BIG BLACK DOG: Chapter III: The Stoopid Bitch

Read Chapter II

Andrea had lied to her husband, Marcus, but that was wasn't any new surprise; she did it all the time. She told him that she would not be home till late because of a work conference, that was an utter and blatant bloody lie, the believability of which depended on her husband's gullibility for such things; especially since he knew very well that she was unemployed. He was a fool, she knew that, and she kept him that way by keeping him on a diet of split-pea soup mixed with laxatives and sedatives. She smirked to herself, thinking about how that stupid bumbling idiot would be at home lulling back and forth between sleep and wakefulness and stumbling around the house in a dazed confused state.

It was five O'clock in the afternoon. Andrea had spent the day walking around the shopping mall to look for some enticing lingerie to impress her lover, Mr.Braxton, her canine lover. She could not decide whether to buy the lacy transparent brief, bra and suspender set, so she stole it by stuffing it into her handbag and briskly walking out of the store; she got away with it, but the excitement of the theft had left the panties that she wore soaked with urine. She found a ladies washroom, and changed out of the wet underwear into her newly acquired prostitute style bedwear. On the way out of the washroom, she tossed her urine stained panties into a rubbish bin next to the exit. She smiled to herself as she minced her way to the carpark and to her husband's orange Ford Capri Turbo.

She had arranged to meet Daniel MacCleaver at his house on the other side of town, the ghetto area where only the poorest, dangerous, and stupidly ignorant lived. He had called her the night before, just as she had mixed the sedatives into her husband's food. When she picked up the phone, she addressed him as 'Doris' incase her husband was listening in:
"What's so urgent, Doris?" she asked.
"Uh, I'm not Doris, it's me Daniel."
"Yeah, I know, just be cool with it okay?"
"I don't want to be Doris."
"Listen, I'm taking precautions." she said with a slight hint of annoyance leaking into her voice.
"What ever do you mean?"
"I'M CALLING YOU DORIS INCASE MY HUSBAND IS LISTENING IN ON OUR CONVERSATION AND I DON'T WANT HIM TO KNOW!!" she shouted into the receiver.
"Oh, alright then, I'll be okay being called Doris."
She sighed, "What's so blinking urgent that you have to call me at this hour, it's five past midnight; one should never call during the witching hour..."
Daniel paused, she heard him take a deep breath and exhale slowly as he prepared himself to deliver the message, "I'm onto something big, come over tomorrow afternoon and I'll show you. This will blow your mind..."
They said nothing more, a silent mutual agreement to both put down their receivers and continue with sleep. Andrea found her husband asleep in the bathtub, the water level just beneath his nostrils, a little higher and he would have drowned; she left him in there and went to bed with Mr. Braxton.

She arrived at Daniel's house at about twenty three minutes past five O'clock. There was no need to knock since the front door was broken and hanging on a single hinge, it could have snapped and fallen down any minute; but it wouldn't have killed anyone since it was really a laminated piece of styrofoam board sandwiched between two pieces of single layer plywood. The floor was covered in dust, broken glass, bits of chipped gypsum, and torn pages from various pornography magazines. Daniel was in the living room, reclined with his eyes shut on the only piece of furniture in the room, an old ragged worn couch.
"Wake up Daniel, it's me Andrea!" shouted Andrea.
Daniel stirred, moaned and his eyes slowly opened. "Hey," he answered sleepily as he rubbed his eyes, "I was just meditating." He sat up on the sofa, his head dangled between his shoulders, and he rubbed his eyes once again.
"So what was so urgent that you had to call me in the middle of the night?"
Daniel stood up, he was a short thin man, with a large beard and extremely large eyes. He scratched his chest beneath his t-shirt which read 'Bantam Banana Boat Race Championship'. "Come this way!" he pointed to a doorway into the next room, and shuffled slowly towards it. Andrea followed.

