A couple of years ago I posted a short-short story called Red Ball, which became rather popular and got comments like “breathtaking” and “This is great. Really creepy!” and “YES! Creepy… for sure.” and “Creepy is the word! Especially the 4th corner.” You can read the original story here.
Now I have gone and made a short video of it. I narrate it. You can see it by clicking on this sentence.
That’s it. Thanks for coming by. V+
Experimentally, gingerly, for the first and last time in his life, the artist known as Smithy lifted his right eyelid, placed his right forefinger near the top of his left eyeball and gently but firmly drove that sucker around the orb and smack into his brain.
Once there, he tickled the frontal cortex gently. Something somewhere in him giggled. It was painful but that was where the jokes were located.
He pushed on.
As his finger dug toward the middle of his brain, he began to loose control of his legs. He sat, suddenly, down. His finger, playing at being a brain elevator, rose to the top of his brain, his skull, pushing lightly at various stimulating gray matter as it went, replaying his many memories. His past, his present, not much of his future. Many of his past pleasures were tucked up in there and he briefly fingered their joys, disappointments and the why why whys that still echoed and generally fumed darkly in there.
He moved on, his finger making a left turn at the rear of his brain where he came into a dense layer of smut he had always kept hidden, tucked back in there, just for emergencies. It throbbed and mutated and performed a lascivious dance just for him, as it always reliably did.
But he had no time for these varied once happily anticipated stimulations, as the thrusting journey his finger was taking had made his groin unresponsive, as his dick, his anus, his flaccid sack of lazy balls lolled lackadaisical, finished for good.
He did manage, before passing out of this life and into esoteric choices he would be surprised he would have to make on the other side of this worldly existence, he bumped up against the back of his skull. His fingernail scraped here, against the skull, and, as a last treat, and as a last idea, he went in for some inner urban art.
With his fingernail he scratched letters. It was hard going as his body was now giving up major motor functions at an alarming rate. He was blind, could not speak, and the hearing was dimming—no, there, it too was now gone.
As he died, as he slumped, as his spirit floated, as required, above his body, looking down, his finger gave up its ghost and slipped out of the gray matter, falling out of his head, his eyes boggling, leaving behind, distantly, on the inner wall of his damaged, lights-out brain, the simple ego words on the inside of his skull,
“Smithy was here.”
The man shuffled into my office to tell his troubles. He sat down where I had to look at him.
Taxes were ruining him, his wife didn’t understand things, his bills were piling up, he didn’t like the weather, his car was on the bum, his children avoided him, a pet hamster had died.
“Even my cat committed suicide,” he said. “He went in the road during the night to fight a truck. The truck won. Found him next morning, his head all flat, his brains shooting out his ear holes like grey toothpaste. It nearly broke my heart. We buried it and the hamster together in a spot in the backyard. My kids prayed, and then looked at me as if it were my fault. I didn’t know what to tell them. God, why …why my cat?”
He sat there, waiting for an answer.
“Did I ever tell you about the dog I had when I was a kid?”
I didn’t want to hear this.
“He was a big cuddly mutt named Elmer.”
Now I really didn’t want to hear this.
“Fred,” I interrupted. “You’re in no state to talk about a dog from your childhood. Especially if his name was Elmer. It’ll only depress you further.”
“Old Elmer,” my friend mumbled, as though he hadn’t heard my warning. But something must have gotten through, because he changed the subject. “They say it’s going to rain.”
“They’re often as wrong as they’re right,” I said.
“I know,” he replied. “Can’t trust anyone these days.”
I tried to change the subject. “How’s—?”
“Don’t ask,” he interrupted. “Don’t make me think about it. Let’s just sit here in silence in some animal warmth.”
We were sitting together like that for about five minutes, me getting impatient to get back to my work, Fred comforted by the warmth, when the boss walked in and said,
“Say, have you seen the report on … oh, Fred, hello. How are you?”
“My cat’s dead,” Fred said. He got up and walked to the door. “Elmer’s long-gone, too.” And he left.
My boss said, “Who’s Elmer?”
“You really want to know about it?”
He did. He was the boss. It was his job to know about such things. So I told him.
After hearing everything, he was silent for a long while.
“I had a dog named Buster who died when I was a kid.”
Sharing some more animal warmth was about to happen in my office again, and it wasn’t even nine thirty-five in the morning on a Monday.
“I love you, Mam. Oh how I looooove you. So much and double so much.” The daughter opened her mouth for more.
Mam said back, giving her more, “And I love you. You are so perfect.”
Daughter ate it up and said right back, “Mam, you can do anything. Just anything.”
They wanted to hug, but couldn’t because the daughter did not have arms. Or legs. Or any appendage. She was simply one big mouth with lips, tongue, teeth, moisture and love. Love for her Mam.
