Vivisection

      2 March 2001

Dark and darker still. A sudden flash of eyes illumines the lum roses. I remember their fragrance yet as something sharp and deep which penetrates even the blandness of certainty. I am alive. I know that I am, for I feel a certain stinging on my arm and can taste metallic air on my still prone tongue. Winter is ending and the cold gasps its last breath. The blood on my arm is so bright I know it is pink.

I imagine a girl named Marine or Marina, whose hair appears blue when wet, is lying face up on my bed. I hold above her the knife which has so recently tasted my arm. I think of the saying that a double edged sword cuts down both the guilty and the innocent, but this knife has only one edge. Her rib cage quivers with breath and in a frenzy I jump towards the ceiling, the knife plunging into her navel with the full force of my body behind it before my feet touch the ground. My face is splattered with pink and the knife is too deep for me to retrieve.

I immediately collapse backwards into a chair and let out a deep sigh, relieved that the act has been accomplished. I take and release a deep breath. My tensed muscles slacken, but are not yet relaxed. I close my eyes and think of an endless wave crashing over me. My body loosens up some more, but I am still not relaxed.

I open my eyes and look at Marina. I am convinced she has never moved. She could be wearing anything. Perhaps orange and black like a monarch butterfly. I think she is wearing black stretch pants just past the knee revealing the toned muscles of an athlete. Strong, powerful legs that could run a marathon. Legs which are fully alive, with no flab to deaden them. Her rib cage is still quivering underneath her top, something orange. Perhaps she is still alive, struggling for breath. Maybe she is sobbing with pain. But no. Any movement is only a trick of the light. She is clearly dead and unmoving.

A smile twitches to life on my lips, but I kill it. I look at the ground. I pull up the sleeve of my shirt and look at the pink cuts on my arm. I turn the knife, which despite being in Marine is in my hand, and I stare at the slice of my reflection its thin surface affords. A single eye stares back at me, uninterested. I drop the knife and look at Marine, still unmoving, still dead. I thought she was a person, but she's just a thing, a lump of meat. I think of all the things I'll need to do to clean up. Chopping up the body and stuffing it into suitcases. Dragging those suitcases, now heavy with the weight of death, to my truck. Driving to a solitary place in the woods and digging a hole deep enough. Coming home and cleaning up. I don't want to do all those things. I don't want to do anything. So I sit here.

Marina was nothing special. One of over six billion people in the world. Nothing she could have done in life would have made her remarkable. Just one insect amongst a swarm. A single grain of sand on a beach. A speck of dust in the attic. She is nothing. I am nothing. If only I had the courage to turn the knife on myself with full force, she'd be at home. Probably asleep in bed dreaming of a grocery store in which she avoids men in trench coats and gets butterflies stuck in her hair. I feel like dreaming right now, but I have to wait until her body decomposes so there'll be room for me on the bed. She who was born from the earth, molded out of clay, has again become clay and will now return to earth, food for worms.

I stare at her body. I'm exhausted to the point of laughter. But I laugh in only a breathy whisper. I feel nothing because I am nothing. I want a taste of death, so I stand up and approach her. Her eyes half-opened, make her looked drugged. I gently pull her lids back, but find the gaze unnerving, so I pull her eyes shut. Now she is asleep and I am a virgin stealing a first kiss. I kneel next to the bed and gaze at her lips. I touch her lips with my finger. Shush. I circle the mouth gathering her cold saliva and bring the finger to my own lips. Death tastes empty. I kiss her forehead and back away.

It's late and I'm tired. I curl up on the floor like a potato bug and fall asleep.

      3 March

I can't scream to stop the silence. The low hum, that constant drone of soundlessness, keeps me awake even now. I can't concentrate on sleep with all the white shapes that appear in absolute darkness. A net of them dissolves into the negative space of a skyline, sun and its rays, mountain, a sky scraper. Then they become an arrow, forever poised, never let go.

      4 March

In the year of our Lord 1212, a young shepherd boy named Jim was tending to his flocks near the village of Cloyes, when there came into sight a pilgrim who appeared suddenly in the near distance. The pilgrim announced that he had a message from God that Jim should take to the king of France. The mysterious pilgrim handed Jim the letter, then after walking a short distance away, seemed to vanish. Jim wished to know the contents of the letter, but since he could not read, he took the letter with him to the village and asked the preacher what it said.

The preacher read over the letter several times and asked the boy where he had gotten it. Stephen (Jim) told him the story.

"It is miraculous," the preacher said. "The pilgrim who gave it to you must have been an angel, for the letter calls for a new crusade to the holy land to retrieve the True Cross, which we have lost in battle to the infidels."

Jim grew excited and announced the news to the entire village. Some were doubtful, but the next day luminous crosses appeared in the sky and they at once all believed his words. They determined to march at once to St. Denis and deliver the letter to the king. Many made banners announcing the new crusade, and they chanted the entire way. "Lord God, exalt Christianity! Lord God, give us the True Cross!" Along the way, other villagers learned of the miraculous events which had occurred and joined them until their ranks swelled to thirty thousand souls. Most of them were the young and the poor and so this was called the Children's Crusade. Among them were flagellants, whipping themselves until their backs were raw and red in order to atone. One of the particularly penitent was named Ryan.

When they arrived at St. Denis, the king Philip Augustus received them and took the letter to be looked over by the knowledgeable religious scholars at the university. After brief examination, the scholars said the letter was not from God. Most of the thirty thousand dispersed back to their homes, but a small group of believers, mainly children, remained with Jim and Ryan to see what God would have them do.

After several nights, Jim had a vision in which the Mediterranean Sea parted before them as the Reed Sea had for the Children of Israel. Jim explained that the king could not help them. The king had already been on a crusade and failed due to his greed and pride. The crusades of the kings had all failed due to their unworthiness. This crusade needed to be lead by the poor and righteous. Did the angels not announced the birth of Jesus to the shepherds on Christmas Day? The Lord had chosen the weak to confound the strong. The children would finally do what their parents could not.

