Day 38

I wrote this and I feel bad about it. Like really bad. If anybody has any feelings on this go ahead and tell me. Its not finished, but I just had to stop for a little bit. I might keep going later.

Mouth

Scene

(The setting is a living room, furnishes spare, there is a coffee table mid stage with a jacket laying atop it. There is a couch with a pillow and blankets kicked off to one at the back of the stage. Stage right is a window with the curtains drawn in, and stage right a door (bathroom), closed, with the sound of running water emanating from it. )

Guy enters the living room, he walks across stage and opens the curtains. As the curtains open Guy covers his nose and turns away, sneezing twice. He walks to the coffee table where a coat is laying flat open. He studies it for a moment and then picks it up by an arm and red dust shakes out. He drops the coat.

Guy: Mark!

Guy walks to the bathroom door and bangs on it.

Guy: Mark, what the fuck did you do?

(The water sound stops).

Mark (offstage): You don’t need to yell.

Guy: I think I do. What did you do with it?

Mark: I didn’t mean to!

Guy tries the handle and tugs hard.

Guy: Mark, what the fuck, we said we wouldn’t fuck each other over on this.

Mark: I didn’t do anything!

Guy takes a step back.

Guy: come out so we can talk. I don’t want to yell at the bathroom.

Mark: I think this is better.

Guy: I swear to God if you’re trying to hide it in there, or flush it, I’ll kill you. We promised that we wouldn’t screw each other on this! Could you not be a pussy for once in your life?

Mark comes to the door and opens it a crack enough to peak out.

Mark: I’m not a fucking pussy!

Guy tugs at the door but Mark holds it back

Guy: Then come out and show it to me.

Mark: I don’t have it.

Guy: Bullshit!

He tugs on the door

Guy: Its not on the table and I didn’t take it, so you have it.

Mark: I don’t have it anymore!

Guy tries to pry his fingers into the gap but Mark pulls it shut and locks it again.

Guy: We promised, Mark. What the fuck, we were supposed to go on daytime t.v. shows with this. We were supposed to be famous. As big as Oprah. The Averett Brothers, superstars.

Pause

Voice: I think you should just tell him.

Mark: Shut up!

Guy pounds on the door then puts his ear to it.

Guy: Who the fuck was that?

Mark: No one

Voice: I don’t think I deserve to be disregarded like that.

Mark: Shut up!

Voice: I don’t shout when you’re talking.

Guy: What…What’s going on?

Beat

Mark: Well, you remember how last night was fucked up?

Guy: Yeah

Voice: Yeah

Mark: Please, shut up. (Beat) Well, some of it rubbed off on me.

Voice: (Laughs) Oh, that’s funny.

Mark: Shut up, please, shut up, you’ve been talking all night.

Guy: Mark, I want you to come out and explain or I’ll break the door down

Mark: Guy please wait.

Guy takes a step back and stands read to charge the door.

Guy: 1

Mark: Please, hey.

Voice: He sounds serious.

Guy: 2

Mark: Wait!

Voice: You should probably go out there.

Guy: 3

Guy runs for the door and Mark opens it and he stops just before bowling him over. Guy shoves him aside and Mark walks out into the living room, as Guy scours the bathroom.

Guy: Where is he? Did you let him out the window? I swear to god, Mark, this was a secret.

Voice: No

Guy stops and walks to right next to Mark

Guy: What the fuck is going on?

Mark gestures to the coach

Mark: Sit down, and we’ll talk about it.

Beat where Guy turns and sits down, arms crossed

Mark: Well, what we found last night wasn’t a meteor.

Guy: Then what was it?

Voice: Spaceship

Guy: Who the fuck is talking?

Mark pauses, looks at Guy, then looks down at his stomach.

Voice: You should just tell him already. It’s really hot.

Mark: Fine. Guy, brace yourself.

(Mark lifts up his shirt and where his navel should be is an almost human face, its lips wide, it, blinks it eyes and works its flat mouth. )

Guy slowly stands up and advances towards Mark watching the face. The face watches back. Mark tries not to look at either of them. Guy gets within a few feet of the face.

Voice: Hi.

Guy takes a step back.

Guy: Mark, why do you have a face on your belly?

Voice (Mouth): My name is Mouth.

Guy: You gave it a name?

Mark: It named itself.

Guy bends down to look at Mouth, Mouth smiles, then brings himself back up to Mark

Guy: Did you eat it?

Mark: No, I just touched it. And then I started to feel weird, I thought it was the beer, but then I went to the bathroom and well, he started talking. I’ve been up all night trying to figure out if I was nuts or not.

Mouth: You’re not nuts, you’re just a host to my consciousness.

Mark: He’s been saying that a lot.

Guy, gets down to a knee to talk to Mouth

Guy: What do you mean?

