Dark Matter: Short Stories & Poems

by Rose Perez

  Cody descends the rest of the stairs and heads into the kitchen, committing his concentration to the phone call.

  “If they have a problem, tell them to call me. I’ll take care of it if it goes that far, but for your sake it better not.” He says. The next sentence is interrupted by the sight of a black cat sitting on the kitchen counter. Cody tries to remember all the animals that reside in the house: two golden retrievers, a few parakeets, and an aquarium full of neglected fish…but a black cat? Cody doesn't remember owning one of those.

  It must be one of the many, useless things Hazel purchased over the weekend. A few months ago, she bought a tapestry rug that now smothers the living room floor. Hazel claims the rug is a genuine artifact from Turkey, stitched with a thread that cannot be found in today’s age. It was a bargain for $8,560.75. Ever since, the living room smells of cigars and mildew.

  The phone rings, but Cody lets it go to his voicemail. The black cat jumps enters the living room, and stops short of the threaded border of the Turkish rug. No longer can the call of curiosity be ignored. Cody fishes the phone from his pocket, confirming suspicion.

  “That piece of shit.” He says, hitting the quick dial.

  “Mark? Can you hear me? I got your message.”

  Cody marches along the length of the rug without direction.

  “I’m through with excuses. You’re dead to me. Let me remind you, the dead have a real tough time finding work.” He says pointing at an imaginary projection of Mark in the air.

  “…Are you serious? You expect me to believe that? Listen-you’d do the world a massive favor if you kept your mouth shut. The air is polluted enough, wouldn’t you agree?”

  For the next few minutes, Mark’s voice echoes through out the room.

  “Allow me to interrupt you Mark. You forgot about the now in effect, no excuses policy.”

  Cody ignores the pain in his chest. After a few heartbeats, it diminishes enough to continue the verbal abuse.

  “…Don’t make me repeat myself, although I probably should. I’ll save myself the effort and fire your sorry ass. How ‘bout that?”

  Cody clenches at his shirt, unbuttoning collar.

  “If it’s the last thing I do, I promise, I’ll spread the word of what a useless shit you truly are. You think they'll take your word over mine? I don’t think so- I don’t fucking…”

  Cody drops to his knees, words guillotined into silence as the phone releases from his hand..

  “Hello? Hello? Cody, you there?”

  The black cat awakens in a cage with a dirty, dry water bowel. Other feline are in their respective cages, piled on top of one and other in an arching tower. A door opens, stepping in a tall man with a brown leather bag with Dr. Crystedd printed across his nametag. He places the brown bag on top a metal examination table, and then turns to look inside the cages.

  “Well, well. It’s going to be a busy day.”`

  He opens the bag, lifting a bottle containing a green liquid up toward the light. Next, Dr. Crystedd rests a syringe on the examination table.

  “Who would like to volunteer? A simple raise of the hand will do.” He says. The cats ignore him. Dr. Crystedd opens a cage imprisoning a young tabby, and seizes it by a tuff of hair. The tabby squirms and meows.

  “Hush, hush. You won’t feel a thing. I promise.”

  Dr. Crystedd digs the needle through a coat of fur and into its body. The tabby's will to keep awake fades into perpetual death.

  The door opens letting in a voice: “We have one more.”

  Dr. Crystedd leaves the executed tabby on the examination table to go greet the new arrival in the adjacent room. A few moments later, a dirty mutt bursts through the door, pulling Dr. Crystedd. He loops the leash around a bar bolted to a wall near the tower of cages.

  “Now…where was I?”

  He opens the cage closest to him, and grabs an orange feline of the feral variety. It hisses, swiping at his wrist, leaving behind lines of razed skin. Dr. Crystedd traps it in a corner uncaring for the integrity of his arm. In less than a minute, the orange feline is dead beside the tabby.

  “See? That wasn’t so bad, now was it?”

  Dr. Crystedd pierces the syringe through the bottle containing the green liquid. The black cat leers down at the dirty mutt biting into its hide, twisting its head. The mutt stops biting itself and gazes into the yellow full moons above him. The black cat remains steadfast in its posture, watching the mutt show its teeth while shivering in anger. It lunges at the black cat's cage, knocking the tower off its axis and collapsing it to the tile floor. Some of the doors break open releasing a handful of feline, including one with fur not unlike a blackened sky void of celestial radiance.

