A Work In Some Parts: First Part

1: Can somebody give me a light?
2: Yeah, hold on.
3: Hey 1, you think I could get a smoke?
1: Lessee..I got eight left. That means everyone could smoke one now, and then smoke one later when the time comes.
4: Don't say that!
1: What? You don't smoke?
4: That "the time will come". We're going to be okay.
3: Why do you think that exactly?
4: Everything always gets better eventually.
1: This is as bad as it's ever been. Did you ever think that it might be the kind of bad that doesn't get better? Just be prepared alright?
2: You know, I'd never even touch a cigarette normally.
3: Yet you're the one with the lighter.
2: I like fire.
1: Hey 4, you okay?
4: Yeah sure, I'm fine.
1: Come on man, I'm sorry. It's just that after all these years of this shit I've realized that at any moment my number could be up. So I'm ready to smoke one last cigarette and then go. Don't take it so hard.
4: I said I was fine.
3: I just wish we had some light.
2: I know! What kind of a household doesn't have any candles?
1: One that doesn't believe it will ever lose power I suppose.
3: 2, why don't we take that lighter of yours and do a little more snooping. We didn't really have a chance before it got dark.
2: Alright, but only a bit, I don't wanna use it all up.
4: Here, I found a newspaper over here. You can use it to make some torches.
3: Sweet, let me find my way over there.
4: There you go.
3: Alright 2, once we get these rolled up I'll carry em, you just give me the word for a new one and I'll light it off yours and you can drop the old one.
2: Fire hazard don't you think?
3: I'll stomp it out too.
2: Okay, you sure you don't want me to carry my own share?
3: Nah, this way you can concentrate on looking for stuff while I assist.
2: Cool, works for me.
1: Where'd you grow up 4?
4: Around the East Coast.
1: The whole thing?
4: My dad worked for an advertising firm so we moved a lot.
1: What kind of ads did your dad make?
4: Mostly print stuff. Although his firm was one of the first to try to market biospheric habitation communities and they ran tv ads for them, he was even in one of 'em.
1: Couldn't have been very profitable, those things didn't go anywhere until the early 80's.
4: Yeah, the firm dissolved not too long after that.
1: Go figure.
3: 4, 1, come in here! You won't believe what we found!

Very Tall Buildings

Jacek: If only we hadn't had to let Annabelle go. She was a looker. Oh, and Maria. You remember her?

Moldeen: Yes, I remember her.

Jacek: Hey, if you had to choose, who would you pick, Annabelle or Maria?

Moldeen: My entire world is literally crumbling around me and you're asking which woman I used to employ I prefer on an aesthetic basis?

Jacek: Yes.

Moldeen: Maria.

Jacek: Oooh, the dark haired type huh?

Moldeen: Yeah, sure.

Jacek: But Annabelle had those beautiful blue eyes.

Moldeen: I prefer green.

Jacek: But Maria's-

Moldeen: Or brown.

Jacek: So you like darker skin more than fair?

Moldeen: Yeah, I guess so. Darker than very pale anyway.

Jacek: I see.

Moldeen: Is this fun for you?

Jacek: Don't you think it's fun?

Moldeen: Not even remotely.

Jacek: Well then why are you doing it?

Moldeen: To humor you. I figure if I die doing something nice I miiiight get into purgatory at least.

Jacek: It doesn't count if you're only doing it for your own selfish desires.

Moldeen: For one, I don't think not going to hell is that selfish, and two I don't think the intent matters. A good deed is a good deed.

Jacek: Well I don't think it's nice if that's the only reason.

Moldeen: Fine.

Jacek: ............Sooo do you like girls that are slutty or like, all wholesome?

Moldeen: Wholesome.

Jacek: Is that some kind of kinky thing or-

Moldeen: It's because I'm wholesome damn it!

Jacek: No offense but what part of essentially becoming the villain of your own twisted plot makes you wholesome?