They marched to the southernmost tip of France, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. There, they waited for the waters to part for them, to open a passageway to Jerusalem. When they got to the Holy Land, they would peacefully take it back from the infidels. They would reclaim the True Cross which had been lost due to the greed and pride of the previous crusaders. But the sea never parted. They waited on its shores for weeks. One day, some merchant ships came, on their way to Jerusalem. They agreed to give the children a ride.

We do not know what happened to the Children's Crusade after this, whether the ships were lost at sea or ship wrecked upon some distant shore. However, we do know that the Muslims acquired an astonishing number of blonde haired, blue eyed slaves in the years immediately after.

      5 March

Ryan was lying in his bed in the darkness, when a woman he assumed to be his wife entered and joined him in bed. She ran her hands over his body and kissed his chest and he soon became aroused. She mounted him and they made love, but something wasn't quite right. Something was different. Her flesh was a certain bit more oily than usual and she didn't seem to weigh as much as usual. It was utterly dark and thus he could not see her. He began to suspect that it wasn't her when she clasped her hands onto his shoulders while she forcefully pounded against his body, but as the moment of orgasm approached all else stopped mattering as Ryan briefly became weightless and felt himself empty into her womb.

He knew it wasn't his wife at all. He stood up from bed, causing the woman to tumble onto the floor. He turned on the lights and found that the woman was really the teenaged girl who lived downstairs, still with pimples on her face. He was disgusted at the way she had just used his body for her own enjoyment. The horrible deception made his entire body feel dirty. He had never thought it possible before this moment, but Ryan had just been raped by a girl half his size.

      6 March

The last time I was in a used books store, I came across many desirable comics, but decided WhiteWave was my favorite, without ever reading it. I didn't know exactly what it was about. WhiteWave was an imp or demon of some sort with horns and a pointed tail. He looked vaguely like Night Crawler from the X-Men comics, but he was much smaller and he was entirely white, his clothes, skin, hair, even eyes. In the used books store I was in, I picked up one of the WhiteWave comics and flipped through the pages. WhiteWave was in the underworld in this one, maybe he always was, I'm not sure. Anyway, there wasn't much dialogue, just dark and draby pictures of the underworld, some so dark you could hardly see what was going on. It seemed there were a bunch of demons just sitting around in the desolate landscape which only the occasional sickly looking plant adorned. The place was an absolute wasteland but the inhabitants seemed happy to be there with nothing going on. Then, someone disrupted the peace. A guy from the upper world, or maybe one of the demons, got its hands on the Mercurial Ring, which was bright and shiny and acted as a beacon in this gloomy place. It was golden, encrusted with rubies, emeralds, diamonds, garnets, and sapphires. The villain put the ring on and declared in a booming voice so that the entire underworld could hear: "I have the power of Mercury!" and he proceeded to laugh maniacally. WhiteWave would have some trouble trying to stop him, I thought to myself as I shut the comic. I really wanted to buy the comic, but I was unable to afford it, so I returned it to the shelf.

      8 March

It's been dark for days now. It gets so dark sometimes, you can actually feel the dark on you. Like being inside a cloud, surrounded with fog. Darkness actually condenses. The lack of light can become tangible when there's enough of it. Strange how illogical this all sounds to me now.

      10 March

Emerald lawn stretched out in every direction. But not lawn really. More like wild grass which never grew above a certain height. In either case, I didn't give particular attention to what I was walking over. I didn't look down once as I approached the cliff. Not much of a cliff. Ten, twenty feet. And the slope wasn't sheer. It almost was, but there was enough gradation that, if one had enough mind to do it, one could climb up it without using his hands. Until the very top. There you would have to use hands.

But I was going up the other side of it. The gently sloping, grass covered, lightly windy side. Two men were over looking the cliff. There was a wheel barrow. One of the men, who I recognized to be Ryan from his silhouette even far away, was sorting through the contents of the wheel barrow, holding up what he pulled out to the other man for approval, then he threw the bundle over the edge of the cliff into the water. The second man was his supervisor.

When I got close enough, I saw with horror that the wheel barrow was full of babies. Numb with shock, I watched passively as Ryan chose a baby, held it up for the supervisor to look over, then dropped it into the water. Looking down, I could distinctly make out several infant corpses whose heads had been crushed against the sharp rocks in the river. The clear cool stream, so clean it at times didn't appear to be there, turned muddy with blood after passing through the corpses. Unfortunately, not all were corpses. Some of the babies hadn't hit right at the bottom and were still alive, helplessly flailing their arms and crying out so loud I could hear them over the rush of the water. As I watched, most of the babies mercifully died by drowning. However, one unfortunate who hadn't landed fully in the water was still alive and would continue to be so for a long painful time.

I turned to Ryan and asked why he was doing this. He replied that he was doing this because the supervisor was watching him so closely. I then asked the supervisor why they were throwing babies off of the cliff, to which he responded, "I'm not doing anything. I'm just supervising."

I could think of nothing to do, so I stepped out of their way and watched as one more baby was carefully selected, approved of, then dropped. Ryan then got behind the wheel barrow and began to push it down the hill, the supervisor watching him carefully to make sure he didn't go too fast or too slow or cut any corners or take any unnecessary steps. I watched the sole survivor on the shore below, still screaming for all the world like a banshee, surrounded by the blood and guts of other infants. Then I hurried down the hill and caught up with Ryan and his supervisor. I looked into the wheel barrow to see that it was empty.

"Why," I asked, "Is the wheel barrow empty? Didn't you choose certain ones to drop? Why not just turn the wheel barrow over at the top of the hill? If you were going to kill all of them anyway, why not all at once?"

"Because," said Ryan, "That's how it's done."

"Would it have been possible," I wondered, "For one of them to have stayed in the wheel barrow? To have been passed over?"

