1. Blackout
1. Blackout
---
“Headless body found in strip joint downtown.”
“Arm ripped off in auto accident.”
“Senator caught in bed with two prostitutes; witness claims there was drug activity.”
“Jealous wife runs over cheating husband several times.”
“4 children caught smuggling cocaine from Colombia at Texas airport; parents humiliated.”
“Contaminated air filter kills two.”
These headlines. Worthless sensations that work the eyeballs for a few erotic seconds, until the actual article dillutes the shock.
This is how I get by. Cheap thrills and addictions; they surround me, taking the shape of Middle Eastern food, imported cigarettes, smooth skin and gourmet coffee. I chug it all down without so much as a shiver; I guess that's gonna be a problem sometime in the future. But who cares about the future? Live it up. You get one chance, now let's not screw that over.
Tonight, I'm having coffee on the balcony of a trendy local restaurant. My friends all told me to meet them at some party, but I don't think I want to leave. I'm relaxed. A cigarette smoldering between the fingers of my right hand, and the daily paper in my left. There's an interesting headline in the latter sections, about New Mexico. I remember years ago the government was building an underground base where they would plant nuclear waste, then seal it off. I remember thinking that nature would find it eventually, and we'd all be killed.
But this article is different. It's discussing why New Mexico is an ideal place to live. Okay, so it's a lifestyle magazine.
I picked it up because I know the state like I know the smell of tobacco within a forty-foot radius; I get that same sensation and tingle hearing about it, the same feeling most fucktards get when they hear about some decapitation or extreme medical defunct. As I flick through the stories about pottery and bedsheets, I find a glossy familiar page with a bend at the corner.
There are postcard shots of red desert (I clipped a few out), as well as descriptions of the weather and the vegetation, like how pinon pine, juniper, and ponderosa cluster in little patches across all degrees of elevation. And the cottonwoods that rest along rivers, and the aspen in the mountains.
A lot of weird shit happened when my friends and I had summer vacation there, taking short breaks from events, sprinkling ourselves in Silver City, Albuquerque, Sante Fe, and Taos. We moved around, because all the towns gave us the creeps. We wanted to jut out yet stay. These things...the green light, the moaning house, the banshee, and the deaths...we pinkie-sweared not to discuss...ever.
Nevertheless, a glimpse back into the past brings up old fears, smells, and music. I like to dip in mental atmospheres.
I recall lime, Tom Waits, and lots of empty cartons.
I recall this fucking addictive lotion bottle that lasted me the entire trip, one that had a peeling lavender label. My ex-girlfriend gave it to me, but it never makes me think of her; give this guy a wiff and I'll get really paranoid. Things happened in my young scented skin.
Right now there's a very attractive young woman wearing red; she's standing at the bar, adjacent to my balcony seat. She has a smooth complexion and glass eyes, with endless black tresses; something about her expression thoroughly intrigues me. She also has voluptuous thighs and long legs. I wouldn't mind bringing that home.
I sit up, placing my shit down on the table, and walk as coolly as possible in her direction. I pretend I'm heading somewhere important, then I nudge her. She's talking to a jerk in a suit, he's mumbling a little bullshit, so I decide to pinch her in the ass.
She turns with a flurry of hair and eyelashes and perfume, and her eyes are so absorbed in mine, and without hesitation her first action her striking claret lips meet my own slowly dissolving mouth. It's soft, and it's even more delicious because it's unexpected. A part of me thinks she's trying to get back at this prick.
“Well...that's...good reflexes?”
God damn. Those words really bounded from my vocal cords.
“Sorry! Sorry, you just sort of hit my hotspot...I'm so sorry!”
“Hey, it's okay, you're very attractive and I couldn't help myself; in fact, I should be the one apologizing...”
“I saw you looking at me. I like you. Want to go back to my place?”
“Oh...sure.”
Wow.
So we go to her place. It's pretty glam, considering she is a modeling agent for her own company.
There's very little talk.
I don't even know her name, and she's already got my belt unbuckled, and her expensive tonic down my throat.
We fuck on her huge satin bed. We drink and smoke. We drink, drink, drink.
There's this movie-screen sized window in front of us, open for observation the majority of the downtown area. There are no blinds and its cracked a little, allowing air flow, and blossoming white magnolias are throwing their fragrance into the room from their flowerbeds.
Right when we've started to settle down, the lights flicker, just a little. I make nothing of it until half an hour later there is major turbulence in the light system.
It gets really violent. The girl screams. “What the fucks going on?? The whole town's black! Look!” Sure enough, a slew of yellow squares in the skyscrapers I viewed earlier were now absent.
Moments later her lights shoot out.
“I don't know, I guess theres a power outage.”
“Hey...um...what's that?” She points to a large machine outside her window. I can't tell its shape or colour.
It quakes.
My thoughts go haywire.
It makes a long, sharp movement - “DUCK!” The thing shatters right through the enormous window; shards of glass go streaming across the room like silver coins. “SHIT!!”
We dig under the comforter.
There is silence.
I feel a deep burn in my arm.
We don't talk, and we don't open our eyes. It's a good few minutes before she mutters.
“Not to alarm you...but I think I started my period...”
I sift from the glass slowly, peeling the blanket from over our heads. She's in the fetal position, naked and beautiful, with blood between her legs. But there's a little trail. “Thats not your period...it's coming from...my head.”
I feel weightless and dizzy. I think I'm gonna be sick.
