Fantastic Metropolis

This is the last story before the end.

(She is not dying yet.) A woman has stopped dreaming. She has been dead for eight hours a night, every night, for the last year. The first weeks of this oddity, she discounted the obvious, telling herself she just wasn’t remembering her dreams. What with her new job, she barely had time to think, rushing to prepare every evening and morning—she had no time to ponder the images and emotions gathering or lingering. True, the job wasn’t what she expected—not even what her interviewers had described, but she had interviewed five times (three of them conference call phone interviews) to get this job, and she wasn’t about to let her efforts go to waste. Soon, she would (have time to) make friends… and she wouldn’t miss her old job anymore. Soon too, she would (have time to) enjoy the extra money she was making. But that would be after she had adequately refurbished her wardrobe for the business suit attire they required. And it would be after she downsized her grocery list to only the Things She Really Needed.

When she closed her eyes and breathed steady and even, they sat still under her lids and she knew complete numb blackness until the alarm clock. After a year of nights in the abyss she sat up in bed and changed a little bit in less than a second. And she was terrified.

She called up one of her old friends, apologizing for the early hour, for not writing or calling for a year, and asked for his theories and advice. They had been out of touch for nearly three years, since she had made her move to escape her hometown, but he still spoke easily and true with her, as he suggested changes in her routine and maybe some professional counseling—all in a tone that did not demean her behavior or depress her self image. As she listened to him talk, she felt a mounting sorrow that she had left him behind, that maybe he was The One For Her. She smiled suddenly, as the terrible loss left her, as she finally realized something about him, about why he wouldn’t have her, sorry, couldn’t. She promised she would visit him, as a friend, and that was good enough for both of them. In closing, his tone was very different, grave, as he told her exactly what he was going to do, though he wouldn’t remember it in the morning.

She didn’t remember what he said in the morning either. But she remembered the abyss. And the year got longer. And she found herself sitting alone in the break room for lunches, eating for only ten minutes that seemed like a week of anticipation, as her mind churned about what to do about her dreams. Then she would rush off to her cubicle and do The Work. Until well past 6:00 P.M. Every day.

Her life continued in solitary, and she turned down a few evening dinner dates, choosing to stay late at work and Get Ahead. She started to sense that Something Was Coming, although that is not how she would have described it. Nor would have she been able to interpret what was happening to her as something that was Already Too Late. Some people just don’t Get It. In her case, in everyone’s—in this story—all three of these are correct.

One day in the break room she realized how much she wanted a dog and her heart stopped with sadness for a second when she realized too that her pricey apartment complex wouldn’t even allow small fish. For eleven more minutes she grew in her mind the idea of buying a gun, thinking and unthinking the thought, not eating any of her processed and pressed lunch meat sandwich, until she was convinced of what sporting goods store she would stop at on the way home, and finally how she was going to commit the act, very simply and completely, almost making it happen inside her as she sat there, sitting there, into herself and out of all time, as 2 of 6 oz. of apricot yogurt warmed in the motionless spoon in her hand, while she watched the/her probable/absolute future. She went straight home without stopping. And lunch was the same waking dream the next day. And the next week.

She considered quitting her job. One day the letters of the inspirational memo on the break room door suddenly became words in her mind, even though she had read the words hundreds of times before: Work Smarter, Not Harder. She started checking out the laptop and taking it home nights and weekends. She slept in her cubicle one night. She felt like someone else. For three months. She was living the life of someone else. And it might have continued for the rest of her life. But suddenly she remembered what her friend had said over the phone, and she changed instantaneously. She would have called him up, but she was so excited to have her life back that she drove to work and filled out a Request For Temporary Leave of Absence. (Had she called, he would not have answered. For he was, at that hour, stuck in the deep pit of horrible muck below an outhouse in a city park, already hoarse from screaming, and trying to climb out with one good arm).

While she had changed, her dreams did not return. Which did not disturb her. She had faith (enough), and the skills to develop a project.