"No," said Ryan. "That is impossible. All of them meet the same fate. Although, as you saw, not all indiscriminately."

I felt sick and wanted to leave this area all together, but I was stopped by the supervisor. He walked around and stood in front of me with a broad smile on his face. He stuck out his hand and I did likewise.

"Hi," he said. "I'm your new supervisor. I'm hoping that we can be friends."

I wanted to make a good first impression with my new supervisor, so I shook his hand vigorously and told him we would become the best of friends.

      11 March

I was in the library with a girl named Orivan. We were looking through the collection of books when I noticed my reflection in a mirror. I saw that I was a girl too. I'd never been a girl before, so I was naturally curious as to how my female parts felt. Orivan became distracted with a section of books dedicated to photography, so while she wasn't looking, I quickly rubbed my hands over my breasts. The most astonishing sensation passed throughout my entire body. I felt like all of my inner parts were experiencing orgasm and the feeling lasted a few seconds longer than when I was a boy. I arched my back and closed my eyes as the warm tingling shuddered through me.

When it was over, I of course wanted to do it again, and not just a brief passage of hands this time, but a full petting session. I also thought about how it must feel to touch my vagina, to insert my fingers and gently circle the pulsating orifice. But since I was in the library and someone might see me, I knew I had to wait to explore my new found femininity. Right now I caught up with Orivan and saw that she was standing next to a boy, who was her brother Jean.

Since I was still a girl, I was afraid that Jean would want to have sex with me or kiss me or stare at my ample breasts. He sensed that I was afraid of him, and knew the reason, so to show me that I had nothing to fear from him, he wrapped his arm around a nearby boy who I hadn't seen, and hugged him passionately. So I knew that Jean was gay and I could be myself around him. Jean let go of the boy, and then I realized that I was a boy again. I knew I didn't have to worry about Jean trying to flirt with me, since it was obvious to him that I was attracted to his sister Orivan. He knew that I was straight, so I knew that I could be myself around him.

Now the only person I couldn't be myself around was Orivan, since I was attracted to her. I felt awkward in her presence even though she seemed to be ignoring me and I couldn't be as free and open with her as I could with Jean. The three of us went to another part of the library and it became their house. We were in Orivan's room looking at some pictures from a year ago.

"Look, there I am," Jean and Orivan both said, pointing themselves out in one of the pictures. I looked closely at the picture and saw that there was a third figure with them, about the same age. The picture was kind of dark, but I could tell the third figure was me by the shirt I was wearing.

"Hey look," I said. "I'm in the picture too." I had just met both of them in the library an hour ago, so it was weird that I was in their picture from so long ago. "I thought you looked familiar," I said to both of them.

"I don't remember ever meeting you before," Jean confessed.

"Yep. That's you all right," Orivan said. "Maybe you were just walking by in the background."

In the picture all three of us were standing together, almost touching, so I knew this was a picture I posed for. I wasn't just walking by in the background.

"Hey look," Jean said. "Your whole family is there. I guess our families knew each other."

I saw that my brother was in fact hiding behind me in the picture, so that you couldn't see him, and the rest of my family was hiding behind him.

"Okay," I said. "That's how we knew each other."

      12 March

The next day, I wanted to go see Jean and Orivan again because I liked them. I remembered where their house was at, and let myself in. The house was very big and I knew that their father was very rich. The house was so big, that after wandering around it for half an hour, I still couldn't find them. Then I saw the stairs and the elevator and realized they must not be on this floor at all. There were six floors to the house and a basement, and each level would take me an hour to fully explore. I thought the best way to find them was to ask somebody where they were at. I heard voices coming from up the stairs, so I went up the stairs.

There, I found some of Jean and Orivan's little brothers and sisters. I asked one of them if she could lead me to her older siblings. The little girl went into a kind of trance and I realized I had spoken my request in a magical voice, and that I had enchanted her to do my bidding. She started to walk like a zombie towards the elevator to lead me to her older brother and sister. I decided that while it wasn't good to go around putting people into trances, I could release her once I found Jean and Orivan, and that shouldn't take but five minutes.

However, the little girl's father saw what I had done and demanded that I release his daughter from my magic. I immediately did so and explained to him that I wanted to find Orivan and her brother Jean. When I finished speaking, I saw that he was even angrier than before. Those were his two least favorite children and he loathed anyone associated with them. I tried to be as pleasant as I could and explain I just wanted to know where they were, but he refused to tell me.

I then turned to the little girl I had previously put in a trance and asked her if she knew where her brother and sister were. She said she had many brothers and sisters. I looked around the room and saw that there were five children here. Counting Orivan and Jean and taking into account the fact that some of the children might be in other rooms, I asked her if she had ten brothers and sisters.

"I have fifteen," she replied, the epitome of cuteness. I was surprised that there were five children more than I had thought.

I then asked the girl if she knew where Jean and Orivan were. She said she did and started to lead me to where they were. Her father interrupted us however, and demanded I let his little girl go, even though she wasn't even in a trance this time.

I didn't want to cause any trouble, so I let the little girl go play with her brothers and sisters and I wandered into the next room by myself. I searched through the house until I found a secret elevator. The elevator was small and I barely fit inside. I rode the elevator up to the top. It went up to the sixth floor and the doors opened, but I knew Jean and Orivan were on the seventh floor, so I looked up and saw that there was a small opening at the top of the elevator. I opened it up and was barely able to fit through the top.

I climbed out of the elevator and found myself on the seventh floor that the father didn't know about. Jean greeted me and explained that the seventh floor was the place where everybody could be themselves. I saw that there were other boys up here, one as young as five years old, and I knew that they were all gay. Their fathers didn't like them being gay, so they all came up here to the seventh floor, not to have sex with each other, but just to be themselves. None of them were kissing or even holding hands. They just wanted to be.