---
---
“Headless body found in strip joint downtown.”
“Arm ripped off in auto accident.”
“Senator caught in bed with two prostitutes; witness claims there was drug activity.”
“Jealous wife runs over cheating husband several times.”
“4 children caught smuggling cocaine from Colombia at Texas airport; parents humiliated.”
“Contaminated air filter kills two.”
These headlines. Worthless sensations that work the eyeballs for a few erotic seconds, until the actual article dillutes the shock.
This is how I get by. Cheap thrills and addictions; they surround me, taking the shape of Middle Eastern food, imported cigarettes, smooth skin and gourmet coffee. I chug it all down without so much as a shiver; I guess that's gonna be a problem sometime in the future. But who cares about the future? Live it up. You get one chance, now let's not screw that over.
Tonight, I'm having coffee on the balcony of a trendy local restaurant. My friends all told me to meet them at some party, but I don't think I want to leave. I'm relaxed. A cigarette smoldering between the fingers of my right hand, and the daily paper in my left. There's an interesting headline in the latter sections, about New Mexico. I remember years ago the government was building an underground base where they would plant nuclear waste, then seal it off. I remember thinking that nature would find it eventually, and we'd all be killed.
But this article is different. It's discussing why New Mexico is an ideal place to live. Okay, so it's a lifestyle magazine.
I picked it up because I know the state like I know the smell of tobacco within a forty-foot radius; I get that same sensation and tingle hearing about it, the same feeling most fucktards get when they hear about some decapitation or extreme medical defunct. As I flick through the stories about pottery and bedsheets, I find a glossy familiar page with a bend at the corner.
There are postcard shots of red desert (I clipped a few out), as well as descriptions of the weather and the vegetation, like how pinon pine, juniper, and ponderosa cluster in little patches across all degrees of elevation. And the cottonwoods that rest along rivers, and the aspen in the mountains.
A lot of weird shit happened when my friends and I had summer vacation there, taking short breaks from events, sprinkling ourselves in Silver City, Albuquerque, Sante Fe, and Taos. We moved around, because all the towns gave us the creeps. We wanted to jut out yet stay. These things...the green light, the moaning house, the banshee, and the deaths...we pinkie-sweared not to discuss...ever.
Nevertheless, a glimpse back into the past brings up old fears, smells, and music. I like to dip in mental atmospheres.
I recall lime, Tom Waits, and lots of empty cartons.
I recall this fucking addictive lotion bottle that lasted me the entire trip, one that had a peeling lavender label. My ex-girlfriend gave it to me, but it never makes me think of her; give this guy a wiff and I'll get really paranoid. Things happened in my young scented skin.
Right now there's a very attractive young woman wearing red; she's standing at the bar, adjacent to my balcony seat. She has a smooth complexion and glass eyes, with endless black tresses; something about her expression thoroughly intrigues me. She also has voluptuous thighs and long legs. I wouldn't mind bringing that home.
I sit up, placing my shit down on the table, and walk as coolly as possible in her direction. I pretend I'm heading somewhere important, then I nudge her. She's talking to a jerk in a suit, he's mumbling a little bullshit, so I decide to pinch her in the ass.
She turns with a flurry of hair and eyelashes and perfume, and her eyes are so absorbed in mine, and without hesitation her first action her striking claret lips meet my own slowly dissolving mouth. It's soft, and it's even more delicious because it's unexpected. A part of me thinks she's trying to get back at this prick.
“Well...that's...good reflexes?”
God damn. Those words really bounded from my vocal cords.
“Sorry! Sorry, you just sort of hit my hotspot...I'm so sorry!”
“Hey, it's okay, you're very attractive and I couldn't help myself; in fact, I should be the one apologizing...”
“I saw you looking at me. I like you. Want to go back to my place?”
“Oh...sure.”
Wow.
So we go to her place. It's pretty glam, considering she is a modeling agent for her own company.
There's very little talk.
I don't even know her name, and she's already got my belt unbuckled, and her expensive tonic down my throat.
We fuck on her huge satin bed. We drink and smoke. We drink, drink, drink.
There's this movie-screen sized window in front of us, open for observation the majority of the downtown area. There are no blinds and its cracked a little, allowing air flow, and blossoming white magnolias are throwing their fragrance into the room from their flowerbeds.
Right when we've started to settle down, the lights flicker, just a little. I make nothing of it until half an hour later there is major turbulence in the light system.
It gets really violent. The girl screams. “What the fucks going on?? The whole town's black! Look!” Sure enough, a slew of yellow squares in the skyscrapers I viewed earlier were now absent.
Moments later her lights shoot out.
“I don't know, I guess theres a power outage.”
“Hey...um...what's that?” She points to a large machine outside her window. I can't tell its shape or colour.
It quakes.
My thoughts go haywire.
It makes a long, sharp movement - “DUCK!” The thing shatters right through the enormous window; shards of glass go streaming across the room like silver coins. “SHIT!!”
We dig under the comforter.
There is silence.
I feel a deep burn in my arm.
We don't talk, and we don't open our eyes. It's a good few minutes before she mutters.
“Not to alarm you...but I think I started my period...”
I sift from the glass slowly, peeling the blanket from over our heads. She's in the fetal position, naked and beautiful, with blood between her legs. But there's a little trail. “Thats not your period...it's coming from...my head.”
I feel weightless and dizzy. I think I'm gonna be sick.
---
posted by the_ghost_machine at 4:46 PM
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