Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
I am not the one in love
and I’m not the one pursuing a dream
I’m not the one questioning my life
or looking back on choices
I am not the one missing you
wondering where you’ve gone
I am not the one in a bed alone
never falling asleep
I am not the one with too much time
to do too little every day
I tell you,
if you see me, I’m not the one
it’s not me
He ignored the man in the crosswalk, almost hitting the guy, not laughing about it, but feeling smug — hey, what’s the problem? I didn’t hit you, you’re fine, so you had to wait two seconds. Big deal.
Speeding up, he cut across lanes, scaring and angering other drivers, shrugging them off, pulling into the parking lot with a little squeal of tires. A space was there to the left, the car just finishing backing out, so he pulled in, cutting off another who was waiting. “Sorry, you snooze, you lose,” he told the woman giving him the finger, giving her the finger back.
He walked straight across the street, making cars stop — what were they going to do, hit him? As he reached the curb, he heard a ding. It wasn’t his phone, he didn’t know what it was, so he shrugged it off, turning right to go across another street, not looking, expecting the others to stop —
The truck driver couldn’t see him. “The sun flashed in my eyes,” he said. “I didn’t expect anyone to be crossing the road, anyhow, because I had the green light.”
The wayward pedestrian was crushed under a wheel, almost like a fluke accident, he heard the police say as his spirit departed his body. Only then did he realize that the ding had been a warning.
Karma had said, enough.
He saw a spot of blood on the path. One led to another, and then a series, about every thirty-six inches. They were not dry, but fresh. After following the blood for a few minutes (going north), he concluded the blood path went south, into the park.
After a moment, he followed the blood into the park. His nature didn’t allow any other outcome.
Batting his ears, he wriggled his eyes, crossed his nostrils, and lowered his chest to think, popping another leaf into his belly-button as he did. Something was different today, but he couldn’t put a toe on it.
He’d meet you with twinkling green eyes, a smile tugging his lips up, and a hand as large as a baseball mitt. Leaning forward, he’d announce, “Pleased to meet you. Hi, I’m Bent.” He always made it seem like meeting you was a special treat for him.
His full name was Bent E. Thompson. The E. was forever just a letter, and wasn’t fronting a name. A man so tall that he was always stooping through doorways, he’d never been in the military but he was as straight and hard as an iron fireplace poker.
Everyone agreed that Bent was as straight as anyone they’d ever met. Yet, after he passed, his swindles, frauds, and schemes started coming out like roaches sneaking out after the lights are turned off. It paralyzed people with disbelief. “Not Bent. Really? I don’t believe it. I’ll never believe it.”
Yet, the proof kept coming out. Funny enough, though, was the epitaph that Bent himself had chosen: “I’m Bent.”
Everyone was always wondering if it was a confession.
Everything felt the same. Hell, it all looked and sounded the same. Likewise, he was going through the same friggin’ routines that defined his life. All of it was very sappy, calling out songs, movies, and novels that spoke about this kind of moment, the moment of pain and realization when someone else, someone who matters, is no longer there.
So he went on, doing his usual shit, but also taking calls, sending and answering emails, making arrangements, listening to sympathy, often secretly crying in his car, bed, bathroom, and kitchen, mourning his loss. Then he went to the services, of course. They were sweet and beautiful, with friends remembering her with tears and laughter. Then, that was done.
After that, life was supposed to resume. Nothing had really changed, except that she wasn’t there. And yet, for all its resemblance for being the same as before, nothing was, or would ever be, the same as before again.
Floofspeare (floofinition) – A writer who is acknowledged as one of the world’s greatest and most prolific authors of all time, responsible for a large offerings of plays and novels, including The Merry Cats of Windsor, The Taming of the Poodle, Much PooPoo About Nothing, Rex the VIII, Fluffy the III, and the infamous Scottish play, Flooflet, about a terrier. Little is known about Floofspeare, and argument continues as to what animal or fowl Floofspeare was, and their sex.
In use: “Little is known of Floofspeare, leading to many fanciful works of fiction about the writer. Must well known is the series of nine books which began with the best-selling novel, The Secret Life of Floofspeare.”
Hulley paused from writing his novel. He’d seen and finished a long scene, all praise the muses. Once that was done, he needed to collect where he was and what was to be done.
Scanning the other patrons and front door, he picked up his coffee. Half remained, but cold as iced-tea. Time? Been here sixty-five minutes. Sipping the coffee, he continued peering around, debating options, choices, and plans. Plenty of time remained but his writing energy seemed as spent as a summer storm. It’d been a good day of writing, but —
His eyes picked up on the opening front door, and then his brain shouted, “Holy shit.” His brain’s declaration slammed the rest of his being into shocked stillness. Through the front door came a pale white man, about six three, narrow-framed, with thin white hair and an ancient poets’ beard. He wobbled like he could be tipsy or suffering from a balance issue. Dressed in ragged, soiled denims on this ninety-plus day with a yellow Polo shirt, a Cubs hat, and aviator styled sunglasses, he didn’t fit in. Hulley gagged on recognition: Breech.
