textfiles/magazines/WHATEVER/stories3.txt

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True Stories from Pathological Liars  III
=========================================

March.1995

Another questionable collection from (swain@cybernetx.net)

Semanticism has never been so redundant.

==
Table of contents:

1] Harkus' Urbane Day
2] The Alarm
3] Ben's Two Minutes
4] Deeth and its offerings
==


1] Harkus's Urbane Day
----------------------

Like a quick Tango with a French woman, like a sip of strong
Espresso in your waking hour.  Like a piece of wrapped candy on the
frozen concrete.  For Harkus today was working out just fine.

"Whats this I hear about the men in pressed suits taking over my
future..."  Harkus scratched his head, long and hard.  He folded
the newspaper in half to facilitate reading the monstrous entity. 
It was a warm Sunday in Cincinnati, and in-between occasional
glances at stale reading, he casually sipped his homebrewed
espresso, naturally wincing at every swallow.  A warm breeze blew
through the cracked window, bringing in the scent of char-broiled
burgers from the grease-shop across the street.  The scent afforded
him the memories of his youth, throwing lawn darts as his sister
during the weekly family bar-be-que.  Harkus rose and felt a slight
disorder of things in his brain.  A slight chill approached him as
he swayed to the headrush.  He made his way to the window and
peered out.  His boxers hung low and uneven.  His face was unshaven
and sweaty like a wet fish.  The heat poured into the kitchen like
an open oven.  A man was peddling cheap jewelry with a finish
of flaked gold paint.  Harkus examined a piece of this jewelry as
it hung from his wrist.  The electroplated copper reminded him of
its actual value, and with a spontaneous feeling of worthlessness,
Harkus tugged the meager chain from his wrist and pitched it onto
the street, landing several feet before the salesman.  

Unnoticed, the man continued to puff on a large-sized cheap cigar,
the kind that is sold raw next to the candy section at your
neighborhood convenience store.  The old Greek man caught a glimpse
of the broken chain as a reflection from the sun temporarily
blinded him.  The man, appearing as though he might have struck
gold, no pun intended, scurried over to the chain and picked it up
with his fat thumb and forefinger.  He muttered to himself as he
examined the broken link, and began repairing it.  Meanwhile,
Harkus began seeing the day in a more awake manner.  

He opened the refrigerator for a temporary cool-down from the
blast-furnace day, only to find that it had succumbed to the heat
and no longer was operational.  Infact, upon reaching for the milk
and swishing it around, the sheer solid-feeling of the contents led
Harkus to believe that infact the refrigerator gave up a long time
ago.  Bothered, but not completely surprised, Harkus felt somewhat
sympathetic with the deceased Frigidaire.  At least, he
conjectured, HE was still alive.  


A wave of sickness passed over him, the heat was taking its toll. 
He always theorized that his rent was less not because his
apartment was structually unsafe, but because his apartment on the
top floor had a roof covered with black tar paper, the only one not
surfaced with aluminum.  As a result, his apartment was always
twenty degrees warmer.  One would think this might come in handy
during the winter months, but alas, the landlord always set up
solar panels on his section of roof to minimize costs for heating
water.  Not surprisingly, Harkus knew this only too well as a
reaffirmation of his nature to live in a perpetual catch-22,
something he likened to Hell.

Harkus caught a slight wiff of his odor, causing him to nearly
retch.  He maintained always that when ones own smell bothers them,
its time to do something about it.  But as a second thought, he
realized this odor was a sexual smell, the smell of hours of hot
sex in a hot apartment on a hot, humid evening.  And with that
thought he slowly made his way to the bathroom, stepping on a young
cockroach that left his foot moisturized with cold fluidous
remains.  This occurrence remained unnoticed to him as he crossed
the hallway to the bathroom.  He stepped in front of the
condensating mirror and examined his mug.  He ran his hand through
his jet-black hair, feeling the grease absorb into his hand.  He
reached his arm into the shower, pulling the old shower lever back
and to the right; COLD.  The pipes rattled and well over ten
seconds later a sputter of brown water ejected from the faucet
head, collecting on top of the hair that clogged the drain.  He
dropped his boxers, letting them fall to his ankles and proceeded
back into his bedroom where a sweaty figure lay asleep.  The sheets
stuck to her body and outlined her figure.  Harkus noticed her
erect nipples from an exhilirating dream; or was it the heat...

The room reaked of sex.  The windows were wide open and the
occasional breeze blew the mini-blinds stray.  Harkus lay beside
her and awed at her beauty.  A sense of urgency struck him as he
realized the shower was still running.  He figured he could buy a
few minutes and placed his hand under the sheets, freely caressing
her body.

