The stairs creaked with my bones as I headed down stairs for my morning tea. I passed through the hall every day at the same time, but I hadn't looked up in years. I couldn't face the searching faces of those who had left me in my solitude.
The thud of the newspaper on the door was early. It made me look up, it made me face the dusty pictures of the past. Then I saw her eyes burning through the mountain of dust accumulated on her picture on the wall.
My little sister, Lily, who no one ever made grow up, until it was too late. Her room is still plastered with the maps she once treasured, where every country was circled at least once, and the bookshelves of her childhood are still flooded with the languages she never finished learning, now dusty and untouched.
I smiled at her ambitious dreams of being a pilot, or the captain of some renowned ship, or an explorer of the corners of the earth. Her visions always changed, but their underlying need for escape never left them, not even in her death.
By the time I had to write her obituary, I had already received ample practice after writing my father's , and step-mother's, if only they could have stopped there, my abandonment on this earth makes my heart ache like my bones, and now my failing vision fools me as eye see her eyes burning in every reflection.
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Pokey’s days moved like a jazz song. People weaved in and out of his baseline theme in a seemingly random fashion. As if life moved in a specific pattern, yet each character added their own various ideas of that basic rhythm. The two fellows that ran by the garage entrance every morning as Pokey was arranging his items in their places gave Pokey a start to his day. He would see them briefly sweating in the summer or see the puffs that preceded them in winter. Everyday, they would run. Only the weather was the variation. They seemed as if in a trance. Everyday, the same. The down beat of the day started.
When he worked the Sunday shift, Pokey also witness one of the runners walking into the tavern and staying for hours. Often, if Pokey worked the Sunday shift, the guy would still be in the tavern when Pokey was relieved from his shift. His eyes still held the trance as if he was drawn by something inside the tavern.
Pokey has only been in The Tavern a few times. Each time he goes, he feels a strange, uncomfortable tingling on his skin. He feels dirty and can’t breathe very well. Once Leo made him drink “a beer for Pokey.” Mostly people drag him in so they “can talk.” Pokey can’t concentrate because his skin feels strange. He prefers the diner. The grime isn’t much better but the scent of food is much more comforting than the scent of depression, isolation, mixed with a heady shot of self-absorption.
Pokey was thinking of the tavern as he ate his dinner. Friday: fried fish, onion rings, corn and peas. His coke made him think of the beer. It fizzed that same way—that’s why Pokey was willing to try the beer. Only as he left the tavern, bumping against the chairs and the door, he couldn’t seem to control himself. Like the first time he heard Chick Corea and Weather Report, he felt dizzy. Leo only laughted at Pokey. Mr. Mamet and Harry both swore at Leo and told him to leave Pokey alone. Leo only laughed harder.
Pokey had just finished his peas. His mother always scolded him if he didn’t eat his peas. He reluctantly ate them last. He noticed the rain had started. He buttoned-up his coat and made sure he buckled his galoshes.
He started out the door to see the shadow come around the corner of the block, and stop and start. Pokey knew it was James. Pokey’s mother told him to watch-out for James. She had known his mother. What had happened to James’ mother is the reason she moved from Thallow Flats.
“He’s cursed, Pokey.” She said as she glared over her reading glasses. “Ms. Gibson knew that street like the back of her hand. There’s no reason why she should have fallen.”
Pokey could only listen.
His mom continued. “Everybody said that it’s that Barnaby ghost. That ghost did this, that ghost did that. I never listened to that foolishness until Ms. Gibson died. Now look at that son of hers. Skipping and stuttering around the building, clutching that box. Creepy. Pokey you stay away from him. He’s cursed.”
Pokey’s brows furrow as he watches James jump as if he’s trying to avoid the raindrops.
“He just needs a good raincoat and a pair of galoshes.” Pokey thinks to himself. James sees Pokey and presses himself against the wall.
Pokey pauses in front of James, “Hi James.” Pokey looks down as James seems to fold into the box he is carrying. “ I have an old raincoat in my apartment. I live in 111. If you want it come to my apartment. Apartment 111.” Pokey turns and walks home.
