A. Hicks Hope

My story Big Cold Room is in the latest issue of A. Hicks Hope online magazine. Check it out!

http://www.ahickshope.net/dreams.htm

Usiel Ponders The American Dream And Can’t Help But Smile.

          He was sitting there on his couch eating some chips that were supposed to taste like pizza. They didn’t. He just liked salty things, and these were the closest things he could find that fit into that category. It didn’t really matter. He was so tired that he couldn’t even remember what sport he was watching. He’d been working all day, and he finally came home to his pizza chips, and he was almost asleep when the phone rang like it knew how much it bothered him. Against all odds, he picked it up.

            “Hello?”

            “Yes, is this Usiel? With the brown Cadillac?”

            “Yeah.” He hated his stupid name. Like, it was tight, but everyone who said it always said it like they were saying a curse word, so he hated it. He almost hated it as much as he hated the fact that, after years of scrimping and saving and wishing to own a Cadillac, it was broken more than it worked. He hated that it was brown, too. It gave people the impression that he was about fifty years older than he actually was. It was the kind of paint job that said it was the least of the owner’s worries.

            “Hi, this is Tommy from the garage. You said that you wanted to replace the engine on this vehicle?”

            “Yes, that’s right. Is something wrong?” He already knew the answer. He also felt very sorry for himself and decided it was time for another pizza chip. His dog came into the room and tried to jump onto his lap. The great brute was roughly the size of an oil tanker, and Usiel could feel his soul being crushed, so he pushed him away. He sauntered out of the room and back down the hall like he should be one upset, the nerve.

            “Well, not really. I mean, we could still replace it if that’s what you want, but you could just buy a whole new car for how much we’d have to charge you. Well, I mean, not brand new, but, uh, of equal value to the car you, uh, previously owned. Or something.” There was a long silence where you could almost feel the self-pity and frustration floating through the air. “Sir? Are you still there?”

            “Yeah, sorry. Don’t do anything to it tomorrow until I come by.”

            “Alright, that’s fine. We open at eleven.”

            “Okay, thanks.”

            “Have a nice night, sir. See you tomorrow.”

            “Bye bye.” And he hung up. He hated it when he earnestly said “bye bye”. He felt like an idiot. What people thought of him was of the utmost importance. Now this guy probably thought he was some kind of weak little loser with a really stupid name and a dumb brown car.

            It is a time like this one in a man’s life that usually ends up causing some sort of reflection on how life has been so far. And so Usiel reflected. He was twenty-seven years old. He gave up drawing for a career in the Air Force when he was seventeen because he thought flying was cool. Several years later, he found himself in Florida with his dumb brown car and an even dumber brown dog. So the question entered his mind? What did he really have going for him? Well, for one thing, he had a wonderful wife. She was probably the only reason he wasn’t aggressive and was instead merely passive-aggressive. He could also fly a large aircraft with the capability of sinking the entire country of Japan. This was more cool than useful, but you know, whatever. He was still a man with manly, explosion and violence-related needs.

            This made him feel a little better. Plus, he had a few more pizza chips so he was in relatively high spirits. Yes, life was okay. And he really wanted to go fly some planes.

Heavy, too. Oh.

I drank a glass of water today. It sat hard without movement, and was heavier in my stomach than usual. Along with the molecules of hydrogen and oxygen, fused together as they always have been, I accidentally swallowed some of myself, and gave myself up to the insects who will break my body down and fertilize the wet black soil. Hopefully the resulting flowers aren’t too heavy.

I’ll take my secret flowers and push them up, past the lost memories, past the night writing, past my every broken vase and thrown-up dust ball and into the back of my closet, where the sunlight can’t get and it still smells like the difference between the effects of certain detergents on mold.

I hope they smell good. I hope they die fast.

I was never cut out to be florist.

Lemon and Pepper.

Two clocks. Two clocks clicking, ticking, together, out of sync. We’re sitting in the middle, but I’m the only one here. Spill your guts to me, on me; in my mouth. I’ll chew them up, savoring each bloody bite, like I’m supposed to. I usually eat too fast, but this just might slow me up. Now we’re somewhere else, but I can’t quite.

Do this to me more.

I will always let you, you snake.

Let me sometime.

I am so tired of listening to these clocks.

Attack Of The Shadeless Lamp

Sometimes I love things very much. I’m going to try my best to convey this feeling to you through words.

Okay, I drive a van, first of all. It’s like, pretty modern, probably from like, 2000 or 2001, but the goal here is to do everything in your power to imagine that it’s not only very old, but preferably not a van at all. Let’s try something more along the lines of a like, topless jeep. Is that what it’s called? The kind of jeep that one dude drives through the shitty, tribal part of Africa in that movie about the Coke bottle. Actually, any shitty-ass car you might find in that part of Africa will work, so just visualize one. You will probably need to roll down the windows for this one. Nextly, imagine that it’s overcast. Like, extremely overcast. Like, you can smell the rain about to come down and make it Jurassic Park in the daytime. And now, make sure you’re going fast. Fast so you’re cold and your nose is dry and it smells like blood; blissfully fast. Do you feel the lust for life yet? Maybe try imagining a damp, grassy hillside to your right, and a huge drop-off to your left where you can see the harbor in the distance, and houses in the foreground. Listen to your engine. Blast some Tropicalia and sing along. Imagine the quality of your ride to be as dirty, cold, wet, and good as possible. Remain receptive to the beauty of nature. This’ll be awesome.

Enjoy. I hope that worked.

Ronald Sender

I am working on a huge project entitled Ronald, Alice, Time, Space, Yogurt. You can find it here.