Moldeen: You obviously wouldn't understand.

Jacek: I like my girls to...know things.

Moldeen: I like my girls to not escape from the building without telling me the access codes to the panic room.

Jacek: Why the hell does your panic room have an access code anyway?

Moldeen: So people wouldn't access it.

Jacek: You mean like you?

Moldeen: Like unauthorized personnel you jackass.

Jacek: You didn't think that disaster might strike unexpectedly?

Moldeen: I didn't expect this disaster, this unexpectedly.

Jacek: Still, not a great contingency plan.

Moldeen: Aren't you suppose to have super speed anyway?

Jacek: You know that's bullshit.

Moldeen: Your death will be ironic to those who didn't know you, because your "super speed" will have availed you nothing in this circumstance. And ironic to those who did know you because you will have seemingly caught up with your reputation.

Jacek: What happened to you being nice?

Moldeen: I was thinking about how I've employed my time this last year and realized it wasn't even a long shot at getting into purgatory.

Jacek: I think I'm fucked. The bible said some pretty specific things about greed.

Moldeen: You? Yeah, you're totally fucked.

Jacek: It didn't feel like defrauding millions of people of billions of dollars at the time, but in retrospect it totally was.

Moldeen: Upper floors are going to collapse any minute now.

Jacek: Yep.

Moldeen: I feel like saying something like "It was good knowing you" but I don't want to die while lying.

Jacek: No problems with dying while being a dick?

Moldeen: None at all.

Jacek: I wish I had known it would come to this.

Moldeen: Really? Me too.

Jacek: I would never have fired Annabelle. I would have given her all of my money if I died.

Moldeen: Oh my god. Please stop talking about Annabelle. Also, I fired her.

Jacek: Oh yeah. I fired Maria. That was dumb too.

Moldeen: Not if you wanted to keep up your scam.

Jacek: I suppose.

Moldeen: My only consolation is that the money it will take to repair all the building damage might be really good for the economy.

Jacek: Like a dead tree feeds the ecosystem.

Moldeen: My mother would be so proud if she knew I had finally aspired to be the human equivalent of rotting vegetation.

Jacek: Yours and mine both pal, yours and mine both.

Moldeen: Don't call me pa-

Oil On Canvas: A True Story

I have a story to relate. This is a story best served with a little history but I will not be providing it. That history is far too personal. Suffice it to say I have a "guest" in my home. Let me say that I completely fucking hate our "guest". It will be noted that this individual is in my home against my will. That should be enough setup.

This evening, late afternoon really, I became so distraught via my loathsome boarder that I slipped on my shoes and walked straight out my front door and into the street. I live in a sleepy, elderly, residential neighborhood and knew that a stroll would be calming. In the very least it would be a reprieve from my tormentor. As I marched up the street, which, coincidentally, is also up a rather steep hill, I was not really soothed.

Passing quaint, cozy house after quaint, cozy house I still fumed. As I passed the peaceful denizens of some I began to wonder if they could sense my anger. Could they see it in my movements? Could they feel it hanging in the torrid air around me? With these thoughts still on my mind I was nearing the next driveway when I nearly jumped. I had come very close to a young woman blending into the bright summer scenery and not even noticed. She stood a the edge of the street, straight and still, an eager expectation betrayed by her pose. She wore a pink sun dress and white heels. As I drew closer she turned, a little surprised herself, and said hello. She was pale but looked kind, her head wreathed in boisterous copper. She had a white motorcycle helmet clutched keenly in her hands. As I nodded and returned the greeting my anger evaporated.

A little further down the road I realized that I felt entirely calm. I reflected on the beautifully different character I had just beheld. It crossed my mind that I should return to thank her but I thought better of it. she had been a wonderful picture and would be best unaltered. I began to wonder just for whom she waited. I kept my eyes forward as I waited, would he appear? A moment later I heard it, a small engine. Speeding down the road toward me was a woman on a white scooter, wearing a colorful camisole and a silk scarf flying from her neck like a pennant. As she disappeared around the slowly curving road I laughed. It amused me to no end to see so obviously who it was that would meet the girl in the sundress. I thought it must be a relatively frequent event to necessitate her possession of a helmet.