I found Orivan in the kitchen, but her back was to me and she never turned around.

      15 March

A. C. had been the owner of the restaurant for such a long time, none of us could remember when she first bought it. We couldn't even remember what circumstances lead her to this small town. We had really come to take her presence for granted and couldn't imagine life without her. To me, it was almost like she was a part of the restaurant. Its foundation would crumble without her accidental presence.

As I continued to think about it, I knew her being here was entirely by accident, and her name hadn't always been A. C. She hadn't always been reliable; she hadn't always been the granite capstone which completed us. I did know that however she behaved in the beginning, her coming here had been a present to the rest of us working at the restaurant and we were lucky to have received her. Over the next few days as life at the restaurant continued on as it always had, business as usual interrupted occasionally by the surprise appearance of our enemy, I devoted all my extra thought to remembering how A. C. first came to be with us and what life was like before she came and brought us peace. I remembered the story in bits and pieces until one day the entire narrative was complete and I was transported to the past.

She had first arrived on a train in the company of me and my twin brother. Back then, she called herself Rain and we called ourselves Cain and Able. We were on the train because we were escaping from something. One of us had done something in the past, further back than I can remember, for which someone wanted to capture us and punish us. We had jumped onto the train without buying a ticket. It might have been because I was so nervous about getting caught, but I thought every other passenger on that train knew we were fugitives and didn't sound an alarm only because they feared for their own safety. We discovered an empty compartment and kept mainly to ourselves for the duration of the train ride. I knew we couldn't get off the train at the station, since somebody would be watching for us, so before the train entered the final tunnel, the three of us jumped off and found our way into town from where we landed.

It was an old western town which had seen better days. Most of the buildings were made out of wood and were falling apart before our eyes. It hadn't quite been abandoned, we could see that people still managed to eke out a living here, and it was one of the train's regular stops, so the flow of commerce continued, if at a crawl. Despite the town's general dilapidated presence, it appeared brilliant and new to us for it was our freedom, a place where we could start our lives over. We wanted to explore every rotting building and meet all the people who called this place home. However, when I scanned the row of buildings alongside the main dirt road, seen through a fog of dust kicked up by the new arrivals from the train station, I saw one building which was as familiar as home. It was the restaurant. Even though I'd never been inside the building before, I knew I would come to call it home. Unlike the surrounding buildings, it was made out of gold and it caught the sunlight in a way that none of the other buildings could.

I pointed the building out to Rain. My twin had already seen it. He and I were both excited about going to the restaurant. Even though we'd never been there before, it felt like we were returning after a long absence. Rain didn't seem as excited about it. She didn't register any emotion at all. If anything, she seemed reluctant to go near the building, but Cain and I dragged her to the front steps and explained to her what her future would be. She'd become the owner of this restaurant and remain here for so long people would think of her as a fixture of the place. For some reason, she didn't like this idea and wanted to leave, but Cain and I knew that she would become owner of this restaurant as surely as we knew of our own existence. There was no questioning it, she belonged here and nowhere else. She might be reluctant now, but after passing through the front doors and seeing the place from the inside, there'd be no room for her to doubt.

She stepped inside with us and looked around. Cain was too excited to stand by the doorway, he immediately rushed past everybody up the stairs where the employees lived to pick out his room. This is why Cain has a better room than me I now realize. I stayed next to Rain, since I knew she still needed more convincing. I could tell by the expression on her face that she didn't believe she belonged here. She must have thought that she was out of place, even though everyone else in the restaurant immediately recognized that she belonged here more than anybody else. She told me she didn't want to own this restaurant, but I knew as sure as my own memory that she had to become this restaurant’s owner. I looked up and saw Isaac, the bearded and muscular bartender, was watching us. He'd heard everything we'd said. Seeing that A. C. was still uncertain, he spoke up and confirmed everything that I'd said. "You will be the owner of this establishment," he said. He said it with full conviction in his voice. It was like the future had already happened for all of us. There was no avoiding it.

However, what was so obvious to all the rest of us continued to elude A. C. She refused to believe that her future was unchangeable. She insisted that her becoming owner of this restaurant was not a foregone conclusion. She couldn't explain why Isaac and everybody else in the place recognized her as an old friend, but she didn't want to follow the path fate had set for her. She wanted to continue to travel and see the world. She wanted to meet new people and experience new things. She wanted the freedom to explore and investigate whatever she came across. She simply did not want to remain stationary in a job as mundane as owner of a restaurant.

I turned around now and looked back out the front doors. A golden newspaper had appeared on the front steps. I knew this would finally convince A. C. of her future because it was a newspaper from tomorrow. I retrieved the paper and unrolled it on the front table, showing A. C. that it was Sunday's paper. The extra large advertisement and comics section were proof enough that this paper was from tomorrow. Nevertheless, she still didn't believe us. Even with the clearest proof right in front of her eyes, she refused to believe what was so plain to everybody else. "Show her the lottery numbers," Isaac suggested. Of course! Once she saw the lottery numbers, it would be impossible for her to reject the truth. The absolute proof the lottery numbers evinced was so overwhelming, even the most staunch skeptic could not doubt. That was as much as I could remember about A. C.'s first appearance at the restaurant. I'm not sure if the lottery numbers finally convinced her, but something must have for she has been the owner for longer than most patrons can remember.

