"I'd pretend you're not dead"

She was sad sounding, her English was excellent. It was just the start of the afternoon and he was up listening to the CBC. He could feel the violation in her tone, he could see the color of her skin. He was attracted to the passion he could hear in her voice. It was exactly what the CBC loved to dish out to mellow-dramatic Canadians.
"Hey dad are you listening to this?" he asked, calling out from the kitchen into the living room.
"George just settle down in there I've had a terrible morning, I'll be in right after I take this call." he explained. George just sat at the table and began to listen to the women and her plight.
"I was only nineteen when I first saw someone die in front of me."  He actually heard her voice through the radio it was crystal clear, she spoke with conviction, someone stroked into horror through war. "I was only nineteen, but the little girl next to me was only ten, and she watched her mother die in my arms." The woman's voice told the story of the orphaned girl then the story of herself. "I thought I could save the world when I pushed myself into medical school. I was so young and ambitious, I was ready to take on the inappropriate predicament my nation was forcing itself to face!" George sat and listened to the woman repeat her justification to peruse the freedom of her nation. "When the government fell, I couldn't believe it!" she almost cried out. He could see her in the far off of that eastern state. The moment of silence was fired through the radio with an exaltation of energy, "my people" she stopped, ready to scream, "my people" she repeated again, this time solemnly "began to fight."
"Dad" George yelled through the hallway this time, directing his voice into his fathers office. The door then opened and George could hear his father moving toward the kitchen. The two of them had been acting hostile toward one another all week.
"What is it George?" asked his father as he headed toward the refrigerator. George turned up the radio and the two began to listen together. The woman's voice came through and the two leaned in to hear it. "My family" she said, calmly, "were ripped apart by civil war. My father was murdered by on of my cousins for believing there can be peace!" She spoke with an enduring faith. George looked at his dad, the two smiled and listened on. "My mother was taken from me to watch her husband die" there was a pause, dead air.
"Hey George!" rang his father, startling the boy over the silence. "What's going on? Why you listening to this?" He asked looking over at his teenage boy with sincere seeming sight. The two just stared at each other. When the woman's voice returned they both instantly relaxed as she began to explain how the westerners had underestimated the level of corruption in the system. "There is nothing I can do about what happened to my family, there is no one I can blame anymore." The reporter stepped in, his voice, the voice of the typical CBC reporter so bravely and politely stepped in and asked "Why are you still here, why haven't you run, you're a doctor, why would you stay in such trauma, and so intently  practice medicine?" The question was designed to hit a mark. The two sat together listening to the radio. They were watching a bunch of children play in the park in the valley behind their home. It was a marvelous view, and even George, at fifteen understood that he was going through life in paradise.
"We're not there are we Georgy?" asked his dad. The boy looked up at his father listening to the radio. The sun entering through the panorama of kitchen windows was beginning to let in the afternoon sun, making the  air feel a little stuffy. "Right George?" his father insisted. He was drilling the boy for the answer.
"But dad!" the boy exclaimed. "Now look, listen, theses people need help" he said standing up, pushing his chair back.
"You're so passionate son!" the old man said as he pushed himself up and toward the counter. There was a bowl full of fruit. Georges father picked a ripe mango and smelt it. His face lit up the moment the aroma hit his senses, George just watched. His stomach groaned, loud enough for the two of them to hear it.
"Dad it's not ever going to be right!" he said. The girls voice could still be heard in the background on the radio. "I decided to stay in Baghdad to protect my people. And its made me very hard inside. I see so much death, and I can't do anything about it. There is nothing I can do." George got up to grab a banana and while he was up he watched his father cut a mango into chucks and wedges.
"You're mother loved mango's!" his father explained, George looked out the window again and began to think about his mother. "She was taken from us way too early son." George just laughed, it had been a long time since the sun made the kitchen look the way it did in that instant.
"It looks like it did when mom used to make a snack in the afternoons, when I was little.  We would sit at the kitchen counter and talk fruit" he reminisced laughing.
"I remember her dad" the boy said, gleaming a blush spot of red over his cheek at the faint memory of his long lost mother, "I remember she used to tell me how generous I have to be." He stopped and looked at his father, he watched as the man spread butter over his freshly toasted bagel.  "Jesus dad you use a lot of butter, Fuck! it's gonna give you a heart attack. The man just laughed and spread it even thicker.
"Hey George!" demanded his father, he was looking at the boy, watching him listen to the CBC, "What do you think you'd do if I died?" His father asked. It was his typical line of questioning, he often wanted to see how George felt about inheriting his future.
"Dad!" the boy smirked, "you're not going to die" he said the words in a single breath. He was sitting at the table holding his face in his hands.
"When I was sixteen, George, my father died, he left us with nothing." The man said, readying George up to take on this next lecture. "So what would you do?" he asked. George still listening to the girl talk. "Here, if someone needs a CT scan past three o-clock in the afternoon, they are forced to wait until the next day." George could hear the way she felt about her circumstance, he could hear through the radio that the girl was fighting a hopeless fight.
"You can hear that can't you son?" asked his father. "Do you know what that is?" he demanded, in anger almost, it set George on edge.
"Desperation!" he yelled back at his father standing up and shouting it right into his face. "That's fucking desperation, in a place filled with no hope dad...!" the screams tore the tension. Georges father smiled and relaxed as he watched his son do the same.
"So, son, what would you do if I died?" asked his father exhaling a romantic tone.
"Dad, you're a plastic surgeon" he stopped and then said,

