Keep My Words

A little over a week ago, Tim challenged me to write a short story.  He said it should be about 1,000 words long and contain a zombie or two, a heroine in a blue dress, the word “undulate”, love, a car chase, and the realization of some great life lesson.  After a lot of editing, it came to 1,175 words.  One of the hardest parts was deciding what to name it.  For now, I’m calling it “The Cages”.  It’s posted below.

…

Jon’s bottom lip along with most of the skin below it had been bitten off after Molly’s third visit to the cages. Since then Molly had been back every day for a week, so she was getting used to the sight of his bloody teeth and exposed gums. It was a very skeletal look. Some days she would imagine he was fine and that a simple flesh-eating bacteria had consumed the bottom portion of his face. Only in reality Jon’s problem hadn’t been bacteria, it was zombies.

Fortunately for Molly’s obsession with Jon, PETZ had been founded before anyone had put a bullet in his head. PETZ, People for the Ethical Treatment of Zombies, consisted of a bunch of bleeding heart humanitarians who decided that the undead had a right to life. Molly considered these people to be fucking bat-shit crazy (to say the least), but as she stared into Jon’s dull, lifeless eyes that she loved so much, she decided to keep her opinions to herself. She was not a stupid girl – she even recognized her own insanity every night when she squeezed her size five hips through the rear window of the warehouse holding the cages.

In fact, she also noted how deranged she was for telling the walking corpse that she was in love with him, something she could never do when he was alive. Molly never knew how Jon felt about her, but she was certain there had been chemistry between them. They gravitated towards each other. “It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all” was the cliché that repeated in her head. (Of course, this was preferable to the time she worked at a corporate office and the stalls in the ladies’ room proudly displayed signs that read “If you sprinkle when you tinkle, be neat and clean the seat.” She hated those signs, and she hated that for months after she quit, every time she used a restroom the words came to mind. As if she wouldn’t clean her own piss off the toilet seat if it found it’s way there while she squatted.)

Following three weeks of routine secret zombie visiting, Molly was shocked when after her entrance through window she ran into another living human. They encountered each other in the hallway leading up to the cages.

“Uh, can I help you?” he asked.

“No, I, uh…” Think! she told herself. What’s a good excuse for being in the PETZ warehouse after dark when no one else is usually there? Fuck.

“Nice dress,” he commented.

She was wearing her favorite blue dress. She liked to look nice for Jon. Just like when he was alive, she always liked to look nice for him. “Thanks,” she replied. “I’m just here visiting, um, an old friend. I just…”

To her relief, he interrupted her. “I’m Matt,” he said.

He’s cute, she thought, very cute. Not cute like Jon, but in a different way. Taller for sure, and those eyes… She felt like she could trust Matt’s eyes. She never felt that way about Jon’s eyes. Maybe that’s why she never told him how she felt when he was alive. How her heart would undulate in her chest every time she saw him. How she wanted to make him happy. How she was a different person when he smiled at her. That she would carry the world on her back for him at his request, and that she would wage war on anyone who hurt him.

“…so it really makes no difference to me,” Matt was saying. She had missed everything he said while lost in thought. “You just do your thing, and I’ll –“

Right then a bottle of wine that she had smuggled in fell from its ripped paper bag and shattered on the ground between them.

“Shit shit shit!” she burst out as she reached down to pick up the glass. “Fuck! I cut myself.” Blood dripped down her forearm from the palm of her hand.

He took her uninjured hand in his. It was warm. “Come on,” he instructed her as he led her to the first aid kit.

Molly didn’t see Jon that night. It turned out that Matt had a bottle of Jameson stashed in his office, and although the first three shots were meant to dull the pain of the cut on her hand, the rest of the bottle went down easily for both of them. They found that they shared a love of Irish whiskey, among other things. So many other things that they talked until the sun came up.

This became Molly’s new nightly tradition. Matt was hired as the night watchman for Jon’s PETZ location. It seems the daytime staff starting suspecting nighttime intruders after finding two empty bottles of wine in the break room garbage can one morning and a tube of red lipstick by the cages another morning.

Four weeks went by before Matt told Molly that he was in love with her. She felt the same way, and so she told him. She never thought she could feel that way and actually have those feelings reciprocated so effortlessly.

It was a Tuesday when he told her that he loved her. It was on this same Tuesday that she was wearing her favorite blue dress, the one she wore the night they met. It was also this same Tuesday when the old, rusted lock on Jon’s cage fell to the floor.

