Part One

We were walking that wooded trail when you heard him call from the trees.
I think you heard his voice before I did.
A too small man with a pin striped coat, he said,
“You two have anywhere to be just now?”
We said no and followed him into the overgrowth,
Through that brush for what seemed like days.
We walked until thick black day turned to thin blue dusk,
Until that cold forest turned to hot desert,
And we walked all through that night.
Our feet became bare and our steps were warm in the sand.
The air became sweet as we breathed in more slowly.
“Here we are.” Said the too small man “Welcome back.”
Our eyes fell upon a grand camp.
We walked between the tents on a path that disappeared in the distance.
He led us past Jesters and Apothecaries,
through lion tamers and blind magicians.
We walked past a girl with violet skin and emerald eyes, she planted a kiss on your smiling lips.
A gray crone fed us apples when we found her lonely campfire.
"Welcome Back." She said.
I ate and drank and watched flames dance off your lips.
You said, “Tell me something I've never heard.”
I said, “you remind me of bicycles with broken spokes.”

Autumn

The porcelain bathtub finished filling with hot soapy water.
The woman stepped delicately over its curled rim, and grasping either side with a
perfectly manicured hand, sank herself down deep into the warm froth.
Her head reclined back, against the end of the tub opposite the gleaming, metal faucet.
A Seafoam hued towel lie rolled up at the base of her neck, and she reclined her head
back to let her eyes fix upon the vaulted ceiling. She wore her brunette hair twirled
loosely, and clipped up high on her head to avoid dampening it.
She was the very picture of modern comfort and contentment.
The bathroom she found herself in had been custom designed to her specifications.
Everything was of the newest model and highest quality. A hospital-clean palette of the
starkest white and stainless steel.
It was the very picture of class and sophistication.
The woman and her evening bath, together they were high-end perfection and there was
only one thing which suggested otherwise.
Only a small detail to suggest she felt anything but complete serenity. Something which
might hint to the fact that, there, right below that serene and polished visage,
a panic began to take hold.
Her hands. They still gripped each side of the tub. The delicate blades of each long
fingertip, curled over the sides, were becoming inflamed with tension. Her long nails
were pressed impossibly hard and bending back from their pressed position against the
tubs exterior. She kept holding on; it was the only thing about her that showed ill ease.
She held on so tight while the florescent lights above her put everything on display.
During the day it was easy enough to hide. Flesh-toned nylons not only slimmed
the leg, but also hid the shadows of viscosity that had begun to form on her calves. Their
high waste helped to flatten her stomach. Her abdomen had been so toned in her
twenties. Even into her late thirties it had been presentable enough. Now it began to
pucker and dimple. She glanced to the pile of clothing on the ground. Her black silk
blouse which fit forgivingly about the arms. Once so taut and lean, they now hung
heavy with adipose tissue that quivered under her skin whenever she moved them. The
black pencil skirt which lengthened her frame so dutifully. In youth she boasted sheer
fabrics that clung to every sharp and scintillating curve. Now she could only hide her
widened hips under its thick lining.
Her skin flushed red with heat from the water, the high temperature thinned her blood
and caused her heart to pump it faster and harder through her veins.
Nothing made her feel more exposed than this. Sitting under these lights she saw every
year that had passed. Every moment that had brought her from the bright tempting