Currently, all the employees are gathered together in the kitchen because we are all hungry. There isn't anything for us to eat, since business has not been good for the past few days. We've been too busy staying one step ahead of our enemy. The events of last night have mainly disappeared from our memories, but if I concentrate very hard, I'm still able to see glimpses of what happened. We had been invited to a tour of a modern castle full of wondrous things none of us has ever seen. We knew that our enemy, who was powerful beyond our ability to resist her, owned the castle and was probably leading us into a trap, so we proceeded with caution. A. C. and I were the first to arrive. We had dressed in casual clothes. A large man in black greeted us at the door. A butler in black and white stood behind him, holding out a hat in his hand. I dropped a couple gold coins into the hat and the butler announced our names to the large man. "Mister Able and Mistress A. C." I then noticed a box opposite the butler, which I dropped an extra two coins into. At this point, Cain and his date arrived, dressed magnificently in luxurious formal wear. He was wearing a suit, and she a silver sequined dress which sparkled brilliantly, bringing extra light to the room. Both of them were very happy to be here and couldn't wait for the others to show up so they could begin their tour of the vast castle. The next thing I remember is driving away from the castle in a large van filled with empty boxes. I was in the back corner of the van with Cain and the boxes kept tumbling down on top of us.

Now, we are all in the kitchen and extraordinarily hungry. I look over at the stove and notice Fiona Apple is lying on top of the stove, dead. Her body is twisted in such a way that a substantial portion of her is on top of each burner. Since we are all so hungry, and since human flesh is supposed to be the most succulent flavor for another human to taste, I turn on the first burner, which was underneath her buttocks. Even with her clothes on, I could see her buttocks start to glow red with the heat. I now turn on the other three burners, heating up the rest of her body.

While waiting for her to properly cook, I felt a sudden urgency to get something from my house. I ran outside alone into the dark and found my car parked on the side of the road just beyond the restaurant’s front lawn. My car was parked in one of the lanes, but even though this was only a two lane road, cars from each direction had no trouble passing it. I got into the car and thought that I should pull to the shoulder to make sure no cars crashed into me while I was starting it up. However, the car wouldn't start up and even when I managed to move the car to the shoulder, it was in the way of several motorists. I realized the car was best left where it was, and I went back inside the restaurant.

There, I saw that Fiona Apple had been cut up and her various parts were divided among some pots filled with boiling water. Her rump was in one pot, her legs in another, her right breast and upper torso in another, and her head in the forth. Her eyes were still open, glassy and unseeing and her hair was arranged in a pony tail.

      16 March

We were in an antiques store. This antiques store had everything; it seemed everybody was able to find what they wanted quickly and pay for it without incident. I watched as a line of girls came up to the cash register each with a pin. Cain was angry because he really wanted this hooded cape, but it was quite expensive and somebody else was about to buy it. I could see Cain was about to get in a fight with the other customer. Then I heard the cashier announce that there were more items upstairs. Wanting to avoid whatever Cain was about to get himself into, I said, "Let's go upstairs," and began climbing the ladder.

A. C. and her sister followed Cain and I up the ladder to the second floor. It wasn't as crowded as the first floor had been, in fact, nobody else was here. Orivan immediately found something she had to have lying on a table next to where we came up the ladder. It was a model ship with all its sails at full mast. A. C. found many things she wanted to have hung up on the far wall. There were paintings that had been in her family for generations, but she, like everybody in the store, could afford to buy only one item, so she chose a stack of black and white photographs of her and her sister and brother. She showed the photos to us excitedly. When I looked at the photos I saw only her sister and brother. A. C. herself was not in the picture. She began to explain that she wasn't in the pictures because they had been taken while she was invisible, like everybody is for a year or so when they're a kid growing up about to be an adult.

I was able to find my object of desire, also. A group of WhiteWash comic books. WhiteWave was now WhiteWash and his appearance on the covers had changed. He was now a rather generic looking man, about six feet tall, wearing a white costume which stretched over his entire body. His face was blank, like somebody had forgotten to draw it in. On the covers I looked through, I saw that he used a beam of energy to ride on around the skyscrapers, like Ice Man. I didn't browse through the comic because I wanted to be surprised. I knew I wanted to buy it, so I started pulling all the WhiteWash comics out of the bin and stacking them in Cain's arms.

Cain didn't find anything he liked up here because the one and only item that would satisfy him was the hooded cape downstairs. There were several hooded capes downstairs of course, but the one he wanted was just the right shade of dark red. They had hooded capes in every color of the spectrum, but this one particular color alone would satisfy him, and somebody else had already bought it.

The four of us then went downstairs to pay for our purchases and leave the establishment. However, when we got downstairs we saw that all the merchandise had been cleared out and everyone was sitting in rows watching a slide show the cashier was presenting. We walked towards the back of the room looking for a place to sit down until we wound up in the very back row right in front of the projector.

Cain saw Isaac sitting next to the projector and greeted him, but the cashier was mad Cain was standing in front of the projector and made him move. Isaac was a teenager with a sparse beard and slim build, sitting by himself looking sullen. Cain, A. C., and Orivan slid down the row and sat down. I sat nearest to Isaac. The cashier continued his presentation.

He explained that he was a magician and showed a picture of himself in magician robes. He told us of his plan to summon the Dragon, which would first involve getting a large group of people together for the Dragon to feast on. He explained he would keep the people from running away by giving everyone the one object they desired above all others. Nobody would run away from their one true object of desire, so they would all stay together in the room while the Dragon ate them. He then showed a slide of the Dragon being summoned. The Dragon zipped across the screen too fast for anyone to see what it looked like.

I turned around and saw the Dragon sitting nearby. He was a young boy with blonde hair and a dopey look on his face. The Magician was ready to give him the power. I stood up and pushed the boy down into a row of empty fold out chairs which clattered around him. The Magician then ran towards me, and although he was twice my height and twice my width, I was able to shove him down into a row of empty chairs also.

However, I knew I couldn't leave here without the WhiteWash comics. I ran back to my seat and saw A. C. and Orivan both picking up their objects of desire, unable to run just like me. But then I saw that Cain didn't have any object of desire, so I picked up my comics and handed them to him, since I knew he'd carry them for me. He also carried Orivan's boat and A. C.'s photographs. The four of us were then able to run outside to the parking lot, where Cain's old truck was parked in the far corner. We ran to his truck, got in, and drove down the road, making many twists and turns to lose the dragon, which had assumed its true shape by now after feeding on the room full of people and was chasing us down, tracking us by flying above us, obscuring the sun and every cloud such was its size.

