Tag: fiction

The 1,000 lb. Brother, Part Two

Just like in the dreams when the dreamer struggles to open his eyes, such was the case with Anton. It wasn’t fear that prevented him from seeing what was on the other side of his lids, rather a thick layer of gunk coating his left eye.

While scraping the gunk off, he glanced over at a candle lit table using his perfectly working right eye. There sat Ursula seated in a tan sequin dress. Naughty thoughts filled his mind. If his head wasn’t pounding, he would have leaped off the sofa and tore the woman’s dress off.

His clean left eye revealed more at the candle lit table. Opposite Ursula was the fit man in the towel. He, however, had removed the towel at some point and slipped into business attire. The two held champagne glasses in the air and appeared frozen in suspense.

“Hello,” Anton groaned.

They did not budge.

“Ursula,” he said with greater diction.

Stillness.

“Yuri,” Anton shouted, gazing at the shut door of his brother’s bedroom.

Ursula and the fit man lowered their glasses. They winked at one another. Suddenly, the fit man bolted out of his chair and raced over to Anton.

“So glad you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

“Beside a throbbing head and a bit confused, fine. Where’s my brother?”

The fit man exploded with laughter. “You hear that, Ursula?”

“He’s a funny one,” she said, chuckling.

“Your brother, you say?” The fit man asked in jest.

Anton nodded.

“I don’t know.” The fit man looked around the room. “Ursula, have you seen this man’s brother anywhere?”

“Very good question. It seems, Anton, your brother has been a bit hard to find lately.”

“What do you mean?” Anton swung his legs off the sofa, nearly kicking the fit man to the floor. “Where has he been?”

“The only way to find out,” the fit man said, repositioning himself on the sofa, “is to go on a treasure hunt.”

“A treasure hunt!” Ursula guffawed. “Where do you think we’d find him? Under a rock?”

“If not there then inside the cupboard.”

“Come on, you two.” Anton pleaded. “I haven’t seen my brother in a year. I’m very worried about him.

The fit man shifted in his seat.

Ursula cleared her throat and then stood, making her way to the sofa.

Both Ursula and the fit man rubbed Anton’s back.

“Perhaps I knocked you over too hard,” Ursula said.

“Do you require medical assistance?” The fit man asked.

“Medical assistance? No. Why would I need medical assistance?” Anton felt them moving closer. He squeezed his knees together so his legs wouldn’t rub against theirs.

“You did bleed,” Ursula aid.

“You bled heavily, Anton. If mom were here, she’d take you to the emergency room, no questions asked.”

“You’re right if my mom was here, she would have checked me into a hospital a long time ago.”

“Oh God,” Ursula removed her hand from Anton’s back and placed it over her mouth.

“Anton, Mom did check you into a hospital a long time ago. A mental hospital. St. Ives.”

“St. Ives.” Anton frowned. “That’s a prison not a hospital.”

“Right. Hold on one second.” The fit man stood and then motioned for Ursula to join him in a far corner of the room. There he whispered, “I’m getting a weird feeling about this one.”

“Yea. Same here,” Ursula said, flashing a quick grin at Anton.

“You think this one is dangerous?”

“I wouldn’t say dangerous,” she studied Anton who was hunched over on his knees staring at Yuri’s bedroom door. “More clingy.”

“Like he’d never leave?”

“Yea,” Ursula gagged. “Yuck!”

“Yuck indeed. Tell you what,” the fit man said. “How about I take him around the block to find his ‘brother’ and then later, you and I can have a ton of fun?”

“Please hurry up, then,” she moved in for a kiss. It was too quick. She wanted more. As he moved to attend to Anton, Ursula grabbed the fit man’s shoulders and whispered in his ears,”I love you, Yuri.”

Amanda #3

In the twenty-three years of living, Amanda could only count six full days where her parents went without arguing.   In those six consecutive (yes, consecutive) days, her father suffered laryngitis.   Dahlia, her mother, did everything possible to restore her husband’s brooding coarse voice.  How she loved fighting!   Had Dahlia been born male, she either would have pursued boxing or studied criminal law (not that a female couldn’t become a boxer or a criminal lawyer.  Just a little bit of insight into the strange mind of Dahlia Jenkins).  Instead, she became a florist.   Most of Dahlia’s arguments with her husband revolved around money that had gone or was planning to go into her business.    Richard argued, “Enough is enough, Dahlia!  How much fucking money you want to put into this damned business?   Each year your business profits.  Each fucking year I have to delay putting a new deck in the backyard.”

Richard, a simple construction foreman, had a point.  The Jenkins deck emitted a croaking sound anytime someone stood three feet from it.   In that state, one expected to fall right through while standing directly upon it.   This deck was where Richard would take his daily cigarette, one hour after dinner.  It would settle his mood.  Give him enough juice to argue the rest of the night with Dahlia about one thing or another.    Then once the kids were snoring away, Dahlia and Richard would go at it, pouring love juice upon one another.  It was as if their arguing was nothing more than a mask for their sweet tenderness underneath.   Richard would have to take his smokes leaning against his car.  Sometimes he’d take a stroll to the neighborhood park where jocks wrestled one another, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs.    “Faggots,” Richard would moan but for one reason or another, even after the deck was repaired, would return to these wrestling boxer-brief wearing jocks.

The day Jim disappeared with a bag of dirty clothes, Richard and Dahlia returned home saying nothing to one another.   Amanda feared the glass shards had killed them.  Instead it mesmerized them.  The two sat on the floor like toddlers, picking up the glass, then released it back onto the carpet.   “Wild how gravity works, Richard.”

“Tell me about it, Dahlia.”

“What da…ya both stoned or what?”

The two proceeded as if their plump daughter wasn’t there.  Amanda thundered up the stairs cursing her “stupid, idiotic parents.  Who da hell do dey tink dey are?”   Once inside her unkempt bedroom, she ripped off the oversized shirt covering her tan frame.   Standing before the mirror, Amanda dreamed of a skinnier body, one that would overwhelm Zack Blueman.

“Oh Zack Blueman,” Amanda hissed while caressing her smooth hips.   “Take me away from dis wee-ahd place.”

As if God him or herself was hiding in Amanda’s closet, a motorcycle pulled up in the driveway.  The tremors from the vehicle shook the whole house, knocking a framed print of Michael Jackson off the wall in Amanda’s room.   Approaching the fallen picture, Amanda could see through the window, some muscular being removing a black helmet, lightning bolts on the side.   Once the cyclist’s face was revealed, Amanda let out a high-pitched shriek.