Roots took one last look around the apartment as he put on his stiff canvas jacket. His eyes passed from the small kitchen, empty except for a cooling tea pot on the counter, to the somewhat larger living room, a whitewashed space filled with moving boxes and packing crates ranging from the size of a small rectangular cigar box to a large 3' x 3' crate sitting in the right corner of the room, almost hidden from sight by the other smaller boxes stacked on and around it. Roots' eyes passed over this without interest, stopping only when they reached a stack of boxes near the door. On top of this stack lay a neat pile of papers, with one placed gingerly on top that simply read: “Total due payments: $48,000.” Here Roots' eyes lingered for a moment, verging on a look of fear before dissolving into their usual happy, mildly loopy gleam as Roots looked back down to fumble with the doorknob. Behind him the stack of papers silently blew off the box and danced a somber dance in the air before scattering themselves on the floor without a sound.
A short walk later Roots stood at the front entrance of ROOTS' EDIBLE HERB EMPORIUM and proudly turned the key and entered the shop. The sight that greeted him was a large unlit room; to his left were rows of tall wooden shelves extending into the darkness, most filled about halfway with an array of unidentifiable objects. To his right were one long display case and one long desk forming an L shape jutting from the right wall. Roots switched on the lights and walked over to the old cash register sitting on the front desk. He counted out 37 dollars, in ones, opened the cash register and reverently filled the five slots with bills one at a time. Once he had filled his register with bills, he organized a messy collection of postal scales sitting on the counter and reached inside a lower drawer to withdraw a plastic “OPEN” sign. Roots held the sign in his hands and proudly marched towards the front door of the shop. He hummed a kind of epic, triumphant tune as he marched, and was reaching up to tape the sign to the inside of the door when the door opened abruptly and smacked Roots in the face. Roots dropped the sign and fell with a thud straight on his bum. He quickly scrambled to get up and regain composure; he was immensely embarrassed to look like such a fool in front of his very first customer. He looked to see the expression on the customer's face as he stood up, and was surprised to see that the customer, a rather intense looking man in a nice leather jacket, hadn't yet noticed him! The man was looking off towards the front desk with a serious, somewhat dramatic expression on his face. Roots ignored the fact that the man had just floored him with an overly vigorous door opening, despite the fact that the entrance door was clear plastic, and instead stepped into the view of the man and made a little bow.
“Good day good day sir! Very nice of you to come, thank you for visit my shop. Today is first day of opening, you are first customer! I make you special price, whatever you like, yes? Perhaps some thing for relaxation? Maybe you like Bai Shao Xiong? Very nice, very very soothing. Make you feel like you on nice soft cloud. Or maybe root of Tangkuei? Extra potent, super fresh. Make you super warm, real nice with wine. Or perhaps-”
The man seemed to have been half listening, with a bored disinterested look on his face, but here he interrupted Roots and very seriously said, “I've come for Salvia Divinorum.” Roots had gotten quite excited as he talked to the new customer, unconsciously swaying and moving his arms in animated emotion, doing a little dance in front of the rigid man. But at hearing the man's request Roots froze in the middle of this dance, his arms in an awkward kind of Egyptian stance, one raised and one lowered. Salvia divinorum. Játiva. The Diviner's Sage. Roots knew much about the “Sage of the Seers,” briefly he had lived in Oaxaca among the Mazatec shamans who still practiced the old ways. He had seen men enter the ceremonial huts, had heard the sounds that pierced through the clay walls, sometimes chanting, sometimes screaming, sometimes shouts of joy. He had seen the transformations that took place in those who underwent the vision quest. Often they would emerge with a look of dazed awe, many who chewed the leaves of the Sage found profound peace, but some did not. Roots had seen men enter the sacred hut with fear in them, he had heard stories of those who had tried to fight the Sage. For those who took the journey and resisted, the herb destroyed them. It killed their ego, murdered their self, decimated the mind. Roots knew the hallucinogen in Salvia was the most powerful natural psychoactive known to mankind. But he reasoned to himself, the Mazatec shamans consumed much higher doses than this man would, and Játiva was known to bring about a powerful change in consciousness, the nature of the herb was highly spiritual. Roots looked the man in the eyes,
“Are you sure that’s what you want?”
