Midnight Train

In my old age I’ve seen a lot of things. Some things I’m a little more proud of than others. As a boy there wasn’t a damn thing that could sate my appetite for the world around me. Everything in reach I had to get my hands on, take it apart and study it. My natural curiosity is what got me into the many scraps and situations of my youth.

I remember when I wasn’t any older than six, it was the fall of nineteen hundred and twenty-eight, me and several of the local boys were out playing a game of hide-and-seek. Denny Louis was the seeker, and a damned good one at that, so I took it upon myself to find a damned good hiding place. I remembered the hayloft out in our barn, and figured I could hide myself among the many bales of hay up there, maybe even push some of those bales around like I had times before when I wanted to build a fort, and get myself a perfect hiding space. Denny started counting out loud from a hundred and I took off a running to the barn, the breeze tickling my cheeks and smelling like the harvest.

I ran through those big red doors and my eyes fell on Denny Louis’ mama laying on the ground, straw in her hair and her dress hiked up, with my Daddy laying on top of her, looking like he was trying to pick himself up, but he seemed to be having trouble. I had no idea what I was seeing, but I would later learn all about what my Daddy was doing when I was fourteen when me and Sandra Hannigan made our way up into the same hayloft that I had hid so many times, and made so many forts in, to get out of the rain. She shook the water from that beautiful blazing, red hair of hers and noticed my eyes stuck on her nipples poking out like little buttons in the cold, wet air. She hiked up that flowery yellow dress she liked to wear and spread her creamy white, freckled legs, revealing her sweet fire peach. There in the smell of spring rain and old horse shit I made love for the first time. Beautiful girl, she was.

“Daddy?” my little voice rung out, echoing off the dusty, wooden walls. My old man turned and stared at me, like he’d been caught dipping his hand into the honey pot, and for lack of better words, that’s exactly what he was doing. He hoisted himself off of Mrs. Louis and made his way over to me.

Unbranded Laptop

My brother moved out of the house back in 2002 once he got his job as a Computer technician, and he recently went missing. When I went to his house, it was locked, with 3 sheets of printer paper taped to the front door.

"While coming home from work one day, I noticed someone had left their damaged grey laptop laying in the middle of my driveway one day. I got out of my car to examine it more carefully.

The LCD definitely showed signs of user related damage, as there was a large hole on the left side of the screen that fit a standard Phillips Head screwdriver perfectly. There was a webcam above the display as well, and it was also destroyed with the same screwdriver. Other than those, however, everything else on the computer showed minor signs of wear, like almost all of the keyboards keys were faded, but nothing to the extent that it could be considered unusable. I looked at the back of the display to find out what brand it is, and yet, I couldn't find anything. I looked at the entire laptop's shell and there was no text or logo stating what brand it is. In fact, there was no warranty sticker, no "Proof of licence" sticker on the bottom, no text whatsoever. What's even more odd was the fact that the only ports on the laptop was a VGA port for connecting an external display and a USB port. How long could this laptop have possibly run without a charging port to recharge the battery? It must have been a very low end laptop where you had to remove the battery pack and put it into it's own charging dock. Why did it exactly have a web cam, though?

The Cabin and the Dolls

I don't know what to do anymore. I’m so scared and I can't trust anyone. I went camping about 3 weekends ago in the Huntsville national forest in Texas. Me and 3 friends that came home for the weekend, they are all in college and usually we all get together at least once a year, old friends from high school. For the camping trip we planned to go backpacking deep in the forest, live off of fish that we catch and animals that we can trap. We have been doing this for awhile in Texas and in numerous places, Arizona, Colorado (if anyone is familiar with the Spanish peaks there), New Mexico, so we‘re pretty much used to anything you‘d encounter out there. It was my turn to pick where we went camping, so I chose Huntsville (more accurately it’s Huntsville/New Waverly). So we drive up there park our car in a camping park spot and start walking off into the forest. We had some laughs along the way, everyone catching up with each other's lives. We walked until it started to get dark and set up camp where we stopped. Everyone gathered wood to make a fire and we set our tent up. And we do what we always do: try and scare each other with weird stories.

