Beads of sweat crept down Carl’s forehead as he stared down the cold steel barrel of a Colt .45. He closed his eyes as he thought about the promises he had made to himself time and time again; the promise to quit his dead-end job working the night shift at a seedy convenience store on the wrong side of Brooklyn. The promise to go back to school and study business or medicine or law, or anything that would get him out of a dead-end life working the night shift at a seedy convenience store on the wrong side of Brooklyn.
But there was never enough money. He would go back when he had enough money put away. Just as soon as he had enough saved to pay for the first semester. But he had to pay rent, he had to pay the bills, he had to buy food, he had to buy cigarettes (he would quit just as soon as he went back to school), and then there was the drink or two (sometimes more) with his buddies on the weekends. And of course there was his daughter to consider.
His breath caught as he realized he might never see her again.
He always wished he could be a better father. He tried to be with her more, but there was never enough time. He worked so damn much, trying to save some money, and always nights. If only her mother hadn’t moved out of Brooklyn. Then he could see his daughter more. But there was never enough time.
If only he could go back to school, he would give her a better life.
The bells on the door jingled, but Carl didn’t open his eyes. He could faintly here the volatile commands shouted by the man with the gun. Why did he have a gun? Why would he come into this store, on Carl’s shift? Carl smiled as he thought that maybe this man too was trying to save some money. Maybe he too wanted to go to school.
“Get your ass on the ground! Hands on your head!”
“Hey man, are you dumb or something? I said open the mutha fuckin’ register.”
Carl realized that the commands were now directed at him, but still he didn’t open his eyes. He had spent his whole life hiding. Hiding behind excuses, behind circumstances, behind vices and instant gratifications. The dangers and disappoints could never catch up with him if he acted like they weren’t there. As long as he couldn’t see them…
He felt bare metal strike his cheek and reflexively slumped to the floor. He heard gunfire and vaguely saw the flash of light. When the bullet entered his chest the air escaped his lungs with a groan. And as his head rested on the cool linoleum he could feel the warm, viscous blood pool beneath him.
Carl’s last breath carried with it regret. His life had been a dream.
Showing posts with label Short Stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Short Stories. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Mr. Jones
The picture of his wife still hung from the drab grey pseudo-carpeted wall of his 6x6 cubicle. If only he had a shred of pride he would have taken it down when she left him, but he didn’t. And the familiar face of the one to whom he had devoted what he considered the best years of his life gave him comfort, reassured him that even he once had dreams, ambitions; that life wasn’t always for naught.
Anyway, the busy season had covered her with post-its and flow charts. She was out of sight, out of mind. Funny that he should have stumbled upon her right then, as he slowly removed the colorful, piercing tacks from the papers which had come to define his life, dropping them carelessly into the trash, each one taking with it another layer of his imagined purpose. And then the walls were bare and he found himself staring at the smiling face of his beloved (ex) wife.
The picture was taken on their honeymoon; a secluded beach on the southern shores of the Dominican Republic. She was so young, they both were. Children, really. No sign of the crow’s feet that would later grow from the edges of her eyes or the cracked lips from years of nervous biting. Just that spontaneous, infectious smile. She never lost the smile. Sure, years of worry ravaged most of her poor face, but not that smile.
Since the divorce he realized that the worry was mostly his doing, and was mostly unnecessary. They had plenty of money, a nice home, new cars, but he couldn’t keep himself from imagining that it would one day all come crashing down. He had grown up in a small trailer on the outskirts of a mega-farm; corporately owned and mass-producing. His mother and father both worked as corn huskers, coming home ragged and dirty at the end of long days. They worked themselves to death and never escaped the clutches of poverty. In his heart he believed this was his destiny.
He looked down at his watch and realized he was out of time. He had devoted his entire life to this company and they couldn’t even leave him his dignity. “You’re work has been sub-par, and we have to let you go. You have ten minutes to pack up your belongings.” Sure, he had been a little down since the divorce. And then there was the incident, but it was isolated, and that guy should never have said those things about his (ex) wife. Was it really necessary to have security escort him out?
