“I can’t stand being here.”

“I can’t stand being.”

"Facebook Friend" (photo by Flickr user Andrew Sorensen)

False Truths and Fake Promises

She glances at my bandaged wrists, then looks away.

“You could’ve talked to me,” she whispers.

I glare. “Get out.”

–

The Silent Treatment

“Why?” her tears scream, and for the first time, I don’t know how to answer.

–

Carter Meyer is a poet, short fiction writer, and occasional singer from Orange, New Jersey, and can be found on most days reading a volume of poetry or humming under her breath. She is the editor-in-chief of Seamless Magazine (which is currently on hiatus) and lives in Maine.

“Watch the attack of the mad ax man”
—Michael Schenker Group

He sat in his lawn chair, in front of his cabin, with birds singing and wind whispering the needles of his pines. He had on boots, Levi’s and a lumberjack shirt. He had one leg straight, and one bent and under the chair. He held his ax in his hands.

The smaller trees were calling him again. Those bullies of great stature needed to be taken down a notch and give the small trees and shrubs a chance to catch the sun and for them to grow too.

He was some sort of mad reverse botanist, a bringer of ax and lightning. An example of how the woods can talk to man a little too much. Not what Thoreau had in mind.

"nd 119" (photo by Flickr user Travis K)

“Please help us grow. These bully trees take all the sunshine. Just because we are the wrong type, or color, or height or don’t have flowers to beautify the woods, the bully trees take away our sunshine, sunshine.”

He heard their calls and got up with his ax and bare hands to open up the sky. I can’t save you all, but like the man who throws a hundred starfish back to the ocean when 10,000 have washed up, I can make a difference.

He walked into the woods, and the voices came from every little bush, sapling tree, vine and moss.  “Save us, save us, save us, save us.”

Thwack, into a great large base he cut. And blood-like sap flowed onto his ax and into the ground, and down the the bottom and roots. Thwack, he went with sharpened precision into the meat of the bully tree. It took his slices and dices with a stance that said, “Fuck you, little lumberjack.” Thwack you, too.

When he felled the trees, he never took into account that he was crushing others along the way that were in the giant’s path. For those that were to see the light, it was a great deed. For those that were killed, like the big tree and the saplings in the path of the felled giant, it was murder.

But he cut on. And the big tree fell. In a crushing crash of tangled branches and vines and bush, it hit the forest floor and bounced and shook hundred year-old dust into the air.

He sat on the tree like a knight who has felled a dragon. A human-eating machine who spews fire and poison and is a genuine menace to society. He sat on a tree, like it was a mass murderer given lethal injection. What took a hundred years to grow took him minutes to fell. He wiped his brow with a handkerchief.

Evil, Eager Beaver

As soon as Mr. Soo heard the crash, he knew Carl had dropped another one of his trees.  It was never on Carl’s land. It was rarely on any other’s land. It was always him that had his trees felled by the great evil beaver, Carl. Only his little trees and bushes called out to be saved.

"Beaver" (photo by Flickr user Brett)

“Oh, that goddamn Carl. I know it was you again. Fuck!”

He had to calm down.  It was always something with these backwoods Arizona folks. Poaching, cutting down trees, teenage beer parties. His land must have had a sign that said “Do Your Worst” on it.

He went into his cabin to call the sheriff.

“Hi Billy, it’s Mr. Soo. I just heard a big crash out there. I know it’s a tree of mine.”

“John, don’t you go out there. It’s only me at the phone here. Terry is getting coffee and some breakfast. I’ll have him stop by and get you first. But don’t you go out there. You know if it’s Carl he’s got the ax and saws and he’s not right.”

“I’ll wait.”

He held back the curtain and looked out into the woods. He sighed and sat down in his favorite chair and took a sip of tea.

–

Louis Marvin is living the dream life in Honolulu with his Chinese girls. Born in Burbank, raised in Arizona, dreaming in Hawaii. Visit http://louismarvinlives.webs.com & http://roobardookie.webs.com for more STUFF.

Pete woke up kissing cold concrete and his head felt like it was splitting in half and the bottle of whatever he drank the night before was trying to crawl out.

“What the fuck?” he said in a broken glass voice.

Someone laughed. Springs creaked.

He peeled his sore eyes open and focused on the vagrant that was sitting on a metal cot trying to light a used cigarette. Next to the cot was a steel toilet with no lid, and the only door in the room was made of steel bars.

