Michael's Room

            The father had been driving all day and into the night. He was the only one who remained awake in the car; the child and the old man were fast asleep in the backseat, and the young man was in the passenger seat next to him. There was no sign of the next town. The father seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.

            “Michael’s gone,” the old man sat up in his recliner in the corner of the room and shook the room awake with his voice. The father bolted awake from sleeping on his back, and to his feet in a scramble. He first checked the child’s bed where he was certainly not, and all the way looking out the window to see the car was no longer in the parking place he left it in.

            He motioned to the young man, “let’s go,” and he switched the TV on before the old man as the two of them left the hotel room. He didn’t want to call the police, and he was even too embarrassed to tell the front desk clerk that the child had taken the car.

            The two of them wandered down the sidewalk further into town. The first person they came to, the father pulled his wallet with Michael’s picture from his back pocket and showed it to him.  He shook his head in shocked concern, looking the father dead in the eyes.

            The second person seemed almost disgusted, looking back and forth between the father and young man. He walked away from both of them, continuing to shake his head with averted eyes.

            The third thought it was a joke and became very angry. He told them they both needed help and the father nodded in agreement, but the man was hostile. He felt threatened, though the father and especially the young man remained oblivious. This man spat as he walked away.

            The two made it back to the hotel room, where the old man sat catatonic in the chair, before the TV, which presented a breaking report about a car accident. It was the child, who had rear ended another vehicle and emerged in flames. The father glanced maybe once at the TV before he was on his knees, in tears, by the side of the old man. It was getting dark out, so the young man went to sleep.

            The next morning, the young man woke up to the father still by the side of the old man, weeping and mourning. The old man had died. The TV was still on but now fizzled with static. The young man tried to shake his shoulder but became angry in the father’s lack of response. He had seemed to lose all touch. The young man took his things and left the room.

            When he got outside, the car was parked out front with the child sleeping in the backseat. The young man got into the driver’s seat, turned on the radio, lit a cigarette, and continued in the same direction.

to what it may concern

Dear Cigarettes,

      I hate you. You make me want to vomit. We've been together a long time but now I feel our relationship has become unhealthy. And so I am writing to you now because I want nothing more to do with you.
     I can't afford to have you around anymore. We've shared plenty of good times; at the beach, at work, at home and abroad. You made me forget my worst times as well. But now I've wound up broke and alone while you still enjoy the company of countless others.
     I didn't ask for or anticipate you to be part of my world, and now I must deal with you in my own terms. I don't usually write letters to inanimate objects, but I feel I know you personally, and have few other untried solutions available. It seems like we have all the same friends.
     Please don't bother returning any sort of response, in fact consider this the last time I indulge in selfish expression with you. There is a life I must live and I'm sure you'll get along just fine without me.

Sincerely,
Matthew

P.S. Tell Marijuana I said high

Idle eyes

The quantity and quality of poison. He gives the orders, and he carries them out. The reason is distinguishable, discernable, obsiously different after awhile. I did something I shouldn't have, again needless to say and so I'll live to tell about it I'm sure. I have a car, it may be the only reason we get along, let alone around.
He tells me what to do, and I do it because I'm scared, that he'll hurt me and the people I care about if I refuse. He knows everything about me, even what I'm going to do before I do it. I've tried to get out of his schemes before, but it's inevitable because he's so much more clever than I. Wherever I go or try to do to get out of it, there he is with another good idea.
Last night, we were parked in a back alley for a long time before he gave me a picture of what was waiting for me inside, and he told me what would happen if I did not continue. I couldn't say a thing as I thought of my family and my safety. I found myself alone walking down a hallway, but I came to the outside door with him waiting inside the car, as I could see his lighter and then the cherry of his cigar through the tint of the window. I stopped dead in my tracks as the entire memory of what happened to me inside the building was lost to me, as the sky lightened and the birds were singing in the distance.
My head hurts this morning, as usual, and I've included all the details my thought will provide. I needed to get it out before I got any further, from the truth, to provide us with an artifact of these night stalkers, psychic vampires that operate in their nocturnal domain. They tell me what to do and I can only presume that you are hardly different. We have the vehicle and they need us to do their bidding. There is only one world, and where we go when we lose control is all within the same space.
I'm going back to the spot, I'm trusting the turns I've already taken to get me there again. I need to look for evidence to remember just how I got here. I missed something, I wasn't writing it all down and as I get older I'm constantly getting better, at a mutual expense, to get stronger to get stronger to get stronger. The day job is grunt work, and at night I do what I have to do to keep up with myself. I don't always understand my boss's intentions, if ever, but this organism is based on trust, that if we rub together enough we'll start a fire rather than add to it. A vacuum is a self contained device that needs another vacuum inside of it to know first breath. I realize I'm wasting time and losing friends and that thought is the opposite of action. The future is as grim as its always been. I'm glad someone needs me while I'm here, I have no idea anymore of what's in store for me. I knew what to do when I was handed lemons, but my fridge is full of decomposing fruit that I have no idea what to do with. We all have bosses in the land of opportunity, lives to lead or be led. I have complete faith in humanity and hope for those who choose to be a part of it or not. "Don't worry baby, everything will turn out all right."

dreams of heaven

            I hear voices, I don’t talk back. That’s how, they say, you know you’re crazy, is when you talk back. They didn’t tell me, I just overheard them talking about it. They just go on and on about it sometimes and I can’t tell whether they know if I’m listening or not. I pretend I don’t, go on about my merry way, I don’t see them or provide eye contact.