Around this time we started to smell something very faint. It was noticeable, but not overbearing. We couldn't put our finger on what it was, so we just carried on. Mike had to go piss and he walked off in the forest. A second later he come running back, piss all down his jeans like he’d missed really bad. Immediately we all crack up and throw some jokes at him. Then we noticed that he was white as snow and trying to catch his breath. He starts screaming for us to follow him, and runs off.

DO NOT TOUCH

If you go into this one tiny, dingy one-story bar in Paris, and the right bartender is behind the counter that night, you might be able to see a very exclusive gallery show of the lost works of one Henri Beauchamp. But, to get in, you have to prove you're a devotee of the artist to get in.

You'll be asked, in clear and perfect English, "What would like to partake of this glorious night?" Answer "absinthe", no matter what. Any other drink, from whiskey to water, will kill you as you sleep.

The next question will regard the type, and you MUST answer one of two things: "The stuff that Man himself could not bear to take," or, "The good stuff. The best stuff." If you ask for any other absinthe, in any other way, you will be plagued by nightmares for 13 days. Each night's dream will be more horrible than the last, until, upon the thirteenth dream, your nightmare will follow you, every moment of your waking and sleeping life.

Die Before You Sleep

You ever wonder what happens to you when you die? Well, I have a little idea of it. People die at all ages, and of all types of causes. Sometimes it's by injury, sometimes it's by disease.

But sometimes, old men and women just die in their sleep.

Beau część II

[kontynuacja pasty "Beau część I"]

Żuki wgryzły się w Beau i wyciągnęły z niego całą Siłę. Znów zaczął swoją wędrówkę, ale tym razem było o wiele trudniej. Nie mógł podróżować szybko, misja przez to bardzo się przedłużała i musiał być szczególnie ostrożny, ponieważ nie miał wystarczająco dużo siły, by z kimkolwiek walczyć. Ciemność mogłaby go połknąć, a wtedy byłby już niczym na zawsze.

Beau włóczył się po Królestwie Ciemności w poszukiwaniu jej serca przez bardzo długi czas. Kraina ta była zimna i nieprzyjazna. Nie było tu jednak spokojnie. Co chwila dochodził do niego płacz i dostrzegał przemieszczające się cienie. Drzewa nie posiadały liści, nie było żadnych kwiatów; jedyne światło pochodziło od trujących grzybów wydzielanych nieprzyjemną woń zgniłych śmieci, a jedyną nierównością tego płaskiego terenu były ruiny zamków, które zostały podbite przez armię cieni i pozostawione na zmarnowanie.

Beau część I

Kiedy byłam mała, miałam zmyślonego przyjaciela o imieniu Beau. Wymyślałam najprzeróżniejsze historyjki i przygody, które miał. Uwielbiałam o nich opowiadać mojej mamie. Teraz niewiele z tego pamiętam, ale mama ostatnio odświeżyła moją pamięć. Ponoć Beau był Królem Cichego Miejsca. Na pytanie, gdzie znajduje się Ciche Miejsce odpowiadałam wzruszeniem ramion. Podobno nie była to przyjemna kraina, bardzo ciemna i cicha, a Beau był mieszkańcem, który lubił się bawić, więc pewnego dnia wyruszył w poszukiwaniu kogoś do zabawy i tak znalazł mnie.

Kiedy mama mi o tym opowiedziała nie zaśmiała się ani nie zażartowała tak jak to robiła w przypadku mojego starszego brata, który wymyślił sobie dzieciństwie dinozaura. Beau nie lubił typowych gier i zabaw. Beau był przerażający. Matka nigdy nie zachowała żadnego obrazka przedstawiającego mojego przyjaciela, ale był jeden, który szczególnie zapadł jej w pamięć. Był to rysunek Beau w jego Królestwie. Cały kraj był bardzo ciemnoniebieski i czarny, z cieniami ledwo wychylającymi się z brzegów kartki. Król był bardzo blady, ale posiadał niezwykle szeroki uśmiech z całym rzędem ostrych zębów. Całe dzieło było na tyle niepokojące, że pokazała je mojemu pediatrze, pytając czy jest się czym martwić. W odpowiedzi usłyszała, że to całkowicie normalne.