maiden she was, to the wasting, aging, crone she could feel herself mutating into. Naked
in the water the woman hugged the ashen skin of her upper arms. She contemplated
herself. Her eyes. Those eyes that once flashed with wild confidence, now sat gaunt and
tired, behind thinning and papery lids. Her teeth were thinning. Her skin was drooping.
She gasped at the helplessness of age. Once she felt that sickness was something foreign.
Now she knew all to well that there was carnage right beneath her flesh. Pulsing,
bleeding, stinking viscera was right below her surface.
Her heart palpitated with that reality.
Because here, in the bathroom where everything was porcelain and tile and grout and
metal, where every surface was cold to the touch...here death seemed so close. Too close.
The woman closed her eyes and imagined a cold shop window at the end of a long and
lonely gravel drive. She saw herself walk towards it and peer deep into its dark insides.
There she could see him stare back at her. She watched him step closer and breathe one
moist, fetid breath onto the other side of the pane, watched as he traipsed his bone finger
through the fog that had formed to spell a message.
“Soon.”
His face contorted then into an awful grin. He threw his head back to cackle 
and the hollows that were his eyes told her that she too would come to him.
The woman awoke with a start and she was there inside her tub. Its water grown cold
and greasy now, as soap pooled in an oily shine on its surface.
She lifted her pale body out of the water and left the wet on her skin. She was shaken.
She dressed her frame in a white cotton robe and exited the too bright room to pad
silently down the low-lit hallway. To the cabinet under the kitchen sink, where she swept
aside the many assorted cleaning agents to hastily reveal the pack of Camels.
She thought about the loving man who lie sleeping in the bed they shared.
Quietly, so as not to wake him, she removed a single cigarette and put it to her lips as
she struck a match to light it from the book she kept tucked into the cellophane. She
inhaled deeply, and shook the match out with her right hand. The woman slid open the
glass patio door and leaned against its frame before exhaling smoke out over the cold
dark.
Grazing her eyes across the well-kept golf course, she mused on how they had paid an
extra fifty-thousand for the condo with this view, instead of the less expensive option a
street over in the same gated community.
She unclipped her hair and combed through it with her fingertips as it fell to a rest
around her shoulders. The once deep, thick, brunette, was now salted with gray.
The woman took a long, contemplative, drag from her from the cigarette.
She had her hair colored and retouched constantly to ensure that those strands remain
hidden. At two-hundred dollars a pop, the effect was aesthetically identical to the nine
dollar boxes of color she used to purchase before she met her husband.
Since their first encounter he had purchased anything she could ever need, or want for.
Every unnecessary medical procedure and exotic beauty treatment which promised
youth eternal.
And that's exactly what he couldn't buy for her. What no one could have for themselves.
Not with his wallet, and not with his love, what she wanted was time without end, and
he couldn't buy her that.
She exhaled a last tendril of smoky breath. It was fully into Autumn now. She had
nothing to do but watch. Each brittle leaf would surely fall, one by one as the days
inevitably passed.
Day by day they would come to rest on the soil beneath the trees.
A promise that winter would come soon enough.
The woman bent down to extinguish her cigarette beneath a small, empty flower pot
next to the sliding door. She left it there with the others.
She had better get going to sleep.
The morning would be here soon enough, and she should be up early to meet it.

