A glare.
"But these things are not simple. Mere presentation is superficial current; context minus centrality. Pitching is not auditioning. Auditioning is crass performance reserved for chimps . . . desperate types."
Finger jabbing.
"Pitching is an art. It is dreams loomed. The arias of possibility. The displayed essence of what we wish to be, where we wish to go."
Intolerance seeping.
"Pitching makes men feel alive. Consider any business: the pitch is the reigning, magnetizing prayer. Every buyer is a seller and each wants to give a pitch. Hear one. Fall in love with one. Recommend it. Merge into the bloodstream of cause and effect. To see potential be developed, promoted, released and pitched to the world, where it might become a beating heart . . . possibly even survive."
Virulent; assessing.
"Pitching is the blood and brain of everything. Conversation is one mind pitching concluded viewpoint, data or dogma to another mind. Parents pitch wisdom, guidance, guilt. A lover pitches romance, sex, marriage. Politicians pitch reform and prosperity. Weathermen pitch climates, oncoming. Stockbrokers pitch fiscal overcasts and thermals, on greed imbued horizons. Christmas pitches closeness and wonder. It even provides its own fat, velvet-clad pitchman."
Resignation.
"None are exempt from this perpetual commerce of presentation and reception. This cosmic chit-chat that sells the vitality of the world to needy buyers cannot be evaded."
Genuflecting; mocking.
"We even pitch death. Mortuaries and priests just want a minute of our time to give us a seducing glimpse of deliverance. Religion's promissory lure is to insure eternal dispensation if we accede to their program; trust in their time-tested design. And if we do, we matriculate through prayer; our pitch to God."
Caustic.
"And the essence of the really good pitch? Allusions . . . illusions. It is a hinting smile; the grand, evocative I.O.U.; refusing to give everything, preferring to beguile, fulfill the order later, once commitment is secured. A good pitch titillates like some indistinguishable perfume one can't quite place: even managing a kind of reassuring suggestion in its incompleteness."
Guilty pleasure.
"A really good pitch is aromatic, sensuous; like a perfect meal in secret preparation, or a travel brochure whose photographs enable our hope that life, itself, is better elsewhere, making us eager to ignore the irrationality of such thrall, such deceived hopes. We succumb to the trance of our own suggestibility. We have been sold."
A loathing amusement.
"The best pitch makes us victim to our own needs and fears. We're genetically, inescapably programmed to fall for it."
Silence. Calm indictment.
"We all want improvement, a bit of perfection. We all want to believe. We all want to be pitched to; sold. It is our tragic flaw, our saving grace."
A moment.
"Pitching is the centrifugal virility in sustaining the planet; the divine cause and catalyst. Without it, procreation, art, culture, war, renaissance, intimacy, innovation, hope, would all cease. For a time, we would be condemned to pointless havoc, bleak futility. Turn on one another. Soon, all would perish."
Stillness settling.
"Pitching salvages us, medicates dreamscapes. It saves us from ourselves; brings us closer to ourselves. Assures rebirth."
Finally.
"Buyer or seller . . . it is life."
Sirens
A mansion.
Black.
Curtains breathing slowly.
A bed. Sheets twining in her young hands.
Bad dreams. Chaotic.
Helpless.
She turns, wakes.
Terrified.
There is no time to react.
Something takes her. No shape; dimension.
She is flung, a roped calf, onto the floor.
Her throat fattens.
She screams; dread.
Her eyes. The whites grow, absorbing terror.
She's held. Restrained. Perfect body stripped. Legs pulled apart; an ugly runway.
Something undetailed, fleshy, climbs between them. Begins to enter. Pulse; a stapling dampness.
Her slender wrists are held. White fingers grasp uselessly.
She sees nothing. There is nothing to see. She shakes, struggles.
Feels a slap; cruel.
Her cheek goes hot, like a pipe bowl burning. Sweat shivers.
