Out of nowhere comes this tiny yellow hummingbird, and we watch that little guy just hover for a few moments in the air before us. And it does this quick zig-zag, and stops again, and seems to watch us.
I think Shane may think it’s like some fucking drone or some shit, but before he can do anything, it darts off into the foliage, the leaves of which are dusted with ash.
Sure enough, Shane’s like, Those fucking things ain’t nocturnal so the fucking Satanist Cultist Agent Motherfuckers better start doing their research.
And I’m like, Shit man, he’s right.
That’s what’s fucked, right?
Your boyfriend is prolly like full-on bat-shit, but then, sometimes he’s right about something—or he makes some kinda observation that’s correct or accurate, right?
And maybe that’s what’s happening to all of us right now, like legit.
Shane’s like, It’s fucking mass hypnosis, yo, like fucking wake up, motherfucker—there’s a fucking lizard eye watching us every second of the past, present, and future yo—like it sees through time—and that fucker owns all time—open your damn eyes, you dumb bitch.
A human body can take up to twelve years to go skeletal. And that shit’s without a coffin, yo—six feet under the ground in, like, ordinary soil.
Everybody knows this shit, but know what—it’s cool as fuck.
Your intestines start to go, and those fucking microbes in there get to work on your body—like you destroy yourself, yo—and you’ve carried that shit around inside you your whole life.
We make this world just like that—every bitch with the fucking seeds of their own destruction inside them—and just look at this world, motherfucker—can’t you see it?
And it’s true that they’re seeds because those microbes are totally flora, know what I mean? They’re plant life, G.
And it’s like fucking literal, and also not, yo—that seed of your own destruction thing.
I remember when I was a kid, dawg, when Dad first moved to the Island he flew me there for a couple of weeks or a month or some shit.
He’d gotten into this, like, hunting shit—like because he’s British he was rocking this foxhunt thing or whatever—but on the Island they don’t really have that kinda shit—it’s like deer or some shit—except really it’s called caribou, but they’re like deer, but like not deer, know what I mean?
So first thing Dad says when I’m off the plane is like, You need your gun license, and I had just turned eighteen and was like, Dope—even though he’d sent me a few pistols of his too dodgy to hold onto or whatever—like my dad’s a straight G—but they were safe to have in T Dot for a bit til I sold them and sent him the money back.
And it’s not like you can just send some fucking pistol in the mail, G. You have to send it all separately in its various components or whatever, you know? Like, the feds are all over that shit. And the real key is the ignition for the gun, right? Like the real live bits that make the bullets fire—Dad sent me those stuffed in the belly of this dead-ass seagull he’d plucked off some beach over there and had buried the parts right into where its guts used to be. Like, I couldn’t find them at first and he kinda flipped when I told him.
So anyway I took the gun test thinking they must give out a license to any retard off the street or the boat or whatever it’s so easy—but I failed because of my dyslexia, and had to take it again.
Teachers always said I was dumb, but I know I’m not—they had me in Sped right up to graduation—and I know I’m not dumb because I was like, That’s the most ironically named high-school class in the books, right?
And like, kids in school called me Retard because of that shit, so I own that term, right?
You take words and you make them your own—and you take the power they have if you know what I mean by that.
But because of Sped, all kinds of people said I was dumb, right?
Like Leo thought I was and look how that turned out for him. And also look at how I’ve seen shit coming for years, which is why me and the girls and the kid are still alive and on the run and like Leo is prolly a stone corpse right now under a bridge in Upper Canada or whatever with twelve years to go before the bitch gets skeletal—and like the motherfucking feral animals having a feast.
But, second go round, I nailed the gun test and so here’s me and Dad out in the middle of some super shitty bog-land who-the-fuck-knows-where tracking these caribou motherfuckers with a .303 rifle in my hands—like, sick, man, seriously—the bolt action making my cock hard as wrought iron it’s so bad-ass.
Those bullets, G—gold talons—menacing as fuck, and I’m like an eagle, dawg, a fucking bird of prey, yo—and when Dad sees a mound of caribou shit at the edge of this river we’re crossing, his red face is split in half with a smile.
Dad’s smile, yo—like someone took a hatchet to his face, it’s so big.
A real lady-killer back in the day, so he’s told me, and I picture all those dead animals at his lab, right?
Soon enough one big-ass caribou head on a plaque in there looking down at us all and all the dead animals, like, frozen in time or whatever.
And so we’re stalking this thing over the barrens for hours, G, seriously. Like, my hair’s gone grey it takes so long, and Dad’s checking the wind and stuff because these motherfuckers can smell you miles away, and we’re creeping along because they can hear you from miles away too.
We come over this rise and there down below in the valley Dad sees him first—this big-ass caribou with a seriously stunning rack, G—it’s beautiful.
Fucker’s just stood there like a statue or some shit, and the only way you’d know the thing was alive and not just one of Dad’s skin-jobs is that its ears twitch a little after we’ve been watching it for a while.