We were only able to escape because it now considered us insignificant and didn't bother with us. The three of us were relieved to have escaped with our objects of desire, but Cain was still unhappy and would be from now on.

      18 March

Jim showed me a packet yesterday. As I flipped through its pages, I became overwhelmed with disgust. There were crime scene photos and descriptions about gruesome murders. In one case, one victim's body was stuffed inside another victim. The first girl who was killed was named Mary. Her body was chopped up and fed raw to another girl, intestines first. Next came the heart and the brain which had been mashed up into a sticky clump of paste before being forced down the second girl's throat. When the killer couldn't shove anything else into the girl's mouth, he started to shove small pieces of bloody body parts into her vagina and ass hole. The second girl eventually died from lack of oxygen.

The murderer was known as the Butterfly Killer because of what he did with his first victim. She was tied to a ladder which pressed her against a wall. The killer then hammered a rusty old railroad spike through her throat and through the wall, pinning her. The elderly lady in the apartment on the other side was out visiting her grandkids when the murder occurred, but called police when she came home and found the sharp end of the bloody spike protruding from an oil canvas painting of her mother.

I was morbidly interested in these various murders and wanted to read of his other four victims, but my stomach wouldn't allow me to read much further. My mind is unfortunately quite expert at conjuring up realistic hallucinations of whatever I try to imagine in my mind. When I looked up from the packet, I saw a bloody spike protruding into my cubicle wall, with some sort of yellow stuff hanging down from it. I had to go to the bathroom and splash some water on my face.

When I passed Jean's desk, I found he and Nicole looking at pictures of naked woman on the company computer. I knew that the IT guys could track which websites the employees pulled up, and that both Nicole and Jean would eventually be fired if they tempted fate like this too often. However, what is most disturbing was that I discovered they were using the naked woman as cover, and were really interested in a website more forbidden, one with stolen copies of police crime photos, the very website Jim printed this packet out from.

      22 March

Oh Sally, of the pedestrian name and average looks, Sally of the blonde hair which reaches down past the waist, there's something familiar about you, as if we were lovers in a past life. I knew immediately upon my first glimpse of you that we had everything in common, that an uncomfortable silence would never creep up between us. We two are meant for marriage, that can't be denied. We are as comfortable around each other as an old married couple who know each other's thoughts and no longer require the formality of words. Sally, I feel your force inside me, your words inside my head, your spirit, if partially, overlapping mine. We are two who destiny can never separate. Oh Sally, why can't I look up from your adorable pink socks which rise just above the ankle, fringed with white lace? Sally, my Sally, why can't I reintroduce myself to you? Why am I unable to articulate what every beat of my heart makes manifest. Sally! Without you, I'd kill myself.

      25 March

Simon was digging a hole into the earth next to the one I was digging. Seeing that no one else was here, he looked up at me and smiled. We might as well be friends. There's no point in ignoring each other when conversation makes time travel so much quicker.

"How deep do these have to be?" I asked, since I was new to the project and confused.

"I'm new here too," he volunteered. "I don't know, but six feet should do it."

"Yes, that sounds right to me."

We dug deeper until we could no longer effectively communicate, both of us underground. The holes we dug were rectangular, seven feet from top to bottom, four from right to left. As you, dear reader, have already guessed, these holes we dug were our own graves, and when we completed them, our supervisor would kick the dirt back on top of us, so we took several breaks.

Nicole came by to check up on us. She was a supervisor, but not our supervisor, so we were not afraid. She complained of how monumentally bored she was and expressed her desire that things would get busier soon. Simon and I commiserated, then exchanged glances and got back to work.

      26 March

We were staying at a hotel, but our enemy knew we were here, so we weren't safe. The bulk of our group left the hotel right away, hoping to avoid the enemy. A small group of us stayed, hoping the enemy would be too distracted with chasing those who left to bother with those of us who stayed. Among those of us who stayed were Simon who looked like Samuel L. Jackson, Nicole who was a high school student, Jean who liked to goof off, Ryan who cut himself, Mary who was going to be the Butterfly Killer's sixth victim, and of course me. Orivan, Isaac, A. C., Jim, and Cain fled with the first group and I hoped they were all right.

While we huddled together in our basement hotel room, I complemented Mary on how beautiful she looked. She was actually rather plain looking, but compared to the crime scene photos of her I saw in Jim's packet, she was stunning. I could tell Mary wanted to kiss me because I complemented her, so I tried to think of a way to leave the rest of the group and be alone with her. We couldn't leave the room because our enemy was searching for us outside, so I thought to hide in the closet.

Before I ducked into the closet, I saw that Ryan had cut all sorts of designs into his arms and legs. His left arm had the word 'Freak' surrounded by all these small gaping mouths. Since he was right handed, the design on his right arm was not as good and the knife had not cut as deep. I told him the designs on his arm were cool, and he lifted his shirt to show me a four pointed star on his chest. I've tried drawing a picture of what this four pointed star looked like, but I've never been able to repeat it. Instead of two diamonds overlapping each other, he used equilateral triangles whose bases were parallel to each other like in the hexagram, but with two fewer points.

I then ducked into the closet and pulled coats and blankets over me so that I was hidden. Simon thought this was a much better way to hide from the enemy than standing behind the door which is what he was doing, so he joined me in the closet. Jean, being a jokester imitated us imperfectly by putting on several layers of clothing and just standing in the closet as if this was as good a way to hide. But this was no time to joke around. Simon instructed me in how cover every inch of my skin completely and put a veil on that I could see through, so that I was dressed up with coats and blankets like a traditional Muslim woman. "Now you're a Muslim," he said.