she handed him the medium blend outta nowhere!

Reaching back, stretching his hand back behind him, he twinkled his fingers, it was a beacon.
"Hey buddy!"she called from behind him. He looked back to see her reach out for his receding hand.
"What's up baby?" he called out. It was raining and the streets were filled with rush hour traffic. Her face was wet from the rain.
"Let's go inside, I got enough money to get us a coffee." she said, setting them both off gearing toward the revolving door that lead into the book store/Cafe.
"I want a large medium blend" he said as they gathered in front of the cafe till.
"You're sure in a hurry!" remarked the sassy looking server. "Listen Mr." she stated, with her blond hair bopping and her delicate pale tattooed skin blushing. "Let the lady order first!" she said with a smitten smile and a stare directed into her, his girls eyes.
"Ha..Ha..really, Jimmy did you hear what she said?" she asked looking directly back into the eyes of the passionate, and naturally melodic barista. Their hearts were joined in an independent giggle. A laugh that was given to each one appropriately by the acceptance of the others gaze. 
"Erin!" he snapped looking over the two, their connection was obvious. It made him angry out loud. Yet they were both still looking at each other.
"My name is Julia!" announced the barist reaching out her hand not at her but to him.
"What?" he questioned  confused. Julia just looked over to Erin and winked.
"Common Jimmy!" she said confidently with a smile to die for and an arm full of dragons, stars and darts. He found himself stunned, reaching blindly out to her. He couldn't resist, and just as he was about to shake her hand

Right Here@...../Fcuk you! Good Bye!

So I made a mistake, I was mad. I didn't want to deal with it the way you told me too. I was calling out to the inside of me. To the roots, baby, to the roots. I've been told to enjoy the song, you know, I'm sick of listening to what they tell me. Dude, I'll never do that. Don't tell me to do that, don't wast my time.
It was a portrait of myself in the mirror, speaking to all the people that I had ever known. I'm giving up on my insides because, the number one reason is that "I don't know anyone that's happy, not one mother fucker. No One. Nowhere."
I know the whole world wants to save me but I know that they are just wasting time.... my time. I'm involved in life like it's the type of sport you play like a war, a battle of the wits, and the greatest show ever seen, or heard. I've been mad, I've been shut down and put down, I've been the biggest player on the smallest field, but not before I was hit by my strongest teammate on the oppositions side. I'm all there for sure, global. Fucking piece of shit planet, I'm not stationary, I revolve around evolving, circling what I respect, fighting the fatigue they all impose on my existence.

You seen anyone with lights cameras and action in hell?...not yet. Cause you ain't been there baby you ain't going nowhere, cause you're almost all staying

she is only nineteen! what happens when she can't sleep?