But it was too late;
“Mr. Jones, it’s time to go.”
Anyway, the busy season had covered her with post-its and flow charts. She was out of sight, out of mind. Funny that he should have stumbled upon her right then, as he slowly removed the colorful, piercing tacks from the papers which had come to define his life, dropping them carelessly into the trash, each one taking with it another layer of his imagined purpose. And then the walls were bare and he found himself staring at the smiling face of his beloved (ex) wife.
The picture was taken on their honeymoon; a secluded beach on the southern shores of the Dominican Republic. She was so young, they both were. Children, really. No sign of the crow’s feet that would later grow from the edges of her eyes or the cracked lips from years of nervous biting. Just that spontaneous, infectious smile. She never lost the smile. Sure, years of worry ravaged most of her poor face, but not that smile.
Since the divorce he realized that the worry was mostly his doing, and was mostly unnecessary. They had plenty of money, a nice home, new cars, but he couldn’t keep himself from imagining that it would one day all come crashing down. He had grown up in a small trailer on the outskirts of a mega-farm; corporately owned and mass-producing. His mother and father both worked as corn huskers, coming home ragged and dirty at the end of long days. They worked themselves to death and never escaped the clutches of poverty. In his heart he believed this was his destiny.
He looked down at his watch and realized he was out of time. He had devoted his entire life to this company and they couldn’t even leave him his dignity. “You’re work has been sub-par, and we have to let you go. You have ten minutes to pack up your belongings.” Sure, he had been a little down since the divorce. And then there was the incident, but it was isolated, and that guy should never have said those things about his (ex) wife. Was it really necessary to have security escort him out?
But it was too late;
“Mr. Jones, it’s time to go.”
Monday, May 14, 2007
The Insidious Adventures of the Insipid Carl Cahalan: Part 2
By the time Carl Cahalan was banished to International Falls he was under the impression that he was in the twilight of his life. By his estimation he had lived many fulfilling years and felt that he was no longer much use to anyone or anything (which was convenient considering his distaste for labor). With his life experience and wisdom he decided he would best serve the public by telling stories from a rocking chair perched on the deck of his modest log home on the far end of International Falls’ modest Main Street. And of course he would be working on the Great American Novel.
This was disarming to the hard working humble folks of International Falls, who would come by periodically to offer Carl a job at one of the nearby logging camps. Carl, you see, had dark wild hair, tightly curled and shiny as a seal’s hide, unweathered skin, smooth as a…seal’s hide, and round, mischievous eyes, dark as a…well I’ll be damned if Carl didn’t look just like a seal (excluding of course general uprightness and necessary appendages.) Carl’s sealish appearance had the overall effect of making him look young. Very young.
Needless to say, the good folks of International Falls didn’t like the idea of a young man frittering his time away, not working, raising who knows what brand of hell, and so they did their darndest to put him to work. Regardless, Carl would politely decline any job offered, explaining that it would be unwise for a brittle old man to be running around, shimmying up and down trees like a damn fool, and that he felt perfectly comfortable with his feet on the ground and his ass in a rocker.
He certainly didn’t need the money. Carl had made his fortune years before during an oil prospecting expedition to the heart of Siberia (but we’ll get to that later). He lived a simple life, had very few material needs (aside from his refusal to wear socks more than once) and had more than enough money to last him till the end of his days, which by his estimation was imminently approaching.
Truth be told, Carl had no idea how old he was. Due to his unusual childhood (but we’ll get to that later) Carl had no records of when he was born, and never learned to read a calendar (or tell time, for that matter). We’ll just say that Carl was neither as old as he thought nor as young as everyone else did.
Carl’s only friend in International Falls was his neighbor Mira Oglestein, whom he regarded as one of the world’s great beauties. To the average man she was powerfully repulsive, but her puckered lips and scaly skin aroused Carl’s sealish instincts, and upon meeting her Carl decided he would soon make her his wife.