While we were in the closet, the lights came on. We had turned them off to trick the enemy into thinking this room was empty. We knew the enemy was in our room. I hoped that the enemy wouldn't kill all of us, that some of us would be passed over. I kept very still and waited until they left, turning the lights off behind them. The three of us came out of the closet and saw that only Nicole, who had hidden under the bed, was still here. Since we still needed to wait the enemy out, Jean got out a pack of cards and played Egyptian Rat Screw with Simon and Nicole. I didn't join in the game since I was standing guard.

I went down the hall and asked the manager if the gentlemen were gone. He assured me that they were and that if they came back, he would not let them back in the hotel. I didn't feel fully satisfied with this, but I was glad that they were gone. I went back into our room and watched the other three play cards. I noticed several doubles in the brief time I was there, and I wondered why no one slapped the cards. Jean finally said, "That's it! From now on, we slap the doubles."

I thought we should prepare to leave the hotel, so I started to put my shoes on and told everybody else to do the same. While we were tying our shoes, I jumped into the closet and tied mine while standing up. I thought that if someone should come into the room and surprise the others, I could surprise whoever it was. Nobody came while we were tying our shoes and soon they went back to the card game. I found a gray fleece jacket hanging from the bed post which belonged to me and put it on, in preparation for going outside.

I then went back out into the hall to see if it was safe for us to make a run for it. I saw that the gentlemen had returned and were waiting by the door to be let in. Mr. Fence was in front. The manager went to answer the door, and despite his earlier assurances to me, he let them in and began to lead them downstairs to where we were. I ran back to our room to warn everybody that we had to leave immediately, and saw that they had already put the cards away and had put on their coats.

I looked through our open door down the hall and saw the manager lead Mr. Fence to a room opposite ours. The stairway was between the rooms, so I knew this was our chance. I dashed towards the stairs, only to be stopped by the Copper-toned Gentleman. I pulled my fist back and let it fly with full force right at his nose, but the Copper-toned Gentleman only turned his head slightly, then looked back at me as if nothing had happened. I punched him in the face again, with even less effect. He stared back at me without doing anything.

I ran past him up the stairs and my friends followed. I saw the Ghastly-faced Gentleman was waiting close to the door. I ran out the door and held it open for my friends, then when the Ghastly-faced Gentleman tried to follow, I slammed the door shut on him. He was able to push the door back open using not much of his strength and stuck his head out the door. I slammed the door shut again, with his head outside and his body inside. His neck became putty. He looked at me with a non-expression on his face. He stared at me without doing anything.

I ran away from him and ordered Nicole to start the car, seeing that everybody was able to get in and put their seat belts on during the distraction I caused. The car wouldn't start. Jean got out and started to fix the car, but I said we didn't have any time. I suggested that we push the car into a hiding place, then fix it there. We all got behind the car, which was about the size of a shopping cart, and pushed it to the end of the cul-de-sac. We saw a police car with lights flashing at the corner and shouted at it to help us, but the police officer didn't see us and drove away.

We turned the corner, knowing that Mr. Fence was just behind us. We started pushing the shopping cart faster than was legal and a motorcycle cop going the opposite direction turned around and put his lights on. We stopped for him since we couldn't outrun both the police and the gentlemen. Once he came towards us, we explained that the approaching man was trying to kill us. The police officer said that was a good reason for speeding and he wouldn't give us a ticket. Nicole then asked him if there was anything he could do to save us from Mr. Fence. I told Jean to fix the car now since we were stopped anyway, but he didn't hear me because he was on a cell phone. He was talking to police headquarters, telling them about what was going on. I looked around for Simon, but saw that he was missing.

"Don't bother," I said to Nicole, "Mr. Fence will just kill the police. We have to run away." At which point, I started running again up the side of the road.

Nicole realized I was right. I heard her explain to the cop, "Harry, we have to leave now or Mr. Fence will kill us." She was too concerned with being polite to just run away. Harry, Nicole, and Jean were as good as dead.

I kept running until I reached a hospital. I heard a nurse reading a scary story, but then she was interrupted by another nurse.

"Don't read so loudly, you're scaring the children."

"What if the bad kids hear? They'll be scared into being good," the first nurse replied.

"But what if the good kids hear? They'll have nightmares."

I ran on. I wondered if anyone else in my group was still alive. I looked back, but only saw Mr. Fence. He didn't seem to see me from my position behind the hospital, but I knew he'd never stop looking until he found me. The part of the parking lot I was in was covered with ice and I couldn't run too fast or I'd fall and make enough noise to attract him. Then, I heard the loud nurse finish the story she was reading. "Tommy learned a valuable lesson that day, that while working at a Candy Store was a dream come true for a kid, for an adult it was the most frightening place in the world to be." I saw Tommy trudging towards the Hospital/Candy Store through snow which reached his waist. He was six or seven years old.

      27 March

The Copper-toned Gentleman has almost orange skin and is completely hairless. His face is small for his head and his head is a perfect circle. His face, like the rest of the gentlemen, never shows emotion. The Ghastly-faced Gentleman has pale white skin, like that of a corpse. He is over seven feet tall and has a shock of jet black hair standing straight up from the top of his head. His face is long and drawn out and covered in creases, wrinkles, and scars. Even though his face too lacks emotion, it seems to wear a permanently mournful look. His deep black eyes often get covered by patches of skin. Mr. Fence is an all around average looking fellow of average height and average build. There is nothing remarkable about him except his calm.

      30 March

Our enemy had driven us back to the restaurant. The restaurant was the one place we would be safe from our enemy forever. Isaac no longer wore a beard, but seemed as confident as ever, despite what the enemy had done to him. He wore a cut-off shirt showing off his muscles to everybody, and acted as the restaurant’s bouncer as well as bartender. He didn't seem to be afraid of anything, although he did laugh nervously anytime the dragon flew over us, casting us all in shadow.

