Sir Kills-A-Lot's Stories

The Smell of Memories IV

2008-02-25T03:24:10Z

Now looking back I think it was my curiosity that pushed me over the brink and forced me to step into the living room, like some kind of zombie. I imagine it that way when I think back, my face a ghastly white, my movements slow and almost rigid.

As I stepped onto the hard-wood my shoes made scuffing sounds and my heart leapt into overdrive. What if something had happened to Cicil? Murdered, perhaps? What if the murderer were still in here? I began to tip-toe towards our shared bedroom, but as I turned the corner to the hallway I saw her lying face down halfway between the kitchen and the living room. I froze. I couldn’t scream, it just lodged in my throat like a dry piece of toast you could almost choke on.

I wanted to touch her, see if she was ok, but the thought of touching her limp body, possibly dead, rotting body made me want to run far, far away. And that smell.. It seemed so alive, as if it wanted to suffocate me; surrounding me so thick I thought I would pass out.

Then I did scream.

The Smell of Memories III

2008-02-25T03:06:44Z

From what I gather of those blurry segments of memory is just this: After pushing the door open just enough to pop my head in, I called after her.

“Cicil?” I called with a bit of sing-song quality, fulling expecting an equally sing-songy response. Yet none came, and still I waited. Waited, waited, waited. A knot formed in my chest, around my heart, but I tried to settle my nerves and counted back from ten. She’s ok I thought, she’s just still sleeping, is all. That was when the smell seemed to waft to me, it was the most pungent odor I’d smelled in a long time and that set the knot in my chest tighter, my blood pumped faster; like ice water running through my veins. I called again, more urgently this time.

“Cicil?? Cicil are you there?”

Nothing. For a long time, or at least it felt like a long time, I stood there in the cool air afraid to go in; afraid that something I didn’t want to know about was awaiting me. I now think I knew all the time what I was going to find, I just couldn’t admit it.

The Smell of Memories II

2008-02-25T02:51:05Z

I had recently overcome a terrible case of the geedis, as my father had always called any flu-type virus. Or in other words a nasty case of bronchitis. But on this particular day I had finally been able to talk. A miracle if there ever was one. Once I had found her in the kitchen, laying half on the linoleum and half on the hard wood that signaled the end of the kitchen and the beginning of the living room, my miracle of speech abandoned me. Althought, let me back up for a moment, because the moment I found her is not the moment that the smell, that disgusting aroma of rotten eggs, had taken a firm hold of my worst fears and shook me.

Let me back up to the moment and those following when I had half-skipped up the drive towards the front door to the little one-bedroom I shared with no one in-particular; except her. I remember distinctly having pulled out my key and turning it smoothly in the lock, a well oiled motion. That’s where everything gets a little blurry. Perhaps I just refuse to remember clearly.

The Smell of Memories

2008-02-25T02:33:32Z

It was that awful, terrible smell; like that of rotten eggs that permeated the air in and around the kitchen that night. I took whiffs here and there, walking back and forth with my back hunched. I guess if anyone had been in the house that night, they would’ve thought I looked like.. like I was crazy. But I wasn’t, I could smell something and so I searched for the origin. I came up with nothing. Yet as I stood staring into the cabinets inhaling deeply of the smell, thinking it over; I didn’t ever buy eggs, I’m allergic, you know. It suddenly hit me just as my gaze drifted to the linoleum floor.

This is where I found her I thought, my throat suddenly dry and stinging the way it does when you’re getting a cold, but you’re not quite sure yet so you ignore it. And I ignored it, but like all sore throats, it slowly crept into my thoughts. And the memories surfaced to the front of my mind with it. It had been a cool, but not cold day in February, and I had felt good for the first time in ages…

The Life of a Ficleteer (Six Word Memoir Challenge, again)

2008-02-22T22:54:18Z

A strange pancake stack of oddities.

The Death of a Good Friend; Valentine's '08(Six Word Memoir Challenge)

2008-02-21T22:37:58Z

The music stopped his gorgeous heart.
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Jack, the Shack-a-majiger, and a Plan

2008-02-21T00:19:23Z

We’re lucky to be alive. All of us. All of the time. Just common sense nowadays, ‘specially since the gov doesn’t do a damned thing. Hell it can’t even function, even on the simplest level, anymore. Can’t ya’ see? That’s why there’s so much crime; happens all the time. Something you just gotta’ have to get used to ‘round here.

I myself was never much for sitting aroung and letting shit like this continue, but what could one man possibly do when gangs rule the streets? Not a whole lot, I’ll tell you, not now, at least. A man could lose a helluva lot tryin’ to be a hero in this city, that’s why I’ve stayed put in my little shack-a-majiger here. But then just before you and the others arrived, he showed up just outta the freakin’ blue. Latched on to me he did and thank something for that ‘cause he’s got a plan. And maybe, with you and the others, we can turn things around. Cale’s his name. Me? Well, I ain’t nothin’ special, but I’m Jack. Oh and by the way, welcome to the Hell Hole; try not to get shot.

