Journalstone's 2010 Warped Words for Twisted Minds

by Compiled by Christopher C. Payne

  “SHIT!”

  My hangnail burned when it hit the water, and I could have cried on the spot. Exhaustion was taking its toll on me. To get emotional over a little hangnail was not a part of my demeanor. It was finally becoming apparent – the effects of fatigue were taking their toll. All of these things, all of the noises and odd occurrences were because I was so bloody tired. I promised myself a long, hot bath and bed as soon as the dishes were finished. Things will be better in the morning after a good night’s sleep.

  Scrubbing last night’s lasagna from its dish, I looked up to see Nadia sitting on the couch with a very cute young man. I smiled. J.P. must have gotten here while I was having another “occurrence” in the pantry or while I had zoned out in front of the sink. He looked just her type.

  He seemed tall and lanky, most likely close to six foot five. He was a good looking kid with shoulder length dark hair, almost black. He was dressed in a black suit (probably his work clothes) and didn’t seem to be able to take his eyes off of her, as if he were hypnotized. I always said my daughter had exceptional beauty.

  I smiled to myself remembering young love and the rush of feelings it brought. I looked up again from the soapy water, and this time his arm was draped around her. He still was looking at her, though Nadia seemed much more interested in the television show. That’s just like her, I thought, playing hard to get. Yeah girl, make him work! I smiled to myself, glad for the distraction, rinsed the spatula, and put it in the drainer.

  Still holding on to the brief moment of happiness that watching my daughter and her boyfriend brought, I glanced up again to witness once more, the endearing scene. J.P. was closer now, and I saw him kiss her cheek. I wondered how long she had been with him. I didn’t think it could be very long, she had only told me of him tonight.

  A small amount of sadness crept over me realizing that she wasn’t my baby girl anymore. She didn’t have to report to me. And for all I know, she could have told me, but I’ve been so wrapped up in the remodeling and strange events that have been unfolding here, maybe I just didn’t hear her.

  I stopped what I was doing at the realization that for the first time in what seemed like ages, the house was quiet. All I could hear was the distant sound of the television. My eyelids felt so heavy, and my body was following suit. Stay focused, finish the dishes and then bed…

  I looked up at Nadia and J.P. again. I watched motionless as his tongue was in her ear and his hand was sliding up inside her blouse. My first reaction was not my little girl! Then, as I gripped the sink’s edge I reminded myself that she was a grown woman, even if a young one. I had to handle this with diplomacy, especially if I wanted our relationship to grow and have her stick around for a while. I have to remember she’s grown up now with…

  RAP! RAP! RAP!

  I jumped; the dish towel dropped from my shoulder, and I had to stifle a scream. My God, one loud knock from the pizza delivery guy and I’m about ready to jump out of my skin. Or was it the house? No, it had to be the door. As soon as the remodeling is over, I’m going to take a little vacation. All this madness going on here is really getting to me.

  “I got it Mom!” Nadia yelled, and I heard her padding across the floor to the front entryway. I sighed with relief that this noise was real. I also felt better knowing that it had caused enough of a disruption that the boy’s hand was not traveling up my daughter’s blouse anymore.

  I looked at my own shaking hands, felt my breath coming in quick gasps and realized I was coming unglued. Never again will I let myself go so long without proper sleep. Or let myself paint without a mask on and the windows open. I laughed. I could be a case study in sleep deprivation or the effects of paint fumes. I should call the local university and see if they’re doing any studies.

  Stooping down to retrieve my dish towel, I hit my head on the corner of the sink. I instantly became so angry that I punched the bottom cabinet in front of me, causing little blood droplets to appear on my knuckles. This will never do.

  Trying to calm myself so I didn’t have an aneurysm, I smoothed my hair and stood up. I put my bloodied knuckles into my mouth and then adjusted my flustered self for the millionth time today. This is getting old real fast. I heard Nadia coming towards the kitchen and tried to get a hold on my breathing. I picked up a glass and pretended to be busy at work, concentrating on invisible stains instead of invisible hands. All I needed was for her to think I’ve totally lost it. Can your daughter have you committed?