All Molly remembers of that fateful night is feeling Matt tense up as she kissed him. As she opened her eyes she saw that Matt’s eyes were wide with shock, and she felt a warm liquid soak her hand that was affectionately placed on his neck, just below his left ear. Blood.

As Matt’s body collapsed in front of her, she saw Jon. His bottom teeth and exposed gums were covered with Matt’s blood. Jon immediately knelt at Matt’s side and bit into his neck. Molly screamed and scanned the room for a weapon. It seemed that only a second went by when she looked back down at the horrific scene to see Matt’s neck had been completely devoured, his head separated from his body.

She ran out of the front door. Her car was parked on the street. Another car sped by followed by a police car with its lights flashing. She was disoriented. She had Matt’s blood on her hands, and some on her blue dress.

Somehow she managed to get into her car and start the engine. As she drove away she saw Jon’s undead body stumble out of the warehouse. She was off-track, she was falling, and she was confused. And then the thought came – “It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all”. At that moment she realized the inaccuracy of the saying. It was a half-truth. She knew it was better to have loved and been loved back and lost than to have never loved at all.

“Going to Union Pool with three girls is like bringing sand to the beach,” Chris said.

We were on our way to see Reverend Vince Anderson and His Love Choir.  I hadn’t been since their Monday night residency changed from the now non-existent Black Betty to Union Pool.  Mitchell and I used to go every Monday, and I mean every Monday.  For us, the Rev.’s Monday night shows (which most of the regulars refer to as “church”) are enjoyable for many reasons.  The quality of the music, the dancing, the stories that the Rev. tells, the genuine message of positivity and… love.

Last night while the Rev. was playing “I Had a Ring in My Pocket, She Had Leaving on Her Mind”, Mitch and I drunkenly slow danced. This is common for us during that song and the Rev.’s cover of “Dancing Queen” (one of my favorites).  We proceeded to have a booze-induced conversation about our possible marriage to one another.  It’s not too bad of a plan – we both have the same priorities when it comes to the gift registry (sandwich press, daiquiri machine, and deep fryer).  We both take pleasure in drinking, dancing, and Tori.  And we love each other.  Even last night Mitch told me, “You are an asshole, but I love you.”

Still, I don’t really understand being in love.  I’ve seen it on television shows and movies, and it appears pretty delightful and at times even exciting.  Enough movies have taught me that if I just walk around the city with a stack of papers, a gorgeous man is sure to bump into me and knock the papers out of my hand.  He’ll help me pick them up, and then as we both awkwardly stand and look into each others’ eyes, BAM! we’re in love.  Cue the music and the montage of scenes depicting a lifetime of happiness together.  It’s obviously my fault that I’m not in love since I could surely find the time to walk around with a stack of papers, but I don’t.  Maybe I just want it to be easier than that.  Don’t get me wrong – it should not lack intensity and occasional ferment.  The random storm causes an inspiring disquiet; it reminds me that I’m human.

So, in an effort to know love, I looked it up on Dictionary.com.  There are a LOT of definitions.  Here are a few:

- a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
- sexual passion or desire.
- a person toward whom love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart.
- to have love or affection for another person; be in love.
- in love: infused with or feeling deep affection or passion
- in love with: feeling deep affection or passion for a person

I’m still confused.  It’d be better defined as “undefinable”.  In my mind, words are not capable of doing such a thing justice.  I know that I really like someone when I can’t explain why, but I don’t think I have ever been in love.  Maybe for there to really be love there has to be reciprocation.  Otherwise isn’t it just one person longing for another?  And what if it is reciprocated but never spoken – does it exist?  It seems like that would just revert to pining, since neither person knows how the other feels unless they say it.  Sure either half can interpret the other half’s actions as love, but that could be a case of straight self-deception.  Being “in love” to me implies that you are being loved back.  If this is the case, because we cannot read minds and because so many of us refrain from verbalizing our feelings, we could be in love right now and not even know it.

I find it all very, very puzzling.

I have a full day of work tomorrow, and then my exit interview is Friday morning. After that, I will come to work and finish packing up my office. My job walking the cutest Dachshund puppy in the world (named Gherkin) officially starts on August 31st.

In other news, Tim challenged me to write a short story. “A story, not an essay. Fiction,” he said.

“I have trouble believing anything is 100% fiction,” I told him.

“Very true,” he replied. “So write a story; that’s my challenge. Something short…” and he began to list the requirements. They were as follows: 1,000 words, a zombie or two, a heroine in a blue dress, the word “undulate”, love, a car chase, and the realization of some great life lesson.

I finished it today. It came to 1,176 words. After some editing, I may post it.

So, things are going quite well. I’m trying not to let it make me nervous.