It couldn’t be Breech. He almost laughed at the suggestion. It was too freaking insane. Breech was his fucking character, star of the last scene, a gray-blue antagonist traveling the west coast in his big 1970 Chevy Suburban, hunting and killing kidnappers and rapists. Breech couldn’t be here.
With rising alarm, Hulley conducted a lengthy double-take of the coffee shop. Gone was the tidy suburbanized business with its lit glass food cases and soft beige and blue walls, replaced by a cramped, smaller, and darker place, an old home re-purposed as a cafe. It wasn’t that Breech was here; it was that he was there.
Breech strolled past his table like a spinning top losing energy. Although the man wore sunglasses, Hulley felt Breech rake him with the predatory blue eyes he’d seen with his mind too many times. Breech always thought he knew his quarry by the way they reacted to his scrutiny. The guilty stayed relaxed but the innocents were unnerved.
Slapping his coffee mug down, Hulley gulped down a lump that could’ve been a rock. He didn’t know what was going to happen or what had happened to him, but it looked like the next scene was beginning.
Sucking in a deep breath, he began typing. What else could a writer do?
His head was down against the silvery sunshine heat. Walking along, he looked up to orient his course and spotted Doctor Frank further up the white cement sidewalk.
He literally froze where he was. His heart beat – he felt it – but a shocked stupor held him stiff. Doctor Frank had died two months before. This had to be a doppelganger. He’d heard or read that everyone has an exact replica of themselves elsewhere on the world. This was the most perfect one he’d ever seen. The man was just like Doctor Frank, the biologist, in every aspect from his impish, good-natured expression, gray and white beard, and slender-as-a-broom frame to the outdoor pants, boots, and vest that were Doctor Frank’s regular attire, including the forest green bush hat.
He snapped out of it. The result put him up the sidewalk past where he’d spotted Doctor Frank, as if he’d never stopped. His head swooned. Pausing to regain control of his senses, he saw Q across the street, waiting to cross.
Now that was fucking impossible. Q’d died four years ago. Like Doctor Frank, doppelganger Q was an eerie ghost of his deceased friend. As he wondered what the what, he saw his mother-in-law, Jean, dead for the last two years, off to the left, with her husband, Carl, who’d been dead since 1992.
“Holy shit,” reverberated through his mind and came out his mouth. “What’s going on?”
In a blink, he realized all the color had deserted the world, as though he was watching a movie on an old black-and-white television. Closing his eyes to recover, he gasped; with his eyes closed, he could see everything taking place in color, except the dead folk that he saw weren’t there.
Slowly, he cracked his eyes open and took in the monochrome world. The sound differed from before. Swiveling his head, he saw more dead friends and relatives. It wasn’t his beloved hometown any longer, until he closed his eyes. With eyes closed, color was restored, and he was in the town where he’d been living and walking.
Keeping them closed, he resumed his walk. That seemed to work, but it was a temporary solution. Something fundamental had changed in his world.
He was going to have to open his eyes again sometime. And then…
He shook his head. He was going to keep his eyes closed until he was home. And then —
Well, he’d see.
Going through the morning’s triple S activities – shit, shower, shave – he was thinking about his parents and their health. They’d divorced when he was a little boy. Each had contributed to that mess, he decided while conducting his retrospective. Mom forced issues and seemed to thrive on confrontation. Dad shunned conflict. Throwing himself into work, he’d held several jobs simultaneously. He did each well, and they paid well.
After their divorce, Mom had remarried six or seven times – he wasn’t sure – and Dad had several live-in girlfriends besides two other marriages. He thought it was remarkable that he’d married and managed to keep it together for over forty years.
Of course, he’d never been close to his parents. Splitting time between Mom and Dad’s households, he’d struck out on his own after graduating high school when he was seventeen, and then married at eighteen. Neither parent had made an effort to stay very close outside of birthday and holiday cards. Mom visited him and his wife one time, after he’d bought the round-trip airline ticket for her, after they’d been married thirty years. Dad had visited once, dropping by their first apartment for a grinning, goofy fifteen minute visit. Two visits between the two parents in more than forty years.
He sighed. Both parents, in their eighties, were in declining health. He knew he’d miss them once they passed away – everyone told him so – but it was hard for him to generate compassion for their situation.
He hated that he had that flaw and couldn’t seem to do anything about it.
Michael Seidel, writer 