“Yes.” The man responded.
Roots shivered uncontrollably as a strange cold wind cut through his body. He hoped so.
He woke up on Sunday morning with a splitting headache. What happened last night, he thought. He tried to clear his memory, but everything was still foggy. Eventually, he gave up. So what if he couldn't remember anything about the night before. He decided to skip the morning jog. He felt compelled to go to the roof of Thallow Flats. As he walked up the stairs, he felt a cold touch on his shoulder. He instinctively looked behind himself. He had come level with a dark and dusty hallway. At the end of the hallway, there appeared to be the figure of the woman. As he looked closer, she seemed to fade into nothingness.
Out on the roof, he looked down at the old Barnaby mansion, and wondered about the old man. He couldn't shake the feeling of strangeness. He didn't even know why his thoughts had led him to the Barnabys.
At the game, he tended to avoid the cigars beer that the other men seemed to favor. Tonight though, he decided to indulge himself.
Blackness. Falling through the cracks, piling up, wrapping around familiar objects with it's inky curtain, transforming the familiar into vast crevices for… for what? When you're too old to believe in vampires and monster, you begin to be more afraid of reality than imagination. A reality that rises each morning and blinds all those who live for light, and in the night remain in darkness.
In abstract details and thoughts, half-finished dreams between sleep and consciousness, somewhere, I was prepared for this moment. Prepared to find out who I was. But what, no, who, does your past make you? Is anybody ever completely happy with their past, who they are inside, or how they got there? Perhaps, I am better off not knowing. Memories are meant to be re-lived, yet most feel the greatest emotional response when reliving the worst ones, filled with shame and perceived embarrassment, while the happiest fade bit by bit. And, if you had the power to choose a fresh start, a new life with no past, would you? Or would you want to know to validate some concept that you are already the embodiment of? Or, if you choose to know, how much better will you sleep at night with ghosts and shards of the past re-enacting inescapable defeats and slights before your eyes right just as you begin to drift in sleep.
So now, I sit on the broad rooftop of Thallow Flats, the city all but asleep before me and the heavy key anchored next to me upon the paved ridge, the black journal—still unopened. But the question I have, what I must be absolutely sure of, the one thing I keep coming back to--do I really want to know? And in the still of dark, with no breeze a cold draft wrenches the journal from it's place beside me and the journals clutters to the rooftop at my feet. The pages rustle and fall open; in the dim lit I can just make out the first entry. Goosebumps travel up my neck and the back of my arms, chills run down my back as I feel, for the first time that night, not quite alone...
Harry sets down the phone sadly, the dial tone still ringing in his ears. "Bye," he murmurs, and then takes a deep, calming breath. With the phone returned to its cradle, he feels better. He surveys the apartment, the rows of neat things, the life he's made, created from chaos and regulated into an every-day sort of order. He runs a hand through his hair, and crosses the room to his couch. Though it's still early on Sunday, barely past one, he feels exhausted, drained, and quickly sinks into a much-needed rest.
He awakes to a thud. His eyes opening quickly, he sits bolt upright, and gasps. The room is in complete disarray. Not only have things been tossed haphazardly everywhere, but furniture has been moved, jostled out of their places and shifted, even the heaviest of items. The table before the couch is now propped against the wall, and in fact the only thing on the rug before him is the phone, its receiver still in the cradle.
Harry stands quickly and goes to the door. He tries the bolt, and finds it secure. A quick survey tells him that the windows are all locked from the inside, though someone would have a hard time getting to one of them even if they weren't. He stands in the middle of the room, and his gaze once again falls to the telephone. He reaches to pick it up, and it rings just as his hand closes on it. He drops it again out of sheer terror, and then answers it, curiousity getting the better of him.
"Harry?"
"Dean."
"Look... I didn't mean that. I'm sorry I hung up. I'm not really sure what just happened, but I feel so strange, as if someone told me to call you. Is there something.... I don't know. Maybe this was a bad idea."
Harry surveys the room again, and then replies, "No, nothing's wrong. I'm so glad you called back, though."
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