“I looooove you, mam.”
And needs.
“I waaaaaaant, mam.”
“What do you want, my dearest of dears?”
The big mouth smacked its lips.
“I want something you can get for me.”
“That’s why I’m here.” The Mam beamed. She could not help herself, she had to say it again. “You are perfect. Just perfect.”
“And when I do something wrong, mam? When I’m older and am bad, what will you do?”
“I will scold you, correct you, teach you, forgive you, and everything will go back to what it was before you were bad.”
“You’re the best mam ever!”
Mam went out and bought three books, a pair of gloves, five pairs of shoes, eyeglasses in a fancy frame, chocolate bars, four types of cakes so she could have a bite of each, and a new toothbrush and toothpaste.
“Oh, Mam, stuff! Stuff! Lots of stuff! You thought of me! But mam. Mam! Shoes? Eyeglasses? Gloves? What are they for?”
“For when you grow older and develop.”
“Oh mam! Mam, you think of everything! Everything!” The mouth loved using exclamation marks. She couldn’t help it if everything was wonderful. Wonderful! “Feed me, Mam. Feed me everything. I am made for it. One big happy need! You fulfill me!”
Mam went to the kitchen, stayed there a while, came back with three mounds of food, which she spoon and fork fed to her open-mouthed daughter.
“Mmmmm, Mam. You’re the best!”
“No, you’re the best.”
“No, you’re the best.”
And so forth until Mam went to get dessert.
And mam asked, defining future needs she looked forward to providing, “And what does my perfect baby darling forever want from me?”
“Hug me, give to me, forgive me, buy for me, feed me, squeeze me, fulfill me, shape me, take me, make me.”
“Oh my daughter!”
“Oh my mammy!”
“We were made for each other.”
“Oh, yes, mammy! Oh! Yes!”
And the daughter began hungrily nibbling her mother and the mam said, “My darling. My perfect, loving little girl. Ouch.”
Bernard took the car out of the garage and rolled it slowly backward, looking left and right and checking in his rear-view mirror, then sped up slightly and ran over four cats, two dogs, one puppy, three hamsters, a frog and fourteen confused snails.
This was a pain. Because it meant Bernard would have to get out of his car, get the hose, turn it up full blast and wash down his driveway. Aiming the water, he watched the dogs, puppy and cats turn limp somersaults moving toward the gutter.
Then, inevitably, the neighborhood kids came to gather round to look. Some pointed their phones to take photos and send them to their friends with remarks like, “Cooooool.”
Then one kid pointed and sobbed, “My dog Fido!” Another kid screamed, “Dolly! Dolly! Dolly!”
Soon parents gathered around to make caustic remarks.
“You can’t keep doing this,” one said to Bernard.
“I don’t mean to,” Bernard answered as two of the dead cats finally made it to the gutter and flopped over into it and out of his sight. “They all just rushed under my tires I backed out.”
“You said that yesterday,” said another parent, not believing a word.
“And the day before that,” reminded another.
“Dolly!” bellowed the kid again and again.
A damp, fur-matted dog disappeared over the curb.
“I check,” Bernard said. “Every day, I check. Is there another animal out there, is there something I don’t see? The driveway is always empty when I roll out. Then, all of a sudden, they are there, diving under my tires. It happens so fast I can’t stop in time.”
“Dolly!”
The frog fell on top of the dog.
The last dog fell into the street gutter, then a cat. Barnard was going to be late for work again.
Three parents crossed their arms tight over their chests.
“So you’re saying you think this is some sort of unexplained natural phenomenon where domestic animal life commits suicide under your car wheels?”
Bernard turned off the water, tossed the hose aside. “I didn’t say that.” The animals were gone from his property now, bodies resting floppy and over-flowing in the gutter. “But I wouldn’t rule that out.” Most traces of the animal blood was also gone from his driveway. “I don’t know, really. It just happens.” He got into his car.
“Dolly….” It was more a whimper now, the boy already half-wondering whether his mother would buy him another dog. Bigger. So it wouldn’t get run over so easily.
“You like to kill animals,” someone shouted.
Bernard rolled down his window. “Maybe they are not happy.”
“Who isn’t happy?”
“Your pets.”
“What are you talking about?”
“So they come over here and kamikaze themselves under the wheels of my car day after day.”
“You saying we’re lousy pet lovers?”
“I’m saying maybe you should try feeding them better food on a regular basis. Talk to them more often. Pet them. Be better humans.”
“Damn! He’s lecturing us and he’s the murderer.”
Bernard shouted as he drove off, “And how many pets do you people have, anyway? I’ve run over at least eighty this month!” He glanced at his watch. He was going to be twenty minutes late. Again. He rolled up the window, swerved around a cat that threw itself in front of his car, and started making good time as soon as he left his neighborhood behind.
