Are you “My Dad?” (Sympathy for the Devil)

All that remains from the day of the Astral Gate Incident are snippets— fragments of conversations with contexts long forgotten, lost to time, to entropy, to death. A story could be made from these snippets, but it would be incoherent, lacking protagonists, antagonists, and even setting. Attempts have been made in the past to create a narrative of that day, though they rather erroneously try to shape it in terms of the moment of the incident. To define humanity as a series of suffering after suffering after suffering is foolish and benefits only those who gain from human suffering. People too rich to be effected by the fall out of incidents such as the Astral Gate. Suffering builds character, but what kind of character is being built. A servant to the masters we call capitalism. This is not the place for such musings. Here is the story of people caught in a tragedy they were never prepared for. But then, what other kind of tragedy is there…

“So,” says the man with three scars on the back of his neck, “so I say t-to the guy, what do you think I am, a monster? And he look- looks! Looks at me, and he says, well, Yar. Youse covered in blood.” He is drinking at a bar five hours before the incident occurs. The group of friends he is drinking with laughs at his story, believing it to be a long form joke. They’ll all say they get his joke, but in truth they do not. For that would require him to be joking. He will not survive.

“Mama,” says a little girl with blue eyes, red hair, and black skin, “what happened to Dada?” She is four years old, today is her birthday. These are her first coherent sentences. Her mother was a woman with prematurely grey hair and scars hidden beneath the clothing she wears. Her daughter will never see these scars. She will never know what happened to “Dada.” They will not survive.

A billionaire at the age of 25, Johnathan Smith has it all. He earned his fair and square. Sure, his father gave him a little push, a donation or two from the family vault. But then, is that not the job of fathers? To help their sons out when the time comes? Meanwhile, these leaches are asking for a handout. Asking for what he earned fair and square. Why should he help them? They aren’t his. Johnathan returns to the office he owns where he decides to increase prices on a lifesaving pill. It’s his pill after all, he bought it fair and square. He will not survive.

A blind woman sleeps on the street corner. She will not be awake for the incident. She will not survive.

Two officers are beating a black man on the streets. There are five witness, all white. On a normal day, they will file a report that says the black man was caught trespassing on the premises of one of the white people’s house. Evidence for this will be a splotch of blood with the black man’s DNA found three inches away from where he was beaten. The black man will be found guilty and sentenced to an extrubiant amount of time where the police hope to teach him the lesson: be more white. But today was not a normal day. They will not survive.

A queer woman enters a church. The priest, a man of faith for 37 years and of cloth for 40, holds her as she cries about the cruelties done to her. By her parents, by those who claim to be of faith, by those who seek to cure her. The priest holds her as she cries. He introduces her to a woman of faith with different queerness. A smile comes across the faces of the queer women. They talk for what seems like days. The priest cleans the plates of the homeless who sleep in his church. They will not survive.

A man searches the city of Los Angeles for his dog. The dog will not be found. He will not survive.

A bar mitzvah is held three miles outside of London. The boy is being held up in a chair. His sister, a girl with pink hair, violet eyes, and a birthmark on her neck, talks to her girlfriend about moving into their boyfriend’s apartment. The girlfriend is unsure, perhaps not wishing to make such things real. She says none of this to the girl she loves. She looks at her soon to be brother in law, smiling at becoming a man. They will not survive.

In Greenwich, CT, a family of five is moving into a house. The father has a scar on the back of his hand. The mother has the bottom potion of her left ear completely missing. The youngest son broke his arm. The oldest son wears glasses. The daughter wears braces. The family dog is digging in the garden. The house is blue with a red door and lion’s head for a knocker. The flowers are starting to bloom. They will not survive.

A cat wanders the streets of a suburb. She has black fur, green eyes, and blood on her claws. She will not survive.

A baby is born premature. They live for only an hour. In another, an incident occurs.

In a field, a little boy plays fetch with his dog. The dog runs faster than the boy. He is a kind dog, beloved by the boy. Records found on the boy (a note written in crayon, three trading cards with Pocket Monsters on them, and a copy of The Monster at the End of this Book with three nonconsecutive pages missing) show he lived in an abusive household, but ran away three years prior to playing fetch with the dog. The sun shone on the boy’s face as he petted the dog. They did not survive.

In Canada, a polar bear swims to shore, finding hir cubs sleeping against hir’s flake. Hir’s flake awakens to see hir with five salmon in hir’s mouth. Ze smiles a toothy smile and awakens the cubs. They will not survive.