  “Damn dog. You're next.” Dr. Crystedd says, tossing the syringe on the body of the dead tabby. He navigates a floor of fallen cages as the mutt lunges again, untying its leash from the bar. The mutt revels in its freedom by jumping upon Dr. Crystedd's back and sinking teeth into the side of his throat. He collides into the remaining stack of cages, while the mutt tears sideways, coating the floor with what used to be contained in his arteries.

  The assistant veterinarian walks in the backroom, letting a line of feline escape out the front entrance propped open by a trash can. The black cat trots down the sidewalk, as each escaped convict takes their own direction into the night.

  Enviably summer passes into winter, freezing puddles on roads and coating windows in a dusting of frost. The black cat doesn't mind; it marches in the middle of the street in Gale Heights, turning a corner down Barrow Lane.

  It jumps through a broken window of a nameless apartment building, listening to the world inside. Ahead in apartment 4A; a television plays loudly, something concerning the sharpest knives in the world. Apartment 8A's walls can't contain the laughter inside as it echoes down the hall.

  The black cat prowls up two stairwells and discovers apartment 8C; its door opens letting loose a curtain of amber light reflecting off the hallway wall. The black cat peeks around the corner of apartment 8C. Inside an elderly woman is slapped to the stained tile floor.

  "What did I tell ya? Ya never listen."

  A stout man with a bulging stomach walks over her grabbing a dish from the counter. He knees her in the face, not in anger, but in his unwillingness to get out of the way. Remorse is nonexistent. Using nearby chairs as support, she lifts herself up above the kitchen counter. Her eyes are deserts, unable to rain a single tear.

  The black cat welcomes itself inside and scurries behind the elderly woman into the living room, jumping on top a window sill. The old man chews a mouthful of over-cooked spaghetti watching television. The black cat settles its gaze like a judge delivering a death sentence. Those eyes, twin yellow full moons swallowing him whole.

  The old man stares back mid-chew; a reddened strand of mashed spaghetti hanging from his mouth. The sting of guilt creeps up from his stomach killing his appetite. He takes in another bite, trying ignoring his personal condemnation. As he swallows, the black cat revives his guilt, seizing his throat in place.

  At first he's calm. Denial bounds him to his chair, but the need to breathe reminds him he's going to die. The old man stands up and the porcelain dish slips off his lap, shattering on the ground. His body heaves, attempting to regurgitate the lodged food. Panic drives the old man a few steps toward his wife.

  She can't see his signal for help. Her back is turned, cleaning the dishes that he dirtied last night. The old man raises a hand ahead of him, grabbing at his throat with the other. Face reddens, blurring vision. She turns around grabbing a towel draped over the oven handle. She sees her husband grabbing at the air, the broken dish at his feet. She continues to dry her hands while watching her husband choke on the last minutes of his life.

  He drops to the floor with the broken dish, face blue like diminishing twilight. The black cat hops over him and exits the apartment.

  Terry yawns while putting on his hat and jacket. He digs in his pocket for a f
ew bucks, and tosses it near his empty mug of coffee before exiting Long Road Eatery.

  On the way to his truck, he notices a black cat sitting on top of the roof.

  "Well…Are you looking for a ride or something?" He says, hands resting on hips. The black cat doesn't answer.

  "Can't take a joke, can you?"

  Terry opens the door and climbs aboard, but before its shut, the black cat jumps across his lap and into the passenger seat.

  "Son of a bitch…" He says, shutting the door completely.

  "Well, alright. It's a long ride from here to Sans Field. You asked for it."

  He cuts the wheel and accelerates south onto Mason Street. For the first few hours, Terry doesn't notice the black cat. He wouldn't notice if a person was sitting there; it's a symptom of the road.

  Terry turns up the radio diluting the boredom. He glances at the black cat and then back at the road.

  "Wouldn't happen to know where I can get a hooker, do you?"

  He shifts his hat on his head.

  "…shit."