Dad gestures for me to take my shot. I shoulder the rifle like how he showed me and bring the scope up to my eye. Through the crosshairs I take a good long look at that sucker. Fucker’s filthy yo—there’s mud and shit and like bits of moss and twigs in his fur and shit. Eyes like a couple of those Magic 8 Balls I had as a kid, you know what I mean?—the ones that told your fortune or whatever.
Dad whispers, Take it, Shane, take it—and like, the caribou hears him or some shit because just then he starts to move and I squeeze the trigger and my shoulder feels like it got hit by a bus from the recoil.
He goes down. Gets up. Staggers a few steps.
Dad says, You fucked up!
And I’m like, Naw, I hit him!
You shot him in the ass!
He’s right.
There’s a big red blossom there.
Blood pouring out.
I fucked it up large.
Fucker doesn’t get far. Over the next rise we find him on his knees in a clutch of lichen-covered rocks.
Dad doesn’t hesitate.
The sound of the gunshot seems to hang in the air a long time.
Meat’s ruined, Dad says. A bullet to the shit-box—what a waste.
He goes about unfolding a big sheet of canvas.
Saws the thing’s head off before it’s even done bleeding out.
That’s when Dad’s like, It’s illegal to hunt these things by the way.
Because we’ve slaughtered them all, he smiles in my face.
We leave the headless body behind.
Birds already in the trees call out and watch and wait until we’re gone.
Carter hears it first.
We’re kinda camped out on one of the boardwalks in the waterfowl park, trying to sleep.
We’ve just got our dirty clothes rolled up for bedding, Shane asleep with his pistol in his hand, like, on his chest, and Brit with her mouth wide open like she does when she’s out cold, her arm draped over me.
At night it gets quiet—we hear the sound of the bats’ wings more than anything else—the booms in the distance from the air strikes or whatever are gone, yo, for now anyway.
Carter’s like, Mama, there’s ghosts here, and I’m like, Ugh, Ca
rter go back to sleep.
But second or third go round—something in his voice scares me—I can hear it too, right—these voices are singing like some hymn or some shit—and it’s like fucking Halloween-styles—like creepy as fuck.
I know he’s right—ghosts, man, they’re with us all the time—it’s like the past or whatever, right?
And they’re us too.
It’s like back when me and Shane first got together and then when Brit came along—like, there’s ghosts everywhere, man, we carry that shit around with us, but also they live right here in the soil and in the water, legit.
All the bodies and all those lives, how could they not still exist, you know? It’s like, energy, and that shit cannot be created nor destroyed but only transformed if you know what I mean.
It’s like quantum shit, but Shane knows more about that than me—and in fact he’d be like, no Nina, it’s fucking thermodynamics—but nothing’s impossible is my point, and I happen to believe in that shit—you don’t come from a lineage of Lebanese refugees without knowing that the past is real and like a tangible thing, know what I’m saying?
Like, it’s a physical thing, it’s not made up or some shit.
Scientists measure this shit.
Like, subatomic particles know when they’re being watched, so how can you count anything out?
And anyway, my grandmother saw her brother blown apart by bombs, and before that, she saw her mother starve to death because of the embargo or whatever.
So how does that not exist forever, you know?
Like in your blood and your genes and in everything you are—it’s like history but it’s also the future at the same time, you know?
For a few minutes me and Carter just hold on to each other in the dark, and for a sec I think I see some kinda light glimmering through the tree branches, right—but it’s just some trick of my eyes or whatever because there’s nothing there—it’s smoke or some shit like legit.
I can see the car where we parked it near the edge of the water, and everything seems cool except for this like eerie-as-fuck singing going on and I’m like, Yo, like, maybe I’m losing my mind just like Shane is because nothing seems very real just then for sure.
In the town the only standing structure is a church.
Windows blown out and soot covering the big stones of its face.
There’s no light there, you can just make it out, you know?
It’s this giant grey shape.
And you can make out the clock in its tower and the clock’s hands are totally dead, right?
Like, they ain’t moving.
Once I wake Shane and Brit, we creep up and go around the back of the church where one of these big-ass oak trees has bitten the dust, like legit—it’s huge—prolly hundreds of years old—or at least it was—now it’s just a smoldering husk of wood—and the singing is coming from inside the church and we can all hear how it’s, like, the same three words over and over again, know what I mean?
We’re just trying to scope out the situation or whatever, you know?
And Shane makes a step with his hands for Brit to look in through one of the windows and for a long time she don’t say shit—she’s just watching—and then she’s like, Maybe it’s okay, like, let’s check it out? There’s kids in there, she says.
And Shane, he’s showing us how brave he is, because let’s face it, we’re all freaked out by this shit—man, the singing is not of this earth, right?—he cocks the pistol and we sneak around to the front double doors.
He creaks the doors open a crack with the barrel of his gun.
Down the long aisle strewn with rubble, there’s people gathered.
And they’re like singing, man, and it’s actually kinda loud the way the notes echo up off the domed ceiling and the walls, right? It’s like beautiful—but the people themselves look like shadows—they’re covered in soot and shit—and from somewhere pigeons fly up and escape with the music through a giant crack way up there and we can see the sky through it.