  “Mom, this is J.P.”

  Putting on my widest smile, trying not to think of this boy groping my daughter’s chest, I rinsed the glass, began to dry it and turned around. I was nonchalant and casual. I was the cool mom who didn’t embarrass her kids. Yeah, that’s who I was, I mean am. Plus, I had changed my mind. It would be good to have some pizza, spend time with my daughter and just forget about all the crap that’s been going on around here. Even if things aren’t ordinary in my home, I can go through the actions of normalcy and hope that life follows suit. And I can make sure he’s not groping my daughter all night.

  “Hello, I’ve been…” and the glass fell from my hand and shattered into a million pieces, just like my sanity, as I completed my turn.

  “Jesus, Mom, what’s wrong with you today,” asked Nadia as she stooped to clean up the mess I had just made.

  “I’m sorry, it, it just slipped,” I stammered while staring at J.P. I must have looked like the insane person I felt like because the poor kid cleared his throat and backed up a little.

  “Hi, Mrs. Thompson, I didn’t mean to startle you. I know I knocked pretty loudly, I’m sorry. Didn’t Nadia tell you I was coming over?” said the five foot nine blond-haired boy wearing jeans and T-shirt.

  The last thing I remember is being put into the ambulance as they injected me with something that made me feel all warm and fuzzy. All the neighbors had started to gather on the sidewalk around my house like people do when there are police cars, ambulances, and rescue workers in their vicinity.

  I tried to get one of them to listen to me, but I couldn’t speak. I knew I had to tell Nadia something…but what was it? I can’t remember. Why did I feel afraid for her to stay alone in that house? Does it even matter? My world faded to black, all I could hear was muffled voices in the darkness.

  “This is the second time someone has gone crazy in that house…”

  “Nah, man, more like seventh…”

  “Remember that lady that clawed her own eyes out…”

  “It all started with that family who ran a funeral parlor outta here…”

  “Yeah, didn’t that kid of theirs rape and cut up all four of his sisters…”

  “Yeah, he did, but he also raped and cut up about 20 other women before they caught onto him. They say he used to drag them around the house, positioning them in different places, before he cut them up and disposed of them under the floor boards and in the walls…”

  “But nobody knew what was going on, some say the parents covered for him…”

  “Yeah, ‘til the police got a call about the smell…”

  “That’s what they say… I heard he disemboweled himself and bled to death upstairs while the detectives spoke with his parents downstairs …”

  “They still ain’t found his body…”

  “Ain’t nobody left alive that really knows what went on in that house…”

  Perfection

  By Avery K. Tingle

  It’s another beautiful, rainy day in the city. The skies are gray, and the rolling clouds silently battle each other for territory overhead. There is no thunder to disrupt my thoughts, no lightning to threaten power outages, just gentle oncoming rain, doing its job perfectly: giving life to what deserves it, washing away what does not deserve to exist.

  Everything is perfect.

  I leave work, as I always do, at exactly five in the evening. I have a mundane position, and I like it that way. The less attention I draw to myself, the better. I’ve held the same generic occupat
ion for most of my professional life, since I was just out of college. The world had no need of my expertise, as no one really used computers anymore, even back then. It is just as well. Had I gone into my profession of choice, I may very well have been incarcerated – or worse. My job keeps me below everyone’s attention, and I that is how I like it. It is perfect.

  I observe my co-workers as they scurry about, covering their heads with their briefcases or papers or whatever they have handy in a vain attempt to avoid the rain. They laugh at each other as they scatter from the building and awkwardly race to their cars, trying to escape the so-called “miserable weather.”

  I’ve always welcomed these months and detested summer. Blistering heat serves no purpose except to force one to remain indoors. Rain keeps everything comfortably cool and allows the planet to do its work without our interference. Let what grows grow. Let everything else die out. This has always been the way of things.