He gave me an apple, and in handing me that apple he made me feel like I was to get my revenge. Because the night before last I was out with my girl. It was just me and her. She was so pretty in the moonlight, she wanted to talk. She was drunk. We went together through the streets, embarking in one another. It was like one of those moments, when you see a couple crossing a bridge as the sun's setting over the river, over the city, the season, our country.
"What made you come out Lindsy ?" I asked her, she was obviously in the mood to speak her peace.
"I couldn't sleep" she said, her breath let off the fresh smell of spirits. "I haven't been able to sleep a full night this week" she explained. Her face told the story of a young women in lust. She was mysterious in the night he thought.
"What you stressing about baby?" he asked, thinking it was about school or her family. Her father was suffering form cancer. "Is it your dad?" he inquires lovingly. She just looked at him solemnly.
"I've got some stuff on my mind!" she answered rather softly. "Stuff I can't seem to get out of my head!" she said, soundly yet with a strange air of frustration.
"It's was funny to hear that" he thought to himself. "You're not yourself tonight baby, what's going on?" he demanded. The two were in a residential area. The hot evening air was deciding to chill up and soften the grass with dew. She could feel the faint falling of frigidity on her ankles. He could too. They two were heading for the train tracks. "I think I know what you got to say baby." he told her apprehensively fearing that if she was going to open up his remark was going to scare her confession away. "I think you're going to tell me about what you've been doing every night over the past week!" She laughed, one of the reasons she had to behave the way she did was because of his all-knowingness, his superiority complex.
"You're such an arrogant son of a bitch Rick, do you know that?' she yelled, pushing him into the slight slope that leads toward the heavy planks of wood that make up the small pieces perfectly aligned to create the authentic feel of a railway and a real historic site.
"So?"he stood and asked curiously. They were both standing on defense. From the distance another couple could be seen watching the two.
"Fuck You" Lindsy yelled furiously. She had taken William along that same path not three days ago. She was with him the same way she was with me next to that very same apple tree....

Ha did that make any sense? cause Im all jet lagged

How long do you think you can live like this before life drops you back down to the roots? I floated high above the earth and wondered. My soul was in a cloud, it was obviously just a dream, a day dream I had the other night. As I stood and watched the sun set and a lightning storm role in. I could feel myself coming back from a journey or something. It was funny what I remembered.

"Jefferey?" yelled his mother.
"What mom?" answered the boy, intolerant.
"did you clean the bathroom like I told you?" she asked in a seemingly rational tone.
"No....But I will" he said as he stood up to see all the children playing street ball outside. The sun was setting and he was being forced to stay inside. "Schools starting next week!" he said mocking his mother.
"You better!" her voice came echoing from downstairs.

It was the last week of summer and he had to re-acquaint himself with the life style of the rich and educated. After a two months worth of that overseas Jet lag, he felt different then his neighborhood counter parts, yet, the bathroom was still his job. He was too tiered to clean the tub by the time he finished watching the sun fall into the horizon. All he could really do was settle down and smile about the fact that other kids in the crescent didn't even know that the world worked in so many more languages then the typical NHL fan could fathom. "It's sad though!" he said to himself quietly, speaking in a rather mature way, "I like watching hockey too!"

It was nine thirty by the time he was all cleaned up and ready for bed. His parents were down stairs. He could hear his mother yelling, softly into the the abyss that was his fathers face. They weren't meant to be together. Jeffery knew it. Watching his mother feel all at home back in Europe made him think. Maybe they weren't meant to be immigrants. Canada was such a different culture for the two of them. He jumped into bed thinking about what it would have been like to see his father back at home with his parents. All the thinking put a smile on his face. He missed his grandmothers tea. She had been feeding it to him every morning since the day he had landed there. He was back home now, under the covers laying awake thinking that if he had been born there and if he was going to be going to school there, he would be waking up there right now. The recollection of the sun falling over the horizon reminded him that he was here now, at home. Listening to his parents argue in their mother tongue, his first language, sister to her brothers tongue.