As I drew up to my house again I felt collected, tranquil. I had a contentment in my soul after that glance into another life. I had been privy to a single point in space time, one to which no one else had borne visual witness. It seemed the dimmest telescope view of a distant star.

The Desert

As night was settling on the desert a man was brought back to camp. He was wounded and in desperate need of medical intervention. They stretched him out on a simple cot and laid him on the sand inside an unoccupied tent. When they had all rushed back out the man was left all alone with only the dark folds of the tent and the swaying flaps of it's door.

Dazed from the pain he waited, trying confusedly to arrange the jumbled events of the day and give them order and context. He struggled to array them in such a way as to deduce how he had arrived at this juncture. All the while the fractured images kept slipping and fading. He began to despair of ever recalling what had truly happened.

As the darkness solidified the moon came out, quite full, and shone through the tents flaps and glowed all around. Periodically the man heard voices, or clattering pots, or the sound of horses, and always the murmur of the tent itself. He couldn't tell if he had been conscious consistently or if he had dozed. It seemed he must have, but he could not be sure. Time was stretching and becoming doggedly difficult to track. His body felt extraordinarily heavy, as well as his breathe. His lungs had to push very hard to lift his chest. He couldn't understand what he was awaiting. He couldn't recall where everyone had gone or when. The breeze wafting into the tent began to chill him uncomfortably and he shivered.

As he stared vacantly at the ceiling he heard the soft sound of footsteps outside. The entry was lifted open and he felt relieved that someone had come at last. To his surprise a young woman stepped inside. She had dark skin like the good earth. Her eyes were black and shone like a cat's in the moonlight. Her raven hair was tied delicately in red ribbon, lifting it away from her soft face. On her body she wore a billowing white gown, blue under the moon. On her feet she wore nothing. With a caring and tender smile tracing her full lips she elegantly whispered over the sand to him. She slowly bent down. kneeling beside him she brought her lips to his in a gossamer kiss. He closed his eyes blissfully and was able to breathe deep and clear for the first time in what seemed like days. When he opened his eyes again she was standing, leaning over slightly and offering him her hand with the same small smile, although he now thought it seemed the tiniest bit sad. Realizing how much lighter and more vital he felt he reached up and put his hand in hers. It seemed to him that she pulled him up more than he stood of his own strength. She inclined her head toward the door as she began to slowly move. He sighed happily and followed. As the moon shone the two of them stepped out of the tent.

As soon as the surgeon arrived he told the men to wait outside. He went in and all was silent for a long moment. At last he reemerged with a sad look on his face.
"I'm afraid he has passed. He never really had a chance. But look inside for yourselves, he has a smile on his lips. It looks like the happiest man among us is the one who has at last been freed by death."

The men peered into the tent and found that he did in fact have a smile of real joy gracing his face. It was so sad yet beautiful that they all felt at peace just to see it.

Gaussian Flare

It was a temperate, easy twilight. The sun had disappeared almost entirely beyond the western mountains. Only the most ethereal of hues were now painted on the belly of the sky. The dark ocean blue of the heavens; the thick purple crowned blues that wrapped the broken and myriad canopy of clouds. And, off in the west, warmed with a splash of gold, the delicate blues of light's final bastion.

Beneath this painting the trees all around spoke softly in their evening voices. With hushed but hurried sentences they recounted the day's events. Some were friends, laughing and thrashing the air in their mirth. Some were lovers, caressing each other's boughs and creating an even more passionate melody. Sweet nothings elicited by the cool, casual wind. In their divers and distinct voices they babbled in a ceaseless chorus, filling the world with sound underneath the failing twilight.