Jim didn't seem afraid of the enemy either. He believed that an equal but opposite force known as the friend would appear one day to vanquish the enemy. People had been waiting for the friend to appear for thousands of years, so if the friend ever came, it probably wouldn't be for a long while. Jim was a firm believer, however, and would tell any interested ear how the fall of the enemy would come to pass.

Everybody else was afraid and made no pretension about it. Those few of us who survived had barely escaped the enemy in a variety of unique ways, and we knew that if we ever left the restaurant, the enemy would kill us without ceremony.

A. C. had disappeared. Deep down, we knew that she was dead, but those of us who remembered that far back, thought she instead finally followed her dream of exploring the world and left the restaurant behind because it was a boring job. Since I had been here almost as long as A. C., I became the new owner of the restaurant. I started to wear A. C.'s old clothes, low cut blouses, hip hugging skirts. I arranged my hair in the way she always had it, short and curly. I wore her favorite shade of red lipstick and painted my toe and finger nails red. Small freckles even appeared on both sides of my delicate nose. People started to call me A. C. and I'd occasionally flirt with the male customers as she had done.

One day, a cute boy named Jeff entered the restaurant. It had been awhile since we'd had a customer, so I was all over him. I shoved my admittedly small chest out and smiled broadly at him. "Whatta ya have, sweet thing?"

He took my hand in his and gently kissed it, careful not to spill his saliva upon my pristine wrist. "I'd like to have you, sweet thing."

"Then, you've got me," I said, vaulting the bar. I'd never fallen for a guy this fast before, but something about him was irresitible. He caught me in his arms and carried me upstairs to A. C.'s room. I was the happiest girl in the world, running my hand through his silky hair, gazing into his deep set eyes, the rugged outline of his jaw, lightly dusted with stubble. His sideburns made him look like an old Hollywood actor and his leather jacket was so smooth. His strong sinewy arms lifted my small weight easily. When he licked my lower lip with his tongue, I felt like I would explode.

      1 April

Jeff turned bad quickly, however. I should have known anyone new coming into the restaurant from the outside world was of the enemy. He couldn't physically harm any us while we were in the restaurant, but he did what he could to turn us against each other. He slept with all the girls by the second day, making all the boys feel jealous and all the girls feel betrayed. He became rude and left messes all over the restaurant for me to clean up. He refused to do a bit of work and concentrated all his time in further seducing and betraying all the female patrons and employees. Around here, the saying "Wanna step outside," wasn't said lightly, but after Jeff made Isaac's girlfriend cry by promising to love her by night and treating her like shit by day, Isaac said those fateful words and the two of them left the restaurant. Jeff came back. Isaac didn't.

      2 April

The next day, Nicole returned. She told me the incredible story of her escape on the back of Harry's motorcycle. Unfortunately, they weren't able to save Able, who slipped on the ice in the hospital's parking lot. Mr. Fence pounced on poor Able and tore him apart until only confetti and a wet stain in the snow remained of his body. Cain overheard this conversation and was so torn up by hearing of his twin's death, that he ran outside and was of course never heard from again. Nicole explained that Harry hadn't been killed, but was busy attempting to keep law and order in the outside world, although all he really did was give out traffic tickets.

While Nicole was still relating news from the outside world, Jeff approached her and attempted to seduce her. Usually, he only had to nod in the direction of the broom closet to get a girl to sleep with him, but that didn't work on Nicole, so he tried a few of his pick up lines - "Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?" "You must be tired, from running around in my mind all day." "I feel like we were lovers in a past life." And even, "Wanna fuck?" Jeff had never come across a woman who didn't want to sleep with him, but Nicole was absolutely impervious to his come-ons for some reason none of us ever learned.

He eventually left to seek out easier prey. Once he did, I told Nicole of all the trouble Jeff was causing within the restaurant and how I couldn't help but be in love with him despite how badly he treated me. Nicole told me that the sweet Jeff who had carried me up the stairs was the real Jeff and the dick who treated everybody like shit was a fake Jeff. She explained that all I needed to do was remove his mask and he'd be good again. I was in love with Jeff the way a woman loves a man, and was eager to do whatever it took to make him mine.

I casually went into the next room where Jeff was standing in the center of a large audience. He was wearing a mask just like Nicole said, that made him look like a Dragon. I went up and started dancing with him. He thought that he had seduced me, so he let me get close to him. I pressed my body against his; I crushed my breasts against his chest and wrapped my leg around his. I felt his throbbing wand react to the presence of my body. I ran my hand along that part of his anatomy that would complete mine. Right when he thought he had tricked me into having sex with him again, I pulled off his mask to reveal his real face.

However, he didn't become good, but stayed evil. He ungently picked me up and carried me to my room. He tossed me on the bed and removed his pants. He hiked my skirt up and yanked down my panties. He proceeded to use my vagina like a trampoline. He used my body as if he had great contempt for it. Even though I hated him utterly for being evil, I still couldn't help but be in love with him and even though I knew he'd be with another woman minutes later, I was happy that he was with me now. This was rape for I wasn't consenting and he was violently slamming me against the head board. He was full of hate towards me and I hated him even more. However, the enchantment of the enemy made me moan with pleasure and orgasm when he did. After he emptied himself into my womb, he left the room for another conquest. I pulled his semen out of my pubic hair, wiped the moisture off my thigh and belly, flushed the tissue down the toilet, then I drew myself up into a ball and cried.

      5 April

Perhaps, dear reader, you've noticed the emphasis on "yellow" and "gold" throughout this subtle narrative. This was not accidental. Take from it what meaning you will, and please don't be over critical of the several poetic liberties I took with the story. Please overlook the parts that don't mesh with the other parts. If you were wondering, the story of WhiteWash is continued in a six or seven issue series titled WhiteWater which takes place in the overworld. As you probably already know, 8 April takes place during the day. For those of you wondering what happened to the supervisor, I'll leave it up to your ample imaginations.

The End

      8 April

Just when we thought winter was over, we're all surprised by an overnight snow storm.

2 June 2001