  With my head unshielded and held high, I make my way down the stairs of the towering building and into the parking lot. Some of my colleagues glance at me uncomfortably and look away the second I make eye contact. We’ve worked in the same office these past 20 years, yet we have never known each other’s names. I have no need to know them, nor they any need to know me. My job as human resources assistant allows me access to the more intimate details of their lives, and I wonder how some of them are still breathing, much less gainfully employed. Times like this, I wish it would rain harder, hard enough to take these people away from this world.

  I make my way to my vehicle which looks like virtually every other automobile in the parking lot, save for the pristine white exterior. It never gets dirty no matter what it endures. The vehicle is 13 years old and runs like new, thanks to some modifications I’ve made. Other than my family, no one has ever seen the inside of my car. No one will ever see the inside of my car, for if they did, I’m sure they would either try to steal or destroy it. Luckily, I have prepared for both possibilities.

  I open the car door and step into the roomy interior. There is no front seat, no backseat, no steering column, no brake, and no gas. There’s nothing that indicates my car is even a vehicle. Rather, the interior is lined with jet black leather that forms a perfect square once I am inside and the doors are closed. From the ceiling, a flat screen TV drops, ready to broadcast the top news stories on demand. A surround sound system broadcasts the latest analysis from the world’s financial markets. Tinted windows with holographic projections give the impression that one is driving the car as normal, but in truth, no one is driving at all.

  I stretch out where the passenger seat should be and command the vehicle’s on-board computer to take me home. The vehicle does the rest. A pleasant, automated female voice, programmed to sound like my wife, asks if I wish to view any panorama during the drive home. No. Now, I wish only for silence.

  For some reason, my employer saw fit to strap me with an assistant – he gave an assistant to an assistant. The boy means well, fresh out of college and eager to please, but he’s sloppy in his endeavors. Believing me to be a coffee drinker, he brought me a cup first thing this morning, and it wound up on my lap after I had told him coffee was not required. I wonder if the boy needs improvement.

  The drive home does not take as long as usual. I arrive in 32 minutes instead of 40. I wonder if the new fuel cells I’ve installed have done something for its performance. Not that I care about such things. I need to keep the vehicle away from mechanics, so I do all of the work myself.

  My house is nondescript, just like my job, and my neighborhood, and for that matter, my neighbors themselves. I live in a pleasant, modest little suburb. It doesn’t allow much for privacy from the pesky busybodies, but it keeps the degenerates away. Each house looks like the next, and they are built practically atop one another, rounding about the cul-de-sac.

  I’ve made no aesthetic modifications to my home, and it resembles every other home on the block. It is perfect.

  The ride, as always, has been refreshing. I step out of my car and arm its automated defenses. Not that I need worry about such things here, but chance favors the prepared mind. If my family is following their schedule, my children should be either assisting my wife with dinner or performing their own duties. I see no need to disturb them, and I’m still enjoying the rain.

  I move around the left side of my house to the garden that would surely win awards, if I bothered to enter a contest. The ground is remarkably lush and fertile here — my little secret. It is beautiful to see, with multi-colored azaleas lining the small garden, framing my hydrangeas and camellia bushes.

  I left just enough room to walk and tend to the ground, along with a spare patch of fertile dirt behind the arrangement, just in case. Colors range in an orderly fashion from green to bright red to sky blue. I stand in the midst of what I have created and draw in a long, slow breath. The air is never fresher than it is right here. The rain will do these plants some good. It is perfect.

  It is 5:45. I must tend to my family.

  Victoria, my wife of two decades, is the envy of every other wife on the block. She looks as though she graduated college yesterday, with bright, idealistic blue eyes and curly blond hair that falls to just above her perfectly-shaped butt. Long, supple legs support her athletic frame, and she sports high, plump breasts. The sight of her is arousing to me, even after all these years.