And I’m not kidding, man, the birds as they flap their wings are in time with the notes of the hymn.
I watch the white feathers go up.
The feathers are notes taking flight, right?
And the people are singing, and some are just whispering the words:
We Shall Overcome.
And then the fucked-up thing happens—and the fucked-up thing is actually like the most beautiful thing—and that’s that me and Carter and Brit and Shane are kind of crawling up the aisle—I look over at Brit and she is like definitely crying—like the tears are making rivers down her cheeks through the dirt—and we hear that the people have stopped singing, and almost like magic the four of us, down on our hands and knees, have brought our eyes up at the same time and there’s, like, someone’s body on the altar—there’s a priest or minister or whatever up there leading them, and the body could be that of a man or a woman or a child or something in-between all of these—and the body is so covered in soot that it could be like any race you’d care to name, right?—and what’s for sure, what is for like really really happening like legit all the way is that this warm rain begins to fall through the hole in the roof—and the people start up singing again and are gathered around the body, and then we’re all crying except for Shane, who’s face looks just like one of the statues that line the place—and like, I’m thinking, Shane is fucked up as shit.
And this dead fucker on the altar was prolly cooked in white phosphorous or napalm or some shit, right?—or something else.
We back out of that place, like silent as shit, man, seriously, like total ninja-style shit—but something’s gotten into us, know what I mean?
It’s the germ man.
It’s the shit that’s driven Shane nuts and maybe all of us or whatever, right?
That fucking germ, man—hope, and its evil twin—despair.
Motherfucker’s just gotta have that shit.
I can already tell you the worst thing that’s ever happened, but the worst thing hasn’t even happened yet—but it has to do with betrayal, yo, like, how I’ve been betrayed, right.
It’s always the ones you love the most, right, it’s totally cliché or whatever—but it’s also true like legit—like for really real it’s totally true.
I’m sure that’s how Leo thinks about me—poor motherfucker—I don’t know how many times he told me he’d, like, kill or die for me like no matter what, dawg, and me too—I said that shit to him, and then, like, what happens?—in goes the knife, right?
A blade sharp and shiny as shit, G.
A dagger, G, that’s me. That’s life, yo—don’t doubt that shit, okay? Cause next thing you know the love of your life laughs while you’re bleeding out, motherfucker—and that’s just human nature—and it’ll also be what happens to me sometime, like just around the corner, dawg.
We drive from this town, into that other east-coast province to the south, and it’s a wasteland, man.
It’s a trip, man—what can I say?
You’re the type who, like, prolly loves, like, heavy description, right?
Like, you prolly think what shit means has to do with how shit is described or some shit—like, the land or whatever—but really the meaning of things is in how a bitch talks or whatever—like the landscape and the world is made from the words I’m using.
So basically, just make that shit up yourself, okay, baby?
There’s a world, and it’s burned black as shit, okay? And that’s what we’re seeing right now.
Like, you love your details, don’t you?
So okay—I’ll give you a little taste of what you want—like, I’m a mommy after all and as we come down that highway, the whole black sky is alive with fire and sparks and shit—there’s a storm happening, and the rain is like thunder on the roof and the thunder is like something else I couldn’t even attempt to describe—like God basically is what it sounds like.
God, man—we’re gonna die, okay, baby?—that’s w
hat it sounds like.
It’s distant, the thunder, and the distance of that like rumble or whatever is more frightening in a way than the fighter jets fucking dropping bombs and shit, like legit, man—the faintness somehow more ominous than anything else, right?
What you don’t know is that it ain’t technique, it’s attitude, right?
But it’s both.
That’s what Shane likes to say about it.
It’s like approach, right?
Like how you approach shit.
Are you in love with the thing you do or do you wanna know what this thing you love can do?
Do you come at something thinking you already know what it is? Or do you come toward it like a child does? Do you approach something like the way you were taught, or do you do the opposite of what you were taught? That’s the key, baby, like literally—because like I already said, there ain’t no knowing anything. There’s no knowing—and thank fuck for that.
Basically it’s this—do you love the thing, or do you love what the thing can become?
Big diff, yo.
Same thing with dudes, man, seriously—do you love the tradition, or do you love the living thing?
And that’s how come things are the way they are—someone stops loving what you can become and they love you as they think you are—but ain’t really you—they’ve just done you up in costume, baby. And that’s when you stick the knife in. You kill their dumb ass because they wanna keep you what you’re not.
And maybe I’m dreaming, yo, but I see that city—the Fax, man—in my head, right—like a bomb went off—like black, man, and like, that’s love isn’t it?
Like you ain’t a kid, so I know you know what I’m saying right now—a wasteland, man, like legit like murder up to here—my hand draws a line across my throat.
Things are in flux—ain’t nothing static in the world—Shane and his quantum theory and his cult shit—nothing’s known—which is all we can know.
Shane used to get The New York Times delivered to our apartment and he’d go through the columnists and the op-ed guys and tell me like a litany of things they’d predicted and got like totally wrong—like legit these guys were dumb fucks—but millions of people bought that shit like legit, baby, every single day.
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