  Terry leans back guiding the wheel with one hand. Terry tries to recall the distance he drove the last five years. It's all a blur; a highway at night illuminated only by the most recent memories. Terry rolls down the window and lights a smoke.

  "You don't talk much do you?"

  The black car stares at him through a lingering cloud of haze.

  "It's ok…they never do." Terry says, leaning an elbow on the edge of the open window. During times like these, he likes to imagine what life would be like if he never moved west and instead took that job offer at his Brother Les's quarry business. Terry smiles, leaning back further. He imagines expensive cars, cocaine, money, driving down the west coast with a blonde in the passenger seat…instead of some fucking hitchhiking cat.

  Terry tosses a glance at the feline and shakes head. He hallucinates gambling at casinos, rolling the dice and not giving a damn about the outcome, even if Terry wins. And course the women, one on each arm as he parades around the planet riding on the back of his desires.

  A bump in the road knocks Terry back into reality. He takes a drag of his smoke, mourning the departed waking-dream. The smell of gasoline and the rattling of the truck's heater welcomes Terry back to his life.

  After a quarter of a mile, the truck quakes more than usual. Terry tosses his smoke out the window and presses the brakes, squealing the truck to a stop.

  "….I knew it was going to go."

  He opens the door and jumps down to the ground. As expected, the back left tire is flat. Terry kicks it, taking a moment to complain to himself.

  "…Stupid. Les doesn't have too put up with this shit. No, no, no. He's sailing the Gulf of Mexico, sipping martinis, and fucking…here I am in the dark with nothing, but pavement to my name."

  These are the times when Terry wishes he never moved; a sense of adventure that lead to nowhere, nothing to show for it except for dust in lungs and a straight horizon that he'll never reach.

  Terry rests the jack underneath the truck; another opportunity for self-pity.

  "Stupid bastard…how could you?"

  He lifts the truck off the ground, as twin yellow full moons shine down from the open window. A light emerges on the horizon; it flickers and glows brighter as time passes. Terry reaches into the backseat feeling for a tire iron. The black cat leaps down from the window and crosses the path of a speeding station wagon. It swerves to the left and collides with Terry's truck, exploding into a storm of glass and metal. A column of fire rising into the night sky, casting orange light on what's left of Terry's body in the middle of the road.

  Sans Field is a small town with few paved roads and a network of dirt trails beat into the land by locals. The black cat struts down Main Street, ignoring another cat sitting on top a snow covered barrel near a closed grocery store. It stares him down trying to illicit a reaction, but receives none.

  The black cat continues on, as a flurry floats down from the night sky. It turns right behind the grocery store and encounters a gang of alley-cats huddled near trash cans, feasting on rancid meat.

  An over-sized calico with a missing eye spies on the black cat. It squints, opening mouth, expelling a low bellow. The rest of the gang creeps forward, slightly crunching their spine downward. The skinniest of the gang; a sickly brown cat lets out a tapering, wailing scream. It raises a paw in the air, testing to see how far the black cat will allow them to get.

  A grey feline in the back of the gang looks into those twin yellow full moons. The self-proclaimed leader has been disfigured once…why can't it happen again? Why can't he be the one to do it? The grey cat coolly stalks and flanks to the left. He swipes at the leader, raking claws across the part of its face that's tolerable to look at.

  The rest of the gang takes turns moaning or hissing. The felines circle the disfigured cat, taking turns swiping at his belly. Every time it turns to face an assailant; another jumps in. The circle closes in a constriction of teeth and claw. This is not the first time he's been in a fight. The rest rely on emotion, while he relies on experience. On the inside a heart beats steady as his coat glistens red. It's clear the young feline who initiated the fight asked for too much. The last time it was in a fight was during playtime as a kitten.

  Now it's submissive to the mercy of the disfigured cat, yet it never had any to begin with.

  Despite this, they're too many. The rest of the gang jumps in, chasing him down the alley, leaving the black cat alone wandering into the night.

  The black cat cuts across a nearby graveyard with a steady gallop, grass saturated with frost brushing against whiskers. A sound in the distance yields the black cat in place, ears swiveling. It jumps onto a nearby mausoleum, coated in a thick green moss. A few yards away, two people stand with shovels in hand.