Dirty fingernails rake her breasts. Red braille rises. Nipples are twisted, sucked. Licked by more than one tongue.
Scores of them. Wet, sour. Rough.
She screams.
A hundred hands cover her mouth. She searches for faces.
Finds blackness.
More flesh enters. Everywhere; knives using her for a sheath.
Pain.
Her features are beautiful. Even in agony.
She hears laughter, low and hateful. A poison chorus. It wants her.
They want her.
Blunt, shapeless fingers brand her face, pull at her.
Touch everything.
She stares helplessly at photographs of herself on the wall; the smile. The image.
Perfection.
Her tan legs are spread wider. Angry fingers reach into her.
Her mouth bleeds, lips kissed hard; bitten. Dark laughter rises.
Her make-up bottles are grabbed. Explode against walls; thrown.
Liquid skin runs.
Lipstick is scrawled over her mouth, breasts.
She is spread more, arms and legs held; a raped X.
They begin to moan.
Faceless numbers of them.
Vague. Bodiless.
She is slapped, scratched.
Her skin is numb.
Groans fill humid room.
She is pressed into mattress; a child's open hand into clay.
One by one, they do it to her.
Lick her neck. Fill her mouth. Her body.
Ten. Twenty.
Fifty.
A hundred. A thousand.
Always more.
She loses count and as the sheets drench red, her mind is towed into blackness.
The ambulance.
She is belted-down in back, teeth beating.
Eyes wide. Wet.
The attendant wipes her forehead. Tells her she'll be alright.
Tells her they'll get them.
Tells her she's beautiful.
The driver agrees. Keeps driving; sirens scraping night.
He remembers movies he saw her in. All his friends do. The men remember it all. Nude scenes. Love scenes. Seducing the camera; the world.
He remembers getting hard. Wanting her.
He glances into the rearview, fixes on the rise of her chest; the illicit view of her breasts.
The perfection blood can't ruin.
Another cut opens on her breast as the driver stares; imagining how she'd be under him; how he'd do it to her.
Then, another, as he thinks harder.
Where There's A Will
He awoke.
It was dark and cold. Silent.
I'm thirsty, he thought. He yawned and sat up; fell back with a cry of pain. He'd hit his head on something. He rubbed at the pulsing tissue of his brow, feeling the ache spread back to his hairline.
Slowly, he began to sit up again, but hit his head once more. He was jammed between the mattress and something overhead. He raised his hands to feel it. It was soft and pliable, its texture yielding beneath the push of his fingers. He felt along its surface. It extended as far as he could reach. He swallowed anxiously and shivered.
What in God's name was it?
He began to roll to his left and stopped with a gasp. The surface was blocking him there, as well. He reached to his right and his heart beat faster. It was on the other side, too.
He was surrounded on four sides.
His heart compressed like a smashed soft drink can, the blood spurting a hundred times faster.
Within seconds, he sensed that he was dressed. He felt trousers, a coat, a shirt and tie, a belt. There were shoes on his feet.
He slid his right hand to his trouser pocket and reached in. He palmed a cold, metal square and pulled his hand from the pocket, bringing it to his face. Fingers trembling, he hinged the top open and spun the wheel with his thumb. A few sparks glinted but no flame. Another turn and it lit.
He looked down at the orange cast of his body and shivered again. In the light of the flame, he could see all around himself. He wanted to scream at what he saw.
He was in a casket.
He dropped the lighter, and the flame striped the air with a yellow tracer before going out He was in total darkness, once more. All he heard was his terrified breathing as it lurched forward, jumping from his throat.
How long had he been here? Minutes? Hours?
Days?
His hopes lunged at the possibility of a nightmare; that he was only dreaming, his sleeping mind caught in some kind of twisted vision. But he knew it wasn't so. He knew, horribly enough, exactly what had happened.
They had put him in the one place he was terrified of. The one place he had made the fatal mistake of speaking about to them. They couldn't have selected a better torture. Not if they'd thought about it for a hundred years.