“Oh shit… shit… shit…”

“Good morning, sunshine,” the vagrant sang, laughing.

“Shut up,” Pete said.

“Hello, how do you do-ooh…”

“I said SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

The vagrant laughed harder. The smoke from his lit cigarette butt smelled like burning shit.

Pete rolled onto his back and tried to conjure up his last memory. He was sweating and shaking and bile burned in the back of his throat. A jail cell was the last place in the world he wanted to detox.

"Prison cells" (photo by Flickr user miss_millions)

The last semi-sober memory he had was the visit from his agent, Derrick, in his favorite bar in the Village.

“You must be done with the book if you’re in here celebrating at ten in the morning.”

Pete threw back his sixth shot of Jim Beam and tossed the glass over his shoulder.

“Classy,” Derrick said. “What have you got for me?”

“Sit down. Have a drink. Party just started.”

“Godamnit, Pete! Do you know what a deadline is anymore? There’s money invested in you. A book tour lined up. You were given an advance on the next Jake Bracer novel. Give me something… anything!”

Pete signaled for the bartender to bring another drink.

“I got nothing, Derrick. The well is dry. Jake Bracer is as fucked as my liver.”

It went real fuzzy from there. Pete knew that his agent threw a fit and grabbed him by the shirt. He reached down to feel where it had ripped, but he was wearing an orange jumpsuit now.

“Fuck Jake Bracer,” Pete said to the cold concrete floor.

“Holy shit,” the vagrant said. “That’s who you are! I knew I recognized you.”

He jumped up from the cot as if it were on fire and grabbed onto the bars.

“Guard! I want out! You can’t lock me up with this maniac!”

“Shut up, old man. You’re the only maniac in here,” Pete said.

The vagrant started laughing again. He slapped his hand on his knee and bounced back onto the cot.

“I read one of your books. Mostly I seen them Jake Bracer movies. Every time they make another one your picture is all over the local news. What’d you do to get in here?”

“I don’t know.” Pete rubbed his head and tried to remember more.

“All right,” Derrick had said as he followed the stumbling writer out of the bar. Pete looked past him at the building they had just exited. Could have sworn they were in the Village, but now it looked more like Queens.

“We can work around this. I’ll make some calls, get you in rehab and use the publicity to promote the next book. The public eats that shit up.”

“I told you I’m done with Jake Bracer. Not… writing… one more… fucking… wordaboutim.”

“Yeah, yeah… you’ll feel different when you get out of rehab. And we’ll keep making money off of Bracer. We’ll hire an up-and-comer to write the next Bracer under, ‘Pete Bishop’s Jake Bracer.’ You know, like Patterson does.”

“Like Patterson…” Pete snorted sarcastically. “Guess I really am at the end of my career. Listen to this, Derrick. I brought Bracer into this world and I will be the only one who takes him out. The day I go pimping my characters out to so-called up-and-comers is the day I go back to digging ditches.”

“Then you need to get your drunken ass behind the keyboard and write it out yourself. Because we have a contract and Milton House owns the rights to Jake Bracer, in case you’ve forgotten. If we want to, we can have someone write a Jake Bracer versus the vampires from Twilight story, and there’s not a goddamned thing you can do about it.”

Derrick fell out of step because he was at his car by the curb. Pete stopped, swaying side to side in his tracks. There was someone in the passenger seat of the car.

“Who the fuck is that?”

The agent’s mouth curled into a malicious grin.

Then Pete noticed that they were standing in front of his apartment complex in Tribeca, which was fucking impossible because he had barely taken a dozen steps out of the bar in Queens.

“His name’s Tommy Tuller. I introduced you to him at the Manhattan Project Suspense Writer’s conference a couple of months ago. He’s been doing a lot of ghost writing for Milton House for the past couple of years. Great writer… he just needs a name,” Derrick said.

“The fuck is he doing here?”

“He’s going to be writing the next Jake Bracer book while you’re getting yourself cleaned up.”

“Like fuck he is!” Pete swung at his agent. He could have sworn that he saw the Tuller asshole laughing his ass off in the car. The punch caught air and he stumbled. Before he knew what was happening, Derrick was steadying him on his feet and clapping him on the back.

