damned lullabies

another damned lullabye, set to the tune of a crossfire melody...

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"you've got a blood infection," said the dentist. he set aside his clipboard, looked me in the eye. "you've got a year to live, maybe less."

"oh, thank God," i breathed a sigh of relief. "it's about time." he was raising an eyebrow, and i was pretty sure he'd never gotten that reaction from that sort of news. i felt a smile creeping across my face, fought it, and failed. "and there's nothing you can do? like, if i had a rich uncle or something who wanted to pour a couple thousand dollars into blood transfusions or something...?"

"uh, it's not really that simple..." he put his glasses back on and picked my records up. "there are treatments, of course, but it'd just be adding time. we're talking a year, tops."

"no need," i stood, recovered my coat, "a year might already be too long." he watched me collect my things silently, correctly guessing that there was no point in trying to talk about billing, payments, followups... "by the way, what's the date today?"

"november twenty-third."

"2011," i prompted.

"of course."

"close enough. thanks, doc. have a good life."

he didn't respond, and was still sitting there when i left.

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the next day was thanksgiving, which i greeted by drinking enough wine to fuck up the holiday for everyone around me. good, i thought; they'd have something to look forward to next year. i decided to celebrate by dressing up nice and walking around shitty neighborhoods trying to get jumped. it proved to be pretty uneventful - who knew gangsta took thanksgiving off? i didn't. "learn something new every day, i guess;" there was nobody around to address, but i spoke aloud anyway. only 364 more things left to learn for me, give or take a few accounting for diet and general health - and i planned on taking a *lot*. would saint peter care that i didn't stick around to learn a few more things?

nah, he'd probably focus on my ability to fuck up my friends' lives, and, just like them, would forget all about the two incomes, constant food, and unceasing companionship i brought to the table. they're easy things to forget about, unless you're me - and if you are, i apologize for all the stress, exhaustion, and headaches. i'd say you - that is to say, me - I - threw the ol' hat in with the wrong crowd, but if there's a more right crowd out there, then they dropped the ball by not making themselves known. but that's alright. it's all alright. a death sentence is the ultimate anti-depressant; too bad it can't bring peace as readily.

my bottle was half empty (or half full, i couldn't decide) and i was walking past yet another desolate, empty alleyway (who are all these dollar bills poking out of my pocket for? there's nobody here to want them; maybe i should start knocking on doors.) when i put a few moments of thought into trying to see my family, maybe hooking back up with old flames, tracking down lost friends. only a few moments, because i knew all those meetings would play out essentially the same - tears, pleas to seek treatment, painful goodbyes. it wasn't something i wanted to hear, and it wasn't a burden i needed to lay on loved ones. let it be a surprise; hell, let most of them never know, only vaguely suspect. ignorance, after all, is bliss.

sigh. truth, lies, or silence? really, i'd been working towards silence for years, so resorting to that sooner than later was no big leap. it would be nice to stop trying to have all the answers, as nice as it would be to quit all the deceptions, all the half-truths. it really didn't matter anyway - there are so few people i'd even want to see, and as of today there are no more friends or allies to worry about. i drank some more, pulled my jacket a little closer, tried to ignore the flurries falling in my general vicinity. elsewhere, thanksgiving carried on, deaf blind and dumb to my whining. tables were set, glasses filled, turkeys cut, and prayers spoken. out there, too far away, quiet threats forgotten as plates and stomachs groan beneath the feast.

habits reach a little harder towards infinity, and get a little closer.

my wine is empty; the bottle finds a home across the side of a garage, a thousand shards destined to leave scars that will outlast me. one hand seeks eternity while the other digs a shallow grave. cigarette, puff puff it's over; well, the cancer can't possibly catch up with me now, so another can't possibly hurt, right? puff, puff. these trees realize that technology trumps anything human in this day and age, that we'd rather keep the lights on than buy groceries.

it doesn't matter; i find a fight, a screaming match in the middle of the street, a family with guns drawn on each other, and i stroll through the middle, slowly. the crossfire melody i seek never comes; rather, the guns vanish, voices grow quiet, as if my presence were enough to solve whatever problem i'd found. by the time i turn down the next random street, they embrace each other.