April Showers

Rob stretched and looked out on his front yard from the window over the kitchen sink. He loved the
rain, there was no better weather to do his kind of work in. When the sun was out staying inside always
made him feel lazy. It gave him a stale feeling, like watching daytime TV or suffering a vicious
hangover. But on the days when it was wet and frigid outside, like today, it felt only natural to remain
indoors.
He gulped down the remnants of his morning coffee, and took a last look out at the grizzly morning.
Perhaps that was the reason he had chosen a city with such a precipitous climate this time. He could
really focus here, with the temptation of sunshine so far removed.
He turned and went to the hallway coat closet where he could select a CD from May's collection. This
girl had some taste. He had yet to know a woman who's musical interests so closely paralleled his own,
and he liked that music was something they could enjoy together. He settled on James Taylor, and
turned the volume up high. As he reached the basement's entrance at the end of the hallway, the music
began to echo through the walls of the large house. Rob knew this one and sang along.
“somethin' in the way she moves”
As he drifted dreamily down each wooden step, he hoped she would join in.
“I feel fine every time she's around me, she's around me now, almost all the time.”
He rounded the bottom of the staircase into the unfinished workroom, and her eyes met him with a
disappointing silence.
“And how is the most beautiful girl in the world this morning?”
May remained quiet as he sauntered across the concrete floor to greet her.
“What seems to be the trouble miss? You know our project's almost finished.”
Rob was getting the cold shoulder.
“fine, be that way.” he exhaled. “I can just finish up on my own.”
His aprons were hung on hooks above the large utility sink on the basement's far wall.
He selected the cleanest of them. It had a large #1 on the front and exclaimed “worlds best grandma”
below it in rose colored calligraphy.
“what do you think?” he modeled the apron for May, who didn't seem to appreciate the irony.
“Okay then.” Rob extracted the vinyl work gloves from their place draped over the sink, and rolled
them on up to his elbows. He flipped the light switch and rolled the metal tool tray behind him to his
work table at the room's center. The fluorescent lamp that hung above his head blinked unsteadily
before remaining lit. May let out a guttural groan once the table became fully illuminated.
“Oh hey, I thought you were cross at me.” He kept his eyes focused forward as he chided her.
Rob lifted the saran wrap from its position over the piece. He found it worked incredibly well to keep
everything from drying out. Even the raw materials he used remained slick and pliable as long as they
were protected from the air. He bent closer and inhaled deeply, that thick copper smell never failed to
intoxicate him.
“Now, I know it doesn't look like much at present. But now that we've given the formaldehyde a chance
to fully penetrate, we can fill it out a bit.” Rob removed the stuffing composition from the shelf below
his work table and began scooping thumb fulls into the empty eyesockets. He packed the combination
of flour paste and hot melted glue into the empty holes until they were full, before using the aluminum
device he had fashioned to round out the cheeks.
“these are the hardest to get to, but if we enter through the nostril then this thing bends around the bone
like a charm.”
Rob glanced to May who stared forward blankly. He sighed, It was becoming more difficult to deny
that they might not work out after all. In the weeks they had been together, she had only become more
sullen by the day.
What was with the women in this country? They spouted off endlessly about how progressive and
tolerant they were from the safety of an internet chatroom, but bring them into the light and ask them to
be TRULY open minded, and he was met with nothing but fear and disdain.
He had hoped he could teach her that true art didn't just imitate life. That it had to be made from real
life. He wanted for her to learn the skill of preservation and then for them to teach others together. But
she'd shown a distaste for the art form which made it painfully obvious that she wasn't right for this
work. Rob had yet to find the one that was.
May let out a choking sound and he looked over to watch her squirm. She seemed to be vomiting. The
cloth gag kept most of it contained inside her mouth, though some leaked from her bottom lip and
clung to her in clots. Rob scooted his stool closer to observe her. She writhed away from him, jamming
the back of her thin frame up against the radiator violently in an effort to distance herself.
Rob watched as she choked and sputtered on the foul smelling expulsion; he was becoming gradually
aroused. She knew just how to distract him from work. He watched the over-sized nightshirt work itself
up over her panties as she writhed. Her bare feet slid out from under her as she scrambled to push
herself even further away from him, and rob watched as the milky white of her inner thigh was exposed
He thought about pulling the gag away to free her airways before she lost consciousness. But, since it
had to happen eventually, he thought maybe he should let her do it on her terms.
She was a willful woman. In her life before him she seemed a power to be reckoned with. Angelique
Vasquez, isn't that what the police reports had called her? His May, he fell in love with the way she
knew what she wanted. He adored her so that he had even brought some of her things along in an effort
to please her. Music she liked, her perfume, He had never thought to do that with any of the others.
Rob knew she appreciated the sentiment, Even if she didn't say so.
And so now, maybe he could just let her slip away on her own terms. And once she had given her body,
he would take it and make a bust unlike any before. Like her, it could be truly one of a kind.
She looked at him then, and as a single tear slid from the corner of her emerald eye she began to still.
He knew she was thankful as she convulsed a last time. His may, What a lovely piece she would make.
Like the others before, he would make her beauty eternal.
No one was ready for his work yet, but he could keep building up his collection until they were. And
once that time came then she would be his star.
Rob turned back to the table and began to suture the various incisions he'd made when filling his latest
work. It was a fine piece, he thought he might name it April Showers.
As he placed the finishing touches Rob thought about where he might go next. The search for him
seemed to be hitting closer to home. He wondered where June might find him and laughed when the
idea struck him. Perhaps, like the song said, he had Carolina on his mind.