She awoke.

Harkus was amazed at her breath.  For he has never known a human
being to have fresh, minty breath after sleep.  He approached
closer to her mouth as she opened her eyes, exposing a beautiful
dark green.  "Hey.." she whispered in a choked, congested tone. 
She lifted the damp sheet off her body and rubbed her eyes,
removing the Sandman's remains.  Harkus was infact so stumped at
her lack of bad breath that he pondered for a moment.  "How do you
keep your breath so minty fresh?" he inquired.  "Harkus, I use
Scope.  It leaves my breath fresh and minty all day long and it
prevents gingivitis."  Harkus felt an odd understanding of her, and
didn't question this seemingly commercialized response.  She sat up
in bed, and from underneath the covers she produced a family-sized
bottle of Scope.  "You should try some, it'll really hit the spot." 
Harkus gladly accepted, although somewhat confused as to what was
going on.  He chased a shot of Scope and spit the mouthwash onto
the hardwood floor.  

The shower was still running, getting louder and more prominent. 
The even spray began sounding more like sheets of water, dripping
and splashing all over the whole apartment.  This time he knew he
must get up to take his shower.  Sonya continued her commercial
dialog, propped up naked in bed grasping the bottle of mouthwash,
speaking generally to an empty room.  "Honey, you should try Scope,
it makes your breath minty fresh." Harkus was confused.

The water flowed smoothly along his body.  It was cold and hit the
spot.  He felt himself wake up, beating this awful heatwave.  The
small transistor radio clicked on and a radio personality continued
to rattle on about today's weather... "Well people, today is our
day.  Currently we have grey and rainy skies with a chance of a
thunderstorm later this morning.  Don't forget to bring an umbrella
before you leave the house today."  The personality paused, sighed,
and resumed.  "Its been hot out there this summmer hasn't it? 
Today we have a high of 74, a nice let-up from the heatwave of '95,
destined to go into New York history.."

The shampoo entered his eye as he quickly scrambled to wash it out. 
A painful sting entered his body and urked him.  Harkus again was
confused.  He opened his one pain-free eye and glanced out the
bathroom window.  Through the condensation he saw a hazy sun steam
the scenery.  He had now taken particular consideration to the last
few minutes and these odd events.  "Why is my girlfriend
advertising Scope?"  "Why was her breath so minty fresh?" and
lastly, "Why does the radio say its raining when its hot and humid
just like every other day?".  He scratched his head, accidentally
allowing more soap into his previously stinging eye.

Maybe I'm dreami...

Reflexively he slammed his hand down on the alarm clock stifling
the radio.  The pitter-patter of rain made rumbling sounds on the
roof.  A cool breeze blew in through the window as the television
spewed a Scope commerical.  Markus awoke quickly and surveyed his
situation.  Stunned, he quickly felt next to him for a body. 
Nothing was there.  He caught the last few seconds of the
commercial. 

"For fresh, minty breath, always use Scope."


2] The Alarm
------------

My daycare center was this huge warehouse-looking place on the top
floor of an oversized administration building.  It was one huge
room with several partitions and a stainless steel slide that must
have been 25 feet high.  There were special areas marked out for
certain activities and there were places that were just open
because not even every piece of furniture in Ann Arbor could have
filled it.  The teachers were very tall, maybe fifteen feet in
height, and there was a stage that I always wanted to climb up on
and play on but that too must have been ten feet tall.

Even though I was three years old, seemingly unable to respond a
whole lot to anything, I had already obtained a number of fears
that still haunt me today.  Inside this huge castle that I spent 5
days a week in for a year and a half was one solitary fire alarm,
about a foot squared and containing a grill on the front with one
really loud alarm behind it.  It really stuck out in the place
everytime I passed it en route to the bathroom I would stare at it.

I had no idea what it was, and after a year of nothing interesting
about it, I dismissed it as just another one of those ornaments
that adults like.

We all napped in the same room, a comparitively small room set off
from the huge one.  Every day at noon the teachers would rustle us
all up and take us to this room.  We would sit there watching as
they produced these weird long cast aluminum stretchers with
synthetic tops.  Later I would learn these were called "Cots", but
still today don't know why.  Then the teachers would administer
each one of us one (1) whole graham cracker (perforated) and a
container of milk which probably held about 5 ounces.  We were then
instructed to eat the cracker and drink the milk after every bite. 
The craftiest of us would break the cracker in half, thus doubling
our treat.  Some of us had no interest in eating the cracker at
all.  This particular crew would take the two halves and proceed to
saw shapes into the crackers, eventually leaving a sugary brown
dust on the floor.  After what was named "snack", we were all
escorted to our "cots" and left to sleep.  Most of us, myself not
excluded, would cry the duration of our nap-time and periodically
cry out for "mommy" or "ma".  The others that didn't follow suit
always seemed odd to me.