rhe "o" ni

"The man in that picture is dead!" Alex said from the drivers seat. He was laying back, his eyes were closed and you could see the catheter running along the inside of his pants along his leg. Mitch was next to him upfront, he was half asleep. "Mitch!" Jeffery screamed, assuming Mitch was just joking. "He's jet lagged!" Alex said. He just got back from Central British Columbia. "We live in Edmonton" Jeffery muttered in through his teeth. Mitch didn't move. "Hey Fuck face you awake?" yelled Jeffery. Alex brought out a CD case his Gold credit card and a small bag of drugs. "You wanna Oxycontin" he asked. The shards of pill fragment reflected the light coming from the cars interior. Jeffery only stared. First at Mitch then at the crushed fragments of the prescription drug. "I'll take that as a no" Alex said, looking up at Jeffery with a deviant smile. "No Alex, fuck no thanks, I didn't know you snorted Oxyies." Alex just laughed. "No, I just want a.. a bag. Hey Mitch?" he yelled. Mitch just  rolled away from the two. "Mitch, I only got twenty bucks." Jeffery threw the cash toward the front seat. Alex took the bill and twirled it into a tube. Jeffery could see that he had already aligned the drug in a neat row. He winced watching Alex bring the money to his nostrils and snort the powder.
Afterward the world seemed to stop in the car. Jefferey could only sit and wait till one of the two boys threw him his bag. He was hurting to take a hit too, it just wasn't that kind of hit. "I guess" he said out loud. "What?" Alex demanded form the drivers seat, Jeffery wondered when the last time Alex was able to pee by himself was. "Mitch" Jeffery said out loud. It was loud enough for Mitch to hear in his messed up state. "Mitch I only got twenty, but I'm good for the other ten, just toss me a sack." Alex laughed, his face was so you........ifdskmfksdfsdasfdsf

She needed to have it now! but how and why?

She was left in the emergency room without really understanding what it meant. She was frightened that no one really cared to explain. It made her feel sad, the cab ride home made it even worse. The cabbie decided that the fastest way home was something that the fare could hold as a possibility and just a thought, or desire. She didn't feel well, that was a basic, she had been feeling this way since it happened.
"He didn't mean to" she thought to herself, the words spilling from her mouth without sound yet still fogging up the window of the taxi. Her forehead was beginning to press up against the glass. She was nauseous.
A few days later she found herself alone with her mother, "what did the doctor say?"  she asked. Her wretched old voice haggard by the years of smoking. "Where?" she demanded. "Mom, they said I'll be fine, that I'll just need an exam." Her mother looked her over. There was more then just a bump there and they both knew it. "You haven't felt anything in over a week?" the mother asked, conscientiously. "Mom, I'll talk to you about it after the appointment!" she was worried about the outcome of the conversation. "Bill say's I'll be fine. And his best friend is an engineer and he's married to a nurse who say's this kinda thing happens all the time." she could tell after she said it that her mother didn't want to implicate herself, she watched as the old woman lit the third menthol cigarette since their conversation began.
Later that night she had a dream where she saw herself sleeping. She saw herself right laying there next to Bill. He's hardy, sleeping, he just got back from Texas when it happened.  She had sent him out to pick up the propane tank for the BBQ. "You know I can't lift anything heavy right now baby?" she said. Of course he understood. He loved her, and she only wanted to make sure the steaks were going to have enough gas to broil them through to well done just the way he liked it. He left for the convenience store when it happened. It scared her then, and she did her best to forget about it up until the point she saw the face of the pediatrician.
"So we're looking for a heart beat?" the doctor asked with her eyes wide. She was crouched down listening, gently. There was nothing and they both knew what was next. "What did they tell you in the emergency room last week?" asked the doctor, more distantly then before. "They said that the baby had no heart beat." She knew it then, it was a fact. 

glass or something.