God, did they loathe him that much? To do this to him?
He started shaking helplessly, then caught himself. He wouldn't let them do it. Take his life and his business all at once? No, goddamn them, no!
He searched hurriedly for the lighter. That was their mistake, he thought. Stupid bastards. They'd probably thought it was a final, fitting irony: A gold-engraved thank-you for making the corporation what it was.
On the lighter were the words:
"CHARLIE/WHERE THERE'S A WILL"
"Right" he muttered.
He'd beat the lousy sons of bitches. They weren't going to just murder him and steal the business he owned and built. There was a will.
His.
He closed his fingers around the lighter and, holding it with a white-knuckled fist, lifted it above the heaving of his chest. The wheel ground against the flint as he spun it back with his thumb. The flame caught and he quieted his breathing as he surveyed what space he had in the coffin.
Only inches on all four sides.
How much air could there be in so small a space, he wondered? He clicked off the lighter. Don't burn it up, he told himself. Work in the dark.
Immediately, his hands shot up and he tried to push the lid up. He pressed as hard as he could, his forearms straining. The lid remained fixed.
He closed both hands into tightly balled fists and pounded them furiously against the lid until he was coated with perspiration, his hair moist.
He reached down to his left-trouser pocket and pulled out a chain with two keys attached. They had placed those with him, too. Another amusing joke on their part. A way to lock up his life completely. He wouldn't need the keys to his car and to the office again so why not put them in the casket with him?
Wrong, he thought. He would use them again. Stupid bastards. Did they really think he'd be so terrified he couldn't think?
Bringing the keys above his face, he began to pick at the lining with the sharp edge of one key. He tore through the threads and began to rip apart the lining. He pulled at it with his fingers until it popped free from its fastenings. Working quickly, he pulled at the downy stuffing, tugging it free and placing it at his sides. He tried not to breathe too hard. The air had to be preserved.
He flicked on the lighter and, looking at the cleared area above, knocked against it with the knuckles of his free hand. He sighed with relief. It was oak, not metal. Another mistake on their part. He smiled with contempt. It was easy to see why he had always been so far ahead of them.
"Stupid bastards," he muttered, as he stared at the thick wood.
Gripping the keys together firmly, he began to dig their serrated edges against the oak. The flame of the lighter shook as he watched small pieces of the lid being chewed off by the gouging of the keys. Fragment after fragment fell. The lighter kept going out and he had to spin the flint, over and over, repeating each move, until his hands felt numb.
Fearing that he would use up the air, he turned the lighter off again, and continued to chisel at the wood, splinters of it falling on his neck and chin.
His arm began to ache.
He was losing strength. Wood no longer coming off as steadily.
He laid the keys on his chest and flicked on the lighter again. He could see a tattered path of wood where he had dug, but it was only inches long. It's not enough, he thought.
It's not enough.
He slumped and took a deep breath, stopping halfway through. The air was thinning. He reached up and pounded against the lid.
"Open this thing, goddammit," he shouted, the veins in his neck rising. "Open this thing and let me out!"
I'll die if I don't do something more, he thought.
They'll win.
His face began to tighten. He had never given up before. Never. And they weren't going to win. There was no way to stop him once he made up his mind.
He'd show those bastards what willpower was.
Quickly, he took the lighter in his right hand and turned the wheel several times. The flame rose like a streamer, fluttering back and forth before his eyes. Steadying his left arm with his right, he held the flame to the casket wood and began to scorch the ripped grain.
He breathed in short, shallow breaths, smelling the butane and wood odor as it filled the casket. The lid started to speckle with tiny sparks as he ran the flame along the gouge. He held it to one spot for several moments, then slid it to another spot. The wood made faint, crackling sounds.
Suddenly, a flame formed on the surface of the wood. He coughed as the burning oak began to produce gray, pulpy smoke.