A short story writer prepares to work on a science fiction narrative about an alien dystopian empire that wishes to enslave humanity, but is constantly foiled by the hands of Clark Jones, Two-Fisted Space Adventurer. An idea strikes him to give the aliens nontraditional pronouns to highlight their alien nature. He considers using the pronoun “Ze” for the alien commander who tries to bed Clark Jones. He will not survive.

A lean man stalks the streets of a city. A slimy sneer oozes onto his face with the ease of a snake in the garden. A block away walks a woman, alone at night. The man has known the woman for many years, and time and time again she has refused his advances. “I can’t be with you. I’m with someone else,” she’ll say. “I don’t love you!” “Stop following me!!” And all those other lies. He’ll make her learn one way or the other. At least, that was the plan. But then, plans tend to fail when clashed with reality, especially when the woman has mace in her purse. He will not survive.

A nonbinary person wanders the streets with a golf club. Hir eyes are covered in purple contacts. Hir long black hair is covered by elvish ears and a blonde wig knotted into a long ponytail. In hir pocket is a card that says “SPELL.” Hir is dressed in a long, somewhat impractical robe. Beneath the robe is a tee-shirt riffing on the movie Akira with a character from the comic book series The Simpsons. Hir will not survive.

Jane Marks finishes shooting her latest motion picture. What footage remains tells the story of a bisexual man (Patrick Mann) having his life torn apart by discovering his sexuality. His girlfriend (Jane Marks) leaves him because she finds the people he’s with to be toxic. The man he falls in love with (Sean Smith III) refuses to be with him unless he rejects his attraction to women. His parents disown him for being gay and his father nearly beats him to death. The scene being filmed involves Jane’s character getting a phone call from Patrick’s informing her that he’s dying of AIDS and probably won’t see the week. She tries to get him to go back to the way things were when he was straight, but he hangs up on her. The movie was expected to receive a bunch of awards for its straight director (Max Landis). They will not survive.

A nonbinary kid was reading a book. She didn’t like the book and threw it against the wall, which caused five pages to be flung out. She will not survive.

“We have to hurry or we’ll miss the train,” said the man with one leg to the woman with short blonde hair. She smiles as he drags her along. The sun shines across her face, almost blinding her to the world around. But the indent the light makes inside her eyes has an abstract beauty to it. They miss the train and the man makes a performative shout of frustration before quickly calming down and discussing their plans with the woman. They will not survive.

It’s noted mobster Vinnie St. John’s 45^th birthday. The family is planning a celebration in his honor. Among their plans, two plot to have him wacked, one schemes to take over a rival family’s territory, and one opts to announce his decision to leave the business. Vinnie St. John, for his part, simply sits on the porch while his three daughters run around in the garden. A slight pain hits his left arm, and he collapses. He will not survive.

Ida and Carmine DeVita have been retired for many decades. Their children have had children and some are expecting grandchildren. Carmine is a stout man, nearing the sunset of his life. His short white hair is shaped to a point. Ida has more years within her than Carmine, though her frail body would say otherwise. She dyes her greying hair brown. They are walking in the woods, looking for mushrooms for a recipe they’ll serve their family for Thanksgiving. They hold each other as the sun begins to set. They will not survive.

The sun beats down on the world as a man with a grungy beard (thicker around the lips where a goatee once rested than the rest of the face) walks to the spaceport. He dreams of leaving the Earth he once called home. To him, having tasted the world outside, it is more like a small town than a planet. And small towns, to him, feel more like cages than anything else. To escape, then, would be his greatest desire. He has spent the past five years saving money for his escape. He put all of his resources, all his energy in leaving. He alienated his family, his friends, even burnt some bridges with work opportunities. But, in the end, he got his wish. He was heading for Mars that very day. All he’d have to do was breach the Astral Gate, and he’d be free at last, free at last. He thought of his brother, still on Earth. Still content with the cage. But not for long. He will not survive.

On a misty day on a field in Scotland, where the cows graze lazily, a young boy is given a harmonica by his father. The wind silently bustles the grass with ease and calm, like breath on the back of your neck from someone standing right behind you. He plays the harmonica atop a rock to his family. The boy is wearing white sneakers, khakis, and a light blue polo shirt. He has short brown hair that slightly covers the tops of his closed green eyes. His mother’s hair blows in the wind like grass. The sky turns green as light shaped like life giving sperm rains down the heavens like water in an ocean. The world turns sepia. He will survive.

Who Can Be Saved…

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What the universe really needs are truckers! (Heavy Metal Queen)

Ural Terpsichore promised himself that this would be his last bounty the way many an addict promises themselves that this would be their last hit. He meant it, as they always do. He promised Victoria after all, and one shouldn’t break the trust of the woman they love. He had broken enough already. She would know eventually the extent of their marriage he broke, but he hoped he could keep that from happening for as long as possible. Some dreams really do come true.

