101 Words

She sat there; empty gun shells scattered around her like an almost comfortable carpet. Her hair, golden as the sun, swam in the air around her, like an unperturbed aura. One side of her face was a bit décalée; a cheekbone lower than the other, an eye lazier than the other, and a smile so asymmetrical it made her look like she lived to relish in the lament around her. The stench of war and metal and chemicals soaked in her clothes and in her hair, it crept through her pores and she carried it with her like a good omen.

The pesticide guy, an ex-Marine, was checking for termites but wanted to talk. Djibouti had made him sick. It was the burn pits, where everything from chemicals to dead animals went up in flames. No IEDs, just black smoke, unremitting. When he came home, extremely ill, tests revealed exposure to deadly toxins.

“Be careful,” I said repeatedly. “Get a desk job fast.”

I thought: I’m like wailing Cassandra of old, who saw future disaster but no one listened.

And it was so. Off he went to breathe in poisonous pesticide daily. He had a family to take care of, after all.

My best friend died a lonely man in a Palm Springs hotel room yesterday. The last time I saw him, his face was drawn, his eyes were blurred, and his shirt soaked with sweat. I wonder now if he really listened to what I said. There was a time when he was social and had an easy grin. Now the unstudied bad decisions I made about him are suddenly disturbing. My criticisms have become like dust on a windy street. I was struck by the irony of the moment. The absolute truths within me now struggle to tell his real story.

In Vegas, I went to a bachelorette party at a ‘classy’ strip club but mistakenly entered the employee bathroom where two g-stringed lovelies enjoyed a sexually compromising, flailing, shifting position on the floor.  They rolled their eyes, and moved into the only stall while I stood gaping until another naked woman entered, shrugged at certain noises coming from the stall, and straddled the garbage can in the corner. She carefully pulled aside her thong before urinating then scowled at me: “What the fuck are you staring at? Haven’t you seen a woman piss in a garbage can before?”

Now I have.

I dreamt a masked man boarded my morning train with a gun and shouted “Who here is married?” and when no one answered, he fired two shots into the ceiling, which caused people to answer, then he corralled the marrieds and not-marrieds into two separate parts of the car, not asking us for proof (who among the marrieds was lying about being married – who among the singles was lying about being single?), then he executed each unmarried person, unflinching, relentless, murderous as time, and that’s when I awoke and called you to propose, my love, that’s when I knew for sure.

Can you see the two guys sitting over there?

Yes, what of them?

The two boys are from the same town, one of them joined the army.

What happened to the other?

He couldn’t pass the fitness test. May be he is out on parole, I guess. Serving a sentence for murder, killed a man over a silly fight.
Bad luck!

Yes, I agree. Rules of the world I say. Killing an unknown man is legit and an honor too when you have the tag, otherwise, it is sheer murder.

Willing or unwilling, It is the system boy, can’t help it!