The air in the casket continued to thin and he felt his lungs working harder. What air was available tasted like gummy smoke, as if he were lying in a horizontal smokestack. He felt as though he might faint and his body began to lose feeling.
Desperately, he struggled to remove his shirt, ripping several of the buttons off. He tore away part of the shirt and wrapped it around his right hand and wrist. A section of the lid was beginning to char and had become brittle. He slammed his swathed fist and forearm against the smoking wood, and it crumbled down on him, glowing embers falling on his face and neck. His arms scrambled frantically to slap them out. Several burned his chest and palms and he cried out in pain.
Now, a portion of the lid had become a glowing skeleton of wood, the heat radiating downward at his face. He squirmed away from it, turning his head to avoid the falling pieces of wood. The casket was filled with smoke and he could breathe only the choking, burning smell of it. He coughed, his throat hot and raw. Finepowder ash filled his mouth and nose as he pounded at the lid with wrapped fist. Come on, he thought. Come on.
"Come on!" he screamed.
The section of lid gave suddenly and fell around him. He slapped at his face, neck and chest, but the hot particles sizzled on his skin, and he had to bear the pain as he tried to smother them.
The embers began to darken, one by one, and now he smelled something new and strange. He searched for the lighter at his side, found it, and flicked it on.
He shuddered at what he saw.
Moist, root-laden soil, packed firmly overhead.
Reaching up, he ran his fingers across it. In the flickering light, he saw burrowing insects and whiteness of earthworms, dangling inches from his face. He drew down as far as he could, pulling his face from their wriggling movements.
Unexpectedly, one of the larvae pulled free and dropped. It fell to his face and its jellylike casing stuck to his upper lip. His mind erupted with revulsion and he thrust both hands upward, digging at the soil. He shook his head wildly as the larvae were thrown off. He continued to dig, the dirt falling in on him. It poured into his nose and he could
barely breathe. It stuck to his lips and slipped into his mouth. He closed his eyes tightly but could feel it clumping on the lids.
He held his breath as he pistoned his hands upward and forward like a maniacal digging machine. He eased his body up, a little at a time, letting the dirt collect under him. His lungs were laboring, hungry for air. He didn't dare open his eyes.
His fingers became raw from digging, nails bent backward on several fingers, breaking off. He couldn't even feel the pain or the running blood but knew the dirt was being stained by its flow.
The pain in his arms and lungs grew worse with each passing second, until shearing agony filled his body. He continued to press himself upward, pulling his feet and knees closer to his chest. He began to wrestle himself into a kind of spasmed crouch, hands above his head, upper arms gathered around his face.
He clawed fiercely at the dirt, which gave way with each shoveling gouge of his fingers. Keep going, he told himself. Keep going. He refused to lose control. Refused to stop and die in the earth. He bit down hard, his teeth nearly breaking from the tension of his jaws. Keep going, he thought. Keep going!
He pushed up, harder and harder, dirt cascading over his body, gathering in his hair and on his shoulders. Filth surrounded him. His lungs felt ready to burst. It seemed like minutes since he'd taken a breath. He wanted to scream from his need for air but couldn't. His fingernails began to sting and throb, exposed cuticles and nerves rubbing against the granules of dirt. His mouth opened in pain and was filled with dirt, covering his tongue and gathering in his throat. His gag reflex jumped and he began retching, vomit and dirt mixing as it exploded from his mouth.
His head began to empty of life as he felt himself breathing in more dirt, dying of asphyxiation. The clogging dirt began to fill his air passages, the beat of his heart doubled.
I'm losing! he thought in anguish.
Suddenly, one finger thrust up through the crust of earth.
Unthinkingly, he moved his hand like a trowel and drove it through to the surface. Now, his arms went crazy, pulling and punching at the dirt until an opening expanded. He kept thrashing at the opening, his entire system glutted with dirt. His chest felt as if it would tear down the middle.
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