For the first week of her self-prescribed treatment, she listened to relaxation tapes of rhythmic sea shores, and mediation chants of rolling mantras. She scheduled appointments with specialists, and met with them for a few sessions until she found a dream counselor, yoga master, and personal therapist she felt was helping her. (She tried to call her friend later to thank him, but she was unable to get in touch with him as he didn’t have any other good friends except her, and no one could report to her that he was in the hospital, and…) It wasn’t long before she threw out the meditation tapes. Though she did hold onto the sea shore recordings, which she played for the angel fish, Buddha, she had purchased and sneaked into her apartment in a grocery shopping bag with a overtly innocent French bread baguette sticking out of the top. (...his family never visited him in the hospital, as his brother didn’t really Agree With His Lifestyle, his mother knew he was Living Against Everything Natural God Had Intended, and his dad said nothing at all.)

Her last dream, she remembers, was a lavender field and a cinnamon sunset. One year ago. But she has had enough therapy sessions to know that landscape could be a wish and not a dream. She has wished to be back in that place for two years now.

She has not looked at herself in a mirror in the dark or she would see the scar over her heart-ragged and fatal. Seeing the faint unglow of the scar might make her remember what happened in that last dream. Then she could save herself from what is coming.

 

There is a story being written all over the world. (No one is listening.) It is heavy and sharp, but coming out easy. Its shape seems different with each native language and personal taints of the tellers. Seems. It is the same story; every teller with a fragment. No single teller could finish alone. They are all recording furiously, ignoring work and meals and family and gunfire and storm. Most tellers are making the story in their sleep, faster than hand or keyboard or tape recorder or creative committee with dry erase marker board in a particularly “productive” afternoon session and the support of particularly rich producers (who all happen to be on the creative committee as well, though without ever having written a short story, or finished Huckleberry Finn in high school, or the mere reading experience to name Franz Kafka to save their good arm).

No one is more shocked by the story than the tellers. No one can see the end.

The pieces will be finished at one time. And the story will be the last story to come true.

For fiction will get life, and the life is dying in the tales now. This is why this has to be done.

 

The graduate student sat back from his desk a moment. It only took the space and time of that one single movement for his smile to die. He touched his head with his hands and felt for something, already weeping. His fingers found nothing but smooth skull. And he pushed away the short story draft tantrum, and took the next English 112 paper from the pile. In the first paragraph he circled “there” and wrote “their,” circled “it’s” and wrote “its,” and wrote “Run on” and “Sentence fragment.” The paper was triple spaced, with two inch margins.

He thought of something, and imagined writing it down. Like a small dream, the images of his pen moving, the few letters forming, the thought itself changing into a physical thing, existing in two dimensions at once—his mind and on the yellow sticky memo.

“Revenge makes the world go ‘round.”

He never wrote that story.

 

There is one animal who knows the meaning of wish. There is one animal whose beliefs can alter reality. The owl has been beseeched and feared as an omen of destiny and doom; a bird that has grown into legend as a watcher and a symbol of monumental changes in history. Some or all of these is true at different times, and so there is nothing the owl cannot do. Except laugh. Owls are changing the world daily, at whim. And we cannot notice. They cannot laugh, and so they hate us for what we can do. They cannot laugh, not even in dreams. They cannot change their own dreams. They are glaring, hating, changing us.

They are at quiet war.

They love us. Their word for love is hate.

No one makes these rules.

 

There is a man who cannot forgive. He has never raised his voice to anyone in his entire career, and is a very reserved character (note the use of this word instead of the word “person”). He has worked at thousands of jobs and is, oddly enough, not forgotten by co-workers—even years after having moved on. People remember his full name, his face and body shape, though there is nothing extraordinary or in the least bit memorable about his presence—physical or otherwise. He had some odd habits, which are recorded here, but go unremembered by his peers. There was the way he used to sit alone in the corner of the break room, eating only carrot sticks for lunch. No one seemed to notice he always used the stairwell, never the elevator. If asked, no one would remember his limp handshake, the thickness of his glasses, or his absent-minded habit of a half-zipped fly. He was, we are allowed to say too, very reserved. Even though he could engage in a minimal amount of comfortable small talk at the company parties, no one remembers him for the odd nasal (yet melodic,) oboe tone of his delivery. No one can say why they remember him, though they can picture him exactly, even in the most vapid, selfish and/or egotistic of minds.

He has jet black eyes, without pupil, iris, flaw or definition. Those who remember his face don’t remember the eyes, though they would never hope to live long enough to see such eyes, to be sure. No special effects team or proprietary computer software will ever reproduce such pitiless and abysmal eyes.