The room was naturally well lit, it had a sink, a refridgerater, and a small round table with a couple of chairs. Above the counter were a row of windows which looked out to an overgrown and weedy garden. Daniel bent down upon his knees, and pulled out what appeared to be a small wooden chest from beneath the table. Andrea stood back as he dragged the box into the centre of the room. He looked up at Andrea as he placed his thumbs over the latches, "This is going to blow your brain!". He released the latches and flicked the top of the chest open. Andrea leant over, she looked inside the box and gasped.

to be continued...

BIG BLACK DOG: Chapter II: The Grass is Always Greener Fullstop

Read Chapter I

"Must stay awake..." slurred Marcus as he sleepily stirred his split-pea soup on the stove. His wife, Andrea, had left a tin of split-pea soup on the kitchen counter with a scrawly note informing Marcus that she would be home late because of a work conference, and she hoped that it would be enough food to last him till midnight.

Marcus was a tall man, a retired body builder, although his muscles had atrophied from lack of use; he was a lean albeit slightly flabby fellow. His body was smooth and white with little definition, supported on a couple of legs that looked like kitchen towel rolls. He constantly yawned as he fought to stay awake. Marcus and Andrea, once went to see a doctor about his lethargy, the doctor could find nothing wrong and dismissed the problem as a combination of laziness and malnutrition.

Marcus stirred the soup, his eyes drooping as he watched the green mush swirl psychedelically in the rusty pan. He yawned as a pearly string of drool fell from the corner of his mouth into the soup which he stirred in. "Must stay awake!" he moaned as his head wobbled to and fro as it struggled to find a point of balance upon his neck. "Fuck it!" he swore, he turned off the stove top and wandered to the living room where he collapsed face down onto the sofa.

He woke up about three hours later, he looked at the clock, one o'clock in the afternoon; he never ever bothered to look at where the minute hand was, it was too much effort. He suddenly noticed that he was lying on top of a black furry object. He leaped up, as if in slow motion. After standing and swaying for a few minutes for his head to stop spinning, it gradually became clear to him what he had been sleeping on. His most fulfilling and deepest nap ever, had been on his wife's pet and live-in lover, Mr. Braxton, the overgrown black poodle which resembled an ape rather than a canine.

Marcus stared at the dead creature which was sprawled and flattened like a cheap dollar store rug across the leather sofa. It's neck was twisted awkwardly to oneside, tongue hanging out, and eyes drawn towards an invisible void that was an eternity away. "They don't make 'em how they used to!" joked Marcus to himself. His vision was already beginning to blur, he knew that he didn't have long to act before his body would once again helplessly fall into a bottomless slumber, he had to hide Mr.Braxton's corpse before his wife returned home. After a few seconds deliberation, for he had learnt to think quickly due to his condition, he decided to cut the body up, cook it, and eat it.

Mr.Braxton was an old sinewy poodle. The kitchen knife that Marcus used to dismember the dog was bought at Mr. Patel's Dollar Mart, a nine and three quarter inch poorman's steel blade with 'made in China' proudly emblazoned on it's edge; the flimsy plastic handle was already splitting apart along the seams. He stuck the knife into the neck, he was determined to remove the head first. Just as the tip of the blade made contact and slid into the flesh, the dog suddenly sprang to life and began thrashing it's limbs about! Marcus cursed to himself, he should have known better and checked if the creature was actually dead first. Too late, he thought to himself, because the animal was now wounded, he had to finish off the job. He pulled the knife across Mr. Braxton's neck, severing the spinal cord, and the dog stopped moving.

The flurry of activity had left Marcus drained of energy. He took a succession of short rapid shallow breaths to recover from the action, his head slumped towards his chest. After a moment, he forced his head back up, and continued sawing off the dog's head. Half-an-hour later, the animal was laying in pieces on the kitchen floor. Hurriedly, Marcus turned on the oven, and haphazardly threw the lumps of flesh into it. As soon as the oven door was closed, the acrid smell of burning hair filled the room. The weakened Marcus staggered to the cabinet in the adjacent room where there were freshly laundered towels. He grabbed a bundle and crawled back on his hands and knees to the bloody kitchen floor, and dumped the clean white towels to absorb the puddle of blood. He lay upon the red towels panting and closed his eyes.