"usual suspects" (image via Flickr user James Vaughan; artist Mitchell Hooks)

“There, there… you can do this,” Derrick said.

But they were standing inside Pete’s apartment, both Derrick and him. Tommy Tuller was there too… duct taped to a chair in Pete’s dinette, his eyes wide with terror.

Pete looked down at the baseball bat in his hands. It was a wooden Louisville Slugger, just like the one he had as a kid.

“You can do this,” Derrick said again. “Come on… you’re not seriously going to let this little fucker write the next Bracer book, are you? You brought Jake Bracer into this world… you’re the only one who should be able to take him out.”

Pete’s hands were sweating. He was starting to shake. Oh God, when was the last time he had anything to drink? He didn’t want to get the DTs.

“Now take him out! Take him out!” Derrick shouted.

The Tuller kid shook his head furiously side to side. Little shit was going to steal his character… his creation… his whole… life!

“DO IT!” the agent said. “DO IT NOW!”

Then the bat was in both of their hands, like they were fighting over it. Not for possession of the club, but to push it into the other’s grasp.

The Louisville Slugger whistled through the air and Tommy Tuller shrieked through the duct tape as it cracked his head open like a thick egg. Something warm and wet splattered across Pete’s face. He swung the bat again and again and again…

“Bishop! Visitor!” the hulking guard shouted through the bars.

Pete looked down at his hands. No bat there… no blood… But he suddenly began to remember some of the in-betweens as he scrambled shakily to his feet.

Derrick had been on his ass for months about a new Bracer book. The publishing house had the rights to Jake Bracer and Pete just didn’t have it in him to write another one. He finally agreed to meet with one of the young “up-and-comers” Derrick had been pushing. The agent had suggested meeting right at Pete’s apartment for an informal discussion.

“Sit at the table and talk to your visitor on the telephone. You have 15 minutes,” the guard said.

Pete sat down and picked up the phone on his side of the booth. His agent picked up the other one.

Derrick was grinning from ear to ear.

“Goddamn, dog… you are something. Wait ’til you see the publicity from this shit! You’re all over the news. You can’t buy this kind of advertising. As soon as you get processed and transferred to Riker’s, I’ll have a laptop ready for you so you can start the next Bracer book.”

“Fuck you,” Pete said.

“Come on, Pete, the well can’t be dry anymore. Aside from all the publicity, you’ve got some new experiences to draw on. Murder, prison, institionalization… Your blood alcohol was to the fucking moon. Our lawyer says you’ll do a short involuntary manslaughter ticket with some time in the nut house and in rehab. You’ll dry out and have all the time you need to get back to work.”

Pete looked down at his hands. He didn’t know if he had swung the bat into Tommy Tuller’s skull or if Derrick had.

The agent hung up the phone on the other side of the booth and got up to walk out into the free world. Pete tried desperately to remember who’d really swung the bat. He wondered if it even mattered.

–

Dana C. Kabel has had the privilege of having his stories appear in such places as Out of the Gutter, Mysterical-E, The Flash Fiction Offensive, Muzzleflash, Darkest Before the Dawn, Powder Burn Flash, Yellow Mama, and A Twist of Noir. He is thrilled to appear in Black Heart Magazine. Dana lives in the mountains of North Carolina with his children and his wife, Lisa, who refuses
to read any more of his work as she finds it totally deranged and it gives her nightmares. She sleeps next to him with one eye open.

"Thank you for half-a-million views!" (photo by Flickr user Steve-h)

I wonder if it has a name? If not, I shall call it Bob. Bob is a fitting name for this stubby flower. Short, yet wider than the others, a tad askew and unkempt. The fully bloomed bulbous head sticking out of the masses and saying, “I’m Bob. I like sun and water.”

We already have much in common Bob and I; I like sun and water, too. As I get out of my own head, departing from the worries and nonsense that tend to encapsulate my brain, Bob begins to be my teacher, my spiritual guru in plant form, my own personal Jesus.

You see, Bob knows how to do something I don’t. Bob knows how to simply be what he is. He has no concern over the past or the future. Bob is content being in the now, and he does a damn good job of it.

I become envious of the simplicity that is Bob, so carefree, so effortless. A tinge of anger builds in me knowing that a mindless plant has things together more than I do. I rise from my weathered, half-broken rocking chair while taking a sip of my now lukewarm beer.