Lean back and let the ride take you to where you're gonna go. It was all he could hear in his head. The life guard just told him to "GO". 
I was in line-he thought. The world was spinning around him. The sun was shining and all the people around him were happy to be riding the wave.
I'm scared- he thought to himself.
I'm not really sure how I'm going to stop myself!- he warned himself.
Things are happening so fast. He used his one free hand to feel his head.
Yes. He said out loud, relieved.
I have a helmet. He was wearing his black helmet.
The ride's dangerous enough. He was beginning to feel immensely gracious. He knew it was just a feeling.
I remember when Bobby Brodinsky told me about how he felt in control and that instant almost...he was thrown off.
Won't happen to me, Bobby's an idiot. He was starting to understand the mechanism behind the slide. He wasn't sure how, but he was aware that it was traveling down, and moving faster and faster as the session proceeded.
He thought back to what one of his teachers had told him.
It was something about putting everything it's spot neatly. Except that was his teacher's job. To make sure her class room was kept, tidy.
I remember that she just swept everything under the rug, it was because she really didn't care or understand. She could make sure every word anyone ever read of hers was spelled correctly but she couldn't understand that life was pursuit of happiness. 
Not all of them were like that, he found himself thinking out loud again. The ride was far from over, he was going faster then ever.
There was that other one. He remembered. She was younger then him and she was persistent. She found him working one night and made it a point to get to know him outside the classroom. She was overwhelmingly spectacular. Innocence was withing his reach, she was looking to attract her first real pupil.
She was so much younger then me. He thought. The movement was beginning to throw him around. the helmet pleased his mind,
If I crack my skull on something it won't matter he thought. Then he remember the dirty rug in the class room. He remembered how it just looked clean. Made him realize that he's moving so fast that if he actually was to hit anything he'd end up shattering.

sour milk

So many of us never come near achieving our goals. I wanted to do stuff in my life that I will never try. I still might be able to go to space...but I never wanted to go to space. I wanted to play a sport professionally. That won't happen, not because I don't have the body to get me there, but because I did not take care of myself well enough to be able to focus my mind in that way. I was all about a feeling that made me feel alive in life. I remember never caring about what my teacher said, never, since I was in the first grade. The world is full of teachers. I realize that the teachers that hurt my well being were the ones who weren't doing their jobs. I was fine, it was not me. How could a seven year old be responsible for the opinions of a full grow educator?
She was not ready to be a teacher. I'm pretty sure she wasn't ready for me. I am what I am because of where I'm from. That's funny cause I hate where I'm from most of the time. That's just the way it is. What is it I want to achieve? Well I want to get off the downward spiral of shilldom. I've realized that I can do what I want, because I have thing I don't really like, those are the things that I can rely on.

I am a mushroom

blow dry me with cheese.
melt it good
I would like that!

She was shopping for school supplies and beer

He would find himself sitting there, thinking about it, and it bothered him. He never even saw it coming, he didn't even feel it. It was funny that way, the way things just crept along, how everything moved forward, whether he liked it or not. He sat there, it was a hot summers day. Watching the kids was the best part, he could hear them playing. "The swing set was worth every penny" he thought, "and in the long run so was the backyard". The thought of her kept bothering him though.
"What if she knew?" he said out loud. The thought itself jerked him out of his relaxed position, he was sitting on the lawn chair, legs up, wife beater, shades. He held a cold beer in his hand. He was bald and happy sometimes. He liked his life when he could just sit, watching the kid was ok, but only as long as they were far enough away for him to be able to catch those extra zzzz's. The thought kept circling in his mind. The kids were playing in the back yard and the sun just kept beating down that radiant shine.
It was getting hot, the kids were complaining of being thirsty so he got  up to give them a drink, it was thirty six degrees in the sun. They all sat in the house to drink some lemonade. "Daddy" the voice brought him back to reality. "What it is son?" he asked solemnly, red eyed half cut. He even laced his lemonade with a little Silent Sam. He did anything to turn off the thought of her. "Daddy?" the five year old repeated, again he was shoved back into the reality, fatherhood. "Daddy, do  you know where mommy is?" asked the little boy, eyes wide, all three children were lined up together, each drinking back a glass of organic freshly squeezed lemon aid. He drank back what was left in his cup. His mind couldn't focus on anything except her. The kids went back outside. It was too hot for them out there, he wasn't worried about it though he was getting too drunk. He went back outside to sit in the sun. His glass of lemon aid was again filled to the brim with mostly vodka.
The kids were cooling themselves off with their water pistols. "Andrew" he yelled, the smallest of the three cam running up to him. "Yes'm dad" answered Andrew obediently, he was only four years old. His father laughed at him and said "Boy, get that older brother of yours." Andrew ran off curiously. All of them played while their father thought about her.