After nap-time we then went onto the roof to play.  A dangerous
thought to any parent seeing that we were no less than twenty
stories from the street (in 3-year old terms atleast).  Because of
this, there were very high chain-link fences encasing the roof. 
Nothing much had been done to make this a roaming ground for
children.  A few sandboxes were allocated to the roof, and maybe a
few balls, a jumprope, and a few Big-Wheels.  The roof floor was
exactly what it should have been, nailed pieces of white tar-like
shingles that were joined by gobs of gooey black tar and small
pebbles.  The roof was always hot, even during the fall.  Me and
several toddlers would pick a spot somewhere on the roof and focus
on the tar, rubbing our fingers in it and then rubbing it deeply
into each others faces.  Alot of us sucked our thumbs, myself
excluded, and would suck the tar right off.  On several occasions
I watched my playmates throw up a mushy paste, not unlike a milk
and graham cracker blend.  Nothing would happen.  Well, not until
one of us began crying, either from actually being the victim, or
from being the spectator.  Big, tall teachers would encircle us and
take ahold of our mouths and physically clean them with their huge
hands.  It was a weird experience to say the least.  That was
probably my first memory of trial and error, and I successfully
learned to stay away from ingesting tar in the future.

Lunch-time was the greatest.  And even at the non-competing age of
three, I recall vividly wondering why most of my friends got that
flat, square, light yellow cheese on their sandwiches when I got
this blocky, hand-cut dark cheese.  Another qualm I learned to have
was that of how the bread was cut on the sandwich.  My playmates
seemed to generally have a diagonal cut and mine was always
straight through the middle.  We were all in the same group when it
came to vegetables.  We all had to eat them and we all hated them. 
That sort of unity was what I preferred to see.  The gist of the
whole lunch situation was that of mess.  The whole act of eating
was disorganized and sloppy.  No less than half our food ended up
on the floor, or in a companion's hair or a permanent fixture on
his/her clothing.  This was what seemed so enjoyable.  Whereas
other times we seemed to be getting chided for every small
infraction, there were no expectations when lunchtime came around.

There was one general rule of the house.  Nobody the age of 5 or
under could go anywhere without an adult.  That was fine, because
nobody wanted to.  Very shortly after lunch the apple juice would
pass through and everybody had to go.  And go we went, depending on
our age, in our pants or in (or near) the toilet.  I had been
pretty good with this and generally could hold it atleast two
minutes after I felt the urge.  I was actually rewarded for this. 
And so the masses walked in two's or sometimes five's to the
bathroom, which was on the complete other side of the daycare
center.  About three of four hundred preschooler steps at the
least.  This was when I would stare deeply at the red-grill box as
my arm strained from being held by someone so much taller than me.

One particular day after lunch I had to go.  I took a quick look
around and found no larger person to escort me to the bathroom.  I
decided to hit the high road and take the walk myself.  I eyed the
distance and noted my path.  It would be easy, just walk straight
and when I get to those things leading down i'll go straight some
more and then go left.  Although it was actually several years
later until I learned what "left" and its opposite "right" meant. 
So I started on my venture, walking sketchily towards my goal. 
Finally I reached a landmark, the fire alarm.  This insured my
route was correct from past trips.  Although this was quite some
time after my interest in the red box had faded, I thought about it
again after needing it as a navigation tool.  I focused my gaze
upon it again and watched it suspiciously as I began to pass it. 
At that point I had realized, somehow, that it was a fire-alarm,
and that it made a loud noise to warn everybody of danger.  As that
exact thought had begun to turn into another, the alarm went off. 


I froze.


The reverberation of the room was phenomenal, so reverberent infact
that a few playing children sounded like a whole playground at
recess.  I was terrified.  It seemed so odd.  My intrepretation was
that this "alarm" was actually alive, because how else could it
have done anything?  This terrified me more.  The loud buzz, sharp
and pounding my young eardrums, only grew worse.  My young ears
were screaming as well as my young voice.  I spontaneously fell to
the hard tile floor and writhed around in extreme confusion.

Hours later it seemed, but only about thirty actual seconds, a mass
of toddlers and teachers darted towards me from the lunch area.  It
was a stampede as far as I could tell.  The alarm pervaded my
hearing and I began hearing another sound, a mellow ringing in both
of my ears.  The teachers encircled, and I expected great reward
for my heroism.  However, I was snatched up and taken with my
fellow friends quickly downstairs and outside to street level.