The Dying Thoughts of One- I Erase Myself

2008-02-20T12:40:37Z

These times are the days, weeks, and months I die. Much means little as time slips by and my knowledge passes to those who need all they can aquire, the young ones. What they do with my experiences, my droplets of advice, I will never know. For I will die and all that I leave behind is not fame and fortune, words or books, but the thing which drives us. So instead, I erase myself, leaning not on what people will remember about me, for it matters not as time and people eventually forget all. I erase myself, possessions, lost loves, the place in which I spend my last years. Whoosh gone, like the clean cloth held by an invisible hand washing over the chalkboard that my life has become. I erase myself for those who come after me, let them have a place to come up in the word without the cloudy and burdening remnants of what I was and what will inevitably be lost. I erase myself as these times pass, the cloth cleanly sweeping up the tracks I left on this ground, these people, this world. I erase myself.

Beyond Ears of Men (Sequel)

2007-11-27T20:59:33Z

A low, dull moaning rattles you backwards. Seeming so small, your footsteps slide and stutter on the concrete. Your heart thumps wildly in your chest, knowing from the past what is about to come.

He’s always been a sick one, the man who has never released his name from those lips, but you fear that that calm malicious exterior has a darker side. A side you’ve yet to provoke in him.

Your mind rebounds from the past, drawing back into the only comfort you have, that small place in your mind where even he has no power. Then, a touch of wind strikes your fingertips, sending a shiver through you.

You implore the darkness nearest you, “Puh-p-please! No-no more!” But there is no hope left, when the consuming darkness stays your secret from all ears.

Lurking in the Darkness

2007-11-24T02:47:42Z

You grope in the darkness for the hand of your other, for that comfort in the black. Footfalls of slimy disdain creep into your thoughts. Drip, drop. Drip, drop. Water splashes in the distance. Drip.. Silence. It rings in your ears, your body tenses as you strain, as you listen. And then you know, the silent realization of what is creeping just beyond the reach of your fingers hits you. So familiar, but unexpected each time because you hope one day it’ll finally end.

It’s been a long time since he’s come to you in the night, the cold and lonely night when even your companion cannot resist the weight of her heavy eyelids…

Follow the Beaten Path II

2007-06-20T22:26:23Z

It was a sad looking thing, that path. It looked as if it had taken heavy use in the past. But I’d never seen anyone leave the town, so I found it surprising such a path had ever been used. Nevertheless it was my road alone to take.

He had told me not to stray, and for awhile I held true to his advice and stayed on the beaten path. I found, though, that the draining sun never ceased to shine and weariness took hold. I sought shelter and shade in which to rest.

Then I saw it In the distance, a dark tree-line began to form on the horizon..

Follow the Beaten Path

2007-06-20T01:01:44Z

The old man had told me before I left to follow the beaten path and not to stray, but I wasn’t sure what he meant until I reached the edge of town, the one I had always called home. Civilization itself seemed to end there, as there was no sign of any buildings within sight. All there was to see was miles upon miles of waist-high grass, weeds, and any other kind of grassy foliage, with the exception of the path staring me down directly in front of me. So this is the beaten path? I questioned myself only to find I didn’t have the answer. I had no choice but to take the old man’s advice and follow the only clue I had..

Spare The Humiliation

2007-06-11T02:59:34Z

It all started upside down. My therapist had said it was the only way to get rid of my depression, so there I was hanging like a wet noodle from a rope. The blood had started to rush to my brain after a couple minutes of the mind-numbing suspension, but I was, at that point, willing to do just about anything. I was desperate for an answer. An answer I had been seeking for so long that I was, crazy as it may sound, open to anything.

With some effort I checked my watch and counted down the remaining seconds. 10. 9. 8.. My torture for the day was nearing completion 5.4.3.. The door creaked open just then, interrupting my process.

“Miss O’ Connel?” Came a stunned, yet familiar voice, “What are you doing?”

My Son, the Magician

2007-06-11T02:39:15Z

Not the dishwasher again. I don’t know how many times that confounded thing has had a tantrum this week alone. Stomping around on the kitchen floor in there, what nerve! You see, we got a problem here. My son, you know, the one with the magic powers, well he thought it’d be funny to see what would happen if the dishwasher came alive. And you know what’s wrong with that picture, don’t cha? So now we got a livin’, breathin’, tantrum-throwin’ dishwasher that might as well be another child. What’s next, another inanimate object coming to life? No, I don’t wanna give that boy any more crazy ideas.

Anyway, about the dishwasher, you can hear it in there, right? So as I was sayin’, it come alive about.. oh say, four or five weeks ago. Haven’t been able to get a single load a’ laundry done. Everythin’ just stinks to high heavens.. Oi, it’s a real mess. What’s that? Well that’s mighty nice of you mister, but unless you got magical powers too, you’re gonna have to convince my son to fix it. My son, the magician.

Tick, Tock II

2007-06-08T22:21:36Z

Thirty seconds. We were the best and the brightest the Earth to Space Aeronautics Program could offer, yet we stood there in silence, all options exhausted. Somehow at that dreadful moment, where everything went terribly wrong, we had let emotion come into play. Why became the question poised on my lips. I had never known emotion until I met him. What I thought blindly is so different about this one?