What to do on a warm night.

The heat became comfortably stagnant at night, after being blisteringly hot throughout the day, the night air became room temperature, the stars had just emerged and twinkled the world with a healthy glow . It was the kind of night that magic could happen on. And did.

That's what they were looking for, the two of them; magic. And that's what they were, the two of them; magic.


They stole their first and only car that night, it wasn't the first thing that they stole. Over the past couple months they had taken the time to gain access to their parents accounts. They were waiting for the right day to go to an ATM for a withdrawal. The perfect day was today. Friday. So no one would notice the accounts had been gouged until Monday. And they'd be gone by then.

Freedom is important when making a decision to leave with the one that you love. Making sure that you are no longer mentally tied down by the world that raised you. Allowing yourself the ability to forge a new world for yourself. A world in which you are the one in control of the parameters that decide what is important in life, and what is not.

They didn't steal a car from someone they knew. Too easy to track. And they only wanted to get one city away before they bought a car for themselves.

And they held hands while on the road all night. the warm wind blowing in through the car window's. Listening to music. Taking turns driving. They were never seen or heard from again by their family and friends. They simply disappeared.

Magic.

Confession

It can be difficult to distinguish good from bad. Too often are we exposed to rhetoric and moral upbringing that tells us that there are good people and that there are bad people. When, in fact, it's more often situational and reliant on many more variables than the moral character of one single individual. Not to mention that's assuming that a human being's moral character is a constant. It's not constant. Trust me.

So, when, for example, I was asked by a friend to drive a car to an unknown location, not look in any compartments, and walk away. I knew something was up. If you were to ask me now, how could I have not known what was going on was bad? You could chalk it up to these specific answers.

I have never known my friend to engage in such behavior.
I am naive one the best of days, and this was a bad day.
A part of me knew something was up but figured 'fuck it'.

Let me state, for the record, that in most things. I don't mind people other than me getting fucked over. No, don't think for a moment that you're any different. You, for the most part, don't care if somebody else had their identity stolen, or car stolen, or dog kidnapped. You only care if it happens to yourself. You especially don't care if a drug dealer got ripped off a couple hundred thousand. You even like it if it's been done by a person just like you.

My friend and I, we're just like you.

Let me just say, for the record. I feel bad about the cat. I don't really care about anything else. But had I known that there was not just a drug lord, but a cat in the trunk. I would have opened the trunk and got the cat out.... and the guy.

By the time the car exploded though, I was half way home, and there was nothing I could do about the cat.

There's nothing I can do now, a guy and a cat our dead. I had a hand in it, more like a finger and a thumb. All I can say is. the next time my friend asks me to drive a car to an specific unnamed location, and walk home. I'll check the fucking car for cats...and people.

Short, Little. Short, BIg.

He was a short, little man. It's important to say both because, there are short men, that you wouldn't call little. And there are little men, that you wouldn't call short. He was both.

He didn't have short man's complex, he was too little for that. He was so little that he could be compared to a weasel. He'd weasel his way in and out of everything he could get his hands on. From friendships, to jobs, to women.

He was the kind of short, little man that was so good at being short and little that it took most people a long time to figure out what a short, little man he was. This was because he needed everyone that came in to his life to like him, and hopefully love him. So he could get things from them. It's always easier to get things from people when they love you.

So most people thought he was amazing. Most people loved him. But not all. There was a woman, a woman that saw right through him, that was friends with a woman that he was trying to sleep with. Every time she saw him she would say things like:

"I could break you like a toothpick, fuck off." or
"You're like a Jack Russel Terrier, but less useful" or
"I hate you, stop trying to fuck me and my friend. You're clearly a waste of time"

He couldn't stand her, but mostly he couldn't stand the fact that she hated him. How could she hate him? He was so charming, he knew he had a way with people! How could she see through that? So one night at a party they were both at. He asked:

"Why don't you like me?"
"I told you why the moment that I first met you. You're a worm of a human being"
"I'm not, I'm a good guy, everybody loves me."
"You don't love yourself, because you know that you're a joke."

She was a short, big woman. It's important to say both, because she was short in height, and big in the sense that she was powerful, a force to be in awe of.

She was someone who carried power everywhere she went, with few friends, all of which were true and loyal. She was someone that people wanted to be a part of something with. She had a power that mystified most people around her. The power came from inside herself. And she used it to see through little people; short and tall.

As months went by, he noticed that he couldn't stand his own thoughts as much, and that people weren't taking to him as much as they used to. He wasn't invited out as much as he used to be. Something was changing in his circle of friends. And he knew who to blame; it was all her fault. She had turned his world against him.

He found out where she lived and came to her apartment building and waited across the street until she came out to go to work. He ran up behind her with a knife in his hand. In a flash of light he was down on convulsing and in a blinding amount of pain. She had turned around and tasered him.

"Wow, now you really do look like a worm."

Shivers

Have you ever had one of those moments, where, you're whole body, in the middle of an activity of some type, and your whole body just sort of, well, shakes as if you were asleep and then you're awake? And, well, right after it happens, it's like you, see differently?

Well, that's what happened to me just now, except, instead of just seeing something differently, I'm in a completely different room than I was before. And I have a gun in my hand.

The more I think about where I was the more this seems like it's completely impossible. I was sitting on the couch with my girlfriend, and we were making out, things were getting hot and heavy, her skin was silky to touch, and her hand was lifting up my shirt and it caused me to shiver.

And the next thing I know, I'm standing here. And I have a gun, and I have no idea where I am, and now I'm just starting to really notice you. And you're cowering before me, and that makes sense. I guess, because I have a gun. You're a pretty big guy, so even though I don't feel any malice at this moment towards you, I'm not going to put the gun down. Your mouth is taped, and I notice that my other hand has the rest of the tape in it.

 I need to figure out what time it is, but there are no windows in this room.

There is a door, so I walk to it, and I open it, it's night time. And my girlfriend is waiting outside of her car in a tiny parking lot. She's leaning on the hood. She's in a black dress. She looks amazing. I remember who you are.

I walk back in. You whimper. I pull the trigger.

I'm embarrassed to say I get the shivers more often than I would like.

Lazy Steph

She never put her shoes on correctly. She was lazy, she was so lazy that she never put her shoes on correctly. Some people don't put their shoes on correctly because they are in a rush, or maybe, like some children, they don't know how. This was not the case with Stephanie. Stephanie was lazy. So she would always have the tongue of her sneakers bunched up against her toes.

Even when she got to a place where she would be sitting for long periods, and the tongue of each shoe was still jamming her toes so much it hurt. She would not fix them. She didn't fix them, not because she was lazy(though she was) but because she liked the pain it gave her toes.

It made her walk funny, but she always wore pants that covered up the fact that she had her shoes on wrong. So people thought that maybe she was subtly bow-legged or something along those lines. She wasn't. She was fine.

Stephanie was married, but her husband never noticed that she walked funny. He always had his head up in the clouds, and she loved that about him. Admittedly, she would have liked it if he had noticed, but it wasn't essential to their happiness. His head up in the clouds was essential to their happiness. Because he also never noticed how lazy she was.

Stephanie would convince her husband that it was always his turn to do things, like cook, or clean, or do the dishes. And it always worked, because he had his head up in the clouds. The occasional time that he didn't have his head up in the clouds, he did it anyways, because he loved her and didn't care that she was lazy. Stephanie never knew that he knew she was lazy, so she never asked for help.

It was more important to Stephanie that she get away with being lazy, than to fix the problem she had with her shoes.