  "Are you sure this is it?" Gary asks, looking over shoulder.

  "Yes. You can read cant you?" Danny says, tapping his shovel on top a marbled grave. It reads:

  In Loving Memory

  Laura Thurst 1996 - 2011

  The World Will Forever Be Broken Without You

  He takes a breath, and then impales the shovel into dirt.

  "What makes you think she'll have it?"

  "Gary, she's dead. She'll have it." Danny says.

  He puffs on his cigarette, blowing smoke rings up into the sky. As he coughs, he squints at twin yellow full moons shining above a mausoleum.

  A few hours later they reach Laura's coffin.

  Danny grabs hold of a latch. He lifts open the top, releasing a deathly perfume forsaking their senses. They don't want to speak to avoid tasting it.

  Inside the casket, Laura lies in an eternal sleep, skin bruised blue from lack of life. Around her neck drapes a crystal necklace punctuated with chromatic opals. The black cat looks into Laura from his perch on top the mausoleum. As the cat breathes deep, Laura's chest moves in unison.

  "Danny, she's alive! She's fucking alive!"

  He doesn't bother looking. Danny punishes Gary with silence, as Laura's eyes stutter open. Gary presses his back against the wall of the ditch and then turns trying to jump out. Danny grabs him by his jacket, pulling him back down.

  "We came this far. We're not leaving without it, understand? I knew you couldn't handle this. I should have brought Gerald, he's less sensitive."

  Laura grabs his hand, sending the chill of the grave into this body. He tries pulling away, but the momentum lifts Laura out of her casket. Gary takes in a deep drag before dropping the cigarette onto the dirt near his feet. He tries jumping out, ignoring Danny's pleas for help.

  "Gary! Gary!"

  Each jump more desperate than the next, Gary digs finger nails into the grass. The black cat watches him panic as if he's drowning in a pool with nobody around to save him. The last thing Gary sees our twin yellow full moons before sinking beneath the depths of Laura's grave.

  As dawn approaches, the dull light of morning casts a bronze luminance upon the delicate surface of
snow draping the city.

  The black cat always ends up from where it came.

  It jumps onto a porch railing and curls up, those twin yellow full moons slowly eclipsed by falling eyelids, reaching for the totality of sleep.

  END.

  R.I.P.

  B.S.

  Don't Drink The Lemonade!

  (Story by FlyTrapMan)

  Theodore marches down the side of a road as wavy specters rise off the blacktop. He wipes sweat off his brow while a blurred shape boils in the distance.

  The march continues until the shape resolves into a blackened rectangle with two, amorphous figures beside it. Theodore walks a few more steps as it focuses into a vendor’s stand:

  Delicious Lemonade 4 Sale

  Two little girls stand beside a crystal pitcher and a spire of Styrofoam cups. Theodore pauses; his chest expands as he sucks in hot air through his nostrils.

  “I bet you girls are making a killing out here, huh?”

  They wrap their eyes around the crystal pitcher.

  “Would you like some?”

  Theodore wipes his forehead and looks down the road and sees a river of asphalt that snakes into a static slither. Sweat drips along the contour of his cranium as Theodore places hands on his hips.

  “How much?”

  One of the girls lifts a cup from the Styrofoam spire, while the other gently tips the pitcher on its side. A yellowish, milky substance sloshes into the cup and spills on her knuckles. Theodore rubs at his throat as he dips a hand in his pocket; a crumpled $5 bill rests in his palm.

  “Five dollars. Please.” The little girls demand.

  Theodore allows the crumpled bill to drift off his palm and down onto the table.

  “Keep the change.”

  He grips his dirty fingers around the Styrofoam cup; the cold lemonade seeps into his calloused flesh.

  “Cheers!”

  Theodore smiles and then resuscitates his march upon the concrete snake’s back. He tosses a glance over his shoulder, but the restless atmosphere blurs the lemonade stand into smeared obscurity.

  The road ahead seems to impale straight into the gut of eternity.

  He raises the Styrofoam goblet up to his scorched lips as the pus-like liquid drips onto his tongue -- Theodore's eyes bulge…lips pucker…common sense whispers: don’t do it.