Silent Man's Highway

Red ember twilight,
too bright to sleep.
Remembering...

The silent man's highway
rolls on.  Engine exhaust, black tar,
orange lines.  Red ember
tail-lights shrink in the distance.
This is the road of the Silent Man.
Distances and divides.
Two lanes of roaring traffic,
recorded on black strips across the land.
Horizon to horizon he spreads his hands,
steps onto the gravel shoulder,
and walks on.

Back to School

     Vic Abrams casually strolled up and down the orderly rows of his new classroom.  As he passed each desk he tapped on it in a rhythm, one-two, one-two-three.  It looked like a ritual, the final preparation for this year's batch of eager students.  Then the bell rang, the students filed in and they took their seats.  In their final year they knew the routine.
     Internalization of institutional norms, Vic observed with a frown.
     He closed the door and waited for the young men and women to settle down.  When this didn't happen  he began speaking anyway.
     "Good morning class."  the words were quiet, the tone forced others to listen. "Welcome to another year, your final year, before... graduation and whatever you choose comes next for your self."  A mix of boos, cheers, and adolescent indifference answered.
     "Since I am new here let me introduce myself.  My name is Mr. Abrams.  Some people call me Vic."
     "Victim!!"  was shouted from the back of the class.  Some students laughed, some looked uncomfortable.
     Vic smiled at this early test of his authority.  "But of course you will call me Mr. Abrams and the first thing you will notice is that I am not like other teachers."  His words were clear and precise.  He spoke like he expected you to listen.  He had thin brown hair and wore a beige suit.  Sitting on the corner of his desk at the front of the room with his arms crossed who was Mr. Abrams trying to fool?  He was exactly like every other teacher.
     "Let me assure you boys and girls, I am quite different." He leapt to his feet and rushed to the door, "Now the first order of business, is everybody here?"
     "I'm not!"
     "Me neither!"
     "I wish I wasn't!"
     "Shut up you guys!  Mr. Abrams how do we know who's supposed to be here?  It's just the first day and you're the teacher."
     "Very true."  Vic replied from the hallway.  There were no stragglers at the lockers, no-one looking lost or in need of an invitation so he jumped back into the room and did a head count.  Every seat had a student, all thirty-five.
     "All present and accounted for!  Let's begin."  With careful solemnity he removed a large silver key from around his neck  He kissed it once with reverence and locked the classroom door.
     "Wierdo!"
     "Hey, why are we locked in?"
     "We aren't locked in dear boy.  They are locked out!"  Mr. Abrams seemed a little too excited.
     "Who?"
     "Them, the Others, those who would interrupt and defile the learning process."  Mr Abrams spoke in a hushed voice and moved like a furtive animal.
     "Wierdo..."  It was whispered now.  Mr. Abrams had crossed the line from strangely entertaining to potentially dangerous.  People were feeling off-balance.
     Ignoring the students' discomfort Vic strode across the room and fiddled with the blinds, eventually opening them through trial and error.  They covered large north-facing windows which didn't get much light.  This was probably the first time anyone had been able to look out of them.
     "If we could all turn 90 degrees to the left and now who can tell me what they see?"  Vic was excited and speaking like he was out of breath.
     "The wall."
     "Some windows."
     "I can only see the ceiling."  In the rear of the classroom a student reclined at a near impossible angle in his stiff plastic chair.
     Self-assertion through intentional non-conformity.  Vic chuckled.
     "Wait a minute." he spoke quickly and poked and twisted the temperature controls on the heater to his right.  "Now tell me."
     Light flared outside the windows, yellow intensity flooded the room, and the wall fell away.  Nobody moved, nobody blinked, and nobody screamed because everybody was holding their breath.  This was Vic's favourite part.  He closed his eyes and listened  for the gasps that came as lungs restarted.  Eventually a chair scraped on the floor as someone stood up.  Then another, and another, until everyone was on their feet.  Squinting and reaching forward, they shuffled uncertainly towards the wide open space.  One by one they entered the heart of the light and vanished.
     However, this year there was an exception.  Again from the back of the class, "What the...!"
     "Yes?  What's your name?"  Vic blinked.  He was surprised.
     "Simon...and um, where?  Where does that go?"
     "Oh, I see Simon.  Well it goes Out There."  Surprise changed to bemusement.  Young Simon seemed to be a clever one.
     "Uh-hunh? Out...there?"  Simon was still in doubt,  "What class is this supposed to be anyways?"
     "Does it really matter?"  Vic responded with a laugh.
     "I...no...I guess not."  Simon was being won over.  "Then is this like a field trip?"
     "Yes indeed.  It could be.  A field trip."
     "So then is this class like, over?"
     "It will be when you get back."
     "Back from where?"
     "From There."
     "Then what?"
     "Then you go to your next class."  Mr. Abrams made perfect sense.  Reassured now, Simon moved to join his classmates in the light.  Vic smiled as curiosity overcame caution and skepticism but Simon found one more question.
     "Mr. Abrams?"
     "Yes Simon."  Vic was patient.  He knew Simon would go.
     "Has anyone ever come back?"
     "Whenever they want to."
     "Yeah but...has anyone ever wanted to?"
     Vic sighed.  Simon needed something more by way of an explanation.  "That is Truth, and Beauty, and Justice Out There Simon.  This classroom, the whole school, is just another cave.  I suspect if someone did return it would be to kill me.   Does that answer your question?"
     "Kinda.  I suppose." then Simon said, "Mr. Abrams?  I think you're going to be one of my favourite teachers this year.  I'll try not to kill you when I get back."
     "I'd certainly appreciate that Simon."  Vic Abrams spoke to the silence after the boy had finally gone.  He had a feeling this was going to be an extraordinarily good year.