Jenn Smithers was on the run. It wasn’t her fault, all things considered. She had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It wasn’t her fault that the old maid looked at her the wrong way. Sure, she was robbing the mansion, but it wasn’t her fault that the maid looked like she was probably going to scream “Thief.” She had to shut her up. It wasn’t her fault, she was forced to stab that old bitch in the heart. There was too much money at stake and too many debts to pay off in order to make a better life for herself, damn everyone else.

Luke Marks owned the bar for a good thirty seven years. It was in his family (or, at least the name) since before space travel was common place. He ran a good crew. Larry, the bartender, was personable enough in their attempts at serving beer. Jace, one of the food staff, was capable at making a delicious tray of meatballs, even if she swore like a sailor. It wasn’t a big bar, all things considered (at most, it could probably fit a good seven or ten people at a time), but it was his bar. His crew. His family. And they all made him happy.

Jason Walters was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He didn’t know why. He had a wife who loved him, three kids who were on their way through college, and a job he was quite fond of. And yet, everything around him felt like it was collapsing into dust and nothingness. He wanted to blame some higher power out in the cosmos for this feeling, even though he was quite aware of its absurdity. And yet, the world felt wrong. Something was missing and that something. Was it the way he was looking at that guy earlier, Jason thought. By the end of the night, revelation would come to him.

Mary Masterson understood trauma. She had just escaped from an abusive relationship not five days previously. The escape involved a large amount of violence and a non-zero amount of death. He would always hold her too tightly, like one holds a dog’s leash when it tries to run away. He would smile with his predator teeth showing. He was open about the abuse, but no one cared. He was too big to fail, as they said of many a failed venture. She didn’t want to kill anyone, not even him. She felt like she had no choice in the matter.

Kate and Julie Marsfelder had been married for just shy of a year. They met at a burger joint three blocks away from the bar. Since then, they had traveled the cosmos searching for adventure and excitement. Recently, they had begun work as a pair of con artists looking to make a quick buck at the expense of several corrupt organization. One such organization had a member of its top brass drinking at a bar not too many blocks away from the burger joint they had first met. Cosmic coincidence, Kate would say. Magic, Julie would reply. They’re one and the same, all things considered.

Steven Blake had been working for the Red Tigers for fifty years. It had taken him that long to achieve the status he so rightly deserved. He had killed, maimed, bribed, stolen, and even tortured his way up there. He had ambitions, as many of his ilk do. He wanted to be seen by the world as someone important, someone to be respected. His syndicate would take over all the other ones. He had a plan, a plan that needed focus and understanding. But he didn’t think it needed too much. After all, there was a pair of lovely angels sitting right next to him offering a drink. How could he ever refuse?

Warren Warrens was considering killing himself. Not so much in terms of actually doing it, but rather the philosophical implications of such an act. He was hired by a small press to write a book about suicide and why people killed themselves. There are many examples he could name from the self-immolating war protesters in Vietnam to soldiers sending themselves to war with the express purpose of dying. And then there were the more personal matters, such as depression making it feel like it’s the only option or out of spite towards someone they’ve stopped caring for. Warren wanted to understand why someone would want to do it. Why should I kill myself, he thought to himself.

Ryan Chack was playing a game of solitaire. He has played the game many times in his life, mostly to clear his mind. But that night, he was trying to distract himself. He didn’t want to think about the scream in the garden. The smell he thought he smelt when he went to investigate. The tears dripping from her blood stained face. The way he hid in the bushes so that she would never see him. The scars on her wrists that could never be self-inflicted. The ones that could. He tried not to think about those things like one tries not to think about elephants.

Bill Smith was thinking about her mother, Lauren. She had died when she was a little girl in a rather unfortunate accident. She accidentally landed on a knife thirty seven times, all of them on the heart. Now, a few days later, she was an adult forced to live in a world of confusion and anger. It had taken her no time at all to track down the owner of the knife. She knew what she would do, she told herself. She would avenge her mother, she would kill this woman, this theif, this murderer. And she would be happy once again.

Ural sat next to Jenn with his left hand resting atop a gun. Jenn reached into her pocket for a knife. Luke was the first one to see. Jason tried to stop it from happening. Mary was the one who did. Kate helped carry the body while Julie drove the car. Steven remained unconscious at the bar. Warren called for an ambulance. Ryan went after Mary. Bill collected the reward.