their peace is not my own.

tenses blur - is this yesterday, or january '03? - the wine comes up, or maybe it's just blood, the stain i leave on the sidewalk clarifies nothing. my head is steady, but when i pull out my compass, the needle spins uncontrollably. reminder not to grab the alcoholic compass when leaving home; it reeks of whiskey and cheap whores, and is that maybe a touch of gonorrhea i see forming at the southern tip? as technology ages, it seems to fall prey to all the old human follies. i have become a shortwave radio, and i seek sleep... but these alleyways are no shelter for me. i guess which direction home is in, and i'm climbing my front steps before i've walked ten feet. the compass throws up in my hand - there's no mistaking *that* for blood - and my pocketwatch grumbles about the arthritic weather, slowly. i could wind it, but the complaining would just get louder, faster, more elaborate. i'm upstairs, falling fully clothed into bed, where i listen to the increasing volume of waiting between ticks, holding the watch to my ear, feeling the expansion of time. soon the ticking stops, and i can hear the ocean. nothing to do now but sleep.

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when i wake up, chicago is somewhat more on fire than i remember it. ungodly shrieks and yells thicken the air along with ash, blood, memories left abandoned in dying shells - thick, like soup, like dough, everything in slow motion except for...

they fly, they run on too many legs, they seem more gaping maws with locomotion than anything else. there is not even a hint of stomach on most of them, though that doesn't stop them from swallowing arms, heads, whole bodies. i can no longer pick out the corner where i threw up, because every square of the sidewalk is caked in entrails and fluids. soup. the people run in slow motion, arms working the air like swimmers, snatched up mid-stride by lightning-fast glimpses of teeth. windows in nearby houses are either full of terrified onlookers, or shattered, home to the same carnage running through the streets below. i reach for absent wine, grope for missing smokes, come up empty. no friends, no allies - where have i heard this before? cruel echoes. i try to tell new stories but always find myself retracing old trails. i decide to test last night's luck again by going out on my back porch, digging through the ashtray for a suitable butt. the lighter leaves me blinded for an instant; when my vision clears, one of the winged monstrosities is before me, bobbing up and down, otherwise totally motionless. the wings stick out in four directions, somehow keeping it aloft while remaining still. they look like props, pasted on to make it that much more horrifying. the mouth hangs open, wide enough for me to climb into, which i consider. caught in the teeth are... bits, pieces, remnants of people, pets, and totally unidentifiable things. there is a constant exhalation of sulfur, and the vague scent of burning feathers.

i keep smoking as we regard each other, and when the smoke is gone and it still waits, i walk down my steps to the yard. it follows. alright, i think. i always wanted a nice, big, obedient dog. this unspeakable extradimensional horror is close enough. halfway down the steps i realize my movement is unrestricted, that the slow-motion disease which seems to have crippled the rest of the city has no effect on me. i walk to the fence, find another smokable butt on the ground, and as i light it i notice a gorgeous girl running towards me from across the street.

her face is sheer panic. there's blood on her arms and hands, but it doesn't seem to be hers. all her effort has her running a little slower than my normal walking pace. she's spotted me, comes straight up to the fence, fingers gripping the chain-link as she struggles to scream something. a plea for help, a warning of the creature behind me? the voice is too deep, darth vader at half-speed; she shakes the fence, but it's such a gradual motion that it doesn't even rattle. she's close enough for me to see individual beads of sweat emerge from her face like mud. her head turns to the left, ever so slightly, and a scaly green blur dismembers her as it passes without losing stride. she manages to let out one more yell as she dies; "why?" she screams. the sound lasts as i walk away, back up the steps, finally dying out as i reach my back door. i look back as i step through; my companion has resumed its position hovering just over the railing. it watches me.

i consider a shower, note that the water looks wrong; by the time i shut the water off, only a few moments, the apartment has filled with the stench of brimstone. i splash on some cologne for some residually vain reason, stuff my backpack full of bottled water and food from the fridge, dress in clothes i haven't worn for years. it doesn't seem to matter anymore, so when i leave i don't bother to lock the door. i don't expect to come back.

it's going to be an interesting year, i think, looking deep into the throat of the still-waiting entity floating next to my porch.