            There are always those poor souls on the side of the street with fluttering mouths asynchronous to footsteps, obviously monotonous self reply, even behind windows, below silence. Can’t hear their muttering but their daze are 365.

            I talk to my self, he is a good person that just can’t keep that filthy hand out of my business. He needs to learn manners, discipline and respect. He needs to learn something new every day. He needs to take care of this thing and not worry so much. He needs to express his self because I said so.

            Sometimes he does what he’s told but he really does have a mind of his own. He thinks of everything and it can be hard to keep up, though I don’t really have to. I forget sometimes that my pants are on backwards and then my pants are on backwards. I’m halfway to the top of this wall and when I get there it will be all Italian ice and warm pizza smells. Smile on me like the sticky breath you are, for the future of the generation, the skeptical clerk who has been there before and just thought for a moment…

            You don’t know who I am. He hasn’t been here all day. I don’t want you going changing my future, revealing your psychic nature and touching a memory to be left by the ticket spindle, to be stabbed, only to realize the alarm clock as I open my eyes…

            “I’m late again,” he declared as if he wouldn’t be if he didn’t. The toast was sealed to the linoleum with cold butter, as Murphy’s bed revolved and burned the house down. I haven’t the slightest idea where he is but I’m blaming him for my unexcusable behaviour. Why did mr blue sky choose such a beastly vehicle to interpret his rays of mozart

            It only takes a moment, a day and an hour to secure a place in line, and once you do your in, so fluff your duster and muster mustard buster. Wait just wait just wait just wait just wait im melting. Don’t go breaking eggs, stay at home and paint the sink. I don’t stand a chance, I kick little dogs and buy books I never read.

            I mean I mean I mean well I mean well

            Do you ever get the feeling

            Back here

            Where it itches

            But your tongue feels waxy

            Orange and cold

            I miss three things about you

            

The Beaureau

It's been hard for me to settle for as long as I can remember. I'm never satisfied with where I am or what I have. Since I moved to Seattle four years ago, I've lived in 6 "permanent" residences, with a stint of homelessness and various couchsurfing expeditions. Now that I'm on my seventh location, I haven't bothered changing my address, since I've blended with my surroundings and lost touch with the credit card companies and government that used to know my name. My workplace is really my only legal tie; I rely on my friends and my good name otherwise for security and regular survival.
The trend of technology has taken me this long to finally embrace. Pillars of expectation have crumbled and revealed their obsolete nature as I sit before the screen with infinite knowledge behind. All I could ever want and dream has been presented to me, and from every insignificant action to every crisis I've endured, I find myself in the paradise former civilizations have only dreamed of.
Maybe that's how they found me. I can only leave any sort of trail for so long before the patterns match up with my trademark destruction. I've been writing and they've been reading, putting two and two together. So this morning, my roommate came to me quite distraught with a piece of mail in his hand with his address and my name on it, presuming I was already overstaying my welcome. I was just as surprised as he.
It was from The Beaureau of Processing in Washington, D.C. Apparently, they have been closely monitoring me all my life, and I was selected based on my abnormal production/consumption ratio for something called "preferred annihilation", some kind of fancy assisted suicide. I've been declared an existential criminal, the afterlife is to be my prison, and the rest of the world will be it's own witness protection program, with me left as less than a memory.
So, they've given me a week to think of how I want to die and what they should do with my remains. I can't make it public, no one would believe me anyway, but I can't even have a funeral or let any of my family know I'm going away. The Beaureau and I already know I will be a case of disappearance: a loose cannon who's been running all his life and they should've seen it coming. I wonder what story they've already planned for me, at my workplace and with all the people they've got tabs on out of my association. I never thought I would be a dangerous person to know, but I guess it really is the quiet ones you have to look out for.
I can't help but think that I'm not the first, that our government has been secretly euthanizing its citizens for years, or maybe it's a new thing with all the worries of overpopulation. I saw a movie once where postapocalyptic survivors that won individual island getaways were actually being harvested for their organs unbeknownst to the group. Maybe all the people who "move away", get "new jobs" or simply weren't there one day, maybe they were selected too.
I'm disappointed that I won't grow old, and I didn't think I would really lose my chance for a family of my own. Even if I became a soldier or went to prison, I would have a chance to come back and find a wife. But then I think of the famous Seattle musician who said "when you're dead, you're made for life." Before Van Gogh died, he was just some crazy artist who cut off his own ear. Maybe whatever I'm leaving behind really is all the same and the experiences I've had has made my life every bit as fulfilling as my father's.
Anyway, I don't want to go quietly, so I've refused their orders. If you or someone you know has been selected, don't worry, and please message me. What's the worst that could happen? Let's fight this thing and see what happens.