The man does not forgive. He knows lies when he hears them, because he cannot hear truth. His ears go deaf until the spoken lie. So he is deaf for most of the day. But he has learned to hide his hearing deficiency, and adapt his expressions of discussion and interaction into a flawless impromptu process. Holding a full-time job, especially in high level management when he’s particularly fatigued, is no challenge for him. No one who has met him has ever even considered he might be deaf. He quits and moves away when someone has told him ten lies. This is telling too much.

Hope is not a concept he can believe in any longer, it should go without saying. There are a few of his kind every century, but he has other unique qualities. For instance, he is the only person alive now who understands time travel. But he is too depressed to go about inventing the required machine.

He will never be in love. He has never cried.

“I want to,” he says, “I want to cry.” (I hate myself most of any… He won’t say this aloud). He is not lying.

 

All dogs tried to get together. They planned their convention three years ahead of time so everyone could Put It On Your Calendar, passing the invitation on through neighborhood bark fests, customized territorial pissings, and distinct howls through the forests. All the dogs in the world soon knew about the Great Gathering at an excellent hotel in Cleveland (Ohio).

Not that the owls hate the dogs or anything, but they failed to tell them that their booked date was scheduled after the Second Flood.

 

When a kid decided one day (age six) he wanted to be a storyteller, he didn’t feel so scared anymore—of the adults, the words he didn’t know, the looming dark of the closet. He immediately experienced a day of infinity, wherein his entire life became open and full and… simply excellent. And then he grew anxious to experience the exciting life he had promised himself. He dreamed a million dreams that night. Of dinosaurs, adventure, crazy love, his own children, meeting the aliens, meeting the angels… and never really woke. He lived right into the dream. (And he is the only one of The Few who will live through what is coming).

This might be what’s called Getting It.

When he got up the next morning he rode to the drugstore at 8:14 A.M. (having never touched a bicycle before, and this one without training wheels) without telling his parents (for he wasn’t even supposed to cross the street without holding two parents’ hands firmly and looking both ways and a half) and bought a new notebook with six weeks of allowance from collecting the waste baskets around the house. This notepad was to be his launch site, his portal, his infinite toy chest. When he opened it, he did so very carefully, like a ritual… not breathing, shaking like the flu…

And as he moved toward the future of his life and the stories that would fill him and become history and make worlds themselves, an owl cried in the day-bright sun.

And he wrote something he didn’t understand. And was scared again. And wrote no more. Ever. Again.

 

There is a disease called god. There are no symptoms. No doctor can diagnose the infection, and no victim can feel its invasion. It is a plague of time and chaos. In the event of an outbreak, the victim(s) may change anything s/he wants to. The infection lasts one night and one day, after which the mind’s natural stubborn mortal-dom kicks in and breaks down the invader. During the sickness, the victim may choose to: become immortal, or instantly wealthy, or healthy, or destroy mountains, or entire species, or stars, or everything. Or change the natural elements, or history, or restaurant premium scratch&win sweepstakes game pieces.

No one has used this power yet, not even in the recklessness of dreams. The disease is carried by owls. They transfer it through the gaze of their eyes. They see everything about us, dreams too. They want to laugh (but that is another story).

 

This message is not selling anything. It is designed to scare you.

This is the last story before the end.

 

A knifemaker has (just) crafted a knife which cuts dreams. He shaped and ground the blade with diligent and methodical craft, working every night for a full year, never sleeping, in a lightless workshop, until its completion. It is a fierce, perfect weapon—most of all, it is impossible. But he had to have it. He has nightmares, and wants to kill them, cut them out.

He takes the knife with him upstairs, and turns on the bedroom light in a silly moment of distraction and reverse habit, and, too tired to flip the switch again, collapses on his dusty bed. He sneezes three times and falls asleep in the light.

The piece looks like an empty handle; handsome, though simple. A comfortable grip for hands of all sizes, and perfectly balanced out beyond the hilt, to its invisible point. The blade can only be seen with closed eyes.

It is (a year ago. It is) now.

He is walking through a lavender field alongside a cinnamon sunset, toward the steaming cave closet of the Beast So Scary, that can be heard sucking The Love of Pretending out of children’s skulls. The knifemaker grips his weapon firmly, and closes his eyes so he can enter the cave. Then he hears a woman scream. And he opens his eyes again. Again.

