybe all the windows lead back here. Maybe life is just another window room we place ourselves in, and time takes the place of the needles, every tick of the second hand another sharp row in place. 

I choose a window. Don't we all?

Next

Did you know that there are ten ways to separate a man's head from his still living body? There are probably a lot more, but I've only tried ten ways so far. They'd probably work for a woman's head too, but I haven't tried with any women. They are:

1.) Knife

2.) Hacksaw

3.) Hatchet

4.) Circular saw

5.) Piano wire

6.) Wood chipper

7.) Bear trap

8.) Zamboni

9.) Machete

10.) Cleaver

As you can tell by the list, I'm prone to both whimsy and nostalgia.

To read the rest, go to this page.

The Northwest Corner

Jack had just sat down to dinner when he heard the light knock, so light he wondered if he imagined it. He was in his late sixties, hair gone sheep's wool, and sounds had started to play tricks on him. Not that he'd admit that to anyone, although the folks in town suspected from the way he asked the waitress at Shirley's to repeat herself during the breakfast rush.

Town was what they called it, although a couple of buildings clustering together as if for warmth deserved the title less than anywhere else he’d seen. Granted, he’d not been many places. Jack wasn’t a traveler. There’d been a time when all he’d thought about was getting away from the county, leaving it and the farm behind; however, he’d given up on that part of his life. Now, he had roots in the soil, deep gnarled things that wouldn’t easily be pulled up.

As he worked his way to the door, taking care to avoid the carefully stacked newspapers, he wondered why a stranger had come calling. County folk didn't knock. There was no mistaking them. They rapped, or pounded. There was something about living so far from your neighbors that discouraged shyness when you finally came to call on them. Even the children – especially the children – knocked like a charging bull.

Everything about the place was familiar to him. This was the house he was raised in, and it had become his when his mother had passed, same thing with the land around it. Jack had never saw the point in marrying, so the house looked much the same as it did when his parents were alive. When something broke he replaced it, but that was the extent of the changes. No, he thought of himself as a caretaker. He’d see to the house, and to the land. The land required special looking after. 

To read the rest, go to this page.

The World I Used to Know

It happened nine years ago today. Nine is an odd anniversary to celebrate, but none of us actually think we'll make it to ten. Why would we?

It was my generation's September 11th, our death of Kennedy, our Pearl Harbor. Everyone remembers where they were when it happened, or at least where they were when they found out about it. Of course, the difference is that no one's story is that "I was there." All those people are dead, which might be a mercy.

I remember where I was when the world changed.

To read the rest, go to this page.

There Are Only Three Ways to Die

There are only three ways to die:

1.) You find them.

2.) They find you.

3.) You kill yourself.

I'm not good at hide and seek, so I chose option number three. Kurt Cobain is a hero of mine, but I couldn't do it his way. Same thing with the Plath solution; I don't think they make gas ovens anymore. Man, famous people used to go out big, or creative. Now it's all pills and pills and pills.

I'm not famous, but if I pulled this off, maybe I would be a little. I decided to go out with a real red bubble bath. Something about that appealed to me, turned its face right in my direction.

To read the rest, go to this page.

I've Invented a Machine that Shows You How You Will Die

We're going to slide this wire into your frontal lobe, easy peasy, and after a few moments we'll start to turn the machine up. How does the wire get in there? A needle, dear - a very sharp, long needle with that wire threading through it as thin and strong as spider’s silk. The needle is so sharp you won't even feel a thing. Well, maybe a little pinch.

There's a minimum of blood, since your brain doesn't bleed. Did you know that? Oh, it's full of blood alright, but it won't come pouring out. The brain is greedy, and precious. You'll be fine.

To read the rest, go to this page.

The Cost of Sweetness

It had been weeks since the plantation became my home, since I was stolen in the dead of night by strange men with strange speech intent on forcing me from my bed. I fought and cursed until the smaller one, in heavily accented English, told me he would split my tongue down the middle if I kept squalling.

Before I could respond, the larger one turned and poked out a neatly bifurcated tongue at me with a smile. I kept silent the rest of the trip, even through the travail in the filthy ship's hold, rain and urine and dark liquids pattering on me from above.

To read the rest, go to this page.

The Demon Dhamer

Daniel Ellsworth’s day would have been better if not for the bird faced demon in his bathtub, as welcome as a herpes sore on a virgin's face. He saw it out of the corner of his eye after he turned the light on, right as he was reaching for his razor and shaving cream. He had bought both at the dollar store last week, where the other thing had happened in the pet supply aisle.

The demon was crouched down behind the shower curtain, the bulk of it a spindly shadow. It had an incredibly gaunt human body, like a prisoner from the Boer War. The body supported a head that was mostly an oversized bird's beak filled with tiny, irregular teeth; along the beak were a dozen beady eyes situated in rows.

To read the rest, go to this page.

Intelligent Technology

Will someone deal with this? If anyone up top sees it, they’ll shit a brick. -lw

HP Scanjet 3300C, scanner - FREE [redacted]

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Date: 2011-01-16,2:38AM EST

Reply to: 9pd6d-2853744219@sale.craigslist.org

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I wish to God I'd never bought the damn thing. That was before, and I didn’t know.

This is a good scanner. It's too good, in fact, which is why I'm getting rid of it. The farther away you live, the better. You have to come to my house, no exceptions. I don’t drive anymore unless I have to.

To read the rest, go to this page.