Mouth: You guys found my brain pod, it held my consciousness, something sent it off course, and I ended up here. Brain pods aren’t stable though, so I jumped to Mark.

Mark: And I really appreciate it.

Mouth: Hey, I don’t want to be your talking belly button. Maybe you shouldn’t go around grabbing big red shiny things that fell from space.

Guy: Hey! (Guy stands up again and smiles) I don’t think we should be so upset about this.

Mark: Really?

Guy: Hey, think about it, this is better than a moon rock. You’ve got a talking stomach Mark. Think about how much daytime television we could get on! Who wouldn’t want to cover a story like this. This is ten times more exotic!

Mark: Guy, you don’t have a fucking alien inside of you. You have any idea how weird this feels?

Mouth: I want you to know you don’t feel to great either. When was the last time you even thought about exercise?

Mark: Shut up! Guy, I don’t want to be a freak.

Guy: You sure? It could be good, there could be money.

Mark: No, no I don’t want it.

Mouth: I don’t want to do it, if anyone cares.

Guy sighs

Guy: All right, (he looks at Mouth) What do we have to do?

Mouth: Well, my transport is dusted so, I need to get beamed back.

Mark: Beamed?

Mouth: Yeah, you guys have a microwave?

Day 37

I doodled the Dino from The Dinosaurs, a short lived high school punk band where each of us had a dinosaur stage name: Z-Wrex, Jonodon, Davey Raptor, and Jakesaurus. We were so fucking cool.

Day 36

Not happy with this story. But I'm posting it.

On Set

The bills were in pink envelopes now. Before they were pastel yellow with a black border around the “urgent” type. This seemed more intense. Dora brought the new envelope to just below her nose as the kettle sang out in the kitchen. Pill’s kitchen was small, probably smaller than hers had been, Dora definitely thought hers had been bigger, as she poured out the kettle to a teacup waiting at the table. She sat down and smelled her new pink letter, the envelope smelled like the inside of pockets, dry, unappealing. This one seemed more serious than the ones she has probably received before, she remembered less loud colors. She may have to explain the situation, that money was—is—not important right now, the man was.

The loan officer had been calling Dora at her apartment for weeks, so she decided to leave and stay at Pill’s, who had always been accommodating to her, even before the problem with her memories. He seemed proud to have Dora in his apartment and sleeping on his couch, like she was an expensive accoutrement. But Dora didn’t mind, the smiles and nods instead of conversations let her try to think about the Man in blue in peace. But this letter meant that she would have to talk to them, to explain the situation.

Inside the pink envelope that smelled like pockets was an outstanding fine of eleven thousand four hundred and thirty two dollars and forty-two cents, which had to be paid three days ago in full. It noted no cosigners could be contacted, her father didn’t like her going to Kenworth in the first place, and Mother like Aunt Jessica and Uncle Andrew was taught to be afraid of the government as they backed down from this advancement of pink envelopes. Dora remembered the way the light in their kitchen made it obvious Mother shook. She was someone with such good posture in all things: gardening, driving, powerful jumps in dance, all of her sent to huddling in the shadowed side of the refrigerator when a faceless debt collector rang.

“No, no,” The shrill voice was not her mother’s, didn’t sound right coming from her pink lips. “This is Doris, and no we don’t. But he says we’ll have it. Donny says he just got paid, it’ll-What?”

Doris chokes on the rest of her sentences as the Man in blue enters from the living room. He was neither small nor big, tall nor short; his is of average build with eyes that tend to squint and full cheeks dusted in peppery stubble. Dora imagines his suit is either expensive or foreign and his accompanied blue derby lays low on the back of his head. The Man takes a seat beside seven-year-old Dora in her guess for girl jeans and light-up Reeboks to survey the kitchen. He takes a big breath in raising his eyebrows at all of the fixtures. Dora’s mother continues on.

“I’m giving you a promise. Yes, I’m saying that I will promise you the money. There are things that are just happening to us right now.” Doris glances around the man at Dora her eyes concerned, but when Dora tries to look back the man inserts his head between the two. Dora studies him, trying to compare bone structure and skin tones of Grandfathers and Great grandfathers, uncles, fathers she had seen, older brothers of friends, lovers, but non of them will fit him.

“Why?” Dora’s voice is seven years big, “Why do you have to do this?”

The man smiles without teeth and takes another suck of air through his nose.

“Its all part of the test.” He lays his hands on the table and stands up, hovering over her now. His voice is low and makes everything sound rounder. “But, Dora, everything has a stopping point. I’m trying to get you there faster.”

“What do you mean?” Dora tilts her head to see the shakes her mother gets up and down her arms as she lays the receiver back in place.

The man turns his body to block her vision. “It means you need to pay attention. Can you do that?” He fights to get her eyes to his and then smiles without teeth again.