I have one mission in mind, to pluck Bob.

Halfway there though it becomes clear that if I pluck Bob I will also have to pluck Nancy and Doris and Florence. Again, all different, but all one united front. Lucille and Dick and Norman and Pearl. Why do all these flowers have names from the 40s and 50s? Maybe because they’re old souls. They bloom, flower, wilt, and die. Then in the spring it starts all over again, reincarnated flowers from the black-and-white television era.

I sit back down, eyes gazing at Bob. He looks back at me, swaying to and fro, almost a cocky smile smeared on his flower face. I submit to Bob, and follow the notion of the other flowers he leads to the Promised Land. I just am, and enjoy this moment to its fullest. Because of Bob I’ve learned to live.

All praise be to Allah.

Or God.

Or Jah.

Or Jehovah.

Or Jesus.

They are all really the same thing. Or are they all different? Guess it depends on how you choose to see.

–
Born and bred in South Carolina means Uriah Hutto talks a little funny and possesses great manners, as well as high blood pressure and probably high cholesterol. After three non-platinum rap albums, Uriah has turned his creative faculties towards writing. Instead of entertaining people on the stage with his actions, he would rather entertain people with his feelings and emotions, which he balls up and turns into printed words. He is currently working on a compilation of works entitled Meditations With Jason: A Collection of Ramblings. Uriah’s prose style is well-polished and descriptive. His approach to writing is very unique and humorous. Uriah enjoys beer a little too much, and can be found on Facebook and Blogger.

"Evil Santa and my kid brother Mike" (photo by Flickr user Dave Delaney)

Propped up as a centerpiece for the public, Santa sat on a false throne of cheer. His velvety exterior and rosy cheeks gave illusory impressions of the man behind the mask who, if asked, would likely tell you that he hated his job. Not just that he hated his job, but that he hated Christmas. Not just that he hated Christmas, but that he hated people, especially people who celebrated Christmas. Not initially, but after putting on the tired façade season after season for bratty, entitled punks, his cynicism had peaked.

Santa didn’t need much preparation before his shift. His white, scraggly beard and cute button nose genetically predisposed him for the job. He was Santa – that went undisputed. When he started, 7 years ago, Santa was plump and jolly like the actor in the Coke commercials. He sucked candy canes and cleared plates of cookies in gluttonous merriment. He ho ho ho-ed at the sight of starry-eyed children and made ambiguous promises of wish fulfillment when they inquired about their naughty/nice status. Sure, every now and then a kid would piss on his knee or shriek in his ear, but he understood that it came with the job and he was happy to accommodate them. That is, he was happy to tolerate them – to an extent.

In 2009 a child of around eight was placed on Santa’s knee. He dribbled dumbly and fussed about the picture.

“I hate pictures,” he asserted.

“We-e-e-e-ll,” Santa hummed, “if you sit still for the picture, I’ll have one of my elves here fix you up with a nice candy cane. Would you like that?”

“I want an iPod,” the boy explained.

“I’ll pass that on right to the North Pole. Have you been a good boy?” Santa asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe, but I want an iPod, okay?” the boy insisted.

“I’ll see what we can do! Now please sit still for the picture like a good little boy,” Santa said.

The boy then proceeded to dismount Santa’s knee, jab him in the groin, and run screaming toward his mother. No apologies were offered to the doubled over Christmas icon, just an ice pack from an elf.

This was Santa’s first encounter of many such children to come. A new wave of entitlement washed over the youth, and the wholesomeness of Christmas was forever corrupted by materialism. He became a medium for an ever-expansive list of demands that no number of Christmas elves could ever hope to deliver. The looming threat of coal-filled stockings didn’t phase a generation who knew that if Santa couldn’t come through, mommy and daddy would pick up the tab. He felt like the impotent Queen of England: a visual beacon of Christmas with no tangible influence.

Underneath the suit of red, Santa (or less decoratively, David Sanders) felt disenfranchised. He was spiraling into senility with no hope of restoration. He was no longer jolly; he was obese. He was no longer merry; he was depressed. He was still rosy-cheeked, but only because he took a flask of gin with him before the long, eight-hour shifts.

