Wife's got COVID but I keep testing negative. I think it's the water.
Water?
Yeah, I keep drinking water. So much water. Keeps the system running. I swear I'm just going to keep drinking water until it comes out of every pore!
Isn't that called "sweating"
You know what I mean.
Are you sure you want to go to work today?
I've got so much to do.
But you're still all coughy and sneezy and you really should take another day to rest and get to feeling better.
There's some projects that are getting critical and I really have to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.
Well ... I know I can't stop you from going, but just please, know that you can come home whenever you want to.
Well, jeezus, I'm just going to work, it's not like I'm leaving you or anything!
[end of book one]
two shots. one, then two.
a dog barks in the distance.
Mags slumps against the blue metal dumpster.
man stuffs the gun back into his belt and says, "fucking stupid slutwhore cunt" and turns to walk away.
"Hey, fucker!" Mags says, hand to her side, blood spilling from between her fingers, "I'm not stupid!"
MAGS! MAGS! are you OK?
"What an asshole," Mags says.
MAGS! Stay with me!
"ass ... hole" and suddenly it is very cold.
[that's where book one ends]
[book two]
1.
I awake in a hospital room and the first thing I notice is that my right wrist is handcuffed to the bed, because I want to scratch my eye because it itches and suddenly I'm jerking this clanging metal against metal, so I scratch with my left hand because that one is still free.
Light is coming through the window and it's hella bright. Can somebody shut the curtains or something? and I don't know for a second or two if I'm speaking that or just thinking that, but it seems like someone heard me because there is someone at my side now, can't really focus on the form but it has that feeling of a female body, the fleshly belly pressing close against me, there is a warmth to the female body, especially those who've had children recently, it's very, very comforting.
But this person isn't saying anything, aren't they supposed to ask me how I'm feeling or hold up fingers or something like that, but the voice I hear now is someone behind them, "Do you know your name?" it says, and yeah, it's a woman, but it's obvious that she hasn't had any kids ... or else she drowned them in some fucking river or something.
"What?" I say. Gee. That's a brilliant comeback.
"Do you know your name?" it asks again, and then it, steps to the side of the comforting belly (which I will now say is the nurse) and holy shit, yeah, it's a cop. Definitely a cop.
"Yes I know my name," I say.
"What is it?"
"Don't you already know?"
A man behind her says, "She might still be under."
"I'm not a hundred about that." Then, to me again, "Please tell us your name."
"Charlotte," I say. "Charlotte the harlot. Like the Iron Maiden song."
Then, finally, someone draws a curtain ...
2.
C: Why did you tell Becky we're back.
M: I didn't.
C: How did she know, then?
M: I don't know how she knows. She's the pastor's wife, maybe she's got some sort of special Holy Spirit tracking device or something.
C: Don't give people dates of our trips. We just got back and I just want to decompress and I need to clean my car and go get groceries this weekend and Kaci's just moved into her new apartment and she wants us to come see it and I need to get the stuff to continue renovating the kitchen and Becky's wanting me to help set up for the church's 5th anniversary.
M: Just tell her you can't.
C: I can't do that! Don't you know how that'll LOOK?! That's why I told you not to tell them when we were getting back from vacation.
M: Again ... I didn't tell them,
C: Well, if you'd just told them we'd be gone until October, I wouldn't have to be roped into this thing at church.
...
Later that morning, when M opened up the daily Bible devotional on his phone, the verse of the day:
"Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, 'Here am I; send me.'" - Isaiah 6:8
Her: Stop acting like a henpecked husband.
Him: Who says I'm acting?
Used to smash my fist into the side of my head whenever I was under a lot of pressure, you know. I realized years later that this kind of self-harm is a coping technique. Yeah, an unhealthy one, I know.
Started in high school - or maybe earlier, who knows, but high school is where I remember it - being embarrassed or pissed off about something, I'd bash the back of my head against a brick wall until I saw stars. Once, I slumped down to the floor.
Worst time was when my girlfriend was suing me for paternity. On the payphone, with her telling me how she's gonna "get me for everything" I just started bashing the phone against my head until blood flowing down around my ear. Went to the bathroom of my work and passed on on the floor.
But usually, throughout the years, I would just take my right and pound it against my right temple whenever I was angry, or hurt, or scared, or under a lot of pressure. Usually it would be some argument where I just felt like shit and there was no way out and no resolution. I always had this thing about automatically feeling guilty whenever anybody accused me of anything, even if I knew it wasn't true. Weird, it's like just for someone to accuse me of something somehow makes it the truth. Like, if my wife says she thinks I'm cheating, I suddenly feel like I AM cheating. Stuff like that, arguments from stuff like that, would eventually get me to go into the bathroom and just bash my head with my fist.
It usually did cause some sort of relief. Release. There's probably a physiological explanation, I don't know, but it always helped release the stress. Even though I somehow knew it wouldn't be good for me in the long term.
I haven't hit myself in years. Over a decade. Seems like getting older is softening the urge for bashing my own fist against my head. But sometimes ... most of the time, the spot above and in front of my right ear, just behind and above my right eye, right where the hairline is, that spot hurts. I will touch it with my fingertips and it will feel tender, just as though as if I had just hit it, at that moment. But I haven't hit it in years. But it's still tender. No other part of my body feels like that.
It's as thought THAT pain, even though broken, is somehow permanent, now.