I do gardening. I tell myself I do gardening. I have a shed full of implements of good intentions; rust has had its way here and there, on both the tools and the intentions. Under the slanted roof of the veranda in the backyard there’s a blue water barrel standing under the drainpipe so it fills will rainwater for future plant thirst. Some cats use the pipe to scrabble up unto my plastic veranda roof to romp in the night, chasing each other in play or with territorial snarls.
Supposition enters from here on in. Because one of these cats, either running away, or running up, or down, the pipe, slipped, misjudged, something cattish and forever unknowable, and dove, plopped, found itself in the water barrow. The barrel was fairly full, but not full to the brim. Did the cat swim some? Did it yowl? What day, what night—when did it slip and go splash? Whenever, it could not reach up to get a toehold, or clawhold, on the edge and pull itself out. And from exhaustion, it must have horribly ended its time on earth, paddling in small and then smaller circles, miserable, tiring.
I only noticed it today, because one doesn’t often, during the winter, peek in water barrels to see how things are going.
There was something mossy-like floating on the top. Odd. There had been more than enough rain to break up any organic growth that might want to settle and spread there. So I leaned forward, spotted a collar around the muck and instinctively jerked back, stepped away, stepped further away. The mental processing going, already knowing, but just double and triple checking in order to let my mind take it in, realize, and not go into a brief shock, occupying itself instead with double looping checking, cushioning the reality.
I looked again. The moss was really fur. Much of it floated at the top, but which end of the cat was front, which back, could not be figured. I didn’t stare. I let it rest in there and returned to my computer. To build up a head of steam. Get myself prepared. Then, later in the afternoon, I finished something on my computer, stood, stretched, said, Do it.
I marched straight to the end of the garden, yanked out the metal rake, returned to the house, the veranda, the barrel. I dunked the end with the teeth in. Maneuvered, reached under, lifted. A dank, sopping mass, beyond description. I did not look, nor study. Cradled on the rake’s teeth I hauled it into the garden—the water pouring off in streams—and over to the far side of the back yard, near the high bushes, in the area I’d once buried my own cat. I dropped the body on the ground. It’s water-logged gut split, exposing pink. I swung my head away, going back to the shed to lift out the shovel that was wedged in behind all sorts of summer chairs and tables and such. I banged about. I lifted it out, turning things over in there. Turning, I went straight to where the dead thing lay and next to it dug quickly, messily, hitting roots, chopping, finally satisfied with a shallow hole.
I maneuvered the end of the shovel till it was up against the one side of the cat mess and pushed it over. It rolled like a boneless damp rug and sluggishly slopped in my minor hole.
I covered it up, quickly. Patted it once, twice. Looked at the newly torn ground. There was no loving former owner to linger, say a few words, have a few memories.
I put the tools away, back to their rusting hibernation. Glanced in the water barrel on my way back. A film of loose fur floated.
I went inside.
During her noon lunch break, she went to the local park, nibbling a sandwich while glancing at the actions of others. People sat harmlessly on benches, in ones and twos. Some guided dogs along paths, and off paths. Some listened to music with things stuck in their ears, staring into mini-screens before their faces, absorbed in their self-created world sitting there running away from any possible stray thoughts.
She came upon a young man who had staked a solitary place on a modest circular area of grass. He held four balls, and was moving them meditatively around with his fingers. A sack lay limp behind him. He stood for a moment looking pensively down at the four balls, weighing them in his hands, two balls clutched in each hand, now moving them slightly up and down. Without warning or obvious preparation, he tossed them up, one at a time, in an arc, ready to move them about through the air.
She observed the excitement, enjoying the circular whirl of balls for five, maybe six seconds. One moment they were in the air, trading places, then suddenly the next, with soft thuds, the three balls had landed at the juggler’s feet. He bent down from the waist, no leg bending, to pick them up, then straightening and without any obvious preparation tossed them up, began juggling, five, six seconds later, three balls, a simultaneous single thud, all at his feet. Again he bent, retrieved, made them dance in the air for their hopeful six seconds, before the three balls, always three balls, equally and at the same time, hit the ground as one at his feet.
The juggler did not curse, did not look around in shame, did not recognize any form of public humiliation. He calmly repeated. Picking up, tossing, the inevitable falling.
She continued looking from a distance, waiting, sandwich nibbling, half-hoping for a sudden miracle of artistic coordination, some internal click that would allow all the balls to remain in the air, like rapid satellites circling this young man’s head, a triumph, a break-through, foretelling a real true future as a juggler.