On The Frontline In The Battle For Los Angeles, World War 3, 2024, In The Midst Of A Biological Weapon Attack

My face is popping. Bubbles on my face are popping. I’m watching my fingers turn to liquid in my gloves. Blood finds its way into anything. I’m sitting on the floor of an empty office building, ten stories off the ground, my back against the wall, and shrapnel in my foot. Three of my closest comrades are by my side. We’re all dying, and I have this to say.

“Yeah, I loved someone once. She was the most wonderful woman I’ve ever met, and so beautiful too. I sure do miss her.”

My thoughts cause my mind to wander. I might be crying, but my face is always wet now, and there’s no more feeling, so I can’t tell for sure. I stop talking and try to sleep.

I’m so glad to have what I have with you. I hope you read this in like, a year. Then it’ll be okay that’s so weird, and we can just enjoy the feeling I felt when I wrote it.

I think I’m gonna go kiss you now.

Blow Fish Bubble Gun Blow.

When I sit alone in my room, and the sun shines on my face, it makes me warm. But sometimes, I’m not happy. Most of the time I am, but sometimes I’m not. But what I am I then? What, when I look at the wall just below the window, and I can’t hear myself breathe or think, and there’s a ghost trying to crack my ribs with his weight, am I? How do I escape it? Thoughts, mostly. Addictions. A trail mix granola bar. You. And why do those things work? Why not language? Literature? Music? Not you, but you? And now it’s becoming a death trap. And the ghost is getting fatter, happier. And the sunlight is getting warmer, and now I’m sweating. I can feel it between my legs. I can feel it under my clothes. Oh, I hate it when I itch. I put on shorts. I’m supposed to walk, do things, help myself, cut my hair that’s getting out of control. I think about myself when I sit there. I think about how scary that fucking ghost was in the hallway when I lived with it for real. And now I’m the hallway, and the ghost isn’t real for once, but rather something I made up. My brother. My mother. Not my father. Never you. Then I begin to hear things. Sizzling, singing, screaming, shushing. Blow fish bubble gun blow. Blow it all away, even though you smell like Star Tours and remind me of my grandmother’s attic. And if you don’t blow, I will blow. And blow. And hopefully I’ll stop sweating.

The Day My Grandfather Died.

Big Cold Room

There’s a small skinny boy with too much hair on his head (Don’t worry, it’s me) sitting on a bed. It is not his bed, (Don’t worry, it belongs to his parents) the window is too low, and the ceiling is too high. He wasn’t under the covers; the bed was still made. The boy was wearing his white underwear with the tattered red elastic, and a faded, cracked, and yet still somehow bright purple t-shirt. When he really thought about it, the way the thin cotton rested on his awkward frame, it made him feel like a skeleton. (Actually, I don’t really remember exactly what I was wearing, but I know my legs were exposed because) The boy loved the way it felt to slide them across the faintly chilly surface of the smooth comforter, and to just get lost in the pure emotion of innocent ecstasy. To him, it felt nice when an imperfection of the fabric caught on an imperfection of his skin and suddenly came loose with a slight pop like the sounds a record makes before the first song comes on and the needle is just barely closing in. In this big cold room, nothing mattered to him except (Me). It was somewhere a six-year-old could be alone for hours, with no one checking in, and no reason for him to do anything other than exactly what he wanted to. Earlier, he was watching the light coming through the blinds reflect off the dust from the carpet and wanted to color it. Now, though he didn’t know it, he was watching Adam West and Burt Ward and probably Julie Newmar on TV. (I do now.) He thought it was his neighbors across the street, that they would put on costumes and film the shows that day; that everyone was somehow doing something for (Me and Me) alone. It was dark. Whenever he got bored, he would flip onto his back and stretch like a fossil so his mind would go totally blank except for the vague feeling of the headboard’s treated wood passing across his fingers and the distant sound of his own voice sounding in the backs of his ears. And then, when he was done and (my) muscles relaxed, he would always suck the taste of varnish off his hands, only half knowing what it really was he was doing and only briefly worrying about whether or not he might get sick. (I never did.) To him it had always seemed like a hundred or more episodes of the show came on at a time (It was three.) and since (I) was alone, no one could tell him different. Suddenly, he realized his Dad had come home. He could hear the sounds downstairs of the open door and someone coming through it. The faint bass notes of (my) Dad coming up the stairs told him to pretend he was sleeping. (I never thought it would work. It wasn’t even fun. I don’t know why I ever did it.) His dad came in and sat on the bed. He took off his shoes that smelled so good and took off his tie and took off his shirt, leaving only an apple core in dress pants and a thin, white t-shirt. He wasn’t supposed to, but he tapped his son on the leg. (I wasn’t supposed to,) but he got up and blinked. Yawned. He said Hey, buddy to his son. His son said Hey Dad. He said I need to tell you something about your grandfather. It wasn’t supposed to but a curious thought went through (my) head. It was What’s the matter, is he dead or something that went through his head. It was I’m sorry your grandfather has passed away that came out of Dad’s mouth.

The next few minutes will only ever exist in the actual moment in time they occurred. Something peculiar about them kept them from ever being remembered, and as far as anyone can say, once father informed son of grandfather’s passing, the next thing that happened was that son was sitting alone, under the covers, in his own room now. The ceiling was too low and the window was too high. Father came in quietly, thinking that son was asleep. He stood over him for a while, staring with sadness and overwhelming quiet at the back of son’s head. As he turned to leave, he heard it. He heard it floating through the stuffy red air of that stuffy little red room like the dust illuminated by light coming through the blinds.

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