The room was full of thick billowing smoke; the smoke alarm had woken him up. He stood up and opened the door which led into the backyard. The smoke quickly vacated the room and the alarm ceased to sound. Marcus looked at his watch, twenty minutes had passed since he closed his eyes. He glanced at the split-pea soup on the stove, his stomach growled hungrily; he needed to replenish his energy before it was too late. Mr. Braxton hadn't been in the oven for very long, but Marcus's digestive tract demanded food like a spoilt child, it drove him to take the uncooked dog from the oven and put it on the kitchen table. He drew a chair and dropped himself shakily upon it. He picked up the dog's thigh, it wasn't even hot, the skin was scorched, but the flesh was only warm. He bit into it and savagely tore shreds off the bone with his teeth, chewing and swallowing as if he'd been starved for weeks.

Half-an-hour later, Marcus was mowing the lawn; he hadn't felt this much energy in a long time, not since before he met Andrea. He felt empowered, a new lease of life was surging through his veins like a lethal bolt of lightning. What remained of Mr. Braxton, or the parts which hadn't been eaten by Marcus, had been buried beneath a square patch of grass. He smiled as he mowed that patch, making sure that he stomped it down properly as he passed over it. At that moment, at the corner of his eye, he saw his next door neighbour Jason stick his head out of the window. The noise of the lawnmower was overbearingly loud so he could not hear what his neighbour was saying, Marcus waved and continued to cut the grass.

to be continued...

BIG BLACK DOG: Chapter I: The Naughty Man and His Bloody Rabbit

Before Jason went to bed each night, he would stand naked in front of the full length mirror in his bedroom and breathe deeply in and out. He would suck the air in, expanding his chest, thrusting his ribcage forwards and upwards, then slowly exhale as his belly gradually sagged. He did this for five hours, then he would sleep for three hours and wake up.

It had been his birthday three weeks ago. He had dreamt of running through a poppy field with his pet rabbit, Buster, by his side; leaping across small pebbly rivulets and dancing with the butterflies. When he awoke in the morning, he found himself covered in blood; he had accidently rolled over Buster while sleeping, causing the rabbit's guts to squirt out of it's arse and make a mess on the sheets.

His first reaction had been one of shock. Buster had been his pet and best friend for three years, and now the creature that Jason confided in - lay there, stiff and hard from rigor mortis. He stared at Buster for a few minutes, feeling guilty and slightly nauseous. He stroked the soft fur of his dead rabbit for a few seconds while humming the lullaby that his mother used to sing to him when he was a child. A tear ran down his cheek, some snot slid along the curve of his pout and he unconsciously licked it away.

He got up off the bed. 'Alright then, I have to clean up this silly mess,' he said to himself in a matter of factly manner, 'ho hum, just killed my pet rabbit, yeah just killed my pet rabbit... all I have to do now, is scoop this silly mess up, yeah scoop this mess up.' He grinned and stared at the rabbits intestines that looked like big slimey worms on the white sheets. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, as he did so, he inadvertently sucked some saliva into his lungs which made him cough uncontrollably. He looked into the mirror and wiped spittle from his chin with the back of his forearm.

'Okay,' he said as if to steady himself, 'must remove the dead rabbit...' He returned to his previous position by the bedside and took a deep breath, this time it was a successful inhalation without any mishap. He bent down slowly, lowering his upper body to level his chest against the top of his mattress. He reached forward, firmly grabbed the intestines and pulled, adhered to the sheets with blood and pus; they made a peeling sound as they slowly separated from the cotton fabric. Jason smiled. The end of the intestines remained attached to the inside of the rabbit, he held the torso down while he gave the innards a quick tug and something tore inside releasing the string of intestines.