Bill thought the reward would make her happy. She thought, at least justice would be served. She thought that she was going to kill the murderer as they sat in that car. The murderer’s face was broken beyond repair. She was also unconscious. So if Bill were to kill the woman then and there, she could get away with it quite easily. But she didn’t. She just sat in the car as they approached the police station and took the money. But not even 50,000 Woolongs could make her happy. Her mother was still dead. She’d have to find happiness elsewhere.

Ryan approached Mary with some trepidation. She was alone and terrified, especially after what she had done. He tapped her on the shoulder with a seemingly soft touch. She jumped by this touch as if he had hit her. Ryan apologized immediately. He wanted to talk to her. They were neighbors once upon a time, before she escaped. He liked talking to her, as it helped cool him down when he was at his most manic. And she liked talking to him as his cleverness could ground her from her depression and abuse.

Warren did not have any good answers to why he would kill himself. Sure, there were answers to how he would do it. There are millions of ways to kill yourself, after all. But he couldn’t figure out the why. Which makes writing about people who want to kill themselves all the harder. One can’t quite capture another person’s worldview without understanding. He wanted to understand, but try as he might, he just couldn’t. Ah well, he thought to himself, I suppose I’ll just have to wing it and hope for the best.

Steven awoke with a broken nose in a prison cell. Whatever those dirty bitches gave him caused him to black out for more than a day. The bartender threw him out of the bar at closing hour and the pavement broke his nose. The police arrested him shortly afterwards for vagrancy. Such an insult could not go unspoken of. Steven would find those broads, and he would strangle them. Otherwise, he’d be seen as weak within the Red Tigers, and they had a tendency of culling the weak very thoroughly. Before he knew it, the knife slit Steven’s Jugular wide open.

The plan had gone awry. The con Kate and Julie had planned involved drugging Steven Blake and taking his wallet. It was a scheme in-between schemes to keep the ship around, Kate would explain to Julie. Petty theft of the criminal underworld was nothing compared to what they do on a regular basis. The Red Tigers weren’t a priority, all things considered. There was a new gang making itself known. One that needed to be looked out for less they become a serious threat. They called themselves “Lucifer.” Probably because they want to be really edge, Kate assumed. Ultimately, saving a life, even one that ends up dead, was a higher priority than either of these things.

Mary asked Ryan why he was talking to her. Sure, once upon a time, they were neighbors. But they didn’t really talk that much. On the times they did, she found his babbling quite amusing, somewhat uplifting on the worst days. But what of it? He was hiding something, she could tell that much. He didn’t want to say. Did he see her, she wondered. Does he know. What does he want. I saw, he said. I saw what you did. He wasn’t happy while he was talking. This wasn’t a man who wanted to take advantage of her, Mary thought. Then again, neither was the man she killed when they first met. Unlike that man, however, Ryan then said, How can I help? Mary simply requested he come walk her home. It was dark and you never know who could be watching.

When Jason returned home, he told his wife the truth. He liked guys. But he also liked girls. It was while he was driving home that he realized that. Perhaps the shock of the murder he witnessed shook him out of the edge and forced him to see clearly. Or perhaps the sight pushed him over and now he was on the other side. Jason didn’t know. All he knew was the gap in his life had finally been filled by accepting who he was. He cried when he confessed to his wife. They were silent for at least a couple hours. Or rather, it felt that long to them. His wife smiled when she kicked him out of the house and called him a faggot. One would be surprised if she hadn’t scripted this conversation out months ago.

Luke, Larry, and Jace cleaned up the bar. Fights like this happen every now and then at the Lovely Angel. But this was the Smiling Clown. People don’t fight this dirty, this cruelly here, let alone at all. All three of the windows were shattered, two of the stools were broken, and some asshole was sleeping at the bar even after it closed. They drew straws, but they all hoped Jace could toss the bastard out. She was the only one who could lift a guy of his weight on her own. They were lucky in that regard. Though, sadly, the asshole broke his nose on the way to the street. Ah well, not their problem.

Jenn was in jail for ten years before she was released on good behavior. She was good at this sort of thing. After all, all a guard cares is whether or not you can keep your mouth shut when he asks to be serviced. All a board of directors care about is the color of your skin and how well you can act white. Fortunately for Jenn, being white goes a long while in being considered white enough to be let out early, even if she did kill a non-white or two. She was caught stealing from another mansion by a rather young bounty hunter. Oddly enough, this too didn’t make her happy. But then, Bill found happiness a long while ago. She had fallen in love with a truck driving duo named Jill and Jane. They were going to have a kid soon. Scout if it’s a boy, Lauren if it’s a girl.

Ural Terpsichore was dead.

If My Lady Should Discover How I Spent My Holidays…

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