Dora’s mother takes a shaking breath and takes a few steps away from the phone. She pauses, and Dora can tell she’s trying to look at her, can tell she has her mouth open to speak.

Dora’s tea is cold and he left arm is painfully numb from resting her weight on it. There’s a clack as the fridge closes behind her and Pill walks out of the kitchen. There is a note in front of Dora:

You got another letter. Its on the table.

She keeps her numb arm slung close to her stomach and reaches for her second pink envelope.

--

Dora sits in a waiting room with sixteen chairs, one houseplant, and two paintings of the same two men sitting on the same boat. The chairs are double rows of four leading to a smoked glass window calling out names of other people. There aren’t many other people, two young boys sitting next to one another, an older woman sitting close to the glass. This place is uncomfortable, the lighting makes things yellow and there is no smell to anything, like smell was taken away. Dora feels good about this place though because if she is uncomfortable she’ll think about how uncomfortable she is and not about the man in blue.

“Theodora Fog. Ms. Windhelm is ready.”

The office is narrow with a deep cobalt rug running to a large desk and dark wood that shines blue from the phosphorescent bulbs overhead. Dora feels like this must be what a fish feels like, in a fish bowl, what it must be like in a large glass of water. Ms. Windhelm gestures to the padded chair across from her desk and Dora complies.

“You were expected here close to eight months ago. What has been keeping you?”

Her mouth snaps shut with emphasis after each sentence.

“There’s a man in my memories so I’m going to need a little more time.”

Ms. Windhelm shakes her head and adjusts the lay of her glasses.

“You’re already three months behind on final notices, another twenty days and we have to start seizing assets. I can’t defer any more time because you’re seeing someone.”

Dora wonders if her face could get as thin as Stacey Windhelm’s. She begins to suck in her cheeks and decides against it. It might seem insulting if they both had sucked-in faces.

“But I don’t know him, that’s the thing.”

Ms. Windhelm’s face gets more sucked in.

“I can’t defer a loan because you have forgotten someone.” She shuffles a group of papers, which were probably covered in Dora’s full name, and birth date, how much she made last year as a substitute teacher, how much she owed, and probably other things that they didn’t need to know but found out from asking her friends like, how much, per average did Dora give to the bum at the Pershing bus stop and did she save wrapping paper to use again or just wastefully throw it out—and thought that Ms. Stacey Windhelm had good enough hands for modeling and could probably do it too, if she wasn’t such a stickler about stuff.

“That’s just it, I don’t remember anything, especially about him. And he’s been in more and more of my memories. Its like someone is walking on set, but the set is me.”

Stacey Windelm brought her almost model’s hands to her glasses again, but decided against it and let them drop.

“Someone is in your memories? Have you seen a specialist?” Dora shakes her head. “I think someone told me to before, and I would probably go if I could remember to. That’s why I’ve been late about things, forgetting. I’ve been trying not to remember and its getting in the way of things. I believe that if I can just figure this out then I can get you the money.”

Stacey slides forward and her model’s hands touch Dora’s regular ones. They are smoother than clay earth and shine.

“I can’t do anything more. Mild psychosis is not a deterrent. There’s nothing I can do. You need to put something up right now as collateral.”

Dora thought about what she could give, there was no money all of it was gone to moments she couldn’t quite recall using. Her apartment was probably gone, probably, and the only thing she still had was her ring, which wasn’t with her, she had forgotten it. It was deep in a zipped pocket of a rolling suitcase of Pill’s apartment. She slept on the couch by the floor and sometimes would go to the bad and reach for the ring, which was not her, nor her mothers. It was the first thing she had forgotten. Dora fought now, for that memory, but still nothing.

“I can get you something. It should be worth a few hundred. I haven’t get it appraised, I always keep forgetting.” Dora slides her hands into her lap.

“Well, we can meet tomorrow morning.” Stacey brought her model’s hand to a paper calendar on her desk. “We’ll do nine.”

“No,” Dora is standing, “I won’t remember have someone call Pill’s house and he’ll make me answer. I’ll tell him not to let me leave tonight.”

Dora left the fishbowl an walked out past the talking smoked glass.

--

Dora thought that she should try to remember some things, it woud be for the best, maybe she could try to remember how she got the ring. It would be nice to know it before letting it go.

So, later, when she had gotten home and Pill had smiled and nodded goodnight she went to her rolling suitcase and reaching into its guts and pilled out the ring. It was silver with a square garnet stone piece. Was garnet something important? Was silver? There was an engraving, “Shelby”, and Dora didn’t think she knew a Shelby, or remembered one for that matter. She placed the ring on the table and stood up over it. She walked around it, seeing it at all angles. She felt her arms shake and realized she was nervous and showed it like her mother would. It wasn’t always so noticeable, but the sung light never fully lit the room and Dora could always tell when her shadow shook. She stares at the ring, but its not on Pill’s coffee table, but on the tall white painted wood of her kitchen table. Her mother is still shaking near the faucet and her father is talking now, he has something stringy in his hands, it wasn’t paper, and he played with it.