Exactly seven minutes later, having just entered and immediately exited R.E.M. sleep, he bounds out of bed and runs through the dark, not stubbing his toes on any chair legs, door frames or cabinetry, and locks the bloody knife in the safe, with The Knife That Cuts Time.

 

As head of Rager Records, Steve “Rager” Simmons convinced his production and marketing teams to convince one-hundred and seven Former Pop Music Artists to divorce their spouses and leave their children and come out of retirement, back into the Music Industry, whereupon twenty-two bands and their Original Lineups each recorded a Greatest Hits Vol. 1 (with no further volumes ever intended) featuring Your Favorite Classics and Bonus Tracks of New Material. Album sales went Uranium—a new sales quantity award of 1 billion units—and all arena and stadium sports events were canceled for the next 10 years to make way for the week-long Rager Über-Rock Fest tour.

Consequently, all other categories of music were stripped from store shelves to make way for the exclusively sold Rager Record label material. Every radio station went off the air for a week, and returned under a New Sound to play a continuous cycle of Classic Rock. Even though everyone said, “I just hate the new (KKZE 101.9),” they continued to listen on a regular basis. Personal music collections were reduced to a slim stack of twenty-two discs or tapes, thus fulfilling the Sixth Sign Before the Second Flood as there came about the utter extinction of all other types of music (including, but not limited to: Alternative Rock, Indie Rock, Goth Rock, Hard Rock, Glam Rock, Prog Rock, Brit Pop, Chamber Pop, Indie Pop, Jangle Pop, Lo Fi, New Psychedelia, Noise Rock, Post Rock, Synth Pop, Post Punk, Power Pop, Heavy Metal, Hair Metal, Industrial Metal, Grindcore, Rap Core, Nu Metal, Thrash, Death Metal, Black Metal, Doom Metal, Speed Metal, Punk Rock, ‘77 Style Punk, Cow Punk, Hardcore Punk, Emo, NY Hardcore, Oi!, Pop Punk, Psychobilly, Riot Grrrl, Ska Punk, Electronica, Acid Jazz, Ambient, Big Beat, Breakbeat, Downbeat, Dub Techno, Trip Hop, Drum ‘n’ Bass, Jungle, Electro Funk, House, Happy Hardcore, Industrial, Techno, Digital Hardcore, Trance, Unbeat, Jazz, Be Bop, Hard Bop, Big Band, Dixieland, Swing, Lounge, Blues, Chicago Blues, Country Blues, Delta Blues, Texas Blues, Zydeco Blues, Country, Alt Country, Bluegrass, Country Rock, Honky Tonk, Rockabilly Revival, Western Swing, Folk, ’60s Revival, Anti-Folk, British Folk, Contemporary Folk, Oldies, Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Surf, Pop, Dance Pop, Easy Listening, Euro Pop, Soft Rock, Teen Pop, Hip Hop, Abstract Hip Hop, Bass, Gangsta Rap, Turntablist, Old School Hip Hop, Pop Rap, Southern Hip Hop, R&B, Funk, Disco, G-Funk, Soul, ’70s Soul, Motown, New Soul, Quiet Storm, Reggae, Roots Reggae, Dub Reggae, Dancehall, Lovers Rock, Reggae, Ska, Rock Steady, World, African, Traditional African, Afro Pop, Afro Beat, Mbalax, Rai, Asian, Indian Classical, Bombay Pop, Qawwalli, Celtic, Eastern European, Klezmer, Indigenous Music, Latin, Calypso, Merengue, Son, Salsa, Samba, Bossa Nova, Tropicalia, MPB, Western European, New Age, Classical, Avant Classical, Chamber Music, Classical Guitar, Opera, Symphony, and Soundtracks.). Rager Records became the first music label monopoly.

One day a tall stranger (of course) in a long black coat (of course) walked into the glass tower of Rager Records International, through the immense and echoing front reception/security area, rode the elevator to the sixty-fourth floor penthouse office, moved across the room, and pulled out Steve Simmons’ heart, remarking, “I know about lies. Believe me—I do. But I’m sick and tired of people not making the least attempt at understanding the difference between a story and a lie.” And as he turned, dropping the pumping warm organ into the document shredder, Simmons reached out desperately, as though he could catch what was once his and make use of it again. Steve “Rager” Simmons gasped, and stared at the stranger’s departing figure, and died next as the murderer whispered to the immobilized body guards, “No one can truly be their own boss. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.”