Mira, in return, could more tolerate Carl than persuade herself to grow a genuine affinity for him. She had been widowed years before, and had vowed to let no man take her husband’s place. All of her affections were reserved for her cat, which she named Sam (after her husband). No one in International Falls had the heart to tell Mira that Sam had also died years before and that a kindly pet shop owner had been replacing the old tabby each time it kicked the bucket. Really, part of her must have known (no cat lives to 40), but she always said that age is purely mental.
Mira Oglestein was the only citizen of International Falls who knew the true story of what happened to Carl in Fort Frances, Canada. She had been told the story by no will of her own, and always regarded the sordid tale as no business of hers. But Carl loved her, and his honor forced him to be truthful with his future wife. When asked about Carl’s exile Mira would always say that it boiled down to a difference of opinions. The reality of the tale was, in fact, much more scandalous.
This was disarming to the hard working humble folks of International Falls, who would come by periodically to offer Carl a job at one of the nearby logging camps. Carl, you see, had dark wild hair, tightly curled and shiny as a seal’s hide, unweathered skin, smooth as a…seal’s hide, and round, mischievous eyes, dark as a…well I’ll be damned if Carl didn’t look just like a seal (excluding of course general uprightness and necessary appendages.) Carl’s sealish appearance had the overall effect of making him look young. Very young.
Needless to say, the good folks of International Falls didn’t like the idea of a young man frittering his time away, not working, raising who knows what brand of hell, and so they did their darndest to put him to work. Regardless, Carl would politely decline any job offered, explaining that it would be unwise for a brittle old man to be running around, shimmying up and down trees like a damn fool, and that he felt perfectly comfortable with his feet on the ground and his ass in a rocker.
He certainly didn’t need the money. Carl had made his fortune years before during an oil prospecting expedition to the heart of Siberia (but we’ll get to that later). He lived a simple life, had very few material needs (aside from his refusal to wear socks more than once) and had more than enough money to last him till the end of his days, which by his estimation was imminently approaching.
Truth be told, Carl had no idea how old he was. Due to his unusual childhood (but we’ll get to that later) Carl had no records of when he was born, and never learned to read a calendar (or tell time, for that matter). We’ll just say that Carl was neither as old as he thought nor as young as everyone else did.
Carl’s only friend in International Falls was his neighbor Mira Oglestein, whom he regarded as one of the world’s great beauties. To the average man she was powerfully repulsive, but her puckered lips and scaly skin aroused Carl’s sealish instincts, and upon meeting her Carl decided he would soon make her his wife.
Mira, in return, could more tolerate Carl than persuade herself to grow a genuine affinity for him. She had been widowed years before, and had vowed to let no man take her husband’s place. All of her affections were reserved for her cat, which she named Sam (after her husband). No one in International Falls had the heart to tell Mira that Sam had also died years before and that a kindly pet shop owner had been replacing the old tabby each time it kicked the bucket. Really, part of her must have known (no cat lives to 40), but she always said that age is purely mental.
Mira Oglestein was the only citizen of International Falls who knew the true story of what happened to Carl in Fort Frances, Canada. She had been told the story by no will of her own, and always regarded the sordid tale as no business of hers. But Carl loved her, and his honor forced him to be truthful with his future wife. When asked about Carl’s exile Mira would always say that it boiled down to a difference of opinions. The reality of the tale was, in fact, much more scandalous.
Monday, May 7, 2007
The Insidious Adventures of the Insipid Carl Cahalan
Before Carl Cahalan set out to write the Great American Novel it never occurred to him to ask the Great American People whether they wanted their novel to be written. It didn’t bother him that he wasn’t American at all, having only immigrated to the border town of International Falls 3 months prior after he was involuntarily exiled from Fort Frances, Canada (but we’ll get to that later). Carl Cahalan never even stopped to wonder who would read the Great American Novel, as reading had become unfashionable at the turn of the century. I suppose none of these things mattered much. Carl Cahalan, you see, was a terrible writer.