“You know, you’re not doing so good.” The Man settles in his chair and is not smiling. “In fact you’re going bad.” He glances at the ring and lays a hand on the table, close to it, but not touching.

“Now, I’m going to have to start doing some drastic things to get some incentive out of you. Everything has to have an end Dora, even tests.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re going to be missing things. I have to take them away. It will only help the test.” With large pink fingers he plucks up the ring by its square head and tucks it into the front pocket of his suit.

The man in blue takes her by the arm and with a gentle tug leads he away from the room. He nods at Doris and Donny, who nod back and continue to talk and shake respectively. He opens the screen door to the backyard and they step outside.

“I still don’t understand.”

“Well you need to work on that. That’s part of the test.” And then the man’s hand is away from hers and the buzz of cicadas from the branches of a shadowy tree in a neighbor’s yard buzzes loud, and the sunlight swallows Dora up.

There is a sharp pain in her legs from standing. The red eye of the sun is just peaking into the windowsill and the ring isn’t on the table. Instead there is a note. “You’ll get it back with everything else. Pass the test.”

Day 35

I found these under the bridge I always walk under to go to work.

Day 34

So, I did this assignment where we had to write a story start using a relationship we normally don't write about, so brothers, sisters, spouses, cousins, lovers, stuff like that. Here is what I just finished trying out.

"Can you hold him? Just-" Marie hands her mother the squirming mass in her arms and spins on flat toed slip-ons, cheap plastic looking ones. She catches Jeb as he rounds the corner from the living room. "Just stop for a second, okay buddy? We're going to talk soon." Marie has a gentle hand on his shoulder while she look up to Florence, her mother. Flo looks back, rocking the bundle, little Carla, with mechanical slowness. She seems like two different people doing one thing, the way she gently swings the baby and gives full attention, her eyes watching Marie intently behind bi-focaled lenses.
"Can you, uh?" and Marie stares at Jeb, like the question fell onto his cheek.
"Uh," he mimics and Flo smiles.
"Pick him up," says Flo and Marie gets off a knees and hoists her son to a shoulder.
"We'll just sit."
"Should we just, uh?" And again Marie pauses, on the threshold of shag carpeting, "Are we going to talk now?" Her bottom lip is puffy from nipping at it, she's nervous.
"No, not just yet. Set him down, in there, I got the little one. You keep grabbing things and bring them in. We'll take them upstairs later."
"But should I-"
"No, not just yet." Flo interjects and walks around Marie to sit on a couch that creaks loud enough to hide the pop of her bad knee. "Just that for now."
Marie's head bobs through her mother's words, visualizing the steps as she sets Jeb down in the center of the carpet. He sits and runs his fingers through the deep brown threads until his mother is out of sight. He wobbles his head until it finds his grandmother and then smiles, his hands going out to her.
"Can you come here Jeb?" Flo coos and when he smiles she can see the boy's father and the mechanical rock skips a beat. His face fully his father's, no one's is, but it is close already, even at nearly two years, there is a framework that could easily be filled in with a little work, if he broke that nose, maybe, that would do it. Flow wondered if any of her husband would end up in that face, and decided that Terry's blood was weaker than Clay's, but she still hoped.
The door crackled shut and Marie slung two bags onto the floor.
"The rest is food. I was going to leave it out there, it'll be okay. Right? Its mostly canned stuff for Carla, and I've got plenty for right now in my bag."

Flo nods to slightly it may just be the rock of her body with Carla swaying in her arms. Jen scuttles close to her dress hem. His smile is now Clay's too, not Terry's or Marie's. And as he crawls closer a feeling of a kettle about to boil over in another room erupts in Flo.
"Pick him up."
"Why?"
"He's upsetting Carla, please do as I say."
Marie has Jeb pulled back before he had his chance to tug on the hem with his pink hands.

"So, are we supposed to talk now? I mean-"
"Not just yet."
"Oh...Are you sure?"
"Yes, we need some more time. Their father isn't far enough away." Maris is silent as she holds her boy and Flo holds her granddaughter. "We'll talk when everything of your husband is far away."

Day 33

Okay, so I made guacamole today, and I took a bunch of pictures, but something is up with my phone where is really doesn't like to save pictures or to upload half of the ones it does take. So. These are all I have. But I promise, I made guacamole and it was good. Even ask Brendan.

Day 32

I made food today, a big batch of ham and bean soup, but I didn't take pictures of that, so I drew a picture of my kitchen and me making the food. Perspective is hard folks.