One of the receptionists at the lobby greeting counter noticed (but didn’t tell anyone) how the stranger’s walk across the buffed marble floor reminded her of a horse in graceful trot, and how she glimpsed the twitching of an anxious forked tail sneaking out from under the black coat. She also noticed (but didn’t tell anyone) how, after he moved through the revolving counter-clockwise and against the motor, he looked up at the sky for a second, then rose up into it. She didn’t tell anyone because she understood a few things very suddenly, and was glad she had aborted Simmons’ child herself. And that forgiveness of herself allowed her to get up and leave forever, rising up too, through the smog, and straight into joy and true love.

 

(Every morning) the woman without dreams drinks a nutri-shake instant breakfast and does 45 min. of VCR-led aerobics before showering. Back at work she keeps 10-hour days. Some evenings she watches TV until she’s ready to go to bed. Most nights. All nights.

She is living the life of someone else, but doesn’t know it yet.

There is this guy at work. He’s started bringing his lunches and eating in the corner of the break room. A quiet guy. He makes her smile. Someday he will look at her. She hopes.

But doesn’t know it. Yet.

 

This is the last story before the end.

 

There is a killer they will not catch. They could catch him. But they, as many, just don’t Get It. (Insert note here: some of them are just stupid.) They follow him and take pictures of what he’s done. Of what’s left. He likes children best. He sets them Free, he says. He does not know the word knife or the word blood, but knows he likes to watch them move. Things should move fast, he wants. He will never know boredom for a second more. Until he is Done. Until the end. He has forgotten the words why and pain. Which makes his work easier. And fun.

The agents of the usual department are pursuing relentlessly, trying to Make Some Headway, or to Get A Solid Lead… but it is not their fault he will never be caught or stop what he does (until the end, don’t forget). Not their fault, except that they are ignorant of the simple idea that names are stories and their department name is dry and therefore quite powerless. Except maybe that they believe time is Real and therefore too short to attend a new name. They always arrive (too) late on the scene—a week, a day, an hour—sneaking or smashing into the shed warehouse locker room garage apartment elevator to the thick smell and (un)usually anxious flies. They inspect the messes, adhering to procedure, and compare pieces throughout the nights. Finding alot. Finding nothing. Trying with honesty now, as if it just occurred to them. Trying uselessly.

The killer is on the news every night. Every witness sketch is different. But it is always him. It can no longer be helped. There have been too many stories. In the competition for ratings and sales, the newspapers and TV stations have given him too many names and faces. They have run too many stories, too many specials about the woman who claimed she went to high school with him (and he was always alone I mean always, and always talking to himself, I’m pretty sure, I think, I didn’t know the guy at all, cuz he was so damn quiet, looked at the floor all the time, oh yeah, I do remember him, he was strange now that you mention it) and the man who claimed he sold him a steaming cup from the espresso stand, and the “authentic” letters (concocted by a journalist who does not understand story and lie), the professionals who gave their professional assessment of his mental state while worrying about how big their name appears in the caption just below their neck, and, while they’re thinking about it, hoping the makeup person didn’t put too much powder on their neck.

Now he will never die. Not even at the End. As he ushers it in.

There are four authentic letters from the killer so far. The one signed, “Yours Truly,” has a bottle ring stain of ginger beer in the paper. All four of the real letters are return addressed “From Hell.” But no one in the forensics team does much reading anymore. And the forensic lab misses the ring too because they get Caught Up in a discussion about the smoothness of the digitally animated walruses in the new corporate cola commercial. The discussion is very lengthy and distracting, and includes insights like, “Have you checked out that one commercial?” and “Which one? Oh, yeah. It’s incredible what they can do with computers nowadays.” But no one comments on how the same cola corporation’s holdings in South Africa (prolonged the election of the first liberal Zulu leader, and likewise) delayed the downfall of apartheid. But that is a different story.

“Another flood,” states one of the postcards. “But bigger this time. And red.”

All they would have to do to catch him is say his real name and he will come running back to the lamppost and let them tag him without touching home base and the long game of history which is hate and kill and lies and darkness will be done. Or at least someone else will be it until the End.

He thinks his life is a dream. He has never told a lie. His eyes are pure opaque white. But he can see.