Carl Cahalan’s problem when it came to writing was that he didn’t understand how to use a comma. Granted the comma is a slippery device and is perhaps the most misunderstood concept known to man, but Carl’s use was more odd than necessarily wrong (the result being that one could not put one’s finger on one’s aversion to Carl’s writing). Carl would use the comma, irregularly, to separate words that, did not need to be separated. He accredited this erratic behavior to his unique style and claimed it was a deliberate effort. But the affect it had on readers could best be described as panic as they were not given sufficient time to in or exhale completely between punctuations. Inevitably their heart rates would quicken, beads of sweat would shimmy down their brows, they would hyperventilate, pass out, and without proper medical attention die. Not a pleasant scene, particularly for a mild-mannered reader looking to enjoy a sunny afternoon.
The truly odd thing about Carl’s writing was that while he could not for the life of him grasp the comma, he used the semicolon effortlessly and flawlessly. It was a sign of Carl’s great genius that he could so elegantly plop this intimidating piece of punctuation between closely related independent clauses not joined by a coordinating conjunction. But Carl Cahalan hated the semicolon, which he regarded as pretentious and stuffy, and used it so sparsely that few ever saw his astounding ability firsthand (fortuitously, his sparing use of the mark was precisely the behavior that made his usage correct).
Carl’s strange use of punctuation, however, was not the thing that made Carl’s writing terrible. These are merely symptoms of a terrible writer. Carl’s primary problem when it came to writing was that he didn’t know where to start a story, and had even less sense where to end it. His tales were full of “such and such happened, but to understand that I need to take you back to such and such a time and such and such a place, but first I must tell you this much about such and such, which is to say...” It was really quite ingratiating to readers disposed towards linear stories, as American readers are.
Needless to say, Carl’s blend of eccentricities made him unpopular in the small town of International Falls, where the townspeople prided themselves on down to earthiness and a remarkable resiliency to the cold. They didn’t believe for a second that Carl could, as he claimed, write the Great American novel. This cynicism grew partly out of the fact that Carl was not American, but mostly out of the fact that Carl Cahalan (as everyone knew) was a terrible writer.
To be continued…
Carl Cahalan’s problem when it came to writing was that he didn’t understand how to use a comma. Granted the comma is a slippery device and is perhaps the most misunderstood concept known to man, but Carl’s use was more odd than necessarily wrong (the result being that one could not put one’s finger on one’s aversion to Carl’s writing). Carl would use the comma, irregularly, to separate words that, did not need to be separated. He accredited this erratic behavior to his unique style and claimed it was a deliberate effort. But the affect it had on readers could best be described as panic as they were not given sufficient time to in or exhale completely between punctuations. Inevitably their heart rates would quicken, beads of sweat would shimmy down their brows, they would hyperventilate, pass out, and without proper medical attention die. Not a pleasant scene, particularly for a mild-mannered reader looking to enjoy a sunny afternoon.
The truly odd thing about Carl’s writing was that while he could not for the life of him grasp the comma, he used the semicolon effortlessly and flawlessly. It was a sign of Carl’s great genius that he could so elegantly plop this intimidating piece of punctuation between closely related independent clauses not joined by a coordinating conjunction. But Carl Cahalan hated the semicolon, which he regarded as pretentious and stuffy, and used it so sparsely that few ever saw his astounding ability firsthand (fortuitously, his sparing use of the mark was precisely the behavior that made his usage correct).
Carl’s strange use of punctuation, however, was not the thing that made Carl’s writing terrible. These are merely symptoms of a terrible writer. Carl’s primary problem when it came to writing was that he didn’t know where to start a story, and had even less sense where to end it. His tales were full of “such and such happened, but to understand that I need to take you back to such and such a time and such and such a place, but first I must tell you this much about such and such, which is to say...” It was really quite ingratiating to readers disposed towards linear stories, as American readers are.
Needless to say, Carl’s blend of eccentricities made him unpopular in the small town of International Falls, where the townspeople prided themselves on down to earthiness and a remarkable resiliency to the cold. They didn’t believe for a second that Carl could, as he claimed, write the Great American novel. This cynicism grew partly out of the fact that Carl was not American, but mostly out of the fact that Carl Cahalan (as everyone knew) was a terrible writer.
To be continued…
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