Jason examined the intestines. One end was shiny and slippery, while the rest was dry and sticky. He brought the guts up to his nose and sniffed. It smelt rabbity. At that moment, he had a sudden flashback of a biology lesson in school; he was with his best friend Jeanine Farrow at school working as a pair to dissect a frog. The teacher Mr. Humphries had shown the class the order in which he wanted the students to cut up the frog, 'Slice it down the middle, and pull open the flaps of skin...'. Jason and Jeanine were both holding scalpels; he had been too squeamish to cut the frog's skin so he stood there gripping the blade loosely while he watched Jeanine turn the frog onto it's backside.

Jeanine moved her little finger over the frog's genitals. 'Look, it has a little weiner!' Jason looked, and saw that the frog did indeed have a penis. He smiled. Suddenly, Jeanine violently slapped her left hand over the top half of the frog and with a rapid sawing motion with the scalpel, sliced the frog's penis off. The little piece of flesh fell onto the wooden work top and rolled to a stand still. Jeanine giggled and picked up the frog's reproductive organ between the tips of her thumb and forefinger, dangling it before Jason's eyes. She suddenly grabbed his head and forced the piece of frog into his ear canal.

He was deaf in one ear! He tilted his head to oneside and smacked his palm against his head, hoping to dislodge the foreign body that now resided within his ear canal. It didn't move. While he attempted to scrape the object from his ear, he watched Jeanine pick up the scalpel and repeatedly stab the frog in the chest and stomach. Bloody juice sprayed from it's stomach. She repositioned the scalpel within her hand and proceeded to randomly slice the frog's limbs off, first it's finger and toes, then at the elbows and knees, and finally at the shoulders and hips. She then started slashing the frog diagonally, half it's head came off, then across it's torso, it's innards blossoming outwards like a flower in springtime as her blade opened it's body.

Jason snapped out of his daydream. He didn't enjoy recalling that memory from his childhood which he had pushed to the back of his mind, hoping that it would eventually disintegrate from neglect. He looked at the body of Buster. 'It's just a dead rabbit,' he said loudly but monotonously to himself, 'Hello Buster! how are you today? would you like some breakfast?' He angled his head coquettishly and fluttered his eyelids as he stifled a girlish giggle. 'Oh my god! Oh my god!' he yelled as his hand grabbed Buster's dead body, and peeled him off the bed sheets. He lifted Buster into the air and held the corpse above his head, closed his eyes and took a deep breath, 'I will always love you Buster...'

An ambulance siren screamed past his house then faded away into the background of his next door neighbour's lawnmower engine noise. He looked at the clock; two thirty-six in the afternoon. He stood up, as he dropped his arms so he held the rabbit before his face. He brought the rabbit to his nose, and took a sniff... 'Phewwwww!!', he shouted angrily, 'you stink of fucking shit!' and pushed the rabbit away from his nose. He stared at Buster and smiled, 'Hehehe, you're dead Buster, I killed you while I was dreaming, it was a good dream.' He catapulted Buster into the air and caught him, he did it again, on the second journey upwards, Buster's body ricocheted off the ceiling with a dull thud and the stiffened limbs snapped and unlocked themselves. The body landed in his hands, 'Ha ha ha, you're dead!'

Jason, tired from all the action, decided to collapse onto his bed on top of the red stain where the rabbit was. He tossed the limp body onto the floor and grabbed the remote control from his bedside table, and clicked the television on. He surfed the channels for awhile before settling on the Music Television Channel, Aerosmith's 'Love in an Elevator' video was playing; he sang along. During the song, he kept increasing the volume; at one point, the neighbours were banging on the wall in complaint but he did not hear them. The song finished, and he turned the television off. He had forgotten about Buster, but he caught a glimpse of the rabbit's foot from the edge of his bed. He sighed, and sprang out of his bed to pick up the rabbit again.

He pressed Buster's behind against his face and inhaled the pungent stench of death. 'Mmmmmmm, you smell so good!' he screamed, then licked Buster's face. He placed Buster's body on the bed to open the bedroom window. The air was fresh, and it was sunny outside, his neighbour was mowing the front lawn, he called out to him, 'Hey Marcus!', Marcus looked up and waved, 'Guess what?' shouted Jason hoarsely, 'My fucking rabbit died!' and put on a sad frown, the edges of his mouth twitching as if trying not to break out laughing. He brought his head in, paused, and stuck his head out once more to shout at the top of his voice, 'MY FUCKING DEAD FUCKING RABBIT. IT SMELL SOOOOOO GOOOOOOOD!', then slammed the window shut.