  She’s hard at work making dinner when I enter our home through the back door. I smell steak, perfectly seasoned with pepper and garlic. A large Caesar salad sits in a bowl at Victoria’s left, green beans are slowly boiling on the stove to her right, and she rinses her hands in the sink. I watch her slowly, meticulously wring her hands, gently running her fingers over her arms, her bright red mouth parting as she exhales.

  I walk over to her, placing my arms around her, and she purrs, reaching up behind my head to welcome me home.

  “I suppose dinner can wait a bit,” she whispers. She keeps most of her attention focused on me as she reaches over to the stove, reducing the heat on the green beans.

  She leads me to the bedroom. With just enough aggression to make it interesting, she begins removing my clothes. With a hungry look in her eyes, she pulls me on top of her, and we make love as we did in our youth. It is passionate, torrid, and exhilarating. I am not as young as I once was, so my energy quickly expires.

  My wife is an understanding woman. She doesn’t mind in the least. She gives me a pleasant smile as I change into a sweater and slacks. These are comfortable clothes worn only around the house. She gingerly replaces her outfit and winks at me knowingly before exiting the bedroom. I smile. Everything is perfect.

  Minutes later, Victoria calls us for dinner. I am the first to arrive, as always. She sets the table perfectly, placing the platter with evenly sliced strips of steak in the center, surrounding it with the bowls of Caesar salad and green beans.

  Our children enter in an orderly fashion. Alexander, our oldest, is a tall, muscular boy of 17 with well-kept brown hair and intelligent eyes. His sister, Julie, is 10 minutes younger than he and is gifted with her mother’s beauty. Bright yellow hair that is neatly kept at her shoulders and bright green eyes are her best features.

  Christopher is only 10 years old, and he, while precocious and headstrong, is still a handsome boy with a perfect round head, freckles he has yet to outgrow, and inquisitive, dark brown eyes. They all sit. I begin to dish up first, passing the steak to Alexander, who always begins the dinner conversation.

  “Alexander,” I begin, “How was your day today?”

  “It went quite well, thank you for asking,” the young man replies. “Coach Myers was so impressed with my tryout that he made me a starter.”

  “Alexander, that is excellent,” Victoria beams. I’m not as impressed, but I let mother and son have their moment. “What position?”

  “Quarterback, Mommy,” Alexander answers. “Apparently, Coach Myers hadn’t encountered anyone who could accurately throw a footbal
l while running before.” My son turns to me. “Now, Daddy, I don’t want you to worry. I’m not going to become so engrossed in athletics that my studies will be neglected.”

  I smile involuntarily. Alexander is such a good boy.

  “In that case, I hope you have a marvelous…season, is it called?”

  I regret that I’m not more informed on my children’s interests. I was never an athletic child, and as I grew into adulthood, I never had a use for sports. Alexander was born with his mother’s drive and passion for physical competition.

  “Thank you, Daddy,” Alexander acknowledges me with a smile. “And, I understand if you don’t want to attend any of my games. I know football was never of any interest to you.”

  “Thank you, Alexander. You’re always so considerate.”

  It dawns on me that my son might be injured playing this barbaric, pointless sport, and that could never be allowed to happen. I would have to keep an eye on him. But now that Alexander had had his turn, it was time to move onto my other children.

  “Julie?” I turn my attention to my middle child and only daughter. “Share your day with us, please?”

  Julie nods her head at me, and her bright, beautiful, hazel eyes sparkle as she neatly chews and swallows her green beans. She is careful to be sure no food remains in her mouth as she begins to speak, and that causes me to smile. She is so well behaved.

  “Daddy, I auditioned for the play just like you suggested…” Her voice saddens as it trails off, and she begins to move her food around aimlessly with her fork. I sit — we all sit — with bated breath.

  “And…?” I finally ask, trying not to show how much I am anticipating an answer.

  She looks up, smiling and laughing, “Mrs. Cavanaugh cast me as Juliet! She gave me the lead role!”