I was shaken, to say the least.

I remained crying along with every other child, creating an odd
stereophonic wail from all points.  A given friend (as in, I was
his friend because his parents knew my parents) of mine named Jesse
was close at hand and the two of us got together and cried in
unity.  

The alarm was false, as so many more would be in my days in public
school, and each and every time, even up until the end of high
school, I would respond in ways that would scare my friends.

3] Ben's two minutes
--------------------

Beanjack was quietly reading bad prose and sipping his poison. 
Meanwhile Ben was strolling parallel down the street amusing at a
cat that followed him closely.  A general hush was present.  The
cemetary flowed along as his hair flowed with the cool breeze. 
Twin-engine planes sounded in the sky reminding Ben of todays day,
Sunday.  He walked carelessly down the cracked sidewalk, unaware of
his continuous stumbling.  

She left her house and smiled at him.  He felt a warm blush on his
face.  She was his mysterious neighbor, living next to him for a
year and still he didn't know her name.  She was tall, exotic, and
almost dreamlike.  They crossed paths accidentally as he stumbled
on yet another crack, grazing her side as they passed.  His eyes
remained affixed on her...They crossed paths and he looked back
examining her from another angle.  She turned back wondering if he
had any response to his bumping into her.  Her smile was simply
entrancing.  He smiled at her and began to apologize.

"I'm, I'm terribly sorry...I, I..." he stopped, too caught up in
her eyes.  She smiled and gestured a quick forgiveness.  She too
was amazed with him.  She was nervous and visibly shaking.  "No, it
was my fault." She said wearily.  

Ben hated cliches.  He knew only too well that it was his
carelessness that led him to collide with her.  She had no right to
claim responsibility for his mistake, it was unfair.  He felt
himself turned off by her response.  His nervousness dissipated. 
"Hey, I ran into you..." he spoke, almost agitated.  She
interpreted this response defensively.  "Well, I, I just wanted
to.." Ben interrupted, "Look, I think you're beautiful and all, but
why do you have to be so fake?  Its quite obvious that it was my
fault and that you're trying to claim responsibility for some odd
manipulative reason."

He was babbling to himself and to her, something he had refined in
the asylum.  He caught himself and began to feel uncomfortable.  He
tried again, hoping to convince her to restart this odd
conversation.  She was visibly offended and continued on her way.

He knew it.  He continued his walk, distancing himself further from
her as she headed into town.  "Strike one" he spat in disgust.  He
continued down the street, verbalizing a new approach to the
following cat.

4] Deeth and its offerings.. 
----------------------------

Look at you!  Just look at you!  A fine excuse for a human being if
I may say so which I will cause I can and I did.  Man, the nerve of
some people, or whatever the heck you think you are.  I seem to,
utilize the feet more than, usual as of lately.  And it's okay, a
warm day, Novembur and it's nice and warm and yeah, I like it. 
Makes me think of Neeeevaaahhduh.  And driving wit T and were
wearin' out and burning out and we just gotta get somewhere and
relllaxxxxxx...That's hella sick, dog....It get's late and the
eyelids are a gettin' sleeeepppyy...And T is spaced out like a
sleepin' dawg.  Ain't sweatin' the car no more, no siree...Just a
bit numb to the whole breakdown thang...And big long roads, no
lights, one car light, wolves, cactus and the great outdoors.  I
keep on thinking, that I'm seeing something, I swear.  It's the
same thing, and man, isa freakin' me out.  And so I just blow it
off as a "whatever" and we make it to like some small town and like
I forgot the name but if like you remember you should go there
sometime and visit.  And islike, buuuutiful.  And islike, SOOOOO
clear and we're way up high and the stars are like on the ceiling. 
And we crash at th' motel, but islike, totally WEEEEIRD!  And the
guy, we woke that farming bastard up, and he'slike, "Yuh want a
room, do ya?"  (hick hick hick...)  "Islike 20 dolla's, islike the
best room wez got!"  And it was like, ahh gee, a goddamn
trailer...Oneadem grey spacy lookin' bastards that could like orbit
an' shit.  And that's wuz home and we sat there lookin' at each
other and laughin' and shit as th' sink spewed out dis green shit
(and stuff) and islike, so WEEEEIRD!!  And I got the weak bed
(islike an Army cot) and islike, comfortable as a buck.  Islike we
gotda breakfast da next mornin' and islike, shit, that shit is grub
there buck.


Alex Swain <swain@cybernetx.net>

--END--