A few things.

It's Halloween! Everyone knows this is the one holiday that replicates Valentine's Day, only instead of boyfriends getting the bare skin treatment from their girlfriends, EVERYONE gets to observe massive amounts of cleavage and leggage on this most holy day. That's all I really need to say on the subject. I look forward to going out tonight and finding out just how low we can go. Tonight I'm going to what's known here as The Electric Cowboy, which is just one of a chain of EC's in the dirty south.

I've never been there before, but I think Halloween will ease the swallowing of a this reality-altering redneck pill.


And for the fiction fans... here's the beginning of a little story.

I enter a room with no windows, a door behind me and a door to my right. As I see him, I approach, stopping at the center of a small oval rug. The rug gradients red, from where it is closest to him, to a dirt-stained white, toward the entrance. Even without movement, the floor moans. In some places, I can see dusty air venting through the fault lines of ancient wood.

Lazarus sits before me in a tan and brown armchair. The chair is a threadbare fossil from the 1980's. The armrests are worn down to the wood under Lazarus' elbows. A tiny light fixture hangs from the ceiling and shines on his hat, just inches above. The rim of his austral bush hat casts a shadow that falls all the way to his thighs. His dungaree knees shone and under them sat a pair of motionless shitkickers.

"You're late," he croaked. The huge brim slowly tilted upward, but still concealed his face in darkness. As my eyes adjusted I could see a tinted yellow underbite and a stubbled chin. I tried to think of an answer. I tested the grit of my own chin, rubbing it between my thumb and fingers--only to find it feeling feminine and pointless. Suddenly everything about me became pointless. Brick after brick, the temple I had built of my body demolished. Like a black hole, the relevance of facial hair was sucked into this man's mouth-- hurdling forward, leaving me naked and useless.

I tried to remember the words of my teacher, but it was as though I was deep in a dream and my body had sent word to my mind that it had stopped functioning. Air. I need air, I thought. For all my will to break free, I was frozen. I surged into myself, devoting everything to simply breaking away from this. Finally, my arm snapped and I spun away, hitting the wall and sliding down to the floor.

Lazarus stood up and I scrambled to find his face-- but the light evaded him. He moved so that only his knees and the top of his hat were visible-- and the stony row of teeth that sat atop a sunken lip. I tried to remember the words of my teacher, but they would not come. They were there, in front of my mind, but the darkness of the room ate them all away. I was useless to move. My eyes darted back and forth between the two bright blue knees and the top of his obscene hat. Boldness. They fear the bold. Fear begets hate and courage begets love. My mind ran away from all the correct things and I found that I, laying there in the corner of the wall, could only think about sex. The soft skin of a young woman. The inviting eyes of a wanton, the lactic breasts of a venusian woman. Images of lust formed a nickelodeon in my head. Boldness. The word came again and again until it was all I could picture.

I reached up against the wall and felt for something to grab on. Nothing. I looked down at my legs and summoned them. Up, damnit! Move!

The room went pitch for a moment and I found myself looking at Lazarus in his decrepit chair, with his hat on his lap. I was standing in the center of the rug, at ease. His face revealed itself under the light, which seemed liquid in the way it revived.

"Lazarus..." I said.
"Don't be late again. Or there will be hell to pay," he said, brandishing his smile. Only then did I recognize him. Sags of skin tentacled from his chin to his chest. His cheeks drooped so that under his eyes were cheshire moons of red, wet flesh. He was hideous. Wires of white hair flew from his scalp. His ears covered more than half the side of his head, and his lips were white. He was disgusting. He was the oldest human being on earth.

tbc..