 

A dog is writing one of these stories. The one about how the Devil is real, but he left the planet a long time ago, and all the fear that we ever have about anything is a deep archetype, the same (and originator) to the loss-denial reaction resultant from most split-parent families and failed early relationships. (Some editors consider that this particular manuscript would be shelved under Non-Fiction, or Self-Help.) The Devil had two dogs. They were the first dogs to feel love, and they often pretended to fight, because they just didn’t want Lucifer to feel jealous, because they really did care about his feelings (though not the same love or intensity they felt for one another). The Devil never named his pets, and they have forgiven him that.

These dogs are still alive. They can talk, but don’t. Fifty-four languages (six of them known only now between them). They are rather upset by unbearably slow progress and periodic cancellation of the space program. But every day feels unbelievable and stark, as it does when you’re In Love.

This one doesn’t count. Only stories are allowed. And this thing is historical record.

 

The agents of the old department are pretending everyone still listens to them, that they do not need to change. They have always used the word “god” once a week, while they avoided its use in perception of themselves—when they were listened to. They are of the opinion that time is Real too (which is the first question on the test to qualify you as a full agent of the new dept.), so they are too busy to learn the simple idea that names are actually stories, much less that stories are the only existence. So they would not believe you if you told them they are creating the killer.

 

(Another month goes by). The dreams have not returned, but she has learned to Live With It. She takes a few accrued vacation days and spends it eating Styrofoam-like snack chips laced with monosodium glutamate, while watching daytime TV. The same characters are on the daytime soap shows she watched between classes at college, but they are played by different people now.

On the third day she gets out of the house, and goes out to Fall In Love. She lands in a bar. She sits at the stool for almost two hours, eventually losing the feeling in her teeth.

The man stops talking from the time they leave the bar until the time he leaves her apartment a few hours later. She doesn’t feel like saying anything throughout the whole Act, but hears herself coaching him and complimenting him on what he does right, and realizes (during the Act) that her fish died yesterday and she had meant to take Buddha to the park today for a ritualistic burial, or at least flush him before he started to stink.

When he is done (47 seconds later) and snoring, she stares into the dark, not asleep.

He tries to be dressed and leaving, so he can only have to say, “Oh, you’re awake. I have to go. I’ll call you.” It doesn’t work, because she is looking at him, wide awake before he can even get one leg into his pants. He is so unnerved by it that he takes his clothes and dresses in the kitchen. And never comes back in to say good-bye.

She does not care in the least. She is thinking she is not tired at all, that what she really wants to do with herself is get in shape.

 

The agents of the new department aren’t pursuing relentlessly at all. They are swollen and grounded with pride at how clever they are to have come up with a new name. They are sitting around and around in smooth swivel chairs in the state-of-the-art headquarters which only lets them in by scanning their palms and retinas, talking about how great it would be to sell the movie rights to their nifty new name, and not really even listening to each other, talking, and changing the screen saver animations on their Dept. computers.

And when the End comes, they will drown no less painlessly in the red, clawing for another job, another chance, some air.

 

There is a word common to all (current, future and dead) languages. This is the only magic. It is the word and sound an owl makes laughing. It cannot be written down (shaping the characters breaks the hand), only delivered vocally. Saying the word will grant you what you desire in the deepest way. In the entire history of the world only six people have known the magic word, all issuing it by complete accident. All were storytellers. They all asked for Love or Revenge. But they were lying to themselves and the magic. Their hearts exploded because what they really wanted was the End. They will get it soon.

These sound like rules. If they are rules, they cannot be changed. What they are, they were not made, but they are. Like stories, they happen.

 

There is a boy who will never grow up. He will remain eight years old until the end comes, while his parents move from thirty-six to forty-eight. (This has been done before, yes. But this one is For Real.) The day after his eighth birthday he went with his friend from down the street to the monthly flea market in the basement of the downtown auditorium. His friend’s mom took them, and he bought the beautiful owl wing-shaped knife for only two dollars. His friend was jealous that he saw it first, and asked the seller if he had any more like it.

“Just one.”

“Will you make any more?”

“Not like that,” said the knifemaker. And he wouldn’t answer when the boy asked him why not. (The knifemaker did not hate children, but a killer had abducted his daughter recently, and threatened to dice her up unless he sold one of his special knives to a little boy. [The killer did not tell the knifemaker why the boy should not die, or that he would not be returning his daughter. Or that he would be coming for the knifemaker as he Must Needs Do So for everyone until it is all Done.])