Getting Better

     The weather changed quickly.  The boat capsized.  Three men drowned.  No-one mourned.  They were not good people.  It was not a good boat.  It was not good weather.  The dream ended and the boy awoke.  "You will never be a man!"  yelled his mother, "Because men are evil and drunk and stupid!"  He wanted to say, "But I will be a man.  I have no choice.  Why will you hate me when I grow up?"
     He knew the answer.  No matter how good, sober, kind, or smart he was now, these things would change. He would change and become someone his mother had to hate.  Experience taught her what men were.  Maybe she forgot they started as little boys afraid someone important would hate them for who they were, who they had no choice to be.
     It had been a month and the dream hadn't changed.  No bodies were found, just a boat full of empty beer cans and coolers and fishing tackle.  He could pretend his father, his uncle, and his brother would still come home.  They were staying late at the bar again spending all the money, and in the morning they would be back passed out and stinking on the living room couch and floor. 
     The biggest difference so far had been groceries.  They had them.  There were three meals in a day, with different food each time.  Not macaroni three times a day but crunchy cereal and milk, then pastrami sandwiches, and finally spaghetti with a meat sauce.  Life was quieter and everybody's feelings were hurt but no-one talked about how life was getting better.
     He only cried once, on the day the search ended.  Burning tears and gasping sobs were masked and washed away in the shower.  Afterwards he felt drained of any feelings good or bad.  For now the cool emotional numbness was an improvement and he enjoyed the unfillable emptiness keeping the world at bay.  Soon though he would start seeing the ghosts and his detachment would begin to harden into a shell keeping the world out but trapping him alone with the past.

Aldous and Francis

     Aldous was always covered in crumbs and lint, or fluff, or bits of string, or dust or dandruff.  He had long ceased brushing away the detritus that clung to him like iron filings on a magnet.  In contrast his fraternal twin Francis suffered from a fastidiousness that verged on effete.  Francis picked and brushed and preened with expert hands.  Through constant obsessive effort he maintained a large wardrobe of black jeans and itchy turtleneck sweaters.
     Mary, their mother, loved her boys deeply and as equally as she could but against her will it was Francis who pulled harder on her affections.  Aldous was a fussy mother's worst nightmare.  No amount of spit and polish could banish the blob of mustard that alternated between corners of his mouth and occasionally his eyebrow.  As a grown man with a full beard and mustache Mary couldn't even look at him.  Thank God  for neat, trim, clean-shaven Francis.
     He could calm and soothe her every neurosis related to cleanliness just by entering a room.  It was like he was statically charged in reverse.  Cat hair, dust motes, and dirt visible or otherwise seem to flee before his tidy aura.  Stains dragged into the house by clumsy witless Aldous removed themselves from carpets, drapes, and upholstery whenever Francis was near.

Lunch Break

     Lizbette prided herself on utilizing her 45 minute lunch break to its fullest potential every day.  She sat on the cool concrete bench in the center of the park opposite her accountancy firm contemplating the duck pond and crunching on a rice cake.  Her thoughts drifted serenely as the plump waterfowl dabbled and dove as if they were entertaining her.  She thought of order and chaos and how somebody should tell those peacefully disorganized ducks to line up and swim in an orderly fashion.  They reminded her of children in a playground.  Grubby little humans in need of a stern talking to, a face-wipe, and some rules.  Not like numbers.  Those things knew their place values.  She chuckled at her own little joke.
     No.  Numbers were too easy.  They did what she told them to, they always lined up.  What Lizbette craved was an outlet and a challenge.  She liked yelling and stomping; shushing others and telling people what to do; making them line up and walk instead of run.  She imagined steamrolling little dreams under the inevitable force of reason and immovable objective realism.  "It is no difficulty to bring order to order, but order to chaos that is the eternal struggle."  She waxed philosophical under her breath.  Then suddenly, with the crisp final bite of the rice cake an epiphany.  "I should have been a school teacher!"
     Startled ducks quacked in alarm and dismay.  Some even took flight, albeit briefly, at their lone audience member's uncharacteristic expostulation.  They waggled their tails and dipped their heads at the unexpected rudeness, then returned to their ballet firm in the knowledge the show must go on.  

Barney

     Barney pretended surprise when Candace shyly revealed her glass eye.  "I hadn't noticed."  He boldly lied.  In fact the eye had initially drawn him to her.  Even now at the heady apex of a three-week whirlwind of innocent hand-holding romance it remained the focus of his hidden carnal agenda.

She Sits

She sits in her cool dark basement,
Patiently counting the cats on the walls,
and stubbornly resists the madman who calls.
She persists while he insists
that she and the cats,
aren't really there at all.