Jason tore his pyjamas off as if they were on fire. He grabbed the rabbit and stood naked before his full length mirror. He laughed, 'I am possessed by Buster!' he whispered to his reflection, 'I do not know what has come over my poor little self!' He laughed hysterically, almost insanely. His breathing became erratic and he stared at his glazed pupils in the mirror. He watched himself lift Buster's body towards his open mouth, teeth coming down into the flesh of the creature and biting a chunk off. Blood streamed down his chin and neck while fur protruded from his mouth. He began chewing with a big grin on his face. With his mouth still full, he shouted, 'I AM FUCKING EATING MY FUCKING DEAD FUCKING PET FUCKING RABBIT!'. Blood sprayed from his mouth onto the mirror as he spoke. He had an erection.

to be continued...

Cherry Retreat (part II): The Missing Chapter

Read Part I here

In response to the advert that I had discovered while perusing through old newspapers while folding origami monkeys, I dialled the telephone number supplied. A secretary forwarded my call to Nathan Cherry who provided me with further details; the gathering was to be held at over the following weekend at The Mickey Barnes Institution.

The six hour drive to the retreat was boring and uneventful. I drove over a couple of baby hares, a frog and three-medium sized hedgehogs. The only stop I made was at Minney's Inn, a small motel and restaurant erected just off the mainroad. I ordered an apple pie, a packet of crisps and a fried banana which promptly ejected itself from my stomach ten minutes after ingestion into a diarrhea stained toilet bowl.

The Mickey Barnes institution was a dark foreboding five storey building that stretched menacingly along one arm of the forest which it bordered. It was raining as if the gods had abandoned this place to hell's lavatory, so I parked the car beneath a tree and trudged across a muddy grass verge onto a gravel sidewalk towards the entrance.

I entered the reception area via a pair of large wooden doors. Sitting at the desk was a lady, her beautiful soft hair and doe-like eyes caught my attention, and her lips were beautiful like... Arrrggghhhh, I fell over; for whatever reason, my legs had suddenly wobbled and collapsed beneath me like molten rubber. I crawled upon my hands, putting each one down in succession with a loud slap on the cold tiled floor, dragging my legs behind me. By the time I got to the desk, I found that I could stand up again; the strange affliction disappeared as quickly as it had seized me.

She stared at me wide-eyed.
'Hi!' I said in a high pitched voice, 'I'm here for the Nathan Cherry retreat.'
She looked at me as her face betrayed a smirk then asked for my name which she put in the computer, 'Ah, I see, Nathan has you listed as a visitor, proceed to the second floor to the common room, number two-oh-one, he'll be joining you shortly.' I thanked her and ran towards the elevators at full speed, almost tripping over a teddy bear that had been abandoned on the floor..

I hurriedly pressed the switch, nothing happened, with lightning fast reflexes I pushed the button once again -click. I started jogging on the spot as I watched the spots beneath the floor numbers light up in sequence on the display over the lift doors. Some mechanisms could be heard scraping, eventually a clunk. The doors glided open and I sprinted into the small space, bouncing off the back wall and falling onto the floor.

Meanwhile, on the second floor, what delight must have greeted the residents of that level as a fully grown male man sprinted out of the elevator doors. The sound of the elevator ping like the starting gunshot for an athletic race, I ran out of that elevator as fast as a turd pops out of an overstrained anus hole.

So I sat on a sofa in the common area. Some people were gazing at the television, while others were just gazing. To my horror, I suddenly realized that all the heightened activity had left my body sticky with body secretions, otherwise known as sweat. The first part of my body to suffer was my bottom, the crevice in between the bossom of my bony butt. My Y-fronts had absorbed an immense ammount of sweat and slowly crept inbetween my butt cheeks like a panther crawls into a cave to take cover from the rain. I pinched the bottom of my Y-fronts through my trousers, and plucked it from my arse... relief.