Neither of the boys could believe he was selling this knife for two dollars.

The boy had to hide the knife in his pants, and when he got home told his parents he didn’t buy anything and had saved his money. Luckily his friend’s mom had not seen him buy the knife, but he had to let his friend hold the knife whenever he wanted to, or his parents would find out. His parents had often told him they were Not A Family That Keeps Weapons In the House.

We woke up in the middle of the night, between moon and rain, birds and traffic, between water pipe rumbles in the walls. He woke very hard, without sitting up, and won’t ever remember because he felt like a different person—like he had lived a very long time.

He said into the night, “I am real.” Which had no significance at all to the moment or the story that was his life.

He had cut his finger on the knife while hiding it under his mattress.

This is one of the ways to begin an ending.

 

There is a commercial on network television. Just once. Meticulously, laboriously, lovingly hand-drawn (but smooth as digital animation), dark owls appear on their gnarled midnight tree and peer their uncanny eyes straight into the souls of everyone watching and everyone not watching, dreaming or not; and hum the rising music of Greig’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from Peer Gynt Suite. The final kettle drum/cymbal crash down beat slams the company logo across a black screen:

Jack’s Ginger Beer
The beverage with a bite of truth.
Brewed in Gnaw Bone, Indiana.

It does not matter if the word soul makes you wince, or if you refuse to believe in the existence of what the word generally implies. They can still see what they are looking for.

 

There is one monster in all the world. It has thousands of teeth, and eyes that burn the color of hate within a sharp ring of anger. The monster eats babies and kittens and peanut butter and honey locust thorns and boysenberry syrup warmed by the cupful. It lives in a different closet every night. Its tail is made of shark skin and earwig butt and hedge apple and pineapple and dull scroll saw blades and dead bee legs, and it drags it around behind its completely indescribable body like a tiny mountain, smearing its waste because it is always hungry, always eating children and itself, always tired and always eating, born without a stomach, always shitting. It lives under the bed too. It has eight arms; six of them real, three with needle claws. It knows prayers and curses in every language ever spoken. It knows the song you have which is your own, kept inside, which you cannot whistle or tabulate even if you are a composer. It has no taste buds. It is most hateful because it doesn’t like its own name. You’d be none too happy either if your name was Fear.

 

This is the last story before the end.

 

There is a job open. They do not care which school you attended, or if you finished your degree. They do not care if you a People Person, if you believe the customer is Always Right, if you’ve had one-point-five years experience Or Equivalent. Do not bother with a tie, or to shave, or remove the earrings. They see you as you are. They are not an equal opportunity employer. You do not need to go in for the interview, they can see you from here.

Do not try to lie to them by pretending to be excited about and solely devoted to the position that is open, that you can smile on your feet all day, or that you believe neck ties are a symbol of anything at all whatsoever.

They will not call you back. You will know if you got the job.

A tip: it is not rude to ask questions, just senseless.

If you are not willing to work for nothing, you really don’t Get It.

Bring your lunch tomorrow. The dress code is Truth. Ties are optional.

 

There is a man who loves everyone. He stated this in the middle of a televised street-side poll about his opinion of the guiltiness/innocence of a national sports celebrity/movie star to the charge of murder. And when he said what he said, all the people in the entire world stopped what they were doing and—without looking at their TV—shuddered and blinked and shivered, feeling the alien wash-over of Truth for just the merest moment. He also said he knew for a fact that there is no higher power, not anymore, only ourselves to take care of things. He said that Nietzsche had it down, man—it sucks to say, but that’s how it is. (Note: he did not say How It Is.) He never did answer the poll question.

He is one of The Few. But he will not make it to the End.

Everyone on the planet stopped again, (shuddered again), went blind and deaf for a full minute (if not already living in that condition, [in which case they got to see and hear for sixty seconds]), and everybody screamed. (Coincidentally, all the owls laughed at this time, but no one noticed. Still, many people remembered why they hated the man on the TV they had(n’t) seen. While the Ayatollah, along with a number of dictators, parliaments, presidents and princesses merely made dismissive comments about the man’s remark, endless media hype in the United States filled ten solid weeks of air time about the incident until several of the wealthier movie and sports celebrities hired assassins to hunt down this “spiritual terrorist” and execute him.

