101 Words

As a kid, I got nosebleeds. Horrible things that started in my sleep, soaking my pillow before it woke me. Cauterization helps—a medievally effective solution. It feels like getting punched, except you don’t bleed.

It wears off.

I take the bump from a pinky nail grown long for this purpose—it’s not my finger, but I know. Coke makes you feel like a god for fifteen minutes. I turn my beatific gaze towards my long-nailed supplicant. He recoils, recants.

I snatch him before he forsakes me. We’ll dance. We’ll rage. And he will lick the blood sacrament from my face.

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His thighs protest against the speed of his sprint. The pounding footsteps of his attackers are a distance behind him but he knows they’re gaining ground. Sweat rolls from his forehead, stinging his eyes; his lungs gasp for air.

He alters his path, hoping their pursuit will falter.

He looks up to find one of them standing in front of him, glaring.

He readies himself and takes aim. He says a silent prayer and then fires a perfect shot. The scowling man dives. He never had a chance.

The soccer ball wedges into the top right corner of the net. Goal!

To sweep something under the rug is a common expression meaning to hide something potentially damaging from view.

For Ben, the phrase was both literal and metaphorical. By the time he started cleaning his seventh or twelfth or fiftieth hotel room that afternoon, the disdain for his job growing with each, more and more frequently he opted to sweep the messes under the rug.

Arriving home, the 38-year-old shot a glance toward his mother—the owner of the ramshackle home—lying bloodied and motionless on the floor, unperturbed for the last few weeks.

He was going to need a larger broom.

I slowly open my stinging eyes, tears streaming.

Behind me someone speaks—a mumbled locution of awe. I want to shout at them, to tell them to shut the hell up. But I don’t think my voice will work.

The first thing I see is red. Lots of it. I think of love, of blood, of death. Three things that await me here. I’m in love with this place already.

Two years later I develop a blood abnormality. Kidney failure. Probably because of where we are. I could go home. I don’t.

I become the first man to die on Mars.

She wasn’t called Dizzy Lizzie for nothing. Some said she couldn’t organize a tea party in her own vicarage.

So when the news broke that she had given a ‘Congratulations’ card to Mrs. Quinn next door following the sudden passing of Mr. Quinn, nobody was surprised.

Only Lizzie, who spent her spare time gardening and listening to the rows, knew how Mr. Quinn had fallen from his ladder.

Lizzie’s own downfall was to suggest that Mrs. Quinn’s sins would be forgiven on payment of a suitable monetary donation.

Instead, Mrs. Quinn found a new home for Lizzie in her own graveyard.

On June 26, 2015, the United States Supreme Court ruled same-sex marriage legal across the nation. Opponents claimed it would incite God’s judgment. They predicted earthquakes and flooding and swarms of insects.

Surprisingly, they were correct.

About everything.

Literally.

Every. Single. Thing.

(Even the fucking bugs.)

Twenty-some years later, Jillian and I stand in what’s left of her sister’s backyard. Rings exchanged. Hearts combined. Wedding dresses drenched.

“I do,” I whisper and flick away a wayward locust so I can lift her veil.

She smiles and everything was worth it.

Every. Single. Thing.

Our friends cheer. I kiss my beautiful bride.