His job performance didn’t suffer much. As soon as he slumped into the grandiose chair he went on holiday autopilot – a mechanism well-known throughout the retail community. He had it down to a formula:

"Evil Santa" (photo by Flickr user lankforddl)

“Ho ho ho. Have you been a good (boy/girl)? Smile for the picture please. Now, what do you want for Christmas? My, oh my, that’s a long list. Be a good (boy/girl) and I’ll see what I can do!”

Over and over again, at least 300 times per day, he would recite his verse and smile for the camera. By the end of his shift, Santa would be slurring his speech a bit and he had a habit of nodding off between kids, but he was well-liked among co-workers and, after all, it was only for December.

Santa came in late one morning with an intimidating line awaiting him. The elves made excuses: “There was a terrible blizzard at the North Pole this morning,” or, “Rudolph had a stuffy nose,” so the children scampered around in anticipation while Santa finished off his flask in the back room.

“Ho ho ho! Sorry for the – er – wait, guys. I just – I… who’s up first?” Santa stumbled.

It was a redhead who introduced himself as Sam. He claimed to have been a good boy and pulled out a list of crayon-scribbled wishes. Among them were: Legos, Transformers, Bakugan (whatever the fuck that was), an iPad, and Abercrombie jeans.

“My oh my, that’s a long list! Be a good boy and I’ll see what I can do!” Santa said mechanically.

This was the pattern for several hours. Trying to make up for lost time, Santa skipped his lunch break and systematically pushed through a day of harrowing torment. After 6 hours, Santa went to piss and change costumes. His suit was soiled by slobber, snot, and urination. He felt like a walking biohazard. He reached in his locker for the silver flask repeating, “Two more hours, two more hours,” to himself and taking a vicious swig. And another. Exhaustion and inebriation made Santa woozy. He thought about the stairs that he had to take to get to the chair and sighed. One more swig. His fifteen minutes were up. He attempted to get into character or at least to be less obvious about his drunkenness, popping a mint and sipping at some lukewarm “hot” chocolate.

He straggled to the stage, an absolute wreck. Parents watched him swerve and cling to the railing like a man who was experiencing gravity for the first time.

“Santa? Do we need to call it a day? You look tired,” an elf questioned.

Santa hunched over and whispered to the elf, “These… these kids, they ne-e-e-d their Santa, understand?”

“Whatever you say, Mr. Claus,” he replied accusingly.

The lights glared in Santa’s glassy eyes as he fumbled for the chair. He stood with a hand on the armrest catching his breath and collapsed onto the chair with an odd discomfort. Screaming ensued. Gasps were heard from nearly every mouth in the crowd and people ran crying toward the drunken oaf of a Santa who had just, unknowingly, sat his fat ass on a three-year-old child.

“Get up! Get up!” an elf cried, “Are you fucking nuts? Get up!”

Santa clasped the armrests and lifted himself up. The sight was unspeakably painful. Women who hadn’t run for help fainted instantly. The elves stood catatonic while the victim’s mother shook her child and cried out in agony.

“My God, what have you done to my baby?” the mother pled, “What have you done? What have you done?”

"Wanted: Santa Claus" (photo by Flickr user Kevin Dooley)

Santa blacked out. He tumbled off the platform and suffered a gruesome concussion. The scene transcended terror, a bloody tragedy that the police and paramedics could hardly comprehend upon arrival. Within five seconds, Christmas imploded and the stunned crowd wailed in disbelief. The fate of the boy was left undetermined until hours later when the doctors came to console the grieving mother. The boy was paralyzed, but stable. Local news aired the story of “The Boy Paralyzed by Santa.” It was made hastily and in bad taste for a town still shocked and disturbed.

In the recovery room, Santa was accompanied by three police officers listening to the details of his blood test. His BAC was .38 when he was admitted. The doctor asked for at least six hours of observation and then conferred his patient to the police who would take him to jail. Still donned in his red velvet suit, Santa moaned guiltily. The handcuffed offender was read his rights under the bleak winter flurry of a truly unholy night.

–

Kyle Jaeger is a brooding suburbanite with a passion for prose. Back in the 11th grade his English teacher told him that he had potential, and he’s basically been riding that bit of encouragement for the last couple years. He is a studious gent and loves to write scholarly essays, but his professors keep complaining that he’s “too verbose,” or some bullshit like that. Fiction is his way of rebelling against the constricting rubric of academia. You can contact Kyle by email at jaegerkyle@gmail.com; his blog is currently being renovated.