He whistles. Never the same tune twice.

 

from after The Epilogue

A mountain is the last island, the only land in the endless red. Now, those Who Could Not Die for one reason or another come silently across the red red sea in make-shift crafts, or kicking with a floating scrap of plastic under their arms, or just paddling through the still, thick ocean of blood, until they slide up to the shore, only to be greeted by the killer who will shake hands in polite greeting with a penetratingly authentic manner of concern, and welcome them out of the growing night, and to a warm seat by the campfire he has prepared and has already roasted some owls. There he waits patiently as the crying returns to them, and pats them on the back, squeezes their shoulder, until they are finished (for now). No one among The Few says anything cruel or paranoid, for they don’t know how any of this happened or his role in it (nor does he remember), as he blinks his deep white eyes (which no one comments on), and begins a new story, hoping to make the night feel somehow smaller.

 

There is a bomb that burns dreams. It splashes into your sleep landscape, a reaching wave of thick fear gel, and lights itself instantly, spreading white-hot nothing fire. The government has been trying to find and duplicate the weapon for decades now. They say it fits inside a common soda can. It is the only weapon ever designed by a woman or child. She made it one night (age eleven) and has been trying to think of the reason why for the last ten years. She does not pray at night, but speaks the reasons aloud in the dark, sometimes with strong defiance, but more often as wavering questions. She says, “It was necessary.” Says, “It was an accident—whoops.” Says, “Just in case.” Says, “Out of love.” Says, “Revenge.” Says, “Everyone must have some weapon.” Says, “A hobby.” Says, “A clich�, I know, but—because I can.” Says, “I was young—reckless, foolish.” Says, “I’m not sorry.” Says, “I am sorry.”

More people are killed each year by accidentally inhaling powdered sugar than are killed by this dream weapon. It is made with baking soda, ginger, cilantro, milk, owl urine, mandrake root, eye crust, and kerosene (for smell).

 

In late September of that year Steve “Rager” Simmons (who would always see himself as a high school quarterback star [but never as a rapist of three cheerleaders]) managed to write his first piece of fiction for a beginning college English class (which was supposed to merely reiterate how to double-space papers and teach the correct format for bibliographic information… but the teacher was [a man?] who had wanted a writing workshop instead, and had made a decoy syllabus for the English Department Head different than the one he actually used and taught). The story was Inspired By the kid’s first college party, whereat someone had put a four-CD set of classic rock music in the CD-changer, and all 20+ people in that dorm room had drunk beer and played air guitar until 4 in the morning (despite protest by neighbors who were trying to read Franz Kafka’s “The Hunger Artist”).

Needless to say, what Steve Simmons wrote was not really a story at all—barely a page of large-lettered, widely-spaced words that described (in a half-ass manner) a Not-Too-Distant Future World wherein all the bands that ever broke up in the 1970s and 1980s got back together and sold more albums than they(/anyone!) ever had before, and went on tours that every person in the world managed to see. “And the world partied for years,” Steve S. wrote at the end. His little end.

When the instructor gave Steve S. an “F” on the assignment, Steve tried to argue that no one had any right to rate or criticize his original work, that Art Is Just Art. Shortly after, Steve Simmons transferred to another English 112 class scheduled at the same time which the College of Arts and Sciences didn’t usually allow for Personal Differences, but the English Department Head was trying for tenure and didn’t want any Delicate Situations jeopardizing his Career or his Professional Image. (English 112 was a required course for all freshman even if they knew how to structure a bibliography.)

The kid went on to be a Business Administration major, and more. He managed to never write anything again in his life (by hiring foreign exchange students to write his college papers, co-workers to write his monthly reports, secretaries to write his business letters, and independent designers [whom he never paid] to compose and design his presentations); to gang rape thirteen mildly intoxicated but heavily drugged young women with his fraternity brothers; to break a (gay) man’s collarbone and stuff him through the hole in a park outhouse; to drink 9628 cans of particularly poor beer in five years; and become a record label CEO only two years after finishing college.

 

This is the last story before the End.

---

Andrew S. Fuller’s short fiction has been published in various magazines and anthologies, both online and in print, including: The Harrow, House of Pain and The Vinyl Elephant. He is active as editor of the quarterly speculative fiction e-zine/anthology The Three-Lobed Burning Eye as well as the small press publisher Legion Press.