Three balls again thudded to the ground, and she could no longer take the pain and turned away and walked away and resisted looking back at the eternal hope of mastering a creative act fighting a clear lack of talent.
Thud, she heard in the distance back there. Thud.
She flew off her feet and landed on her butt when he pushed her out of his way so he could get to where he was going. She stood up slowly, brushed herself off, and gazed at his back as he diminished in the distance, hurrying away. She took a step toward him.
She landed with a hard thump and four red marks on her forehead where he had pushed her with the fingers of his left hand. This time he stood there, looking down. Her looking up. She stood, slowly, carefully, her eyes never leaving his. Took a step toward him. He put his fingertips right back on the same places on her forehead and pushed. Harder.
She was getting used to landing on her backside and seeing life from this angle. Or if not life, at least him. The guy who kept pushing her down when she approached him. She thought she should maybe sit there for a while and think over getting up again for him, but the feelings were too strong, too wild. She was up and moving toward him again watching his hands, both of them, getting ready to push her again.
For a few weeks now she had taken to wearing cushions on her backside. Her bottom had become so black and blue with this pushing down business that it was starting to hurt and could not be ignored even with this overwhelming instinct, need, passion, this desire. So when she fell, this time on gravel in his driveway, it hurt some, but not as much, because of the cushion. In fact, she bounced a bit, which was different.
Next time when she landed on her rear end in the parking lot of the liquor store, she put her hands down for landing stability and sharp-edged pebbles dug into her hands. She cried out. She looked up to see if this mattered to the man. But he had already turned away.
Again she fell, like a fluffy animal tossed on the floor.
Once more she fell and this time she fell into the ocean and a wave came and the salt went into her wounds and stung and the man stepped back, ever determined. She got up again, ever determined. They stood facing each other, her hands ready to grab him, his hands ready to repel her.
As she fell, she grabbed a bit of his leather coat and wouldn’t let go and as she fell, he lost his balance. He came after her. She landed hard on her bottom, on her back, in the dirt beside the bushes. He landed hard, on her, his front, on her front. It was progress. Perhaps a breakthrough. They lay like this in a public space until he pushed up and away from her.
Next time he pushed her away and she fell, she felt, or she thought she felt, his heart wasn’t really in it so much. Not like before. So she fell, more than ever, in love.
The next time, he didn’t walk away after he had pushed her down. He turned away, but he was not walking away. At last. Finally. She knew in her heart of hearts that now she was not the only one falling.
When, at odd moments during the day, when Roger moved his hand, it blurred. Which caught his attention. He dropped everything to stare at his hand. Waiting for it to come back into focus.
Later, his hand affected his arm, and it too became a bit blurry. And now standing naked before the bathroom mirror, he didn’t see himself. He saw a blur. He reached out toward the blur, but that too turned out to be a blur.
“Honey, come see. I’m out of focus.”
“Again?”
“What do you mean, again?”
Somehow I had sucked a virus into my system that had affected my hearing. It turned voices into a muffled mumbles way in the distance. Sounds became indistinct mysteries. To most everyone who tried speaking toward me, I said, What? a lot.
I was prescribed medicine. Bit by bit I heard the world again, until I stalled at the last 20% of my hearing. Seemed the last 20% was the most difficult to get back. Time and medication. Then, during a movie, I heard a pop and more sound suddenly was there in my ear. Later that week, there were a series of underwater notes, a clearing, and everything seemed back to normal.
But the body, being holistic, with the whole ear, throat, nose combo involved, other mysteries happened.
Because when my hearing kicks in again, my sense of smell kicks up a couple of notches.
Getting out of my car, my head shifts like a dog’s, aiming my nostrils high and slanted. It could also look like a blind person listening to a voice. I sniff.
“Leafs are burning somewhere.”
And they are, a few houses down on the opposite side of the road in someone’s back yard.
I go into a house and there’s a huge bunch of flowers and it overpowers me, a sickly scent like a decrepit person slapping on too much lotion. I have to stand by an open door to get relief.
“Someone’s cutting wood,” I say another time, walking down my street, I eventually pass an open garage where someone has recently buzz-sawed some two by fours.
The world has become wider through my nostrils; I am smelling a lot of things that other people don’t detect.
I even smell things that you aren’t supposed to to be there.
I’m next to the person who is full of love for me. She smiles benignly upon me.
I sniff her.
“What?” she asks, with only a hint of alarm.
“I smell,” I tell her, “I smell something on you.”
“What?”
I sniff. “Love.” I smell her ear. “I smell love on you.”
I smell her throat, bury my nose in her hair, sniffing like a dog wild on the trail of a favorite prey.
She giggles and her love fills my nasal passages, until my insides become like a series of mini-waves, creating the kind of ripples that happen in the middle of a wide lake right after you have thrown your heart in.
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