After a long wait of about two minutes, a nurse wheeled a man into the room. I instantly recognized him from a photograph in the advert as Nathan Cherry, the founder and owner of the Nathan Cherry Retreat. I stood up and greeted him, shaking his hand vigorously and smiling as if we had both created the world that day. He looked at me, then looked at the ceiling, then looked at the floor, then looked at me once again, 'Oooh, you're tall!' he commented, 'have you got the five hundred bucks?' I handed him the crumpled wad of five dollar bills in payment for the weekend.

Nathan's nurse wheeled him right up to my face after I had reclined to a state of comfort on the sofa, it put me into an abrupt state of alertness as the short figure in the chair invaded my personal space; I dared not say a word. I hadn't realized how dark the room actually was until he had been manoeuvered beneath the incandescence of the standing lamp, then I could see his features clearly. Nathan, looked like a baby; he held the five hundred dollars with little stubby fingers as he flailed his legs up and down, striking the heels of his feet against the frame of his chair.

I stared at Nathan, he stared back. He then looked up towards the ceiling, stopped as if something had caught his eye, then nodded his head down to look at the floor, staring straight through me as I entered his field of vision. This seemed to go on for some time. Finally, after about an hour that seemed like five minutes, he spoke, 'What are you?'

'I am a human.' I replied, but not before licking my lips and blinking my eyelids. I took a deep breath in anticipation of his reply.

Snot dribbled from his nostrils, 'I am a human too.' He spoke slowly to me as if I were deaf, but he clapped his hands excitedly before he continued, 'Where are you from?'

I paused. For the first time in my life, I could not remember where I was from. My whole life seemed to have been erased from my memory. I could feel my face redden, and heat radiated from my cheeks, making my eyes slightly watery. I tried again, 'I'm from...' I stopped, and stared at Nathan. He looked up at the ceiling once again, held his eyes there then looked down at the floor again. The elevator pinged, I felt the urge to run into them as the doors opened, but Nathan's chair was blocking my way. I began to tremble uncontrollably.

I looked at Nathan's helper, the nurse who had wheeled him into the room; it was the same woman who I had spoken to in the reception downstairs, although she had looked vaguely familiar before. Suddenly, everything became clear to me; she was my wife, Nathan was my child, I was his father.

Cherry Retreat (part I)

Something was wrong with me, I didn't know what. 'What's wrong with you?' asked the visitors to my room before they promptly left me standing alone with my head bowed.

The floor of my bedroom was covered with origami monkeys of different paper colours. Wherever I walked, the monkeys would cling to my socks. I kicked them, and they would climb onto my bed in retreat; I didn't sleep on my bed, I stopped sleeping. I nibbled my way through boxes of sugar coated breakfast cereal throughout the days and nights as I became obsessed with making paper monkeys.

Oneday, I ran out of origami paper. I had originally bought fifty packets of paper, each one containing fifty smooth multicoloured sheets. I didn't feel like going to the store again, the sales girl would not look me in the eyes when I made the purchase; her face twitched nervously whenever I was close to her. I didn't care what she thought; I didn't care for hygiene or appearance; I hadn't bathed for a couple of weeks. I wanted to fold paper monkeys, so I raided the neighbour's recycling bin for paper; I took a stack of old newspapers and magazines.

I cut squares from the found paper, discarded the images and used the text only; the pictures distracting. The monkeys were grey and miserable, the thinness of the paper made them flimsy and fragile.

A couple of days later, as I greeted the page of a magazine with a pair of scissors, an advert caught my attention. It read:

Nathan Cherry Retreat

Worried, stressed, anxious or confused?... Then come join us in the beautiful countryside of the peaceful Toronto outskirts. Nathan Cherry has all the answers for a healthier and happier life.


To be continued...

Words

Words become magical when you speak them from your heart.

On the Brink of Disaster

Peak Oil - Global Economic Collapse scheduled for 2020


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